Journey with Jesus #11

New Testament - Desert 06/04/09

The desert is an important theme in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the Old Testament it is a place of foundation, of rebellion, of punishment and of purification. For forty years the Israelites wandered in the desert under the leadership of Moses. Through struggle, and by subsequent conquest or conversion of numerous small city states, they formed a people who believed in a single God, of justice– Yahweh. The desert was the place in which the group belief in this God first emerged. Subsequently the desert was seen as a place of punishment for disobedience, but also of purity of relationship and of preparation for settlement in the Promised Land

Later in the Old Testament – in the books of the Maccabees –the desert becomes a place of resistance against the Hellenistic invaders. It was the gathering point for those escaping from the imperial powers located in the cities. The Essene community near the Red Sea continued this tradition. Their community, founded a hundred years before Jesus, and still there during his life-time, was located in the desert just eight miles from the Jericho Road. The Essenes were reclusive, exclusive and intensely purist. From the Dead Sea scrolls we learn that they were biding their time waiting and preparing for the final, apocalyptic, battle. At this time God would send his angels to help them free the Land from its oppressors and to establish his reign.

In the Gospels, the desert is the place where Jesus’ ministry begins. In Mark’s Gospel everything starts in the desert. In Mk 1:1-14 the desert is mentioned four times: the quote from Isaiah tells of a voice crying out in the desert, John the Baptist appears in the desert, the Spirit drives Jesus into the desert, and Jesus remains in the desert for forty days. The actual Greek word here is eremos which means “deserted place”. It is in the desert that Satan finds Jesus to tempt him. In Mk 1:13 Jesus is “with the wild beasts”. This could reference that he is the coming Messiah who will bring peace – the lion will lie down with the lamb. However, there is a threatening feel to the words that links the violence of the animals to the wildness of the place. The wild animals could be a reference to the beasts from the abyss in Daniel 7 – a description of the violent principalities and powers that will be overcome by “one like a son of man”. It should also be remembered that Mark’s Gospel was written shortly after Nero’s persecution when Christians were thrown to the lions. The wild animals could symbolize these forces of violence and destruction.

Matthew’s Gospel, written after Mark, has an expanded account of the temptation of Jesus. In Mt 4:1-11 the temptations are described: to turn stone to bread, to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, and finally Satan offers him the kingdoms of the world. Temptation here is not so much persuasion or seduction but to put under trial. Jesus was under stress. The desert that holds so much significance for the people of Israel, becomes for Jesus a place of conflict.

Did Matthew use an oral tradition of the temptations as a basis for his account, or did he extrapolate the story by reflecting upon obstacles that Jesus dealt with during his ministry?
The three temptations are evident elsewhere in the Gospels. In Jn 6:26, after the miracle of the loaves and fishes, Jesus says the crowd is looking for him not because they understood the sign but because they are looking for food. This is the temptation of welfare religion. It is not wrong to help people in need, but if this is all there is then it becomes a distortion of the gospel. In Mt 12:38-40 they ask for a sign that Jesus is the promised Davidic Messiah who will sweep away their enemies. This is the second temptation – the mind-boggling visual act of power, miracle religion. That Satan chose the pinnacle of the temple would suggest divine approval for this kind of religion. Jesus responds that no sign will be given but the sign of Jonah. In Jn 6:15 the crowd seeks to make him king, so he withdrew to the mountain by himself. This is his response to the third temptation, of imperial religion.

In Mk 8:1 is another clear account of the same temptation. Jesus rebukes Peter for first rebuking him, trying to stop him going to Jerusalem where he will be put to death. That Peter feels he can rebuke Jesus indicates a close relationship and that he was in a position of influence. Jesus tells him to “get behind me, Satan.” It is much harder to tell Satan to be gone when he is speaking through your best friend. Peter’s words reflect the world’s agenda. He speaks with a worldly mentality and concern. The temptation Jesus faced was not about doing evil. It was about how to do good. The temptation he rejected was to execute his ministry according to the ways of the world. The best political leaders promise to give the people what they want: i.e. food to eat; they will make use of wonderful signs (technology, publicity, space travel, anything that wows) to rally people to their side; they will always use military and violent power at their disposal to bring about good. People are always looking for a leader who can put things right – bring peace, order and security. In the temptations Jesus rejects these key anthropological pathways. Jesus sees that these human responses do not fundamentally change anything. He does not place his hope in them. In the desert – the deserted place – he can free himself of these basic human dynamics and allow the Spirit to guide him. The temptations are his rejection of these human ways. Jesus seeks to bring about human goals in an entirely new way.

