Old Testament - Cosmos 05/21/09
The God of the Exodus is a God of blessing and justice. The exodus, the primary experience of the Old Testament, was an act of liberation, an escape from oppression. The early psalms reiterate this image of God – a fierce, warrior-like God – strong enough to set his people free. In almost all ancient mythologies there is rivalry among the gods (e.g. Greek, Babylonian). Usually the new gods defeat the old. The constant in these stories is the rivalry and violence. The Hebrew God is one, so there is no place for rivalry. This is the most important aspect of monotheism. Archetypal rivalry is removed from God and attributed instead to human beings where it belongs. The Christian Trinity preserves this oneness, but, through the Spirit, makes it community, absolute sharing, relationship.
The God of the creation story in Genesis chapter 1 is a God of intelligence and order. God is an artist. Everything created, all the animals and humans, are good – there is no evil. It is a story of divisions, but without conflict. There is no destruction or demonization. No rivalry or killing. The creative narrative ends with God’s rest on the seventh day. The following chapter in Genesis is the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. When read sequentially there is the sense that the golden perfection of the first creation story is lost by the end of the second. Hence we talk of the “fall”. This leads to the atonement theories that try to restore what has been lost, to reclaim this golden era. God has to make up for the fall by sending his Son.
We need to read these stories historically and not sequentially. That is, read them in the order that they were written. Then we can see that what is happening is a spiritual, human evolution, not a fall.
The second creation story is older yet very important. It illustrates the human origin of rivalry – between us and God and with each other. However, the stories of the Garden and of Cain and Abel also give an ambivalent picture of God. He places the serpent in the garden and sows the seeds for discord by choosing Abel’s gift over Cain’s. The God portrayed in these stories in some ways reflects the human. Animal blood sacrifice is experienced by people as a more powerful mediator than harvest offerings, so in the story God is seen to prefer Abel’s gift of the lamb over Cain’s gift. These older stories, therefore, reveal a great deal about the violent, rivalrous nature of human beings. But they also reveal the God of the Exodus – the God of justice who hears Abel’s blood cry out from the ground and asks “where is your brother?”
Isaiah 40:12-26 gives us another creation narrative. It is written during the exile at a time of suffering and loss. It is a creation narrative for a people who have nothing. The message is clear – do not worry, take comfort – remember that I have done these great things – and will do great things again. The story therefore illustrates the creative, but also the historical power of God. It is written in a specific historical context with a message of historical import. The linking of creation and redemption in Isaiah is illustrated in 42:5-9 - God’s creative power brings life to all. In v.8 he rejects idols. Idols are about violence, but this God has no violence. Instead it is human beings that are in the image of God. In Isaiah 44:24-27 and 45:11-13 the overlapping of the creative and historical continues with God’s overcoming of the magicians (diviners) of Babylon and then his use of Cyrus as his means of liberation. In both these instances it is the creator God that is depicted bringing historical freedom.
The second Isaiah texts are probably older than the creation passage in Genesis 1. Isaiah 45:12 describes the heavenly host – a kind of merging of heavenly beings and stars. God is very much in charge – but there are still remnants of other deities here. In contrast, Genesis 1 does not have any mythological beings – the sun and moon are merely “lamps” to light the day and night, and there is no mention of stars. Isaiah 45:18-19 describes the earth as a formless void. It seems that the Priestly writer was aware of these passages in Isaiah and developed this theme in his story of the seven days of creation. The creation story of Genesis 1 was written later – after the exile in the sixth century. It is a more refined theology, completely eliminating violence or competition from the meaning of God, probably written in the century after the passages in Second- Isaiah, and deeply influenced by them. In Genesis 1 God creates for human good and the good of all. It is a picture of God and creation developed after the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel etc.
If read in this way the creation narratives show the progression of thought and understanding about the nature and creative work of God: from the monotheism of the older stories, to the introduction of the idea of God’s creative work in history in Second Isaiah, to the non-violent peaceful creation narrative of Genesis 1. Reading the passages in this way gives a very different understanding than that of fundamentalism and also linear Christian theology. No longer does Genesis 1 describe the idyllic golden age that existed before the Fall. Instead the creation story becomes the expression of God’s contemporary love and delight in creation and in human beings in particular. The creative force of God works within the story itself – through lessons learned from Jewish history. This continuing revelation of the creative work of God continues in Jesus. Jesus rose on the third day – which would have been a Monday. Monday represents the rest of the week – we live in the eighth day, fulfilling the seventh day of rest and blessing!
