The Wedding of Thanks and Giving: a Thanksgiving sermon

This sermon, based on Deuteronomy 26:1-11. was preached at Peace Mennonite Church, Portland, Oregon on November 22, 2009


Once upon a time God gave a party for all the virtues, great and small, humble and heroic. They all gathered together in a splendidly decorated hall in heaven and soon began to enjoy themselves immensely because they were all acquainted with one another. Some were even closely related. Suddenly God spotted two virtues who didn't seem to know each other at all and appeared ill at ease in each other's company. So God took one of them by the hand and formally introduced her to the other. "Gratitude," God said, "this is Charity." God had hardly turned around and they had already begun talking to each other as if they were long lost friends. And the story now goes around that ever since God brought them together wherever Gratitude is there you will also find Charity.

We also know the virtues of gratitude and charity as thankfulness and love that gives. We find these both relating to each other in today's text from the book of Deuteronomy. This scripture comes at the conclusion of a list of statutes and ordinances given by Moses to the people. It includes two sets of instructions that have to do with liturgy, particularly offerings. These acts of giving were to function as concrete demonstrations of love for God accompanied by the virtue of thankfulness. Let's take a peek at our text and watch the relationship develop between Thanks and Giving.

We see in our text in Deuteronomy that thankfulness begins with an act of remembering. Someone once said that gratitude is the memory of the heart. Thankfulness arises from a heart that has been moved by its memory. We look back at something we have experienced or received and perceive it to be a gift of God and we respond with thankfulness and gratitude. Like that time that you saw your first child being born and lifted up by the heels screaming to high heaven. With glassy eyes you held back the flood of wonder over the gift. Later, with sprigs of gray in your hair you thumb through the baby pictures and remember that moment and sigh, "Thank you, God."

Or someone asks a prayer in church concerning their shaky job situation and you remember when you were laid off. Those envelopes with see-through windows sat there quietly on the table waiting for a check and a trip to the mailbox. But, they just piled up one on top of another. All the newspapers in the house had circles in the classified section. The numbers on your phone are faded from all the dialing but each call ended with “Sorry…” on the other end of the line. Then one day, unexpectedly, the phone rang. The voice on the other end said, "Can you be here in the morning?"You hung up the receiver and almost jumped to the ceiling. And as you looked back over the months and months and remembered the phone call, you whispered a "Thank you, Lord." Memory gives rise to thankfulness.

For the Israelites thankfulness was to arise from the memory of their own story of Exodus from bondage and entry into the promise land. They were to remember from where and to where God had brought them. Their act of offering the first fruits upon entry into the promise land was to be coupled with the ritual of remembering and reciting God's mighty and gracious acts of delivering them, sustaining them, and gifting them with a land flowing with milk and honey. From the remembrance of God's gifts of liberation and land, Israel was to respond with thanksgiving.

Shouldn’t the remembrance of our own stories cause us to give thanks? Walk down the dusty back roads of your memory. Do you come across any stories of deliverance or release from your own bondages, addictions, or habitual patterns in your life? Are there any memories of being sustained with heavenly bread as you walked through desert experiences in your life? Can you think of places in your memory where you came upon a land of friends or unexpected opportunities or church experiences that made everything around you seem to flow with milk and honey? And when you remember those moments, don't you just you want to shout to the sky "Thank you, God!" Then, you know what I mean when I say that thankfulness arises from the memory of the heart.

One way we express our thankfulness is through worship. As we remember God's gifts we may want to go beyond the spontaneous “Thank you, God.” We may want to respond in worship. Thanks arises from the perception of being "graced" or “gifted.” We naturally want to express our thanks when given a gift. But, who do we thank for the sunshine and rain and growth of crops? Or the beauty of a rainbow or the purple hills and orange sky at sunset? Who do we thank for waking to a new day or a moment of silence that wraps its warm arms around us? Who do we thank? The atheist is in a rather awkward position when moved by awe, wonder or feelings of gratitude for life's giftedness. To whom do they offer thanks? Worship, prayer, and praise is one way that the believer expresses thanks to God for the gifts life has given them. As in the prayer of Johnny Appleseed, "The Lord's been good to me, and so I thank the Lord."

Israel's offering of the first fruits was, first and foremost, an act of thankful worship. It involved a sacred place---the tabernacle, sacred persons---the priest and Levites, sacred objects---the altar and offering, sacred words---their confession of faith, and sacred gestures- --bowing down. The offering of first fruits was an ongoing part of Israel's worship. The offering of first fruits to God was a ritualized form of expressing thanksgiving for the gifts life offered.
But isn't the offering within a church service merely something we have to do to pay our interim pastor, cover the bills, and support mission projects? No. It's true that we offer our gifts to keep the church running. But, first and foremost, it is an act of worship. It is a concrete, tangible response to the experience of our having been graced and gifted. We offer the first fruits of our labors. Notice I didn't say what little we have left over after paying off our bills and entertaining ourselves. We offer our first fruits as a response of joyful thanks for what God has given to us.