In Mk 6:30-44 we have the story of the feeding of the five thousand (one of the few stories found in all four Gospels). It takes place in a deserted place. Jesus uses bread to feed the people, and also as a miraculous sign of the kingdom. He divides and organizes the people into groups – into cohorts or regiments. All three temptations are addressed and subverted here – feeding the hungry, wondrous sign and political space or empire. The deserted space is filled and transformed with a new humanity based in Jesus’ compassion and the community that comes from it. Human needs are affirmed but responded to differently – not as a project of violent power, but through and for the sake of compassion.

What is our relationship to the desert? We are in the human dynamic – the ways of the world surround us and are inescapable. The desert is the place where the dictates of the world can be stripped away, creating an empty space that the Spirit can fill. This process can be painful and scary, but also liberating, and cannot be avoided for spiritual growth.

Journey with Jesus #10

Old Testament - Cosmos 05/21/09

The God of the Exodus is a God of blessing and justice. The exodus, the primary experience of the Old Testament, was an act of liberation, an escape from oppression. The early psalms reiterate this image of God – a fierce, warrior-like God – strong enough to set his people free. In almost all ancient mythologies there is rivalry among the gods (e.g. Greek, Babylonian). Usually the new gods defeat the old. The constant in these stories is the rivalry and violence. The Hebrew God is one, so there is no place for rivalry. This is the most important aspect of monotheism. Archetypal rivalry is removed from God and attributed instead to human beings where it belongs. The Christian Trinity preserves this oneness, but, through the Spirit, makes it community, absolute sharing, relationship.

The God of the creation story in Genesis chapter 1 is a God of intelligence and order. God is an artist. Everything created, all the animals and humans, are good – there is no evil. It is a story of divisions, but without conflict. There is no destruction or demonization. No rivalry or killing. The creative narrative ends with God’s rest on the seventh day. The following chapter in Genesis is the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. When read sequentially there is the sense that the golden perfection of the first creation story is lost by the end of the second. Hence we talk of the “fall”. This leads to the atonement theories that try to restore what has been lost, to reclaim this golden era. God has to make up for the fall by sending his Son.

We need to read these stories historically and not sequentially. That is, read them in the order that they were written. Then we can see that what is happening is a spiritual, human evolution, not a fall.

The second creation story is older yet very important. It illustrates the human origin of rivalry – between us and God and with each other. However, the stories of the Garden and of Cain and Abel also give an ambivalent picture of God. He places the serpent in the garden and sows the seeds for discord by choosing Abel’s gift over Cain’s. The God portrayed in these stories in some ways reflects the human. Animal blood sacrifice is experienced by people as a more powerful mediator than harvest offerings, so in the story God is seen to prefer Abel’s gift of the lamb over Cain’s gift. These older stories, therefore, reveal a great deal about the violent, rivalrous nature of human beings. But they also reveal the God of the Exodus – the God of justice who hears Abel’s blood cry out from the ground and asks “where is your brother?”

Isaiah 40:12-26 gives us another creation narrative. It is written during the exile at a time of suffering and loss. It is a creation narrative for a people who have nothing. The message is clear – do not worry, take comfort – remember that I have done these great things – and will do great things again. The story therefore illustrates the creative, but also the historical power of God. It is written in a specific historical context with a message of historical import. The linking of creation and redemption in Isaiah is illustrated in 42:5-9 - God’s creative power brings life to all. In v.8 he rejects idols. Idols are about violence, but this God has no violence. Instead it is human beings that are in the image of God. In Isaiah 44:24-27 and 45:11-13 the overlapping of the creative and historical continues with God’s overcoming of the magicians (diviners) of Babylon and then his use of Cyrus as his means of liberation. In both these instances it is the creator God that is depicted bringing historical freedom.

