All Satisfying Jesus

Theology Thursday

by Dave Holzhauer

You have likely heard the phrase “bread and water”. You have also likely heard it used in context of prison or privation. It is a metaphor that has become a byword or shorthand for giving someone only just enough to keep them alive. But it is also a metonymic phrase, where bread is a poetic stand in for food, and water likewise. Both would have been would have been important to your average traveler in first century Judea, since it is difficult to carry substantial supplies of either on one’s back while walking the rugged roads. Since you couldn’t carry all the water you needed and surface sources of water were rare, you were reliant on the hospitality of others to give you water. This is the backdrop of the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman.

“Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John(although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples),he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”(For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”’ (John 4:1-15, ESV)

            An important bit of context before we proceed: there were three basic types of water in the first century Near East. There was cistern water, which came from a purposely dug hole in the ground; fancy cisterns would have been dug into non-permeable rock. These relied on water running down into them during a rain. Since there was no filtration system, these were essentially cesspools, filled with water, dirt, and decaying organic matter, among other things. Well water tapped into aquifers, a better source of water, since the permeable rock above the aquifer acted like a rough version of a Britta filter. However, like their modern counterparts, these wells could become contaminated. Living water was running water, whether from a spring, an open system fountain, a stream, etc. Living water was the best type, since it was least likely to contaminated.

            With that background in mind, let’s zoom in on the metaphor Jesus is using. He’s at a well, talking to a woman with the tools to draw water. But he offers her water that’s better than the water he just asked her to give him. It’s akin to asking a complete stranger at a restaurant to buy your dinner and then telling them that you have three Michelin star food. When the woman tries to call him out, Jesus begins to describe something tantalizing indeed, water that will satisfy the thirst of one’s soul. If you’ve ever been thirsty for very long, you know how it is a sensation that refuses to be ignored or suppressed, and the longer it goes, the worse it becomes. 

            I suspect that the woman was intrigued, but not entirely sold. But, she tells Jesus ‘…“Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”’ (John 4:15). Might as well see if Jesus can deliver the goods, right? Jesus’s response takes an unexpected tack: ‘”…Go, call your husband and come here. The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’;for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”’(John 4:16-18). 

Think back to how thirst refuses to be ignored or suppressed. Now imagine being surrounded by only sea water. Sure, you can drink it, but it will only make you exponentially thirster. The Samaritan woman had been drinking the incorrect water, and it had only made her soul thirstier. She had gone through five husbands and was now on a man who was not her husband, but her soul was still thirsty. What she tried to quench with men could only be quenched by God. I think she suspected, somewhere inside, that this was true, because her next question to Jesus is about where people should worship God (verses 19-20). It’s a test of what Jesus would say, since Samaritans and Jews disagreed vehemently about where one should worship, but there’s the kernel of awareness that she was trying to put a round peg in a square hole. Jesus confronts her on her most pressing issue, that she was attempting to anesthetize her spiritual needs. The Samaritan woman attempts to defuse the conversation by saying that when the Messiah comes, he will explain everything (v.25). Jesus puts the onus back on her, saying “I who speak to you am he.” (v.26).

            It’s very easy to stretch a metaphor too far, to over-conceptualize it and lose sight of its actual point. But if you have a craving that has not been sated by all that you’ve thrown at it, you are likely in the same place as the Samaritan woman in verse 29: “Come, see a man who told me everything that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

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Jesus Makes Me Clean

Theology ThurSday

by Dave Holzhauer

If you’ve ever picked up a book off of the shelf that you’ve never read before and started reading half way through, you’ve likely felt lost in the story pretty quickly. The same goes for a show that you started in season five. Sure, with intelligence and insight, you can probably figure out a lot of what’s going on, but you know you’re missing a lot. Context matters.

The same is true in Scripture; each author had a purpose in writing, and context is key. Vignettes are often related to what happened before or after them. In the Gospel of Mark, this relationship can often look more like a rope than links of a chain, with ideas continuing on and interacting with other parts of the story.

At the beginning of Mark 7 the Pharisees ask why Jesus’s disciples don’t ritually wash before eating: “And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’” (Mark 7:5). For anyone unfamiliar, the Pharisees were obsessed with ritual cleanliness and purity, even creating a washing ritual to avoid becoming unclean by having touched something unclean. After Jesus publicly declares that it is not external factors that defile a person, the disciples don’t get it, so Jesus reiterates: ‘” …What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”’ (Mark 7:20-23).

            The vignette that follows this exchange is that of the Syrophoenician woman.