Worship as an act of thanksgiving does not mean our offering of thanks is to be isolated to yearly holidays, Sundays, or even religious activities, such as prayers of thanksgiving. It is an attitude of gratitude that permeates our living with thanksgiving. As one father learned from his wise child. The father of a certain household, as usual, at the morning meal asked the blessing, thanking God for a bountiful provision. But immediately after the prayer, he began grumbling about the hard times, the poor quality of the food he was forced to eat, and the way it was cooked. His little daughter interrupted him. "Father, do you suppose God heard what you said in your prayer?" "Certainly," he confidently replied. "And did he hear what you said about the breakfast?" "Of course," he said hesitantly. "Then, Daddy, which did God believe?"

Worship and thankfulness are not to be isolated to religious rituals or particular days of our lives, as if we could come here on Sunday and give thanks, but live with an attitude of ungratefulness the rest of the week. Worship is a ritualizing of our response to God and serves as a reminder that all of life is sacred, all of life is gift, and deserves a response of thanksgiving. Worship is a most important form of expressing our thanks to God.

Our thankfulness is also expressed in giving and sharing. Gratitude begins within the person or community as an act of remembering, moves upward in worship toward God, then outward toward others in acts of giving and sharing. Israel's first fruits offering was not only a gift to God, but was be shared and eaten by the Levites and the sojourners who resided in the land, those who had no direct access to the fruits of the land. Thanksgiving to God is expressed in the giving and sharing of our gifts with others, particularly those without access to the fruits of the earth. Our acts of giving and sharing become a repetition of the God's giving and sharing with us.

There is no more powerful way to express our thanks than to give and to share with others. Rosemary Prichett and Cheryl Wood both understand that thanks is expressed in giving. But after you hear their story you may wonder which one was most thankful and who gave to whom. Rosemary, an African-American mother of three, living in a homeless shelter, found an endorsed $400 check on a windy downtown sidewalk. She could have seen the money as a gift of God to her. Instead, she looked through the phonebook and found the name on the check---Cheryl Wood, a white nurse from a nearby town. Cheryl was so grateful that her check was returned she wanted to offer a gift to Rosemary, but she refused. As they sat and shared about their lives and their children, Cheryl learned that Rosemary had bid $1200--- her entire savings---on an abandoned house, which she hoped to fix up. Two days later, who shows up at Rosemary's dilapidated house, but Cheryl. She had called a number of businesses asking for donations of supplies, workers and equipment. An army of contractors, suppliers and volunteers donated $30,000 in goods and work! All of this came as a response of thanks for the gift of a returned $400 check!

Thankfulness to God is expressed through giving and sharing with others. When we give and share our money, our time, our talents, our support, our encouragement, and our energies with others, we are making concrete our gratitude for the gifts that God has given to us. Sharing and giving as a thankful response to God is a way of creating a little slice of heaven on earth.

There is a story about a man who wanted to see both heaven and hell. "I'll show you hell,"said the Lord, and they went into a room which had a large pot of stew in the middle. The smell floated through the air and caressed the man's nose. But around the pot sat a bunch of desperate, thin, grumbling people who were starving. All were holding spoons with very long handles which reached into the pot, but because the handle of the spoon was longer than their arm, it was impossible to get the stew into their mouths. Their suffering was terrible. "Now I will show you heaven," said the Lord, and they went into an identical room as the first one. There was a similar pot of delicious stew and the people had the same long-handled spoons, but were well-nourished, talking, happy, and thankful. At first the man didn’t understand. "It is simple,” said the Lord: "You see, they have learned to feed each other." Giving and sharing can be a bit of heaven on earth.

Our gratitude to God is best expressed in sharing our bounty with others. We give because God has first given to us. And what greater way to express our thanks to God than by giving to others. We say “thanks” to God when we share the first fruits of our labor and support this church's ministry and the ministry of others. We say “thanks” to God when we give a cup of cold water to the thirsty or a piece of bread to the hungry. What more noble virtue could there be than to share our gifts, time, and support for the homeless, the hurting, and the hopeless? Are we not giving thanks to God when we visit someone who is sick or lonely or elderly? And, thanks be to God, are we not making a little patch of heaven right here on this sod where we live? In giving of ourselves we are celebrating the wedding of the two virtues----Thanks and Giving.

So, you see, that ever since God first introduced Gratitude and Charity, they have always been found together. And their marriage has produced the fruit of thankfulness. So, as one poet put it:

Go break to the needy sweet Charity's bread
for giving is living;" the angel said
"and must I be giving again and again?"
My peevish and pitiless answer ran.
"Oh" no,," said the angel" piercing me through
"Just give till the Master stops giving to you."

Aung San Suu Kyi: Artisan of Social Change

Finished a new drawing in my series Artisans of Social Change of Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize recipient (1991). Seeking a new democracy for Burma she was elected by an overwhelming majority as Prime Minister of Burma but was arrested by the Burmese military before she could serve. Aung has been under house arrest 14 of the past 20 years. She was the recipient of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize and the Sakharov prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990, both while under house arrest.

