Helping the Poor
posted June 16, 2011

I get frustrated when I hear people completely misrepresent the Biblical witness on issues of justice--pulling out a verse or two--or part of one--to back up what they think it should say, and ignoring the legions of verse that go very pointedly in the opposite direction.

Someone I know has taken to quoting a particular verse of scripture early and often whenever a discussion about politics and that dreaded term social justice comes up. “Well, you know,” she says, “Jesus said ‘the poor you will always have with you.’” The idea is that the rest of that sentence apparently should read ‘so don’t really bother helping them.’

If you’ve got your mind made up about the matter you should probably stop reading, because I’m about to give several reasons why that understanding of that verse is baloney, and how it reflects an incorrect understanding of the scriptures in general. It's not just my crazy Liberal opinion--it seems to be the Bible's crazy liberal opinion as well.

The first thing to remember is that even Satan knows how to quote scripture. He made us of it during Jesus’ temptation in the desert (Matt 4). Why don’t you go throw yourself off the highest part of the temple, he said. And he backed it up with a verse from the Psalms. “He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone (Psalm 91:11, 12)” quoth he. And Jesus did NOT say unto him, “well, Satan, you’ve come up with a bible verse to justify what you think I should do, and if the Bible says it than I should believe it and that settles it. Good point. I’ll go do that now.” Instead, he quoted scripture right back at him. Now as it happens, if you go to biblos.com and do a search under the word ‘poor’ out pop 327 references, including verses like the following:

He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,
but whoever is kind to the needy honors God. ...  (proverbs 14:31)

But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind ... (Luke 14:13)

If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. (Deuteronomy 15:7)

If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered (Proverbs 21:13)

The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern. (Proverbs 21:7)

And so on. Read through the list. They don’t all tell us to help the poor just because they have the word poor in the verse somewhere, but there are plenty that do. Frankly, even with 300 plus hits I’m surprised that there aren’t more verses. I know there are places in the prophets where you can practically throw darts and hit verses telling you to help the poor. The entire Deuteronomic holiness code is practically based on making sure they don’t get exploited.

If you want a fuller picture, of course, you can look up the words like ‘needy’ ‘exploit’ ‘justice’ mercy’ and for more than a snapshot glimpse into the issue, actually read the full passages where these words occur to see what the writer is really saying in each case.

The point being that, if we are going to play biblical duel, and you are under the impression that the bible says nothing about helping the poor, or worse, that it thinks we shouldn’t, you really need to be bothered enough to notice the mountain of evidence that says otherwise. It’s not even that hard anymore to do it. It’s not as though you need to actually read the bible: just do a quick search. Takes a couple of seconds. Notice what is there that you haven’t seen before.

The second thing about that verse is that it is missing something. The portion of it quoted above (“the poor you will always have with you”—full stop)  is really short. It is missing the rest of the sentence. That is because the rest of the sentence is not part of the point our speaker wants to make. In fact, the rest of the verse kind of unsays that point. The full sentence reads “The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement for selling all of your goods and giving them to the poor (which is something Jesus recommends at another point in the gospels) but it does not tell us not to bother with them.

At this point, though, you may be shaking your head, saying, no no no, that’s not how that verse ends, it says “the poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.” You would be right—sort of. And that takes us into an interesting discussion.

When a historian wants to be sure something actually happened, he or she tries to find as many independent sources as possible for that event. In other words, people who weren’t copying off of each other, or depending on getting the news from one another. If they have no motivation for reporting something the same way, all the better. For instance, if there is a battle, and country A’s historians say they killed 350 gadzillion enemy soldiers and country B’s historians say they only killed 2, we can only guess that reality was somewhere in the middle but can’t be sure, based only on those two sources that we know what happened. If, on the other hand, even country B’s historians are saying that 350 gadzillion of their own soldiers were killed, we can feel pretty confident that it is the truth, especially since they aren’t likely to want to report that much devastation of their own people since it makes them look like they weren’t as tough as they’d like to be.

