We came to the U.S. in 1994. Afterward stuff happened. There was Clinton, then Bush, then Obama. I used to think it would be amazing to live to 1984, the fabulous year of the eponymous book. Then I thought it would be amazing to live to 2000. But those dates passed and I wasn’t amazed.
Then, then came now. Now really, truly, is amazing. As Jack Cafferty, the CNN journalist, recently wrote, “This is not your father’s country anymore.”
We elected an African-American president with a Middle Eastern name. Who would have dreamed it? And along with that millennial surprise goes the crisis that broadly brought it about. The U.S. is fighting for its life, economically, culturally, militarily. But then so is the world, and the planet that holds the world. One thing piling on another, with no one with a real advantage, no one really in control.
The possibilities are open. In four years time we could revert to an authoritarian militarist state, with the Obama train running out of track and hope. The U.S. may have a $12 trillion debt and counting, but it does have enough weaponry for a really spectacular all-guns-blazing finale. Or, we could continue to change positively. We might really move to a universal health care system. Public transport might really become a priority. Even military action and spending might come into question. And then the poor of the world might really have cause to rejoice. Not just a very good night at the Oscars (though I wouldn’t begrudge that either).
Long before I came to the U.S. a good friend of mine pointed out that the apostles, Paul and Peter, seemed to head instinctively to Rome. They took the gospel to the heart of imperial power in order to interrupt its beat, to subvert it to a rhythm of a new heaven and new earth. He also said that today they would probably head to the U.S.A.
But how would that look when this country is so much already a confessing-Christian country as prayers at the inauguration (and Obama’s own quotation of the New Testament) confidently showed? Wouldn’t it be bringing coals to Newcastle, pizza to New York? As many point out, Christianity is peculiarly vigorous here because it is not established or controlled by the state. It’s a free market enterprise and has done pretty well for itself in that rough-and-tumble arena. But there’s the rub. It is comfortably accommodated to the market, which is now in free-fall.
Cafferty, in his article (cnn.com/2009/Politics), has a pretty grim assessment of the market’s ability to keep delivering as it did before. “At the end of the day, we are going to have to settle for less. Less money, smaller houses, smaller cars and smaller dreams. This is not your father's country anymore. And we had better all start getting used to it.” What does that mean for Christianity? Is it perhaps an opportunity to learn that, yes, it is not your father’s country, but it might in some measure be our father’s country. As in “Our father your kingdom come, your will be done.” And “Call no one your father for you have only one father and you are all brothers/sisters.” And “Do not worry about what you are to eat, or what you are to wear. Your father knows you need all these things.” And “Love your enemies, for even so your father makes the sun to rise on the just and unjust alike….”
It’s not a matter of bringing a new religion, as the early Christians did to Rome, but a new style of humanity (which was perhaps what those early Christians were doing all along anyway). A really new humanity. Smaller houses, smaller cars are not an issue for those for whom “Seek ye first the kingdom of God” is much more signal than having a Lexus or a Beamer.
I have very little idea of how this Christianity will look. I just know that this is the way it must be. Wood Hath Hope does not claim to be this, but it’s a place where this is talked about. It’s all we talk about. And we also worship on this basis, yearning “Come Lord Jesus…,” not the judge of the earth but the new human for a new earth. Now wouldn’t that be totally amazing?
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Journey with Jesus #3
Here is the summary of last Friday's study. A reminder that we have Jesus yoga this week and a continuation of the bible study (Old Testament - Water) the week after that. Peace, Linda
New Testament - Water 02/06/09
For Jesus, the land and sea were more than just a backdrop to his ministry. They were signs or sacraments in themselves. Jesus used various media to communicate his message and water is one of the most powerful and significant of these. In Mark 1:10-11 we have the account of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist. In the tradition of the prophets who had used physical objects (broken pots, filthy clothing) to illustrate deeper truths, John used the land as a medium for his message of repentance. The Jordan runs along the eastern border of Israel and had been the point of entry for the people after the Exodus and returning from their exile in Babylon. For John baptism symbolized a time for starting over – a re-entry into the land after exile. There had been a physical resettlement of the land, but God’s presence was not yet evident. The land was suffering under the Roman occupation and John was looking for the spiritual return – for a true union of God and his people.
When Jesus goes to the Jordan and emerges from the water the heavens are torn apart and the Spirit descends on him like a dove. The opening of the heavens is an apocalyptic motif, the in-breaking of God into the human space marking an end to the present order. It holds echoes of Isaiah 64:1-2 “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence …to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence”. In Jesus’ baptism God enters the human space in a definitive way through the person of Jesus. So Jesus’ baptism is more than John’s national event – it becomes a cosmic event for all people. Water becomes more than the symbol of entry into the land. The spirit hovers over the water just as it did in creation. Jesus’ baptism marks the second creation.
After his baptism Jesus moves from the river to the sea. The medium of the sea fits better with his message. He does not have the same focus as John (the river mediating the land to the people, involving the symbolism of cleansing and repentance in preparation to enter it). For Jesus the sea is more important. It brings to mind the chaotic primordial abyss out of which creation was brought forth. The Sea of Galilee is hardly ever mentioned in the Old Testament. The sea was feared and avoided, a place of violent storms and associated with monsters. In Is 51:9-11 the prophet exhorts God to awake and slay the sea monster Rahab. Isaiah is drawing on ancient myths from Mesopotamia and Phoenicia as metaphors for the oppression being experienced under Babylonian rule. In the ancient myths the gods destroy the sea monsters before the cosmos can be created. (The later Priestly account of creation found in Genesis 1 is remarkable in that it has no big battles or violence). It is from the sea that the monsters in Daniel 7 emerge to terrorize the land and its people – again symbolic representations of violent empire. The beasts from the abyss have taken power – representations of chaotic and violent humanity.
Only Jews who had been displaced from the land in some way would be forced to make their living from the sea. In Mk 1:16-17 Jesus walks along the sea and calls his first disciples – fishermen. This is a purposeful act by Jesus. He says to them that they will become “fishers of men”. They will rescue those drowning in the abyss. Jesus spends much of his time by, on or crossing the sea in the first part of his ministry. Check out MK 2:13; MK3:7; Mk4:1; Mk4:35; MK 5:1; 5:20-21; 6:32; 6:45; 6:53; 7:31 and 8:12-13. This only changes after Peter’s declaration at Caesarea Philippi, when Jesus turns his face to Jerusalem. The sea is important to Jesus both symbolically and strategically – he uses it as a place to escape the crowds and the Pharisees.