The second Isaiah texts are probably older than the creation passage in Genesis 1. Isaiah 45:12 describes the heavenly host – a kind of merging of heavenly beings and stars. God is very much in charge – but there are still remnants of other deities here. In contrast, Genesis 1 does not have any mythological beings – the sun and moon are merely “lamps” to light the day and night, and there is no mention of stars. Isaiah 45:18-19 describes the earth as a formless void. It seems that the Priestly writer was aware of these passages in Isaiah and developed this theme in his story of the seven days of creation. The creation story of Genesis 1 was written later – after the exile in the sixth century. It is a more refined theology, completely eliminating violence or competition from the meaning of God, probably written in the century after the passages in Second- Isaiah, and deeply influenced by them. In Genesis 1 God creates for human good and the good of all. It is a picture of God and creation developed after the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel etc.

If read in this way the creation narratives show the progression of thought and understanding about the nature and creative work of God: from the monotheism of the older stories, to the introduction of the idea of God’s creative work in history in Second Isaiah, to the non-violent peaceful creation narrative of Genesis 1. Reading the passages in this way gives a very different understanding than that of fundamentalism and also linear Christian theology. No longer does Genesis 1 describe the idyllic golden age that existed before the Fall. Instead the creation story becomes the expression of God’s contemporary love and delight in creation and in human beings in particular. The creative force of God works within the story itself – through lessons learned from Jewish history. This continuing revelation of the creative work of God continues in Jesus. Jesus rose on the third day – which would have been a Monday. Monday represents the rest of the week – we live in the eighth day, fulfilling the seventh day of rest and blessing!

Tatoo Me Too! (Ta2 Me 2 U)

Church buildings, I think, are like personal accessories. Sometime they look great, sometimes jaded, sometimes far too expensive for anyone to be wearing. Plus, someone who keeps sporting the same string of pearls over and over, well it’s a little strange, don’t you think?

Don’t get me wrong, I like accessories. I think tattoos are very cool. That arabesque around your shoulder, it blows me away, but twenty five years later it might perhaps be a teensy sad.

When I was seventeen the seminary I was joining took me on a road trip to see its flagship church, a big bright sixties glass and brick affair. I had a moment of pure revolt. I don’t know why, something to do with modernism I suppose. It went away, which was good because I lived next to that church for six years, and served in it for four. While I was serving there I generally forgot rebellious feelings, focusing on the people who used the building. I even got to like a little its upbeat sunlit space.

But now I remember the seventeen-year-old, and other stuff too. St. Peter’s in Rome used to be a stamping ground of mine. I spent a year out there as a student and sometimes went to its Sacrament chapel to pray. But over the years the air disappeared from its marbled vaults. When I went inside I felt I was turning to stone myself. Today I think I wouldn’t even get through security. It would short-out on the spot. It’s not because I don’t recognize great richness in the Catholic tradition, but because the buildings themselves have lost their sign-value, their meaning. Back then I once said to a church higher-up that it wouldn’t matter if the basilica of St. Peter’s was wiped off the face of the earth, Christianity would survive: he looked shocked and struggled for a moment, but eventually admitted I was right.

I think a great many of those buildings will go. They will be torn down. Already the Roman Catholic diocese of this area of the U.S. has closed a half dozen or so churches, despite the fact as many argue there are viable congregations attached to them. As Marx said, it’s the bourgeoisie who are the real revolutionaries; they’ll tear anything down. But the closure of R.C. parishes is really just a sideshow to what I’m talking about.

Take, for example, the so-called “Megachurches.” These places are not church buildings in any traditional sense. They’re out on deserted link roads, accessible only by car. They’re not so much “churches” as warehouses, transferable sports stadia. They are meaningless as signs of the gospel. Anything that’s evangelical in them takes place in small groups, virtually irrelevant to the huge complex. Meanwhile those vast auditoria simply say, “Look at us. We’re big and important.” And, “Oh, by the way, did we mention Jesus?”

The point is the people who run those townless temples have already deserted community in favor of an aircraft hangar, an occupiers’ base-camp. Meanwhile the denominations that hang on to the dusty street-corner buildings, and the decaying downtown cathedrals, are fighting a slow losing war of attrition, propped up by nostalgia as a mode of being religious.

Because, when we get down to it, the semiotics of church architecture is a dead duck. By that I mean the communicative significance of those buildings is over. What Peter Berger calls the “sacred canopy” has vanished from the public space and the churches’ role in presenting it has collapsed. That’s what they were, tent poles of a sacred order, and it’s gone. But what is not over, by any means, is the direct experience of human relationship. Therefore the future is in the house church, or the small group able to meet just about anywhere, where relationships have space to grow and deepen for themselves.