“And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden.  But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet.  Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.” And he said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.” (Mark 7:24-30)

While all commentators I’ve been able to find chalk this vignette up to testing of the woman’s faith, this has always seemed incomplete to me. It seems odd to sandwich a quick exchange about faith between the disciples not understanding what defiles a person and the healing of a deaf stammerer. This doesn’t fit with how the Gospel writers structure their books. Any time the disciples are slow to understand something that Jesus is teaching them, a teaching moment example seems to follow. 

The Syrophoenician woman would have been seen as doubly defiled: a Gentile and unclean through contact with her demoniac daughter. Remember also that the Gentiles of the ancient Near East would have worshipped an array of pantheons of gods and goddesses, an anathema to any Jew. But aside from proving the virtue of persistence, she is an example to the disciples and to us of what Jesus said in Mark 7:20-23, that pride, envy, slander, etc. are what defile in God’s eyes. And as Jesus has shown before, he’s willing and able to clean up any defilement that you and I ask him to.  

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The God of the Seasons

THEOLOGY THURSDAY

BY Dave Holzhauer

Of New England’s autumn rituals, traveling to see the fall colors of trees, or leaf peeping, as it has been called, is perhaps the best known nationally. It’s a comforting tradition, watching the beautiful colors emerge as the rolling seasons continue their cycle, a milestone of delight.

The author of Psalm 104 must surely have shared this very human delight in Nature, its cycles, and gives words to the wonder. The author explores the wonder that God, who is so majestic and magnificent, would bother to create. God instills order into this new creation (verses 5 – 8). He creates the water cycle, so essential for life to exist (verse 10). Branching off of the water cycle, the author begins to explore the whole interconnected system that God has created. But through this whole interconnected system of cycles (chemistry), natural laws (physics), and relationships (biology), God is involved. 

God being involved in his creation is staggering. The various disciplines of science can tell us how the universe around us functions. Very likely it could run along just fine once God set the universe in motion. But he chooses to get involved and leaves his fingerprints throughout. God gave beauty to be appreciated and endowed humans with an appreciation of beauty. Completely unnecessary, from a biological point of view. But it’s there. The desire for celebration and the ability to celebrate. Wonderful flavors and smells. God makes good things.

God being involved takes on a different dimension when you consider the relative magnitudes of the two actors. From a human point of view, Creation is huge, wonderful, and awe-inspiring. But our everyday experience tells us that while the created reflects the creator, it is only a shadow. Artists have made exquisite music, paintings, sculpture, etc. But the art can’t move, breathe, or interact like its creator can. This extrapolation breaks down a bit when moving from the finite to the infinite, but it gives a base for beginning to appreciate that God, who did not need to create and gains nothing by creating, would take the time and effort to be involved in his creation so intimately. God has assigned a high value to us, valuable enough to allow Jesus to be sacrificed on the cross that we might be redeemed. What other artist or creator has ever invested so much into their creation?

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Where Can I Find Comfort When I'm Hurting?

THEOLOGY THURSDAY
WITH DAVE HOLZHAUER

Have you ever asked someone how they were doing and they responded “not good”? There’s something about that response that causes some instant tension in a conversation. This goes beyond the violation of the unspoken societal norm that “how are you” is simply an informal way of saying hello. There’s a discomfort when others are suffering that we dislike dealing with.

This discomfort seems to be there throughout human history. In the book of Job, the protagonist, the eponymous Job, loses everything: all his wealth, property, children, and health. His wife stays in the story long enough to ask him why he doesn’t curse God and die. Through all of this, “Job did not sin with his lips” (Job 2:10). It’s at this point that Job’s three friends hear about all his troubles and agree to go together and comfort him. Commentators have estimated that between the friends hearing about Job, contacting each other, agreeing to comfort Job, and actually arriving where Job was, the whole process may have taken as long as seven years. When they did, they didn’t even recognize him; when they did, they saw how great his suffering was, grieved, and sat in silence with him (Job 2:11-13).

For the next 35 chapters, Job expresses his own pain, confusion, and desire to ask God why all of this happened. As you may already know, his friends spend the next 35 chapters telling him that it was his own sinfulness that brought this down on him and he needs to repent of his sinful thoughts and deeds. 

