02/23/2019
Face Down the Attacks
Acts 18:12—17
Sometime during the years of 51 or 52, Emperor Claudius of Rome instructed his stone masons to carve an inscription into a slab of granite; the inscription read TO MY FRIEND AND PROCONSUL GALLIO. Not much else remains…
Or perhaps everything else remains.
This week I was looking over an old newsletter from July of 1985. It had a message from Teddy Eugene Turner, in which he describes, flying to Des Moines for the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples), and then how he holds his first grandchild for the first time. In small box, I can read an expression of sympathy for Mr. Harold Bell and family on the death of Dona Bell in Portland. As of the middle of July, in 1985, Al Knight and John Besgrove have been hospitalized. Both are recovering from surgery nicely… But not much else remains…
Or perhaps everything else remains.
On the bulletin board in the back is a brief history of Central Christian, written as the Reverend Walter Naff becomes pastor, following the tenure of Clifford Cecil. Whoever wrote this historical narrative concludes by saying, ‘We believe a great future lies before us. Come and share it with us!’ Exclamation point! But, you see, not much else remains…
Or perhaps everything else remains.
Everything-Else, you see, is the secret weapon to whatever or to whomever attacks the meaning and lovable-significance of a faith-filled life. Everything-Else includes the beauty of people we’ve never met, the stars we’ve never counted, the blades of grass yet to grow on the sod of the graves we’ve yet to occupy… Everything-Else is the Ultimate, the Infinite, the Absolute. And to weaponize Everything-Else, you and I have to put those things we do know in their proper places.
According to Roman sources, for example, Gallio had been the adopted son of Senaca the Elder, and the brother of Seneca the Younger, who became a famous poet whose verse included little ditties like this: “The greatest blessings of mankind are within us, within our reach.” But, I’m supposing that this bard’s sibling didn’t find that statement to be true, as Gallio committed su***de at the age of 65, a few years after his name had been memorialized in rock by the Emperor. And yet, that’s all that remains. Except this—from Acts 18.
Gallio is both judge and jury—the head of a tribunal—in the case brought by the synagogue in first century Corinth. And I don’t know about you, but I can picture this bureaucrat, sitting there, stroking his bearded chin, and contemplating all the things he knows. But let’s pause for an instant, and ask this question: DOES GALLIO EVEN CONTEMPLATE EVERYTHING-ELSE THAT HE DOESN’T KNOWN?
“They said, ‘This man is persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to the law.’”
Hmm. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what this scholarly politician is thinking?
Without a doubt, he’s running through the codes, statutes and ordinances that endorse, sanction and legitimize the authority of Rome in this jurisdiction. That law, of course, is ever a matter of interpretation. That law must be applied, and with every application of that law, there’s always the possibility of a misapplication. In other words, for every Erin Brockovich, who brings the Pacific Gas & Electric Company to heal for poisoning the ground water in Hinckley, California, there is at least one Alex Acosta, the current Secretary of Labor for the United States of America, who as a lawyer, negotiated a plea deal for a billionaire in a scandal involving underage s*x trafficking.
There. I said it. Legal situations like these have their twists and turns, and God help us, with a little effort, we can understand them. We can understand the law. For instance, we can understand the allegations against Jussie Smollett, the former star of Empire on Fox TV, who evidently arranged for the fake racially-motivated attack against him in Chicago. By the same token, we can understand the lieutenant in the United States Coast Guard who stockpiled rifles and ammunition with the plan of assassinating Democratic candidates for President as well as members of the so-called liberal media. Yes! This is convoluted stuff, and if you are so inclined you can track it down to the minutia of every jot and tittle of the laws of the land.
And yet, one day or one night in the near or distant future, we will grow tired, and lethargy will trump legality—and we will wish that we’d spent our time contemplating and praying through what Gallio refers to as “questions about words and names and your own law.”
And this is what I’m calling EVERYTHING ELSE.
Everything-Else, of course, includes the Covenant that Yahweh makes with the people of Israel, and this is, to be sure, of most importance to the synagogue in Corinth. And so, what do the members of this synagogue have against the apostle Paul, and the official of the synagogue whom Paul baptized in the name of Christ, the Messiah, last week?
Well, the first item in the complaint might be that Jesus of Nazareth is a bogus Messiah, a puny, pathetic Messiah, and certainly not the fulfillment of the Covenant. But consider how Exodus 20 —the giving of the Ten Commandments—comes to its conclusion. Verse 21 says, “Then the people stood at a distance, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.”
‘Thick Darkness’, you see, signifies what? Something that I can know, like a law, written on a stone tablet, or scribbled on a piece of parchment? Or does it signify Everything-Else that we will never know?
And, just for giggles, I do wonder about a second item in the complaint, filed by the synagogue in Corinth, and that’s the charge of blasphemy. Blasphemy is related the Mosaic Law under the category of Idolatry. That is to say, when a person attempts, or a people attempts, to construct, to craft or to otherwise confiscate the Living Reality of God’s Presence as a knowable thing in the world—Moses and the prophets might say that we blaspheme. And to blaspheme is to lay hold of, to grasp, to make profane use of, to exploit… But followers of Jesus would argue what? Well, at their best, they might not spew doctrine. They might not re-interpret the law and the prophets in a newly revised, systematic way. They might, however, sing the hymn they sang in Philippi: “Christ Jesus, who did not count equality with God as something to be grasped…”
At the end of the day, all attack-mode arguments fail and fade into the pages, or into the stones of history. What does endure is hope, and hope is a song. Hope is a yearning. Hope is a turning away from self-interested defense-strategies, and toward Everything-Else.
Look! Whether we’re talking about Roman Law, the Law of Moses, the Law of Diminishing Returns, Murphy’s Law—I don’t care—human beings, when left to their own devices, will fail in the administration of justice. And if that seems unhelpful and way too cynical for a Sunday morning, I hasten to add this caveat: THE HOPE FOR JUSTICE, FOR RIGHT INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS AND FOR AUTHENTIC LOVE IN THE WORLD ENDURES—but NOT because of the leaders we elect, or the lawyers we hire, or the circuit courts who favor our politics, or the public relations firms who spin the news to our advantage. The hope for justice endures because –
“Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, ‘If it were a matter of crime or serious villainy, I would be justified in accepting the complaint… but since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves’.”
Now, let that sink in. Let it sink into what’s happening with Origin, and this meager fellowship.
The Infinite Power of the Living God, and the Overwhelming Flood of God’s Grace sinks into the cracks in every knowing argument. It sinks into the wrinkles on the weathered faces here and elsewhere. It seems so trivial, so innocuous, so inconsequential, that bureaucrats like Gallio don’t bother to care. The political attacks come and go. They rise and they fall. But someone cares. Someone cares about the questions on words and the names and your own law.
Amen.
