Jots and Tittles

Matthew 5:18: For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke (KJV: jot or tittle) shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
John 19:30: Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished (accomplished)!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.

It is my belief that Jesus Christ was in himself the fulfillment of the Law and did what no human could do: the work of his life, death and resurrection was (as A well puts it) complete, sufficient and includes you and me. That means whatever demands the law placed upon us have been fulfilled by him, making it not only unnecessary but indeed counter-productive for me to futilely try and measure up to a requirement already met on my behalf. I may go into this theme more in another post sometime, but this is the basis from which I work in the musings that follow.
However, the fact that the law has been fulfilled, or completed, or its demands met, does not mean that it has in itself become irrelevant. Wrong has not become right, nor has right become wrong. It's still wrong to murder your neighbor, covet his goods, lie and steal. It's still right to love one another and feed the poor. Life is still better for all human beings and societies where these precepts are followed, than where they are not. In this sense, so long as heaven and earth remain, there remains a moral standard above man's reckoning. This will not be abolished until "heaven and earth pass away", because as long as there are human beings, there is need for a moral standard.
That established, let us move on to the least essential part of this discussion: jots and tittles.
That phrase --like "flotsam and jetsam"-- has always delighted me, though I long had no idea what it could mean. I realize that both written Hebrew and Greek are so very other than any languages I understand, it could mean practically anything, including scribal error, ink blots or a slip of the pen. But when I learned German I finally got a window of understanding on jots and tittles.
One thing about not only learning a new language but actually living in the culture from whence it developed, is that you learn humility very, very quickly. Especially if you're a person who, in their native tongue, is accustomed to being well-read, speaking correctly and having a wide range of vocabulary to express a particular meaning precisely, it's quite a comedown to be reduced to the language level of a 3-year-old (and to not pronounce even THAT very well).
I remember in the first weeks of residence in Austria gathering all my courage to accompany our hostess to the farmer's market down the street. It was quite a sight. 30 years ago farmer's markets were like stepping back into the 1950's; many of the women wore dirndls, men were often in lederhosen and/or blue cotton work shirts; flies alighted upon the fruit, the meat, the people. Cheese was cut from huge wheels. Meat (some very unfamiliar bits indeed) hung from hooks twisting in the breeze. I couldn't speak much German at that time, but I did think I knew my numbers. After all, how hard can it be?
So when I chose my vegetables and hesitantly asked the burly farmer, in my best High German, "Vee-feel kostet das?", I was quite taken aback when his barked reply was "Tsvoh unt tsvotzg!" What on earth was THAT?! I tremblingly held out my hand with a bill and hoped he was honest enough to give me the right change. The dialect farmers spoke was quite different from the city dialect I had heard up until then (not understanding much of that) and both differed dramatically from the High Northern German I had learned in school and in missions training. How was I to know the farmer had said the equivalent of "Tsvai und tsvan-tsig"??? (22)
That was "just" dialect. With time, I felt my way into many differing dialects of German, since in the first years we worked primarily with University students who had come from all over Austria to study in Graz. But there are also (drumroll, please) the dreaded UMLAUTS.
I've had to do with many other Americans in my 30 years here. The biggest problem most of them have had is learning to pronounce words with an Umlaut in them, because an Umlaut changes the sound of a vowel to something that does not exist in the English language. The British have less trouble with it for some reason; perhaps because their accent is much softer in places, and many of them have learned French which has similar sounds in it.
