by Dr. Lani Wilson

Good morning, prayer and fasting warriors. We have an early rain coming this weekend and maybe some serious rain this season: Answered prayer.

The word given is flux. It was curious for me, too. There are four (4) definitions (Apple Online Dictionary):

1. a flow out of something, out of the body
2. continuous change
3. in Physics, the rate or flow of particles across a given space
4. substance added to solid to lower its melting point

The origin of the word flux is the Latin word fluxus, meaning “to flow.” It is used once in the Hebrew Bible and once in the New Testament (NT).

I will attack you; I will purify your metal with flux. I will remove all your slag.
Isaiah 1:25 (NET)

I’ll give you the back of my hand, purge the junk from your life, clean you up.
Isaiah 1:25 (TMB)

And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin: {purely: Heb. according to pureness}
Isaiah 1:25 (KJV)

And it came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him.
Acts 28:8 (KJV)

Publius’s father was sick at the time, down with a high fever and dysentery. Paul went to the old man’s room, and when he laid hands on him and prayed, the man was healed.
Acts 28:8 (TMB)

The father of Publius lay sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul see him and after praying, placed his hands on him and healed him.
Acts 28:8 (NET)

It’s not a word that is commonly used, and it is used in terms of transition, in times of change. I imagine that this is how the word is thought of in the general population. What is interesting is that it is also synonymous with the word “dross.” Scientifically, dross is what is left on the surface of metals as a “particular scum” or “dregs” or waste.

In Isaiah God is telling us that S/He will clean us up of the messiness, the “junk” (TMB), the behaviors and attitudes that God abhors in the church. Remember, God is talking to Israel, the people God has chosen to be examples for the world.

"Quit your worship charades. I can’t stand your trivial religious games: Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings-meetings, meetings, meetings-I can’t stand one more! Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them! You’ve worn me out! I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning. When you put on your next prayer-performance, I’ll be looking the other way. No matter how long or loud or often you pray, I’ll not be listening. And do you know why? Because you’ve been tearing people to pieces, and your hands are bloody. Go home and wash up. Clean up your act. Sweep your lives clean of your evildoings so I don’t have to look at them any longer. Say no to wrong. Learn to do good. Work for justice. Help the down-and-out. Stand up for the homeless. Go to bat for the defenseless.
Isaiah 1:13-18 (TMB)

Those of us who still identify with a mainline denomination and/or a church tend to see admonitions like this from the inside-out. In other words, we tend to read these kinds of condemnations from the Prophets as warnings to the worldly. At this time of the political season, it is not unusual to hear church folk referring to “chickens coming home to roost” for the country; as in, we are looking out from within the church at a fallen society. But Isaiah and all the Prophets were speaking directly to the nation of Israel, the insiders, if you will. The expectations for God’s people were pretty straightforward and the behavior of the foreign nations was not surprising because they didn’t belong to God. In verses 13-25, it appears that the flux or dross that God was most irate about was the behavior and values inside the nation of Israel, inside the temple, the bureaucratic religiosity inside the church. Does this necessarily mean that God didn’t care about the other nations? We are taught that of course God did, but that Israel was to demonstrate to the known world that S/He was the only and all powerful God by the favor bestowed on Israel.

The word flux is used in the NT in the biological-physical sense: A discharge from inside the body, unclean (sometimes bloody) fluid, poison, evidence of illness. The TMB and NET translations of Acts 28:8 both identify that discharge as a result of disease like dysentery.

Dysentery is an intestinal inflammation, especially in the colon, that can lead to severe diarrhea with mucus or blood in the feces. Patients typically experience mild to severe abdominal pain or stomach cramps. In some cases, untreated dysentery can be life-threatening, especially if the infected person cannot replace lost fluids fast enough. When people in industrialized nations have dysentery, signs and symptoms tend to be mild. Many won't even see their doctor, and the problem resolves in a few days. Even so, if a doctor in Western Europe, North America and many other countries comes across a case of dysentery, local authorities need to be told - it is a notifiable disease.
Christian Nordqvist, medicainenewstoday.com
July 27, 2015

Dysentery in the time of the first church was deadly. Thus, it was no small thing that Paul cured Publius’ father of a disease that was surely going to kill him. It was a cure of a physical ailment within an individual. The KJV translation says that he was feverish with a “bloody flux,” a sure sign of the severity of his illness.

