Stone's Fence

I guess I'd better explain that. January 1 Lyman and I with 16 others from Asbury Seminary boarded a plane bound for Tel Aviv Israel, starting a 3 week odyssey through the geographical "real world" of the Bible. Our class is taught at Jerusalem University College, which some of you remember as the "Institute for Holy Land Studies (IHLS)" and even older ones among you recall it as "The American Institute."

Our flight could not have gone better. Though we had students originating from Alaska, California, St. Louis, Atlanta, and Cincinnatti, everybody's flights left on time, all connections were made, all luggage arrived, and our plane touched down in Tel Aviv right on time. The plane was spacious, bright, clean, and comfortable--like flying used to be.

So...you ask, what about hell?

When Jesus used the word "hell" in the New Testament, he actually used a term "Gehenna" which was a graecized version of the Hebrew "ge hinnom." The valley of Hinnom, in Jerusalem, was considered to be the most unclean place on the planet. When the Judean king Manasseh started offering human sacrifices in Jerusalem, he did this in the Valley of Hinnom. The valley was considered so defiled, so corrupted, so polluted, that it was good for nothing but to serve as the city dump. It was considered permenantly and irredeemably unclean. Imagine a combination of a compost pile for total uncleanness, and you've got it. For more exciting information about how totally gross the Valley of Hinnom was, check out the article in the Anchor Bible Dictionary "Hinnom Valley (PLACE)." It was so bad, Jeremiah and others just called it "The Valley" (as in, you know which one!). This place that festered with worms, steamed with the stench of decay, was what Jesus alluded to when he spoke of Hell. Hell is the garbage heap of the universe, the place utterly beyond the reach of holiness or redemption.

Well, Jerusalem University College is actually located on a ridge directly overlooking...the valley of Hinnom! And Lyman and I have a FOURTH FLOOR room, so we are literally "in the tower." I almost expected to see somebody chained to the wall. Just around the corner of our room is a door, and through it we enter onto the parapet roof of JUC with a panoramic view from Jaffa Gate on the right (still don't have my compas points figured out here) all the way past the church where archaeologists (from JUC!) discovered the silver amulet scroll containing the Aaronic Blessing, all the way down to the left where the Kidron Valley joins the Valley of Hinnom. We also see some kind of windmill thing, but it's nighttime right now and we aren't sure what that is.

So in short, our room is wonderful. Not luxurious, but then we don't plan to be in it very much. But to be able to walk 25 feet and step out onto that high roof and see the city unfold before us (okay, the back side of the city), got a bunch of us saying deep and brilliant things like "Hey, we're really, you know, HERE" and "This is it, this is real!" You can always count on theologians for profundity, can't you!

So we love our room overlooking hell...and do you know what? The prophet Jeremiah said something about the Valley of Hinnom when he spoke of the "New Covenant." Remember that passage in Jeremiah 31?

Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.

This passage is so familiar, but do you know what Jeremiah says a little later? He possibly speaks of that most defiled, most unclean, unholy, irredeemable place on the planet:

Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the city will be rebuilt for the LORD from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. The measuring line will go out farther straight ahead to the hill Gareb; then it will turn to Goah. And the whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be holy to the LORD; it will not be plucked up or overthrown anymore forever.

I'll have to get back with you on these gates and locations, but it is possible, even likely, that a "valley of the dead bodies" reaching "as far as the brook Kidron" in a larger list that encircles the whole city could well include...the Valley of Hinnom.

I'll wait and see if my geography is right...it has not been my strong suit in the past! But it's worth mulling over the possibility of the grace and power of God to make "holy to the Lord" even the most putrid, rotten, unclean place or thing imaginable. If that's in view, I suppose there is hope for us.

And maybe having a room overlooking "hell" could be like having a front-row seat...on heaven!

January 3, 2006

The play Our Town is an ironic, bitter-sweet exposé of the frailty, foibles, parochialism, and folly of human relationships as portrayed in the interactions of a small New England town. At one point, the “director,” who supplies commentary on the dialogue, remarks, “The closer you get to the human race, the more you find layers and layers of nonsense!”

“Layers” well expresses the theme of today’s introductory walk through Jerusalem. The day began with an explanation of how ancient city sites, known as tels, take shape. Humans occupy a site, then for some reason, abandon it. The structures they built fall into ruin, soon to be built over by others. These new occupants get conquered, die out naturally, or give up and move to greener pastures, and the structures they built fall into ruin. As centuries pass, the ebb and flow of human occupation add layer upon layer of debris to the site until at last, the classic flat-topped hill so characteristic of the Middle East emerges. Locked in the layers of the tel lie the raw materials for the story of those human communities–their frailty, foibles, parochialism, and folly. Layers and layers of…nonsense? Ordinary life? Are they much different?

