Jesus rejects karmic thinking.

Matthew 5.38-42, Luke 6.27-30.

There are plenty of people who incorrectly believe when we’re wronged, humans automatically, instinctively want justice and fairness. Nope! Humans are inherently selfish, and have to be trained and raised to want fairness and justice. Otherwise we’ll want vengeance and satisfaction. And vengeance and satisfaction are neither fair nor just.

Satisfaction doesn’t say “An eye for an eye”—it’s not at all about a proportional response. It’s about punishing people until we’re satisfied. Sometimes for sins against us; sometimes because they simply got in our way, and we’re petty like that. Some of us are satisfied with a sincere-feeling apology, but far more of us are only satisfied with our enemies dying in agony. It looks more like John Wick taking out an entire crime family because one of ’em killed his dog. Or, to use the bible, like Simeon and Levi ben Jacob killing a whole city of Hivites because Shekhém, the son of its prince, raped their sister. Ge 34 Killing Shekhem ben Hamór, I get; killing the city of Shekhém is literally overkill.

In order to mitigate this kind of vengeance, and keep it from escalating into generations-long feuds or genocide, God commanded the Hebrews to limit things to proportional responses.

Exodus 21.23-25 Schocken Bible

23But if harm should occur,

then you are to give life in place of life—

24eye in place of eye, tooth in place of tooth, hand in place of hand, foot in place of foot,

25burnt-scar in place of burnt-scar, wound in place of wound, bruise in place of bruise.

Leviticus 24.17-20 Schocken Bible

17Now a man—when he strikes down any human life,

he is to be put to death, yes, death!

18One who strikes the life of an animal is to pay for it, life in place of life.

19And a man—when he causes a defect in his fellow:

as he has done, thus is to be done to him—

20break in place of break, eye in place of eye, tooth in place of tooth;

as he has caused a defect in [another] human, thus is to be caused in him.

Deuteronomy 19.16-21 Schocken Bible

16When there arises a witness of malice against a man,

testifying against him [by] defection [from God],

17and the two men who have the quarrel stand before the presence of YHWH,

before the presence of the priests or the judges who are [there] in those days:

18the judges are to inquire well;

and [if] here, a false witness is the witness, falsely has he testified against his brother:

19you are to do to him

as he schemed to do to his brother.

So shall you eradicate the evil from your midst!

20Those who remain will hear and will be-awed;

they will not continue to do any more according to this evil practice in your midst.

21Your eye is not to take pity—

[rather] life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot!

I mean, if God hadn’t said anything, you’d get the more common practice of the death penalty for minor infractions; of an entire nation getting wiped out for one person’s crime. I was gonna say “more common ancient practice,” but it still happens. World War 1 started with an assassination.

But regardless of even these commandments in the Law of Moses, God’s standard is not proportional response, reciprocity, or karma as it’s often called. It’s not criminal justice. It’s grace.

And that’s the core of Jesus’s teaching in his Sermon on the Mount. He doesn’t want his followers to seek vengeance, or call it “justice” but really it’s vengeance. He wants us to be generous. And that includes generous attitudes towards those who wrong us.

Matthew 5.38-42 KWL

38“You hear it being said,

‘Eye for eye’ and ‘tooth for tooth.’ Ex 21.24, Lv 24.20, Dt 19.21

39I tell you:

Don’t hold your ground against evil.

Instead, whoever strikes your right cheek:

Turn the other to him as well.

40To one who wants judgment against you,

and wants to take your tunic:

Give them your robe as well.

41To whoever presses you into service for one mile:

Go with them for two.

42To whoever asks of you:

Give!

You ought not turn away

one who asks to borrow from you.”

Luke 6.27-30 KWL

27“But I tell you who listen:

Love your enemies.

Do good to your haters.

28Bless your cursers.

Pray for your accusers.

29To one who whacks you on the cheek:

Offer the other as well.

To one who takes from you your robe:

You ought not hold back your tunic.

30Give to everyone who asks you.

From anyone who takes away what’s yours,

don’t ask it back.”

Trinity Sunday.

For western Christians, Trinity Sunday is the week after Pentecost; for eastern Christians it is Pentecost, or part of Pentecost. It’s the day Christians are meant to observe, celebrate, and teach about, the trinity.

God’s a trinity. We know there‘s one God; we know Jesus is God, and Jesus’s Father is obviously also God, and the Holy Spirit is God. Ancient Christians determined even though there are three persons who are God, we still have and recognize only one God, and came up with very basic explanations for the paradox. (And every time we venture beyond these explanations, we either start denying God’s threeness or God’s oneness, so really we oughta just leave it at that.)