One of the most memorable accounts of Jesus and the sea is found in Mk 4:35. Here Jesus is asleep in the boat when a storm overtakes them. The disciples wake him and he calms the storm. This story has many parallels with the Old Testament story of Jonah. Jonah also was asleep while the storm raged. In the story of Jonah the storm abates when Jonah is thrown overboard and is swallowed by the sea monster. Jesus rebukes the sea – exorcising the monsters/violence it contains.
The story continues with their landing in the land of the Gerasenes and the account of the healing of the demoniac living among the tombs. The man is called “legion” – a Latin term used to denote a Roman military unit. The explanation “for we are many” is likely an editorial addition to soften the language and its critical implication for a Roman audience. This individual displays uncontrollable violent behavior (just as the Romans did). Jesus, having subdued the violence of the sea, now exorcises the human violence internalized by the demoniac. The violence is cast out but cannot be totally dispersed – it enters the pigs that then return to the sea, completing the circle of symbolism. To deal finally with the core violence of the cosmos, which is human, Jesus must go to the cross.
In Mk 6:45 Jesus again shows his mastery over the chaotic abyss when he walks on water. Then in Mk 8: 11-13 he is asked for a sign from heaven. The Pharisees are looking for an Elijah style calling down of fire to wipe out the Romans. But when the heavens split at Jesus’ baptism – the Spirit descended like a dove. Jesus says “no sign will be given to this generation” and gets into a boat to cross to the opposite shore. In a parallel (and generally considered more authentic) account in Mt 12:38-41 (with a doublet of this in Mt 16:1) Jesus says “the only sign it will be given is the sign of Jonah”. In Mt 12:40 the editorial gloss says this is because Jesus would be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights as Jonah was in the belly of the whale. This comes from early church teaching. When Jesus makes his comment it is more likely that he is saying that they should not be looking to the heavens for salvation, but to the abyss. In looking to the heavens in our search for a violent divine intervention against our enemies we are only projecting our own violence on to God. The new creation comes when we look to the abyss and address what it represents.
Human beings are 90% water. In the context of this study, water corresponds to the unrestrained violence and chaos that we have always been unable to face or deal with. People cope by displacing their violence on to scapegoats. (An example of this is soldiers who carry not only the physical burden of war but also the spiritual burden. In January 2009 more U.S. soldiers died by suicide than in enemy fire – a marked increase from the previous year). Jesus, however, is more powerful than anything within the abyss. He is able to control our storms and exorcise our monsters. And he is able to bring new creation out of the depths. In the vision of the New Jerusalem in Revelations 21, the author describes “a new heaven and a new earth, the first heaven and the first earth had disappeared and the sea was no more”. Instead of the angry sea there is a light-filled sea of crystal and a river of life flowing through the city.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
From Thing to Sign
In my spare time—of which I have a fair bit since I lost my job at the seminary (well, actually I didn’t lose the job, they closed the seminary, so my job was no longer there to be lost, it simply disappeared, ppfffttt, one fine morning)—anyhow, as I was saying, in my spare time I am writing a book of theology. On this book there also hangs a tale and I will give you a little because it is quite instructive about theology, and perhaps also about me (and that too leads back to theology, I suppose or would like to think). In the past my type of book would probably have been called “systematic theology,” or some attempt at it. That means it takes the various elements of Christian belief and fits them in a coherent pattern or whole with educated thoughts about God, the world and humanity.
I have been trying to write this book for, say, seven years. I had deceived myself on the apparent simplicity of the task and for two reasons. One, my first book got published so quickly and easily. Two, systematic theology is itself a tough thing to take on, and I didn’t actually think I was engaged in that when I set out. My first book, Cross Purposes, was an idea whose time had come. It accompanied other books in the field, just being published, and on a subject many people thought highly important. So, in a phrase, it was snapped up. As for this second enterprise, as I say I didn’t at first realize I was writing systematic theology. I thought the actual world we were living in, its rapid changes, its media stream, its violence, all this was enough “system” for anyone and it was simply a matter of placing Christian belief in that framework. I severely underestimated the conservatism of the traditional Christian worldview and how publishers look to that as the bottom line and do not believe the market can take anything beyond its recognizable borders. When I understood this there then began the ground-busting labor of trying to explain how our present world already represents a shift of meaning and why Christianity is a central agent of that shift. The argument becomes multi-leveled and the writing more dense, and, wait a minute, doesn’t that all sound like “systematic theology”? Uh-huh.
Theology like that is usually written for professionals and while I probably could do that I always wanted to reach a broader audience, in fact the contemporary audience which lives and breathes these changes day by day. I don’t want to give up on this, and while publishers have said my stuff is too sophisticated for the average reader I know that more complex ideas can be accepted when a dominant perspective comes to be shared by reader and author. I am sure that Luther’s arguments on justification were not comprehended by most but his attack on Rome surely was. Nowadays it is not a matter of attacking an institution but of demonstrating a new Christian worldview out of cultural elements that are already in the public space because of Jesus. Once people begin to get hold of this then my kind of systematic theology will get published. (Please say “Amen.”)
So, what might be this shift in meaning that (official) Christianity needs to catch up with? In a nutshell it’s a shift from the thing to the sign. Jesus, we might remember, dealt a lot in signs. But in his time there was almost no media—apart from the head on a coin or a statue (which good Jews would have avoided anyway) there were no visual stimuli beyond nature itself. Today what we call nature is crowded out by a blizzard of images, movies, TV, internet, print, hoardings, cellular phones, screens in offices, in public spaces, etc. etc. This means that our visual or virtual world is progressively more real than the real world. But what is communicated, what is the meaning of all this virtuality? So much of it is frenzy, desire and violence. But Jesus is in there too. Jesus was already a semiotic revolution in his day, leaving signs scattered around like the whole world was his artist’s studio. (Think a piece of bread, and “Here is my body…”) The shift in meaning for Christianity is to pay more attention to the signs of Jesus than to the way we try to fit him into a world of things: viz. ”Is it really his body? Is he really God? Of one substance with God? Is there really a place called heaven, or a place called hell?” Rather, in a world teeming with signs, the signs of Jesus take on their full value. They are an intended transformation of the way we see everything and, therefore, of the way we fundamentally relate to each other. Simple as that.
The dominant signs around us—for example, money, glamour, nation, president, gun—are gradually being eroded and edged out by the sign of the Son of Man, meaning forgiveness, peace, giving, nonretaliation, love, life. It comes down to a contest of signs, and Christian faith is on the frontline of changing the signs by which we live. In the following passage from Colossians it’s as if Jesus overwhelms the system of signs, including its most powerful form, the legal document. And he continues to do so in a vast public act of re-education or counter-meaning. “He forgave us…erasing the record [literally handwriting] that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them [literally “exposed them with openness”], triumphing over them in it [i.e. in the public demonstration of counter-meaning].
