Luke 24. Counseling together. Learning from each other. Avoiding being fools and slow of heart to believe.

Luke 24

They [Mary Magdalene, Joanna, James' mother Mary, and other women] found the sepulchre empty and encountered “two men in shining garments” who said, “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.”

And the women “remembered [Jesus'] words”!!!! Oh yes!! That's right!! He did!! and so they went, bringing the news of their experience with the angels to the eleven apostles, most certainly reminding them, as they had been reminded, of what Jesus had said about being crucified and rising again on the third day.

Which experiences and things the apostles apparently did not only not remember, but also pooh-poohed the women's words as “idle tales” and did not believe them...

though Peter did, to his credit, go and look for himself, and wonder, afterwards, at the empty tomb that he found.

I think we may have found here, in the early church, an example of an extreme lack of the skill of counseling together, an inability of one group of people to consider the information from another, likely due to their sex in this case, but which in other cases may be due to different things that make the one group fail to listen or believe the words of another, simply because they are “other” and their ideas, perspectives and experiences are very different than our current patterns of thinking.

So...next, that same day, we have the “road to Emmaus” story, where two are traveling and encounter the resurrected Jesus, and do not realize who he is, and tell him their understanding of what happened over the last three days and of the odd, and not quite believed, tale the women had told. And what does Jesus say?

“O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.”

And then, later, he sits down with those two, and the eleven, and once again, unfolds the details in the scriptures that he had told them before and that they had not remembered, and which failure to remember abetted their discounting of what the women had been reminded of and believed.

One message I suspect that may have had running though their minds: "I should have listened to them.  It would have been less awkward for me now, if I had.  And I certainly would have saved myself many hours of grief."

I really hope that no heavenly messenger or other divine being ever again has good cause to say to me, “O fool, and slow of heart to believe...” due to my out of hand rejection of the beliefs and experiences of others who have joined me in councils and conferences and circles of conversation, or whose experiences and words preceded mine by many years; rejecting because they are, in my mind, “other”, people whose experiences or perspectives or energy levels or understanding or cultural background, or ethnicity, or sex or age or anything else make me subconsciously discount their stories or the news they bring.

I'm certain that I have deserved it sometimes. It is an easy habit to fall into and a difficult one to recognize in oneself and then totally eradicate instead of laughing and excusing one's behavior, or becoming defensive or irritated or dismissive when it is pointed out.

So, once again, I am in awe of the careful, patient, thoughtful, listeners I know.

Mustard Seed

"Faith as a grain of mustard seed" being enough to move mountains is a concept that is familiar to a reader of the Bible.  I think it gets misconstrued.  Or at least, I think I've misconstrued it in the past.

It easily can be interpreted as something like this:  If you aren't [moving mountains/realizing what you hope for/accomplishing what you feel God calls you to do] then it's likely because you don't have enough faith. If your faith was as big as a mustard seed it would be enough to effectuate the desired results.  So therefore, the remedy is to muster more faith that you have now.  

But I think "enough faith" is an incorrect concept.  Look at how the mustard seed sized faith is discussed in Luke 17.

"The apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith!"

So, who is speaking here?  The Lord's apostles.  The ones who have been faithfully sacrificing much and following him around and trying to live his teachings for years.  To do that would require faith in him.  But they obviously think that they lack enough faith and need more.  

"The Lord said, 'If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this sycamine tree, 'Be rooted up and be planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.'"

In other words, a tiny bit of faith (which is probably what the apostles would have admitted they had but which they were worried was not enough) is actually enough. It is enough to do any amazing thing that the Lord requires.  Once you have determined to follow Christ and to do his will and are doing so, as those apostles were trying to do, you do not need to be anxious about quantities of faith, you don't need to beat yourself up about not having enough or plead for a greater quantity in order make happen what needs to be done, you simply need the faith in the Lord that you have.  And even if it is only as big as a mustard seed, it  is enough.

Hmm, faith....seed...Alma 32 anyone?  There too, a seed is enough.

But what about the times when you exercise faith and what you feel called to effectuate doesn't happen????  Isn't that an indication that you didn't have enough faith?

