Bathsheba, the New Atheists, and All the Cheetahs

June 10, 2021 By Anne Kennedy

I haven’t got a lot of time this morning because, well, we complicated everything by getting a kitten. So, here are two things for Thursday.

The First Thing

Apparently, people online are arguing again about David and Bathsheba, some people suggesting that David “assaulted” Bathsheba. I wrote about this two years ago (briefly) so I’ll just quote myself:

The text treats both of these women as
1. Human and
2. Adult
neither of which the current victim narrative allows. Bathsheba and Tamar are both caught in impossible and ugly situations, one leading to a lifetime of isolated mourning, and the other to murder and then the loss of a child. Tamar is overpowered physically by her own brother. Bathsheba gives into the desires of David the King. But they are not children. They are not ‘the widow and orphan’ who are treated with such just and tender care in the scripture. Nor are they are not faceless and nameless. They are fully human—complex, sinful—and fully grown up.

Every age has been inclined to turn women into children. The purity culture has this sort of infantilizing effect on both men and women. Young People aren’t really capable of standing up and being human, of having agency, of making decisions, so let’s give them all these rules and tricks to help them along, so that they just won’t sin. The modern patriarchalism of places like the Vision Forum make women always children, prescribing their behavior and their very lives as if letting them think and act will ruin everything.

But the victim culture ends up in a similarly prescribed and narrow place. Why can’t Bathsheba be a complex, intelligent, sinful human person just like all other women? Why can’t she be caught in the same vortex of conflicting desires and motivations that complicate us all? That she could both desire her husband and desire to be with so powerful a man as the king? That she could choose the wrong thing and then hate herself? That she could be a jumble of thoughts and confusion that David absolutely took advantage of? But here’s the thing—we want to make the jumble of conflicting desires be something that makes her not responsible, that makes her almost, well, a child. Whereas the Bible doesn’t do that, because everyone—man and woman—has them.

I would just add also that, in the era of The Woman As Cheetah TM, that you still can’t have it both ways, however hard you try. The woman who devotes herself to herself is going to be a devouring person, a person who destroys other people’s lives. The internal contradiction–all women are victims and yet they also have some Cheetah essence deep down that they need to access through their own rage–is the driving force of The Book of Longings which I am still plodding through. Verily verily I say unto you, I find the whole thing terribly depressing.

The Second Thing

While I was rushing around yesterday I listened to this whole thing. It’s Justin Brierley talking to NT Wright and Douglas Murray about the depressing lack of any “storied” myth for modern people, and what Christians should do about it. Wright, who is so articulate as usual, nevertheless fails to satisfy Murray’s plea that Christians be who they are, and believe what they ought to believe. Wright says that’s not fair, of course Christians believe what they ought to believe, and the way you can know that it’s fine is by all the good works they are doing. Nevertheless, when Murray asks, essentially, ‘but what about forgiveness, the very heart of the Christian life, and the foundation of western civilization,’ Wright starts talking about Desmond Tutu.

I think I saw a while ago some Christians complaining that so many other Christians are listening to people like James Lindsey and some of the other new atheists. They shouldn’t do that, so says some of those Christians. They should all listen to other Christians who are not atheists. The problem, of course, is that those other Christians are more and more embracing ideological positions that render the scriptures and the gospel not only powerless but largely incomprehensible. Whereas, Lindsey and Murray and even Jordan Peterson seem to more fully grasp the implications and weight of the Christian gospel and scriptures, and are able to see what so many Christians themselves are throwing away–even though they themselves don’t believe it.

At the end of the interview, Brierley asked Murray if he wished all the stuff about Jesus were true and Murray, without pausing, said, “Of course I do, of course I want it to be true.” That, I think, is the nutshell. Many people today who claim to be Christian don’t want the gospel to be true. They would rather have the less embarrassing human empowerment, human self-flagellation gospel be true. They don’t want the radical and miraculous forgiveness of Jesus wrought in his own blood, vindicated by his resurrection to be the thing that orders not just all our steps, but the very cosmos. They would rather have self-enacted social justice. Tragically, to my ear, Murray’s description of forgiveness and the Christian story sounded more Christian to me than Wright’s. I feel like Alice in Wonderland, looking for a way back to sanity.