Now when people think of the gospels, they flip that process upside down. When only one gospel writer reports something it automatically gets included in the tradition. Think of the parable of the good Samaritan, the visit of the magi, the passage about being born again, the appearance of the resurrected Jesus at Emmaus, changing water into wine—all things that are only in one gospel.

When something occurs in more than one gospel, we take the most imaginative account, which spares us dealing with the contradictions we might run into otherwise. For instance, at Pentecost we always read from Luke’s sequel, Acts. The gospel of John also includes an account of the coming of the Holy Spirit, where the resurrected Jesus simply breathes on his disciples and says ‘receive the Holy Spirit.’ But John doesn’t have a crowd, a noise like a violent wind, tongues of fire, and people speaking in different languages. Luke’s account is much more exciting.  

Unfortunately, when gospel accounts do not say the same thing, we can also choose the more convenient version. So, in a contest between ‘blessed are the poor’ (Luke 6) and ‘blessed are the poor in spirit’ (Matt 5) Matthew wins (meaning most people don't seem to be familiar with Luke's version) because the haves in the world like to believe that’s the way God wants it. And as it happens, the haves probably wrote at least two of the four gospels, Matthew, and John.

Luke, though, is very concerned with the poor, and contains more verses about helping them than the others. Luke probably felt that the whole verse about always having the poor would muddy the issue (maybe that people would abuse the interpretation? nah....) so he leaves it out altogether. Thus we are left with three different accounts of this event, with two renditions of “…but you will not always have me,” (Matthew and John) and one of “…and you can help them any time you want.” (Mark)

Most Bible Scholars are under the impression that Mark’s gospel came first, and that Matthew and Luke used Mark to write their own gospels, that John’s came latest and may have used Mark as well, though his account differs the most from the other three in a number of ways. That would make ‘…and you can help them any time you want’ the earliest version. It might not necessarily be the most authentic just for that reason, but it is more likely that the others were dependant on that version and changed theirs to reflect what they thought was a more important emphasis.

Be all of that as it may, however, what would Jesus be saying in this verse in either case? He does not say ‘the poor you will always have with you so don’t help them.’ At the very least, as in the softened accounts of Matthew and John, he implies that helping the poor is necessary—especially if you take into account all of the other places in the gospels where Jesus spells that out quite obviously. But in this very verse, what is really going on has nothing to do with the poor, who, as so often, are simply the pawns being used in an argument about something else.

Jesus’ critics (different in all four gospels) are complaining about a woman who has just dumped a very expensive jar of perfume on his feet. Now, in order to lend force to their complaint, they are going to look for something that would be true in another context—in other words, they are going to argue like adults. You don’t sponsor a bill in congress to build a 4$ billion dollar bridge across a pond in Iowa and call it the ‘Let’s Build Expensive Bridges across Small Ponds in Remote States” bill. You call it the ’I love Apple Pie and Babies and the American Way’ bill (or at least the “creating jobs in the heartland” bill). Then if anybody votes against it, in the next election campaign you tell everyone that your opponent doesn’t like babies and apple pie and the American way. People are like that. 

So Jesus’ critics, whose real motivation is that they don’t like the kind of woman (or maybe even women in general) who is keeping company with Jesus, and they are probably also jealous that they didn’t think of it first, are critical of what she has done, and they think the best way to argue against her is to put forth an alternative that nobody could actually argue with. Who wouldn’t want to help the poor, after all?

Well, Luke’s been around the block actually, and has seen who does and who doesn’t, and he doesn’t even want to go there. Instead, for him, the issue really IS the woman, the ‘sinner,’ and how her behavior contrasts with that of the Pharisees, the ‘righteous.’ He leaves out the verse about helping the poor entirely. It seems like an odd thing for Luke to do, given his concerns about the poor, but then, he probably had some idea of what people would do to that verse, and he knows it isn’t the point of that particular argument anyhow. Interestingly, when John relates the incident, it is Judas—not the Pharisees, and not the disciples en masse—who puts out the bullsh*@$t about wanting to help the poor. And John makes sure we know, in the very next verse, that the reason Judas said that had nothing to do with helping the poor. Instead, he wanted to help himself to the money once the woman had liquidated her asset.

