Friday, December 18, 2009

Christmas #2

Here is the second of three Christmas Bible studies - this one focusing on Luke's Gospel....

12/10/09

Luke’s nativity has a different atmosphere than Matthew’s. Luke is the author of the classic nativity story - the shepherds, the stable, the manger. He is the master of spin – presenting a story that would be recognizable and acceptable to a predominantly Greek and Roman audience while hanging on to the key gospel elements.

Luke begins in Chapter 1:1-4 with a formal introduction similar to others of the day. There were no publishers in the ancient world – instead there were patrons. Writers would dedicate their manuscript to an important person who would then distribute it. Luke’s Gospel has this same style – it opens with an introduction to “Theophilus” which means “lover of God”. The name may indicate that this is not a real person but symbolic of the emerging Christian community. Luke is using an accepted and easily recognizable opening to ease his audience into the narrative. He is pitching his story to the educated cultured people of his time to communicate the story of Jesus in a way that they will embrace.

Luke’s Gospel is about political and social transformation. His focus is transforming the human space. It is arguably the most human of the Gospels and is sometimes considered the Gospel of the Catholic Church. It roots Christianity in recognizable human society. Luke places itself in the age of the gentiles – looking to a time when the gospel is communicated through the whole world.

The nativity narrative begins with the temple –with Zechariah and Elizabeth, privileged priestly figures. They bring to mind authority and holiness and immediately set the reader at ease. They are easily recognizable (every culture has temple figures) but Luke links them to Old Testament themes. He repeats motifs from the Old Testament – in particular the stories of Abraham and Sarah and of Hannah and Samuel. These are stories of barren women living in a time when motherhood gave women status and value. Elizabeth’s story fits with this archetype. Her experience (LK1:24) is the same – the childless woman rescued by God.

Luke intertwines the stories of Elizabeth and Mary in 1:26-80. Elizabeth overcoming adversity cues the reader to expect something similar with Mary. Zechariah and Elizabeth are totally legitimate characters (they come from the house of Aaron who was Moses’ right hand man). Intertwining their story with Mary’s gives her credibility and acceptability. The text does not give any background to Mary – her parentage and lineage. She is identified as a relative of Elizabeth’s, but this is unspecified. It is Joseph who can claim the house of David. St. Anne and St Joachim were later identified as Mary’s parents – but this is a tradition from the second century and is not scripturally based. There is a murkiness to Mary’s story and background. Luke builds her up. He portrays Mary’s story as even more amazing than Elizabeth’s– birth by virgin trumps that by old woman!

Unlike Matthew’s nativity, there is no element of scandal attached to Mary in Luke’s narrative. She explicitly states literally “I do not know man” which is translated as “I am a virgin”. Here an angel addresses her as “the favored one” – if anything her prestige goes up. Luke transforms the irregularity of Jesus’ conception into something beautiful and mysterious. Luke’s account of the miraculous conception has elements of both the Greek and Jewish. Nietzsche said that the story is reminiscent of the Greek Gods, such as Zeus, who impregnated mortal women in the guise of a swan, a bull and a shower of gold. Other scholars disagree – in the Lukan account there is nothing explicitly physical – it does not make sense for God to be supplying the y-chromosome. There is also no trickery involved. It involves the consent of Mary. The touch of God is so light and mysterious echoing the movement of the Spirit over the waters at the dawn of creation.
Mary achieves enormous status in Luke. Joseph, so important in Matthew, is a tangential figure in Luke. In Luke’s Gospel it is all about Mary. More than any of the other Gospels, Luke boosts the role of women and shows a concern for women’s issues. He gives Mary a voice – and she proclaims a knockout hymn of praise – the Magnificat (V46-56). Mary’s Magnificat repeats some of the words of Hannah (the mother of Samuel) in 1Samuel 2. The theme of the Magnificat is reversal – the powerful will be dethroned, the lowly lifted up. Mary gets to be the voice of the overturning of the world order. It encapsulates the social reversal that Luke is all about. Luke has set the stage so that by the time Mary makes her revolutionary proclamation you are totally on her side. While Matthew’s nativity story addresses and counters the violence of Herod and worldly power; Luke is about overcoming inequality. This message is reinforced by the story of the shepherds.