Once the ancient Christians made the trinity, or our understanding of it, a doctrine, they incorporated it into their Sunday worship liturgies. Every time Christians gathered together, they’d affirm God is a trinity. They’d sing Gloria Patri/“Glory Be to the Father,” a still-popular hymn; here’s the Anglican Church’s English translation.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,

and to the Holy Ghost.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:

world without end. Amen.

Roman Catholics use the same words, but “Holy Spirit” instead of “Holy Ghost.”

Anyway for centuries, there wasn’t a special day for observing the trinity, although every once in a while there was a push for one—which church leadership resisted on the grounds that we observe the trinity every Sunday. Eventually Pope John 22 (reigned 1316–34) ordered a Feast of the Trinity for the Sunday after Pentecost—figuring that was the most appropriate time, ’cause humanity didn’t know God was a trinity till the Spirit descended on Pentecost in the year 33.

So what do Christians do for Trinity Sunday? Mostly just read the Athanasian Creed. Sometimes there are trinitarian prayers in the liturgy; sometimes the pastor preaches about the trinity. That’s about it.

Liberal and conservative theology.

If you’ve heard of theology, you’ve likely heard of “conservative theology” and “liberal theology”; of “conservative theologians” and “liberal theologians.” And you might presume you know what those mean: A conservative theologian is probably one who respects tradition and the bible, and a liberal theologian doesn’t.

Roughly that’d be accurate. Very, very roughly.

Because everybody’s kinda decided where they are on the theological spectrum. So, some woman might consider herself a theological conservative because she upholds the bible’s authority so very, very much. And most of us might agree, ’cause believing the bible is an infallible theological authority, is what we’d consider theological conservatism. But another person, a man, might insist absolutely not; she’s obviously a liberal theologian. Why’s this? Well, she’s a woman. He insists the practice of doing and teaching theology is only for men, ’cause only men can teach, ’cause bible says so. She’s defying bible; ergo she doesn’t consider it an infallible theological authority, ergo she’s a liberal theologian.

I likewise consider the bible an infallible theological authority. I’d call myself a conservative theologian for this reason. But of course I’ve been called a liberal theologian—for a number of reasons. I believe the scriptures fully support women in Christian leadership, but sexists insist they fully don’t, and I must be twisting them to come to my conclusions; ergo I’m a liberal theologian.

Or I’ve expressed political views which they consider liberal. I was raised by political conservatives (and they’re still conservative), but as I became an adult and followed Jesus further, I chose to adopt a few “liberal” views because I think they’re consistent with Jesus’s teachings, and my former conservative views are not. I’m certainly not “liberal” across the board, ’cause I think my conservative views are likewise consistent with Jesus. It’s a hodgepodge of positions. But to political conservatives, any political heresy—for that’s what civic idolaters consider it—automatically makes me a “liberal theologian,” and untrustworthy when I discuss religion. Their partisanship takes priority over their Christianity. Or mine. Or yours.

Or it’s simply because I’m Pentecostal and they’re not; or because I uphold the ancient Christian creeds and they don’t. And you’d think upholding the creeds would make me considered more conservative than they, not less. But they covet the label “conservative,” and if I’m in any way wrong in their eyes, I get the label “liberal.” That’s my punishment for believing things they don’t.

So yeah—most of the time “liberal theologian” is simply a pejorative. Doesn’t always even mean liberal! An arch-conservative Jehovah’s Witness theologian, who interprets bible so strictly it gets ridiculous, who thinks God’s gonna smite everyone in the world but him, would be called a “liberal theologian” simply because he’s heretic. Liberal bad, conservative good.

“A man after God’s own heart.”

1 Samuel 13.13-14.

Throughout the books of the Old Testament which we call the “Deuteronomistic history”—’cause their author was showing how ancient Israel didn’t follow the book of Deuteronomy, and this is the reason the Israelis were banished from their land—the kings of northern and southern Israel were all compared with the greatest of all their kings, the third king of Israel, David ben Jesse.

True, Solomon ben David had expanded Israel’s borders and influence to their greatest limit, was ridiculously wise and outrageously wealthy, and had built God a really cool gold-covered cedar temple. But none of that matters to the Deuteronomist. David was his absolute favorite. Every king who followed, either “walked in all the way of David his father,” 2Ki 22.2 or “walked in all the sins” of some other forebear, but certainly not David. 1Ki 15.3 David was the paragon of what Israeli kings oughta be, and if you wanted to be a true “son of David,” you’d be just like David.