Architects will get on with their business of designing human spaces, externally and internally. The future they will build will probably be like the local shopping mall, but with emphasis on civic life as something to be consumed, i.e. enjoyed; they will envision communal living space and even spirituality, they will create beautiful artificial town centers to meet and associate in. If Christians want a large place to meet, they’ll be able to go there. And they’ll want to too!

Meanwhile, the real canopy we’re under is digital. Signs of relationship multiply, like biological cells, on the Internet, not necessarily in any positive or redemptive sense, but as signs they are astronomically prolific. Facebook has more than 200 million active members and tens of thousands join daily. Celebrities on Twitter can outdo CNN breaking news in the number of followers they get. This means that the public arena of meaningful signs is displaced more and more from the physical or real environment to an electronic, virtual one. At the same time—of course—people need direct person-to-person relationship in the flesh, and more than ever. Young people find it difficult to construct long term relationships in a world of pixels and texting. This, in sum, places the onus on the beloved community. Instead of fractured fragmentary relationships, the gospel says there is one single singular relationship of love through time and through space and in these circumstances it is this which begins to stand out really clearly.

Love one another as I have loved you! Simple, and difficult and necessary as that. That’s where the new Christian semiotics is. I wear my “church” accessory around my wrist. Or is it on my arm? It’s invisible, I know, but not quite. Sometimes it gets smudged but that doesn’t take it away. Perhaps sometimes others can see it. Perhaps I can see it on others. “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is as strong as death… many waters cannot quench love….” (Song of Songs, 8:6-7)

Tony

Journey with Jesus #9

New Testament – Cosmos 05/07/09

Cosmos is a Greek word meaning the universe, the totality of the created world order. Our universe is 13 billion light-years in distance, amazingly vast, and yet people can imagine beyond this. There is an infinite character to the way we think. There is an absolute space within us that has to do with our freedom and our minds. It is a cosmic part of us that needs to be filled and will not rest until it is.

Jesus takes this on. In Colossians 1:15-20 Paul inserts an early Christian hymn. This letter was written around 30-40 years after Jesus but the hymn is earlier. A cosmic Christ is presented- the visible and full image of God. He is the first born and initiator of all creation, comparable to the figure of Wisdom in the Old Testament. He is the goal for all things- visible and invisible. This worldview assumes the existence of invisible powers (dominions or rulers in the created realm). These were often associated with the basic elements or forces of the universe, like the zodiac. Paul in Colossians 2:8 looks down on these powers – if they do exist then they are under Christ’s control. Our contemporary universe is full of space; the Biblical universe is a dense one, filled up with creation. But the point is the same. In this hymn Christ fills the universe and the church – leading them all to a new life beyond death. The fullness of God fills him and the result is reconciliation for the whole cosmos.

1 Corinthians was written probably 22 years after Jesus’ death. In 15:3-7 Paul recounts the basic tradition of the resurrection that emerged in the first years of the Christian movement. This is the first written historical account of the resurrection. Biblical scholars estimate that Paul was converted within 2 to 3 years of Jesus death. Paul’s account edits out the women present in the Gospel narratives. Women would not have been culturally acceptable witnesses in Paul’s mind. Instead Jesus appears first to Cephas (Peter), then the twelve and then to five hundred brothers. Paul says that “last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me”.

In Galatians 1 :13-17 Paul gives a short account of his life. He describes how he used violence against the early church. He was a zealot seeking to destroy what was hostile to God. Christians threatened his world. It was not possible that a man condemned to die a disgraceful, criminal death, a man outside of the Law, could be the means of redemption. Yet on the road to Damascus something happened to transform him. God “was pleased to reveal his Son to me”. The word ‘reveal” is the Greek root of “apocalyse”. It is the opening up of the heavens to show the hidden reality. It implies an act of tremendous power – God is no longer holding back. Paul experiences a massive conversion. This conversion was so powerful that he does not question it or return to Jerusalem to discuss it. Rather he goes to a place apart, to Arabia, and then returns to Damascus. There is no doubt that Paul does not hesitate about the total reality of resurrection.

In 1 Corinthians Paul addresses Christians in Corinth who dismiss the importance of the bodily resurrection. They came from the Greek world in which separate spiritual experience and knowledge was valued more than transforming the world through love. For us today the focus has also moved away from the bodily resurrection. Instead the eyes of Christians are on getting to heaven. Death no longer has the heavy, final oppressiveness of the pagan experience. Like for the Corinthians, death for us has become thin and we see through it to the “other side,” to heaven. For Paul, however, the resurrection of the body is vital to the message of redemption. (1Cor 15:20-28). Death is thin because it looks to the light on this side, to resurrection!