Jesus, who couldn’t directly confront their argument, knew what they were up to, and said, this is a unique situation. I’m here, and she is doing this for me now while she can. And the poor can be helped anytime YOU (hint, hint) want to help them. Which will be tomorrow, and the next day, and any time after that. I won’t be around though so she’s got her one chance to do this for me. You will not always have me. But you can always show concern for the poor. Which, by the way, is another way of helping me (see Matt 25: ”Whatever you do for the least of these my brethren you do for me”)

I mentioned that Matthew and John don’t seem all that concerned with the poor—in their gospels, Jesus does say things about helping them, sometimes very pointedly, but in other situations, when we compare the same sayings in Luke or Mark, we get a stronger directive. Matthew and John seem to like to water their sources down, in other words. But that assumes only that their source came from another gospel. What if the saying is older than that? Remember, Jesus seems to know his scripture really well. He quotes it a lot. Especially Deuteronomy (as in the duel with Satan, above). So do the gospel writers, who know their scriptures really well. We are, of course, talking about the Hebrew scriptures--the so-called Old Testament. The point I’m getting at is that what is really interesting about this verse is that it sounds an awful lot like Jesus is quoting something.

In fact, the first part of this verse is actually a direct quote of Deuteronomy.  It is from the 15^th chapter. If you went and did the search at Biblos you’ve noticed it already. The whole verse reads like this:

‘There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore, I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and the needy in the land.”

Which is the complete opposite of any possible excuse we like to think Jesus gave us in our out-of-context verse snatching. Jesus may have merely implied it, knowing that his opponents weren’t the least bit interested in helping the poor; they were merely looking for an argument-proof way to condemn the woman with the perfume. Jesus knew their real motivation. As he did so often, he didn’t simply take on their argument, he took on their reason for making it in the first place.

Whether concern for the poor is implied, or explicitly spelled out, as it is in so many places in scripture, what is your response? Are you going to claim to follow everything in the Bible and yet somehow manage not to love your neighbor, even the least of these? And if so, how do you know you will not wind up with the goats (Matt 25) on the last day?

Seriously, ...who is my neighbor, again?
posted August 18, 2011

A church in the neighborhood sent out some edifying literature, which, good churchgoing young man that I am, I am supposed to find agreeable. Alas, no. It has an article in it entitled ‘Three more reasons I want to go to Heaven’ part of a series of articles intended to beef up interest in the glorious afterlife, which is apparently one of, if not the, main reason(s) to be a Christian—for the benefits package. You know, the ‘retirement plan’s out of this world!’

This is the silliest article I have read in a long time. In it, a pastor from somewhere in the Midwest-- (it may seem less scholarly this way, but when I’m making fun of someone I try to keep their names out of it. That way I can take issue with what they say and not make it seem like a personal attack)—said pastor describes how great heaven is going to be when we all get there. Well, maybe not you. Or me. I’m too much of a freethinker.

There are three good reasons to go to heaven, apparently. One of them is that you get to meet celebrities.  “Have you considered” he writes, “that you may live across the street from Abraham?”

This is an interesting proposition. Suppose I did live across the street from Abraham. Now I can’t imagine that Abraham’s heaven and my heaven are the same heaven. We are talking about personal wish fulfillment here, aren’t we? It might be very cool to live right by a big important man of the faith (makes me important, too, I guess), but—dare I ask: would Abraham find it appealing to live across the street from me?

We are assuming, of course, that Abraham has been situated in a nice, middle class, suburban neighborhood, vintage 21^st century America. If there is any question about that, the author refers to a whole slew of other biblical bffs with their names on the ‘mailboxes of your street.’

This is the same Abraham who lived in tents, and wandered about as a nomad, with a huge retinue of slaves and cattle? Does he not get to keep any of that? Or does he have to just suck it up and mow his lawn with a riding mower like everybody else, and drive his SUV out to the ranch where his cattle are conveniently penned up outside the city limits?