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Tatoo Me Too! (Ta2 Me 2 U)
Church buildings, I think, are like personal accessories. Sometime they look great, sometimes jaded, sometimes far too expensive for anyone to be wearing. Plus, someone who keeps sporting the same string of pearls over and over, well it’s a little strange, don’t you think?
Don’t get me wrong, I like accessories. I think tattoos are very cool. That arabesque around your shoulder, it blows me away, but twenty five years later it might perhaps be a teensy sad.
When I was seventeen the seminary I was joining took me on a road trip to see its flagship church, a big bright sixties glass and brick affair. I had a moment of pure revolt. I don’t know why, something to do with modernism I suppose. It went away, which was good because I lived next to that church for six years, and served in it for four. While I was serving there I generally forgot rebellious feelings, focusing on the people who used the building. I even got to like a little its upbeat sunlit space.
But now I remember the seventeen-year-old, and other stuff too. St. Peter’s in Rome used to be a stamping ground of mine. I spent a year out there as a student and sometimes went to its Sacrament chapel to pray. But over the years the air disappeared from its marbled vaults. When I went inside I felt I was turning to stone myself. Today I think I wouldn’t even get through security. It would short-out on the spot. It’s not because I don’t recognize great richness in the Catholic tradition, but because the buildings themselves have lost their sign-value, their meaning. Back then I once said to a church higher-up that it wouldn’t matter if the basilica of St. Peter’s was wiped off the face of the earth, Christianity would survive: he looked shocked and struggled for a moment, but eventually admitted I was right.
I think a great many of those buildings will go. They will be torn down. Already the Roman Catholic diocese of this area of the U.S. has closed a half dozen or so churches, despite the fact as many argue there are viable congregations attached to them. As Marx said, it’s the bourgeoisie who are the real revolutionaries; they’ll tear anything down. But the closure of R.C. parishes is really just a sideshow to what I’m talking about.
Take, for example, the so-called “Megachurches.” These places are not church buildings in any traditional sense. They’re out on deserted link roads, accessible only by car. They’re not so much “churches” as warehouses, transferable sports stadia. They are meaningless as signs of the gospel. Anything that’s evangelical in them takes place in small groups, virtually irrelevant to the huge complex. Meanwhile those vast auditoria simply say, “Look at us. We’re big and important.” And, “Oh, by the way, did we mention Jesus?”
The point is the people who run those townless temples have already deserted community in favor of an aircraft hangar, an occupiers’ base-camp. Meanwhile the denominations that hang on to the dusty street-corner buildings, and the decaying downtown cathedrals, are fighting a slow losing war of attrition, propped up by nostalgia as a mode of being religious.
Because, when we get down to it, the semiotics of church architecture is a dead duck. By that I mean the communicative significance of those buildings is over. What Peter Berger calls the “sacred canopy” has vanished from the public space and the churches’ role in presenting it has collapsed. That’s what they were, tent poles of a sacred order, and it’s gone. But what is not over, by any means, is the direct experience of human relationship. Therefore the future is in the house church, or the small group able to meet just about anywhere, where relationships have space to grow and deepen for themselves.
Architects will get on with their business of designing human spaces, externally and internally. The future they will build will probably be like the local shopping mall, but with emphasis on civic life as something to be consumed, i.e. enjoyed; they will envision communal living space and even spirituality, they will create beautiful artificial town centers to meet and associate in. If Christians want a large place to meet, they’ll be able to go there. And they’ll want to too!
Meanwhile, the real canopy we’re under is digital. Signs of relationship multiply, like biological cells, on the Internet, not necessarily in any positive or redemptive sense, but as signs they are astronomically prolific. Facebook has more than 200 million active members and tens of thousands join daily. Celebrities on Twitter can outdo CNN breaking news in the number of followers they get. This means that the public arena of meaningful signs is displaced more and more from the physical or real environment to an electronic, virtual one. At the same time—of course—people need direct person-to-person relationship in the flesh, and more than ever. Young people find it difficult to construct long term relationships in a world of pixels and texting. This, in sum, places the onus on the beloved community. Instead of fractured fragmentary relationships, the gospel says there is one single singular relationship of love through time and through space and in these circumstances it is this which begins to stand out really clearly.
Love one another as I have loved you! Simple, and difficult and necessary as that. That’s where the new Christian semiotics is. I wear my “church” accessory around my wrist. Or is it on my arm? It’s invisible, I know, but not quite. Sometimes it gets smudged but that doesn’t take it away. Perhaps sometimes others can see it. Perhaps I can see it on others. “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is as strong as death… many waters cannot quench love….” (Song of Songs, 8:6-7)
Tony
Don’t get me wrong, I like accessories. I think tattoos are very cool. That arabesque around your shoulder, it blows me away, but twenty five years later it might perhaps be a teensy sad.