An Umlaut is just two small dots placed on top of certain vowels: ä,ö,ü. The best way to demonstrate how it works is to pronounce the vowel as you always would but then, still speaking the vowel out, move your lips to a different position; this changes the sound of what comes out. Don't ask me why this started in the language. Nobody has been able to tell me anything but guesswork. One common usage is to denote a diminutive; adding -chen or -lein to a word makes it a smaller version thereof, and in that case an Umlaut must be added to the vowel (for example, Blume --flower-- becomes Blümchen --little flower). But that's not all. These two tiny marks can change not only the pronunciation, but the very meaning of a word, entirely.
And that can be tricky!
For years I inadvertently described humid weather as homosexual, because I simply couldn't get it through my head that the word was "schwül" and not "schwul". My dear friends (whose smiles could not always remain hidden) did not correct me because they thought it was so cute. (Grrrrr!) If you order a burger at McDonald's, do not order a Bürger, because you will be asking for a grilled citizen. And so on. Such a small detail, yet with such big consequences!
I was thinking about this one day when the penny dropped: In the above passage, Jesus is not dissing the law. He is not saying it never mattered, now that we live on this side of the Cross. In fact there are probably nuances within it which we will never grasp, never "pronounce correctly". But as the letter to the Romans emphasizes. the law is only actually necessary for children, as a tutor until they are mature. It is never invalid (right is still right, wrong is still wrong), but its job is to establish a standard within us that, as we mature, renders the law outside of us superfluous.
Adults don't need to be told the oven is hot and it is a no-no to touch it. They know the oven is hot and if they do touch it, they have chosen to do so knowing full well it is hot. The oven has not stopped being hot (the law is still in effect), but the adult is not bound by the law not to touch it if he chooses, for his own considered reasons, to do so. The law is there for his protection, but there are times he will override it for a purpose he finds sufficient (perhaps another human being is in more danger of burns than he, or perhaps there is simply no time to grab a potholder before the casserole burns). In any case, as long as the adult has the laws of the Kingdom in his heart (love God, love his neighbor), his actions will be reflected in his choices and he doesn't need a tutor standing over him with a whip.
As we grow into maturity as adults, we will make mistakes in our choices, but that eventuality too has been paid for. No jot or tittle of Dad's original intentions in his moral law (I am not including such things as dietary proscriptions for a desert tribe in this!) can ever be considered unimportant to the heart of God. But as a schoolmaster for the human race, its purpose has been accomplished through Christ. Now we are challenged "no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love." (Ephesians 4:14-16) I like the way JB Philiips has translated this passage: "We are not meant to remain as children at the mercy of every chance wind of teaching and the jockeying of men who are expert in the crafty presentation of lies. But we are meant to hold firmly to the truth in love, and to grow up in every way into Christ, the head. For it is from the head that the whole body, as a harmonious structure knit together by the joints with which it is provided, grows by the proper functioning of individual parts to its full maturity in love."
I see this as Dad's ideal community: the phrase "in love" occurs twice here, and as John the beloved apostle reminds us: "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." (1 John 4:7-8) He goes on in vs 16: "God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."
Abiding by the only two laws of the Kingdom (love God, love man) fulfills all other law, there being no law against love. Jesus did this perfectly. In our feeble efforts to learn to do this, we will sometimes harm ourselves and others, and will most certainly break a rule or two. But children only grow when they are given room to do so. Adults only become mature when they make choices and learn from them. Dad has constructed the universe in such a way that it runs best on love. When we "slot in" to his way of living, it goes well with us and with those whose lives we touch.
I don't need to worry about the jots and tittles; Jesus took care of that for me.
Now if I could only get a handle on the Umlauts!

