Be Brave! Face Life! | SL 2.7 (April 2021)
In this newsletter
- Be Brave! Face Life!
- Work & Ministry Update
- Something beautiful: Charlie Chaplin's City Lights
- Your moment of exegetical euphoria: God's Name is His Presence to Save (Exodus 3)
- Pray With Us
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Charlie Chaplin as "The Tramp" in City Lights (1931), image credit: monovisions.com
Be Brave! Face Life!
April again!? For many of us Corona has created a temporal vortex. Meghan and I feel like life is standing still, while the days, weeks, months, and now a year are rushing past us. We have three little girls, they are all growing. I'm adding pages to my dissertation, and the world is changing all around us in ways will know about maybe 10 or 20 or 30 years from now.
To my mind, Corona is not just a global health disaster but an information disaster. The first global pandemic of the internet era seems to have brought out incredible hubris in humanity. We can coordinate this, we can contain this, we can beat this with science. In one sense we can—I'm thrilled that the vaccine is now a reality. But never before did the human race think that we could make a vaccine so fast it made sense for us all to stay home. When have we ever been able to hold meetings and church online so that it even seemed plausible? But what has been lost? When have we ever before had the ability to propagate and disperse so many conflicting facts and viewpoints about everything? We have more information at our fingertips and more technology than ever, but it is creating as many problems as it is solving. Clearly we lack the wisdom to handle this.
We can track the grim stats online, but the hidden costs may never be known—the lockdowns, the economic and emotional impact many people have endured, the weird tenuousness now of all life. Forcing us out of our routines, patterns, and support systems reveals just how much we're all up against in life. Just how many different ways sin and brokenness come at us and how challenging it is to think your way clear, get up, keep trying, day by day by day by day. I recently learned that a girl I grew up with, but haven't spoken to in probably seventeen years, died of liver failure from alcohol abuse at 34-years-old. Her Instagram was perfect. She was beautiful and successful—a photographer in LA. Our local midwife came by yesterday and gave us a flyer that says, "babies cry, you can cope," which the National Health Service put together to try to stem the massive uptick in shaken baby syndrome since the start of the pandemic. Yesterday, a good friend told me that the major news story in Quebec is the dramatic spike in domestic abuse. LORD, have mercy.
My good friend, Jonathan, recently wrote a short, but encouraging article on God's character. It's simply not enough to talk about sovereignty, the God of Scripture is also wise and good. We desperately need to know this.
To help with that, I'm slowly reading through Dane Ortlund's beautiful little book Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of God for Sinners and Sufferers, which my mom and dad gifted me for Christmas. This book has made a bunch of lists of best Christian books of 2020 and it's easy to see why. Ortlund takes 23 short chapters to unpack various aspects of God's heart by focusing on short phrases from Scripture as interpreted by Puritan pastors. It is gentle, clear, and lazer-focused on Christ's heart for our encouragement. The result is a powerful and poignant insistence that God is not who we so easily imagine him to be—distant, dispassionate, maybe a little annoyed or busy if not upset.
Ortlund writes:
"The world is starving for a yearning love, a love that remembers instead of forsakes. A love that isn't tied to our loveliness. A love that gets down underneath our messiness. A love that is bigger than the enveloping darkness we might be walking through even today. [...] On the cross, we see what God did to satisfy his yearning for us. He went that far. He went all the way. The blushing effusiveness of heaven's [heart] funneled down into the crucifixion of Christ. Repent of your small thoughts of God's heart. Repent and let him love you" (168–170).
There's no life-hack that I have yet found for faith, and so, if we believe this to be true, we must continue to try to be brave and face life, trusting that God is sovereign, wise, and good. He heart goes out to you.
On a lighter note, here's a few things that have been bringing me joy recently:
My favorite film critic, Steven Greydanus, just released a list of his top 20 films of the last 20 years. It looks phenomenal, an eclectic list with many overlooked selections. Greydanus is a careful viewer who loves film but eschews highbrow or pretense for its own sake. He loves faith, and life, and beauty. I've seen a few of his picks and hope to watch the others.