Things I Will Probably Never Do Again in This Lifetime

As I get older sometimes I look back and ponder things that I have done in my life that I will probably never do again. It’s not that there is no possibility to do any of these things again. Some people re-engage in some of these kinds of activities because they have grandchildren or in order to revive their inner child or to see if they still have the energy. But, as you grow older you tend to leave certain things behind that you did when you were younger or they became more of a physical challenge.

Remembering these ordinary things is a way of appreciating the life I have lived. As I mediate on these things, realizing that they are activities that are now gone from my life, they feel like sacred activities, although most of these things have nothing to do with religion. But, come to think of it, isn’t it because life itself is sacred? As they say, you only come by this way once. It is a grace just to have lived.

Here are some of those things I will probably never do again:

1. Run barefoot through the lemon fields. Ouch! Stickers!
2. Swim with goggles in a creek with crawdads, and a few crawmoms. Watch out for those pinchers!
3. Buy a plastic model car, glue it together and paint it. Ed “Big Daddy” Roth rules!
4. Eat a hamburger , fries and coke for breakfast. I did this on my summer vacation trips to Oklahoma.
5. Poke sticks in my chest while jumping off high places with my new superman shirt on. Ouch again!
6. Chase girls with my sword and Zorro outfit on. Touche!
7. Pop wheelies on a Lambretta scooter. Sometimes with another kid sitting on the back tire.
8. Cruise “A Street” downtown and race against another car on a dark back road. Watch out for the cops!
9. Awkwardly call up a girl and ask her to the prom and get rejected. Ouch! Knife to the heart.
10. Hoe weeds in the bean fields under the hot summer sun. Whew!
11. Avoid horse poop while marching with the band in white buck shoes. Yuuuck!
12. Feel the exhilaration of playing “Wipe Out” on the drums in a surf band. Ha-ha-ha-ha. Wipe out!
13. Work on an engine under a car hood with my dad.
14. Go to Sunday School with my mom.

A Love Once Past: Poem from the early 70's

Love was once a still blue moment
Pasted to my mind like a catalog of iridescent colors
But time stole the colors from my eyes
and has turned them into gnarled tumbleweeds
blowing in the desert wind


The hurt was etched into my body like a sailor's tattoo
A mistaken love has left its scar upon my tissues
Its sting lasted the morning and grew from within
to eat at my consciousness, for what seems an eternity

Pregnant with thoughts of self-condemnation
I searched for the truth, but the tongue of life
found only the bitter taste of a love gone by,
still echoing its melody in the caverns of my soul

But at last the echo is fading and leaving a hollow inside
The question begins to haunt me
Should I try to fill the deep hole of a love once past
or go on living, molded to a dream?

The death of a forgotten man: a poem from the early 70's

Flowing forms and figures pass uninterruptedly
through the mind of the old bearded man
His body has experience, his mind has too
He reaches for companionship
but only too often the tide does not reach the land
He is a man of the past and not of the new

Crashing to his chest comes a pain he cannot hold back
Time has taken from him what many years cannot replace
For this old man’s destiny is upon him
His cards have been stacked
The judgment day is upon his mind
and torment upon his face

On the day of the sunset the flowers flourished beneath his feet
The song of the white dove has fallen on his ear
before the tide reached the land
The darkness that now engulfs him is not that of defeat
It is just a resting of his weary soul that
was for so long in demand

Early Poems by Leo Hartshorn

Found these poems from the 80's in a notebook I uncovered in some unpacked boxes today:

Food for Thought

To deduce a Creator from creation
through Paley's analogy of machination
is a prior assumption
for cerebral consumption
But just as Pascal said,
The heart eats things
passed over by the head



Pizza Communion

A small voice intones a give-us-this-day-prayer
over a pepperoni pizza with extra cheese
The three young disciples of Tom-foolery
wash down the pizza with blessed Coca-Cola
A simple meal
A sacred Meal
to the one whose eyes have been opened
at the slicing of the pizza



Mobile Sanctuary

Through the silent spaces of air
outside my car
while waiting at a red light
the Word flies into my car radio
the silent, invisible Word
made audible in my mobile sanctuary
through my car stereo
beneath a dirty dashboard horizon
and valley of coke cans and trash
the Word bursts into the silence
birthing itself in my ears
with heavy beat and screaming guitar
a just-alright-Jesus
the Rock of Ages
The Word
born in an audio manger
amid the trash
and a dusty dash

A Taxing Question

Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he-said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians; saying, "Teacher, Tell us ... what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?" Jesus said. .. "Show me a coin used for the tax. " And they brought him a denarius. The he said to them, "Whose head is this, and whose title?" They answered, "The emperor's." Then he said, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's and to God the things that are God's" Matthew 22: 15-22

Death and taxes. The two proverbial certainties in life. People worry that the deficit and government providing health care will raise our taxes. Our two major political parties perpetually debate tax increases. Republicans do not want taxes raised at any cost. Democrats would rather the rich carry a greater percentage of taxation. But questions about taxes are nothing new. They are as old as the Bible. Read my lips. Taxes will follow us to the grave.