A public demonstration of counter-meaning. Ah, that sounds like a systematic theology worth googling!
I have been trying to write this book for, say, seven years. I had deceived myself on the apparent simplicity of the task and for two reasons. One, my first book got published so quickly and easily. Two, systematic theology is itself a tough thing to take on, and I didn’t actually think I was engaged in that when I set out. My first book, Cross Purposes, was an idea whose time had come. It accompanied other books in the field, just being published, and on a subject many people thought highly important. So, in a phrase, it was snapped up. As for this second enterprise, as I say I didn’t at first realize I was writing systematic theology. I thought the actual world we were living in, its rapid changes, its media stream, its violence, all this was enough “system” for anyone and it was simply a matter of placing Christian belief in that framework. I severely underestimated the conservatism of the traditional Christian worldview and how publishers look to that as the bottom line and do not believe the market can take anything beyond its recognizable borders. When I understood this there then began the ground-busting labor of trying to explain how our present world already represents a shift of meaning and why Christianity is a central agent of that shift. The argument becomes multi-leveled and the writing more dense, and, wait a minute, doesn’t that all sound like “systematic theology”? Uh-huh.
Theology like that is usually written for professionals and while I probably could do that I always wanted to reach a broader audience, in fact the contemporary audience which lives and breathes these changes day by day. I don’t want to give up on this, and while publishers have said my stuff is too sophisticated for the average reader I know that more complex ideas can be accepted when a dominant perspective comes to be shared by reader and author. I am sure that Luther’s arguments on justification were not comprehended by most but his attack on Rome surely was. Nowadays it is not a matter of attacking an institution but of demonstrating a new Christian worldview out of cultural elements that are already in the public space because of Jesus. Once people begin to get hold of this then my kind of systematic theology will get published. (Please say “Amen.”)
So, what might be this shift in meaning that (official) Christianity needs to catch up with? In a nutshell it’s a shift from the thing to the sign. Jesus, we might remember, dealt a lot in signs. But in his time there was almost no media—apart from the head on a coin or a statue (which good Jews would have avoided anyway) there were no visual stimuli beyond nature itself. Today what we call nature is crowded out by a blizzard of images, movies, TV, internet, print, hoardings, cellular phones, screens in offices, in public spaces, etc. etc. This means that our visual or virtual world is progressively more real than the real world. But what is communicated, what is the meaning of all this virtuality? So much of it is frenzy, desire and violence. But Jesus is in there too. Jesus was already a semiotic revolution in his day, leaving signs scattered around like the whole world was his artist’s studio. (Think a piece of bread, and “Here is my body…”) The shift in meaning for Christianity is to pay more attention to the signs of Jesus than to the way we try to fit him into a world of things: viz. ”Is it really his body? Is he really God? Of one substance with God? Is there really a place called heaven, or a place called hell?” Rather, in a world teeming with signs, the signs of Jesus take on their full value. They are an intended transformation of the way we see everything and, therefore, of the way we fundamentally relate to each other. Simple as that.
The dominant signs around us—for example, money, glamour, nation, president, gun—are gradually being eroded and edged out by the sign of the Son of Man, meaning forgiveness, peace, giving, nonretaliation, love, life. It comes down to a contest of signs, and Christian faith is on the frontline of changing the signs by which we live. In the following passage from Colossians it’s as if Jesus overwhelms the system of signs, including its most powerful form, the legal document. And he continues to do so in a vast public act of re-education or counter-meaning. “He forgave us…erasing the record [literally handwriting] that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them [literally “exposed them with openness”], triumphing over them in it [i.e. in the public demonstration of counter-meaning].
A public demonstration of counter-meaning. Ah, that sounds like a systematic theology worth googling!
Monday, January 19, 2009
Journey with Jesus #2
Old Testament - Nativity 01/16/09
The Old Testament has many birth narratives – Moses, Samuel (Hannah’s song of praise is the basis for Mary’s Magnificat in Luke), and Joseph, son of Jacob, to name a few. This study focuses on stories surrounding the birth of Isaac (found in Genesis 18:1-15; 19:1-11 & 20:1-7). In Chapter 18 Abraham welcomes the Lord who, with the ambiguity often found in these early stories, appears as three men. The patriarchal narratives – the stories in Genesis before Moses and the exodus – have a more anthropomorphic (human-shaped) description of God.
These stories come out of a specific socio-historical situation - the near east (of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Palestine) 2000 – 1000 BCE. This was a time of city states – often small walled cities ruled by a warrior class – there are thirty one in Palestine alone identified in chapter12 of Joshua. Because of these oppressive city states, in parallel with the great empires, there were many displaced, landless people migrating form one area to another. These people would have been particularly vulnerable, without protection, resources or status. It is some of these landless, rootless people, enslaved in Egypt, that Moses would lead to the Promised Land and give identity as the people of God.
Abraham, Sarah and his nephew Lot are displaced peoples. In Gen 19:9 Lot is described as a stranger by the mob in Sodom. The passage in Chapter 20 where Abraham pretends Sarah is his sister is an example of aliens who have the desperation of the powerless– bartering what they have to survive. In this context hospitality/care for the stranger becomes a matter of life and death. The angels from God (messengers/emissaries - not the Persian winged versions that we think of today) that are protected by Lot in Chapter 19 are another example of vulnerable travelers dependent on the hospitality of strangers. The real sin of Sodom is not the sexual act of the rape of the men – rather it is that they have broken the code of hospitality and protection of the stranger. It is not the sexual sin as such that is at issue– it is the threat of violence to the vulnerable outsider. The fact that they were men indicates only that the sin was greater – men were perceived as more valuable than women.
In this underclass of the dispossessed, women had an even more powerless role. They were the most expendable – bartered and traded . In Genesis, twice Abraham pretends Sarah is his sister (barters her as a prostitute, and in a separate story Isaac does the same thing with his wife). Lot is prepared to sacrifice his daughters to save the lives of the visitors that have fallen under his protection. In this context, women are pawns to preserve or increase the honor/survival of men.
