Lectio Divina for September 11th

<sup>Matthew 5

38</sup>"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' ³⁹But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ⁴⁰And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. ⁴¹If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ⁴²Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
⁴³"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' ⁴⁴But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

Joshua's Prayer

Rodion, has a nice post here, on the topic of Israel typology, violence, national identities, and the Christians identity in Christ. I don’t agree with all of it, (I’m not completely a pacifist, though I wish I could be) but I think it’s worth your time. Here is an excerpt of Rodion's post, followed by the comment I left, Joshua's Prayer.

Rodion:
Most Christians in the U.S. revel in the fact that God has blessed them with this wonderful and righteous country. Most are basically convinced that God has blessed us with the promised land and delivered us from our enemies (the Native Americanites, the Spanishites, the Frenchites, the Britishites, and the Mexicanites) in order to fulfill his promise to us of possessing a land filled with milk and honey.

Second, one thing that is usually bypassed in our parallel of modern America and OT Israel is that before Israel headed into the Promised Land, after forty years in the wilderness for their disobedience, God specifically told them that they were not getting the land because they were a righteous people. No, they were sinful and unfaithful but God was faithful and God had made a promise to Abraham and to Moses and God was going to make good on it. In our country we often assume that God has chosen us and given us this land because we deserve it ("God helps those who help themselves").

So how does this apply to our topic of Israel Typology? I claim that if we appeal to creation as the norm by which to understand Jesus' purpose (after all John claims that it was Christ who created in the first place and, thus, it should be him who creates everything new), then we can understand why we should not use books like Joshua to justify our Christian violence. God's promise to Abraham was esentially this: After the first eleven chapters of Genesis humanity had gone from good, to bad, to worse. The unity of man and woman had been destroyed, families (tribes) began to fight with one another, as the tribes grew bigger nations began to war with each other (Noah's curse of Ham ensured that this would be the way of nations in the future), and finally at Babel the tongues were divided. Therefore, the unity that God had created had been increasingly more and more hidden under the sin of humanity. God essentially promises Abraham that God will put things back the way they were before all of this happened by blessing every tribe, tongue and nation all of which were removed from their original created purpose.

I said:
Rumsfield is a prophet in the order of St. Joshua, and to him we pray:
"St. Joshua in the promised land, holy is your name, your kingdom come and bloodshed be done, today, as it was in your day. Give us this day our daily orders, and punish our timidity as we punish those who act timid with us. And lead us not into the temptations of the Left, but deliver us the victory. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever and ever, Amen.

Update

We have arrived safe and sound here in the La Crosse Wisconsin area. That is a blessing, given the fact that we didn’t have the best truck from U-Haul. The mirror kept bending in, making it impossible to see, the blinker went out, and it got all of 6 miles to the gallon. When we moved out to California, we used a company called U-Pack, they haul your stuff for you in a small semi trailer, and the best part is that you don’t have to pay for gasoline. Don’t use U-haul, (use Budget, Rider or Penski if you want to drive yourself) And if you have the time to set up the reservation in advance, (which we didn't) use U-Pack.

My sister got married yesterday to her high school sweet heart of 6 or is it 8 or is it 10 years, (the definition of their relationship was up in the air to begin with) It was a great wedding and I have no doubt it will be a great marriage.

I start work on Monday, in the mean time I have to finish up a 30 page paper for Fuller.

As for spirituality, we are looking for a church. Being from the area, we have a lot of relationships already, though in terms of where to go to church, we aren’t sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. If anyone is being the church, in their home, in or around La Crosse, let us know as we are rather partial to that.

Arab Baptist Theological Seminary

ABTS is located in Beruit Lebanon. Check out what there doing here, and here, and please keep them in your prayers.

Red Team Musings

Scientist and security experts have always known that liquid chemicals are very dangerous and very hard to detect. (And the media could have known if it had wanted to) Only now that the horses are out, (fortunately we caught them before they went too far) are we going to lock this particular barn door.

So what else is easily doable that we aren’t planning for?

Here are some ideas it took me two seconds to think of. And before you lambaste me for being way too sick. The Government pays people to do this. Thinking like the enemy is the only way your going to defeat him. That said, the real purpose of this post is to illustrate that these new security precautions are as much about appearances and you feeling safe as they are about anything else.

Some Red Team Ideas

Liquids are not allowed if your are departing from the UK or the US, but no other place. Do the same thing that was exposed yesterday, on a US airline leaving from another common US destination; say a plane leaving from Amsterdam, or Tokyo.

If you want to truly strike terror into Americans, hit the heartland, not New York or LA. Since we terrorist love this airplane idea so much, use private airplanes, lots of them, loaded with explosives, and stick them into malls and buildings in places like, Omaha Nebraska, Madison Wisconsin, or Topeka Kansas.

As we have seen the good old fashioned single suicide bomber seems to work pretty well. And the subways, they were on heightened security for what, a month at the most. I know for a fact, that you could do the London bombing all over again here in LA.

And if the FBI and the like are too good at keeping track of bomb making material, try this. Department stores at malls are notorious for being difficult to get out of. (they like to keep you shopping) So lets just position terrorists at each door, and then systematically kill everyone in the building. That would strike a hell of a lot more terror than an exploding airline coming from Europe. Why, because I have never traveled to Europe, and if I did it would be a rare thing, so I’m not too worried about actually being killed by a terrorist. But everyone in a store being executed, while doing the same thing we all do from time to time, shopping…

Why Walmart Wants to Sell Ethanol

This article on CNN is pretty exciting from several different angles.

If we can make E-85 the fuel of choice in this country, there are no shortage of obvious benifits. The irony of Walmart possibly being a major catalyst for making it happen is just stinking hilarious.

A Theology of Insurance

So I now have a job in the insurance industry, and thanks to being a geeky Fuller grad, I am inclined to try and think theologically about the insurance industry.

Just a few thoughts:

If we want to try and help the world better reflect Christ, then in some respects, pooling our money via insurance premiums, and through them, taking care of those in need, seems to be pretty Christ-like. Now that's nice, but the problem is that all of this is definitely not done for simple altruistic reasons. (Is anything?) There is definitely a profit involved, (which is not by definition bad) but often that profit is created at the expense of those most in need of insurance, by not insuring people with certain limiting factors. Additionally, insurance sales (which I'll be responsible for) play on our fears. On the other hand, being wise and prepared is a good thing. One could argue that by not buying insurance, you're not contributing to the common good, and those in need. (If we all agreed to pool our money and you don't, don't feel bad when you're in need and you don't get anything) On the other hand, there a no shortage of better ways to contribute to the common good.

So in the end, yeah, it's definitely a mixed bag.

What do you think? What are some of your experiences with the insurance industry? In what respects has the industry, or a particular company, reflected the norms of Christ, and in what ways have we dropped the ball? What am I missing here?