The subject of taxes is a topic for heated debate. Taxes are a powerful symbol of the clash between the interests of the individual and the interests of the society. They are the point where the personal and the political collide head on. So, it is not surprising that the subject of taxes has provoked debate, incited revolutions, and split people along political party lines. Talk of taxes raises a lot of debated questions.

Death and taxes. Jesus had to deal with these two certainties in his last days. Death and taxes are linked together in today's biblical narrative. But the question of taxes seems to have hounded the heels of Jesus from his cradle to his grave. It was a census for taxation that brought his parents to Bethlehem. And the accusation that Jesus taught the people not to pay the poll tax was thrown at him during his trial.

Even the Christ of God could not escape the question of taxes. Death and taxes. In Matthew's gospel they both are headed in a collision course, with Jesus in the middle. The instigators of this collision are a collusion of two major political groups in Jesus' day---the Pharisees and the Herodians. The Herodians were Roman puppets who supported the rule of Herod Antipas. The Pharisees were elite religious leaders who governed within the political sphere allotted to them by Rome. In any question of taxation the Herodians would have supported it. Like most Jews under Roman domination, the Pharisees would have been opposed to taxation. They were primarily out to get the one who was disturbing the peace of their power. But politics always seems to create strange bedfellows. Pharisees and Herodians. Bush and Noriega. And believe it or not, at one time, even the U.S. and Iraq!

The Pharisees and Herodians were working together to trap Jesus into making a political blunder, so as to get him out of their hair. The followers of these two groups came to Jesus one day. They spoke with a forked tongue. There was venom in their sweet words. Beneath their flattery was hidden deceit and trickery. You can almost hear the spring catch on their steel trap as they say to Jesus, "Rabbi, we know that you are a sincere person. You truthfully teach the way of God. Neither do you express personal preference toward people, or show partiality." You see, they were craftily setting up Jesus. They were trying to force him to admit political neutrality, while all along they knew that there was no way he would be able to void taking sides on the issue of Roman taxation.

What they wanted Jesus to tell the crowd was not his personal opinion, but the way of God on the issue of taxation. We might compare it ot a secular scene with Congress asking Sonia Sotomayor, "Judge, we know that you are fair, honest,truthful, unbiased, non-partisan, without pre-judgment or partiality, a wise Latina woman. So, tell us then, does an unborn child have constitutional rights?" Hear the trap go “snap!” But into the sizzling stew that Jesus was placed, add the extra ingredient of God. In other words, they didn't want just his opinion, or the law's. They wanted Jesus to pronounce the word of God on this issue! So, whatever he said to this crowd, Jesus was going to hang himself.

Then the question with teeth was thrown at Jesus: "Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not." They were ready to snag Jesus on the sharp horns of a dilemma. And Jesus was aware of their deadly intent. If he said "no", then he would find himself in hot water not just with the Herodians, but with the whole imperial Roman government. He would have been labeled a revolutionary. If he answered "yes", then Jesus would have cooked his own goose among his people, who opposed the taxation.

You see, taxation was a symbol to the Jewish people of Roman oppression. A resistance movement was even formed and Jewish revolts broke out over Roman taxation. For Jesus to approve of imperial taxation would prove to be volatile. Beneath this question of taxation hid other perplexing questions like; "Can one be a faithful Jew and a loyal subject of Rome? What business have the people of God to do with secular governments? Who is to be obeyed---the Torah or Tiberius? Who is really the Lord---God or Caesar?" The Pharisees and Herodians were hoping for a simple, incriminating answer from Jesus. The trap was ready to spring. But Jesus' drew the hunter's into their own trap. He asked them to show him the coin used in the tax.

The live bomb that they placed in Jesus' hands was about to explode in their own faces. They were being called upon to participate in answering their own question by producing from their own pockets the evidence that would entrap them. They handed Jesus a denarius, a coin equivalent to a day's labor. Jesus then turned the tables on them and asked them a question: "Whose head and title is on this coin?" This coin, used to pay taxes, was a highly controversial symbol in first century Jewish Palestine. It was minted by emperor Tiberius. It bore his image and the blasphemous title, "Tiberius, Caesar, Augustus, the son of the divine Augustus." The image and title were an abomination to the Jew and a sign of sovereignty. The Roman coin was such a slap in the Jewish face that during the period of several rebellions the Jews minted their own coins as symbols of liberty. The question of whose image the coin bore had an obvious answer---Caesar.

You can almost hear the snap of the trap as Jesus' turns their question upon them. But we will have to listen closely to hear it. He says, "Well then, pay back to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's." On the surface it sounds like a rather straight forward response. His words seem to provide a black and white answer. How simple. Give to Caesar his due and to God his due. The two realms of politics and religion get sorted out and put in their nice, neat compartments. In this drawer are the "things of Caesar." And over there in that drawer are the "things of God." And what are the things of Caesar? Why, they must be things like taxes, politics, economics, the military, government policies, and issues of social welfare. Then, what are the things of God? Well, they must be things like the church, the Bible, worship, prayer, fellowship, and morality. Jesus' answer sounds like a nice, neat formula for putting religion and politics in their right and proper places.

