THE WORD OF RUTH BADER GINSBURG

Something disturbing happened in a Bloomfield, New Jersey synagogue on the evening of Friday, September 18, 2020. It occurred in the midst of the most important religious cycle in the Jewish calendar, ten days often referred to as the High Holy Days.  The first holy day is Rosh Hashanah, which welcomes the Jewish New Year. During the first night of the service, the Bible reading is always from 1 Samuel 1:1-2:10.  

The text describes how Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel, prayed to God to bless her with a son, whom she later entrusted to Eli, the high priest. The traditional reading ends with Hannah's prayer thanking God and prophesying the coming of the Messiah. The final sentence of Hannah’s prayer is amazing: “The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed”

 When Hannah prayed this, Israel had no king, no monarchy; she lived in the time of the judges, so her prayer is prophetic, looking forward to the time when a king would rule the nation. Also, Hannah’s reference to God’s “anointed” is a clear messianic prophecy.

That prayer is always read in its entirety at the New Year's synagogue service. But not on that night, in that synagogue in New Jersey and that is what was so troubling.

The Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments, are a divine document, a divinely inspired document. Jesus said it was and is, as did the apostles who wrote what God wanted them to write, just as he Old Testament authors did in their day. 

However, on September 18, the rabbi set aside the reading of the Word of God and told the assembled that those who want God's words to usher in the New Year could go and find them elsewhere. Yes, that's what he said. So, what did the rabbi read instead of the Bible?

On that evening, he felt it was more important to read the words of another "prophet," (his word, not mine)--Ruth Bader Ginsburg, not the Bible. This is the way rabbi put it to the congregation: "I'll invite you to listen as . . . we read a few key teachings in Ruth Bader Ginsburg's own words as a way to bring out her memory and to pay homage to her. I hope you'll take these into your heart and use them for inspiration as each of you seek to make this world a better place." 

As Andrea Widberg writes, "And so we [had] this spectacle: to honor Ginsburg's staunch defense of killing babies — the Baal practice that the Bible strongly condemns,  a rabbi, in a grotesque mockery . . . recited, not the Word of God, but the word of Ginsburg." 

What was happening on September 18 was an echo of what had happened earlier in the history of Israel when a king heard the Word of God read to him: "Now the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month, with a fire burning in the brazier before him. When Jehudi had read three or four columns, the king cut it with a scribe’s knife and threw it into the fire that was in the brazier, until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier. Yet the king and all his servants who heard all these words were not afraid, nor did they rend their garments."

Did the congregation just sit there as the the rabbi tossed the Bible into the fire for a man-made substitute? Did anyone object, was anyone afraid, did anyone metaphorically rend their garments? Was anyone's soul tortured by what they heard and saw? Andrea Widberg raised her voice to object and even dared to criticize the uncritisizable in print. Is there one more?

There is a historical parallel we find in Acts 12:21-22: "On an appointed day Herod, having put on his royal apparel, took his seat on the rostrum and began delivering an address to them. The people kept crying out, “The voice of a god and not of a man!”

There is a price to pay when the voice of the government becomes the Word of God. 

BEHEADING GEORGE WASHINGTON

 "More than three weeks after its namesake was beheaded on campus, and following pressure from its own professors, George Washington University finally acknowledged [after three weeks] the criminal act [of beheading the statue of George Washington] with a brief statement." 

In Portland, "Demonstrators pulled down the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of Jefferson High School"

A college news organization polled students at George Washington University, asking if they support the nationwide riots and looting. Overwhelmingly, students said that the riots and looting are "justified." One student said, "If change is gonna come, there’s gonna be some violence."

"In one widely publicized episode . . . assembled students [at Evergreen College] shouted down the university president for gesticulating normally as he addressed them.  Some students found this threatening. Someone yelled, 'Stop pointing, George!' The president, George Bridges, appeared momentarily stunned and then obeyed, meekly announcing, "My hands are down." The crowd burst into applause and laughter. Bridges held his hands up as if to say, 'I surrender.'

"In another incident [at Evergreen College], protesters surrounded the library building and barricaded the exits with furniture. Some of them interrupted a faculty meeting inside and stole a cake about to be served in honor of retiring professors. They carried it out and handed pieces to their fellow demonstrators. Others gathered outside the president's office and refused to let him leave the building. Clearly, many of them relished controlling and humiliating others, especially authority figures."

"Everyone is reading from a tired script . . . settling into a calcified habit of saying things like"We don't feel safe' and "Stop hurting us!' It's too late to stop the normalization of this behavior. It has already become essentially institutionalized at universities and, increasingly, elsewhere." (Spencer Case)

"This fall at Washington and Lee University (removal of Lee pending), students will learn reading writing, arithmetic — and 'How to Overthrow the State.' As riots have continued in Portland for almost 100 nights, students at the Virginia university named after George Washington and Robert E. Lee will study Marxist revolutions in the Global South, complete with role-playing regime change."

"Writing Seminar 100-18, “How to Overthrow the State,” will award each student three credits toward graduation. This course places each student at the head of a popular revolutionary movement aiming to overthrow a sitting government and forge a better society,”

 SOLUTION?

What's going to stop all this violent, academic nonsense? Rational discourse? Assigning book reports like "Washington at Valley Forge"? Maybe a reading of "The Federalist Papers"? How about a classroom showing of the movie, "The Patriot"? 

