“It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
and many peoples shall come, and say:
'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.'
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore.
O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord.” (Isaiah 2:2-5, ESV)
"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again." (John 2:19, ESV)
***
Peter dropped me at Boheh Stone, where he had picked me up the day before. The weather had changed. Yesterday, although the mountain was visible for most of the walk, it was veiled in in a thick haze, making it appear distant and indistinct. Today, the air was clearer - and I was closer.
The mountain had been topped in cloud since sunrise. Over breakfast, Peter had urged me with unsettling gravity that I was not to climb the mountain if, when I reached the bottom, I could not see the top. For fear of causing insult, I didn’t care to ask whether this advice was based on safety concerns or mere superstition. Either way, I was hoping that the Reek would “take off his cap”, as Peter put it - if nothing else to get the views.
I was shown no such respect. It wasn’t long, though, before I could see a steady stream of people making their way up and down the Reek from the seaside town of Murisk, where my pilgrimage would end. Not only did this reassure me - if the tourists can make it up, a seasoned pilgrim should be ok - but it also evoked a strong sense of deja vu. The spectacle reminded me of a dream I had dreamt years ago - I dream I had forgotten, but now remembered as if I was dreaming it again. Indeed, as I came within a mile of the mountain, it felt as if the mountain was approaching me rather than vice versa, as if it was growing inside my mind. And as I began to climb, it felt as if another world was emerging within the present, as if something hidden was being revealed.
In time, I reached the point at which the visible became invisible, and ascended into cloud.
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
and many peoples shall come, and say:
'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.'
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore.
O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord.” (Isaiah 2:2-5, ESV)
"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again." (John 2:19, ESV)
***
Peter dropped me at Boheh Stone, where he had picked me up the day before. The weather had changed. Yesterday, although the mountain was visible for most of the walk, it was veiled in in a thick haze, making it appear distant and indistinct. Today, the air was clearer - and I was closer.
The mountain had been topped in cloud since sunrise. Over breakfast, Peter had urged me with unsettling gravity that I was not to climb the mountain if, when I reached the bottom, I could not see the top. For fear of causing insult, I didn’t care to ask whether this advice was based on safety concerns or mere superstition. Either way, I was hoping that the Reek would “take off his cap”, as Peter put it - if nothing else to get the views.
I was shown no such respect. It wasn’t long, though, before I could see a steady stream of people making their way up and down the Reek from the seaside town of Murisk, where my pilgrimage would end. Not only did this reassure me - if the tourists can make it up, a seasoned pilgrim should be ok - but it also evoked a strong sense of deja vu. The spectacle reminded me of a dream I had dreamt years ago - I dream I had forgotten, but now remembered as if I was dreaming it again. Indeed, as I came within a mile of the mountain, it felt as if the mountain was approaching me rather than vice versa, as if it was growing inside my mind. And as I began to climb, it felt as if another world was emerging within the present, as if something hidden was being revealed.
In time, I reached the point at which the visible became invisible, and ascended into cloud.
At the summit lies a chapel dedicated to Patrick, who turned the mountain from a pagan site of idolatry into a Christian site of prayer. According to the legend, he achieved this transformation by fasting on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights. I like to think that, like Jesus in the wilderness, he was tempted by the trappings of power, the comforts and riches of Babylon, and persevered.
Patrick was certainly not aligned with powers and principalities of his age. His practice of relating the Christian message to existing, pagan traditions is usually interpreted as pragmatic at best and syncretistic at worst, allowing him to get his message across without provoking resistance. But as the information provided along the Tochar had made clear, he encountered plenty of resistance - usually by local power-holders who were threatened by his claim that the One God was Lord of All, and that our true allegiance is to Him and Him alone - not to false gods or earthly kings.
So perhaps his ministry was neither pragmatic nor syncretistic. Perhaps he was following the example of Paul, who identified Yahweh as the Invisible God, winning the souls of many at Mars Hill. But perhaps, even moreso, he was following the example of Jesus, who claimed at Caesarea Philippi, “on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Jesus made this statement while standing on a literal rock that was used a temple to Pan, where a literal Gates of Hell had been marked out in the cliffside as a space for lewd acts of demonic worship.