Paul shared the Jewish understanding of resurrection as described in the book of Daniel (Dn12:1-2). Daniel was written close to the time of Jesus during a period of great persecution. “…Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” The “many” here refers to all the dead. The resurrection is a one-time event for all peoples.
If all are not raised then no one can be. One person being raised is not part of the program. Therefore, because Jesus has been raised, we are all raised. He is the “first fruits” – it is inevitable then that the rest of the harvest will follow. Until that time, the dead rest in the earth. They continue to live in the memories of those still living, and in the legacy of their actions. They also rest in Jesus who remains in relationship of love with them, and they with him, preserving them until the day of resurrection. Because we are in relationship with Jesus, and he is in relationship with those who have died, then through him we can remain connected to the dead. The Biblical understanding of the resurrection is holistic and relational. We are all connected. The earth is groaning and waiting. Our choices and actions here in this world today are important. Resurrection will come when the earth is transformed by love. It is then, with God dwelling among us, that death will no longer have a place and the dead will rise.

In 1 Cor 15:35-54 Paul tries to give a picture of how we will be when the resurrection takes place. He uses the image of a seed. An image of continuity and change. The seed dies and decays but then springs forth new life. It is the same plant but its form is different. The self dies and changes, yet remains the same self. He uses examples of animals and heavenly bodies, the stars, to describe the existence of different kinds of bodies. Unlike the Greek idea of the spirit shedding the body to return to the heavenly realm, Paul talks instead of our bodies putting on immortality – like glorious clothes! Our bodies are not stripped from us – rather they are transformed

Journey with Jesus #8

Here are the two Bible Study summaries for April.... Peace, Linda

Old Testament - The Body 04/16/09

In the Old Testament terms that describe the human structure are all very physical: clay, dust, kidney, heart, throat, flesh. In Gn 1:21 “God creates the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves.” The word for “living creatures” is “living nephesh.” This word nephesh—which is usually translated “soul” –basically means throat or gullet – so when God’s breathes life it becomes a living breathing and eating thing. God puts his breath or spirit into the throat/gullet to bring it alive. He does this for animals (Ps. 104:29-30, Eccl. 3:21) the same as he does for humans (Gen. 3:7). In Psalm 10 in three places (vv. 6, 11, 13) we hear that people “think in their hearts.” Most often the heart is the organ of thought and reflection. In Psalm 16:7 we read, “I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me.” The word translated here as “heart” is actually “kidney”. Generally the kidneys were associated with human desires; the heart with reflection and will. In the well known passage in Job 19:25-26 when Job states “I know my redeemer lives….then in my flesh I shall see God….my heart faints within me”, the last bit is more rightly translated “my kidneys are burning away within me” – indicating the depths of his desire and longing for life. Biblical Hebrew in fact does not have a word for the Greek intellectual organ, the “mind”. Hebrew “soul,” “spirit,” “heart” are all at different times translated in the Greek text with Greek “mind”. Thus embodied emotional centers and relationships were the instruments of thought and understanding, rather than a discrete thinking apparatus, the mind.

In the creation story human beings are made in the image of God. The Jews were forbidden to make images of God – but we are that living image.

So what is it about humans that makes us resemble God? Augustine would say that it is in fact our mind or intellectual soul. Classic Greek thought was that intelligence belonged to the eternal realm. Many commentators say that what is implied in Genesis is not intelligence but dominion. Psalm 8 illustrates this – in this psalm humans are only little less than God in regards to their dominion over nature. Dominion over the animals is seen today as a negative thing (because of the human impact on the planet –pollution etc). In Old Testament times it was a positive thing – a manifesto against paganism and fatalism. Today a more positive understanding would be stewardship – caring authority over the natural world around us. The other thing that differentiates us from the animals in Genesis is freedom of relationship –Ch 1 v.28. God created humankind in his image, male and female he created them. Human beings are collective and fully relational.

In the second creation story humans are made from the dust and the breath of God (Gen 2:7). Adam means redness/ red skin - very concrete, cognate with the red dust/earth from which we are made and to which we return. Life comes from the breath of God. Seen in the first deep breath of life in the infant that expands its lungs, and seen leaving in the last sighing dying breath. Human life is therefore totally dependent on God. It is this relationship that gives life. Life in the Old Testament is therefore relational and material.

