Praying exact prayers.

I haven’t heard this teaching in a mighty long time, but I heard it again recently: The preacher was informing her audience (and reminding her regular listeners) that whenever we pray for stuff, we gotta get really, precisely specific. We gotta tell God exactly what we want from him. Otherwise we might not get it. God might give us something which generally resembles what we want, but not exactly what we want. We weren’t clear.

Fr’instance let’s say you’re looking for a job. What you’d love to do is work at a bank, approving loans. But you ask God, “Please Lord, I’d like to work at a bank; any job will do.” And God answers that prayer! But your job at the bank is looking at the dark and blurry photos people send of checks through the bank’s app, and confirming they’re something the bank can actually cash. Hardly your dream job. But hey, God answered your prayer!—you just didn’t specify you didn’t wanna look at bad phone-camera photography eight hours a day.

Ergo we have to specify what we want. You know, kinda like you’re programming ChatGPT. You want the bot to output exactly what you want, without any surprises or errors? You gotta spell it out for it. It’s not that intelligent.

Now. If you’re in any way familiar with the Almighty, you know he’s not a moron like these “artificially intelligent” programs. If you know your bible, you can probably quote this verse from memory, or close enough:

Matthew 6.8 NRSVue

“Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

That’s Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, explaining to his listeners, and to us Christians centuries later, that we don’t need to use many words and empty phrases with God. Mt 6.7 In context he was really talking about pagans who feel they need to call upon their gods with big, complicated incantations—and if they get the incantations wrong, maybe their gods won’t listen!

And y’know, it’s kinda what this preacher is suggesting God is like. That if we get our prayer wording wrong, maybe the LORD won’t listen, and we won’t get exactly what we ask for.

If you’ve heard this teaching before, I’m betting you heard it from the “name it and claim it” crowd. Every time I’ve heard it taught, it came from someone who’s been listening to their preachers, reading their books, and dabbling in their teachings. A number of ’em believe our words are so powerful, we can actually call things into existence. Same as God! Supposedly he’s granted us Christians the same power he has to create stuff. So we gotta be careful with those words, lest we create things we don’t actually want.

Because when we don’t get precise with our prayer requests, we might ask for the right thing, wrongly. And when we do this, God might grin, say, “Well you did ask for it,” and prankishly give us literally what we requested. And now we’re stuck with it.

Like the man in the joke who asked a genie for a million clams. By which he meant dollars—and somehow expected a genie, who shouldn’t even know English, to know American slang. But nope; the genie bestowed him with a million literal clams.

I don’t know what’s worse: Claiming God is as dumb as a chatbot, or God is some kind of prankster god like Cupid, Loki, or Coyote. I should hope you know he’s wiser, and has a far better character, than that. I should hope you know he’s generous, and is eager to bless us far more than we ask or think. Ep 3.20 I mean, they very idea God’s interested in playing dumb games with prayer, oughta offend us a little. It is blasphemy after all.

But if you're way more interested in getting your wishes granted, stands to reason you'll fall for this foolish advice.

The implications of being the Son of Man.

John 5.24-29.

On occasion I’ll hear some Christian preacher claim that Jesus referring to God as “Father”—whether he’s talking about God as his Father, or God as our Father—was a wholly unique thing in history; that somehow the Jews had never before imagined God as their Father. It’s not true—

Deuteronomy 32.6 KJV

Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?

Psalm 89.26 KJV

He shall cry unto me, Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.

Isaiah 63.16 KJV

Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.

Isaiah 64.8 KJV

But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.

Malachi 1.6 KJV

A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?

—but man do preachers like to claim it.

Anyway, Jesus regularly refers to God as our Father, and specifically his Father… but whereas we humans are just creations and adoptive children of our heavenly Father, Jesus is something significantly different. He’s the Son of God. And no, not just “Son of God” in the sense we see in Psalm 2, where the king of Israel is especially adopted by God as his son, and therefore “Son of God” is just a royal title like Messiah. Nope; in the trinity there’s a Father and Son, and the Son became human, and that’s Jesus of Nazareth. He’s fully God same as his Father is fully God.