Indeed, what occured to me most strongly on this final day of walking was that the two opposing kingdoms - the Kingdom of Heaven, God, and light, and the kingdom of the world, Satan, and darkness - can often be found in the same place, possibly even at the same time. There is a kind of quantum dynamic involved, whereby our own consciousness and our own actions determine which outcome prevails - and until that happens, both outcomes coexist in the realm of potentiality.
Maybe this is what Jesus meant when, after proclaiming that the Gates of Hell will not prevail against His church, He promised to give us the “keys of the Kingdom of Heaven”, and that “whatever [we] bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever [we] loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven.” (Matthew 16:19). On this reading, how we see the world and what we do about it matters a great deal, because part of the way God answers our prayer for His Kingdom to come on Earth as it is in Heaven is to give us eyes to see, which in turn gives us a mind to act.
I was particularly assured of this when my host Peter, seemingly out of the blue, told me about a local economist who was well before his time in identifying the destructiveness of our economic system for communities and the environment (deriving in particular from our reliance on economic growth) and presenting a number of viable alternatives (such as local currencies). On a separate occasion, Peter's wife Jojo commented, again spontaneously: "Isn't nature amazing? The problem is that we don't take care of it. And we don't take care of each other." She was right, of course; but the fact that she and Peter seemed to spend all of their time caring for their garden and caring for their guests was proof that a different world is possible.
What is more, not only can Babylon become Zion, as with Patrick’s Mountain, but Zion can become Babylon. In Galatians 4 (verses 21-31), the Apostle Paul draws a distinction between the earthly Jerusalem and the Heavenly Jerusalem. The earthly Jerusalem, he explains, is represented by Mount Sinai, the symbol of the Old Covenant. This Jerusalem is characterised by slavery, which I have identified as the hallmark of Babylon, and Paul urges the Galatians to leave it behind. There is therefore a sense in which, as a church, embracing the Old Covenant, the earthly Jerusalem, is tantamount to embracing Babylon. Unfortunately, also like Babylon, Jerusalem can become a “cup of reeling” which intoxicates and deceives (Zechariah 12:2). As a result, Christians have conflated the earthly and Heavenly Jerusalems since the dawn of Christendom, with devastating consequences.
The city which Abraham was seeking will not be found or bound within the dominions of this world, which are beholden to the Destroyer, the ruler of this age (Ephesians 6:12; 1 Peter 5:8-9; Luke 4:5-6). In their thirst for power, their lust for violence, and their penchant for greed, those systems are hard-wired to reject Christ, who is nevertheless the chief cornerstone (1 Peter 2), the true foundation of the true Zion (Hebrews 11:10). Indeed, when all is revealed, there will be no foundation other than Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11), for no cornerstone will be taken out of Babylon when it is destroyed (Isaiah 51:26).
This is a subtle insight which is not amenable to simplistic, dualistic thinking. On the one hand, we are to ask (and act) for the Kingdom of Heaven to be here, now, on this very rock, this very mountain. But on the other hand, we are emphatically not to mix ourselves with the powers and principalities of our age, for the Heavenly Kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). To my mind, the Western evangelical church has this backwards. It conceives of the Kingdom as something that will be realised in a galaxy far, far away, sometime in the indefinite future, possibly not until the afterlife. At the same time, it acts as a “chaplain to Empire”, to use Brian Zahnd’s words, sanctioning the destruction of man and land. Ever since Constantine, the church has sided with the warmongerers, when, according to Isaiah, and according to Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven is radically peaceful. It has sided with the oppressors, when the Kingdom of Heaven defends the oppressed. It has sided with the status quo, when the Kingdom of Heaven promises to upturn everything.
This strategy will not end well, for it ultimately pits the church against Christ Himself. This is evidenced by the reaction of the priests and the scribes when Jesus cleansed the Temple: they "[sought] a way to destroy him" (Mark 11:18). They did eventually kill Him - using the implements of empire, no less. But we know that isn't the end of the story. Jesus will return to destroy that destroying mountain; he will separate the goats from the sheep, those who served "the kingdoms of the world and their splendor" (Mathew 4:8) and those who served the everlasting Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, which eschews earthly power and embraces the powerless (Matthew 4:8;25:31-46). The Apostle John would therefore admonish us from the grave, and from Heaven:
“Come out of [Babylon], my people,
lest you take part in her sins,
lest you share in her plagues;
for her sins are heaped high as Heaven...
mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.” (Revelation 18:4-5).