Busted

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~ Anatole France

This quote perfectly describes what I have been experiencing recently. Through much pain and turmoil, huge amounts of impossible "coincidence", and liberal applications of unexpected and quite unmerited grace, I now shakily find myself in a place where I am:
- freed from a long marriage that, though we made it work, never could fulfill me emotionally and had abusive elements to it;
- free from the constraints of CAWKI (Church As We Know It), after serving it full-time in various forms for over 30 years;
- deeply beloved by a man whom I not only deeply love in return, but respect and learn from, genuinely like and delight in;
- free to start over again in any place we can afford to live.
So what am I grousing about? Yes, getting here took a lot of tears and pain that I wasn't expecting. But as Dad once challenged me in a previous period of great upheaval: "Remember that life you didn't want any more, that you gave me in despair? Well, look at your life now. You don't have that old life any more, do you? So what are you complaining about?"
And I remember standing in front of people attending missions training and telling them, "Yes, do count the cost. But then pay it, whatever the amount; because Kingdom life is worth it!"
Busted.
In the past weeks, I've again come to the point where my heart has been revealed to me and I find that underneath all the upheaval, rejection, pain and change of the past few years, I still do burn for one thing: the King and his Kingdom. To be sure, my ideas of what that looks like in daily living are in constant flux. But A and I both that know that before we ever knew one another, each in our own way, we had given up our "old" lives for something more, off the beaten track, to be available for the King and his Kingdom. And we both know it would never be enough for us to just live a quiet life off in a corner of England gazing into each others' eyes until we grow too old to see.
So we are back to the questions: but what? And how? And there are far more questions than answers right now. The only two things that are certain are that we love each other and God, and that A will be taking his degree for the next 5 to 6 years. England appears to be the best place in which to do that, providing the most options for us and requiring the least depletion of our resources. Whether we actually end up there or not still depends on a number of things which have yet to take place, but we are moving in that direction.
I think-- no, I know!-- that I needed to do emotional leave-taking of my children (both spiritual as in VG and physical as in my own) in any case. The inappropriate parts of my attachment were a mental and emotional block keeping me clinging on to a life situation that is no longer in place. Adult children are not like children living at home, a fact I have always championed and which English-speaking nations seem to support with their culture. But my biological children did grow up in a society which expects Mama to be always available down the road; if anything in life should go wrong, Mama will drop everything and step in.
Now, I am perfectly willing, nay eager, to step in when needed; I'm just not willing, nor do I think it's healthy, to wait in the wings until called for, to sacrifice my own life on that altar as I see countless Austrian mothers doing. What may therefore feel like abandonment to an Austrian adult child may actually be healthy detachment, moving on to a more equal stage of adult life in which it becomes possible to be both Mum and friend.
In any case, I'm slowly coming into a wider place where my past no longer fills my thoughts nor determines my actions, where creativity and delight in the simple things of life are returning, where I now actually sometimes choose to spend a whole afternoon listening to worship music or reading something theologically "heavy" (which I for awhile simply could not handle). I still find myself allergic to CAWKI, but not to fellowship. I still dislike hype, but love God-stuff. I'm still not a triumphalistic American revivalist, but I am a minister of the Good News.
And I'm still not finished.

Different -- not wrong?!