I've really been enjoying the various web projects of one, Matt Kirkland, that I serendipitously Googled into a while back. He's releasing all of Dr. Johnson's essays as a blog! He's made beautiful re-issues of all of Charles Williams' novels (get the whole set!). He'll email you the entire novel Dracula by Bram Stoker in real time between May 3 and Nov 7 (I signed up for "Dracula Daily" the instant I learned about this)! And most hilariously, at DumbCuneiform.com he will transliterate your tweets, texts, and short messages into cuneiform and mail it to you on a real clay tablet! Hallelujah.
Finally, I've been jamming Mogwai's new album As the Love Continues almost non-stop for the last three weeks. If you're (potentially) a fan of instrumental post-punk from Scotland—you're welcome! This video is good fun, as they say, but my favorite song is "Dry Fantasy." Also these guys go by my favorite gentilic. What are people from Glasgow called? Glaswegians, of course.
Dialogue card from City Lights (1931).
You are Training Pastors to be Faithful to Scripture & Strengthening the Global Church
- Thank you for praying with us for ministry opportunities. I'll be teaching Exegesis of Proverbs for the MDiv students at Grace Life Seminary in Monrovia, Liberia with Training Leaders International in November. I'm truly thankful for this opportunity and eager to get back out there. I'll tell you more about the fascinating school that TLI has helped to plant in Monrovia in the future, but for now you can read a bit about it here.
- My paper proposal "Wisdom & Metamorphosis: Reading Proverbs 30 With Daniel 4" was accepted for the European Association of Biblical Studies annual meeting in August. This is set to take place in Wuppertal, Germany but will probably end up moved online.
- I've submitted two more paper proposals that are derived from dissertation chapters to the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting in San Antonio in November. Praying at least one will be accepted.
- That little article about Proverbs 30 for The Gospel Coalition that you all helped me write is now in their hands, should come out in a few days on their website.
- Working on the dissertation everyday. I'm currently writing about humor theory and the Bible—trying to figure out the best way to convince a bunch of stodgy academics that Proverbs 30 is funny.
Thank you. Your prayers and support empower everything we do.
City Lights (1931), image credit: monovisions.com
Charlie Chaplin's City Lights
Charlie Chaplin was as unlikely a figure as any to become an American icon. He was born in London in 1889. His father was an alcoholic and his mother was a small-time vaudeville star past her prime. Throughout his childhood she suffered a series of mental health breeakdowns, was in and out of institutions, and Charlie was likewise in and out of the work house. He did everything under the sun, but as a natural performer and intuitive clown he followed his mother's footsteps into various vaudeville gigs. Eventually he made it to the United States with a traveling pantomime troupe where he was recruited by some Hollywood talent agents. The rest is history. By 1915, Chaplain, now 26, was practically the biggest star in the world, earning a staggering $670,000 per year from the Mutual Company. (That would be $17.5 million today, which I think is hilarious because I'd be satisfied with just $670,000.) Throughout the 1920s, Chaplin wrote, directed, and started in some of the most successful and influential comedies that cinema has ever seen.
City Lights (1931) is unquestionably a masterpiece. One of the last films to feature his iconic character, "The Tramp," Chaplin made the controversial decision to make it a silent film, though by now most movies were "talkies." It was a massive success and perhaps his most lasting critical victory (the American Film Institute ranks it #11 on the list of 100 Greatest American Films of All Time).
Rewatching it now is certainly a window in time. Not all the gags "work" the way I am sure they did when it was fresh. We are used to a bit more action, faster pacing, and, of course, talking. At times, the jokes feel overdone and repetitive. But this film has a shining heart that can't be ignored. And it still has many scenes that—at least for Meghan and I—are laugh-out-loud funny. It's a portrait of the heart of a Tramp who is undaunted by his Trampness, but who instead leverages his lowly estate, despite everything, to give sight to the blind girl he loves (gee wiz, almost sounds like you could turn him into some kind of a Christ figure!). It is beautiful.
The title of this newsletter comes from one of the dialogue cards that appears in a scene where The Tramp saves a disillusioned millionaire from ending it all. I've been saying it to myself all week as a sort of tongue-in-cheek mantra for year two with Corona. It would be glib coming from anyone but The Tramp.