JRR Tolkien does an excellent job capturing this distinction - that the Kingdom of Heaven is on Earth, but separate from the earthly kingdoms - through the role of Erebor (‘the Lonely Mountain’) in his enchanting book The Hobbit. Erebor is occupied by an evil dragon, so Gandalf the wizard incites its dwarvish heirs to reclaim it. But Thorin, the king of the dwarves, is enthralled by the riches in the mountain and becomes no better than the dragon. I do hope it means something for the church that Thorin ends up repenting from his service to mammon!
***
I waited for about an hour for the cloud to clear. Having climbed all the way up the mountain, I was keen to witness its legendary panorama. Suddenly, though, it dawned on me: I was on a pilgrimage, not a sightseeing tour. I didn’t come for the views, or even for the mountain; I came for the journey (also, I was getting cold!). I threw away my sharp stone and began to descend with the crowds.
The fact that there were so many people scaling the mountain formed a nice contrast with Moses, who alone was permitted to ascend into the clouds of Mount Sinai to receive the Old Covenant under pain of death:
“For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, ‘If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.’ Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, ‘I tremble with fear.’ But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in Heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant....” (Hebrews 12:18-24)
The prophets had long ago picked up on a similar distinction, except that they referred to Babylon rather than Sinai. Speaking of Babylon, Jeremiah (51:44) prophecies that “the nations shall no longer flow to [it]”; and by contrast, speaking of Zion, Isaiah (2:2) prophecies that “all the nations shall flow to it”. Later, God speaks through Isaiah (56:6) to declare:
“And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
and to be his servants,
everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,
and holds fast my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.”
Centuries later, Jesus would quote this passage as he evicted the moneychangers and the merchants from the Temple, the place where Heaven and Earth meet (Mark 11:17). I have already referred to this episode in the first part of this journal, but what I would highlight here is the paradoxical relationship between inclusion and holiness. On the one hand, holiness is traditionally defined by exclusion - a state of separateness from the world. Our discussion of Babylon and Zion would confirm this definition, in the sense that we must be keep ourselves separate, undefiled, and free from the powers that be. But Isaiah’s prophecy seems to suggest that holiness is also defined by inclusion. Babylon enriches the few at the expense of the many, and Jesus is incensed to find this exclusionary system operating in a place that is supposed to be “for all peoples”.
In the Gospel of Mark (ch.11), the cleansing of the Temple is sandwiched in the middle of a teaching about a fig tree. Immediately before entering the Temple, Jesus finds a fig tree without fruit - which is to be expected, since it was not the season for figs - and curses it. Immediately afterwards, the disciples return to the tree to find it withered. It is then that Jesus makes the claim that their faith can move mountains - which, I have suggested, is an allusion to Jeremiah’s prophecy against Babylon. The Temple is a house of prayer, and it is through prayer that Babylon will be destroyed, Jesus tells them. It therefore seems to me that the fig tree, like the mountain, represents the system of Babylon which Jesus confronted in the Temple - perhaps because, like Babylon, it gives life only selectively.
After the fig trees of Babylon wither, the fig trees of Zion, which give life unconditionally and universally, can flourish. The passage from Isaiah at the beginning of this post describing the House of God is repeated almost verbatim by the prophet Micah (ch. 4), except for a couple of extra verses which begin, “but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree…” (v.4). If we keep following the trail of breadcrumbs, we find that Jesus alludes to this very passage when he tells Nathaniel that he saw him sitting under his fig tree (John 1:35-51). When Nathaniel reacts with amazement, Jesus responds, “‘Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.’ And He said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.’” (John 1:50-51).
Completing this whirlwind tour of scripture, the reference to angels ascending and descending between Heaven and Earth is, in turn, a direct allusion to Jacob’s ladder, the original image of the House of God (Genesis 28). As I ascended and descended the mountain with the crowds, I felt indeed that I was amid a multitude of angels, moving seamlessly between Heaven and Earth, dwelling, even as I journeyed, in the place where God Himself would dwell.