We might hear Jesus' words as a sermon on the separation of church and state. Or we may hear Jesus as an Anabaptist preacher proclaiming a theology of two separate kingdoms; the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. This is Caesar's realm and this is God's realm and never the twain shall meet. If we are not careful, Jesus may even begin to sound like a middle-of-the-road politician or a Boy Scout master who tells the loyal troops that they should do their duty to God and their country. As a matter of fact, in the movie of Sergeant York's life, these very words of Jesus are used by the good sergeant to determine the answer a question he had concerning whether, as a Christian, he should allow himself to be drafted into the US Army in 1917. And we know the answer he pulled out of the hat of Jesus' statement. If we are not careful, we can turn this saying of Jesus into something as innocuous and non-threatening as the admonition to be both good Christians and good citizens at the same time. And that is exactly what most Christians have done to this revolutionary saying of Jesus. Scout's honor!

Jesus' answer to the question of taxation is intentionally ambiguous. Those who hear his answer must struggle to answer for themselves what are the things of Caesar and what are the things of God. The two halves of Jesus' answer are not to be taken as referring to two equal but separate realms that deserve our honor. By placing the two realms side by side Jesus forces us to deal with the relationship between the two. We are placed in a position of having to deal with the relationship of the private and the public, religion and politics, faith and society, the sovereignty of the state and the sovereignty of God. Jesus will not allow us to quietly slip away and hide in our private realm of personal piety. We cannot treat the two realms of God and Caesar separately. Or as someone put it; "We cannot settle questions of political life without considering the claims of God, nor seek to live a religious life oblivious to the problems of society." Jesus throws the "things of Caesar" alongside "the things of God" and causes us to wrestle with them.

This struggle is intensified when we place the emphasis on the second half of Jesus' answer, where it properly deserves to go; upon rendering unto God the things that are God's. If we were to ask the common Jew of Jesus' day, "What are the things of God?", the answer would have been obvious. Everything. What things bear the imprint of God on them? Everything. As the Psalmist says, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. The world and all that is in it." God's things are everything. Politics and prayer. Wealth and worship. Everything. God is Sovereign of everything. So, by placing the statement of what is God's next to what is Caesar's, Jesus is not positing together two co-equal realms that deserve our due. Rather, Jesus has thrown into question not only the things that belong to Caesar, but also the very sovereignty of Caesar.

The claims of Caesar's lordship, become relative alongside the absolute sovereignty of God. The "things of Caesar" are dramatically minimized by the second half of Jesus' answer. Caesar and God, like God and Mammon, are not two lords who stand on equal footing when it comes to our allegiance. God alone is Lord. What we are to render unto Caesar shrinks before the towering question of what we are to render into God. Jesus has given an answer that explodes our narrow and isolated categories. So, in the midst of our own religious and political questions Jesus' answer, we may become as amazed at what Jesus said as those who first heard his answer.

And we may well ask ourselves the question; "What in the world are God's things?" In a world where Caesar rules, that can be a rather taxing question. Jesus' response to the Pharisees and Herodians gives us no simple black and white answer to our own contemporary religious and political questions. How do we sort out the legitimate requirements of loyalty to society, and the absolute demand of loyalty to God? Should we always obey the government? What if Caesar were a Hitler? Should the Christian ever be involved in civil disobedience? What if Caesar's policies send Central Americans back to poverty and death or segregate South African blacks? Should we always pay our taxes? What if they are used to support wars and to stockpile nuclear weapons? If Caesar requires us to go to Iraq or Afghanistan or Iran and defend our country's interests, must we render unto Caesar his due? Do we, as Christians, merely answer these questions along liberal or conservative political party lines? These are indeed taxing questions.

Now, wouldn't you like for me to give all of you a simple answer to each one of these questions? I'm afraid that if I did, I would find myself in the position of Jesus. But I am not Jesus. Your answers must come from him. And I suspect that he will not give you an easy answer, but will hand your questions back to you and say to you words like, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's."

The answers to our questions will come to us only as we struggle with Jesus' words and as we place all of our questions alongside the ultimate sovereignty of God. And the one question that will override all other questions will not be "what must I render unto Caesar?", but rather, "what must I render unto God?" And the answer is obvious. Everything.

In Remembrance of Bat-Jiftah: a reflection on domestic violence

And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, "If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord's, to be offered up by me for a burnt offering. .. Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to meet him..Judges 11:30-31, 34

If you read the title of this article you may be wondering, "Who is Bat-jiftah?" I've never seen her name in the Bible. In reality there is no one by that name in the Bible. I use this name to identify an anonymous person (1). She is a victim of domestic violence, as well as anonymity. We may know the name of Nicole Brown Simpson only because her batterer was a celebrity. But, the victim in our text goes unnamed, like the women abused every fifteen seconds, the more than 4,000 women killed annually by domestic violence, or the estimated 2 to 4 million women physically abused each year. They have become mere statistics to be recited; nameless persons, victims of domestic violence. So, I give this victim a name. Bat-Jiftah in Hebrew would be translated "daughter of Jephthah." By giving her a name and remembering her story we may help to break the silence of abuse. And by remembering the unnamed victims of abuse today we may move toward their healing.

