A Lesson from Dr. Manor's Traveling Archeology Show

Sitting cross-legged on the print carpet in my family’s den sometime during the latter days of the Nixon administration, my father mused, “Some day, if the world goes on, I will no longer be here…and if the world goes on even longer, there’ll come a time when no one remembers that I ever was.” There was more to that conversation, but that particular moment is frozen in memory—perhaps because, to a child, any thought of a parent’s death is startling, and perhaps because Dad said it so matter-of-factly. He wasn’t given to melodrama, but he thought deeply about great truths and didn’t back down from sharing with a kid after he’d ruminated on them for a while.

Tonight was what, being a history teacher,  I have affectionately dubbed “Biblical Archeology Wednesday.” For six weeks, my church has been the recipient of lessons at our mid-week meeting from the intrepid Dr. Dale Manor, a professor of archeology.  He arrives each week wearing a memorable tie, with a laptop and slides and a stainless steel case, foam-lined. In it, he transports artifacts, which he displays with little labels on a piece of fabric on the communion table. It’s a dog and pony show he’s done many times before. One thing I have learned from him:  it’s a cliche of the trade, but for guys in his discipline, one man’s trash truly becomes another's proverbial treasure, if it’s buried for a millennium or two. In a way, looking at someone's discards from long ago compels us to put our own lives into perspective.

For thousands of years, people have contemplated their own demise, as Dad did that night.  Tonight’s presentation by Dr. Manor explored how people of the ancient world viewed the idea of an afterlife. He surveyed Canaanites, the Mesopotamians, and Egyptians – all of whom clearly believed that they would live somewhere after death. The evidence? Burial artifacts and cultural documentation, such as the Egyptian scroll depicting the scene of final judgment – the “weighing of the heart” ceremony. The Egyptians believed that there was a correlation between our worthiness and our eternal destiny, the end of which would be revealed in a ceremony where the heart was weighed against a feather on a scale of justice to reveal one’s fate in the afterlife. An impossible standard.  Not many would pass the test, I’m thinking.  Perhaps none.

We looked at some signals the Hebrews had given us in scripture; there were signs that they, too, believed that somehow they would go to rest “with their fathers” after death. David the king took comfort in the belief that he would see his dead child again. Various figures in the Old Testament are described as being “gathered to their people” after death. Job said, “after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.”  Christ reminded the Sadducees that God claimed to be “the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,” and that He was clearly not the God of the dead, but of the living.  Of course, the New Testament is filled with resurrection talk and promises of an afterlife.

The most fascinating tidbit tonight was an artifact found in a Jerusalem escarpment burial cave called Ketef Hinnom. In the burial trappings of a Hebrew family was a silver amulet, and inside was a rolled-up sheet of silver which, when unrolled, revealed the “Priestly Benediction,” Numbers 6:24-26:

The LORD bless you and keep you; 
the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
 the LORD turn His face toward you and give you peace.

This find was significant for dating the writing of the Old Testament and for confirming the reliability of existing manuscripts. At the time it was found, it was the earliest occurrence of a Biblical text in an extra-Biblical document, significantly predating the earliest of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Tonight it is significant to me for another reason. We were encouraged by Dr. Manor to consider this scripture that we have read and sung as a benediction for so many years -- not as a parting blessing from an assembly-- but as a processional for loved ones who stand on the doorstep of the next life, waiting to see the Lord’s face and confident that they will be graciously received. If we all relied on the weight of our hearts to balance some supposed scale at that time, we would surely be without hope. But through the Lord’s provision in the perfect sacrifice of Christ, Christians can have faith that we will be seen as “holy and blameless” by the loving Father who greets us there. Yes, someday you and I may die, and no one here may even remember that we lived.  But there is something better waiting through that door.

The American Taliban Prequel

Tonight I’m thinking about John Philip Walker Lindh, who was caught and imprisoned by the U.S. during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.  I’m  also thinking about my childhood experience at Maywood Christian Camp.  I think it must have been in 1968, although I can’t prove it.  Mothers were not nearly as obsessed with documenting childhood then, and my memories are vague.  I was perhaps eight years old and had never been to any kind of camp, or much of any place else,  before. I think it was in Tennessee, although I can’t prove that, either. I do think these events actually happened, however, because I can prove it with dental records.

We boarded a bus at Northwood Hills Church of Christ in Florence, Alabama, and off we went to the hardship of the wilderness, much like the Isrealites, who were also God’s people.  When we arrived,  they divided us into cabins which were named, I think, for the cities in Canaan.  I was in Shechem A.  There was a Shechem B as well.  There was a cabin named Gilgal, and one called Bethel, and Shiloh.  I don’t recall the others. 

I remember they served us cold chocolate milk in glistening aluminum pitchers at breakfast, and that I ate eggs for breakfast with great relish, which was odd because my mother’s eggs on the breakfast table at home nauseated me.  I remember that I won third place in the archery contest.  I remember that I made some kind of wooden box with tiny square tiles on top, and a lanyard, although I didn’t quite know what one was supposed to do with a lanyard.

I dived into the swimming pool one day and somehow chipped my front permanent tooth on the concrete, leaving half of it at the bottom of the pool.  No one called my parents or a dentist, or tried to retrieve the lost part.  I don’t really know if I called it to the attention of anyone in authority.  Today insurance and physician information along with signed liability waivers would be required before participating in an activity during which I could potentially have disfigured myself, but back then parents just put us on the bus and happily shipped us off, no questions asked, and the camp shipped us back on schedule, scratches and dents notwithstanding.