So we have in the Hebrew Bible the flux within the corpus of Israel that they have brought on themselves through ritualistic, showy, insensitive behavior: Not taking care of the needy, the hungry; showing off in “prayer-performance,” religious business, administration. God is condemning the outward displays of religious loyalty. S/He wants hearts of gratitude and thus, loyalty and love demonstrated by obedience. Instead they handed over a show, a performance, concerts of organized religion that became a stench to God.

In the NT the word flux used to describe an illness that seemingly was not attributed to any disloyal or improper behavior but was a typical occurrence of life in those times. Paul as a holy man of God through Christ Jesus was able to cure Publius’ father. All of this took place on the island of Malta among people who were not Jews. Paul’s healing of the father of the chief official Publius and other displays such as Paul’s immunity from a snake bite resulting in no physical harm convinced these pagan people that Paul must have been a god. But, Paul remained with them on Malta for three (3) months and it is thought that Publius converted to Christianity and became the first bishop of the island who later died for his faith (A Bible Handbook to the Acts of the Apostles, Mal Couch, ed., Kregel Publications, 1999). Flux in the NT scripture was a symptom of a condition not caused by bad behavior on the part of an individual, although in ancient times illness was sometimes seen as a result of personal offense or culpability. In the Hebrew Bible flux was the poisonous product of bad behavior of the people, an organized disobedience that was willful. In both cases flux is decidedly negative, something to be purged.

Interestingly, in contemporary metallurgy, flux is a substance that is used in soldering, a process of fusing metals like silver or gold together.

Flux is used in soldering to remove oxides from the contacts of the parts to be soldered together. Fluxes can be made from hydrochloric acid, zinc chloride or rosin. Here is a simple and easy homemade rosin flux made from pine cones.
“Make your own eco-friendly soldering flux,”
www.instructuables.com

 

flux youtube.com

Flux is applied to the solder material to lower the melting temperature of the metal used to join or fuse two less fisible materials together. It can also be used as a cleaning agent for metals.

In metallurgy, a flux (derived from Latin fluxus meaning “flow”) is a chemical cleaning agent, flowing agent, or purifying agent. Fluxes may have more than one function at a time. They are used in both extractive metallurgy and metal joining.
en.wikipedia.org/flux (metallurgy)

Let’s take the modern definition and metallurgical usage of the word flux and consider its application for us as Christians today. Certainly, today’s more common use is appropriate: The Christian Church is certainly in flux or transition with the rise of non-denominationalism. The African-American church, historically the most stable and central organization in any African-American community, is definitely struggling with change, from within and without. Our Iceberg is Melting by John Kotter, Holger Rathgeber, and Peter Mueller (2006) was recommended to Allen Temple in October 2015 by Dr. Renita Weems as an excellent book for the church to study because it makes clear how to recognize and handle the transitions that the church body politic is experiencing. But it is the other definitions of flux that make more sense, at least for Christians. Christ came to offer humanity a final cleansing from religious excess and waste and fuse us back with God through the sacrifice of His life and body.

Christ in Jesus is our flux.

Yes, we are in transition generationally, economically, ethnically, and racially. Are we going to be the “Black Church” that is primarily and homogeneously African-American? Or are we going to be the “Historical Black Church” that is diverse in geography, race, ethnicity, and gender? How exactly does the latter work? Is it the music? Is it our style of worship? Will the African-American worship culture maintain hegemony as we change? Is our worship culture still genuine enough to survive this metamorphosis or are we afraid that it will be diluted as “others” wish to join with us? And is our worship culture the fundamental attribute of the African-American church? Or is it our courage in social justice-seeking, the welcoming spirit of enslaved people who knew what it meant to be the slandered and slaughtered stranger in a foreign land? How is it that millions of people genocidally enslaved survived - and even thrived - for over 400 years under the worst of circumstances? That the heterogeneous culture formed on a foreign continent would become the soul of that continent? That this hybrid people, distinctly African in origin, would be the conscience of that nation? And perhaps ultimately its salvation through the inconceivable loyalty, forgiveness, and demand that the nation become its best self because this people believed in a God who gave an only Child, a Son, for us all, even the enslavers?