I suspect Abraham must speak English now. That’s only fair, right? If he’s going to live in our neighborhood, he and every other biblical celebrity needs to knock it off with the Biblical babble and talk like a real American. We could posit, if we were feeling more generous, that somehow everybody magically speaks Heavenese or some other language that everyone can magically pick up with no effort, like the way that the characters on Star Trek can understand all the alien races they encounter by way of some convenient technological marvel.

I’m glad Abraham sees it my way. That is what heaven is about, after all. But it gets better. The list of cool people from the bible that you get to meet in heaven isn’t limited to five. It goes on and on. And just when you think you are beginning to really like this place, “but wait! There’s more!”

Every story in Genesis is obviously literal history so naturally you will get to meet Adam. You will get to ask Noah what his experience felt like (unless too many reporters with too many microphones have done that already and Noah has retreated into his ark-themed split-level with a forbidding ‘no trespassing sign’ out front and a pistol to back it up). You’ll want to ask Abraham and Isaac to re-enact “where the knife was poised before God stopped the human sacrifice” because I’m sure Isaac can’t get enough of re-living that trauma.

Oh, and you’ll want Moses to show you how he parted the red sea. And to make things more interesting, “perhaps we can even get the Israelites who were there to re-enact the entire scene.” Because they have nothing better to do. They might have a little trouble getting people to play the drowned Egyptian army, though. Unless Satan has some kind of furlough program.

That’s right, kids! Heaven is one glorious theme park, with one gratifying attraction after another. You’ll get to hear Jonah lecture about being inside the whale, and Paul speak on Romans. ("Actually, I’ve written several more epistles since I’ve been up here. How about---"  No thanks, Paul. We want your greatest hits. Over and over and over.) Bring your camera. Don’t worry about how tired David looks from singing “Rock of Ages” again and again (no kidding. That’s in the article).

Remember, nothing new happens in heaven. It is all about reliving great moments in history the way we are sure they happened. When we ask Peter to repreach his Pentecost sermon, we are sure it will be exactly the way it is printed in Acts. King James version. Which will make it conveniently short so we can all get to the potluck afterward.

The only thing I can’t figure out is why we have to die to get there.  Since there will soon be a theme park in Kentucky that sounds an awful lot like this version of heaven, why not just go there? Oh, right. This one is for later!

There won’t be any long lines in this heaven. There won’t be any suffering of any kind. Red letter point number two assures me of that. If you've had a rough life I'm very sympathetic. If, on the other hand, your idea of suffering is having to circle the block a couple of times to be able to park your Hummer, you might want to check out the sixth chapter of Luke. After all the 'blessed are yous' (I'll wait).

And then, in red capital letters, the third reason: “I WANT TO GO TO HEAVEN TO CLAIM MY INHERITANCE.” I haven’t gotten my letter yet that I “may already be” one of the elect, but I’m sure it’s coming. But the last part---claim my inheritance. I really hope heaven isn’t a time share. My parents went on a couple of those and first they hit you with a really long spiel (I’ve already done that part thanks to various door-to-door proselytizers) and then the gift isn’t nearly as good as they said it was going to be.

The sad part of all of this is that it is so self-centered that the author (and the target audience) don’t seem to realize just how self-centered it is. True, there are some encouraging words for others. I was a little surprised to find out that ‘the poor’ will have an inheritance in heaven. Maybe that means we don’t have to do a thing for them down here. Isn’t that great?

With all of that hustle and bustle going on up in our getaway spa/afterlife I can’t help wondering who will take care of the food arrangements, clean our houses while we are off hearing Paul talk about being stoned, or just generally serve our every need. Where are the servants? It would be a shame to have cultivated an attitude of serving one another on earth and then have it go to a total waste in heaven. Now who was it that kept talking about that. I’m trying to think….

That funny Galilean guy, whatsisname… The last shall be first. The whole washing the feet of his disciples thing. Yeah, that stuff.

You know what’s odd? In the whole article, there’s never anything about God. I could see that, since he only interferes when we can’t find our car keys or something. But you know who else is missing? Think really big time character from the bible. Hint: New Testament.