I have been wanting to write about my trip to South Africa but not wanting to at the same time. That's why, in the end, nothing has yet been written. But I find it's set up sort of a mental block; until I write this and get it out of my head, I seem unable to write about much else. So, here goes.
Now, I preface my remarks by noting that I spent my entire 2 1/2 weeks in that large country in only one region, Cape Town and the surrounding Cape, so I am certainly not the expert on South Africa. And frankly, Cape Town is SA's original settlement of imperialism (first Dutch and later English), so it is likely to have more remnants of that mentality there than perhaps anywhere else. But still, South Africa's culture was an utter surprise to me. I'd been told to expect a warm and generous culture and have a wonderful relaxing holiday. Instead, I found it a strange and deeply disturbing country.
I'd read up a bit on it before leaving Austria, and I'd heard quite a bit from my various friends from there, but my experience didn't fit any of that information. I guess inwardly I was expecting something like the culture of Brazil, where every race and income bracket is represented, but they all intermarry and they all accept each other as Brazilians. Sure, there is still a visible gap between the very rich and the very poor, but the average Brazilian of the ever-growing middle class is aware of this gap, not happy about it and works to change it.
My experience of South Africa was that, although apartheid may now be illegal, what caused and supported apartheid in the first place is still unfortunately far too alive and well for my comfort level. It seems to me that South Africans live in a truce situation, not in peace. My (all white) friends there came from varying backgrounds but all conveyed clearly to me, in one form or another, the following message: "This is just the way we do life here; it's our culture. Everybody knows their place and keeps it, and it works best that way. Like attracts like; birds of a feather flock together. Everyone in SA lives where they do by choice." This in a context where one of my friends had already explained to me, in so many words, the social pecking order:
1) The English-descended whites (comparable to white-collar professionals).
2) The Dutch-descended whites (Boers, comparable to blue-collar workers).
3) "Coloreds" (everything not in the first two categories, but not black: Asians, Indians, Aboriginals, mixed-race).
4) "Our" blacks (those descended from the original tribes living in the country when it was colonized).
5) "The other" blacks (anyone from any other African nation living in SA).
In my time there, I did not see a single white person doing any job that could be considered "grunt work"; that was reserved exclusively for blacks. Coloreds sometimes waited on tables, but whites were always their bosses. There were black men at every crossroads and traffic light, trying to sell fruit or trinkets; I was told their wives actually go out to work (cleaning whites' houses and the like), but the men generally can't or won't find work and try to get by in this way. We went to church twice during my stay and each time the congregation segregated themselves automatically. (We were the only ones who broke the unwritten rules and sat on the "colored" side, which was closest to the toilets.)
Whites of middle to upper-class live in gated communities surrounded by high walls with glass, barbed wire and/or electric deterrents on the top. The common and expressed belief is that anything not nailed down or protected securely will be stolen, and I do believe it to be a justified assumption. The sprawl of ever-present townships (the SA term for slums), sometimes only blocks away, are studiously ignored by most whites, and in fact I heard complaints about how the government provided them with "free" sanitary facilities and partial electricity.
These township dwellings are truly made of whatever people could beg, borrow or steal; some had corrugated iron roofs, but many were of wood or plastic sheets or even of tarp. I was there in winter and though the temperatures do not go down to freezing it can get mighty cold, especially at night; rains are sometimes torrential and the wind can be very cutting. The average South African home does not have central heating; the houses are built of cement, and my feet were cold almost the entire time. But if it was that way in a snug house in a "mixed" neighborhood, where I stayed (this means it is not gated, but every door and window is barred and there are alarms), how must it be in a "home" made of permeable materials, with nothing but perhaps a wood or coal fire for warmth?
I heard the attitude expressed that "those people" should go back to the villages from whence they had come, hoping for a better life, as they would have enough to eat there if they lived as their ancestors had, without having to steal. I was also told that you could find good and honest black women, but you should never, ever trust a black man, not even in church. They were described to me as "animals" in how they treat their wives and their personal habits.
And this all from three otherwise delightful, devout Christian ladies who were hosting me at their expense.
What could I say? Mostly, I held my tongue. I was not there to challenge them.
However, I was, and remain, appalled. SA is the only nation (and it is, I believe, the 33rd I have visited) that I have no desire at all to return to.
Now of course there were many highlights of the visit. I saw some absolutely stunning natural beauty, I had some good times with my lady friends and ate some nice traditional food. I got the closest I have ever been to a real lion (and it was a truly awe-inspiring experience-- especially when he growled!), and God used the time away to do some necessary dealing with my heart. I know I was supposed to be there, especially as I was out of the way when my resignation letter was read out loud at a members' meeting of my old church here in Graz, and I was not present to take any flak. (What utterly perfect timing; this trip was planned 3/4 of a year before I knew that would be happening!)
But even so, my visit to South Africa remains in my mind as a deeply troubling experience. I've tried to deal with it as we learnt many years ago in missions school: "Different, not wrong"-- without much success. It seems wrong to me; it seems dangerous to assume that this truce with how things really are (though there is now a black government, the weight of money and power remains in the hands of the --few in comparison-- whites; race riots no longer occur, but white farmers are regularly slaughtered out in the veldt) can hold. I am now not at all surprised that the South Africans I have met are people I like; they are ex-pats who left that situation, who are not willing (for whatever reason) to cooperate with it.
And I sorrow that my Christian friends there seem unable to grasp how very different their accepted culture is from Kingdom culture, and how (in my opinion) their tacit support of it works against Kingdom being established in their land, although that is something they long for.
It makes me wonder what I am blind to in both my home culture and my adopted one, which has a similar effect.
Well. There it is: out there. It may not have changed anything, but I might now be able to focus on something else when I sit down to write!!