Sitting in what the tourist maps label as “The Upper Room” we encountered…layers. The pointed arches spoke of medieval European presence. Stylized Arabic calligraphy and a niche oriented toward Mecca strongly attested to Islam’s habitation of the site. The pelicans adorning the capitals of ancient columns bespoke Christian faith–the pelican being an ancient symbol for Christ. Below us allegedly reside the bones of David (Convenient for the tourist maps!). Thus we saw in one room signs of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish presence spanning the centuries: layers. So is it the site of the Last Supper? I kinda doubt it, but that room bore its own witness to the faith realties that have shaped Jerusalem’s past and will doubtless shape its destiny. Layers and layers of…faith? Conflict?

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre never impressed me much. I saw it in a brief visit in 1977 and it offended my protestant sensibility. Too much ritual, smells-and-bells–the very stuff hat had disaffected me from Christianity in my younger years. Gordon’s Calvary and the “garden tomb” comported with my expectations then. Would things strike me differently this time? Oddly enough, yes and no. Yes, in that I have probably become more appreciative of ritual and tradition in the intervening 28 years. Yes, in that I appreciate the historical case for this traditional location more than before. But then, the layers. This holy place is controlled by six different Christian communions. The Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Armenian , Coptic, and Ethiopian Churches–all claim a share in the place of Christ’s death and resurrection. And they all claim it by right of primitivity. The NT features Greek language and locations, Roman Catholics claim the first pope, Syrians claim the first use of the label “Christian,” Coptics boast the childhood of Jesus, and so it goes. We were there first, with the most. The desire to control this holy place sparks disputes, often violent, among these Christian clans. And who has to impose order, if not peace, among the Christians? Most recently, the Israeli police, and in the past, the Muslim authorities. The very keys to the building are held by a Muslim family. At least in this one instance of Christian divisiveness, protestants,the usual culprits in schism, played no role. In fact, when the dome over the site of the resurrection needed repairs, a Presbyterian from California got the contract! So even at the place of the resurrection of Jesus, the central moment of our faith, we found…layers. Layers and layers of…faith? Power struggles? Nonsense?

Apparently nobody has taught the Israelis about lines. Standing in line and waiting ones turn is practically a more sacred obligation to us Americans than the Ten Commandments. But in Jerusalem, lines are just boring. Why stand in line when you can push and shove, shouldering folks out of your way, getting what you want? But when I looked at their faces, I saw no rudeness, no inconsiderateness. I just saw people different from me. They had different rules. Are politeness and civility (as I understand them) just…layers? And looking at all the different people in Jerusalem, one sees layers of and layers of sheer humanity. Lubavitch Jews with their top hats and curling side-locks. Vendors with their aggressive but (to me anyhow) appealing attempts to attract our interest. Languages of all kinds, every tonality, spoken all at once. Religious pilgrims, mere tourists, history and geography buffs (our group!), secularists, merchants, foreigners, and natives–all superimposed on one city.

Actually, in Jerusalem, the whole concept of “native” or “indigenous” becomes fragile, coming under constant pressure. Pressure is perhaps another way to describe this place. The Psalmist says “Jerusalem…is built as a city that is compact together.” (Psa 122:3) “Compact” suggests confinement, and the city is certainly that: pinned in by deep ravines and high ridges. “Compact” also suggests compression: people are pushed together and compelled either to conflict or companionship, or at least tense coexistence. But the Hebrew seems more hopeful. The text שֶׁחֻבְּרָה־לָּהּ יַחְדָּו uses a verb that connotes companionship, partnership, maybe even agreement. The RSV says “bound firmly,” while the NLT renders, “knit together as a single unit.” Ironically, though, the LXX seems to capture both the meaning and the hope of the Hebrew, with η μετοχη αυτης επι το αυτο “whose fellowship is complete.”

So…a city of layers. A life of layers. But whether they are “layers and layers of nonsense” or the culmination of fellowship remains the dominant, and unanswered question, not merely of Jerusalem but of each one of us as we order our lives in obedience to the One who Himself felt grieved that Jerusalem did not grasp its moment in God’s plan.

So tonight, I pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and for myself as well.

Jan 4, 2006

For some reason, everything I saw today in Jerusalem brought the expression "getting in over one's head" to mind. We spent the day mainly looking at Jerusalem in the OT era, focusing on Hezekiah and David. Both men, in a way, got in over their heads. Both men, by God's grace, triumphed over the adversity that sought then out.