Yeah. Jesus. He doesn’t seem to be in this heaven. Maybe he just didn’t want to show up. And, frankly, I don’t blame him.

It Must Be a Sign
posted October 7, 2011

I jog past their church a lot so I see the sign every few days. About a month ago it read “The 10 commandments are not multiple choice.”

Now I’m not a big fan of church signs in general. Usually I find them rather clunky and cute, like somebody’s dad trying to be cool at a party and not managing very well. It is the church trying to be Hallmark (which is all they’ve got room for on those signs anyhow) but only managing to be a knockoff.

So my reaction to this sign was not bound to be generous. But this sign, this one in particular, had one other thing going for it. It seemed to tap into the judgmental side of the Christian experience. The one that non-churchgoers like to point to as the number one reason not to get involved. My reflex action was to envisage a sign at our own church which said, “There are three versions of the 10 commandments in the bible. Which one are we talking about?” I imbibed large quantities of Mark Twain in middle school so I have a bit of sarcasm in my blood stream. And it wasn’t just the rigidity of the sentiment that got me, it was the simplicity of it. So often we find judgementalism coupled with ignorance. So I thought I’d take a run in that direction. Which version are we talking about?

There actually are three, you know. One in Exodus 20, the famous one, and two others in Deuteronomy. I’m not suggesting they are wildly different; mostly the ordering changes or the justification for observing the Sabbath, or something. It isn’t like it is ok to kill people in one of them and not in another. And it isn’t as though I would advocate ignoring any of them. I don’t know anybody else who would, either. They seem pretty basic. Don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t lie, etc. Telling us that they are important is really just another example of the church beating up on straw men to seem tough, isn’t it? Because who really thinks the commandments are not, well, commandments? At least rhetorically. If you ask 5 people on the street, is there going to be a difference of opinion? Now behavior, that’s something else entirely. Suppose that church got an electronic sign (all the rage these days) and they could put up specific messages as motorists rushed by: “John, don’t cheat on your wife,” “Geraldine, you shouldn’t lie to your sister like that” “Steve, it isn’t a good idea to watch that much television—it’s becoming an idol, and you know how I feel about idols. Even the American kind. Signed, God.” Kind of make it personal. But they’re stuck with low tech. Although the by-line from God does show up on church signs an awful lot.

Years ago I used to regularly walk past a guy on a street corner in downtown Cleveland who would yell at passersby: “Jerry, you need Jesus! Margaret, you need to be saved! Gwynneth, you are going to hell unless you accept Jesus!” In all the times (at least a hundred) that I passed the guy, he never once got my name right. I presume he thought the Holy Spirit was revealing our names to him, but it didn’t seem to be working. Not that I can speak for everybody. If my name were Ichabod and he managed to get that, I would have an entirely different impression of him. But Michael is an awfully common name, and not even once to just happen to get it right? Anyway…

Then there’s the biblical source. Why is it, whenever somebody wants to wag their finger in your face and tell you rules have to be followed, it is always from the books of law? This is a Christian church, mind  you. What about “Jesus didn’t merely suggest that we love one another.” Because it says in the gospel of John that Jesus is giving us a new ‘commandment.’ How about ‘loving your neighbor isn’t merely a suggestion?’ because I’d really like to see some church take that theme and run with it for a change.

Generally, when I argue about something I’ve seen or heard that seems to me to be in need of correction, I give the other side what I hope is a fair chance. So on this morning. I tried to think about how someone, even though unpopular, really does have to stick up for laws and standards and remind us that we can’t just go around rewriting them whenever convenient. Possibly the people who put this on the sign feel that we live in a confusing, chaotic world, and that they have to draw lines and boxes somewhere because somebody has to and the people at large aren’t doing a very good job. That may be a bit of a phobic view of the world, but it isn’t all imaginary.

I read somewhere that when the right on red law was first introduced traffic accidents went up something like 70 percent. Apparently, when you trust people to stop, look to their left, and make a good decision about whether they can proceed or not, a lot of people just can’t. Hence the law, which does not make a determination about who can handle something and who can’t, but draws an inflexible line in the societal sand and make that decision en masse. You are 14 and think you ought to be allowed to drive a car? You can’t because even if you could most of your peers are still going to be crashing into things when they’re 25, never mind 14. You think that white lie isn’t going to hurt anybody? It might be an ethical dilemma for you, but justification for a whole lot of other people.