The action of God in these circumstances is to speak for the vulnerable – the widow, the orphan, the stranger. The Exodus was the foundation act – God acting against the mighty of the world on behalf of the powerless. The Torah was a way of trying to say that “you shall not do to others what was once done to you in Egypt”. The subsequent stories of the Old Testament often bear witness to the failure of the people to uphold this Law, but the Torah remained at their center, and the desire was always to return to faithfulness to the Law. But before the Exodus we have the destruction of Sodom as judgment for its offenses against the stranger. Later God tells Abimelech in a dream not to touch Sarah. This is similar to Joseph’s dream in Matthew where the angel urges Joseph to protect Mary and not to cast her out. In the early stories of the Old Testament God acts with violence to bring about justice – it is only as the people experience increasing suffering – the collapse of the kingdoms, the loss of their land and exile – does their understanding of the nature and action of God in the world begin to change. When Mary is mentioned at the end of the three-times-fourteen list of generations in Matthew she stands for all the vulnerable and oppressed women of the Old Testament through whom, paradoxically, God’s purpose will be fulfilled.
Genesis also has the ultimate nativity story – the Creation narratives. In Chapter 1 is the account of the seven days of creation culminating in Ch2:4 “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created”. “Generations” (geneses) here is the same word used in the following lists of the descendents of Adam and Eve in Chapter 5. Humanity, made in the image of God, also has the ability to generate life. In Matthew 1:1 the Gospel opens with “an account of the generation/birth of Jesus the Messiah”. The same word (genesis: often mistranslated as “genealogy”) is used here. In one sense it means that what follows in the next few chapters is an account of the birth of Jesus – his nativity story. But in a broader sense Matthew is signaling the birth or genesis that Jesus brings into the world. The fourteen generations x3 of the ancestors of Jesus are like the seven days of creation doubled up and then multiplied by the holy number three – a symbol of creation perfected in Jesus. In Jesus we have a new beginning, we are born again—not just as individuals but the whole creation.
The Old Testament has many birth narratives – Moses, Samuel (Hannah’s song of praise is the basis for Mary’s Magnificat in Luke), and Joseph, son of Jacob, to name a few. This study focuses on stories surrounding the birth of Isaac (found in Genesis 18:1-15; 19:1-11 & 20:1-7). In Chapter 18 Abraham welcomes the Lord who, with the ambiguity often found in these early stories, appears as three men. The patriarchal narratives – the stories in Genesis before Moses and the exodus – have a more anthropomorphic (human-shaped) description of God.
These stories come out of a specific socio-historical situation - the near east (of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Palestine) 2000 – 1000 BCE. This was a time of city states – often small walled cities ruled by a warrior class – there are thirty one in Palestine alone identified in chapter12 of Joshua. Because of these oppressive city states, in parallel with the great empires, there were many displaced, landless people migrating form one area to another. These people would have been particularly vulnerable, without protection, resources or status. It is some of these landless, rootless people, enslaved in Egypt, that Moses would lead to the Promised Land and give identity as the people of God.
Abraham, Sarah and his nephew Lot are displaced peoples. In Gen 19:9 Lot is described as a stranger by the mob in Sodom. The passage in Chapter 20 where Abraham pretends Sarah is his sister is an example of aliens who have the desperation of the powerless– bartering what they have to survive. In this context hospitality/care for the stranger becomes a matter of life and death. The angels from God (messengers/emissaries - not the Persian winged versions that we think of today) that are protected by Lot in Chapter 19 are another example of vulnerable travelers dependent on the hospitality of strangers. The real sin of Sodom is not the sexual act of the rape of the men – rather it is that they have broken the code of hospitality and protection of the stranger. It is not the sexual sin as such that is at issue– it is the threat of violence to the vulnerable outsider. The fact that they were men indicates only that the sin was greater – men were perceived as more valuable than women.
In this underclass of the dispossessed, women had an even more powerless role. They were the most expendable – bartered and traded . In Genesis, twice Abraham pretends Sarah is his sister (barters her as a prostitute, and in a separate story Isaac does the same thing with his wife). Lot is prepared to sacrifice his daughters to save the lives of the visitors that have fallen under his protection. In this context, women are pawns to preserve or increase the honor/survival of men.
The action of God in these circumstances is to speak for the vulnerable – the widow, the orphan, the stranger. The Exodus was the foundation act – God acting against the mighty of the world on behalf of the powerless. The Torah was a way of trying to say that “you shall not do to others what was once done to you in Egypt”. The subsequent stories of the Old Testament often bear witness to the failure of the people to uphold this Law, but the Torah remained at their center, and the desire was always to return to faithfulness to the Law. But before the Exodus we have the destruction of Sodom as judgment for its offenses against the stranger. Later God tells Abimelech in a dream not to touch Sarah. This is similar to Joseph’s dream in Matthew where the angel urges Joseph to protect Mary and not to cast her out. In the early stories of the Old Testament God acts with violence to bring about justice – it is only as the people experience increasing suffering – the collapse of the kingdoms, the loss of their land and exile – does their understanding of the nature and action of God in the world begin to change. When Mary is mentioned at the end of the three-times-fourteen list of generations in Matthew she stands for all the vulnerable and oppressed women of the Old Testament through whom, paradoxically, God’s purpose will be fulfilled.
Genesis also has the ultimate nativity story – the Creation narratives. In Chapter 1 is the account of the seven days of creation culminating in Ch2:4 “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created”. “Generations” (geneses) here is the same word used in the following lists of the descendents of Adam and Eve in Chapter 5. Humanity, made in the image of God, also has the ability to generate life. In Matthew 1:1 the Gospel opens with “an account of the generation/birth of Jesus the Messiah”. The same word (genesis: often mistranslated as “genealogy”) is used here. In one sense it means that what follows in the next few chapters is an account of the birth of Jesus – his nativity story. But in a broader sense Matthew is signaling the birth or genesis that Jesus brings into the world. The fourteen generations x3 of the ancestors of Jesus are like the seven days of creation doubled up and then multiplied by the holy number three – a symbol of creation perfected in Jesus. In Jesus we have a new beginning, we are born again—not just as individuals but the whole creation.
Journey with Jesus #1
Here is the summary of the first of our new "Journey with Jesus" Bible studies that took place on January 2nd. Tony has included a short introduction. Peace-Linda
This month we have begun a “Journey with Jesus,” a monthly pattern of prayer and meditation based around a concrete theme in Jesus’ life. The study is not so much about Jesus’ teaching or the theology of a distinct episode but related to some life circumstance which can help us grow closer to Jesus’ experience and person. The Jesus yoga will reflect the theme and meditation, and in the following week we will enter the circumstance more deeply looking at parallels in the Old Testament. Finally we will celebrate our present journey in communion with Jesus through the celebration of a eucharist.