In the Old Testament this life is all there is. After death the body sleeps in Sheol. And yet there is a hope that God will deliver from Sheol. Psalm 16 says: “For you do not give me up to Sheol, or let your faithful one see the pit.” This is not resurrection, but it shows urgent belief in God’s power over death. Then in the book of Daniel (one of the later books written during great persecution, just some 200 years before Jesus), the author looks to protection from the angel Michael and to a time when these sleepers will awake. Dn 12:1-2: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt”. The word “everlasting is “endless” in Hebrew – until the vanishing point on the horizon (you never reach the end of it). In Greek it is translated as “for ages and ages” and in Latin “eternal” – which has a much more static sense of timeless perfection. The accent in Hebrew is on life that is boundless, rather than a separate “heavenly” order of existence.

In the New Testament endless life comes from our relationship with Jesus. When Jesus breathes out his spirit on the cross he breathes his life into us. The Holy Spirit which he gives is God’s endless life. Thus resurrection has already begun in and through the Spirit. The final resurrection is the consequence of this.

Journey with Jesus #7

New Testament - The Body 04/03/09

First century Israel was a culture under pressure – a period of great crisis. It was threatened by the military power of the Romans and the steadily increasing impact of Greek thinking, which was approaching its peak. Greek culture was city-based - political and cultural centers with baths, theaters and athletic arenas. In the second century BCE Jerusalem had a gymnasium. Jesus grew up in Nazareth, just four miles from the wealthy, cultured Hellenized city of Sepphoris (rebuilt in his early twenties), and fifteen miles from Capernaum (where Jesus hung out with his disciples) was the Hellenized city of Tiberias. Yet the Gospels do not mention Jesus visiting these Hellenic centers – in fact he seems to have avoided them.

History shows that Christianity was quickly affected by Greek culture and thought, but Jesus was not. Jesus had a direct and immediate healing relationship with people. This relationship that Jesus had with the body reflects the Hebrew, not the Greek, world view. The world is the arena of human existence. There is nothing else – this is it! The Hebrews did not actually have a word for “body”. Instead they used “flesh”, “soul” and “spirit”. Flesh refers to the concrete existence of human beings that would in due course die – it was a morally neutral term (not good or bad). “Soul” is the phenomenon of life – the experience of living. “Spirit” refers to God’s spirit or breath that dwells in you and gives you life, like a starter motor. When God removes his spirit your “soul” dies. For the Jews, God is the source of life. Without God’s spirit you return to the dust.

This contrasted with the Greek idea of the body as the vessel for the immortal soul – the body is like an empty shell. In classic Greek thought the soul pre-exists, enters the body for a short while and after death returns to the immortal heavenly realm. This life and world are just pale shadows. This Greek idea has led to the dualism of body and soul that has so impacted Christian thought. The body is less important than the soul. This world is less important than the hereafter. This is evident in beliefs such as punishment of the body for the sake of the immortal soul, a disregard for this natural world and the idea that after death our soul is released from our body and goes to heaven. These do not find their basis in the Bible.

The Christian Nicene creed talks of the resurrection of the body – it does not mention the soul. In the New Testament Paul uses the word “flesh” in a specialized sense. He uses it to express a death-oriented worldly style of humanity. It therefore attains a negative aspect. In contrast he uses the word “body” the same way that the Old Testament uses “flesh” – but now open to the possibility of endless life in the Spirit. The coming of the Holy Spirit means that this flesh/body has been opened up to endless life. God’s Spirit is poured out on all flesh (cf. Peter’s speech in Acts quoting the prophet Joel) and will not be taken away. At Lk 3: 6 John the Baptist quotes Isaiah: “And all flesh shall see the salvation of God”. The body is no longer doomed to die, but is now destined for fullness of life. In Romans 8:9-11 Paul says, “You are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you….If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” Now a choice is available – between the way of life based upon a humanity that is going to die or a new humanity that is going to live.

When Jesus heals people he uses their bodies as signs that things are changing. In LK 7:22 Jesus’ response to John the Baptist is “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.” These are signs of God’s kingdom when the body is no longer going to die but to live.