Chapter 2:1-20 is the account of Jesus’ birth. The census places Jesus not just in Herod’s Palestine, but in the context of the whole Roman Empire and points to Augustus Caesar as the most powerful person in the known civilized world. Historically there is no record of this particular census. Others took place but not at this specific time. Luke uses the device of the census to connect Jesus to the historical, political world of his time. The contrast is stark - the savior of the world lying in a manger because of the dictates of the worldly emperor. Jesus is born in a byre with the animals, placed in an animal’s feeding trough. His birth is recognized and celebrated by shepherds. The symbolism is strong – of Jesus as the good shepherd, the sacrificial lamb, as the bread of life. But shepherds were also poor, landless people, living on the mountainside like gypsies. They were people remote from culture, living outside the system and its taxation. Yet it is to shepherds that the angels appear. Traditionally it is the temple where you meet God, where God is revealed – Zechariah’s place. In Luke’s story the heavens open and God is revealed in a field to the forgotten and marginalized. If God is in the feeding trough then the temple becomes redundant. Ultimately it is a revolutionary and challenging message that offers hope, presenting the possibility of a different world.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Christmas Study

Here is the first of our Christmas studies...

Christmas #1 12/03/09

Of the two major Christian feasts (Easter and Christmas) Christmas, while less central to the Christian message, has been the one most widely embraced. December 25th was superimposed upon the older Roman feasts of Saturnalia and New Year. St Francis of Assisi introduced the nativity crib, and then the Santa story and other mid-winter traditions were all thrown into the mix. There is something about the Christmas spirit – the giving of gifts, the message of peace and goodwill, that makes us feel good. Soldiers in the first year of the 1st world war reached out across the trenches to play football with the enemy on Christmas morning. Another attraction of Christmas is the very human interest in origins – in particular of famous and important figures. How did they come to turn out like they did? There is truth in the saying “the child is the father to the man”.

Neither Mark (the first of the Gospels chronologically) nor John recount Jesus’ birth or childhood. Both start with Jesus’ adult ministry. Only two of the Gospels, Matthew and Luke, have nativity narratives. These narratives differ widely – much more so than the “single eye” with which these gospels approach the account of his adult life. Raymond Brown, an eminent Roman Catholic scholar of the 20th century, describes the nativity narratives as “folkloristic stories”. They come from people’s conversation. They can have an element of truth, but also an element of elaboration. If they are not taken with naïve literalness then the meaning of story is allowed to come through more powerfully. The four key teachings of the nativity story are:

1. That Jesus represents a radical alternative and contrast to the imperial power under which he was born.
2. Jesus represents a fulfillment of humanity’s search for wisdom.
3. Jesus sides with the poor and abandoned.
4. The core story and circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth to an unwed mother.

Matthew has more formal structure and has a more systematic approach than the earlier Markan Gospel. By the time of Matthew’s composition the Jesus’ story was well established in the growing Christian communities. Matthew’s audience was from communities emerging from a predominantly Jewish background. His Gospel is constructed in five sections that recollect the five books of the Jewish Torah, and Jesus is presented as the new Moses.

Jesus was born marginal to both his own community and to the imperial power of his time. In Matthew we have the story of Herod the Great and the visit of the magi. Pliny, a historian writing towards the end of the first century, describes kings from the east visiting Nero guided by a star. In MT 2:1-23 we have the story of the magi, the flight to Egypt and the slaughter of the innocents. This echoes the story of Moses in the Torah. Pharaoh demanded that the Hebrew newborn sons be killed immediately they were born by throwing them into the Nile. Moses escaped death by being set adrift on the Nile hidden in a basket. In Jesus’ story Herod takes the place of Pharaoh, and Jesus of the whole of Israel. There is no account of the slaughter of the innocents by Herod outside of the New Testament, however he was notorious for his brutality. It was said that it was “better to be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son” because his religion forbade him to eat pork, yet he killed several of his sons, his wife and other relatives because of his paranoia of rivals. When he was dying, he ordered his soldiers to round up 2 men from each village to be cut down by arrows when he died so that there would be mourning in the land (recorded by Josephus). So the Gospel story is credible to his character and fits with the historical portrait that exists. Herod’s response is of deadly fear against an unknown threat. Worldly power senses the threat inherent in innocence and non-violence. Dietrich Bonheoffer used the example of Herod in his famous Christmas sermon that resisted the Nazi regime. Herod reacts brutally by killing a lot of people. It is often the case that the gospel can initially seem to make things worse if it is taken seriously. The gospel confronts us and challenges us and upsets the established order. It is because of this that Christianity is often contained and boxed in, because it is so disruptive.

