Sweaters what does that mean

It may not be John 3:16, but this line from 1 Samuel 16:7 is one of the best-known in the bible, even when people don't know where it comes from.

"For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

It is profound, and it rings true, even to our own experience and appearance. Which of us can say that we have never maintained - even knowingly maintained - an appearance of "holiness" - the right clothes, church attendance etc - while inside we were a seething mess of unrepented sin. The fact that man looks on the outward appearance is a huge source of temptation.

We are all natural-born judges of the outward appearance. Let's face it: the outward is all we have to go on. The physical world is our world; our eyes and ears are our detectors. We think we are adept at scanning the heart beneath the skin, but we also know, if we are honest, that we can be monstrously wrong in our "discernment". After all, we aren't even that good at sounding our own deepest motivations, at least, not until exposed to the word which discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart. No wonder we are told not to judge - we are crap at it!

The temptation to judge by outward appearances increases  whenever a form of religion takes on outward signs to mark holiness, spiritual gifts, or (let's be honest) seniority and rank. Once a society develops a system of markers in that way, the sky's the limit when it comes to scathing judgements, elevation to pedestals and the general development of pecking orders - all based on outward appearances.

It was ever thus. I find it unlikely that the instruction (De 6:8) to bind the words of God's law to hands and forehead was intended to be more than a figurative instruction to "remember this law in all you do, whatever you touch or work at, wherever you go and whatever you look at." Nevertheless, some people at some point understood it literally, and phylacteries were born - little boxes containing scriptural texts, physically attached to wrists and forehead. And not so little: by Mt 23:5, if your holiness was being seen in how much Bible you could stick on your face, then you make the box LARGE!

I was brought up in a world where such legalistic markers were the norm. "We do like a pastor to wear a hat." "I can't hear Mr So-and-so - he wears his hat at the wrong angle!" "Oh yes, we have three hymns; We know the truth!" Outward, man-made markers they were, but enormously satisfying. And of course, so much of the joy of approving of each other actually comes from disapproving of others. As we all approved each other for our outward appearances, so we formed a cosy and closed club, where there was a tremendous sense of belonging and a tremendous absence of any risk that the Word of God could come and disturb that hideous complacency. Many of us are both amused at the memories of a childhood in such circles, and scarred by it. And have a bit of the DNA of it still active.

Of course, sometimes the visible markers designate not just our level of holiness but also our tribal allegiance within the Christian universe. Anyone, however non-church they may be, who has entered Garrison Keillor's Woebegone world will be aware of how intense that tribalism can be. His upbringing in the Plymouth Brethren amongst the tribes of Norwegian Lutherans and Catholics is a source of much amusement but also of deep inner groaning for anyone who was brought up in that kind of mentality. 

But it isn't just the smaller, tight sects. I remember saying at the end of my time as a university Christian Union leader in the U.K. that if I raised my hands during a song there would be those who thought I'd had the Baptism in the Spirit, and others who thought I'd sold out to the forces of darkness. I pointed out that the real difference between hands raised and not raised is about four feet. You can judge nothing that really matters from it.

And now we get to the crux. Is there any church with a more developed set of outward markers than TSA? We have formalised markers and rules. The Soldier's Covenant. Publicly declared abstinence from things. The uniform. Ranks and badges and white stars. It started out pragmatically, and it started out as a leveller - if all had uniform then there were no rich and poor distinctions - but it represents one of the finest, most formalised, set of pecking-order markers of any Christian tribe.

I am new to TSA. For the most part I have been impressed by the way "high-ranking officers" have been free of rank-driven pomp, of standoffishness, of side. Christian humility often does transcend the structure. But that doesn't mean that it always works so well.

I have heard the commitment to abstain from alcohol described as "obeying God's will." Again, such a commitment as a piece of pragmatic wisdom, given the specific ministries to which TSA has historically been called, is fine. As a blanket statement of God's will, however, going beyond Scripture, it is an evil piece of pharisaical oneupmanship. Not for nothing are extra-biblical commands to abstain from this or that food or drink lumped in with "doctrines of demons" in 1 Tim 4. Restrictions that go beyond God's word are from the Pit, because they denigrate his good creation and divide and destroy his community with their fake "holiness".


More recently a comment on one of my photos drew my attention. A cadet is arriving into the welcome service at WBC in full uniform. Alongside her is her husband. Not a cadet himself, he is nevertheless a soldier, wearing an SA Vee-neck pullover and tie. Beneath, someone has commented, "Sweaters what does that mean. Only one is committed." I have tried to get to the bottom of this, by contacting the writer via several channels. I do not want to evaluate those words unfairly. Is it a joke? Does the writer (an American Salvationist) know these people? What does it mean? Because at face value, putting the incompetent punctuation and use of English right, it is just about the nastiest thing I have seen or read since my parents left that denomination dominated by hyper-Calvinist pharisaism. And those words are sitting there in the timeline of my photography page for all to see.

