Murdered for speaking up for justice

TIGHT SECURITY FOR SALMAN TASEER FUNERAL IN PAKISTAN

This blog provides a meditation on the Revised Common Lectionary readings along with a headline from the world news.

Joshua 1:1-9

God’s Commission to Joshua

1After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying, 2‘My servant Moses is dead. Now proceed to cross the Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the Israelites. 3Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I promised to Moses. 4From the wilderness and the Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, to the Great Sea in the west shall be your territory. 5No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. 6Be strong and courageous; for you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them. 7Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. 8This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful. 9I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

The first thing to say about this story is that it is part of a carefully constructed myth about the origins of Israel and its claim to the land which has not a shred of historical confirmation. It is the product of the priests and lawyers of an era “after the exile” when the history and theology of the people of God was fashioned; ancient texts and legends incorporated into a coherent narrative. Sometimes we can see the stitching. In verse 8, what is the “book of the law”? Israel has been in the desert, without books. Yes, it has (maybe) the Ark of the Covenant with the tablets of the law inside, but a book seems unlikely. It comes from a later time, the time of priests and lawyers who are editing the story. Still it is a story of great pathos as it is about the first great transition-the passing of leadership from one generation to the next. How can faith be maintained?

Joshua and Moses-Raphael

1. God calls the new generation personally as he did the old. The baton is not simply passed on from Moses. God has unfinished business for Joshua to deal with.

2. The promise of God is renewed: the people will enter and possess the land of promise, and God will be with Joshua as He has been with Moses. He is a travelling God.

3. The Torah, the Way of God for his people, will provide daily guidance if it is used.

As the son of a minister, with a daughter who is training for the ministry, I feel the pathos of the transmission of faith from one generation to the next. The faith is the same but the relationship with God is always personal: God promises to be with my daughter, as she lives the faith in a new way. But the new way will be based on the old book, on the scriptures which have not “departed from my mouth” even when I have disobeyed their wisdom; and which I know she loves also.

Who will dare receive the call to follow Salman Taseer, the leading Punjabi politician who dared to speak up for a Christian woman wrongly accused of blasphemy under Shariah Law? It’s easy to step into popular shoes, but who will step into the shoes of a murdered man? Come to think of it, that might be a definition of Christian discipleship.

John 1:43-51

Jesus Calls Philip and Nathanael

43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ 44Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ 46Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ 47When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ 48Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ 49Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ 50Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ 51And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’

Jacob's dream-Chagall

There are echoes of the story of Jacob in this story. Jesus recognises that unlike Jacob, the original bearer of the name Israel, a notorious cheat and trickster, Nathaniel is an Israelite without deceit. And for him, in his discipleship, the heavens will open and he’ll see angels ascending and descending, not on a stone shrine as Jacob did, but on Jesus. Jacob called the place “Bethel” (house of God). This story tells us that Jesus is the new Bethel, God’s dwelling place on earth.