Journey with Jesus – Nativity 01/02/09
Mark and John do not have Nativity narratives. Mark begins with Jesus’ adult ministry, John with his transcendent origins. Matthew and Luke both have infancy narratives but very different – one of the reasons that Biblical scholars do not think that Luke had access to Matthew as a source or vice versa. So why did they write the nativity/infancy narratives? One reason is natural curiosity about origins – people are always interested in who a person’s parents are and where they come from. This is especially true when that person is a great historical figure. In the case of Jesus here was someone who brought a decisive newness into the world through his word, life, death and resurrection. Fifty years later Matthew and Luke were looking for clues in his origins that would signal the radical newness they were experiencing.
Matthew was writing to a Jewish audience. He begins his Gospel with a genealogy (Mt 1:1-16). This idealized list of the ancestors of Jesus is comprised of three groups of fourteen. (Three is a holy number in the Bible and seven is associated with the divine work of creation. Fourteen signals the divine action of creation twice over). The final group does not quite fit – in that there are just thirteen male names – the final name being that of Mary, a woman. Some scholars think that Matthew might have miscounted, or intended that Jeconiah from the previous group was meant to be counted twice. The most natural reading of the text though is to include Mary as the fourteenth name – equal to the men, and a generatioin in her own right.
There are four other women listed in the Matthean genealogy. These are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba . All four conceived their children in scandalous or at the least dubious circumstances. The text seems to underline this by naming Bathsheba as “the wife of Uriah” – another man’s wife. These four women, all heroines of the Old Testament, were therefore also women with questionable histories. Mary is framed in this way – numbered with the patriarchs but in the company of risqué women.
In MT 1:18 Mary is found to be with child “of the Holy Spirit”. Again in v. 20 Joseph is told by the angel not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. In the Greek this is more rightly translated as “what is conceived in her is from/out of the Holy Spirit”. The emphasis is on the Holy Spirit and God’s faithfulness rather than on a miracle of parthenogenesis (like that found in Luke). It brings to mind other stories from the Old Testament (for example the birth of Moses) in which God chooses to bring birth out of peril and danger. These stories would have been familiar to Matthew’s Jewish audience.
Luke, in contrast, stresses the miracle. He is writing to a Greek world familiar with stories of gods impregnating human women – for example Zeus in his disguise as a swan or a bull. The mythical/magical events surrounding the conception and birth of great figures was nothing new to the Greek world – Hercules was said to have strangled a snake in his crib dropped by an eagle passing overhead; Alexander the Great was believed to have been born of a woman impregnated by Zeus. In Lk 1:34 Mary makes explicit through her question “How can this be since I am a virgin?” the fact that we are dealing with a physical miracle. The words “the power of the Most High will overshadow you” have subtle echoes of those Greek gods sexual relations with human women. But in Acts (the continuation of Luke’s Gospel) the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh – which can be seen as taking the “overshadowed by the Holy Spirit” imagery and magnifying it exponentially.
Mark and John hint that Jesus’ status as a respectable Jew was not totally assured – that there was some irregularity in his background. In Jn 8: 40 the crowds respond to Jesus discussion about their erroneous claim to be Abraham’s children by saying “We were not born of fornication, we have one father, God himself”. Some scholars (e.g. Raymond Brown) suggest that this might be a slur on Jesus’ own parentage (“we, unlike you Jesus, are not illegitimate…”). In Mk 6:3 the people at the synagogue in Nazareth say “Is not this the carpenter the son of Mary?” This would have been an unusual way of stating his background because children were named as sons of their fathers not their mothers. It implies that his father was not known. Jesus does not claim the title “Son of David” for himself. He chooses instead the “Son of Man” appellation from the Book of Daniel. The father Jesus identified with and spoke about was his Father in heaven. It is his relationship with his heavenly father that defines him. If he was in fact illegitimate this would have had a profound impact on his own self-understanding and his relationship with God. It was not in spite of but because of his background that he was able to break free from cultural and religious constraints. Jesus affirmed those who were broken and excluded. He had mercy on the woman caught in adultery. In John’s Gospel Jesus invites us time and again to enter into the relationship he has with his Father.
Jesus’ nativity narratives teach us that God chose as his Messiah someone born in questionable if not disreputable circumstances. Perhaps it is only in these circumstances, when we are forced outside of our places of cultural/social safety, that the Holy Spirit can truly be free to move. Often we do not feel good or holy enough to enter into a relationship with God. Jesus teaches us that it is in fact when we feel the least worthy that we are closest to God and that it is in the times of crisis and scandal in our lives when the Holy Spirit is often most likely to act. Regardless of our own parentage, background or identity, we are all beloved children of the Father.
This month we have begun a “Journey with Jesus,” a monthly pattern of prayer and meditation based around a concrete theme in Jesus’ life. The study is not so much about Jesus’ teaching or the theology of a distinct episode but related to some life circumstance which can help us grow closer to Jesus’ experience and person. The Jesus yoga will reflect the theme and meditation, and in the following week we will enter the circumstance more deeply looking at parallels in the Old Testament. Finally we will celebrate our present journey in communion with Jesus through the celebration of a eucharist.
Journey with Jesus – Nativity 01/02/09
Mark and John do not have Nativity narratives. Mark begins with Jesus’ adult ministry, John with his transcendent origins. Matthew and Luke both have infancy narratives but very different – one of the reasons that Biblical scholars do not think that Luke had access to Matthew as a source or vice versa. So why did they write the nativity/infancy narratives? One reason is natural curiosity about origins – people are always interested in who a person’s parents are and where they come from. This is especially true when that person is a great historical figure. In the case of Jesus here was someone who brought a decisive newness into the world through his word, life, death and resurrection. Fifty years later Matthew and Luke were looking for clues in his origins that would signal the radical newness they were experiencing.
Matthew was writing to a Jewish audience. He begins his Gospel with a genealogy (Mt 1:1-16). This idealized list of the ancestors of Jesus is comprised of three groups of fourteen. (Three is a holy number in the Bible and seven is associated with the divine work of creation. Fourteen signals the divine action of creation twice over). The final group does not quite fit – in that there are just thirteen male names – the final name being that of Mary, a woman. Some scholars think that Matthew might have miscounted, or intended that Jeconiah from the previous group was meant to be counted twice. The most natural reading of the text though is to include Mary as the fourteenth name – equal to the men, and a generatioin in her own right.
There are four other women listed in the Matthean genealogy. These are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba . All four conceived their children in scandalous or at the least dubious circumstances. The text seems to underline this by naming Bathsheba as “the wife of Uriah” – another man’s wife. These four women, all heroines of the Old Testament, were therefore also women with questionable histories. Mary is framed in this way – numbered with the patriarchs but in the company of risqué women.