One thing I recall clearly, and that is that the showers were communal ones.  By that I mean they were not merely in a central location, but they were –- well—communal.  No stalls, no walls, no curtains.   I recall my complete mortification at the idea that I was expected to disrobe right there in front of God and the older girls with body parts I did not have yet – and tend to my personal hygiene.  So I refused.  I swam every day, but  during shower time I made myself scarce, and not once during the week did I join the other girls who were less modest and more conscientious about their personal toilette.

I also recall saving my one clean sweatshirt, a white one, to wear back home.  The last morning of camp I donned the sweatshirt, brushed my chlorine frizzed hair -- which was, by this time, a bush -- put on my glasses and headed down toward the bus, tripping over a root and tumbling head-over-heels down a clay embankment to land in an untidy heap at the bottom where the bus was parked.  

When I arrived back at the church, after riding the entire way with the bus windows open and the wind blowing through my ever-expanding hair,  singing "Kum Ba Yah" and "Michael Row the Boat Shore" all the way back, I bounded to the door of the bus to greet my mother with a gap-toothed smile, the red clay of Canaan's land covering both my clothes and my face. She hugged me and took me home as if nothing were out of the ordinary, for dental intervention the following day.

Flash forward to the American invasion of Afghanistan, when the U.S. army captures an American citizen named John Philip Walker Lindh. He is wearing the garb of the enemy and aiding the Taliban. There was a great outcry about his treason, and a photo of "The American Taliban” was on the cover of Time magazine. 43 years later, my saintly mother’s only comment when she saw his photo on CNN?  "He looks exactly like you when you got off the bus from Maywood Christian Camp, dear."  Ouch.

Lamb of God

She always sits on the last pew – right on the aisle. She wandered into our midst from some run-down rental property downtown, looking as if she were in need – of some basic hygiene instruction, perhaps of some medical care, perhaps even a case worker. She wandered in, as many people do in our downtown church neighborhood; they come in need of a bus ticket or a meal or with broken down cars. Many times, they come less to meet a spiritual need than a physical one, but they come nonetheless and we try to minister to those needs. They come bringing invisible baggage, and leave with -- "a cup of water," as it were. And then, usually, they move on.

But this one kept coming back. Poorly educated, probably learning disabled. Hard to say whether she actually had basic cognitive skills to understand a lot of things. Many times she had not bathed, sometimes she looked as if she might have some sort of infection on her skin. Did that need to be covered with a bandage? Her hair was a greasy, wavy mess. Eventually someone cut it short, but by that time I wondered if head lice had led to the new look. Eventually someone gave her some “Sunday” dresses that were more “appropriate.”

Her social skills were childlike. She spoke much, much too loudly. If she were sitting alone and a thought occurred, she might speak it out into the air, as if hoping someone would seize her thread of thought and engage. Many people gave her polite nods; many knew her by first name only; some avoided her completely, passing by on the other aisle. She was odd, after all.

She began to attend almost every function at church, especially the potlucks. She would stay behind to help clean up, making sure people knew she was available when any leftover food was parceled out. “I sure could use that for my lunch tomorrow,” she would say too loudly.

At church this morning I sat in back, because I needed to leave a few minutes early. The congregation of 500 where I worship sings congregationally, without instrumentation, and I usually like to find a sweet spot - close enough to the front to be able to follow the worship leader without lagging behind, but not so close that my eyes cross trying to read the screen, so I was a little annoyed at my seating arrangements going into the service today. The service opened with Twila Paris’ “Lamb of God.” And then I heard it from over my shoulder --  an unpleasant, harsh sound which drowned the beautiful harmonies of the song, to which her singing bore only a vague similarity. It was almost comical; I wouldn’t be able to hear myself think with that right behind me. This would get old by the end of the service...I wished I had sat somewhere else. I completely stopped singing; I couldn’t find my note over that noise anyway.

Your only Son no sin to hide
But You have sent Him from Your side
To walk upon this guilty sod,
And to become the Lamb of God.

She painstakingly sang each and every word far too loudly, as a preschooler might sing. It was an innocent, awful, ernest rendition.

Your gift of Love they crucified
They laughed, and scorned him as he died.
The humble King they named a fraud,
And sacrificed the Lamb of God.

She continued without missing a beat, visibly concentrating on the screen, unaware that her dissonance might be a distraction to the worship of others. I heard each word for the first time in a long time.

Oh Lamb of God, sweet Lamb of God --
I love the Holy Lamb of God;
Oh wash me in His precious Blood
My Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.

I was so lost I should have died
But You have brought me to Your side
To be led by Your staff and rod
And to be called a lamb of God.

Oblivious to the appraisal of those around her, she drew me reluctantly and ashamed to a gift of worship this morning. I was reminded of Isaiah 64:6, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” She reminded me that Christ longs for each one of us -- poorly dressed and dirty, whatever infects or infests us. No refinement or wisdom or pedigree or eloquence or elegance impresses him –- the holy one needs nothing from me. He benefits not at all from the beauty of my performance, from the appropriateness of my clothing, from the insightfulness of my presentation, from the tightness of our harmonies. We each come to him the same way -- helpless and hopeless in sin. But he cleanses and heals and nourishes and offers peace and reconciliation, and when it is all said and done he sees us, each one, as holy and blameless, and as worthy. Then he takes even “the least of these,” and empowers us to minister to those around us, as she did for me today, to his glory.

Thank you, sister.