In John chapter 5, Jesus explains some of that idea. And it’s a doozy of an idea. Pretty sure it broke the brains of most of the Judeans he said it to. Because Jesus is making some pretty cosmic declarations about himself. He already said in the last bit the Father shows the Son everything he does, Jn 5.20 the Son’s gonna raise the dead, Jn 5.21 the Son’s gonna judge the world, Jn 5.22 and you’d better recognize the Son’s authority if you respect the Father. Jn 5.23

Oh, and at the End, the coming in the clouds of the Son of Man? Da 7.13 That’s Jesus. He’s the Son of Man. Did you not notice he constantly calls himself “the Son of Man”? He doesn’t do it to remind people he’s human; anybody who looked at him could tell he was human. He does it to remind people he’s that guy. The guy who does all this:

John 5.24-29 KWL

24 “Amen amen! I promise you the one who hears my word,

and trusts the One who sends me,

has life in the age to come

and doesn’t go into judgment.

Instead they passed from death into life.

25 Amen amen! I promise you the hour comes, and it’s now,

when the dead will hear God’s Son’s voice,

and those who will hear it, will live.

26 For just as the Father has life in himself,

likewise he gives life to the Son to have in himself.

27 The Father gives the Son power to make judgments,

because he’s the Son of Man.

28 Don’t be amazed by this, because the hour comes

in which everyone in the sepulchers

will hear the Son of Man’s voice

29 and come out—

those who do good, into resurrection life;

those who do little, into resurrection judgment.”

You realize this discussion started because some people got bent out of shape over Jesus curing the sick on sabbath. And people think I go off on tangents. Jesus went from, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” Jn 5.17 KJV to “Oh and just to remind you, I’m the Son of Man.”

It’s weird how various pagans will insist Jesus was only a great moral teacher and nothing more, when Jesus straight-up tells people he’s going to raise the dead, judge humanity, and rule the world. And people don’t dismiss him as a demonized madman and stone him to death, because he just cured a guy who was unable to walk for 38 years, and demonized guys can’t do that. The only ones who can do that, outside of hospitals, were empowered by God—and for all you know, might actually be the great End Times figure whose everlasting kingdom shall not be destroyed. Da 7.14

The implications of being God’s son.

John 5.17-23.

After Jesus cured some guy at a pool, the Judeans objected because he’d done so on sabbath. Now in the synoptic gospels, Jesus’s defense was usually along the lines of, “Curing the sick is a good deed, and doing good deeds on sabbath doesn’t violate the Law.” In John however, his defense is entirely different:

John 5.17-18 KWL

17 Jesus answers them, “Even today, my Father works.

And I work.”

18 So this is why the Judeans are seeking all the more to kill him:

Not only is Jesus loosening sabbath custom,

but he’s saying God is his own father,

making himself equal to God.

Y’see, there’s a really profound legal concept embedded in Jesus’s statement, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” Jn 5.17 KJV It’s something you’re gonna miss if you don’t understand how adoption in the Roman Empire worked. Instead you’re gonna wind up making the foolish assumption many an Evangelical has: They think Jesus told the Judeans, “God’s not bound by your customs and Law, and neither am I.” Therefore he can break the Law. With impunity. Kinda like they do.

If Jesus is claiming he has the almighty prerogative to do as he pleases, including break whatever commands he wished, then Jesus could sin like crazy. It’s why lawless Christians love this interpretation—it gives them license to sin like crazy. Grace forgives everything, right? So let’s get nuts!

It turns Jesus into a major jerk—which is an obvious sign that’s not what he meant. If any interpretation of God violates his character, it’s wrong. It’s based on our bad attitudes, not his.

Jesus isn’t claiming he can do as he pleases. He’s claiming he does as the Father does. And the Father is benevolent, kind, generous, compassionate, forgiving. He does good deeds every day of the week, sabbath included. Ever been sick, and got well on a Saturday morning? Looks like God cured you on sabbath too.

