by Kathy Brasby | Jun 24, 2013 | Hope
This puppet show was not supposed to happen.
After traveling over 1200 miles to work for a small church in Mexico, including preparing a 30-minute puppet performance for their children, I was bedridden with the flu and a 102-degree temperature all week.
Fortunately I was part of a team that worked without me but I was in charge of the puppet show.
By Sunday morning, when the performance was planned, I felt well enough to help prepare the props and set up our stage.
And then two of our teenage puppeteers approached us, faces like a birthday child with no gifts. “We just found out that Mary bought drug paraphernalia this week and tried to hide it in Teresa’s suit case.”
What do you say to that?
Mary had joined our team at the last minute and no one knew her very well. We just hadn’t realized how un-well we knew her. I envisioned a church team getting busted at the border for paraphernalia possession – and sweet Teresa getting the blame.
Nothing like a little distraction when you’re trying to put a performance together.
We drew in a team breath – no easy task when half the team was still hyperventilating over Mary’s deception – and continued on. The props were ready, puppets laid about, puppeteers ready – and the electricity went out. We needed electricity for our music.
Power outages, we learned, were not uncommon in this neighborhood. Why hadn’t we packed batteries for the CD player? For the same reason we had let Mary join the team. Not thinking well.
We dispatched someone to buy batteries. He returned with four D batteries purchased for $20, which was highway robbery, and we punched them into our player. We then found out what highway robbery really is: buying batteries that were dead for $20.
So my innovative husband threw himself into building an adapter that would run the CD player off a car battery. Visualize that. The car battery was bigger than the CD player.
He stripped wires and taped ends together. Five minutes before the performance time, he gave me a thumbs up.
And then the electricity came on.
We completed the show and then the lights went out again.
But the audience applauded our show and several came forward with questions and commitments for the pastor.
In spite of the flu, Mary the paraphernalia smuggler, and power issues, the puppet show that couldn’t happen did happen. And with a resounding “yes!”
Perseverance matters.
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by Kathy Brasby | Jun 21, 2013 | Hope
Although Esther in the Old Testament has a book named after her, the Bible portrays her as a hero who didn’t start out that way.
The book of Esther relates how the Jewish people, under a genocide order by a duped Persian king, were saved by insomnia and a reluctant queen.
Often we see Esther as a brave hero – and she was in the end. But her transformation is part of the story. She didn’t start out a hero.
Instead, she became queen through a king of beauty contest, at her uncle’s wish.
Her uncle, Mordecai, is the hero of this story and Esther is the person transformed. Mordecai was courageous and concerned about others. Not only did he want to protect the Jews, but he saved the king’s life at one point.
Esther, once brought into the king’s palace, remained rather anonymous. The court people did not realize she was a Jew, which indicates that she probably did not hold to a kosher lifestyle. When the news of the order against the Jews came to her ears, she didn’t do anything.
Mordecai prompted her to approach the king and she, at first, hesitated. When she learned of Mordecai in sackcloth, she told him to stop mourning.
But then she learned of her people’s problem and she, in an amazing character transformation, grasped her destiny.
When Esther decided to act, she revealed the courage and character that she needed to complete her destiny. But she didn’t step forward in giddy confidence. “If I perish, I perish,” she told Mordecai.
God is never mentioned in the book of Esther. Even when Esther asks for “fasting,” we wonder why she didn’t ask for “prayer and fasting.”
But the providential events – from a shy but beautiful Jewish girl being selected as queen of Persia to a king who couldn’t sleep and instead was reminded of Mordecai’s kindness to him – signal something amazing going on behind the scenes.
In our storytelling economy, we would have placed the brave and wise Mordecai in a position to save the people. We would not have chosen a quiet queen content to hide.
(Esther’s name in Hebrew could be Mistar, related to mystery and similar to I am hidden.)
Yet this non-hero stepped up when called upon, providing victory and salvation to the Jews.
The Bible relates the stories of non-heroes with stunning results.
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by Kathy Brasby | Jun 14, 2013 | Hope
The book of Jonah contains some amazing structure, showing the author did more than just write down what happened. He structured a story that carried an unexpected meaning.