The Magi were scholars of arcane and esoteric knowledge. They gathered this knowledge from the stars and from ancient prophecies. They studied an ancient and deep secular wisdom. The tradition developed that they were also kings because of the cost of their gifts (gold for sovereignty, frankincense for deity and myrrh used in the anointing of the dead). The story of the magi indicates that human wisdom will recognize Jesus. His importance is for the whole earth and extends beyond the Jewish people. In this he is like other key Old Testament figures such as Cyrus king of the Persians (“the anointed” in Isaiah). It also brings to mind the Isaiah prophesies of the Servant - the ends of the earth are waiting for his teaching. The magi story seems to say that the truth of the gospel can be found in any wisdom tradition if one searches deeply enough.

Many people today still place faith in astrology – signs and meanings derived from the constellations. The Babylonians and Persians were famous for it. Our cosmology (our understanding of the heavens and our universe) is usually dependent on our understanding of ourselves. If we are violent then we will project that violence in to our cosmology (a violent God, cosmic battles and end-times filled with conflict). If we see the heavens through the lens of the baby Jesus, then they are transformed into a peaceful place filled with the music of angels and the light of a brilliant star. The story of the star that leads the magi suggests a restructuring of our violent cosmology.

Matthew’s Gospel begins with the genealogy of Jesus. This is divided into three groups of fourteen generations. From Abraham to David; from Solomon to Jeconiah; and from Shealtiel to Joseph. Fourteen represents a doubling of the number seven – a number associated with divine activity (e.g. the seven days of creation). Three represents the divine presence (for example the three angels who visited Abraham, the Trinity, etc). The genealogy is there to underscore the divine influence and involvement in the birth of Jesus. Except that there are only thirteen in the final group. Some scholars say that it was a miscalculation by Matthew. It seems more likely though that the final person listed in Jesus’ genealogy is meant to be Mary. MT 1:6 reads “and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary of whom Jesus was born,” (the same verb, in passive form, as used of the male progenitors). This claim is backed up by the presence of four other women mentioned in the long list of male names. These four are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and the wife of Uriah (Bathsheba). All four of these women were associated with sexual impropriety. Rahab was a prostitute, Tamar and Ruth acted as prostitutes and Bathsheba was the victim of a rape. All four were of gentile origins (Rahab and Tamar were Canaanite; Ruth was a Moabite and Bathsheba’s name indicates that she was a “daughter of Sheba” and her husband was a Hittite). All four were marginal women and yet they were crucial to the line that led to Jesus. Their presence in the genealogy sets the scene for Mary – another marginal woman crucial to Jesus’ story.

Mt 1:18-25 describes Mary’s situation which was one of great dubiousness and impropriety. In the Talmud Jesus is described as the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier. Elsewhere in the Gospels Jesus’ illegitimacy is hinted at by his accusers (Jn 8: 41). In v. 18 Mary is found to be with child “of the Holy Spirit”. These four words were added by Matthew at this point of the narrative to decrease the scandal of her situation for the reader. If omitted what remains is a much more real and concrete account of vulnerability and peril. Deuteronomy 22:13 states the consequences to an unwed mother if discovered – death by stoning. What stood between Mary and this fate was the compassion of Joseph, although as a righteous man he was also going to reject her.

We are used to the idea of a virgin birth because Luke makes this explicit when Mary says “I have known no man”. As well as this Matthew substitutes the Greek word “parthenos” for the original Hebrew word “maiden” or “young girl” used in the Isaiah prophecy: “Behold a virgin will conceive..”. If you allow yourself to step away from this idea for a moment then the redeeming action of God in the world becomes even more profound. Jesus enters the world as he leaves it – both condemned and yet innocent. From the very beginning of his life he has to confront the condemnation of the world. The taint of illegitimacy would have impacted Jesus – his relationships with outcasts, his compassion for the outsider. Yet love was also present in his childhood providing a witness of a different kind – of acceptance, forgiveness and mercy among the members of his immediate family. Not knowing his biological father may have strengthened his relationship with his heavenly Father. Perhaps what makes this a more powerful understanding of the nativity would be the realization that God takes and transforms the situation of all people - however lowly. God is revealed in terrible circumstances and takes the part of the discarded. In his very act of being born Jesus brings mercy and redemption – to Mary, to Joseph.