Likewise Jesus is kind. His goal is always to demonstrate his Father’s love, and in so doing reveal who the Father is, and the sort of kingdom the Father’s given him to rule. Bear that in mind whenever you read the gospels.

Okay, on to what Jesus actually means. And why it outraged the Judeans.

“But you cured them on 𝘴𝘢𝘣𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘩.”

John 5.8-16, Luke 13.10-17.

So Jesus goes to Jerusalem and cures some guy at a pool. I’ll quote the pertinent part:

John 5.8-9 KWL

8 Jesus tells him, “Get up.

Pick up your bed and walk.”

9 At once the person becomes whole.

He picks up his bed and walks.

It’s the sabbath on that day.

In case you missed it, the last line of verse 9 points out that day was sabbath. That’d be Saturday, the seventh day of the week; the day on which the LORD told Israel he wanted ’em to not work. There’s a whole command about it:

Deuteronomy 5.12-14 KJV

12 Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee. 13 Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work: 14 but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. 15 And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.

Everybody got that? No worky. Not you, nor your kids, nor your employees, nor your animals, nor “shabbos goys”—which is what certain American Jews call their gentile friends who do things for ’em on sabbath so they won’t break the command. They might think having their gentile neighbor pick up a pizza for ’em isn’t suborning a commandment violation. But it totally is.

Pharisees got mighty specific about what constitutes rest. The Mishna has a whole section, or tractate, called Shabbát. It’s all about what you can and can’t do on sabbath. There are 39 specific Pharisee rules about what not to do. No planting, plowing, reaping, gathering, threshing, winnowing, etc. Picking up your bed broke the 39th rule: No moving something from one significant place to another.

Yet here was this guy, carrying his bed. Because Jesus, who cured him, told him to do it.

John 5.10-13 KWL

10 So the Judeans are telling the cured person, “It’s sabbath!

It’s not right for you to pick up your bed.”

11 The cured person answers them, “He who makes me whole—

that person tells me, ‘Pick up your bed and walk.’ ”

12 They question him, “Who is the person

who tells you, ‘Pick it up and walk’?”

13 The cured person didn’t know who Jesus is,

for Jesus slipped into the crowd in that place.

God’s unmerited favor.

Titus 3.4-7.

Previously in Titus, Paul reminded Titus and the church of Crete—the men in particular—to be good people, not “tough guys” and alpha males who are constantly battling everyone else to be the top dog. There are a lot of unhealthy Christians who still try to behave that way—who think we should be that way; be far more like the characters Mel Gibson and Clint Eastwood play in the movies, than Christ Jesus.

We used to be that way, Paul said; stupid, unyielding, evil, envious, hate-filled…

Titus 3.4-7 KWL

4 That’s when the kindness and love for humanity

of our savior God appeared—

5 not because of works of righteousness which we do,

but God saves us because of his mercy,

through washing, rebirth, and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

6 whom he richly pours out over us

through Christ Jesus our savior,

7 so we who are justified in that grace might become heirs,

according to the hope of life in the age to come.

That’s when the Cretans—that’s when we all—encountered God’s grace. While we were still jerks and sinners, while we were still unworthy of salvation and adoption by God, while we didn’t deserve God’s kingdom at all, Christ died for us.

And you’ll find that same sort of grace—that same unmerited favor—throughout the bible. It’s hardly just in the New Testament. It’s everywhere.

When the LORD chose Avram ben Terah, renamed him Abraham, Ge 17.5 promised him the land of כְּנַעַן/Kena‘án (KJV “Canaan”) and had him relocate there, Ge 12.1-3 then promised him an uncountable number of descendants, Ge 13.16 it wasn't because Abraham was a good man. Most of the Abraham stories involve him screwing up one way or another. He wasn't a particularly outstanding specimen of humanity. At all.