When I was seventeen the seminary I was joining took me on a road trip to see its flagship church, a big bright sixties glass and brick affair. I had a moment of pure revolt. I don’t know why, something to do with modernism I suppose. It went away, which was good because I lived next to that church for six years, and served in it for four. While I was serving there I generally forgot rebellious feelings, focusing on the people who used the building. I even got to like a little its upbeat sunlit space.
But now I remember the seventeen-year-old, and other stuff too. St. Peter’s in Rome used to be a stamping ground of mine. I spent a year out there as a student and sometimes went to its Sacrament chapel to pray. But over the years the air disappeared from its marbled vaults. When I went inside I felt I was turning to stone myself. Today I think I wouldn’t even get through security. It would short-out on the spot. It’s not because I don’t recognize great richness in the Catholic tradition, but because the buildings themselves have lost their sign-value, their meaning. Back then I once said to a church higher-up that it wouldn’t matter if the basilica of St. Peter’s was wiped off the face of the earth, Christianity would survive: he looked shocked and struggled for a moment, but eventually admitted I was right.
I think a great many of those buildings will go. They will be torn down. Already the Roman Catholic diocese of this area of the U.S. has closed a half dozen or so churches, despite the fact as many argue there are viable congregations attached to them. As Marx said, it’s the bourgeoisie who are the real revolutionaries; they’ll tear anything down. But the closure of R.C. parishes is really just a sideshow to what I’m talking about.
Take, for example, the so-called “Megachurches.” These places are not church buildings in any traditional sense. They’re out on deserted link roads, accessible only by car. They’re not so much “churches” as warehouses, transferable sports stadia. They are meaningless as signs of the gospel. Anything that’s evangelical in them takes place in small groups, virtually irrelevant to the huge complex. Meanwhile those vast auditoria simply say, “Look at us. We’re big and important.” And, “Oh, by the way, did we mention Jesus?”
The point is the people who run those townless temples have already deserted community in favor of an aircraft hangar, an occupiers’ base-camp. Meanwhile the denominations that hang on to the dusty street-corner buildings, and the decaying downtown cathedrals, are fighting a slow losing war of attrition, propped up by nostalgia as a mode of being religious.
Because, when we get down to it, the semiotics of church architecture is a dead duck. By that I mean the communicative significance of those buildings is over. What Peter Berger calls the “sacred canopy” has vanished from the public space and the churches’ role in presenting it has collapsed. That’s what they were, tent poles of a sacred order, and it’s gone. But what is not over, by any means, is the direct experience of human relationship. Therefore the future is in the house church, or the small group able to meet just about anywhere, where relationships have space to grow and deepen for themselves.
Architects will get on with their business of designing human spaces, externally and internally. The future they will build will probably be like the local shopping mall, but with emphasis on civic life as something to be consumed, i.e. enjoyed; they will envision communal living space and even spirituality, they will create beautiful artificial town centers to meet and associate in. If Christians want a large place to meet, they’ll be able to go there. And they’ll want to too!
Meanwhile, the real canopy we’re under is digital. Signs of relationship multiply, like biological cells, on the Internet, not necessarily in any positive or redemptive sense, but as signs they are astronomically prolific. Facebook has more than 200 million active members and tens of thousands join daily. Celebrities on Twitter can outdo CNN breaking news in the number of followers they get. This means that the public arena of meaningful signs is displaced more and more from the physical or real environment to an electronic, virtual one. At the same time—of course—people need direct person-to-person relationship in the flesh, and more than ever. Young people find it difficult to construct long term relationships in a world of pixels and texting. This, in sum, places the onus on the beloved community. Instead of fractured fragmentary relationships, the gospel says there is one single singular relationship of love through time and through space and in these circumstances it is this which begins to stand out really clearly.
Love one another as I have loved you! Simple, and difficult and necessary as that. That’s where the new Christian semiotics is. I wear my “church” accessory around my wrist. Or is it on my arm? It’s invisible, I know, but not quite. Sometimes it gets smudged but that doesn’t take it away. Perhaps sometimes others can see it. Perhaps I can see it on others. “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is as strong as death… many waters cannot quench love….” (Song of Songs, 8:6-7)
Tony
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Journey with Jesus #9
New Testament – Cosmos 05/07/09
Cosmos is a Greek word meaning the universe, the totality of the created world order. Our universe is 13 billion light-years in distance, amazingly vast, and yet people can imagine beyond this. There is an infinite character to the way we think. There is an absolute space within us that has to do with our freedom and our minds. It is a cosmic part of us that needs to be filled and will not rest until it is.