But wait: Didn’t David murder one of his loyal soldiers in order to steal his woman? Well yeah, he did do that. The Deuteronomist faithfully recorded the story in 2 Samuel 11. David was also a seriously lousy father; Amnon was a rapist, Adonijah an insurrectionist, and Absalom was both. The character flaws David exhibited would completely disqualify him from Christian leadership—which just goes to show you what an abysmally low bar there was for good kings. Not for nothing did we Americans decide to do away with monarchy. Power corrupts, y’know.

Still, the Deuteronomist loved him some David, and plenty of Christians are big fans too. More than one of my pastors, growing up, did entire sermon series on David. Multiple times! Regularly pointing out that, seriously flawed human being or not, David was bananas for the LORD, and loved him like crazy. David is, they loved to point out, “a man after God’s own heart.” As should we be.

They’re not wrong! But here’s why I decided to write a Context article about the phrase, “man after God’s own heart”: What they mean by that phrase, and what the scriptures mean by that phrase, are two wholly different things. And whenever Christians preach about being a person “after God’s own heart,” they’re not preaching the biblical meaning. They’re preaching their own idea.

Their idea, which we see all over the place in popular Christian culture, looks like this bit from Albert Barnes’ 1834 book Notes on the New Testament: Necessary and Practical, vol. III, Acts of the Apostles, which you can nowadays find bundled in a massive one-volume edition called Notes on the Whole Bible.

A man after mine own heart— This expression is found in 1 Samuel 13.14. The connection shows that it means simply a man who would not be rebellious and disobedient as Saul was, but would do the will of God and keep his commandments. This refers, doubtless, rather to the public than to the private character of David; to his character as a king. It means that he would make the will of God the great rule and law of his reign, in contradistinction from Saul, who, as a king, had disobeyed God. At the same time it is true that the prevailing character of David, as a pious, humble, devoted man, was that he was a man after God's own heart, and was beloved by him as a holy man. He had faults; he committed sin; but who is free from it? He was guilty of great offenses; but he also evinced, in a degree equally eminent, repentance (see Psalm 51); and not less in his private than his public character did he evince those traits which were prevailingly such as accorded with the heart, that is, the earnest desires, of God. Barnes at Acts 13.22

In more contemporary English: David was a devout, humble man who upheld and promoted God’s will. And when he sinned, ’cause David sinned big-time, he repented big-time. He just loved God so, so much.

In fact the way I’ve heard preachers describe him, David is “after God’s own heart” in that David chased after God’s own heart. He wanted to follow God and his will, so so much; just look at all the psalms he wrote about loving God, and calling upon him, and trusting in him; “the Lord is my shepherd” and all that. Seriously, bananas for the LORD.

I mean, doesn’t this sound like what “man after God’s own heart” oughta mean?

“I don’t know what to pray.”

Every once in a while I’ll hear this from new Christians: “I know I’m supposed to pray, but I don’t know what to pray. I don’t know what to tell God.”

Ridiculously simple answer to this one! Pray the Lord’s Prayer. Memorize a good translation of it, and tell it to God.

Matthew 6.9-13 MEV

9“Therefore pray in this manner:

Our Father who is in heaven,

hallowed be Your name.

10Your kingdom come;

Your will be done

on earth, as it is in heaven.

11Give us this day our daily bread.

12And forgive us our debts,

as we forgive our debtors.

13And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

And if reciting this prayer leads you to riff on it—to think, “Oh, here are some specific examples of ‘daily bread’ I’m gonna need”—share that. Or “I wanna apologize for specific ‘debts’ I owe God”—talk about that. Or “I need help forgiving my debtors”—ask for that. The Lord’s Prayer is just a starting point, and if it inspires you to pray other stuff, good!—you’re doing it right.

Okay yeah, sometimes it’s not gonna inspire you to pray other stuff. You’ll whip through these words, and you won’t know what more to tell God. Relax; it happens. Prayer’s a new and tricky thing for you. It’s why the Didache recommended newbies pray the Lord’s Prayer thrice a day. [8.3] ’Cause the more often you recite it—the more comfortable you get with these words—the easier it gets to start thinking about what more you might wanna tell God.

Oaths, honesty, and multiple levels of truth.

Matthew 5.33-37.

