New Testament - Feast 03/06/09
The Pharisees were a relatively small group at the time of Jesus, located mainly in Jerusalem but cells were also found in Galilee. They had been in existence for about 150 years before Jesus came on the scene. The Pharisees were educated and knowledgeable about the Jewish Scriptures & faith. They believed that the troubles (such as the exile & Roman invasion) that had befallen the Jews had resulted from their failure to keep God’s Law. In an attempt to prevent further transgression, and alternatively to hasten the day of liberation and vindication by God, they built a safety net, a “hedge” around the Law. This was a collection of laws (largely concerned with ritual cleanliness, diet and the keeping the Sabbath) that if observed would protect the more important Torah. These Rabbinic laws were written in the two centuries before Jesus, and after. The Pharisees had a table fellowship – haberim – closed to outsiders (the impure) and many of the practices associated with the meal were dictated by these purity rules. The position and practice of the Pharisees were a logical reaction to Jewish history and experience, but they were not the only one possible.
Feasts were characteristic of Jesus’ ministry. In MK2:15-17 he is described as eating with tax collectors and sinners and as a result finds himself in conflict with the Pharisees. Their objection is not that these people are sinners and not worth Jesus’ attention; rather that Jesus is undermining their program. It is a religious issue – the tax collectors and sinners, in the minds of the Pharisees, are the ones that have created the problem. When Jesus says that “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” he is making a stand against the Pharisee’s main agenda, which is separation and purity in preparation for God’s final act of judgment.
LK 7:36-50 gives the account of the meal at Simon the Pharisee’s home. When Jesus allows the sinful woman to anoint his feet and wipe her tears away with her hair, he is offending against numerous purity laws. (Sinner, woman, bodily fluids…). Jesus reinterprets her action from disgusting to beautiful – transformed by love. Her sins are forgiven “because she has shown great love”. Jesus is not arguing legally, morally or ritually – but humanly. Because she has loved, her sins - the barriers that keep her from God –have been broken down and are no longer meaningful to her. She experiences forgiveness. Sin is a lived experience, not a legal judgment. Jesus uses feasts in his ministry as a symbol and practice of invitation to all, but particularly the outcast and sinner. In contrast to the Pharisee’s meals, all are invited to share the physical proximity and intimacy associated with a communal meal – a sign of the new human experience coming from him.
In LK 10:38-41 (the story of Martha and Mary) Jesus uses the meal setting to impart a different message. Here Martha criticizes Mary for not fulfilling her expected gender role. In supporting Mary’s adopting the role of disciple (a male prerogative) he is not offending purity laws – rather societal and cultural dictates.
The greatest feast in the New Testament is the feeding of the five thousand. It is the only miracle found in all four gospels. MK 6:30-44 tells the story – and also a similar feeding (of the four thousand) in chapter 8.1-10. In the first account Jesus blesses and breaks the bread and divides the fish; in the second account he gives thanks and breaks the bread. These expressions – giving thanks and blessing are found together in the account of the Eucharist in MK 14:22-25. These two meals act as forerunners to the last supper. In the Eucharist both of the themes – blessing from the feeding of the five thousand and forgiveness from Jesus’ table fellowship – are united. Jesus in his ministry has been the source of both blessing and forgiveness– so it makes sense that he would associate himself with the bread that represents both, and then with the pouring out of the wine which anticipates his pouring out of himself. In the feeding of the 5000 no one is excluded – just as no one is excluded from the Eucharist. In the Eucharist the elements of blessing and forgiveness are united with absolute self-giving which is at the root of both.
In MK8: 14-21 Jesus warns his disciples about the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod. Yeast is a generative principle – it is what gives life to the dough. For the Pharisees this was their focus on the wrath of God and purity, for Herod it was political power and violence. With the yeast of Jesus you don’t have to worry –his generative principle leads to life for all – with baskets of food left over.
John does not have a Eucharistic meal. Instead he has a long conversation of Jesus with his disciples and he washes their feet. Jesus does ultimately share a meal with his disciples – but it is after the resurrection and by the shore. In Jn 21:9 Jesus cooks fish on a charcoal fire with bread. There are echoes here of the feeding of the five thousand. The only other mention of a charcoal fire in John is the one in the High priest’s courtyard –the charcoal fire around which Peter denies Jesus (Jn 18:18). Peter is the link to both passages. In Chapter 21 Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him (“Simon, son of John, do you love me?”). The final time he changes the word for love from philos to agape. It is at this point that Peter becomes upset. It is at this point that Peter understands. Jesus asks him to “feed my sheep” – to continue Jesus’ work of self-giving feeding.