The other day, I wrote a page on City Lights for my dissertation in order to provide some concrete illustrations of how incongruity is fundamental to humor. I feel like it might end up on the proverbial cutting-room-floor, but perhaps you'd enjoy it:
The classic silent comedy City Lights (Chaplain 1931) provides an abundant variety of examples of how different types of incongruity fuel humor. The genius of Charlie Chaplin’s trademark character, The Tramp, itself lies in incongruity. Here is a man both carefree and destitute. Endlessly bumbling and disaster-prone, yet he manages to trip and stumble his way through the minefields of life none the worse for it. He is shockingly glib and indifferent to others one moment, while in the next he reveals a tender and sacrificial heart. He is in the world but not of it. He is a walking incongruity. The opening scene of the film has an important-seeming man pontificating at the grand reveal of a public monument. When the sheet comes off, there’s The Tramp asleep in the lap of the monumental carved figure, "Peace and Prosperity." Already this is incongruous enough because a solemn occasion, for which every care has no doubt been taken, has been spoiled by the indifferent opportunism of a homeless person. But what really plays the scene for laughs is The Tramp’s total failure to feel what most of us would feel in that moment—extreme embarrassment. Unhurried, The Tramp foibles his way down the monument. His behavior is incongruous, and therefore amusing, because he flaunts the rules of etiquette and deference. Much later in the film, the Tramp ends up locked into a prize fight against an experienced, dispassionate boxer. Though he is comically weak, flabby, and uncoordinated, The Tramp manages to fare well by ducking and weaving in time behind the referee until he pops out and socks his opponent who is duly distracted by one thing or another. This classic gag layers it on. For starters, it is incongruous that the Tramp should get the upper hand on his opponent at all when he is so outmatched in skill, experience, and physic. But The Tramp’s method is further incongruous in throwing out the conventions of boxing to gain a fighting chance. We might not have thought of it, and if we had we’d be too ashamed to try.
City Lights (1931), image credit: monovisions.com
Exodus 3: God's Name is His Presence to Save
(Part V in The Theology of the Pentateuch)
Picturing God
We tend to have an abstract view of God that is structured around his incommunicable attributes, things like omniscience, omnipresence, and aseity. But this is not primarily how God reveals himself to us in Scripture. John Calvin writes, “Moses then reminds us of God’s attributes, which show him not as he is in himself but as he is toward us. This kind of knowledge is more a matter of living experience than of empty speculation.”
In the book of Exodus, more clearly than any other part of the Old Testament, we see the interplay of redemption and revelation that we find throughout Scripture because it is here that God reveals his name. The LORD reveals his character in redemption: he is the God who redeems us through relationship and for relationship.
‘The One who Dwells in the Bush’
Exod 3:1–6
1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. 3 And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” 4 When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Despite the fact that it has become iconic and familiar, the flame of fire from within the bush is a bizarre image. Fire is essential for human culture—it brings light and heat, it purifies and it refines—but it is a devourer, capable of a total merciless destruction. Fire serves as a potent metaphor throughout Scripture for God’s holy presence (Exod 24:17; Deut 4:24; Isa 10:16–17).
Elsewhere in the Old Testament thorn bushes and shrubs describe vegetation that is a hassle or semi-useless (Judg 9:14–15; 2 Sam 23:6; Ps 58:9; Prov 15:19). Shrubs burn too quickly to be good for fuel (Eccl 7:6) and prick those who dwell nearby (Ezek 2:6; 28:24; Prov 26:9). If fire is a symbol for God, then this bush is Israel. Prickly, unmanageable, not fit to purpose.
This theophany is prophetic in its symbolism for what will transpire between God and his people. The entire rest of the Pentateuch (and the whole Bible) can be understood as the struggle for a flame to burn within a bramble bush and not destroy it. By all accounts the flame should consume the bush in moments, but for some reason God ordains that it shouldn’t and provides that it doesn’t. This is a picture of grace.
When God tells Moses to remove his sandals because the ground is holy, it is the first time in Scripture a place is ever called holy. And it is holy because God’s presence is there and God’s presence is there because he has seen and he knows the affliction of his people (Exod 2:23–25; 3:7–10). This God is not primarily an abstract God defined by incommunicable attributes, dispassionate, seated beyond time and outside of space. This is the God who called Abraham and forged a costly relationship with him (Genesis 22). This God, sees, knows, remembers his people. He will dwell with us as a flame in a thornbush.