In MT 1:18 Mary is found to be with child “of the Holy Spirit”. Again in v. 20 Joseph is told by the angel not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. In the Greek this is more rightly translated as “what is conceived in her is from/out of the Holy Spirit”. The emphasis is on the Holy Spirit and God’s faithfulness rather than on a miracle of parthenogenesis (like that found in Luke). It brings to mind other stories from the Old Testament (for example the birth of Moses) in which God chooses to bring birth out of peril and danger. These stories would have been familiar to Matthew’s Jewish audience.
Luke, in contrast, stresses the miracle. He is writing to a Greek world familiar with stories of gods impregnating human women – for example Zeus in his disguise as a swan or a bull. The mythical/magical events surrounding the conception and birth of great figures was nothing new to the Greek world – Hercules was said to have strangled a snake in his crib dropped by an eagle passing overhead; Alexander the Great was believed to have been born of a woman impregnated by Zeus. In Lk 1:34 Mary makes explicit through her question “How can this be since I am a virgin?” the fact that we are dealing with a physical miracle. The words “the power of the Most High will overshadow you” have subtle echoes of those Greek gods sexual relations with human women. But in Acts (the continuation of Luke’s Gospel) the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh – which can be seen as taking the “overshadowed by the Holy Spirit” imagery and magnifying it exponentially.
Mark and John hint that Jesus’ status as a respectable Jew was not totally assured – that there was some irregularity in his background. In Jn 8: 40 the crowds respond to Jesus discussion about their erroneous claim to be Abraham’s children by saying “We were not born of fornication, we have one father, God himself”. Some scholars (e.g. Raymond Brown) suggest that this might be a slur on Jesus’ own parentage (“we, unlike you Jesus, are not illegitimate…”). In Mk 6:3 the people at the synagogue in Nazareth say “Is not this the carpenter the son of Mary?” This would have been an unusual way of stating his background because children were named as sons of their fathers not their mothers. It implies that his father was not known. Jesus does not claim the title “Son of David” for himself. He chooses instead the “Son of Man” appellation from the Book of Daniel. The father Jesus identified with and spoke about was his Father in heaven. It is his relationship with his heavenly father that defines him. If he was in fact illegitimate this would have had a profound impact on his own self-understanding and his relationship with God. It was not in spite of but because of his background that he was able to break free from cultural and religious constraints. Jesus affirmed those who were broken and excluded. He had mercy on the woman caught in adultery. In John’s Gospel Jesus invites us time and again to enter into the relationship he has with his Father.
Jesus’ nativity narratives teach us that God chose as his Messiah someone born in questionable if not disreputable circumstances. Perhaps it is only in these circumstances, when we are forced outside of our places of cultural/social safety, that the Holy Spirit can truly be free to move. Often we do not feel good or holy enough to enter into a relationship with God. Jesus teaches us that it is in fact when we feel the least worthy that we are closest to God and that it is in the times of crisis and scandal in our lives when the Holy Spirit is often most likely to act. Regardless of our own parentage, background or identity, we are all beloved children of the Father.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
The Abyss is a Well of Light
I recently had to take myself to the ER: just a scare, nothing wrong at all. But being there with a dozen electrodes stuck to your body certainly concentrates the mind. It serves also to create a personal parable. What signals are you really sending? What truly is in your heart? It made me think one more time about the abyss and something about it that I have not said clearly enough and I really should.
I think I’ve always been attracted to deep places, to caves, pits, ocean depths. Not for any dark psychological reason, but because I felt truth was likely hidden away in the deep recesses of the world, kept from plain view. What happens, however, when the metaphysical distinction between these places and the places of height, purity and clarity begins to break down? What happens when the attention of the world is drawn to those fearful spaces, to Abu Grahib as much as to Capitol Hill? Surely the world is being drawn into the abyss?
And we know the reason why that is the case. It is because Christ voluntarily went to this place in fulfillment of forgiving love. So far the effect on the world is not so much forgiving love as an opportunity for anger when all those dark places are brought to light. This is understandable in terms of the old world (the word Nietzsche gave to it was ressentiment/resentment) but it is not the truth of the gospel. The exposure of the abyss in terms of anger and revenge is a half-measure of the gospel in the world, the maximum distance that we’re prepared to go while we hang on to our violent human structure and response. But the fact is it would be impossible to bring the abyss to light if God-in-Christ had not gone there in absolute nonviolence and forgiveness. One hint of retaliation down there and the whole place folds over on itself in violence and unforgiveness, until the last man standing gets to be god. That is the story of Zeus and the Titans. He fought the monsters and locked them up in a pit and then went off to live happily in Olympus. But Christ, though risen from the dead, remains the crucified, and so in a world under the impact of the gospel the abyss remains clearly in our sight, continually in the range of human geography. What we don’t yet see so clearly, what we don’t “get,” is this absolute love of Christ in the abyss, a love without remainder, which makes the revelation possible in the first place.
Another way into what I’m saying is that Jesus did not go to the abyss on a “mission” like Bruce Willis destroying the giant meteor in Armageddon. He didn’t go down there to do something dangerous and then get the heck out. He went there to be something and remain. He committed himself absolutely to that space so that it will end by being radically transformed.
This then is the secret: at the heart of the abyss there is the constant enduring light of absolute love and life. In Christ the abyss becomes a well of light, it becomes heaven itself, the very space of God like to none other. It is the New Jerusalem come down out of heaven, a bride adorned for her husband.
For me this is the truth that the churches have yet to wake up to: that this earth is already the contemplative and redemptive space. There is no other, and we can and must already dwell in this truth, prayerfully, ecstatically, transformatively. The reason why the tradition has not seen this is because it has known the earth as abyss, but with a Greek heaven in view it has said “bad, bad, bad” to the earth. It has displaced the transformation to an other-worldly space and banked the currency needed to get there. (See Augustine’s famous passage in the City of God describing human life as hell-on-earth and a consequent expectation of heaven as release. In this respect the modern abyss-as-anger is a real step forward from the old Christian dualism; at least it assumes ownership of the abyss.)
My dream is that one day there will be a new Christian architecture as evident and recognizable as the painfully boring gothic that in one form or another dots every Western landscape. Instead of providing spires that reach up to the sky it will show forth a communal shape where people live and pray in union with God-in-the-abyss, a place of peace, of love, of light, of sustainable work, of harmony with the land, of endless circles of life, death and life-again. These new constructions will say plainly that the people there are not going any other place than where they are, pouring themselves out continually into the present moment of love and life already realized by God-in-the-abyss. The only thing they await is the final connection of all these spaces, when the life to which they give themselves will join with all other spaces of life and fuse into pure light. They await the time when visibly and irreversibly the universe will become its own pure well of light.
