Lost in Translation

I finished an excellent book today: Listening to the Language of the Bible: Hearing It Through Jesus’ Ears. Authors Lois Tverberg and Bruce Okkema explain idioms and assumptions that were current in Jesus’ time in order for us to catch the richness of Jesus’ expressions. The book ends by looking at a phrase that has always mystified me. In fact the widely differing translations of this statement of Jesus show that the translators were struggling to capture the most likely meaning of a rich phrase. Hebrew has a relatively small vocabulary, so many words do double and triple duty.

Jesus is telling people what is happening due to John the Baptist’s preaching. He says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force” (Matthew 11:12, RSV). I wondered how heaven could suffer, and why violent men could take it. But the NIV reads, “…the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.” This makes the kingdom sound more secure, but it is still at the mercy of forceful men. I knew I was missing something.

If one were to scrutinize this text, the choice of translation would make a huge difference to his or her conclusion and application. Tverberg suggests a much better way to read it. She explains that “poretz” means “to break forth” and Jesus seems to be alluding to Micah 2:12-13 which says that “One who opens the way (haporetz) will go up before them; they will break through (poretz) the gate and go out. The king will pass before them, the Lord at their head.” The people knew that the “one who breaks open the way” was the messenger who would cause people to repent and be ready. Then the sheep would explode out to follow the Shepherd King; a messianic allusion.

This made sense to the people who knew how shepherds would gather their sheep into a cave and build a small stone wall to keep them in. In the morning when the sheep were hungry, a man would roll away some of the stones (forcefully break the wall) and the sheep would stampede out (forcefully exit) to start grazing. What a joyous picture of the breaking forth of the gospel and of the people’s eager pursuit of it!

If this much can be lost in translating from Hebrew to English, how much more might be lost in translating God’s sentiments into an earthly language. The prophets received impressions and convictions and had to stuff them down into our language whose vocabulary must appear infinitesimal compared to the language of heaven. How much gets lost even in that first translation.

I say all this to make a case for letting some troubling passages stand. In time we may find better ways to understand them. How many times do we run down dark paths by over-analyzing a partially-understood expression? 

Waiting for Willing

“Hallelujah! … Hallelujah! …” My soul filled and my heart thrilled to the strains of “The Messiah” as I stood in the Loma Linda University Church. Only one week ago we were watching the breaking news of the Sandy Hook massacre, and yesterday some were thinking of winter solstice, the end of the Mayan calendar, and the much-joked-about end of the world. At this moment I marveled at the glory of the good God we worship with the best of our art and at least a piece of our heart.

“Oh, Lord! Can’t you just end this degenerate world and gather us unto Yourself?!” I silently cried.

In my mind’s eye I could see us all caught up together with Him, and in a flash I got an answer as to why that doesn’t happen. The filth, darkness, and pain are infused in us. We would take them with us. God can’t scoop up a handful of humanity without having it drip with the sting and the ache that we long to escape. We don’t need to escape the planet; we need to escape us.

When I lived on an island off the Olympic Peninsula, a visiting preacher said, “This is so beautiful; just remove the sin and it would be paradise.” Since then I have lived in many places of which the same statement could be made. But in every place I’ve lived, and as the headlines will confirm, we have our own way of adding injury, insult, and injustice.

Could God be waiting for a people who have attained the perfection needed for entry into the New Earth? I doubt we understand the fullness of “perfection” as it is known to God. And I doubt we have either the strength or the situation to attain it. But I do believe we have to be willing to let Him mess around in our lives. It has to happen sometime. If we can go from pond slime to sublime without any effort on our part—if it all depends on God—then He has “some ‘splainin’ to do” for the 2,000-year delay.

But as I listened to the rapturous music and thought of my kids, my friends, my enemies, and my own sorry carcass, I was grateful that God is today accepting all who say “Take me, break me, remake me.” If He threw us right now into eternity, it would be like “throwing us under the bus.” We are not ready for a perfect world.