The story of Bat-Jiftah begins with a violent male. This is true of most stories of domestic violence. The overwhelming majority of perpetrators of domestic violence are male. Studies have shown that a larger percentage of males than females display aggressive and violent behavior. 89% of all violent crimes are committed by men. Males, in general, seem to be socialized toward aggressive behavior. So, we begin with the male in this particular Biblical story, whose name is Jephthah. He was the son of a prostitute, a "mighty warrior." He was skilled in the art of violence. Driven out of his home by his half-brothers he fled to the land of Tob, where he gathered around himself a band of outlaws.

Jephthah was invited to return to Gilead and command the military forces in a war against the Ammonites. This society practiced human sacrifice to the god Molech. The crux of the story centers around a vow he made. Before Jephthah goes into battle, he bargains with God by making a vow.Strangely enough, the text says that he made the vow while "in the spirit of the Lord." Jephthah said, "If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites shall be the Lord's to be offered up by me as a burnt offering." This was a man driven by power. Jephthah desperately needed a military victory to legitimate himself in the eyes of his people. And his victory was to be sealed with the offering of a human sacrifice.When the battle was won, Jephthah returned home to Mizpah.

At this point in the story the writer intends to create in the story a sense of anticipation, even anxiety,as Jephthah makes his way home. Who will come out to meet him? Jephthah himself doesn't seem to know. When he was some distance from his home his daughter, his only child, came out to meet him.Like Miriam at the Red Sea, she came with timbrels and dancing in joyful celebration of the victory of her father and her people. Jephthah appears to be genuinely surprised and falls into deep sorrow on account of the outcome of his vow to God. Knowing the place of sons in such an ancient, patriarchal society, I wonder if the one who came out to meet him were a son, would his sorrow have been even greater? Might he have reconsidered his foolish vow? Nevertheless, it is his daughter who will be sacrificed on the
altar of male egotism and blind faith.

First, Jephthah rends his garments in an act of mourning. But, then he places the blame of his forthcoming violence upon his daughter. He says, "Ah, my daughter you have brought me low and you have become the source of my trouble." Blaming the victim is the classic justification perpetrators use to excuse their violence. The batterer says to the victim, "If you wouldn't make me so angry, then I wouldn't hit you," As one battered wife said: "I was blamed for just about everything and got so that I accepted that blame. Once he threw a brush at me and accused me of breaking it." This tactic of blaming the victim is seen in the title of one "pro-family" tract: Wives: 90% of the Fault. A battered woman may be blamed by her family, counselor, the church, or clergy when they tell her that she shouldn't have provoked her partner to anger. The victim will even blame themselves for their abuse. She may say to herself, "I should have cleaned the house and had dinner ready" or "I shouldn't have said anything about the bills." By blaming the victim the whole system of male domination is protected from its need to change. "Ah, my daughter, you have brought me low... "

As strange as it may sound to us, Bat-Jiftah responded to her father's rash vow in complete submission. The Lord has fulfilled his part of the agreement, her father can do no less. In no way did she challenge paternal authority. We may want to question whether teaching children an unqualified obedience and honor of parents may set some of them up for accepting parental abuse. Like her father, she accepted the vow as irrevocable. So, she submitted to the vow. We may not know whether to praise her or feel sorry for her. Some interpreters of this text have lauded Bat-Jiftah for her submissiveness to her father's vow to God. I read a sermon on Jephthah's daughter that compared her "noble" self-sacrifice to the "sacrifice of God's Son." The preacher said, "An oath has been made to God and she will do her duty." One modern poet would have us remember Bat-Jiftah's submission by putting these words in her mouth to her father:

When this blood of thy giving hath gushed,
When the voice that thou lovest is hushed,
Let my memory still be thy pride,
And forget not I smiled as I died! (2)

One may wonder whether this portrayal of unquestioned submissiveness to paternal authority is rather the narrator's male-oriented interpretation of what happened. Some interpreters would read in Bat-Jiftah's words a tone of ironic judgment upon Jephthah. Others consider that she even may have already known about Jephthah's vow, which seems to be indicated in the text, and intentionally took the place of someone her father considered more expendable, thus challenging his senseless vow. Even if this were a case of humble submission to such an act of violence, it can in no way be used to legitimize a woman's submission to domestic violence, even if it is done "in the name of the Lord."

Someone reading this may be saying, "They sure were brutal back in those days. I'm awful glad that in our modem times people don't do such things in the name of religion." Jephthah was ready to commit an act of domestic violence in God's name. And yet, even today acts of domestic violence are perpetrated in the name of God and religion, or at times with religious justification and sanction. I am reminded of the criminal case of John List, who considered by many around him to be a devout man of faith. The bodies of his wife, Helen, their three teenage children, Patricia, John Jr., and Frederick, as well as his 85 year old mother, Alma, were all found in List's New Jersey home shot in the head. One could point to List's enormous debts, the loss of his job, pressure from his wife's illness as triggering events. But, List was also frustrated with the unchristian attitudes of his family. He told his daughter, who rebelled against his rigid religion, that her interests were interfering with her continuing to be a Christian. His wife, also frustrated with his dogmatism and its negative effects on their lives, asked to have her name removed from the church roll. That incident with his wife happened right before the murders. List decided instead of removing his wife from the church rolls he would remove his whole family from the evils of this world.