In other words, people make bad choices all the time, and the law is supposed to limit their ability to do it, even if it offends those who feel they could handle the grey areas. If you kill somebody, a jury might decide you had a good reason, but you don’t get to. Save us from ourselves.

So I get that people sometimes feel that they have to stick up for the non-negotiality of the law, especially when they encounter people who seem offended by the idea that they might have to follow them occasionally (met one of them online the other day), but I was still not thrilled to see that sign. And then, they changed it.

“Have compassion. What would Jesus do?” it said. The opposite side of the argument. And that changed my feeling toward that sign. And the tone of this article. Tempering justice with mercy. Not posturing that they might be surrounded by a hostile community of lawbreakers. Suggesting that there is more to scolding the populace when it comes to the mission of the church.

Ok, forget that the back half of the message is a sing-songy formula. It was as if the sign had thought about it long and hard that week and decided to change direction. Maybe the leadership even saw what was on the sign, had a conversation with the person who put it there, and said, we ought to send a different message. Well, I can dream, can’t I? (I usually spend about and hour and half running in the mornings that I exercise so I have time for all kinds of wild fantasizations)

Then, the following week: “Jesus is the open door.” Oh yes, the whole, everyone is welcome thing. I trust the Methodists won’t sue for trademark infringement over that whole ‘open doors’ bit. Great, I thought. It may be wimpy liberal touchy-feely stuff, but it beats sour-faced we-know-better-than-youism any day of the week.

Anybody think I’m taking this too seriously?

Because it had crossed my mind, at possibility #604, that all that was really going on is that somebody had a list of ‘clever’ things to put on church signs and was simply going down the list without thinking about it too hard. Because they’ve got to come up with a new slogan every week, right? And how many people want to have to think about it? In a local church. Come on. They have resources from the national clearinghouse of all things church crap where you can buy your ideas. Plus it keeps everyone on the same page doctrinally. All We Like Sheep, you know. National merchandise keeps the sheep from wandering off.

The next week it was back to good old tried and true doctrine: “Seasons change, God doesn’t.” I’ve never been able to figure out what difference that makes, from a logical point of view, unless you don’t like change, or you are worried that God is like your flaky friend who says she’ll pick you up from the airport and then decides to go to a party. Evidently those images cover a lot of ground with a lot of Christians, because it is a popular idea. Know what? I like that the seasons change. Put me down for a heretic.  What about God doesn’t change? His character? His love? His Himness? I change. You change. Glaciers even change, though I doubt we’ll notice, being on a much tighter schedule than our icy friends. Does God? Does it matter? Does God grow, evolve, experiment, think….how can we know this?

Right. Overthinking. Got it. This is what the church tries so hard to prevent, and here I am, eschewing the well-trod path and going off on tangents of innovation. Perhaps I need to undergo some church sign therapy.

The following week’s entry might help. It also pretty much settled the issue about who was or wasn’t at home when they posted their weekly communication. Have you heard this one before? I think it is one of our pastor’s ‘favorites:’

"ASAP—Always Say a Prayer"

Cute, huh?

Actually, They did ask directions…
posted December 13, 2011

This is one of those communicable email forwards that has been flying around the internet for years:

“What would have happened if it had been three Wise Women instead of three Wise Men?
They would have asked directions,
arrived on time,
helped deliver the baby,
cleaned the stable,
made a casserole,
and brought practical gifts.”

It ought to be unworthy of the attentions of this blog to refute this bit of doggerel—it certainly will be unwelcome to persons who find it funny. It is of no help that someone has attached a doxology to the email in which the women come in for similar stereotypical punishment: as vicious gossips, vindictive shrews, and so on. There is no equal time where crude caricatures are concerned. As is usually the case when we are trying to be funny about something by way of general complaining, we don't want to be bothered with contradictory evidence, even if it is staring right at us.  And we certainly wouldn't want to let an accurate reading of the gospel get in the way of a little man bashing. At any rate, you can send your emails, headed ‘oh, lighten up’ to ‘ireallydontgiveaflyingfig@pianonoise.com.’