MK 5:21-42 recounts the healings of the woman with a hemorrhage and Jairus’ daughter. At Jairus’ home Jesus criticizes the noise and mourning – signs of the old order that no longer apply. When the woman touches his robe she connects with Jesus – enters into relationship. Jesus identifies her in the midst of the crowd pushing in from all sides. He makes the personal connection, making the healing a sign of something more, i.e. a relationship.

We are invited into this life-giving relationship. At the last supper (Jn 13:23) the beloved disciple (with whom the reader is invited to identify) leans on the breast of Jesus. The same words are used in Jn 1:18 – “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known”. The words translated as “close to the Father’s heart” are the same as those used in the last supper passage. So, just as the Son leans on the Father’s breast, we also lean on the breast of Jesus. There is a direct connection to the Father through Jesus. The language is physical. At the Last Supper Jesus says that the bread is his body for us. Just as the healed bodies are signs of the new order – that death is no longer the ultimate meaning – so his body also becomes a sign of what is the ultimate meaning of life –a profound intimacy of love.

Sign Hunting With Jesus

When I was leaving the Roman Catholic priesthood my superiors—the people in charge--said I was emotionally too immature to get married. No less than ten years earlier these same guys ordained me a priest. Figure that one out. I’ve tried to, and in the process I’ve come up with this little bit of a personal reflection on the meaning of “church.”

I should be gracious. It was easy for those who were charged with discerning my vocation to make a mistake and give me the green light. I gave every sign of unreservedly seeking Christ in my life. So why not think this person “has a vocation.” But there, there, was the problem. A vocation in this thinking is an ontological thing, a stone dropped out of heaven so that it doesn’t matter what kind of state you’re in emotionally or spiritually, so long as you’ve got it you’re good. Yes, I know, seminaries etc. have tightened up their procedures a lot, producing the correct psychological grid to measure the ontological thing. These days with proper testing I would probably not have got through (perhaps, so hold that thought for a moment.) Meanwhile, although generally the seminaries may be more careful, narrowing the human slipper to guage the heavenly foot, the essential thinking—precisely—has not changed. Certain select males have vocations. God drops it on them. Forget the richness of human existence. That’s it.

Back to the perhaps of me not getting through. My superiors didn’t see my radical alienation. The church always encouraged something like that, a degree of alienation—flight from the world, as it was called—so on most days I’m sure I looked pretty good to them. At the same time, as an institution the church was/is deeply worldly. It’s lived in collusion with armies and governments since the fourth century, and sometimes you just have to take your hat off to it for doing such an incredible job of defining itself against the world and surviving very much in it. One of the things that used to get to me about this murky deal was the nukes, i.e. nuclear weapons and their real ability to destroy the planet, all that “good” stuff that God had made back in Genesis 1. The bishops said it would be wrong ever to drop the bomb, but not to use it for “deterrence,” i.e. to threaten to drop it. Another one of those having-it-both-ways that takes some figuring out. The come-back to my kind of criticism of this was: “Well what would you do if the Nazis (or the Soviets) were taking over?” My inclination was always to answer “Whatever.” Not because I think it’s fine to do nothing about the Nazis but because I think the question is disingenuous, just finding the latest pretext for business as usual.

Whatever.

It wasn’t just the nukes. My alienation went deeper than that. And here we’re really beginning to talk, I mean about “church.” Ultimately it was the positive content that seemed to be missing. I was looking for meaning, significance, and the whole complex of signs to which I had originally committed myself was fading faster than Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel on a summer’s day with a million tourists popping flash bulbs at it. It’s the signs that count. Intellectually I understood what was intended and basically believed the package. But the signs by which it all was communicated, i.e. the lived semiotics which people could see and say “ah yes, I know what that this is about,” it was this that was eroding. It was all two dimensional, like the world had become paper thin. I was inside a room with nothing outside it, and progressively the inside was collapsing too so that all that was left was a single molecular surface with the traces of an image on it, and that was evaporating same as everything else. Pretty soon there would be nothing but airless flat extension, and madness. I had to punch a hole into life and get out.

Outside “in the real world” the signs of Christ were completely absent, or so it seemed at first. The world was thick with its own signs, with survival, sex, work, politics. My first job with homeless people made survival top of the list, the main meaning. I would look across the Mile End Road after my shift in a halfway-house for traumatized, alcoholic men. I would stare at the chain-link fence guarding vacant lots, the faded Edwardian houses, and my own thoughts of those unhappy volatile people. But there was no Christ, just survival and work. Later I got married, and later still we came to the U.S.