Let me explain something of the structure. The book has four chapters. Chapters 1 and 3 parallel each other in interesting ways. The same for chapters 2 and 4.
Many readers, however, tend to skip chapter 4 assuming the meaning of the story was landed by the end of chapter 3.
Let’s take a closer look.
The story in ways is a simple one. Jonah is a prophet of God who is told by God to go to Nineveh. Nineveh is the hated enemy of Jonah’s people and so he refuses, choosing instead to try to run away from God by booking passage on a ship in the other direction.
When a storm rages, the sailors of the ship look for a cause. Jonah admits that his disobedience has probably caused the storm and insists that they throw him overboard. They eventually do and Jonah is rescued when he’s swallowed by a giant fish.
During the three days he’s in the fish, Jonah has time to acknowledge God’s mercy in rescuing him. After he is thrown onto the shore, Jonah goes to Nineveh, preaches the message God gave him, and watches the Ninevites repent.
If we stop there, at the end of chapter 3, the book seems to be a story about how obedience produces good results.
But chapter 4 includes yet another twist, because Jonah sits on a hill outside Nineveh and sulks, hoping God will still destroy the city.
Chapters 1 and 3 both deal with pagans encountering God. In chapter 1, the sailors worship many gods but eventually, after throwing Jonah overboard (very unwillingly, for they fear this God who can whip up such a storm), worship God on the shore because the storm halted. These pagans recognize God’s hand in preserving their lives.
In chapter 3, the Ninevites hear Jonah’s warning and recognize God’s hand. They change their ways, repenting and asking God to relent.
The pagans recognize God’s sovereignty.
In chapters 2 and 4, the story centers more on Jonah’s dialogue with God. In chapter 2, he is grateful for God’s rescue and compares himself to those who cling to worthless idols. According to Jonah, they turn away from God’s love for them while he recognizes that salvation comes from the Lord. These prove to be empty words and Jonah’s attitude is revealed in the final chapter.
In chapter 4, he complains. “I knew you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” Then he declares that it would be better to die than see God extend mercy to Jonah’s enemies.
Although, in chapter 2, God does not answer Jonah, he does so in chapter 4. God first sends a vine to shade Jonah and then sends a worm to kill the vine. God says, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”
Jonah declares he’s so angry he wishes he were dead. He cares more for a vine than for the people of a city.
And the story ends with God’s statement. “Should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh?”
Through the parallelism of the chapters, the reader is pushed beyond simply seeing Jonah as the repentant prophet. Instead, the structure shows that our author intended us to focus on God’s nature.
Although Jonah wants to limit God’s compassion to a narrow group of people, the reader is shown that God’s grace and mercy extends to all. Those who recognize God receive his kindness.
Structure gives us the tool to uncover that meaning.
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by Kathy Brasby | May 31, 2013 | Hope
Last week we looked at recurring imagery in the Parable of the Wicked Tenant.
Today we’re revisiting the same parable. We’ll look at how context is important and how the author developed his ideas using the parable as part of a panorama of meaning.
The parable appears in Mark 12 but the previous chapter introduces us to an interesting theme. In Mark 11, we first see Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem at the start of the Passover. Choosing a colt such as a king might ride, he passed the crowds who shouted “Hosanna!” which means “Save us.” The crowds were hoping for a return to the kingdom of David.
David was the best king of Israel and, even a thousand years later, the Jews were waiting for a king to restore them.
So we see the theme of a king developing in Mark 11.
Then we have an interesting tale of Jesus cursing a fig tree for its lack of fruitfulness, then going to the Temple where he toppled tables and threw out the merchants, then passing the fig tree now withered at the roots.
Our author laminated the story of the fig tree with the clearing of the temple to help make his point: both were condemned for lack of fruitfulness. Jesus lamented that the Temple was supposed to be a house of prayer for the nations – a nurturing role – but instead had become a den of robbers.
Remember, too, for first century Jews, the Temple was where God lived. It was where God came to earth from heaven to dwell with his people. The Temple had great authority because of that.
Following the display in the Temple, Jesus was approached by the religious leaders who demand to know what authority Jesus had to do what he did in the Temple. Although Jesus first responded with a question of his own which revealed how they bowed to popular opinion, he then answered their question in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants.