Finally the gospels look to the eschatological feast – MK 14:25. Jesus will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom comes. He looks forward to the definitive sharing of love.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Jesus Unplugged
As I continue in this little journey of mine I understand it’s been marked from early years by the cinematic figure of Jesus.
No, I didn’t go and see King of Kings when I was in kindergarten. When I say ‘cinematic” it doesn’t mean actual movies (although it doesn’t exclude them either). It’s more what people intend when they describe something and say “it was like in the movies.” For me the figure of Jesus was just that, larger than life, beautiful, embedded in imagination, and—most important, in the word at the root of "cinematic"—kinetic, which means he was moving amazingly in and through the human world.
For the longest time I used to think this experience was religious, and that had two consequences. One, I more or less kept it to myself. And two, I spent a large amount of my allotted years trying to find my vision of Jesus represented in and by religious organizations which claim him as their Lord. Now more and more I think what I saw was not religious, but actual and, yes, really cinematic.
So, let me explain. When we talk about cinema we know we’re talking about the most powerful contemporary medium of cultural imagination. As the saying goes, “The movies are truth twenty four frames per second.” And another one, “It hasn’t really happened until it’s on T.V. or in the movies.” So history isn’t just about who writes it, but also, and more and more, about who shows it and how they show it. What I’m saying about Jesus then is that he was the movies before the movies. He took hold of our cultural imagination not with the magic lantern and rolling frames but with two basic frames—the cross and the resurrection—which have played and played inside our world until little by little they have set the whole thing moving: toward something amazing, terrible, wonderful.
And I don’t mean this as just some kind of fancy metaphor. I mean it actually, concretely, dramatically, wholly. Here’s not the occasion to give a technical explanation of why this might be so. Enough to say that the thought of Rene Girard carries us a long way in this direction. But I’m not talking here about explanation, I’m talking about experience. The fact that I have connected with the thought of Girard has helped me understand a lot about my own world, but it didn’t give me my world in the first place. Jesus did. And I have spent my life trying to come to grips with it.
When I was twelve our family relocated from the Isle of Wight to Portsmouth on the south coast of England. It was Christmastime and there was no money, few and functional presents, and cold winter ferry rides across the strip of sea between the island and the mainland. My father was a corrections officer at Parkhurst, the maximum security jail on the island, and he’d got a job at another prison in Portsmouth. But we hadn’t yet found a permanent house, so we returned to Parkhurst for the break. I was walking home one night, under the fortress-like granite walls surrounding the prison. I’d walked that route all my schooldays but this time the walls towered to the stars and the stars were made of the same glittering, cruel matter. I was being sucked headlong into that gun-metal hole and I prayed God desperately to save me. Somehow, with the prayer, I made it back to the house, and there as always life went on. It was about two or three months later when a teacher in my new school made us read the Sermon on the Mount during Religious Ed. I’d never heard it or read it all in one piece before, and it completely blew me away. I could see the electric morning sky as Jesus talked. I could hear his voice, his cadent language, and its enormous confident authority. And I could feel the hard earth twist and reshape itself under the incandescent thrill of his words. It was cinematic, all the way. It moved and changed things in the world, and I knew then that the iron prison walls could never stand before the burning energy of his tongue.
That’s what I mean, and I have quite a few other stories like it. I am not a saint, by no means. Back then I was just some kind of scared kid with a strong imagination, and basically I’m the same thing now, just with a little more experience. I think there are many others like me, and steadily more and more of them. They are the people who are being drafted to play a part in the Jesus movie, by reading a book, by taking a class, by traveling to a country in the global South, by seeing a movie, by hearing a song, by surfing a website, by falling into a black hole which only Jesus can change into light. And by going to church? Ah, there’s the question.
There’s no doubt that many people who go to church connect to the cinematic Jesus. And they show up in the place that seems to know about this guy. But so much of the church tradition is to do with a negotiation with God for the sake of benefits, earthly or heavenly. The figure of Jesus gets sucked into a business deal with God, and the real/reel Jesus gets shut down in favor of a board meeting with the Almighty. I think the cinematic Jesus is really an unplugged Jesus, unplugged from the mainframe of the churches, perhaps showing up occasionally at coffee break or the local feeding program, but basically out of there. He’s out of there, playing and moving in the world where he can and does really change things.
I have come to think that we know nothing of God until we meet the cinematic Jesus, who is also the poor Jesus, the abandoned Jesus, the crucified Jesus, the changing-the-imagination Jesus. Everything else is religion and alienation. So what then is “church,” the ekklesia or “calling together” of the New Testament? Well, that’s just what it is, the calling together anywhere, anytime of some bit-part players of the Jesus movie who want to share a few of their favorite clips and celebrate. I really can’t think of a more fun thing to do!
Tony
No, I didn’t go and see King of Kings when I was in kindergarten. When I say ‘cinematic” it doesn’t mean actual movies (although it doesn’t exclude them either). It’s more what people intend when they describe something and say “it was like in the movies.” For me the figure of Jesus was just that, larger than life, beautiful, embedded in imagination, and—most important, in the word at the root of "cinematic"—kinetic, which means he was moving amazingly in and through the human world.
For the longest time I used to think this experience was religious, and that had two consequences. One, I more or less kept it to myself. And two, I spent a large amount of my allotted years trying to find my vision of Jesus represented in and by religious organizations which claim him as their Lord. Now more and more I think what I saw was not religious, but actual and, yes, really cinematic.
So, let me explain. When we talk about cinema we know we’re talking about the most powerful contemporary medium of cultural imagination. As the saying goes, “The movies are truth twenty four frames per second.” And another one, “It hasn’t really happened until it’s on T.V. or in the movies.” So history isn’t just about who writes it, but also, and more and more, about who shows it and how they show it. What I’m saying about Jesus then is that he was the movies before the movies. He took hold of our cultural imagination not with the magic lantern and rolling frames but with two basic frames—the cross and the resurrection—which have played and played inside our world until little by little they have set the whole thing moving: toward something amazing, terrible, wonderful.
And I don’t mean this as just some kind of fancy metaphor. I mean it actually, concretely, dramatically, wholly. Here’s not the occasion to give a technical explanation of why this might be so. Enough to say that the thought of Rene Girard carries us a long way in this direction. But I’m not talking here about explanation, I’m talking about experience. The fact that I have connected with the thought of Girard has helped me understand a lot about my own world, but it didn’t give me my world in the first place. Jesus did. And I have spent my life trying to come to grips with it.
When I was twelve our family relocated from the Isle of Wight to Portsmouth on the south coast of England. It was Christmastime and there was no money, few and functional presents, and cold winter ferry rides across the strip of sea between the island and the mainland. My father was a corrections officer at Parkhurst, the maximum security jail on the island, and he’d got a job at another prison in Portsmouth. But we hadn’t yet found a permanent house, so we returned to Parkhurst for the break. I was walking home one night, under the fortress-like granite walls surrounding the prison. I’d walked that route all my schooldays but this time the walls towered to the stars and the stars were made of the same glittering, cruel matter. I was being sucked headlong into that gun-metal hole and I prayed God desperately to save me. Somehow, with the prayer, I made it back to the house, and there as always life went on. It was about two or three months later when a teacher in my new school made us read the Sermon on the Mount during Religious Ed. I’d never heard it or read it all in one piece before, and it completely blew me away. I could see the electric morning sky as Jesus talked. I could hear his voice, his cadent language, and its enormous confident authority. And I could feel the hard earth twist and reshape itself under the incandescent thrill of his words. It was cinematic, all the way. It moved and changed things in the world, and I knew then that the iron prison walls could never stand before the burning energy of his tongue.
That’s what I mean, and I have quite a few other stories like it. I am not a saint, by no means. Back then I was just some kind of scared kid with a strong imagination, and basically I’m the same thing now, just with a little more experience. I think there are many others like me, and steadily more and more of them. They are the people who are being drafted to play a part in the Jesus movie, by reading a book, by taking a class, by traveling to a country in the global South, by seeing a movie, by hearing a song, by surfing a website, by falling into a black hole which only Jesus can change into light. And by going to church? Ah, there’s the question.
There’s no doubt that many people who go to church connect to the cinematic Jesus. And they show up in the place that seems to know about this guy. But so much of the church tradition is to do with a negotiation with God for the sake of benefits, earthly or heavenly. The figure of Jesus gets sucked into a business deal with God, and the real/reel Jesus gets shut down in favor of a board meeting with the Almighty. I think the cinematic Jesus is really an unplugged Jesus, unplugged from the mainframe of the churches, perhaps showing up occasionally at coffee break or the local feeding program, but basically out of there. He’s out of there, playing and moving in the world where he can and does really change things.
I have come to think that we know nothing of God until we meet the cinematic Jesus, who is also the poor Jesus, the abandoned Jesus, the crucified Jesus, the changing-the-imagination Jesus. Everything else is religion and alienation. So what then is “church,” the ekklesia or “calling together” of the New Testament? Well, that’s just what it is, the calling together anywhere, anytime of some bit-part players of the Jesus movie who want to share a few of their favorite clips and celebrate. I really can’t think of a more fun thing to do!
Tony
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Daylight Saving
Well, I watched Watchmen last night, at the local multiplex. It’s now Sunday morning and maybe I should be at church. Apart from my whole life’s journey which has broken away from attendance at any particular denomination, this movie would make me want to stay in bed and stare at the ceiling on the first morning of Daylight Saving.
Of course if I never saw the movie it would not have this effect, and that would be one way of dealing with the situation. The monks at Mount Athos or the Grand Chartreuse did not see Watchmen, neither did many church attenders who went to All Saints or Living Word this morning, if they made it up in time. Prayer and religion go on regardless of what’s playing on the widescreens. But do they?
In an attention-grabbing bit of dialogue in the movie (at least for me) Dr. Manhattan is told people think he is a god, because of his cosmic powers to reconfigure matter any way he wants. He says, “I am not a god, and I don’t think there is a god. If there is, he’s nothing like me.” He got that right, but that’s where the issue is left, and in the meantime truly terrifying consequences unfold on the earth because there is no divinity to stop human violence. The movie might be called metaphysically nihilist, but anthropologically it is anything but nihilist. The D.C. Comics series on which the movie is based, of the same name, and to which the movie is faithful, is seeking desperately for a solution to the human horror of violence, even as it plunges deeper and deeper into the void of butchery, war, murder. Without spoiling (!) it for anyone—but I really do think all those who want to take the gospel seriously should go see this tomorrow and find out for themselves—I can say the movie heads down the fast-lane to a wham-bam sacrificial ending which at the same time is fully exposed and revealed for the chronic and hopeless falsehood that it is. What is great about Watchmen is that it refuses to pull out of the nose-dive, in some cornbread Hollywood denial, once it gets you gripping the sides of your cinema seat in anticipation.
Which brings me back to church. Unlike Dr. Manhattan—who incidentally, because of his own original reconfiguration at the small particle level of his being, takes on a Zen-like persona in the face of all violence and catastrophe—I do think there is a god, and that god is passionately concerned with the human “cultifact” of violence (like artifact but the production of culture through violence). There are other movies which are sensitive to the gospel theme of God's recreative nonviolence and suggest it artistically in the midst of all the mayhem they put on screen. Watchmen will have none of it. Written in the 80’s by Alan Moore it gives an alternative vision of recent history, retelling the story of the Nixon era as if the U.S. won the Vietnam war, and then of the Cold War, ramping it up to a terrifying crisis. All this has an unsettling effect of some sort of “déjà vu,” even though it didn’t exactly happen! It’s as if the same stuff is being played out over and over, regardless of the surface appearance of history. In which cast there is this massive crisis of human violence, and really there are no anthropological solutions on the horizon.
So, I ask, what was the message preached at All Saints or Divine Word this morning? Was there anything there about Jesus’ re-creation of the human? Would it even be possible to broach that conversation, given all the presuppositions of those places? I don’t think so. That’s why I just lay in bed in the dim light, thinking about that movie last night.
Tony
Of course if I never saw the movie it would not have this effect, and that would be one way of dealing with the situation. The monks at Mount Athos or the Grand Chartreuse did not see Watchmen, neither did many church attenders who went to All Saints or Living Word this morning, if they made it up in time. Prayer and religion go on regardless of what’s playing on the widescreens. But do they?
In an attention-grabbing bit of dialogue in the movie (at least for me) Dr. Manhattan is told people think he is a god, because of his cosmic powers to reconfigure matter any way he wants. He says, “I am not a god, and I don’t think there is a god. If there is, he’s nothing like me.” He got that right, but that’s where the issue is left, and in the meantime truly terrifying consequences unfold on the earth because there is no divinity to stop human violence. The movie might be called metaphysically nihilist, but anthropologically it is anything but nihilist. The D.C. Comics series on which the movie is based, of the same name, and to which the movie is faithful, is seeking desperately for a solution to the human horror of violence, even as it plunges deeper and deeper into the void of butchery, war, murder. Without spoiling (!) it for anyone—but I really do think all those who want to take the gospel seriously should go see this tomorrow and find out for themselves—I can say the movie heads down the fast-lane to a wham-bam sacrificial ending which at the same time is fully exposed and revealed for the chronic and hopeless falsehood that it is. What is great about Watchmen is that it refuses to pull out of the nose-dive, in some cornbread Hollywood denial, once it gets you gripping the sides of your cinema seat in anticipation.
Which brings me back to church. Unlike Dr. Manhattan—who incidentally, because of his own original reconfiguration at the small particle level of his being, takes on a Zen-like persona in the face of all violence and catastrophe—I do think there is a god, and that god is passionately concerned with the human “cultifact” of violence (like artifact but the production of culture through violence). There are other movies which are sensitive to the gospel theme of God's recreative nonviolence and suggest it artistically in the midst of all the mayhem they put on screen. Watchmen will have none of it. Written in the 80’s by Alan Moore it gives an alternative vision of recent history, retelling the story of the Nixon era as if the U.S. won the Vietnam war, and then of the Cold War, ramping it up to a terrifying crisis. All this has an unsettling effect of some sort of “déjà vu,” even though it didn’t exactly happen! It’s as if the same stuff is being played out over and over, regardless of the surface appearance of history. In which cast there is this massive crisis of human violence, and really there are no anthropological solutions on the horizon.
So, I ask, what was the message preached at All Saints or Divine Word this morning? Was there anything there about Jesus’ re-creation of the human? Would it even be possible to broach that conversation, given all the presuppositions of those places? I don’t think so. That’s why I just lay in bed in the dim light, thinking about that movie last night.
Tony
Friday, March 6, 2009
Journey with Jesus #4
Old Testament - Water 02/20/09
This study explores how water is used in the Old Testament - specifically in three areas: an image of the chaotic primordial abyss, a metaphor for the spiritual abandonment of the individual, and finally a symbol of blessing.
For the Jews the sea was a particularly terrifying place. The peoples of ancient Northern Europe feared the dark forests and associated them with magic and monsters. The open land of Israel, sparsely forested, was a place of sanctuary, a gift from their God. It was the sea that was the place of chaos and darkness. It was from the sea that invaders came.
Psalm 89 celebrates the power and majesty of God (vv. 5-10). YHWH is the greatest of the heavenly beings who stills the raging waters and crushes the monster Rahab. Sea monsters are common in ancient mythology and Rahab gets several mentions in the Hebrew scriptures. Is 51:9-11 seamlessly links the conquest of Rahab to the Exodus account of the crossing of the Red Sea. Earlier in Isaiah (26:16-27:1) the battle with a sea serpent (Leviathan) is incorporated into the future apocalyptic battle. Chaos will erupt when the earth discloses the blood of the innocent and YHWH will definitively overcome the forces of chaos and violence personified by Leviathan.
Psalm 104:1-13 describes the creative act of YHWH – forming the earth by controlling and subduing the tempestuous waters. It has an underlying primitive cosmology – God has his dwelling place above the waters (v.3); the foundations of the earth are covered with the deep (v.6) and chaotic waters take flight to the tops of the mountains at the command of YHWH – where they run down into the valleys, their “appointed place” (v.8). In this psalm, rooted in the Wisdom tradition, God does not do battle with monsters. Instead he rebukes the water to tame them (v. 7). In the same way Jesus rebukes the wind and the waves. Leviathan is mentioned (v. 26) – but as a creature that plays in the sea. The waters have to be suppressed in order for life to flourish. Under God’s control water, fundamentally chaotic, becomes a positive creative force.
These passages illustrate how the Prophetic and Wisdom traditions use the ancient mythological material differently.
A second use of water can be found in the psalms. Here the psalmist describes the experience of abandonment in terms of being overwhelmed by the deep – “”deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have gone over me.” (Ps 42: 7-9). The abyss is the place in which the lost soul finds itself – a metaphor for depression and despair. In Ps 69:1-4 & 14-15 this theme recurs. Sheol (the place of the dead) and the abyss overlap – both murky, subterranean places. The psalmist calls for rescue from the pit, believing that God will answer his/her prayer. It is easy to see how belief in resurrection grew out of this. There is a fluidity of boundaries. God can rescue us from un-differentiation, from un-life, from the ultimate experience of abandonment – death. Cf. also Psalm 88:3-7, 16-18 – being cut off from God as a way to interpret the human experience of loss. (God’s wrath is the human reading of the condition of abandonment rather than the contemporary proactive, violent God of fundamentalism).
Finally water becomes a symbol of blessing – Psalm 104 & 65”You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide the people with grain, for so you have prepared it…”
All of this is background to the story of Jonah. There was an actual historical Jonah, a successful prophet attached to the royal court in the 8th century– the only prophet to come from the area of Galilee. The story that has been attached to his name is a Wisdom story written long after that time, after the fall of Nineveh. Jonah is unique in the Old Testament in that it is really a Wisdom piece masquerading as a prophetic book, or rather achieves the level of prophecy. The story incorporates all three metaphorical uses of water and radicalizes them. It uses and subverts the themes so that the sea monster becomes the means of redemption and blessing. The prophetic and Wisdom themes work through the monstrous, turning the enemy into the friend.
Violence is everywhere in Jonah. The storm rages (1:15), the Ninevite King calls on his people to turn from their evil and violence (3:8), God turns from his violent intentions (3:10), Jonah is filled with anger and violence (4:1) and refuses to relinquish his anger (4:9). In this context the raging sea becomes an image of human anger, and the sea monster, catastrophic violence. Being swallowed by the whale recalls the personal psalms of lament, of being overwhelmed by the forces of chaos and violence. Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the whale reiterates the psalmists’ prayer for rescue.
In the Gospels when the people ask Jesus for a sign he replies that the only sign that will be given will be the sign of Jonah. Traditionally (and even in the Gospels themselves) this is given to mean that Jesus would be dead for three days before rising – just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days. In the context of this study it seems likely that Jesus meant much more than this. The text confronts us. We are Jonah. We are self-destructive and violent. We would rather pull the towers down upon ourselves than forgive. Jonah is a story about forgiveness. The monstrous can be transformed, the enemy becomes our friend. This is the gospel message. Jonah deliberately and defiantly opts to enter the abyss for all his miserable, negative reasons. Yet God saves him. The element of chaos becomes the medium for his redemption. It is what we most wish to escape from that becomes the means of grace. Jesus enters the abyss for all the right reasons and saves us all. It is telling that the last words of Jonah’s psalm (2:9) are “Deliverance belongs to the Lord” – a variation of “The Lord delivers”, which is the meaning of the name Yeshua –Jesus.
This study explores how water is used in the Old Testament - specifically in three areas: an image of the chaotic primordial abyss, a metaphor for the spiritual abandonment of the individual, and finally a symbol of blessing.
For the Jews the sea was a particularly terrifying place. The peoples of ancient Northern Europe feared the dark forests and associated them with magic and monsters. The open land of Israel, sparsely forested, was a place of sanctuary, a gift from their God. It was the sea that was the place of chaos and darkness. It was from the sea that invaders came.
Psalm 89 celebrates the power and majesty of God (vv. 5-10). YHWH is the greatest of the heavenly beings who stills the raging waters and crushes the monster Rahab. Sea monsters are common in ancient mythology and Rahab gets several mentions in the Hebrew scriptures. Is 51:9-11 seamlessly links the conquest of Rahab to the Exodus account of the crossing of the Red Sea. Earlier in Isaiah (26:16-27:1) the battle with a sea serpent (Leviathan) is incorporated into the future apocalyptic battle. Chaos will erupt when the earth discloses the blood of the innocent and YHWH will definitively overcome the forces of chaos and violence personified by Leviathan.
Psalm 104:1-13 describes the creative act of YHWH – forming the earth by controlling and subduing the tempestuous waters. It has an underlying primitive cosmology – God has his dwelling place above the waters (v.3); the foundations of the earth are covered with the deep (v.6) and chaotic waters take flight to the tops of the mountains at the command of YHWH – where they run down into the valleys, their “appointed place” (v.8). In this psalm, rooted in the Wisdom tradition, God does not do battle with monsters. Instead he rebukes the water to tame them (v. 7). In the same way Jesus rebukes the wind and the waves. Leviathan is mentioned (v. 26) – but as a creature that plays in the sea. The waters have to be suppressed in order for life to flourish. Under God’s control water, fundamentally chaotic, becomes a positive creative force.
These passages illustrate how the Prophetic and Wisdom traditions use the ancient mythological material differently.
A second use of water can be found in the psalms. Here the psalmist describes the experience of abandonment in terms of being overwhelmed by the deep – “”deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have gone over me.” (Ps 42: 7-9). The abyss is the place in which the lost soul finds itself – a metaphor for depression and despair. In Ps 69:1-4 & 14-15 this theme recurs. Sheol (the place of the dead) and the abyss overlap – both murky, subterranean places. The psalmist calls for rescue from the pit, believing that God will answer his/her prayer. It is easy to see how belief in resurrection grew out of this. There is a fluidity of boundaries. God can rescue us from un-differentiation, from un-life, from the ultimate experience of abandonment – death. Cf. also Psalm 88:3-7, 16-18 – being cut off from God as a way to interpret the human experience of loss. (God’s wrath is the human reading of the condition of abandonment rather than the contemporary proactive, violent God of fundamentalism).
Finally water becomes a symbol of blessing – Psalm 104 & 65”You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide the people with grain, for so you have prepared it…”
All of this is background to the story of Jonah. There was an actual historical Jonah, a successful prophet attached to the royal court in the 8th century– the only prophet to come from the area of Galilee. The story that has been attached to his name is a Wisdom story written long after that time, after the fall of Nineveh. Jonah is unique in the Old Testament in that it is really a Wisdom piece masquerading as a prophetic book, or rather achieves the level of prophecy. The story incorporates all three metaphorical uses of water and radicalizes them. It uses and subverts the themes so that the sea monster becomes the means of redemption and blessing. The prophetic and Wisdom themes work through the monstrous, turning the enemy into the friend.
Violence is everywhere in Jonah. The storm rages (1:15), the Ninevite King calls on his people to turn from their evil and violence (3:8), God turns from his violent intentions (3:10), Jonah is filled with anger and violence (4:1) and refuses to relinquish his anger (4:9). In this context the raging sea becomes an image of human anger, and the sea monster, catastrophic violence. Being swallowed by the whale recalls the personal psalms of lament, of being overwhelmed by the forces of chaos and violence. Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the whale reiterates the psalmists’ prayer for rescue.
In the Gospels when the people ask Jesus for a sign he replies that the only sign that will be given will be the sign of Jonah. Traditionally (and even in the Gospels themselves) this is given to mean that Jesus would be dead for three days before rising – just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days. In the context of this study it seems likely that Jesus meant much more than this. The text confronts us. We are Jonah. We are self-destructive and violent. We would rather pull the towers down upon ourselves than forgive. Jonah is a story about forgiveness. The monstrous can be transformed, the enemy becomes our friend. This is the gospel message. Jonah deliberately and defiantly opts to enter the abyss for all his miserable, negative reasons. Yet God saves him. The element of chaos becomes the medium for his redemption. It is what we most wish to escape from that becomes the means of grace. Jesus enters the abyss for all the right reasons and saves us all. It is telling that the last words of Jonah’s psalm (2:9) are “Deliverance belongs to the Lord” – a variation of “The Lord delivers”, which is the meaning of the name Yeshua –Jesus.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Not the father's country...
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?
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?
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!
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