Have a great day! Don’t know if I’ll be blogging tomorrow as that day is even more complicated than this one.

What’s Up With Bathsheba Podcast and Links

October 14, 2019 By Anne Kennedy

Podcasting at the beginning of the weekend is so bad because now we’re always behind on the news. Anyway, in this one we talk too long about David and Bathsheba and I say a lot of fascinating things, I’m sure, but I do completely get the timeline wrong. But that’s ok, because Matt biblesplains me. If you think that Bathsheba was raped, you will not love us at the end of this, but why not listen anyway!

I don’t have a lot of links today because I’m actually late for everything. But let me see if I can find one or two.

This is awesome.

This is interesting.

This is hauntingly true.

No sermon this week, but here’s a helpful class.

So sorry its so slim pickings! I should have attended to this earlier. I’m off to an appointment and then a funeral. I hope you all have a better day than I am going to.

December Recap Podcast and Links

December 20, 2021 By Anne Kennedy

Good Morning. We’ve finally rousted ourselves to do a short podcast about why we haven’t podcasted, and complain about the various stresses of life, and how the solution “just be rich” is not actually a solution for the vast majority of people in the world, and about how trying to sell yourself as the product being sold doesn’t actually work when you deliberately try to do it. At least, I think that’s what we talked about. At the end, a child missed the bus and so we had to stop and go do other things. I expect you’ll find it’s exactly what you thought it would be.

Let’s see, I don’t have many links because I’m already having to rush into the day. BUT

I do love this. And this.

This is important.

This is my new favorite meme.

And here is a helpful class and an excellent sermon.

And that’s all! Have a lovely day if you’re into that sort of thing!

Are Women Human?

October 9, 2019 By Anne Kennedy

Have been trying to say away from the David and Bathsheba dust up but, as with Kanye, can’t. help. myself. Going to weigh in and regret it later. Really like this piece. Very helpful and calm in distinguishing between a biblical definition of rape, and the one we use in our own day. Basically, the article says clearly what has been swirling around in my head the last week.

Which has been a circling round the differences between Tamar and Bathsheba:
Tamar warned Amnon and begged him to rethink his course of action.
Tamar tore her long sleeves and put her hand on her head and wailed as she went away.
Tamar lived in mourning for the rest of her life.
The text describes the whole episode as a ‘violation.’

Bathsheba didn’t do any of those things. Maybe they didn’t occur to her, but they were there, prescribed in the law, for her to do. She was in a city which is the ideal place to cry out, as the Bible says. She didn’t tear her robe. She didn’t give any warning. Once Uriah was dead she went and lived in the palace with David and had Solomon. The text doesn’t say either way, as it so often doesn’t, what she wanted to do. But her actions stand in muted contrast to those of Tamar and, well, women like Abigail.

And that’s the critical problem, and why I am so queasy with applying modern categories backwards.* The text treats both of these women as
1. Human and
2. Adult
neither of which the current victim narrative allows. Bathsheba and Tamar are both caught in impossible and ugly situations, one leading to a lifetime of isolated mourning, and the other to murder and then the loss of a child. Tamar is overpowered physically by her own brother. Bathsheba gives into the desires of David the King. But they are not children. They are not ‘the widow and orphan’ who are treated with such just and tender care in the scripture. Nor are they are not faceless and nameless. They are fully human—complex, sinful—and fully grown up.

Every age has been inclined to turn women into children. The purity culture has this sort of infantilizing effect on both men and women. Young People aren’t really capable of standing up and being human, of having agency, of making decisions, so let’s give them all these rules and tricks to help them along, so that they just won’t sin. The modern patriarchalism of places like the Vision Forum make women always children, prescribing their behavior and their very lives as if letting them think and act will ruin everything.