Yes he had loads of faith. But his story doesn’t start with that faith. He didn’t have it yet. He acquired it—as the product of his God-experiences. After God appeared to him, gave him a mission, and promised him stuff. After he spent 25 years—not a short time!—following God before he finally got the son God initially promised. God showed up way before Abraham’s faith did.

So why'd the LORD establish a relationship with Abraham and his descendants? Grace. Solely grace. Pure grace.

And he did it again. When the LORD sent Moses to rescue some of Abraham’s descendants from Egypt, then patiently dealt with these Hebrews’ sins thereafter, and finally got their descendants into Canaan and helped them take the land: Again, ’twasn’t because the Hebrews were good people. Without constant divine supervision, they’d turn idolatrous within a month! Miraculously supply ’em with daily bread, and they’d still piss and moan they had it better in Egypt. (Where they were slaves. Where the Egyptians murdered their babies.) The Hebrews were just awful to their God. So why’d the LORD even bother with them? ’Cause he promised Abraham he would. Dt 7.7-8 ’Cause grace. Pure grace.

When Jesus decided to save me, what had I done to merit saving? Not a thing. I was a little kid. Not a good little kid either. I could be a tantrum-throwing brat when I didn’t get my way. (I still can be, which is why I gotta keep that misbehavior in check. God help my poor nurses if ever I go senile.) Plenty of Christians will easily confess they were awful human beings when they first encountered Jesus. Why’d he save us anyway? ’Cause he loves us. ’Cause grace. Pure grace.

Christians love to describe grace as “unmerited favor.” It’s actually more than that—it’s God’s entire attitude towards us, which includes unmerited favor. And often we forget the unmerited part: It really isn’t deserved at all. Totally unfair. Often inappropriate. It breaks all the rules of karma. We shouldn’t get it!

Hence there are a lot of people, Christians included, who still strive to achieve good karma. Who try their darnedest to be good people, try to balance out any bad in their lives, and make it so they do merit God’s good favor. Who think the whole purpose of good deeds is to make ourselves worthy of heaven. They forget God doesn’t work like that. At all. He forgave us already. He makes us worthy of heaven. Ep 1.15-23

Why? Nah; I’m not gonna repeat it anymore. Go back and read it again.

Orthodox Easter.

Today, 5 May 2024, is Easter in the Orthodox Church.

Which is admittedly weird. Orthodox churches have the very same rule for figuring out the date of Easter as the rest of Christendom: It’s the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring. Therefore the Orthodox celebrations of Easter should fall on exactly the same day as Catholic and Protestant and nondenominational churches. Same as they do every other year.

Here’s why they don’t: Orthodox custom insists that Easter has to take place after Passover. It can’t do it before. All the other Christians might do it before—this year, it was nearly a whole month before—but Orthodox Christians point out Jesus died and was raised after going to Jerusalem for Passover, and disconnecting the two holidays is weird and wrong.

And y’know… they have a valid point. I mean, if Easter is the Christian Passover, shouldn’t they happen at the same time, or at least very near the same time?

Most of the reason they don’t, has to do with ancient Christians intentionally trying to disconnect the two holidays. Some of those Christians were most definitely antisemitic. (How you can be antisemitic when our Lord is a Jew still makes no sense to me, but since when have antisemites made sense?) That’s why they chose our formula for determining Easter, instead of scheduling it right after Passover. That way they wouldn’t be dependent on the Hebrew calendar.

But… why be independent of the Hebrew calendar? After all, we’re not independent of the Hebrew scriptures: We still read and revere the Old Testament. We’re not independent of the Law and Prophets; they point us to God’s will for our lives. The Hebrews’ Messiah is our Messiah. You can’t divorce Jesus and Christianity from their historical background without getting weird… and, most of the time, dangerously heretic.

So I’m gonna side with the Orthodox Christians here. I’d still move the holiday back a week, to 28 April; I see no reason at all why Easter can’t take place at the same time as Passover. (Following the usual formula, sometimes it does!) But there shouldn’t be any disconnect at all between Passover and Easter. Jesus is the world’s Passover lamb.