I think I’ve always been attracted to deep places, to caves, pits, ocean depths. Not for any dark psychological reason, but because I felt truth was likely hidden away in the deep recesses of the world, kept from plain view. What happens, however, when the metaphysical distinction between these places and the places of height, purity and clarity begins to break down? What happens when the attention of the world is drawn to those fearful spaces, to Abu Grahib as much as to Capitol Hill? Surely the world is being drawn into the abyss?
And we know the reason why that is the case. It is because Christ voluntarily went to this place in fulfillment of forgiving love. So far the effect on the world is not so much forgiving love as an opportunity for anger when all those dark places are brought to light. This is understandable in terms of the old world (the word Nietzsche gave to it was ressentiment/resentment) but it is not the truth of the gospel. The exposure of the abyss in terms of anger and revenge is a half-measure of the gospel in the world, the maximum distance that we’re prepared to go while we hang on to our violent human structure and response. But the fact is it would be impossible to bring the abyss to light if God-in-Christ had not gone there in absolute nonviolence and forgiveness. One hint of retaliation down there and the whole place folds over on itself in violence and unforgiveness, until the last man standing gets to be god. That is the story of Zeus and the Titans. He fought the monsters and locked them up in a pit and then went off to live happily in Olympus. But Christ, though risen from the dead, remains the crucified, and so in a world under the impact of the gospel the abyss remains clearly in our sight, continually in the range of human geography. What we don’t yet see so clearly, what we don’t “get,” is this absolute love of Christ in the abyss, a love without remainder, which makes the revelation possible in the first place.
Another way into what I’m saying is that Jesus did not go to the abyss on a “mission” like Bruce Willis destroying the giant meteor in Armageddon. He didn’t go down there to do something dangerous and then get the heck out. He went there to be something and remain. He committed himself absolutely to that space so that it will end by being radically transformed.
This then is the secret: at the heart of the abyss there is the constant enduring light of absolute love and life. In Christ the abyss becomes a well of light, it becomes heaven itself, the very space of God like to none other. It is the New Jerusalem come down out of heaven, a bride adorned for her husband.
For me this is the truth that the churches have yet to wake up to: that this earth is already the contemplative and redemptive space. There is no other, and we can and must already dwell in this truth, prayerfully, ecstatically, transformatively. The reason why the tradition has not seen this is because it has known the earth as abyss, but with a Greek heaven in view it has said “bad, bad, bad” to the earth. It has displaced the transformation to an other-worldly space and banked the currency needed to get there. (See Augustine’s famous passage in the City of God describing human life as hell-on-earth and a consequent expectation of heaven as release. In this respect the modern abyss-as-anger is a real step forward from the old Christian dualism; at least it assumes ownership of the abyss.)
My dream is that one day there will be a new Christian architecture as evident and recognizable as the painfully boring gothic that in one form or another dots every Western landscape. Instead of providing spires that reach up to the sky it will show forth a communal shape where people live and pray in union with God-in-the-abyss, a place of peace, of love, of light, of sustainable work, of harmony with the land, of endless circles of life, death and life-again. These new constructions will say plainly that the people there are not going any other place than where they are, pouring themselves out continually into the present moment of love and life already realized by God-in-the-abyss. The only thing they await is the final connection of all these spaces, when the life to which they give themselves will join with all other spaces of life and fuse into pure light. They await the time when visibly and irreversibly the universe will become its own pure well of light.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
The A-Word
Anyone who has heard me present or has read some things I have written knows that I use the word “abyss.” Numerous authors make use of this term, and it doesn’t matter whether they are religious, philosophical or literary, they never bother to define it as far as I can see. In a way they don’t have to. The word carries an immediate resonance we all seem to know about. I came across this the other day. It’s from an interview with Roberto Bolaño, author of the apocalyptically mind-blowing book, "2666."
“While we search for the antidote or the medicine to cure us, the new, that can only be formed in the unknown, we must continue to turn to sex, books and travel, even knowing they lead us into the abyss, which, as it happens, is the only place where we can find the cure.”
The A-word gives us not just a strong metaphor, a poetic device with literary effects. It is more and more an anthropological event, a real place made out of humanity’s real existence, an experience, a progressively more powerful fact. It’s where we’re heading as a planet, where all gods are dead and new ones cannot be born. It’s the wreckage of the physical and religious environment. It is the melting of the icecaps, the flooding of small islands, the extinction of species, and at the same time it’s Jurassic Park, the dream of resurrecting Dinosaurs, the Mammoths, anything enormous and transcendentally violent. It’s humanity left to its own devices, casting around desperately for something big and powerful enough to hold us all in awe before it’s too late.
That used to be the job of God: keeping us in line, while destroying our enemies for us. But now we’re so aware of other people’s gods doing that for them, and the negative effects that has in the world, that many people jettison God completely. This is largely the motivation behind what’s called the “new atheism,” subsequent to the old philosophical or scientific atheism (while sometimes using the same arguments). It’s also come on top of a half century of having our cake and eating it: holding onto the role of God in public life, and for the sake of an afterlife, but every single human day living sky-high as consumers, with the next car or T.V. as the only things really worth caring about...
Thus God in many people’s minds is either a bully or a sick colluder, and in any case a has-been, and so we’re both dealing with a super-stressed planet and watching God exit from the back door of history joining all the other refugees of history on the road to nowhere. But, then suddenly, isn’t that the point? God does not control us anymore. God as the Father/Mother is a refugee, packing her bag the same as the rest of us for a journey to the unknown, to the new. God is alienated from the world, but that’s OK because all the rest of us are too. The current historic exile of God is precisely the way to meet and know God, as hand-in-hand we make our way to the unimaginably new. Isn’t that perhaps the plan of God all along, and God-self has been waiting out at the crossroads of history for God-knows how long. Because if God is truly “other””—and that for me means unimaginably nonviolently dynamic, i.e. loving—then all our all-too-human constructions have to break down before we have a chance truly to encounter God.
But meanwhile—and here’s the thing that really does me in—the churches fight a ridiculous rear-guard action to keep God back at home, or at least on the mountaintop we can see from our back yard. To keep him in church! They try to insist God is in charge, there on a Sunday morning between the four stain-glassed walls, and so permanently in a piece of our imagination that needs him like that. Check it out. The next time you go to church the minister will say some one of the following: God remains in charge because all roads lead to God, because all religions say the same thing, because God lives in heaven and will bring us there in the end, or because God is just and will come one day to establish justice and he’s biding his time right now, or because he in fact will intervene right now only for me, plus some other me's, to make all the me's successful while everyone else can literally go to the devil, etc. etc. Perhaps there is a sense in which some of this is true—I am sure that anyone given to metaphysical thinking can find ways to argue the case, as no categories are more elastic than metaphysical ones. But what is missing in it all is the very thing metaphysics can never supply: the critical sense of the human condition, the fearful moment of the planet that we are in, the way the human crisis bears down on all of us more and more each day amid each new manifestation of global malaise and unrest. What is missing precisely is human sense, the anthropological truth, the six days of the week apart from the metaphysical sunday sabbath, and the way God is now to be found there, in the human, and only there. What is missing is the abyss.