But the victim culture ends up in a similarly prescribed and narrow place. Why can’t Bathsheba be a complex, intelligent, sinful human person just like all other women? Why can’t she be caught in the same vortex of conflicting desires and motivations that complicate us all? That she could both desire her husband and desire to be with so powerful a man as the king? That she could choose the wrong thing and then hate herself? That she could be a jumble of thoughts and confusion that David absolutely took advantage of? But here’s the thing—we want to make the jumble of conflicting desires be something that makes her not responsible, that makes her almost, well, a child. Whereas the Bible doesn’t do that, because everyone—man and woman—has them.

In this way, Bathsheba can be likened to a lamb stolen from Uriah’s flock and yet also suffer the discipline of losing her own child. (It is hard for me to imagine that God would have taken the child, honestly, if the sin had only been David’s, but that’s pure speculation on my part, of course).

Who else is a lamb? Everyone, we all like sheep have gone astray. And that’s why Jesus applies all the lamb language to himself, he is both the lamb-victim, and the sacrificing-priest. In this sense we are all ‘victims’ of sin and death. It’s a victimization we bring down on our own heads.

And that’s what makes it so interesting. We can’t do otherwise, and yet we are culpable. We are all Bathsheba. We all need Jesus.

*We didn’t like it when previous centuries did this, why should we be allowed to do it now?

Rest on Sunday and Every Other Day

April 8, 2018 By Anne Kennedy

Came to a depressed halt in the middle of Numbers this week. I find the saga of the people of Israel coming up to the edge of the Promised Land, and refusing to go in, one of the more depressing parts of the Bible, almost as nail-biting sad as Samson, the Levite’s Concubine, David and Bathsheba, the whole book of Jeremiah, and the Crucifixion. You know it’s coming, you dread it, you steel yourself and read it anyway, you breathe a sigh of relief, you hope that next time will be easier. But of course I don’t mean you, I mean me.

How terrible, I always say to myself, that the people of Israel would come right up to the edge and peer over into the verdant and abundant landscape and conclude that God is giving them a bad deal. To reach such a conclusion after seeing so much of God, so many marvelous works, and having fallen into so much disobedience already. From the first moment of leaving Egypt, the people have been unhappy, but here they finally are. Here is all the nice food, the rest, the peace and promise. How appalling that they would look at the hills, the streams, the vineyards, and conclude that it is a bad deal, that God is trying to give them something impossible and bad.

Except that it is exactly like the unfathomable irrationality leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus. The whole wide breadth and depth of Jerusalem have the chance to peer at the Son of God in the face, to look him over and hear his voice, and they conclude that he is not a good deal for them, indeed, that he himself is not good. The violence, fear, grief, and confusion, so many thousands of years separated, almost perfectly mirror each other. Up to and including the man who goes out to gather sticks on the Sabbath. The people gather as one to stone him at the command of God. They take him outside of the camp to stone him, one man dying when the whole company is miserably guilty.

It’s a discouraging picture to examine because it is such a human picture. It is the usual and unremarkable picture of the human person coming unglued in the presence of God, devolving into a chaotic irrational mess, clinging so tightly to the idol of the self that blind misery prevents the soul from seeing the goodness of the thing right under the nose.

Indeed, these two moments cut to the heart of what it means to be human–the inborn, entrenched voracious longing to be god yourself. Such a desire, endured in dissatisfaction in the wilderness, nursed by excuses and self-justification, so ubiquitously a part of human consciousness that no one ever is able to question it, unravels under the gaze of the Almighty. All God has to do is say, come in here and rest for a while, and the human heart is thrown into a fury.

Come to me, all you who labor, said Jesus, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke and learn from me. That’s what he says. That’s who he is. He is himself the land promised, the rest you need from yourself and from everything. He is the calm in the frenzied storm of human entitlement and confusion. He is the food for the spiritually starving, the rational order of the universe for the person who can’t muddle his, or indeed her way out of an internet sized paper bag. If you go to him and look at him and conclude that he is good and that what he is offering is good, you can finally have rest. Mostly from yourself, but also from the confusion of everyone in every corner, virtual or real.