Isaiah said that our salvation lies in our ability to repent and rest (30:15). We regret how we are, and we rest in His work to change us. We don’t rest from obedience or cooperation, we rest from our resistance to His meddling. We become willing, and He begins to remake our appetites, our attitudes, and our attachments… just as far as we allow Him to go.

Today we (and those we worry about) still have the opportunity to let Him work heaven into our lives. “Hallelujah!” 

Appetite: This is WAR!

A strange thrill welled up in me as Ginger shared facts she’d read in The China Study. She wanted to make dietary changes. I had an involuntary response of excitement even though I knew her intentions would spell doom for some of my favorite foods. Still, like light spilling through a cracked doorway, her resolve planted hope in my heart for increased and improved years together.

In the following days a darker thrill tickled my brain. I now had a mandate to consume all the junk food in the house “just to tidy things up a bit.” I, of course, started with the chocolates.

Things were going along swimmingly until my sleepless night (not yet ended) brought me back to my senses. Whether my aching head, nauseous stomach, and chilled, tingly hands were a migraine, a bug picked up from a niece, or direct divine retribution for my dietary sins, I care not a whit! The great gift given me by all the pain was a reborn resolve to return to the first thrill: maximizing my health as a loving response to the One who gave me this physical machine I have so often abused.

I lay awake with head throbbing, repeating memory verses… not as penance, but as claims upon the grace of a God Whom I desire more than life. They seemed to shine in the inky air around me revealing Him as the Coach He has always wanted to be. Here are three of them.

“Good and upright is the LORD; therefore He instructs sinners in His ways. He guides the humble in what is right … Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him. … The LORD confides in those who fear Him…” (Psalm 25:8-14). God is good and therefore always eager to be my Teacher. All I have to do is be willing to learn and then practice. He will even confide in me. What a thrilling thought!

However, I know how strong my appetites are. I know how many ways I find to justify doing exactly as I want. Once the appetite comes up—whether it is for food or a new surround sound speaker system—I can find ways to justify gratifying it. I have a thousand ways to wander onto a side trail just long enough for my desire to attain an innocent glow. So here’s what the Word says: “…each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (James 1:14-15). In the middle of the night with a splitting head, a sloshing stomach, and shaky, clammy hands; it was easy for me to imagine a doctor bending close so his words would penetrate my fog, “I’m sorry. There’s nothing modern medicine can do for your sorry carcass at this point in your deterioration.”

I knew that in the morning this would make an amusing story, but I am aware that that kind of amusement is just one more way I avoid making good on promises, or avoid making promises in the first place. I also knew, even there in the middle of a painful night, that I would survive and that no One was asking me for promises. In the midst of the pain I was actually joyful for the reminder of that earlier thrill—the thrill of better choices and improved futures. In truth a few more chocolates wouldn’t destroy me, but the continued suppression of a more godly will could.

After three hours the symptoms slowly began to abate, and I lay there happily talking with the One who loves me and puts up with so much of my garbage and duplicity. I promised Him (and me!) that in the light of day, when this night seemed light-years away and somewhat laughable I’d laugh if I wanted, but I would also make an immediate start to eliminate the enemy… and not “eliminate” in the digestive way I’d been planning!

Oh that hurt! Even in my bed the unfinished See’s chocolates called to me from the pantry downstairs. Their siren song was sweet and pleading. It begged me to be reasonable, not rash! I mourned for the untasted. I was angry that I’d not wolfed them down prior to this night of conviction. But when I finally realized the horror that my 56-year-wise brain was a slave to the worm of desire, then the whole scene changed.

The chocolaty, nutty morsels in my pantry were only the foot soldiers of the slaver I have sworn to resist. There are a billion more of his pawns out there on shelves in shops all over the U.S. If I give in to these invaders in my own home… no, “finishing them off” as militaristic as it sounded, would only be one more step in “finishing me off.”

I won the battle on my mattress and immediately felt liberated from the food and the sound system. I can be a son of the Most High, not amused with these trivial appetites. Unfortunately, I’ve been a pretty poor soldier. Many of the mental fortresses I have constructed have actually sheltered me from His gentle pleadings. Perhaps He did use the night of pain to weaken my defenses just enough for me to claw my way out into daylight.

“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). It’s not about food, it’s about allegiance.

Thoughts on the Sandy Hook Massacre

Ginger and I were visiting her brother in Arroyo Grande last Friday when the horrendous slaying of the innocents occurred in Connecticut. We went to bed early that night and spent two tearful hours watching news reports. It is nearly impossible to imagine the grief that must grip that idyllic town. So many times—and even in my dreams that night—I made comparisons to Rogers Adventist School and the dedicated staff and close-knit families that live there. I couldn’t help but worry for their safety, as well. We spent years on our safety plan, but I doubt any school is prepared to do any more effective job of stopping a shooter than Sandy Hook was. While the loss of life would have been higher without the heroics of the teachers, it was still way too high.

I know many have posted thoughts of sadness or encouragement on Facebook and other media. But I want to record one strong impression this tragedy has left indelibly, I hope, on my mind and heart.

People wiser or closer to God than I will have to answer “Where is God at a time like that?” Sometimes His ways, at least to me, are inscrutable. Perhaps they actually always are. Maybe when we think we have things figured out, it’s just a lucky guess. Or perhaps when it seems like God is in His heaven and all is good in our corner of the earth, we are simply blissfully ignorant of the cries of pain, loneliness, and despair that He hears constantly ascending. I don’t know.

But what stays with me is the thought that maybe today God can only be present on earth through His incarnation in His children… of which I am one. Satan, too, is present in the twisted wrecks he has made of the souls of the ones he has tormented.

The Babe of Bethlehem did not say He would send us a Holy Security Guard, but a Counselor. And maybe as we become therapeutic for those around us, we are incarnating the very Being who longs to calm our beating hearts and to bind our bleeding wounds.

What if the apocalypse is really about a time when the image of God has disappeared from His creation? A time when hope and holiness have been traded for cheap thrills, uncontrolled appetites, and desperate, selfish pursuits? What if God’s Spirit stays in this world only through the responsiveness of each of His attentive children?

If God can glimmer into this life only through the reflection borne on our faces, then I want my life to be fully turned towards Him. I want my face to be unveiled and as clear and bright as possible. “Lord, as evil comes from the hands of tormented humanity, so let holiness and hope find a field command post in my life.”

Going Blind - My Shortest Post

I have noticed that the pictures I post are attracting "image harvesters" from Canada, UK, Russia.. even foreign and exotic places like Alaska! Oh no! I'm hereby getting out of the "image" business. They might say they subscribed for the articles, but I wonder...

I know the loss of images will make this blog text-heavy; blind. But those who want to see, can still see.

The Psychology of Salvation, Part 9: Who Needs the Sanctuary?

Retrieved 11/28/12 from: http://graphicnovel.zachwhalen.net/sites/graphicnovel.zachwhalen.net/files/monalisa.jpg  

“Who needs the sanctuary? Don’t you believe in the New Covenant?” It was my new evangelical friend Clyde talking. “None of that stuff is binding on us today.” I had to agree, but I reasoned that God didn’t make a mistake when He designed a graphic guide to the process of salvation. If God designed it, what was He trying to teach us by its symbols? The fact that we are under the New Covenant doesn’t make me quit contemplating the story of Adam and Eve, or the travails of Job, or the decisions of the Judges, or the warnings of the prophets, or the poetry of David.

“Who needs the sanctuary?” It is a question that some Adventists also ask. Others don’t ask the question, they just don’t think about it at all. It seems dry and outdated. Some, wrestle with the sanctuary for theological reasons. Some try to find in it the answers to eschatological questions. As I child I was used to people referring to the sanctuary as a way to defend our belief in the investigative judgment, or to create a picture of Christ’s high priestly ministrations on our behalf. I always had the feeling of half cringing under the sheer weight of conviction among the speakers who could be quite argumentative. Studying or discussing the sanctuary did indeed seem like a dry, obscure pursuit; right up there with the precise meaning of the seven seals of Revelation or the exact order and proximity of end-time events.

So I have been one of those who wandered off when a sanctuary debate started to heat up, but those debates are very rare today. I would not speak against trying to understand the sanctuary, nor would I see the grappling as a waste of time, but I do think there is another way to appreciate the sanctuary.

I think we can compare our interest in the sanctuary to the Mona Lisa; it’s classical, everyone should be aware that it existed, it’s hung on a wall somewhere safely outside our daily experience, so who cares? People argue about the Mona Lisa, too. Was there some kind of fooling around going on? Was it a portrait of da Vinci’s gay lover? Was it a self-portrait where he styled himself as a woman? Was it his father, one of two men who may have commissioned the painting? Was it, perhaps, even Lisa del Giocondo as it is supposed to be? There are at least 12 plausible theories. But what percent of the world’s population is thinking about the Mona Lisa right now? What small handful are holding any opinion about her?

Let’s say the three people who are arguing for their viewpoints stop to take a breath and I look around their shoulders and spy her. I am not versed in the arguments, but I am taken with the smile people have called enigmatic. I notice that she smiles more when I look at her eyes than when I look at her mouth. I tap one of the aficionados and ask, “Where can I get a copy of that? I have an open space on a wall at home that is the right color and shape. She’d look fabulous there.”

He shrugs and suggests, “Check the gift shop. They can probably even print it on canvas for you.” That’s the end of his patience with my interruption, and he turns back to the debate. But I do buy the canvas print. I pay good money to have it framed, and I carefully place it on my wall. Each day I walk by, and she seems to watch me with mild interest. I study her face. I try to make sense of the background, but mostly I just get happier and happier with my purchase. I know little about da Vinci, but I feel that if he showed up tomorrow, we’d have much to talk about.

It’s that way with the sanctuary. You can objectify it, study its details, argue it, search it for clues as to the future, but if you don’t see the beauty in it, you have missed much. It is one of the clearest presentations of a God Who has done it all for us, Who sets our worldview straight, and Who personally coaches us in our new life. It reveals the great universal engine which turns everything. It’s beautiful and encouraging. You can love the sanctuary in a way that draws you to its Artist.

The Psychology of Salvation, Part 8: Our Hands Are Bigger Now

Found 11/28/12 at: http://fionaevemurray.wordpress.com/projects/project-3/

Woke up at 2:30 this morning to break a 29-year, no-vomiting record. (I’m assuming that I vomited when Sherry and I were so wretchedly sick in Nordland in the early '80s.. Not sure of the year, and I might not have even vomited then. I have a way of sitting in misery for the duration.)

Throughout the night I drifted back into consciousness three times in very similar ways. I awoke from dreams where only the thin-slice of the dream’s fading end was remembered. In each one I was looking at a model of the Hebrew sanctuary and said something like, “Lord, they seem to be doing all You have asked.”

His reply was along the lines of, “They are missing the heart of it. They could take it to a deeper place in their lives.”

In each of the three dreams I was viewing the tabernacle from a different angle. On my third awakening, I could only remember two of the perspectives. In the first, I was looking at a model similar to the one at the Israel Museum. In fact, I believe that dream featured Herod’s temple. My perspective was oblique and from the altitude of a small private airplane. I was gazing from the southeast, near the south end of the Mount of Olives.

The second perspective was like seeing the desert tabernacle all laid out on a slope with the furniture exposed. The scale and angle were just as if I were playing a pinball machine and all the furniture were the bumpers and flippers. However, I was not playing; I could see priests officiating appropriately at each station.

I couldn’t remember the third perspective. Then when I awoke a fourth time my memory was restored. In it, the temple and its furniture were all laid out in a flat diagram. I seemed to be seeing it on a page in a textbook.

As soon as I remembered the third perspective, they all made sense to me. 1) The museum model of the temple stood for the central place the worship of Shaddai held in the Hebrew culture, beliefs, and economy. It was a proper view of its pivotal position as God ordained it for the nation. 2) The pinball view of the tabernacle and its furniture signified the physical precision with which the tabernacle was built and the close attention to detail during the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly rounds. 3) The textbook diagram was emblematic of a very rational study of the whole system. All perspectives were fascinating, yet God insisted, “There’s more,” and implied that when the “more” is missed we miss the best part.

I felt impressed that I should get back to devotional writing about God’s love as shown in the sanctuary, and that it contains a psychological model of His work for our salvation. Is that what was happening? I don’t know. It could have been my fascination with this study after having let lie dormant for awhile. After all, I had just talked to Brandy’s prayer group hours before the dreams began. So recounting the trip to Jerusalem may have dislodged some sleeping interests. It could have been stimulated by the fever I was fighting off and on, but I didn’t feel emotional or excited, just calm and convinced.

Either way, in the wee small hours I decided that I would return to sanctuary or other devotional writing in the coming days. Then I drifted back to sleep. I woke up a fifth time and this time the perspective seemed to mix the three models. I definitely saw all the pieces and the priests bustling about their service in the tabernacle; I was aware of the temple’s place in the nation’s daily and international life; and I had full appreciation for the logic and the details.

Again, as the brief image faded, I found myself answering a comment God must have just made. I said, “Lord, they are doing it all right.”

Again, He calmly and clearly disagreed, “When they were children, their hands were too small for the big basins, the plates, the censors, the tongs, and all the rest. They had to focus very carefully not to drop something. Now, even though their hands are bigger, they are stuck performing the same routines they have learned so well. Their hands are big enough now to carry this practice into a new chamber in their lives and to make it work seamlessly there, but they aren’t.”

I found this thought to be quite exciting for three reasons: 1) God was using “hands” to stand for both the physical work (a symbol we traditionally keep) but He was also using it for our mind and soul’s ability to “grasp” what is significant. As humans we have invented many titles for ourselves and one is homo fabere which means we are the only species to fabricate things. I’m sure that title has been challenged now by Darwin’s finches and the primates that create termite-fishing sticks. However, we have long believed that our manual dexterity has enriched our exploration of the world around us, fueling more mental activity and inquisitiveness. Our hand’s ability to create what the mind invents gives wings to the mind. Why wouldn’t the hand’s learning of a routine give the mind further thoughts to explore? Why do we sometimes allow the hands to go through the motions day after day and block our minds from abstracting and internalizing what is going on? 2) This statement about the hands seemed to be a particularly Jewish part of the dream. The Jews believe that the head, hand, and soul must stay connected. That’s why the praying Jew’s body is active pacing or rocking while his or her mind and soul interact with God. 3) And finally, the statement points out that our care and attention to detail as we learn things correctly is only a step towards application. When we get stuck on the correct performance of a routine, we display the behaviors of obsessive compulsion. Statement: “We’ve gotta do this!” Question: “Why? What is it adding to our life or understanding?” Answer: “We’ve gotta keep doing this right.”

What I hear as I write this is the added thought, “The temple was glorious before, but it will shine even more brightly. When it is ingested, it will disappear for a time, but then it will burst forth with the light of a life creatively and faithfully lived.”

I wouldn’t be so bold as to say God has told me to write this, but I do know that one way or the other I feel compelled to write it… bit by bit, piece by piece. I need to write faithfully and devotionally for my own soul’s sake.

All of this comes at a somewhat spiritually dry time for me. It’s wonderful being close to family. My wife is lovely. We aren’t in the poorhouse yet despite the diminished income and the cost of maintaining two homes. I am making progress on my studies. But I also feel that my worship times have become more like study than communion. Fewer things are in my control, so I’m grumpier than Ginger has previously experienced. I am suspicious of the builder, the home owners association, the loan company, and maybe even “the stranger that is within my gates.” I state my opinions more emphatically and am readier to battle with alternate viewpoints, than to listen to them and to think compassionately.

So how does one write from a state of communion rather than combativeness? What does devotional obedience mean? I may produce a string of loosely-jointed, rambling pieces, fit for no one else, but me. Still, I will write when, how, and whatever it seems I should write. I made this promise three weeks ago, then I got lost in Scripture study that left little “juice” for my soul. So my supplementary commitment is to let God meander through my house and point out whatever He may. If He wants me to “sit a spell” I will do that, and I won’t move on until He does.