He left a note for his pastor at the murder scene. List later professed a positive spiritual benefit in the murders saying, "At least I'm certain they've all gone to heaven now." Following the murders he even returned to regular church attendance under another name in another place.Truly, this is an extreme case. But, religion, even Christianity, has often been used in many ways to justify, sanction, or directly support committing or submitting to domestic violence. In a 15th Century Christian publication called Rules of Marriage we read:

Scold your wife sharply, bully and terrify her. If this does not work, take a stick and beat her soundly, for it is better to punish the body and correct the soul than to damage the soul and spare the body. .. Then readily beat her, not in rage but out of charity and concern for her soul so that the beating will rebound to your merit and her good (3).

As appalling as this may sound, theological justification is still being used to condone or ignore violence within the family. Are we not condoning Jephthah's act when confronted with a situation of marital violence we advocate the sanctity of vows made to God over the sanctity of human life? Clergy, Christians, and friends have advised battered women to respect their marriage vows, be submissive to their battering husbands, as the will of God, with little or no admonition to the husband to end the violence. By no means does everyone who believes in a divine plan of male domination over women and husbands over wives abuse or approve of abuse. And yet, there appears to be a direct correlation between the theological viewpoint of male domination and authority over women and abuse. Research has shown that men who batter embrace the traditional view of male supremacy.

Our theology can, when misused, reinforce domestic violence. The Christian virtues of self-denial, self-sacrifice, suffering for the sake of others, and taking up one's cross have been literally applied in the situations of domestic violence trapping the victim in the deadly cycle of violence. In the light of our knowledge and experience of domestic violence should we not reconsider perpetuating one traditional formulation of the doctrine of redemption, more particularly the doctrine of "substitutionary atonement"? In this portrayal of redemption the Father is all-powerful and the children are all-guilty. There is nothing the children can do to earn mercy, no moral basis upon which appeal to the love of the Father. The Father's rage is justified because of the sinfulness of the children. No matter how they are treated by the Father, it is their fault and they have to carry the blame for whatever the Father might do to them. The children's guilt is exacerbated by the presence of a perfect child. Out of love for his children, the Father takes out his wrath upon his blameless Son through a violent; and by divine necessity, bloody death.Thus, the perfect Son accepts the punishment that the Father's hopelessly sinful children rightly deserve, so that they can be saved and go to live forever in the home of the all-powerful Father (4). I don't know about you, but that sounds like a nightmare to me! Imagine how it might sound to the millions of victims
of domestic violence.

It is not hard to see how this doctrinal construct could be used to give divine legitimization to domestic violence. As one who has heard many horror stories of abuse and has personally experienced the deep pain, trauma, and permanent emotional damage left in the wake of domestic violence, I would have to say that I would find it extremely difficult to worship a God who would in any way condone or justify domestic violence, or violence of any sort. The God that I worship is a God of love and compassion. The God of our Jesus Christ is a God of healing and hope, who defends the abused and oppressed.

Some might well be saying, "Yeah, but all that stuff about domestic violence may be true for others, but we Mennonites, with our peace theology, don't have to deal with the problem of domestic violence." Sad but true, one recent study done by Isaac Block of Mennonite families in Winnepeg revealed that sexual and domestic violence occurred as frequently in Mennonite families as it did in the general population.(5) Some believe that a Mennonite theology of Gelassenheit, or humble submission to God's will, self-denial, self-sacrifice, suffering love, following the way of the cross, turning the other cheek ill passive nonresistance, and quick and easy forgiveness, have contributed to the further victimization of women in situations of abuse. On the other hand, I am encouraged by Mennonite women and men theologians and ethicists who are applying our peace theology in new ways to the issue of domestic
violence by advocating that we work for social justice and practice active, nonviolent resistance. We can follow the way of Jephthah and without question literally and woodenly apply our beliefs in situations that can only further victimize people. Or, by the healing grace of God, we can discover alternative ways to be faithful to our covenant vows with God.

In the end Jephthah carried through with his vow. Frozen in my mind is a painting I came across on the internet, a 17th century painting by Venetian artist Pietro della Vecchia entitled The Sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter. It captures the moment right before Jephthah robs his daughter's life in human sacrifice. The figures of Jephthah and his daughter fill the canvas. The bottom of the canvas is strewn with the shadowed heads of bystanders looking on as if at a peep show. The figures of father and daughter are set against a brooding sky. Their heads touch in the center. In one hand Jephthah tenderly holds the back of the neck of his daughter. The muscles of his other arm bulge with a steely knife reflecting light in the shadows. Light falls bright on the bare flesh of Bar-Jiftah, with only her legs draped with a cloth and her hands protecting her uncovered breasts. To our modem sensibilities there is something almost pornographic in this mixture of subtle sexual titillation and misogynist violence. Bar-Jiftah's head is bowed in quiet submission waiting for the inevitable plunge of the knife blade.