The best thing, if you’re prancing around on the edge of yourself, trying to decide what to do or who to be, beating back the fatigue and anxiety of your dry and dusty daily life, is to go to church. It’ll be fine. Go in the door. Sit down in a pew. Look at the rational and self-collecting mercy of God.

7 Fascinating Takes

January 12, 2018 By Anne Kennedy

[You can’t have coffee here unless you go to Africa.]

It’s Friday and it’s raining, so that must mean Takes.

One
Not sure how it works out this way, but as usual I worked really really hard all week, but all the work I thought I was doing, or was going to do, is still there for me to keep working on through the weekend. Like, such as, for example, as it were, I cleaned the house all last week and all this week but honestly, you wouldn’t know. There would be no way for you to tell how much time I’d spend putting things away and sweeping up piles of dirt. Likewise, I spent all this week doing school to little or no effect. The pile of work is still mountains high, snd the children seem as ignorant and obtuse as ever.

There must be a spiritual lesson here, but please don’t try to tell me what it is because I don’t want to know.

Two
Got to be on the Ride Home with John and Kathy again yesterday afternoon. I was in the last hour, and, most shockingly to me, stayed on for almost the whole time. [The file that’s up for yesterday’s date is actually from sometime in December. When the real file is there I’ll come back and link it here.]

So, as per usual, I didn’t think my blog post yesterday was in any way controversial. I mean, it’s plain as day in the New Testament that no matter your sense of call, there are objective ways that you can disqualify yourself from certain kinds of ministry. It doesn’t mean that Jesus doesn’t love you any more, or that you can’t be in the church, or that there’s no forgiveness for you. Of Course Not. But not everyone gets to do the job they most want to do. None of us are entitled to any particular ministry in the church.

The regular shouts of, ‘What About King David,’ frankly bemuse me. To point out the obvious, David wasn’t a pastor, and he wasn’t in the New Testament. When the writers of the Old Testament were going along plunking words onto the page, most of the time they were describing what happened, not telling you how to live. David’s sin with Bathsheba is not a prescription of how we should all behave. It was account of what happened. And you’ll notice that not only did the child die, but David nearly lost his throne. There was an insurrection led by Absolem, and much much suffering for David and his whole family. I don’t think any modern person would want to endure what he endured.

Did God redeem him? Yes. Did God even use his circumstances to paint yet another picture of the crucifixion–David being forced out of the city, going along being cursed and mocked? Yes. But does that mean that pastors who engage in certain kinds of sin can just climb back up and keep preaching? That would be a no. Read the rest of the Bible.

And also, sorry this is going on so long, but consider. Suppose a pastor manipulated and abused you–drove you off into the dark night and made you preform a sex act–and was then promoted and promoted, even after telling each congregational board what he had done, would you keep going to church? It doesn’t always have to be about the man. Couldn’t sometimes we consider the person on the other side of these moments?

Three
Indeed, I really love the image of Tamar, tearing her long sleeves and pouring dust on her head, weeping and mourning for what has been destroyed. While we’re nodding our heads over how David still got to be king, the effects of his sin were endured by every single one of his children. But consider how the Bible shows her. Her grief comes into sharp relief, just for a moment. And she’s left there. The text goes on but I always have to stop for a while and mourn.

Imagine if God had left it there. But he didn’t. Push forward to the cross and see that Jesus is in the place of every victim. He is stripped naked, beaten, hung up and left to die. He gathers all the pain and shame into himself for the forgiveness of the wretched abuser, but also to suffer with the victim. But the most comforting part is that he comes back to judge. Everything will be put right. Everything.

Four
I know I shouldn’t go here but I’ve been chuckling over Mr. Trump wanting to keep people from certain countries–he used a rude word–out of the US and let all the Norwegians in. Wouldn’t it be funny if suddenly whole flocks of Norwegians started beating down American Immigration Law. Although, I do think there are lots of people in Norway now who came there from the very places Mr. Trump has such a dim view of.