If Christ in Jesus is our flux, what does that look like on the ground? Which religious structures or internal constructs need to morph? If we look back at the Isaiah text in the Hebrew Bible, how do our “meetings, meetings, meetings” need to change? Who are we not serving and who is not serving? How do we “do justice” instead of “give charity” (Dr. Rodney Sadler, BTLI 2016)? And what dysenteric traditions, supplications, and ego-gratifying behaviors do we need to purge as in the Acts text in the NT? Are there fundamental attributes and/or traditions about the Black Church that The Nazarene really wants to put a hand to and slap out of us? Is it possible that somewhere deep in our church-faithful selves we know this but are too terrified to face it? “Leave it to the next generation,” is perhaps more comforting to say to ourselves, but it is truthfully, the most cowardly. Is it responsible? Is it responsive? Is it The Christ?

I have a deep fear about being left by The Nazarene - by God - like the Hebrews who wandered in the desert for forty (40) years. God let them live, fed them, protected them, allowed them to raise children, but they remained lost because they did not trust God enough to go into the Land of the Giants. God allowed two generations to die out before He let them cross over into the Promised Land. Personally, I want to go with Caleb and Joshua as soon as The Christ tells us to go. I don’t want to die out on this side of the desert.

It’s a familiar story but sometimes, it is refreshing to read it described anew.

After a 40-day exploration of Canaan, the explorers reported, “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there” (Numbers 13:27–28). This report frightened the people (Numbers 13:31–33). Caleb had a different attitude from the other spies. Verse 30 records, “Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, ‘We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.’” When the people complained that they could not go up to conquer the land, both Caleb and Joshua responded strongly: “Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh . . . tore their clothes and said to the entire Israelite assembly, ‘The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them’” (Numbers 14:6–9). God judged the people of Israel by making them wait 40 years to enter the land. He also promised that every person 20 years old or older would die in the wilderness and would not see the land with two exceptions—Caleb and Joshua. Why? “Because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it” (Numbers 14:24; see also verse 30). Verse 38 adds, “Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.” This promise came true. After the death of Moses 40 years later, Joshua led the people across the Jordan River into the Promised Land. Caleb received an inheritance in the Promised Land in his old age (Joshua 14).
gotquestions.org/Joshua-and-Caleb.html

Perhaps what should stand out in the long notation above is the following:

“Because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it” (Numbers 14:24; see also verse 30).”
Ibid.

How much of a “different spirit” do we have? And what is that “different spirit?” Do we dare recognize it?

LORD Jesus, You have made Your home in us, the people of The Enslavement. You have crowned us to remain in this place, on this continent, in these streets. You have gifted us with the fragrances of talent, genius, form, and style. We sing to You, stretch out to You as we strain against an insistently bedeviled history and rough-necked racism. Make us better doers of your justice. Clean out whatever waste You see unfit, unseemly, ungodly. And finally, give us the courage to face ourselves and make the move forward over the hill to the new territory You have for us. We can face ourselves with no fear because You promised us.

"I will not leave you orphaned. I’m coming back. In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you’re going to see me because I am alive and you’re about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I’m in my Father, and you’re in me, and I’m in you.”
John 14:18-20 (TMB)

Pull us back when we wander out there, LORD, forgetting that You are in us. Keep us close and thank You for never leaving us - even when we leave You.

THERE IS BUT ONE GOD, REIGNING SUPREME
AND ONE SON, WHOSE NAME IS CHRIST JESUS.
AND WE ARE HIS CHILDREN.

Amen.