Old Testament scholar Phyllis Trible has rightly called this story a "text of terror" (6) There is no word in the text that condemns the sacrifice. No where do we read anything in the the book of Judges like, "And Jephthah did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord." God did not stay the hand of Jephthah as God did with Isaac as Abraham lifted high the knife to plunge it into the breast of Isaac. There was no one in the community to hold back the hand of a violent father, as in the case of Saul, who was kept from doing violence to his son Jonathan on account of a rash oath that he made. Even though we may find human sacrifice condemned elsewhere in the Bible, there is no direct indication in the text that God was displeased that Jephthah followed through with his vow. Could it be that the death of the daughter through human sacrifice, the silence of God, and the lack of anyone in the community to protest such violence are but signs of something rotten and evil in their midst?

Before Jephthah offered his daughter as a human sacrifice she asked only one small favor. Within the limits of her own patriarchal culture, Bat-Jiftah assumed some responsibility in her dire situation by bargaining for herself. She asked that she might go into the mountains for two months with her female companions to "bewail her virginity." The narrator notes that Bat-Jiftah "had never known a man," as if that makes her fate more tragic than it already was. One might reply that she had known a man, at least one and all too well, and that is at the heart of her tragedy. But, her pilgrimage to the mountains with her female companions was not to bemoan the fact that she had never had sex with a man. She was mourning the fact that she would not make the transition to adulthood.

From textual and cultural analysis, we may conjecture that this pilgrimage involved a rite of passage from puberty, a common ritual depicting the death of adolescence and the emergence of adulthood (7).The ritual became associated with the premature death of Bat-Jiftah. It is interesting to note that in her book In a Different Voice, Carol Gilligan presents a study of female moral development from an adolescent stage of self-sacrifice to a woman's mature recognition of responsibility for her own well being in moral decision making (8). For women to appropriate Bat-Jiftah's story today it may mean that they move beyond the stage of adolescent self-sacrifice in solving moral dilemmas to a mature recognition of the need to care for their own well being. Anyway, we do know from the text that there existed some kind of ritual reenacted for four days each year, in which the daughters of Israel would go out to lament Bat-Jiftah. These women kept her memory alive in a ritual of emembrance.

In Africa there is still a belief that a person does not really die until the last one remembers that person dies. Let us keep the memory of Bat-Jiftah alive, like the women who for four days each year remembered her in an annual ceremony. Even more so, let us remember the countless Bat-Jiftah's, unnamed women,daughters, and sons sacrificed on the familial pyres. And let us remember them not merely by the ritual of listening to a sermon or observing Domestic Violence Awareness Sunday. Let us remember by working for the healing of bleeding women and children, as Jesus healed the woman with a menstrual hemorrhage. Let us in remembering work to break the silence of abuse, advocate a zero-tolerance attitude toward any form of family abuse, support organizations, like the Houston Women's Center, that educate the public,support and shelter battered women and children. Let us remember that there are faithful people like my friends Stan and Jeanette Harder, who used their home as a temporary shelter for battered women and their children, and all those workers in shelters who provide temporary homes for the battered and bruised. Let us remember the contemporary Bat-Jiftahs by dismantling oppressive patriarchal structures and ideologies and tearing down the walls of a theology that condones, justifies, or supports domestic violence.

Let us also remember to listen to the liberating Biblical stories of the healing of women, children, and men, that can transform our personal and social consciousness and moral vision. Let us remember stories of the triumph of the human spirit, like the Alice Walker's fictional story of Celie in The Color Purple, a survivor of domestic abuse. Let us remember the real life stories of those around us who have, by the grace of God, experienced a measure of healing from abuse. Let us remember Bat-Jiftah. For those who do not remember history are bound to repeat it. By remembering the unnamed victims of domestic violence, we can hopefully avoid repeating a history of abuse. By remembering, we all may continue to live.

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(1) I am indebted to J Cheryl Exum for the name "Bat-jiftah." See Cheryl Exum, "Feminist Criticism: Whose lnterests are Being Served?" in Gale Yee's Judges and Method. (Minneapolis:Fortress, 1995), 75-78.
(2) Lord Byron, Jephthah's Daughter in Robert Atwan and Lawrence Wieder, eds., Chapters into Verse, Vol. I, (Oxford:Oxford University, 1993), 182.
(3) Cited in Marie Fortune, "The Church and Domestic Violence," Theology, News and Notes, Fuller Theological Seminary, June 1982.
(4) I have benefited from the theological reflections on the atonement by James Poling in his book The Abuse of Power.(Nashville:Abingdon, 1991).
(5) Isaac I. Block, Assault on God's Image. (Winnepeg:Wildflower Communications, 1991).
(6) Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror. (Philadephia: Fortress, 1984).
(7) Peggy Day, "The Story of Jephthah's Daughter" in Peggy Day, ed. Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel. (Minneapolis:Fortress), 60.
(8) As cited in Peggy Day, "The Story of Jephthah's Daughter."