Anyway, I used to always try to convince any Malian person, usually a man, whose dream it was to come to America, that it would not be as wonderful as he supposed. First of all, it is very cold, I would say. And second of all, it is very hard to make friends. And third of all, Mali is just objectively better–the food is better, the people are nicer, the country side is more beautiful. Why would you want to leave this warm and gracious land and go somewhere where you will always feel in the wrong, and on the outside, and lonely? Any person I said this to would shake his head and tell me that I was lying. America is the land of opportunity! And money! And health!

There are other more interesting things than money, I would say.

That’s the perversity of providence though. I, who didn’t want to come here, had to. And the rest of the world, who desperately wants to, can’t.

Five
I do think that Mr. Trump would not enjoy a long stay in any part of Africa, though. It is scary for the person who sees the dust and has heard about all the terrible diseases and bugs. Why would you want to go there? Sometimes you can’t even get online.

It’s all about what you’re used to. It about what you’re eyes are open to see. Do you see the pot holes and shudder? Do you endure the Nairobi traffic and want to give up in despair? Or do you wander through the shops and the markets, or stand and gaze at the wide open sky, and rejoice over the gentle kindness, the glorious food, the shifting patterns of the road beneath your feet?

You all love it here, as you should. But your affections for this place don’t turn all the other places in the world into Sheol. [Probably by you I mean Mr. Trump.]

Six
Not that it’s not objectively more physically comfortable to live in America. Certainly electricity, water, and cheap junk from china make the quality of life here lots more comfortable. And there is, for the moment, excellent healthcare. But in no way is it more psychologically comfortable. Show me an American and I will show you someone who is desperately battling not only for happiness of any kind, but for mental health as well. The ease and comfort of the body, the absence of disease and the presence of running water, do not a happy person make.

Seven
And on that note, I hope you will go read more coherent Takes. I will arise now and resume the useless activities of cleaning and doing school. By the end of the day, I will not be able to show you anything that I have done. Pip pip.

Pig Walks Cat

September 20, 2016 By Anne Kennedy

The pressure of thinking a thought is too much for me this morning. I’ve listened to some bible, scrolled through the Internet, and I’ve found two whole moments of consequence.

First there is this–a pig walking a cat. I mean for real. There are two pigs and a cat and one of the pigs is attached to the cat. They are all walking down a sidewalk. It’s the best thing I’ve ever witnessed, including the births of all my children.

And then there’s this, which is a hymnal of secular hymns for if you don’t believe in God or whatever.

The two of these gems together, I think, out weigh the combined dumbness of both political campaigns (oops, three or four, sorry Gary), that dumb dumb thing about Hillary and Brittney Spears on Salon, all the stupid stuff being said about terrorism, and the totality of every food video on Facebook. You could just read all the “hymns” (God bless the person who worked so hard to do all that rhyming), and watch the pig walking the cat and you’ll be better off as a person–lighter and freer and happier and everything.

“Your blogging sounds bored,” said Matt to me over our Friday night glass of wine. “What’s wrong with you?”

I don’t really know. I think really, as I’ve already said, that this house is just too jolly nice to produce enough angst to drive me to anger every morning. And anger is the primary ingredient in all my writing. But also, I feel like the Internet has broken my mind, and The Conversation. Is there any point using words to talk about unhappy things, or debating a difficult topic, or un-teasing an idea and trying to get to the root of it? There is a great and terrible Ennui hanging over the western world. People die and it doesn’t matter. Words are shouted and it doesn’t matter. Bombs go off and it doesn’t matter. It’s like the whole west is David, lounging around in his palace, lusting after Bathsheba, too languid to go to war, angry about all the wrong things, neglectful of responsibility and truth. My dancing around on the margins, using words to shout into the moral morass seems exhausting and pointless.