There are a number of different themes occurring throughout these chapters, but I want to focus on the final five chapters of the book (Job 38-42). God speaks directly to Job, asking him if he can do any humanly impossible tasks and asking him if he knows how to create the laws of nature. The implication is clear: if you don’t understand how to create visible things, how are you going to understand God’s plans? Job’s response is surprising: 

I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
    but now my eye sees you;
 therefore I despise myself,
    and repent in dust and ashes. (Job 42: 5-6)

There is a footnote that says repent may also mean “am comforted”. Job is comforted by God’s presence. This profound: having spent 41 chapters losing everything, expressing his grief, having terrible comforters, and having God show up to tell him that Job knew nothing of what was going on, Job is comforted by God being there. Job may have been able to give mental assent to God’s character and characteristics, but it seems Job did not know God for who he was, not in the way that you know someone after having been through the fire with them. That’s the single biggest takeaway of Job, that no matter how deep or long lasting our grief, even if it’s never made better in this life, only being with God (in the deepest sense of the term) can comfort us. That’s not to say the grief goes away or is made right. But there is joy.
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Why does God take so long?

Theology Thursday
with Dave Holzhauer

One of my favorite novels is The Count of Monte Cristo, a story of a man who has everything taken from him and then acquires unlimited means to seek revenge. The story explores what happens when any one idea becomes what you follow at all costs. It shows what it costs a man bent on revenge unless he is saved from himself.

The Count of Monte Cristo is hardly the only human question about justice delayed. The Roman poet Horace expressed it as pede poena claudo (Punishment comes limping). The prophets and Psalms both ask God why he has not yet given them justice. In the book of Habakkuk, the prophet Habakkuk asks God why, as a just god, he allows wickedness and wicked people to prosper (Habakkuk 1:2-4). God responds that he already has a plan in motion that Habakkuk “would not believe if told.” Hababkkuk’s follow up question is pretty logical: when? The prophet goes so far as to compare all the people of the world to fish, who have no one to protect them and are helpless against the one catching them (the wicked). Habakkuk’s response epitomizes the feelings of everyone who has ever waited for justice; the wait seems interminable and the situation seems worse and worse.

God replies:
“Write the vision;
    make it plain on tablets,
    so he may run who reads it.
 For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
    it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
    it will surely come; it will not delay.
Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,
    but the righteous shall live by his faith.” (Habakkuk 2:2-4)

God’s response does not give us the answer we long for. It doesn’t give a specific time; it simply says to trust God, that justice may seem slow, but it is coming. That does feel particularly satisfying. As the rest of Habakkuk 2 and the Bible in general show, God gets deeply angry over injustice and wrong. However, we’re reminded in Ezekiel 33:11 that God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked; he desires that everyone would turn from their wicked ways and live. He extends the same grace to others that we want for ourselves when we make mistakes or wrong others. However, that grace is in perfect tension with God being unable to tolerate injustice. We’re called to trust in God’s timing, no matter how delayed that timing seems, because while we can only see a small part of the picture, God not only sees the whole thing but is working out his plans. And what seemed like an injustice unpunished might just be a facet in someone else’s redemption.

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The God Who Gets His Hands Dirty

Theology Thursday with Dave Holzhauer

We’re used to the idea that if something clean touches something dirty, the clean thing becomes dirty. Think of food and the five second rule (except on a really dirty floor, with dust bunnies running amok).

One of the major themes in the Old Testament is the idea of cleanliness, usually a metonymy or stand-in for holiness. In Haggai 2:10-19, this problem is addressed directly. God asks the priests if something holy touches something else that is unclean, does the unclean become holy/clean? The priests said, “no.” What about if something unclean touches something clean/holy? The priests said, “it becomes unclean.” God goes on to tell the tell the people that they are unholy through their actions, but he will make them holy. Something that seems impossible after the previous Q&A session.

Haggai never resolves this dilemma. If something holy is made unholy by contact or interaction with something unholy, what are we to do? Are you simply supposed to shut yourself from anything unclean or sinful? Good luck. If everything around you is unclean, you’re going to become unclean at some point when you brush up against it. If you’ve ever sinned or done wrong in your life, you’re already unholy or unclean.

We get the answer to this unsolvable problem in Mark 1:40-45. A leper begs Jesus to heal him. This is no big deal, we’ve already seen Jesus do lots of miracles by this point in the story. What’s interesting/weird is how Jesus heals the leper. Instead of simply healing the disease (we’re not told which skin disease it was) with a word of command, Jesus reaches out this hand and touches the leper. Only after touching the leper does he tell the disease to be healed. Jesus does not stay aloof or far away from our suffering. 

Under the reigning ritual purity laws of the day (and our own experience), the clean (Jesus) has now become dirty and contaminated. Stop and think about that for a second. Jesus didn’t grab a bar of Irish Spring and scrub the guy. Instead, we’re presented a picture of something so clean that the dirty and unclean become clean by touching it. That’s a stunning reversal of our ideas of how things go. And yet there we have it. There is a god who is so infinitely clean and full of compassion that he will reach out to touch the dirty and unclean. Not simply to make reassuring contact with the dirty and unclean, but to make them clean like himself.

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