Jesus has always led us into the abyss. He said “The only sign that will be given you is the sign of Jonah,” and he meant it. When he also said “My God, why have you abandoned me?” that means in the last analysis that God also has been abandoned—God-self is lonely, isolated, dying—otherwise it was not in fact “God” who “became man.” No, the image of Jesus hanging on the cross has slowly eaten into all images of an infinitely powerful, impassive, vengeful deity and at root is the most provocative source of the current exile of God—continually weakening God so that many people who think violence is the only strength identifiable with the thought of God no longer take this (crucified) God seriously. But, really, it is the weakness of the cross which is its long-term, enduring, immense and transformative strength. So, then, the abyss is the necessary Christian destination, and the churches really need to wake up to this historic destiny. I could say more, if only because I feel I can never express this adequately or clearly enough, but I will just ask you to think on the quote from Bolaño again, this time amended in a way he would surely nor recognize but I think still works (and with apologies to the dead!)
While we search for the antidote or the medicine to cure us, the new, that can only be formed in the unknown, we must continue to turn to Jesus, even knowing he leads us into the abyss, which, as it happens, is the only place where we can find the cure.
The abyss is a concrete reality which is a mystery, a secret, but it’s there, and less and less of a secret because Jesus is walking around in it. Sunday services which reference God outside of this become progressively a falsification, not just an evasion.
“While we search for the antidote or the medicine to cure us, the new, that can only be formed in the unknown, we must continue to turn to sex, books and travel, even knowing they lead us into the abyss, which, as it happens, is the only place where we can find the cure.”
The A-word gives us not just a strong metaphor, a poetic device with literary effects. It is more and more an anthropological event, a real place made out of humanity’s real existence, an experience, a progressively more powerful fact. It’s where we’re heading as a planet, where all gods are dead and new ones cannot be born. It’s the wreckage of the physical and religious environment. It is the melting of the icecaps, the flooding of small islands, the extinction of species, and at the same time it’s Jurassic Park, the dream of resurrecting Dinosaurs, the Mammoths, anything enormous and transcendentally violent. It’s humanity left to its own devices, casting around desperately for something big and powerful enough to hold us all in awe before it’s too late.
That used to be the job of God: keeping us in line, while destroying our enemies for us. But now we’re so aware of other people’s gods doing that for them, and the negative effects that has in the world, that many people jettison God completely. This is largely the motivation behind what’s called the “new atheism,” subsequent to the old philosophical or scientific atheism (while sometimes using the same arguments). It’s also come on top of a half century of having our cake and eating it: holding onto the role of God in public life, and for the sake of an afterlife, but every single human day living sky-high as consumers, with the next car or T.V. as the only things really worth caring about...
Thus God in many people’s minds is either a bully or a sick colluder, and in any case a has-been, and so we’re both dealing with a super-stressed planet and watching God exit from the back door of history joining all the other refugees of history on the road to nowhere. But, then suddenly, isn’t that the point? God does not control us anymore. God as the Father/Mother is a refugee, packing her bag the same as the rest of us for a journey to the unknown, to the new. God is alienated from the world, but that’s OK because all the rest of us are too. The current historic exile of God is precisely the way to meet and know God, as hand-in-hand we make our way to the unimaginably new. Isn’t that perhaps the plan of God all along, and God-self has been waiting out at the crossroads of history for God-knows how long. Because if God is truly “other””—and that for me means unimaginably nonviolently dynamic, i.e. loving—then all our all-too-human constructions have to break down before we have a chance truly to encounter God.
But meanwhile—and here’s the thing that really does me in—the churches fight a ridiculous rear-guard action to keep God back at home, or at least on the mountaintop we can see from our back yard. To keep him in church! They try to insist God is in charge, there on a Sunday morning between the four stain-glassed walls, and so permanently in a piece of our imagination that needs him like that. Check it out. The next time you go to church the minister will say some one of the following: God remains in charge because all roads lead to God, because all religions say the same thing, because God lives in heaven and will bring us there in the end, or because God is just and will come one day to establish justice and he’s biding his time right now, or because he in fact will intervene right now only for me, plus some other me's, to make all the me's successful while everyone else can literally go to the devil, etc. etc. Perhaps there is a sense in which some of this is true—I am sure that anyone given to metaphysical thinking can find ways to argue the case, as no categories are more elastic than metaphysical ones. But what is missing in it all is the very thing metaphysics can never supply: the critical sense of the human condition, the fearful moment of the planet that we are in, the way the human crisis bears down on all of us more and more each day amid each new manifestation of global malaise and unrest. What is missing precisely is human sense, the anthropological truth, the six days of the week apart from the metaphysical sunday sabbath, and the way God is now to be found there, in the human, and only there. What is missing is the abyss.
Jesus has always led us into the abyss. He said “The only sign that will be given you is the sign of Jonah,” and he meant it. When he also said “My God, why have you abandoned me?” that means in the last analysis that God also has been abandoned—God-self is lonely, isolated, dying—otherwise it was not in fact “God” who “became man.” No, the image of Jesus hanging on the cross has slowly eaten into all images of an infinitely powerful, impassive, vengeful deity and at root is the most provocative source of the current exile of God—continually weakening God so that many people who think violence is the only strength identifiable with the thought of God no longer take this (crucified) God seriously. But, really, it is the weakness of the cross which is its long-term, enduring, immense and transformative strength. So, then, the abyss is the necessary Christian destination, and the churches really need to wake up to this historic destiny. I could say more, if only because I feel I can never express this adequately or clearly enough, but I will just ask you to think on the quote from Bolaño again, this time amended in a way he would surely nor recognize but I think still works (and with apologies to the dead!)
While we search for the antidote or the medicine to cure us, the new, that can only be formed in the unknown, we must continue to turn to Jesus, even knowing he leads us into the abyss, which, as it happens, is the only place where we can find the cure.
The abyss is a concrete reality which is a mystery, a secret, but it’s there, and less and less of a secret because Jesus is walking around in it. Sunday services which reference God outside of this become progressively a falsification, not just an evasion.
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