Jesus takes this on. In Colossians 1:15-20 Paul inserts an early Christian hymn. This letter was written around 30-40 years after Jesus but the hymn is earlier. A cosmic Christ is presented- the visible and full image of God. He is the first born and initiator of all creation, comparable to the figure of Wisdom in the Old Testament. He is the goal for all things- visible and invisible. This worldview assumes the existence of invisible powers (dominions or rulers in the created realm). These were often associated with the basic elements or forces of the universe, like the zodiac. Paul in Colossians 2:8 looks down on these powers – if they do exist then they are under Christ’s control. Our contemporary universe is full of space; the Biblical universe is a dense one, filled up with creation. But the point is the same. In this hymn Christ fills the universe and the church – leading them all to a new life beyond death. The fullness of God fills him and the result is reconciliation for the whole cosmos.
1 Corinthians was written probably 22 years after Jesus’ death. In 15:3-7 Paul recounts the basic tradition of the resurrection that emerged in the first years of the Christian movement. This is the first written historical account of the resurrection. Biblical scholars estimate that Paul was converted within 2 to 3 years of Jesus death. Paul’s account edits out the women present in the Gospel narratives. Women would not have been culturally acceptable witnesses in Paul’s mind. Instead Jesus appears first to Cephas (Peter), then the twelve and then to five hundred brothers. Paul says that “last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me”.
In Galatians 1 :13-17 Paul gives a short account of his life. He describes how he used violence against the early church. He was a zealot seeking to destroy what was hostile to God. Christians threatened his world. It was not possible that a man condemned to die a disgraceful, criminal death, a man outside of the Law, could be the means of redemption. Yet on the road to Damascus something happened to transform him. God “was pleased to reveal his Son to me”. The word ‘reveal” is the Greek root of “apocalyse”. It is the opening up of the heavens to show the hidden reality. It implies an act of tremendous power – God is no longer holding back. Paul experiences a massive conversion. This conversion was so powerful that he does not question it or return to Jerusalem to discuss it. Rather he goes to a place apart, to Arabia, and then returns to Damascus. There is no doubt that Paul does not hesitate about the total reality of resurrection.
In 1 Corinthians Paul addresses Christians in Corinth who dismiss the importance of the bodily resurrection. They came from the Greek world in which separate spiritual experience and knowledge was valued more than transforming the world through love. For us today the focus has also moved away from the bodily resurrection. Instead the eyes of Christians are on getting to heaven. Death no longer has the heavy, final oppressiveness of the pagan experience. Like for the Corinthians, death for us has become thin and we see through it to the “other side,” to heaven. For Paul, however, the resurrection of the body is vital to the message of redemption. (1Cor 15:20-28). Death is thin because it looks to the light on this side, to resurrection!
Paul shared the Jewish understanding of resurrection as described in the book of Daniel (Dn12:1-2). Daniel was written close to the time of Jesus during a period of great persecution. “…Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” The “many” here refers to all the dead. The resurrection is a one-time event for all peoples.
If all are not raised then no one can be. One person being raised is not part of the program. Therefore, because Jesus has been raised, we are all raised. He is the “first fruits” – it is inevitable then that the rest of the harvest will follow. Until that time, the dead rest in the earth. They continue to live in the memories of those still living, and in the legacy of their actions. They also rest in Jesus who remains in relationship of love with them, and they with him, preserving them until the day of resurrection. Because we are in relationship with Jesus, and he is in relationship with those who have died, then through him we can remain connected to the dead. The Biblical understanding of the resurrection is holistic and relational. We are all connected. The earth is groaning and waiting. Our choices and actions here in this world today are important. Resurrection will come when the earth is transformed by love. It is then, with God dwelling among us, that death will no longer have a place and the dead will rise.
In 1 Cor 15:35-54 Paul tries to give a picture of how we will be when the resurrection takes place. He uses the image of a seed. An image of continuity and change. The seed dies and decays but then springs forth new life. It is the same plant but its form is different. The self dies and changes, yet remains the same self. He uses examples of animals and heavenly bodies, the stars, to describe the existence of different kinds of bodies. Unlike the Greek idea of the spirit shedding the body to return to the heavenly realm, Paul talks instead of our bodies putting on immortality – like glorious clothes! Our bodies are not stripped from us – rather they are transformed
Cosmos is a Greek word meaning the universe, the totality of the created world order. Our universe is 13 billion light-years in distance, amazingly vast, and yet people can imagine beyond this. There is an infinite character to the way we think. There is an absolute space within us that has to do with our freedom and our minds. It is a cosmic part of us that needs to be filled and will not rest until it is.