This is a subtle insight which is not amenable to simplistic, dualistic thinking. On the one hand, we are to ask (and act) for the Kingdom of Heaven to be here, now, on this very rock, this very mountain. But on the other hand, we are emphatically not to mix ourselves with the powers and principalities of our age, for the Heavenly Kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). To my mind, the Western evangelical church has this backwards. It conceives of the Kingdom as something that will be realised in a galaxy far, far away, sometime in the indefinite future, possibly not until the afterlife. At the same time, it acts as a “chaplain to Empire”, to use Brian Zahnd’s words, sanctioning the destruction of man and land. Ever since Constantine, the church has sided with the warmongerers, when, according to Isaiah, and according to Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven is radically peaceful. It has sided with the oppressors, when the Kingdom of Heaven defends the oppressed. It has sided with the status quo, when the Kingdom of Heaven promises to upturn everything.
This strategy will not end well, for it ultimately pits the church against Christ Himself. This is evidenced by the reaction of the priests and the scribes when Jesus cleansed the Temple: they "[sought] a way to destroy him" (Mark 11:18). They did eventually kill Him - using the implements of empire, no less. But we know that isn't the end of the story. Jesus will return to destroy that destroying mountain; he will separate the goats from the sheep, those who served "the kingdoms of the world and their splendor" (Mathew 4:8) and those who served the everlasting Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, which eschews earthly power and embraces the powerless (Matthew 4:8;25:31-46). The Apostle John would therefore admonish us from the grave, and from Heaven:
“Come out of [Babylon], my people,
lest you take part in her sins,
lest you share in her plagues;
for her sins are heaped high as Heaven...
mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.” (Revelation 18:4-5).
JRR Tolkien does an excellent job capturing this distinction - that the Kingdom of Heaven is on Earth, but separate from the earthly kingdoms - through the role of Erebor (‘the Lonely Mountain’) in his enchanting book The Hobbit. Erebor is occupied by an evil dragon, so Gandalf the wizard incites its dwarvish heirs to reclaim it. But Thorin, the king of the dwarves, is enthralled by the riches in the mountain and becomes no better than the dragon. I do hope it means something for the church that Thorin ends up repenting from his service to mammon!
***
I waited for about an hour for the cloud to clear. Having climbed all the way up the mountain, I was keen to witness its legendary panorama. Suddenly, though, it dawned on me: I was on a pilgrimage, not a sightseeing tour. I didn’t come for the views, or even for the mountain; I came for the journey (also, I was getting cold!). I threw away my sharp stone and began to descend with the crowds.
The fact that there were so many people scaling the mountain formed a nice contrast with Moses, who alone was permitted to ascend into the clouds of Mount Sinai to receive the Old Covenant under pain of death:
“For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, ‘If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.’ Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, ‘I tremble with fear.’ But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in Heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant....” (Hebrews 12:18-24)
The prophets had long ago picked up on a similar distinction, except that they referred to Babylon rather than Sinai. Speaking of Babylon, Jeremiah (51:44) prophecies that “the nations shall no longer flow to [it]”; and by contrast, speaking of Zion, Isaiah (2:2) prophecies that “all the nations shall flow to it”. Later, God speaks through Isaiah (56:6) to declare:
“And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
and to be his servants,
everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,
and holds fast my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.”
Centuries later, Jesus would quote this passage as he evicted the moneychangers and the merchants from the Temple, the place where Heaven and Earth meet (Mark 11:17). I have already referred to this episode in the first part of this journal, but what I would highlight here is the paradoxical relationship between inclusion and holiness. On the one hand, holiness is traditionally defined by exclusion - a state of separateness from the world. Our discussion of Babylon and Zion would confirm this definition, in the sense that we must be keep ourselves separate, undefiled, and free from the powers that be. But Isaiah’s prophecy seems to suggest that holiness is also defined by inclusion. Babylon enriches the few at the expense of the many, and Jesus is incensed to find this exclusionary system operating in a place that is supposed to be “for all peoples”.
In the Gospel of Mark (ch.11), the cleansing of the Temple is sandwiched in the middle of a teaching about a fig tree. Immediately before entering the Temple, Jesus finds a fig tree without fruit - which is to be expected, since it was not the season for figs - and curses it. Immediately afterwards, the disciples return to the tree to find it withered. It is then that Jesus makes the claim that their faith can move mountains - which, I have suggested, is an allusion to Jeremiah’s prophecy against Babylon. The Temple is a house of prayer, and it is through prayer that Babylon will be destroyed, Jesus tells them. It therefore seems to me that the fig tree, like the mountain, represents the system of Babylon which Jesus confronted in the Temple - perhaps because, like Babylon, it gives life only selectively.