Let's get real and in getting real, a look at the Old Book can point the way. The Bible states in story and in statement that there are people who can reach a point of no return; there are people who cross the line of rebellion and become people with whom you cannot reason (Romans 1 et al.). 

We find the classic case of such a person in the account of the first king of Israel, Saul. We watch him cross the line in his years of interactions with David. As David begins to ascend to hero status, Saul begins his descent into madness. 

 It may not have been a wise move on the part of the women of Israel to compose a song that hit number 1 on the charts, but that's what they did. We read, "It happened as they were coming, when David returned from killing the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy and with musical instruments.  The women sang as they played, and said,

“Saul has slain his thousands,
And David his ten thousands.”

"Then Saul became very angry, for this saying displeased him; and he said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, but to me they have ascribed thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom?” Saul looked at David with suspicion from that day on."

Then we read that Saul attempted to murder David, but his aim was bad; the spear with which an enraged Saul wanted to pin David to the wall missed its mark. Then we read of David on the run from Saul as Saul and the military tried in vain to hunt him down and kill him. For at least 7 years David hid in caves as a frothing at the mouth Saul chased him all over Israel. The might of the government wanted David dead. Sometimes Saul was sorry, "I have played the fool and erred exceedingly," he said. But later, he was right back on the hunt.

There was a point that Saul reached in which there was no reasoning with him, no Bible verse you could give him, no scathing denunciation that would change him. Even the remonstrances of God's anointed prophet Samuel fell on ears of stone; come what may, he would have David's head on a pike or he would die trying. There's no reasoning with evil.

Saul had rid the nation of the mediums, the people were not to consult them. But, Saul, to whom the rules didn't apply and were for the common people, but not him, went to consult one. By divine intervention he's told that in the battle the next day, he's going to die. Knowing that, he still goes into the fight and winds up like Hitler, a suicide so the enemy wouldn't take him alive. Instead of his pinning David to the wall, the Philistines took the slain body of Saul, cut off his head, stripped off his armor, and fastened his body to the wall of Bethshan. 

You can't reason with a Saul because "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction." And because "If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet." (Proverbs 29:9)

Thousands in the younger generation have been raised in a culture and nurtured in an educational environment from kindergarten through college of ideological kerosene in which there is no fear of the  Lord ( a positive response to God and His Word). We're seeing their graduation party. 

As with Saul, there is no reasoning with them. They've crossed the Rubicon of no return. What else should we have expected having removed God's Word from every nook and cranny of our society, having ridiculed those who proclaim it, having shamed, slandered, and ruined those who sought to live it? The ideological kerosene has done its work. The flames in our cities have felt its heat.

In view of this, four texts of encouragement roar to the surface. 

II Timothy 1:7--"For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline." 

Matt. 19:26--"And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." 

John 16:33: "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world." 

Psalm 2: "Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? .  . . And the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, 'Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!^' He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them."

MAX LUCADO'S SINS

The old saying is, "Confession is good for the soul." Is it? I John 1:9 commands the follower of Christ to confesses his sins for the renewal of fellowship with God (not for salvation). It's a family matter, not a salvation concern. Yes, following the Apostle John's dictum is a good thing and we should do it frequently. Confession of our sins is an acknowledgement that our heavenly Father is right and we were wrong in what we did. 

An school-boy question is, "Whose sins are we confessing?" The proper answer is right there in the verse, "If we confess OUR sins," so those are our sins we're confessing, not someone else's. 

Enter wildly popular author/preacher, Max Lucado who produces best sellers as often as he changes his socks: He has written almost 100 books with 92 million copies in print, with many of them occupying spots on every major national bestseller list.. With that hefty tome count, Lucado's name is no stranger to the New York Times Best Seller List. 

He's also a pastor in San Antonio, Texas, and a nationally recognized leader in the evangelical world. And truth be told, he's reached the rarefied air of a cleric celebrity in the evangelical niche. And, as the story is told, there are instructions in the church bulletin saying something to the effect of "Don't ask the pastor to autograph one of his books." That's a cleric celebrity with a capital "CC." 

Events are surfacing however that should give us pause, no matter his rarified status. In a public event in the Alamo City, Lucado waded neck-deep in the social justice movement raging around the country when he spoke to the assembled telling them that he's guilty of white supremacy and racism. How so? Because of what his ancestors did over 150 years ago and then he begged God to forgive him for that. (A subsidiary question is, "How does he know what his ancestors did," but that's beside the point.)

What does he think his long ago ancestors did? He said that they owned slaves. In his mind that's something he needs to confess in 2020. The he confessed his sin of forcing people to ride in the back of the bus. He was confessing all over the place, but the sins he was confessing were not sins he himself committed. 

Lucado was born on Jan 11, 1955. On December 18, 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery in America. He can no more take credit for the 13th Amendment than he can take the blame for slavery. All that happened at least 90 years before he was even born. 

Let's be clear: we can take responsibility for our sins, but we can't be blamed for someone else's sins. The Bible is clear on the matter: "The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself" (Ezekiel 18:2, 20).

Confessing what you had nothing to do with isn't good for the soul, but all these confessions we're hearing today are good for one thing--popularity--and pastors aren't immune from an approbation lust. It is just as easy for a pastor to crave approval, as it was for Pilate. 

The approbation lust is ever with us.