Actually no.  If that is the case then every Old Testament prophet who was called to cry repentance and did so in spite of derision and persecution and hardship and the people ignored him and actually became more entrenched in their wickedness (and there were a number of those) didn't have enough faith.  Such an interpretation of those circumstances is rather ridiculous.

The simple fact that those prophets responded to the call and worked hand in had with the Lord and devoted their energy to the work was an indication that they, like those apostles in Luke 17, had "enough faith".  In Luke 17, Jesus is saying, "even if it feels only as small as a mustard seed to you, with God it is enough."

In the verses that follow Jesus makes an analogy, comparing our service to God with that of a servant's consistent, unheralded service to his master, and closes it with,"So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say We are unprofitable servants we have [just] done that which was our duty to do." 

I think Jesus is saying that he knows that his apostles feel that simply doing the faithful work that they've been called to do is not enough, that it's unprofitable, that because it is simply what God asked them to do and is expected of them and not wonderfully accompanied by praise and recognition or any remarkable or obvious manifestations of success, that their faith is not enough and that they are not doing enough.  But Jesus' message is that they are trusting and following their master and serving as they are asked to to the best of their abilities and that is what God expects.  And they should continue to do so. Even if the faith to do just what they are doing seems small to them,. With God as their master and with his grace it is enough.

If you must use a definition of increasing your faith perhaps it is best defined as as it is used in a rhetorical plea to God once said by Gordon B Hinckley: "And so, dear Father, increase our faith in Thee, and in Thy Beloved Son, in Thy great eternal work, in ourselves as Thy children, and in in our capacity to go and do according to Thy will and Thy precepts. "

Trust God and Jesus and their work, trust that you are God's child/servant and can do what he wants you to do regardless of the responses of others, and trust that his precepts will teach you how to do it in a godly way.

And though that may feel just about the size of a mustard seed to you, it is enough.

Notes on Ephesians 5

1.       To add to your repertoire of information on Ephesians 5:

vs 21, (members of the church) submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Greek word for “submit”: hupotassomai
vs 22 Wives submit submit yourselves to your husbands. Greek word used for “submit”: hupotassomai
vs 23 Husband is the head of the wife. Greek word used for “head”: kephale
vs 25 Husbands love your wives: Greek word used for “love”: agapeo
vs 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church. Greek word used for “might present”: parasthsh

Hupotassomai doesn’t have a direct English equivalent but means something along the lines of “give allegiance to”, or “tend to the needs of ” or “be supportive of” or “be responsive to”. In military contexts it is used to describe taking a position in a phalanx of soldiers; to be united with the group in effort and support. The German Bible translates it as “to place oneself at the disposition of”. This is what members of the church are asked to do for each other and what wives are asked to do in these verses in Ephesians. Its meaning relates very much to the admonition in Galatians 6:2 to “bear one another’s burdens”. Very importantly, Greek not only has active and passive forms of verbs, but also a middle form, which is used when the subject of the sentence neither acts on another nor is acted upon, but rather volunteers willingly to a state of being or to a course of action that is self-directed, not imposed. Hupotassomai, in these verses is in the middle form. Paul uses it to invite a purely voluntary action, not as a command.

“Kephale” is a word used to denote a person who goes ahead into battle, putting himself the most dangerous and vulnerable position in the phalanx.

“Agapeo” is used here and also in the commandment to love our neighbor and God and our enemies and in Jesus’ description of the Good Samaritan who loved and helped freely another who could not (and probably would not) repay his kindness.

Agapeo and hupotassomai are very similar words, both involve giving up one’s self-interest to serve and care for another’s. Both mean being responsive to the needs of others. Many scholars recognize this passage of Ephesians as a chiasmus with hupotassomai at the beginning of it and agapeo as an equal term at the end.

“Parasthsh” means “to stand beside”.

Knowing the Greek words sheds further light on the passage which the English translation obscures.

Thanks for some of the above to various sources, including 

What Paul Really Said About Women: The Apostle's Liberating Views on Equality in Marriage, Leadership, and Love

by John T. Bristow