Jesus laid out the situation around him: servants who didn’t acknowledge the generosity of the landowner and instead decided they wanted to own the vineyard himself.
In fact, the story that follows the parable has to do with paying taxes to Caesar – yet another authority issue.
Jesus answered the question of paying taxes with a classic response: “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
That idea would also apply to his parable. The issue – based on the context of Mark 11-12 – has to do with authority. Who is king? Who is in charge?
Our author weaves several tales together to form a rich tapestry dealing with the question of authority. The religious leaders questioned Jesus’ authority to challenge the traditions of the Temple.
But Jesus, through the parable which is couched in several references to authority, turns the question around.
The religious leaders asked, “By what authority do you do these things?”
And Jesus seems to answer, “By what authority do you do these things?”
And the context makes his point clear.
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by Kathy Brasby | May 27, 2013 | Hope
Words are my thing but sometimes they just escape me.
Like the guillotine story.
Our older son was 11 at the time. He and his younger sister, who was 6 at the time, were cooking up adventures all afternoon.
At that time, our family had 40 acres of grassland accented with a barn and a few rustic out buildings. Plenty of places for adventure.
So I had let them explore while I worked in the back yard. But when Younger Sister came through the yard carrying a big stick and a bread basket, I had to ask.
“What’s that for?”
“Oh!” She stopped and her face lit up with a big smile. “Nick says that you can see for three second after you get your head chopped off. So we’re going to find out.”
Words escaped me on that day.
Not long after that day, our younger son, at age 4, announced to me that he liked the color purple as long as it wasn’t pink.
Um. Words escaped me that time, too.
I write and I speak but not always when my kids were in full blossom.
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by Kathy Brasby | May 24, 2013 | Hope
Vineyards appear throughout the Bible as vivid images. Many references to them appear in the Old Testament and then Jesus used the imagery numerous times in his teachings as recorded in the New Testament.
Harvest season in wine country
We read about the Exodus of Israel described in the language of a vineyard:
You transplanted a vine from Egypt;
you drove out the nations and planted it.
You cleared the ground for it,
and it took root and filled the land. Ps 80:8-9
Later, the prophet Isaiah gives us a image of the vineyard:
I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.
He dug it up and cleared it of stones
and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it
and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
but it yielded only bad fruit. Is 5:1-2
This text, as does Psalm 80, describes Israel as God’s vineyard. We see key statements: The one who dug the vineyard also cleared it of stones and planted it with the best vines. The watchtower was built to protect it and the vine keeper also cut a winepress. He put much work into his vineyard and expected a good crop.
The picture here is similar to Genesis 2 where God forms a lush garden and instructs the man to tend it.
In both Genesis and in Isaiah, people fall short of being good tenants.
Jesus picks up the theme in a parable about the tenants, found in Matthew 21, Mark 12 and Luke 20.
Jesus has just entered Jerusalem on a donkey to a cheering crowd who welcomes him as a king. But the religious leaders challenge his authority and Jesus, after a few interchanges, tells this parable.
The parable relates the story of a vinedresser who worked hard to plant a vineyard, place the protection of a watchtower in place, and prepare a winepress. When the vineyard was ready, the vinedresser turned it over to tenants to care for it. The hard work was already done.
But when the vinedresser sent servants to gather his share of the crops, the servants were turned away. Some were beaten and others were killed.
So the vine keeper sent his son to gather what was his. The tenants, seeing an opportunity to clinch their hold on the vineyard, killed the son.
The vine keeper then killed the tenants and gave the vineyard to others.
Jesus had entered Jerusalem celebrated as a king but the religious leaders questioned his authority. Now he suggests that God, who had planted the vineyard called Israel, was sending his son to collect the fruit. And the tenants were going to reject/kill the son.
The vine keeper expected good fruit; the tenants wanted to be the owners instead.
The imagery of the vineyard, threaded from Genesis where God gave humans the duty of tending the earth, to the gospels where Jesus reminded God’s people of their rebellion, makes for a powerful story.
Consistent imagery cements the emphasis.
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