This reading of the Gospels has been largely veiled by the Christian tradition –it was even too much for the Evangelists themselves to clearly present. Historically those disputing the Virgin Birth have often been people trying to detract from the divinity of Jesus. Perhaps today, with illegitimacy not such a scandalous event, we can begin to understand the truly wondrous nature of God that enters our world in such a way to bring forgiveness and redemption to all. In his birth Jesus establishes that there is no place outside of God’s love. “Of the Holy Spirit” means exactly this: all human situations of rejection and condemnation are rendered forgiven and filled with God.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Journey with Jesus #19

Here is the final Journey with Jesus Bible Study for November. Look for a series of three Bible Studies on the theme of Christmas coming soon - the first will be posted in the next couple of days, then weekly until Christmas. -Linda

Old Testament - Time to Come 11/19/09

The Old Testament prophets are famous for warning of a disastrous future of terrible violence resulting from the disobedience of the people. Perhaps the best examples of this come from the prophets Amos and Jeremiah. Amos lived in the relatively prosperous period preceding the fall of Israel to the Assyrians. He preached judgment to the wealthy leaders because of their neglect of the poor and oppressed. Jeremiah lived in the time of the fall of Judea and the subsequent Babylonian captivity in the 6th century BCE. While Jeremiah has some hopeful elements, Amos has no mercy. His book ends in total destruction. There is a final urgency in his message – “your time is up”. The storm clouds are already on the horizon. Jeremiah tried to overcome the complacency of his people. But then the hammer fell. He said things as they knew them were coming to an end. Jeremiah was considered a traitor in his lifetime, although he was ultimately proven right in his predictions – Jer 52:1-16 describes the fall of Jerusalem and its society.

This sense of time as an urgent future coming towards us is a hallmark of Old Testament prophetic teaching. It differs from the more stationary or cyclical sense of time present in many other ancient cultures. When John the Baptist and Jesus started to preach of impending destruction if the people did not repent it was therefore taken seriously. The Israelites had lived through it before and knew it could all come down again –and in fact did in 70AD, with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. Our culture has absorbed this sense of urgency and so we live in the expectation of impending violence and doom. We live under the shadow of nuclear winter and now ecological disaster. Just think of all the “end-time” movies out there– for example The Day after Tomorrow, Terminator, and most recently 2012.

Another Old Testament prophet, Isaiah , had a different approach and a different sense of the future. He has an almost timeless, exalted vision of the future. The first part of Isaiah (Chapters 1-39) describes Zion as the city of God that will endure. All peoples of the world will come to Zion to learn the Law of the Lord. The future is an endless and boundless time in which the forces that take away life and peace are themselves done away with. It is the time when all life is fulfilled and accomplished on the Earth. Death has no sting in that future Earth filled with life. Is 25:6-10 describes the end of war, hunger and death. In their place there is a feast for all peoples, the end of disgrace, and death is swallowed up forever. This exalted vision is tied to the earth by a specific place (Mount Zion). This vision contrasts with the more abstract, ethereal and Greek understanding of life after death that is common today – of escaping the earth to a place out of time. This “heaven” is a static place of no movement. The world is left behind along with all of the things that makes time so oppressive.

Jeremiah ends with the destruction of Jerusalem. The Second book of Isaiah (from chapter 40) was also written at this time of absolute loss. A time without king, priest or other significant political or cultural leadership. In Is 42:1-4 a new figure is revealed – the “servant”. In Second Isaiah it is a person not a city who will put things right. He is described as gentle, hardly noticed. He respects the weak and is himself apparently weak. His teaching will go to the ends of the earth, the “coastlands,” and they are waiting for him. In the servant prophesies the peoples of the world do not come to the city, rather his teaching goes to them. Through this figure justice will come to the earth. The future is no longer something to be feared, but hoped for. And there is a sense that it does not have to be fought or strived for, but that it is going to happen inevitably. Just as with the earlier Isaiah visions of the future, this one is emptied of all that harms and destroys life.

The Old Testament opens up our sense of time. The prophets reject the concept of fate. They move away from the traditional cyclical experience of time and the focus on the times of sowing and harvest. While the seasons are good and beautiful they do not change the human situation. The Biblical story begins in a garden and ends in a city – the New Jerusalem. The city represents all that humans have brought to the world in the form of human culture. The future becomes a transformed human space here on earth where death and violence have no place.