I don't believe that "judge not that you be not judged" is a call to a lack of discernment. Nor is the blanket application of "judge not" even practical - it tends to bite back. That verse is actually the text most frequently used at present with the most savagery, condemnation and judgement. We are actually called to judge, to evaluate and discern - even critique. We are to do so in the consciousness of our own judgement-worthiness, and our critique must be tempered by the awareness that our critical eye may be suffering with the presence of a girder that we haven't spotted yet.

This article is an appeal not to judge by outward appearances. It is an appeal to the writer of the comments on my Facebook page to think hard about the horrible things said to people of whose lives she knows nothing.

But I don't want to use the blog to fire a metaphorical broadside at an individual. Kay Muir's comments are a reminder of just one of the ever-present dangers that a formalised set of markers can present a Christian community. I know that the uniform can open doors. But it is clear that at times it allows or even promotes the kind of evil attitudes which are the antithesis of true holiness. Think hard before wearing it; think hard before seeing it as a sign of anything at all.

Overall, I think I would burn all SA uniforms. For all the doors that are opened by them, the sensation of a mutually approving cosy club is a massive danger, a closed shop secure in its self-approval and impregnable in its self-assuredness. Such spiritual ghettos are proofed against the in-breaking of the word of God. I'm praying for that word, sharper than a two edged sword, to do the impossible, slice deep into the Salvation Army afresh, restoring gospel power and holiness. If uniform and other SA trappings survive such a revival, well and good. I may yet be surprised!

Threads

In a recent post, I referred to the two threads of judgement and salvation that come together in the gospel accounts of Jesus' baptism by John. It strikes me that the "threads" concept is such a powerful tool for understanding the Bible, and yet one which is not always appreciated.

To use that particular example, and explore it a little more deeply: the synoptic gospels refer to Malachi 3 and Isaiah 40 as they describe John's ministry. In Mark 1 the two passages are actually glued together, and introduced as if both by Isaiah, but on looking closely they are two quotes. The NIV does the work for us with carefully separating punctuation:

Mark 1:2-3 ... as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:“I will send my messenger ahead of you,who will prepare your way”— “a voice of one calling in the wilderness,‘Prepare the way for the Lord,make straight paths for him.’” 

What is striking is that the two verses quoted are the sections of the two passages which are most alike, and Mark weaves them into a virtually seamless whole.  But when we look at the context of the two verses, the contrast is stark: 

Malachi 3:1-5 “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty. 
But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. 
Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years. 
“So I will come to put you on trial. 
I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers,
against those who defraud laborers of their wages, 
who oppress the widows and the fatherless, 
and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, 
but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty. 

Isaiah 40:1-5 Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God. 
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, 
and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. 
A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 
Every valley shall be raised up, 
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain. 
And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” 

Both prophets speak of a voice or messenger, preparing the way for the Lord's coming. But that is their only point of similarity: Malachi's coming is terrifying, full of burning judgement against immorality and hypocrisy; Isaiah's is full of comfort and the assurance that punishment is done with. 

I don't know, and I don't know if anyone knows, whether any thinker or movement had put those two texts together before Mark did, but what is clear is that in drawing them together and making quite obvious that he sees them as referring to John and (more importantly) to Jesus, Mark is "doing theology" on a grand scale. He is joining threads, linking themes from past revelation and affirming that they both come to fulfilment in Jesus.

Those two threads, Judgement and Salvation, go way back, of course. At the very beginning of the Bible we see them under different names - they are Cursing and Blessing, which seem to alternate as themes in early Genesis. It is only as the universal nature of the curse of judgement is revealed in practice that blessing becomes inextricably linked with salvation - blessing can only be experienced when the curse is lifted, when sin is paid for, when judgement is removed. This is why Isaiah 40's promise of comfort is because sin is paid for - in the context a reference to exile, but illustrating a broader principle. 

Ultimately we may say that God has only two ways of dealing with the world: salvation and judgement. Extend those into eternity and you get the names Heaven and Hell.  The gospels draw those themes together and say that Jesus is God's agent in bringing both; he is Lord of both. 

The point is that there are many such threads, of greater and lesser prominence. Others could include the Presence/tabernacling of God with his people, or sacrifice, or the Son of Man, or the Shepherd, or the Servant, or the Messiah, or the Rock, or the Word, or Wisdom. It is the gathering of these threads into an interwoven whole in the coming of Jesus that constitutes a specifically Christian reading of the Old Testament. We could go so far as to say that whoever brought together the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 and the Terrifying Messiah of Psalm 2 invented Christianity. And the evidence is that this was Jesus himself.  

Contemporary criticism has often dismissed the idea of any unity of thought in the Bible. We are told that the book is a collection of incompatible theologies, and that any idea of an overarching theme or truth is an unworkable construct. Such an approach, it seems to me, rides roughshod over the Bible's own awareness of its internal diversity and yet its affirmation of unity. The New Testament's testimony to Jesus is precisely that he is the One in whom all those diverse and apparently opposing threads come together.