Switching topics from divorce, Jesus next moves on in his Sermon on the Mount, to oaths. (Which isn’t entirely unrelated to oaths, ’cause y’know, marriage oaths.) This passage doesn’t have a parallel in the other gospels; it’s unique to Matthew.

Matthew 5.33-37 KWL

33“Again, you hear the oldtimers say this:

‘You will not perjure,’ Lv 19.2

and you will give your oaths to the Lord?

34I tell you:

Don’t swear altogether.

And not by heaven,

because it’s ‘God’s throne.’ Ps 11.4

35Nor by earth,

because it’s ‘the footstool of his feet.’ Is 66.1

Nor by Jerusalem,

because it’s ‘the mighty king’s city.’ Ps 48.2

36Nor ought you swear by your head,

because you’re not able to make one hair

white or black.

37Make your words ‘Yes yes, no no.’

Anything more than this is evil.”

Verse 33 is a little tricky, because the two things Jesus quotes “the oldtimers” as saying, consist of a bible quote, and a non-bible quote. And the bible quote isn’t a precise bible quote. Doesn’t bluntly, briefly say “Thou shalt not perjure,” in the scriptures. It’s a bit longer:

Leviticus 19.11-12 Schocken Bible

11You are not to steal,

you are not to lie,

you are not to deal-falsely, each-man with his fellow!

12You are not to swear by my name falsely,

thus profaning the name of your God—

I am YHWH!

Likewise verses which back up this idea:

Numbers 30.3 Schocken Bible

[Any] man who vows a vow to YHWH

or swears a sworn-oath, to bind himself by a binding-obligation:

he is not to desecrate his word;

exactly as what goes out of his mouth, he is to do.

Deuteronomy 23.22-24 Schocken Bible

22When you vow a vow to YHWH your God,

you are not to delay paying it,

for YHWH your God will require, yes, require it of you,

and it shall be [considered] a sin in you.

23But if you hold back from vowing,

it shall not be [considered] a sin in you.

24What issues from your lips, you are to keep,

and you are to do

as you vowed to YHWH your God, willingly,

as you promised with your mouth.

Swearing to God was a big deal. Still is a big deal. It’s why judges and courtrooms, despite separation of church and state, still tack “So help me God” to the end of oaths—it’s optional, but it’s gonna get religious people to take it seriously, and hypocrites to pretend to take it seriously. When we take the LORD’s name in vain, and break our oaths, or never meant to follow ’em to begin with, it’s sin.

But Jesus takes it one step further: Don’t swear, because you shouldn’t have to swear: Aren’t you always honest? Don’t you always tell the truth? Or are you—like a politician who lies the rest of the time, but never wants to suffer the consequences of perjury—only truthful when you’re under oath? How does that sort of behavior make you a God-follower?

Plus Jesus punctures all the other things people of his day swore by. I’ll get to those.

Pentecost.

Our word Pentecost comes from the Greek τὴν ἡμέραν τῆς πεντηκοστῆς/tin iméran tis pentikostís, “the 50th day” Ac 2.1 —the Greek term for שָׁבֻעֹת֙/Šavuót, which falls 50 days after Passover. It’s also called the Feast of Weeks; it’s when the ancient Hebrews harvested their wheat. Ex 34.22 On 6 Sivan in the Hebrew calendar, they were expected to come to temple and present a grain offering to the LORD. Dt 16.9-12 Oh, and tithe a tenth of it to celebrate with—and every third year, put that tithe in the community granary.

Why do Christians celebrate a Hebrew harvest festival? (And have separate “harvest parties” in October?) Well we don’t celebrate it Hebrew-style: We consider it the last day of Easter, and we celebrate it for a whole other reason. In the year 33—the year Jesus died, rose, and was raptured—the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus’s new church on Pentecost. Happened like so:

Acts 2.1-4 NRSVue

1When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

The speaking-in-tongues part is why the 20th century Christian movement which has a lot of tongues-speaking in it, is called Pentecostalism. Weirdly, a lot of us Pentecostals never bother to keep track of when Pentecost rolls around. I don’t get it. I blame anti-Catholicism a little. Anyway, Luke goes on:

Acts 2.5-13 NRSVue

5Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Christians like to call this “the first Pentecost.” Obviously it wasn’t; the first Pentecost, or Šavuót, or Feast of Weeks, was after the Exodus. It’s when every devout Jew on earth was bringing their grain offerings to temple on that very day, 25 May 33. And suddenly a house full of Galileans broke out in every language they knew—spoken to as if to them personally.

Got their attention.