After the fig trees of Babylon wither, the fig trees of Zion, which give life unconditionally and universally, can flourish. The passage from Isaiah at the beginning of this post describing the House of God is repeated almost verbatim by the prophet Micah (ch. 4), except for a couple of extra verses which begin, “but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree…” (v.4). If we keep following the trail of breadcrumbs, we find that Jesus alludes to this very passage when he tells Nathaniel that he saw him sitting under his fig tree (John 1:35-51). When Nathaniel reacts with amazement, Jesus responds, “‘Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.’ And He said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.’” (John 1:50-51).
Completing this whirlwind tour of scripture, the reference to angels ascending and descending between Heaven and Earth is, in turn, a direct allusion to Jacob’s ladder, the original image of the House of God (Genesis 28). As I ascended and descended the mountain with the crowds, I felt indeed that I was amid a multitude of angels, moving seamlessly between Heaven and Earth, dwelling, even as I journeyed, in the place where God Himself would dwell.
***
Truth be told, I wasn’t that thrilled to be around all those people. Besides being an an introvert, I was wearing the wrong shoes, I hadn't slept as much as I should have, and my knees were beginning to act up. To be honest, I really wished that all those people would just disappear. They were noisy, distracting, and in my way.
It was then that I felt a stone in my shoe. It felt like standing on a nail - that is to say, it hurt. When I stopped to remove it, I was reminded of Father Fahey’s advice - “if you get to the top of the mountain,” he said, “and God hasn’t shown you something about yourself that needs to change, then put the stone in your shoe.” God had shown me a lot about His Kingdom over the course of the pilgrimage, but nothing about myself - until then. It’s in the presence of other people - particularly when there are lots of them - that my worst side comes out. That needs to change.
That needs to change because systemic change starts with individual change. As individuals, we must be "transformed by the renewing of our minds" before we can go about transforming society, for it is only then that we will really have eyes to see (Romans 12:2). Insofar as we still conform to the patterns of this world, we are part of the problem, not the solution. Personal sanctification and social justice are therefore two sides of the same coin.
Before setting off again, I picked up another sharp stone. My pilgrimage wasn’t over, even though I’d (more than) conquered the Reek. When I reached the bottom, I cast the stone into the sea, praying that the Lord would take my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh. After walking along the shore for a while, I also let go of the shell that I had carried from my home in Edinburgh, making sure to find another to replace it. I will take this shell with me on my next pilgrimage - and there will be a next one, of that I am sure.
***
Patrick experienced the destructiveness of Babylon firsthand, having been abducted from his homeland and pressed into slavery. Yet he rolled that kingdom down from the mountain and cast it into the sea. In its place, he established a house of prayer for all peoples. Like Abraham, like us, he was looking for the House of God.
It was then that I felt a stone in my shoe. It felt like standing on a nail - that is to say, it hurt. When I stopped to remove it, I was reminded of Father Fahey’s advice - “if you get to the top of the mountain,” he said, “and God hasn’t shown you something about yourself that needs to change, then put the stone in your shoe.” God had shown me a lot about His Kingdom over the course of the pilgrimage, but nothing about myself - until then. It’s in the presence of other people - particularly when there are lots of them - that my worst side comes out. That needs to change.
That needs to change because systemic change starts with individual change. As individuals, we must be "transformed by the renewing of our minds" before we can go about transforming society, for it is only then that we will really have eyes to see (Romans 12:2). Insofar as we still conform to the patterns of this world, we are part of the problem, not the solution. Personal sanctification and social justice are therefore two sides of the same coin.
Before setting off again, I picked up another sharp stone. My pilgrimage wasn’t over, even though I’d (more than) conquered the Reek. When I reached the bottom, I cast the stone into the sea, praying that the Lord would take my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh. After walking along the shore for a while, I also let go of the shell that I had carried from my home in Edinburgh, making sure to find another to replace it. I will take this shell with me on my next pilgrimage - and there will be a next one, of that I am sure.
***
Patrick experienced the destructiveness of Babylon firsthand, having been abducted from his homeland and pressed into slavery. Yet he rolled that kingdom down from the mountain and cast it into the sea. In its place, he established a house of prayer for all peoples. Like Abraham, like us, he was looking for the House of God.
O Destroying Mountain...
...Be Cast into the Sea
Your Kingdom come, Lord Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment