Do Not Be a Pillar
Do not be a pillar.
In common parlance, there is a positive connotation to saying, “so-and-so is a pillar of the community. A pillar of the community is “One who is a particularly active, respected, and influential member of one’s local social sphere. My grandfather was a pillar of the community because of how many people his businesses employed. She was long considered a pillar of the community, so she won the mayoral election with ease” (Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.).
But, it is written, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9 NKJV). The Lord is not pleased with human building and construction. And pillars are the example par excellence of human building and construction.
We present, in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church, our dogmas as five pillars of mystery. I do not know how long we have presented them this way, but it is supposed to symbolize strength and fortitude and resistance against winds (spirits; false teachers) that blow this way and that way. We also have baptismal names like amde-brhan (pillar of light) and amde-tsyon (pillar of Zion) and amde-haymanot (pillar of faith) and amde-werq (pillar of gold) et cetera, et cetera. And yet from Genesis to Galatians, a different picture is painted about pillars.
Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whomever you have in the city—take them out of this place! For we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”
So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, “Get up, get out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city!” But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking.
When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.” And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.”
Then Lot said to them, “Please, no, my lords! Indeed now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have increased your mercy which you have shown me by saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil overtake me and I die. See now, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one; please let me escape there (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.”
And he said to him, “See, I have favored you concerning this thing also, in that I will not overthrow this city for which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there. For I cannot do anything until you arrive there.”
Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens. So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
But his wife looked back behind him,
and she became a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:12-26 NKJV).
Just as the black character in a horror film is fated to die first, woe to the nameless characters in scripture! See Lot’s wife. See the rich man clothed in purple and fine linen living in luxury everyday (Luke 16:19-end). “IGBBMN.”
The sin of Lot’s wife was looking back to what the Lord had already decided to destroy. We are not more holy and more perfect than the Lord. We do not decide who to save and who to destroy. Only he does. The Zeitgeist, the ghost of this age, is particularly interested in trying to save all. There is a part of this intention which is good, but there is also a part which is evil. It is good to want all people to be saved. It is evil to want this so badly as to overturn the decision of the Lord.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in his nineteenth catechetical lecture and first on the mysteries, says, “Have you not heard the old history which tells us of Lot and his daughters? Was not he himself saved with his daughters, when he had gained the mountain, while his wife became a pillar of salt, set up as a monument for ever, in remembrance of her depraved will and her turning back. Take heed therefore to yourself, and turn not again to what is behind , having put your hand to the plough, and then turning back to the salt savour of this life’s doings; but escape to the mountain, to Jesus Christ, that stone hewn without hands (Daniel 2:35,45), which has filled the world” (New Advent).
Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and also took Titus with me. And I went up by revelation, and communicated to them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those who were of reputation, lest by any means I might run, or had run, in vain. Yet not even Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. And this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in (who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage), to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.
But from those who seemed to be something—whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God shows personal favoritism to no man—for those who seemed to be something added nothing to me. But on the contrary, when they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me, as the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter (for He who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised also worked effectively in me toward the Gentiles), and when Jacob, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised (Galatians 2:1-9 NKJV).
Paul seamlessly shifts between calling the former chief of the apostles Peter and Cephas. Peter is the Indoeuropean way of saying The Rock, whereas Cephas is the Afroasiatic way. When he switches to Aramaic, the Afroasiatic way, it is a dig against Cephas. Jacob, Cephas, and John were the chiefs amongst the apostles of The Way, but here they were found to be tergiversating. Paul, the last and the least of all the apostles, became the first and greatest by steadfastly and doggedly holding onto that family heirloom which is the apostolic teaching—no matter who you are, or what your kind is, you must sit together with sundry folks at the one table (trapeza) of the Lord (kyrie) Jesus Christ.
Do not be a pillar. Do not craft an abomination of desolation.
Let the reader understand.