Not that I have given up trying. If a pig can walk a cat, and an atheist can sing

“Accommodating others is kind of fun to do
It doesn’t mean we’re toadies without a point of view
It takes a skill for learning what other people need
Accommodating others lets ev’ryone succeed.”

to the tune of In Heavenly Love Abiding, then I can keep blogging my way into a more interesting writing life.

Sunday Advent Reflection: What’s the Worst that Could Happen?

December 13, 2015 By Anne Kennedy

David’s adultery with Bathsheba wasn’t the only sin of his long career. That sin reached out long fingers of consequence all over his family and the life of Israel, culminating in the rebellion and death of Absolam. Another sin, though, is just as difficult to look at, to swallow down as you trudge through the text. Somewhere a long the way, whether out of pride or insecurity, David takes it upon himself to number the people, particularly those who could fight in war.

This is a curious problem, coming as it does in the middle of Chronicles, which is one big long numbering. You go along from the excitement and drama of 1 & 2 Kings and suddenly and abruptly it all ends for another genealogy, and then the numbering of David’s mighty men. So when David orders a census I think, “What’s the big deal? Why can’t he count the people?” Except that anytime you’re not supposed to do something, even if it is a small thing, it becomes a big deal. In this case, David’s advisors plead with him not to go ahead, knowing that it will not turn out well, but he doesn’t listen to them.

So the numbering goes forward, and then David is rebuked by God and he is stricken to the heart with sorrow over his sin. And again, I always wonder why he couldn’t have been stricken to the heart before he went ahead, but I know, deep down. If you have purposed to do something, it doesn’t matter, you’re going to do it, and mostly God doesn’t stop you, because stopping sin isn’t that useful. We think it should be useful. We think that God should stop, or should fix, or should provide in such a way that we feel no physical or spiritual discomfort. If we were God, that’s how we would do it. That assumption, that God should stop the bad and cause the good lies at the heart of so much anger and disappointment and rejection of the God revealed in these pages.

No, God waits for David to sin, and then he is convicted of sin, and certainly he is forgiven, but there is a consequence, and unaccountably, David has to chose between three terrible options. Again, I stop here and try to figure out which would be the least awful, because they are all really bad. But David doesn’t hesitate, he chooses a plague brought about by God himself in which 70,000 men of warring status, die. And his reason for this choice is that it is ‘better to fall into the hand of the Almighty’ than to fall into the hand of men. How does he know this? How does his trust in God extend so far over his own shame and the death of his own people?

I don’t know, exactly, not being the king of a country. But I do sin. I have found myself in places where God let me go forward into an attitude or an action whose ugliness affected not only me but practically everybody around me. He could have stopped me, he could have shown it to me earlier, but he didn’t. And then, right when I’m feeling pretty comfortable, stepping high, wide and lively in the place of rage, he strikes, he cuts to the heart, and I am left bereft and sorry, amazed at his grace in showing me at all, wishing, often, that he cared for me a little less.

The Lord disciplines the one he loves. We are promised this. And sometimes the discipline is meted out in death, or what feels like death. And you have to think, that’s so awful, surely it is not a loving God. Death is always terrible. It’s the worst thing that could happen.

Except that it’s not, it’s not the worst thing. The worst thing is being let go into your own way, to do your own will, forever. God wants you, and me, to see that his way is actually higher, and holier, and truer, than our own way, our own choices, the own death that we chose. He works on us through the troubling and painful process of discipline, which cannot be flattened out into a kind of formula, which is so intimately governing of each particular soul and everything, both bad and good, that is found there.

If you willingly chose to walk in his way, to be under his disciplining and dreadful will, to put yourself into the hand of the Almighty, it may often seem that you have come to the worst, that it has already happened, and that everybody has it better than you. But in reality, he is sparing you, he is dealing death out slowly so that you might live. Forever.

The Heart of Thanksgiving

November 25, 2015 By Anne Kennedy

I happened, in the early hours of this morning, to listen to the sweep of chapters in 2 Samuel that take David from fugitive to King of Judah, through political upheaval to being King of Israel, to bringing the Ark of God to Jerusalem and finally to his sin with Bathsheba. This is familiar, well worn language. The names aren’t a surprise, nor the rhythms of the text. However, like several other moments in scripture, the familiarity only increases the dread. The volatile violence, the ominous business of David staying home from war, the death of the child–I try to rush past it without being overwhelmed by grief.

Even so, in my dreading await of David’s sin, I was caught off guard by Michal’s rebuking of David for dancing before the Ark. He is dancing and rejoicing, and she looks out of her window and despises him. Then, later, she comes to meet him and says, “How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants’ female servants, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!” – 2 Samuel 6:20 For this rebuke, she remains for the rest of her days barren and childless, alone, essentially, with her judgement.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving–the perfect day, I always think, to indulge, along with the pie and the gravy, in a little gentle judgment of others and the world. We can all go around the table naming something that we’re thankful for, but Facebook and Instagram beckon silently from each and every accessible devise. We’ll all post pictures of our tables and like them, and it’ll be charming. But then there’ll be the chance to sip wine and cast judgment over the politics, the religion, the life choices of others. For those who plan to shop on Friday, there are already myriad articles condemning the overall commercialism of the season. For those who have decorated for Christmas, the Advent observers can quietly wag their heads. For those who think Syrian refugees should be accepted, the strong defense people can quietly seethe. Meanwhile, the refugee supporter can wonder aloud about the motives and feelings of the one who has posted on Facebook that the door should, for the moment, be closed.

We both judge, and writhe under the judgment of others. I always feel judged, whether it should or should not be so, by the gratitude of others. I always feel, when other people are being thankful, that they are being thankful in order to make me look bad. To soothe my guilty conscience I turn it around and judge the thankful person for the quality and motives of their thanksgiving. I like to be Michal, sitting aloft on the Internet, feeling uncomfortable about the apparent naked gratitude of others, wishing they would stop it because I can’t join them in feeling any of that stuff. Then I like to climb down and be David, rebuking others for not attending enough to the scriptures and a plain love of God. I think everyone is thinking about me, and I think about them thinking about me, and I get angry.

I don’t think I’m alone. Anger is in the air. It is flying in planes and falling with them from the sky. It is in the grocery aisle and the church pew. It is on the college campus and in congress. It is brewing like a raging storm cloud over the west, and the east, and the south, and the north. If ever there was a moment for judgment, of stopping to wonder what we, as the human family, are capable of doing, this should be that moment. We should judge ourselves, first, but that is well nigh impossible. So we naturally turn outwards and judge the other, spurred on, of course, by the occasional judgment that turns out to be right.

The easy answer, of course, is that gratitude is the antidote to anger fomented in judgment. Make a list. Have an attitude of gratitude. Just think three good things for every bad thing you feel like saying. Come on. It’s thanksgiving.

To which I say, not everyone can get there. And for the one who feels like they are there, often that person will turn the corner, thinking everything is fine, and find anger and disappointment crouching on the other side. A trick for the mind will work for a while, but the sinner will always and forever fall back into sin.

Which is why I don’t think the real antidote to a judging and angry world is gratitude. I think it is repentance. Repentance is first and foremost the judging of oneself against the character and nature of God and finding the self to be wanting. It is terribly hard to do. The bible indicates, and I have found this to be true, that God gives to the sinner the desire and ability to repent. It doesn’t spring up from the same well as the sin itself, it is given as a gift, a cutting open of the heart by God. “You are the man” says God, you did it. And then you can fall down and be sorry. The more often you can see that you are the man, the woman, the sinner, the transgressor, the more anger will be taken away from you.

You can see this unfold in the transparent, uncluttered life of a child. A child who has sinned is one of the angriest, unhappiest people in the world. If a child is crying and acting out, six times out of ten it’s because they’ve done something wrong (the other four times are because they’re hungry). Unhappily, repentance is often withheld from children. Every time you tell a child that it’s ok, they shouldn’t feel bad about their selfishness, their pride, their unkindness, their lying, you are locking them into their own anger. The self esteem movement, the getting the child to think well of himself and his motivations unintentionally fastens the child into the bitterness of an unrepentant spirit. Whereas, if a child is given the gift of repentance, the gentle space to admit wrong doing, the anger melts away. Did you just do what I said not to do? You must say that you are sorry and repent. Were you unkind to a sibling? Were you selfish? Sin is always crouching at the door, ready to devour with anger and discomfort and self justification.

But when you have confessed your sins and turned around back towards God and been forgiven, two things happen. First, Jesus absorbs the sin and the anger into himself. He payed the penalty for your sin on the cross, he gathered it into himself. The merits and benefits of his work are applied to your sinful actions and soul. You are forgiven. Second, the most remarkable flowing stream of gratitude is given. If repentance is a gift, and it is, gratitude and thankfulness are its necessary outflow. Jesus absorbs your sin and anger in to himself and gives you the free, life giving experience of gratitude.

For that, I really am, unabashedly grateful. Happy Thanksgiving!

A Sunday Reflection: The Hope of Achan

October 25, 2015 By Anne Kennedy

And Achan answered Joshua, “Truly I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and this is what I did: when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath.” – Joshua 7:20-21

I’ve often wondered how many of the people of Israel slept through Moses’ excessively long sermon of Deuteronomy. It would have been hard to attend all the way through. Still, the length, the pleading tone, the clear admonishments do make some kind of impression. The people cry out as one that they will obey, they will do all the things that God has commanded them to do. A long, forty year embattlement against the poverty of the desert, the difficulty of having to trust God for the surviving of each day, they gather it all up and decide they are definitely going to be good.

And then they go into the Land, their feet stepping over on dry ground, out of the desert and into the place of plenty.

These two verses, indeed the whole account of Achan, always land on my mind like a thud after all the goodness of the previous chapters–the cold stone of the reality of human sin, wrecking everything. It always happens. There always has to be a reaching out and grabbing. The Fruit in the Garden, the Golden Calf, the Censer full of strange fire, Bathsheba, the Old Testament list would take hours to compile, all the way through to the obvious New Testament hearkening note of Ananias and Saphira. What is surprising about each incident, but Achan more than any of them, is how little is traded away. A gold bar, some silver coins, a beautiful cloak, this he couldn’t resist. His whole life, all the waiting to come to this place, to be given everything, and then to trade it away for nothing, a cloak, a handful of coins.

It is so utterly tragic particularly because it is the condition, the character of practically every human sin. What does a person gain by reaching out and grabbing, by taking or doing what is forbidden? The thing, whatever it is, grows up into a great, golden ideal of perfect satisfaction. If I just have that, or do that, I’ll be happy, I’ll be better, I’ll be ok. Anybody looking in from the outside can see what a poor trade it is. But to you, reaching out, desperately wanting, the heavy cloud of poverty and rebellion makes it impossible to see how tragically you’re being duped.

But, embedded in this very moment of tragedy, is the perfection of hope. Achan confesses his sins. He admits to his sin and admits that it is a sin against God. This is the only way out. There isn’t any other way out of sin. It can’t be psychologized away, it can’t be ignored, it can’t be given an excuse, it has to be repented of. You have to admit that you’ve done it, that you’re wrong, and be sorry. This moment of true repentance always makes me believe that Achan himself is this moment in the bosom of Abraham. He suffers the terrible consequences of sin, he is executed for his crime, he feels the just wrath of God on his very person, but God promises, through the totality of scripture, that if you repent of your sins and cry out to him for mercy, he will confer the merits and benefits of Jesus’ death and resurrection on to you that your soul and body may be saved. For your handful of nothing, God endures the immensity of human sin, so that you can be forgiven.

The cloak, the bar of gold, the measly bundle of silver coins isn’t worth it. But to turn and cry out to Jesus, to be saved from yourself–that reaching out, that grabbing at hope is always and forever worthy.