(And for all the other Christians who celebrated Easter back in March: You realize it’s still Easter until Pentecost, right? Oh, you forgot. Well, no problem. Here’s your reminder.)

Happy Easter, folks.

“Call me Pastor.”

Twelve years ago I got into a conversation with some guy at a Starbucks. It’s usually in coffeehouses such conversations take place; I’m in them so often. He asked my name. I gave it. He gave his name as “Pastor Athenodoros”—although Athenodoros isn’t actually his first name, ’cause I changed it for this story, ’cause he’s not gonna look good.

Athenodoros struck up a conversation with me, quickly found out I’m Christian, and we got to talking about our common beliefs. Like most people, he assumed since I’m not clergy, I must know nothing about theology. Which is a really naïve assumption, ’cause there are a lot of dangerously overeducated laymen like me around. Something I learned back in my journalism days: Never underestimate people. Never overestimate ’em either. Just find out who they really are.

There are a lot of dangerously undereducated clergy around too. It just so happens Athenodoros is among them. He tried to instruct me in certain areas… in which he clearly knew very little. I expressed doubt, ’cause scripture, which I quoted where appropriate. Athenodoros tried to correct me, ’cause earnestness, although he couldn’t really think of any proof texts. I didn’t fret about it, ’cause Athenodoros wasn’t wandering into heresy. But Athenodoros did fret about it. Y’see, certain folks believe anyone who disagrees with them is heretic, and think it’s their duty to rescue such heretics from hell; so Athenodoros just had to get through to me and convince me of my errors. I think I kinda ruined his day.

To my point: At some point I addressed him by his given name, which as far as you know is “Athenodoros.” He corrected me there, too.

HE. “It’s Pastor Athenodoros.”

ME. “I’m sorry. Your first name is ‘Pastor’? Or it’s ‘Pastor-Athenodoros’?”

HE. “Pastor’s my title.”

ME. “Oh. But you aren’t my pastor. No offense.”

HE. “Still, I’m a pastor, ordained by God. I should be addressed by that title.”

ME. “Fair enough. If you were a doctor I’d call you Dr. Athenodoros.”

HE. “Exactly.”

ME. “But wouldn’t you think it odd if a person walked up to you, gave you unsolicited medical advice, and told you to call him ‘Doctor’? No offense.”

HE. “…If he saw someone in real need of medical treatment, that is his job.”

ME. “It is. But let’s say his treatment sounds a little, well, off. ‘Here, take this strychnine. It’ll settle your stomach.’ ‘Waitaminnit, isn’t strychnine poison?’ ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m a doctor.’ ‘Yeah but I’m pretty sure strychnine is poison.’ ‘Yeah, but “doctor’s” my title.’ You see the problem?”

HE. “You think I’m trying to poison you?”

ME. “No, I think your intentions are good. But good intentions doesn’t mean good doctrine. Apollos was a great, earnest speaker, but Priscilla and her husband still had to correct a few screwy ideas he had.” Ac 18.24-26

HE. “So you think I have a few screwy ideas.”

ME. “Well I have my doubts. And the whole, ‘You have to call me pastor’ thing doesn’t help. It’s like ‘Don’t look at my reasoning. Look at my title. I’m a pastor. You can trust me.’ ”

HE. “So you don’t trust me?”

ME. “I just met you. I don’t know you. You just came over here and decided you’re my pastor. I have a pastor. If you were my pastor, I would know your voice. But I tell you the truth, I do not know you nor where you came from.”

HE. “All right. Well you have a good day.”

ME. “You too.”

Yeah, I was loosely quoting Jesus. Jn 10.1-18 I think Athenodoros recognized the bible reference, which is why it bothered him. Of course, he might’ve been just as bothered by the fact I wouldn’t blindly accept his authority over me.

I shouldn’t have to tell Americans, of all people, to watch out for people who wanna claim authority over us. But you’d be surprised how often people assume, “Oh, you’re a pastor. Well then you know what you’re talking about.” Many of ’em do. Some really don’t.