As we all know, men never ask for directions, and pointing this out constantly is terribly funny. As the author has been known to wander around stores for upwards of two or three minutes before asking a sales person for help, the full real-lifeness of this trope may have escaped him. The story of the visit of the Magi from the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew says something rather different, however. The ‘men’ did ask for directions. Stopping in Jerusalem, which is a good place to assume something important is going to take place, they go to see Herod, and ask ‘Where is this child who is to be King of the Jews?’ Herod’s advisors are able to point them on the right path (no less than the chief priests and teachers or the law, which I suppose is a bit more exulted than asking a gas station attendant).

The second item on our list concerns the idea that they arrived late. Curiously, even my study bible proclaims confidently in a footnote that they arrived several months after the birth, despite the fact that the Gospel account does not give a time table. It does, however, say that they arrived after the birth—a consequence, apparently, of having to follow a star in the sky which was not clear enough to permit them to go directly to Bethlehem without asking directions from Herod.  If they had arrived in time for the birth, our unknown humorist assures us that they could have assisted with the delivery, as though Mary would want a bunch of strangers from a foreign land attending her at such a time. Probably, being men, they would have been immediately sent off to go boil some water at the inn (yuck! yuck!).

I’m not sure why the wisemen ought to have felt it was their province to clean somebody else’s stable, particularly if the proprietor did not want his animals disturbed—for all we know, Mary and Joseph are trespassing.  Anyhow, if we are going to be bothered with facts, the wisemen hail from the Gospel of Matthew, which does not say anything about a stable. Very well, they can help Mary around the house, perhaps take out the garbage and so on. Would it have been worth mentioning in the gospel account if they had?

As far as the practical gifts are concerned, I am not sure I can defend them, except to suggest that if you are a poor family in 1^st century Palestine, cash is always welcome. Gold is about as helpful as you can get it you are about to take a trip to Egypt for a while. The inns along the way are probably not so cheap as they ought to be, and it is possible that Joseph had left his traveler’s cheques at home.  Maybe things are different in the 21^st century, but back then, money was valuable, and it could be made to serve nearly every purpose by way of exchange. The Myrrh was also doctrinally useful: it is supposed to have come in handy at Christ’s burial, although it would have to remain on the shelf for 33 years. It is only the Frankincense that might have to be regifted (I’ve recently learned that it signifies the priesthood). Maybe that woman, variously known as Mary Magdalene, and as ‘unidentified,’ will want it so she can pour it on Jesus’ feet later on.

It is true that the wisemen could use a decent publicist. Some of the songs about them are just silly. Take "Do You Hear what I hear?" for instance: somebody thought it would be a good idea to include the line 'A child, a child, shivering in the cold, let us bring him silver and gold.' Which rhymes, of course, which is why it is supposed to trump all kinds of stupidity. Did anybody think about maybe getting the child a blanket instead? How is silver and gold going to ward off pneumonia? This was brought to my attention by my wife, Kristen, who also noticed that one of the verses of "Silent Night" is missing a verb.  To be honest, I stopped paying attention to the words to some of these carols years ago as a defense against having my brain explode. The scansion in "The First Noel" still makes me want to do unChristmassy things to whoever wrote it. Look-ed? Pres-ENCE? Come on.

At any rate, the wiseguys do their thing, which is to pursue their star-gazing hobby to the ends of the earth (do you think their wives were waiting at home fuming?), drop off their inappropriate gifts, and leave. So like men. Didn't want to be involved in the actual raising of the child. Apparently it wasn't so interesting after that first night in Bethlehem. They must have had other stars to follow.

All these charges may be laid at the feet of the wise men, but we must remember any errors in transmission belong to the writers of the gospels—also men. Actually, Mark, Luke and John should not be blamed: they do not mention the wise men. And, when all is said and done it must also be admitted that Matthew had an agenda, that politically dirty word that always means something rotten when describing the motives of the other political party. Here it simply means that the author of the Gospel was trying to make a point about the significance of the visitation, and tailored the facts accordingly. The eminence of the visitors (or their taste in gifts) is a show of the importance of the One whom they were visiting. The great distance they are thought to have come shows that the baby they have come to worship will be a light to the nations, although Matthew does not give them Royal status nor tell us that they were necessarily from more than 10 miles east of Jerusalem. Probably it is not doing violence to the message that he was putting forth to tease out these undeveloped clues and make them Kings from the Far East—I am sure they will not mind the promotion. Anyhow, where would scholars get such expensive gifts?

The point of the narrative, in the end, is to show what kind of child this Jesus was going to be, how even the heavens poured forth signs and wonders, and how those with their heads and their hearts ready to receive the message—from anywhere—those in the know—will go to great lengths to proclaim His message. The long journey, the status of the visitors, and the exulted gifts, all point to this conclusion. A trio of stereotypical superwomen, being in all things practical, caring, and truly wise, would not have raised such an argument from this text—in fact, it would have drawn attention to the women. We would have praised their utility and nurturing skills and forgotten the babe who could make casseroles appear in the desert if necessary. It seems to me that the ‘men’ served their purpose quite adequately.

ps. I couldn't care less whether the visitors from the east really were men or women, or both (assuming that this is actual history to begin with). In recent years several people have come forward to suggest that there may have been women in the party. The evidence appears to be pretty thin, and, given the status of women in those times, it might not be very likely. But if the idea appeals to you, and you want to include both sexes in your Christmas play, I say go for it. And Merry Christmas, whatever your gender.

Jesus Apologizes for being a Liberal
posted February 9, 2012

Jesus Christ held a press conference late Friday in which he apologized for most of his major teachings.

“I have thought long and hard about what I said when I was here last, and I am convinced now by the interpretations of so many pastors and teachers that I was in error. I am deeply sorry for the confusion I have caused in people who have read my teachings.”

Jesus went on to distance himself from what he described as a “liberal distortion,” saying that the phrase “love your enemies” had been taken out of context, and that what he really meant by “blessed are the peacemakers” was “blessed are the ones who fight for peace by destroying the enemies of peace.”

Some of the other ‘Beatitudes’ to accede to the editorial pen include Luke’s Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6) which he began with “blessed are the poor” followed a few verses later by “cursed are the rich” which Jesus called an unfortunate example of class warfare. It now reads, “Blessed are you who create jobs and stimulate the economy. You should remain free from government interference.” He said he regrets his admonition to “give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”

Jesus then went on to describe a new book he had written to be released in the spring (“verily, verily, I say unto you, it shall be available at fine Christian bookstores everywhere”) which would set straight the core of his message, and rescue it from the leftist bias it gets in the mainstream media.

“It’s title is ‘What I Really Meant by the Parables’ and I wrote it myself this time, because I decided I couldn’t trust ghostwriters anymore,” a slap at the quartet of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in whose works Jesus’ disciples are frequently portrayed as not understanding his message.

Some of the revisions included a new ending to the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which the Samaritan tells the man in the ditch to “get a job” and gets an angry retort from the man, who says he wants to spend his life in mud by the side of the road so he can get welfare checks and collect disability insurance. Later the man is relieved when he finds out he could have been jailed for helping a foreigner.

Also, in a bid to make his stories more interesting for general audiences, the prodigal son gets stomped to death by the pigs he is feeding.

“I intend to speak out on issues like homosexuality and abortion a great deal more than I have in the past.” He said he was embarrassed that he inexplicably forgot to mention either of them on his last trip to earth.

There are already at least a million pre-ordered copies of the book on Amazon, and Jesus’ website is flooded with requests from conservative churches for speaking engagements. He recently launched a weekly blog, which will give fans something to read until the book is released. Jesus is now also on Twitter and Facebook.

At least one aspect of his ministry is unchanged.

“Follow me,” he said.

michael@pianonoise.com