Jesus takes this on. In Colossians 1:15-20 Paul inserts an early Christian hymn. This letter was written around 30-40 years after Jesus but the hymn is earlier. A cosmic Christ is presented- the visible and full image of God. He is the first born and initiator of all creation, comparable to the figure of Wisdom in the Old Testament. He is the goal for all things- visible and invisible. This worldview assumes the existence of invisible powers (dominions or rulers in the created realm). These were often associated with the basic elements or forces of the universe, like the zodiac. Paul in Colossians 2:8 looks down on these powers – if they do exist then they are under Christ’s control. Our contemporary universe is full of space; the Biblical universe is a dense one, filled up with creation. But the point is the same. In this hymn Christ fills the universe and the church – leading them all to a new life beyond death. The fullness of God fills him and the result is reconciliation for the whole cosmos.
1 Corinthians was written probably 22 years after Jesus’ death. In 15:3-7 Paul recounts the basic tradition of the resurrection that emerged in the first years of the Christian movement. This is the first written historical account of the resurrection. Biblical scholars estimate that Paul was converted within 2 to 3 years of Jesus death. Paul’s account edits out the women present in the Gospel narratives. Women would not have been culturally acceptable witnesses in Paul’s mind. Instead Jesus appears first to Cephas (Peter), then the twelve and then to five hundred brothers. Paul says that “last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me”.
In Galatians 1 :13-17 Paul gives a short account of his life. He describes how he used violence against the early church. He was a zealot seeking to destroy what was hostile to God. Christians threatened his world. It was not possible that a man condemned to die a disgraceful, criminal death, a man outside of the Law, could be the means of redemption. Yet on the road to Damascus something happened to transform him. God “was pleased to reveal his Son to me”. The word ‘reveal” is the Greek root of “apocalyse”. It is the opening up of the heavens to show the hidden reality. It implies an act of tremendous power – God is no longer holding back. Paul experiences a massive conversion. This conversion was so powerful that he does not question it or return to Jerusalem to discuss it. Rather he goes to a place apart, to Arabia, and then returns to Damascus. There is no doubt that Paul does not hesitate about the total reality of resurrection.
In 1 Corinthians Paul addresses Christians in Corinth who dismiss the importance of the bodily resurrection. They came from the Greek world in which separate spiritual experience and knowledge was valued more than transforming the world through love. For us today the focus has also moved away from the bodily resurrection. Instead the eyes of Christians are on getting to heaven. Death no longer has the heavy, final oppressiveness of the pagan experience. Like for the Corinthians, death for us has become thin and we see through it to the “other side,” to heaven. For Paul, however, the resurrection of the body is vital to the message of redemption. (1Cor 15:20-28). Death is thin because it looks to the light on this side, to resurrection!
Paul shared the Jewish understanding of resurrection as described in the book of Daniel (Dn12:1-2). Daniel was written close to the time of Jesus during a period of great persecution. “…Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” The “many” here refers to all the dead. The resurrection is a one-time event for all peoples.
If all are not raised then no one can be. One person being raised is not part of the program. Therefore, because Jesus has been raised, we are all raised. He is the “first fruits” – it is inevitable then that the rest of the harvest will follow. Until that time, the dead rest in the earth. They continue to live in the memories of those still living, and in the legacy of their actions. They also rest in Jesus who remains in relationship of love with them, and they with him, preserving them until the day of resurrection. Because we are in relationship with Jesus, and he is in relationship with those who have died, then through him we can remain connected to the dead. The Biblical understanding of the resurrection is holistic and relational. We are all connected. The earth is groaning and waiting. Our choices and actions here in this world today are important. Resurrection will come when the earth is transformed by love. It is then, with God dwelling among us, that death will no longer have a place and the dead will rise.
In 1 Cor 15:35-54 Paul tries to give a picture of how we will be when the resurrection takes place. He uses the image of a seed. An image of continuity and change. The seed dies and decays but then springs forth new life. It is the same plant but its form is different. The self dies and changes, yet remains the same self. He uses examples of animals and heavenly bodies, the stars, to describe the existence of different kinds of bodies. Unlike the Greek idea of the spirit shedding the body to return to the heavenly realm, Paul talks instead of our bodies putting on immortality – like glorious clothes! Our bodies are not stripped from us – rather they are transformed
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