God Reveals His Name In Redemption
In vv. 7–10, God announces to Moses that he has heard the cries of the Israelites and that he is moving to save them by sending Moses to Pharaoh. Moses stumbles over this:
Exod 3:11–17
11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” 13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. 16 Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt, 17 and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.”’
It is hard to separate out requisite humility, genuine self-doubt, and simple fear in Moses’s objections. God responds with a declaration of his pure presence. But Moses pushes deeper. If he is going to confront Pharaoh on the strength of this god’s presence, he needs to plumb the depths.
Moses is essentially asking God to demonstrate his nature and his character—to reveal his true self to Moses (cf. Exod 33:18–19). In the Old Testament, names are not just handles to refer to people but are actually descriptors. A name defines someone and tells people about their character, their fortunes, and their defining features (Gen 25:25–26; Ruth 1:20; 1 Sam 25:25). More than that, the one who does the naming does the defining and exercises authority and power over a person (Gen 2:20; 3:20; 17:5, 15–16; 32:28).
The dialogue that follows in vv. 13–15 is fathomless. God’s responses are deceptively simple, disorientingly circular, and wondrously profound. These words have generated libraries of theological reflection and yet remain elusive, unexplainable, and definitional of who God is to us. We’ll never fathom God’s name, but we can still say true things about what he has revealed to us.
1. God is self-naming, he defines himself. If the one who names someone or something exercises authority and control over it, God’s self-definition as “I am who I am” is an exercise in total freedom. The emphasis on being and causality that is captured through the idea of naming shows that this god is not merely the god of a particular people or place, no one named or created him—HE IS. He defines himself.
2. God defines himself relationally as presence with his people. Within the context of the story the first and most fundamental thing that God says is “I will be with you” (v. 12). This affirmation has already been visualized in the symbolism of the burning bush. God’s name echoes back to the idea of God’s presence. If you read it in the Hebrew, identical forms of the verb are being used again and again in all these statements. This creates a bond between the actual personal name (I AM) and the expressions of presence and reassurance to Moses (I AM with you). When Moses is sent to the Israelites, he himself becomes a tangible expression of God’s presence. Finally, the emphasis on connecting the divine name to the names of the Patriarchs creates a deep sense of presence in perpetuity and in continuity with his people. God is saying, you might not know who I am, but I have never lost sight of you, I’ve been here all along. This is my name forever. I am here and I will be here.
3. God's presence with his people accomplishes redemption. Verses 16–17 put God’s name into action. God’s move to redeem his people is tied to the exposition of his name: (1.) I AM is the God of their fathers and he sees them. (2.) I AM is now acting on a covenant relationship made with their fathers in order to bless them. (3.) I AM will confront Pharaoh (representative of earthly and divine powers of oppression) and perform wonders in order to deliver his people. (4.) His people will reap great blessings through his action on their behalf. When all this happens then you will know that I AM YAHWEH and you will know what that means, namely, that I AM with my people to redeem them (Exod 20:2).
YHWH reveals his character in redemption: he is the God who redeems us through relationship and for relationship. As Bruce Waltke puts it, “I am who I am for you.” God’s name is his presence to save.
We'll continue looking at God's name and character in Exodus next time...
LORD, we need to feel your presence. As the world seems to conspire and rage around us, we are trusting that you ARE behind and before all things, that you know us, remember us, and are acting to save us. Surround us, O LORD, with the peace of your presence that we might know you are with us.
City Lights (1931), image credit: monovisions.com
Pray With Us
- Keep praying for our little family. Meghan and I need grace and patience day by day, with the girls, with each other, and with ourselves.
- Pray for the LORD's sovereignty, wisdom, and goodness to be at work throughout the world as Corona continues. May it come—in his grace—to an end.
- Praise God for the opportunity to teach again in Liberia in November. Pray that nothing derails this work and pray that the various initiatives of TLI will be able to move forward again.
- In the meantime, pray for my continued progress on the PhD, specifically, my goal is to finish a draft of the whole thing in 2021.
City Lights (1931), image credit: monovisions.com
Notes:
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, translated from the first French edition of 1541 by Robert White (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2014), 27.
- Bruce K. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 366. Emphasis mine.