The day began with 4 hours of lecture on rock formations underlying the land of Israel, rainfall patterns and the agricultural year. Lyman especially seemed to like this one. I confess at first I expected to be pretty bored. In a way, I was "in over my head" because I have never had a head for data like that. It always struck me as having the theological power of a logarithm table. But happily, I found myself realizing how such things altered the way life felt for the ancient occupants of this land. I knew I had been changed when I realized I was sorry that we had dry weather predicted, since we learned that the January rains are vital to the agricultural cycle. I guess God smiled on us, because we got rain in the afternoon, and rain is predicted all day tomorrow! But rain or not, mud or not, we are going to Bethlehem, the Herodian, and other points outlying Jerusalem. Now we really might be in over our heads!

But the real excitement was our afternoon field trip. Once again, we walked Jerusalem, focusing on Old Testament sites. We looked at a section of wall built by King Hezekiah that is mentioned in the Bible but was only recently found. This old (about 701 BC) wall has been excavated in a children's play area in an apartment complex. It's cool to see kids swinging and playing near the site of a 2700 year old city wall. The Bible actually criticises Hezekiah for demolishing people's homes who were in the path of the new wall, (see Isaiah 22:10) and in one area, you can actually see where a section of wall dozed over a small home.Somehow it put me in mind of Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy.

But in a way, Hezekiah was in over his head. He had launched a religious reform, which meant breaking off ties with Assyria, the dominant empire. Withholding tribute provided economic resources to build new fortifications, but when Sennacherib actually came calling to collect on the overdue payment, his might terrified the Judeans and Isaiah chides Hezekiah for trusting in all his preparations rather than in God. Without trusting in God, he really was in over his head!

Among Hezekiah's preparations was the improvement of the water system. I finally got to do what I've wanted to do since my brief visit in 1977: wade all the way through Hezekiah's tunnel. Lyman and I had a HOOT doing this. Not everyone in the group found the prospect of dark, thigh/hip deep water, very narrow places, very low ceilings, and 1750 feet of watercourse to wade sounded like fun. Lyman and I and the seminary folks we were with really had a great time doing that. One student overcame some claustrophic anxiety about the walk and triumphantly finished it. Yes, we were wet to the waist and cold, but all agreed we now had bonded in a big way.

I always thought Hezekiah dug his famous tunnel to prevent the Assyrians from getting to the water. But we looked at recent excavations showing a very ancient, gigantic quartet of guard towers built from massive stones that protected the Gihon spring. Now…we don't know why Hezekiah dug his famous tunnel. So I guess the archaeologists will continue to be employed! But again, we saw the signs that old Hezekiah was in over his head, just as some of us worried we'd be in water over our heads. But God helped Hezekiah, and he is celebrated for this incredible engineering achievement.

But I've jumped ahead of myself. Between Hezekiah's wall and the water tunnel, we saw something very exciting that has only been public for a short while, and is still being debated. Archaeologists here think they have uncovered the remains of Davids palace! For years a particular spot has been theorized as the probable location of David's palace, but it took a very long time to get a project together to dig the site. The area is pretty much closed, and inside they are building metal scaffolding over it, but I still got a peek at some of the remains. That was really heart-pumping.

We also saw the remains of the Jebusite wall of Jerusalem. The Jebusites held the city for centuries before David captured it. Melchizedek, whom Abraham encountered, was likely a Jebusite. Even though the city of David is lower than all the surrounding hills, I couldn't help but wonder at the excellent fields of fire that defenders of that citadel would enjoy over advancing attackers. No wonder in 2 Samuel 5 the Jebusites boast that their city could not be taken. Maybe as he reflected on his ambition to take Jerusalem, David wondered if he was in over his head? History has shown otherwise, for he took the city, radically altered its character, gave it a place in world history, and it in turn has changed the history of the world.

I couldn't help but think about all the times I have felt I was out of my depth. I wonder if we ever really grow without leaving our comfort zone? Do we ever really achieve anything of worth, whether "secular" or spiritual, unless we dare to move out of our accustomed depths, dare to get in over our heads?

January 5, 2006

I couldn’t believe my eyes! Of course, I knew what it meant: don't disturb the atmosphere inside this church with tour-guide speeches. Still, on another level, just outside the “Church of All Nations,” this sign powerfully expressed the attitude of the church at large as many of us experience it. So often it seems that we play one kind of biblical knowledge, historical-cultural-geographical, against another kind, namely, devotional and theological. Some contemporary trends in biblical theology almost distort the concept of reading the Bible “canonically” (an excellent thing) into reading the Bible “on the flat” with no depth dimension of historical and cultural insight (a poor thing). It’s almost like using ignorance as a method!

Explanation is exactly what a study of the land of Israel strives for, and the explanation often powerfully clarifies and reinforces the meaning of the text. Once we see how poignantly relevant the text was to its ancient readers, it becomes easier to allow its full impact to fall on us. How could ignorance ever be a path to deeper living of the biblical message?

For example, we were looking at the northern approach to Jerusalem. Maybe you saw the attack on Jerusalem by Salahadin in the movie Kingdom of Heaven. Remember that long, wide, flat field of fire and rolling siege machines? In reality, that would be hard to do. Jerusalem is surrounded on three sides by steep valleys and very high ridges. In fact, both the Mount of Olives on the East and the Western Hill on the west, not to mention the even higher watershed ridge farther west, loom over the Temple Mount, and even higher over the “city of David.” The northern approach is really the only one that offers the slightest chance for such an attack, and it’s actually a pretty good one.

In fact, on first glance from the north, one almost has to laugh out loud at the boast of the Psalmist in Psa 48:1-2

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
In the city of our God, His holy mountain.
Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth,
Is Mount Zion in the far north,
The city of the great King.

The “beautiful in elevation” part is the stretch. From the north, your eye starts very high at the Mount of Olives, and goes down toward the City of David, the moves up to the western hill, up past the Kidron Valley to the western watershed ridge, and up to the northern hills. It doesn’t look like the highest place! Nor does it look like the “far north.” So how can the Psalmist say this?

A likely explanation would start with the description. What mountain is in the far north? What mountain would every Israelite have considered the highest? What mountain would have universally divine associations? The answer is easy: it’s Mount Hermon, in the extreme north, it is visible in good weather from far away. It’s the sacred mountain of Canaanite religion, the abode of the gods. In fact, in Deut. 4:48, Mt. Hermon is actually called “Mt. Sion!” (Note the very slightly different spelling)

So what’s the psalmist doing? He is highjacking the religious imagery of the culture and applying it to Yahweh’s mountain in Jerusalem, Mt. Zion. So even though this mountain in fact is not the highest, and might not be situated tactically in the best position because it’s not the high ground, the Psalmist boldly declares Yahweh’s power by applying to Zion the language that befitted Mt. Hermon. So our Psalm is a bold act of cultural…imperialism! The Psalmist can only do this because he knows that the so-called gods that allegedly live on Mt. Hermon are not gods at all, and that Yahweh alone is God. By commandeering this language from the culture, the Psalmist declares the sovereignty and glory of Yahweh. This is real “contextualization.” Rather than capitulate to the culture and modify his faith to suit pagan surroundings, the Psalmist takes over the imagery of the culture and re-shapes it to express the truth he already knows about Yahweh, illustrating an important point: True contextualization is translating the faith to make it culturally accessible, not transforming the faith to make it culturally acceptable.

But this geography can cut in another direction. Viewed from the south, one really sees how the heart of Jerusalem sits in the bottom of a very high-lipped bowl sweeping down from the mount of Olives and back up the Western Hill. From the south, you can see the northern slopes, gentler but still ascending. This picture makes concrete Yahweh’s threat given through the prophet in 1 Kings 21:13:

I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.

Once you’ve seen the actual “dish” or bowl shape of the area of Jerusalem, this image of judgment takes on new force.

All of this is about explanation. A great many Christians seem only to want to use the text, not to understand it. But merely to use the text, whether devotionally, homiletically, or theologically, seems to me to reduce it to an object. But to understand the text is to take a huge risk: we give the text its own voice. We allow it to occupy its own space. This is not cold, impersonal “enlightenment” objectivity. This is simply listening to the text, letting it’s alien voice speak without holding it hostage to our needs and questions. Somehow, this listening models what it might mean to listen to God, and indeed, to listen to others: we grant them their own voice, we seek to understand. To seek and accept an explanation is to release it from serving our immediate needs, and allow it to articulate its concerns.

As the sun set today, we stood on the remains of Hezekiah’s summer palace in Ramat Rachel. It’s the highest point between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. From there, you can see all the traffic moving though that area. Reading the Bible in isolation, it’s easy to think of Hezekiah as a flannel-graph saint. The great reformer king, the pious man of prayer, the companion of the prophet Isaiah. But hints in the Bible itself, seen in the context of what geographical and archaeological explanations offer, Hezekiah steps off the flannel-graph and becomes a real king. His faith in Yahweh is just as real, but it is lived out in the midst of the tactical, economic, and political realities of his time. This was a faith that dug water channels, built walls, constructed a summer palace. His faith prompted acts of great daring, and yet he also had his moments of struggle and at times, was bitterly criticized by Isaiah for trusting too much in his skill and tactics and not sufficiently in Yahweh. Somehow, the real Hezekiah seems a better and more challenging person to know than the flannel-graph saint of a merely literary interpretation that remains confined to the isolated words on the page. The historical explanation doesn’t make the Bible come alive, it shows us that in fact, the Bible is alive already!

Imagine being given a fish. You have been asked to explain everything you can about the fish, but you have one rule: you may only refer to the fish, not to anything else. You might well come up with some fine observations about the fish, but how meaningful would that analysis be…without mentioning water? Indeed, absent something outside the fish–water–many explanations about the fish might actually be clever mistakes. Logically coherent, plausible, but dead wrong. In the same way, we can never finally explain or understand the biblical characters and what they did and said apart from the water they swam in, the air they breathed, the mountains they climbed, the literature they read, and the challenges they faced. So…no explanations in the church? Only if you want flannel-graph saints.

Somehow, I think we need more than that.

Merry Christmas From Israel (Really!)
January 6, 2006

Yes, that’s right, I said “Merry Christmas!” You see, a good many Christians in Israel, especially the ones controlling the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the Nativity, belong to one of of the Eastern Orthodox communions. They celebrate Christams on the “12th Day” of Christmas, which this year fell on Jan. 6. So that means that when we visited Bethlehem on Jan 5, we were there on “local” Christmas Eve. And this morning (Jan 6) during free time, as we searched through the Christian Quarter for our favorite money changer, we discovered he was apparently…closed for Christmas Day! As it turned out, he wasn’t, and opened up promptly at his regular hour, but it was an interesting thing to ponder: we were disappointed for a moment that it was Christmas!

That is just one of several fun ironies or jarring incongruities I’ve felt here. But first, more on Christmas. Our first reminder of the special day came as we wandered down a very narrow street and began to hear drums beating. We then saw a group marching up the street toward us. Momentarily I feared this was some political demonstration, but soon realized it was the Boy Scouts! How did I know? First, they are the only group in Israel that marches around in uniforms without carrying automatic weapons. Second, the fleur de lis insignia is the universal sign of Scouting. It was a happy, smiling group of young people, leading the Orthodox clergy to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for their Christmas Day celebration.

We got a sweeping view of the whole city of Jerusalem from the bell tower of the Church of the Redeemer–having climbed a very steep, long, and low-ceilinged spiral staircase, we moved on to the western wall. One of our number went down, got a yarmulke, and went to the wall while we all admired him from a distance. There I observed two more intriguing ironies. First, unlike my first visit to the wall in 1977, there is now a full-blown “operation” going on there. The plaza is filled with tables where conservative Jews of many stripes go through their prayers. While at first I was deeply impressed by the piety, I noticed two guys who caught my interest. Both had their prayer shawls, both had the “brain box” fastened to their forehead, both had wrapped their arms tightly with leather straps in prayer, both were swaying. But one had on blue-jeans and sandals, and was talking on a cell phone while swaying and holding his prayer book with his other hand. The second guy was swaying and praying, while at the same time packing up his knapsack to leave. No wasted time there! So I guess no set of spiritual disciplines can take the place of a heart for God, can it?

My second incongruity involved a young girl who appeared to be maybe 19 years old or so. She was dressed like any modern American college student. Low-riding jeans, high-riding top....but the automatic rifle slung over her shoulder was a fashion accessory you won’t see many young American women sporting! I learned that Israeli soldiers, when off-duty, often work as security guards for various groups. The soldiers keep their weapons at home and have free use of them, and every able-bodied Israeli citizen, men and women alike, serve in the military. Interestingly, there is very little of what we would call typical violent crime in Israel with guns (aside from terrorism). I’m still a little rattled by it all the same.

The day ended with another kind of incongruity, this time, delightful. We ended the day with FOUR HOURS of lecture by our teacher, Paul Wright, on the underlying GEOLOGY of Israel. Yes, I said Geology. Senonian chalk layers, Cenomanian Limestone, the works. But this information in turn opened up a series of insights into the needs, necessities, limits, and possibilities of life in the different regions of the Land of the Bible. Lyman inhaled this information like his life depended on it, and later wove it into the board game he’s creating, based on the things we’re learning. We could then grasp why roads ran the way they did, why certain towns had to be conquered, held, defended, etc, and got fresh, even startling insight into Joshua’s battles. A ton of data flooded into our minds, but we all agreed…exhilarating!

A four-hour lecture so stimulating that it’s hard to sleep afterward. Now that’s the kind of “incongruity” one enjoys. I took it as my Israel Christmas Present!