Ah, the good ol’ U.S. Here I was dumped headfirst in a world of signs. Britain had advertizing and T.V., but nothing like the endless highway of billboards and signs, the riot of channels and stations, the relentless competition to get yourself noticed and be significant in other people’s eyes that happens here. A semiotic frenzy. Here it’s not just survival, sex, work etc., the sign has achieved an existence in its own right, the famous “fifteen minutes of fame.” But now here came the twist: at the heart of American semiotics something both terrifying and wonderful was happening. The sign of Christ I was desperately looking for all those years ago was slowly revealing itself

I attended church here. It has a different meaning than in Britain. U.S. Christianity is itself a mode of survival. It takes place within the maelstrom of competition as a place of reprieve and affirmation from where you can gather yourself one more time to enter the fray. In Britain and Europe generally people don’t go to church half so much because they don’t feel nearly as exposed and in need of divine affirmation. Alongside church, however, there is one other significant mode of affirmation that Americans make use of--the gun. It is of course incredibly scary where people combine these two together and have both Jesus and guns as spiritual props, but we can’t go down that road just now. (But, for reference, check out a book called Deer Hunting With Jesus by Joe Bageant, a raucous read but too true for comfort.)

The meaning of the gun in U.S. culture was brought home to me a couple of months back when I had a tradesman working in our house and it turned out he was carrying a loaded 45. He was a nice guy, talkative and well-read. It was very unlikely he would use the weapon—he said he had it for protection against pit bulls—but it was clear for him to be able to carry the gun meant a lot. It was a potent sign for him, pressed there against the side of his body. It meant he was strong against all-comers. Here in the North East, since Obama got into office, applications for gun permits have gone up over 50% and it’s probably true all across the country. People say it’s because they’re scared the man with the funny name will bring in sweeping gun-control legislation. But I think it’s much more basically a matter of self-affirmation when the riot of signs says generally we’re not doing so well. The gun is the semiotics of last recourse here in the U.S. It is individual divine sanction when there are no kings or priests to provide it collectively. It is sure and certain transcendence within a second’s reach.

Which brings me back to what I’ve been talking about all along this circuitous narrative. As I said, I attended church here in the U.S., partly initially for our children, and partly because I sensed the slightly more edgy role of the church, standing in this weird symbiosis of sign-giving with a sign-ridden culture. In other words, churches were more about providing meaning in the midst of chaos than keeping together a metaphysical world order. However, there was still plenty of that, and the church’s signs remained existentially shallow at a more or less terminal level. But at length—and here finally is the real point—in the slow years of experience I have understood the sign of Christ as coming to greater and greater clarity and visibility precisely as a true and radical alternative to the gun. If you want Christian meaning then observe the crisis of violence all around and then see Jesus as its true and generative other way. And this is not in my head, in the way I intellectually grasped Christian meaning back when I was a priest. No, this is something rising concretely in the world, like blossom on a Spring morning.

How do I know? Well, it’s what I’ve been telling you! Everything in my life has been a sensitivity to the absence or presence of meaningful signs. The sign system of the Roman Catholic priesthood was evacuated for me as surely as if someone has placed a vacuum cleaner at the door and sucked everything out of it. I then embarked on a twenty year pilgrimage looking for where those signs might have landed in the world. And now I know. For me at least, it’s here in the U.S. over against the growing and growling crisis of violence all around us. Exactly over against it. It’s not focusing on life hereafter, or justification, or moral rightness, anything like that. It’s the astonishing, wonderful, loving, creative, restorative, life-giving and forgiving new humanity of Jesus in the midst of a world where humanity is an endangered species. Closer even than the cold pistol with its ten shells filled with hurt lying to that guy's heart the Risen One from the long-empty tomb stands between the world and all its death.

This sign, or set of signs, has a thickness to it that speaks to me every time I turn on the Internet or open the bible or speak to a neighbor. And I cannot be happy in any church situation that does not fully release this meaning, that plays instead to some fuzzy inherited Greek version of Jesus’ message to keep everything ticking along. In fact I have doubts as to whether the actual physical architecture of the churches (their primary pre-reflective sign system), compromised as they are by about 1500 years of metaphysical doctrine as opposed to anthropological restoration, are able to communicate this new humanity. But more on this another time.

Tony Bartlett