Searching For the Meaning of “Good” Friday

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God, Good Friday, Jesus, love, religion

I’ve never been quite sure what the “good” in Good Friday meant. Perhaps we see beyond the pain, torture and death of Christ to the event of Easter. We live in those awful moments not in the moment itself, but in the promise of Sunday.

That seems to trivialize it a bit for me, and it doesn’t satisfy. I know that the Passover, celebrated as the Last Supper by Christians is that wonderful celebration by Jews of the release of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. It celebrates freedom. And no doubt as the Synoptic Gospels relate, this date for the Last Supper of Jesus (the first night of Passover) serves to symbolize our liberation from sin.

John changes the mix a bit by placing the Last Supper not on the first night of Passover, but the day before, when the lambs are slain for the meal. He likens Jesus to the lamb slain. The general symbolism remains the same.

I am not a believer of substitutionary sin–the theory that Jesus took upon himself our sins and died for them– a demand of a God who requires payment for a sinful world. Such a God, to me at least, is both harsh and ugly–sending his own son to die in the most horrible of ways.

Rather I see, (note that these ideas are surely not my own, but are the theology of many a learned scholar and teacher as well as believers) that Jesus by his willingness to die for his beliefs, shows us the perfect way to engage with this creator we call God. Jesus, in dying, pays the ultimate price for principle, the foundational principle of life–love, no matter what the cost.

For this is the essence of the God that Jesus points us towards. A God who is unimpressed by formulaic ritual and a God saddened by our tendencies to divide ourselves into groups of “saved” “faithful” or “pious” and all others who somehow by human standards fail to reach the mark. So saddened is God by our divisiveness that Jesus shows through his willingness to endure scorn, beating and tortuous death, that even the least among us is worthy of dying for.

As we struggle in our daily lives to come to grips with the deep agonies that divide us as a people and as a world, Jesus on the Cross, stands as testament to the strength that we too can express if we are willing to take up that Cross ourselves and stand for love at all costs.

Jesus stands against those whose primary goal is to protect “number one”. He stands against those who are motivated by greed, self-preservation, and egotistical individual ruggedness. He points the way to a God of grace and love, who calls us daily to be bigger than our selves in our love of brother and sister. This God, so real, so in love with His creation that He becomes one of us, in an effort to show us, by his teaching, suffering and death, what He is really all about.

I speak not of Jesus as the son of God, but as the Son of Man, for the reality or fantasy of Jesus as the incarnate God is beside the point really. If Jesus is so infused with the Spirit of the Transcendent One, then it matters not the creeds we dutifully recite each Sunday. Jesus moved aside as human, and allowed the Spirit of God to envelop him so completely that God really was among us.

All the more important that we be especially careful to separate the Jesus of history from the Jesus of the Church. More and more I find them quite different beings, with quite different agendas. After having read much, I am still in love with Paul and his exuberance for the Gospel, but I recognize that Paul molded the ensuing Church and molded Jesus into that Church. I’m not so sure that it is the Jesus of history whom he never met in the flesh.

We must comb the Gospels carefully I think to find that Jesus–that gentle yet firebrand individual who sought to bring all into the house of God, as true and perfect children. He tenderly attended to the needs of the most broken and rejected in society without asking of them anything in return, other than to put God first in their lives. His anger was invoked by those whom he saw as impeding the people in their attempt to know their God. He pointed the finger and accused them of having lost all sense of why they were doing what they did. It had all become for show, for power, and for accolades.

True piety rested with the many Marys who lived with the Master, the self-less women who sat at his feet, absorbing his wisdom, who anointed his head, washed his feet, and knelt at the foot of the cross, and ultimately went to dress his broken and dead body, and found to their amazement that his real presence washed over them.

If we learn anything from the Friday, called Good, it is that we too can approach God in these simple acts of service–not by asking questions about who deserves and who doesn’t deserve our acts, but in simply being willing to give in love, knowing that the Spirit of God inhabits each and every one of God’s created beings.

Have a blessed Easter Time.

(I know that many of you who read this are not religious, and at best agnostic if not actually atheistic in your outlook. But I think that whatever you believe, you are beloved and understood and accepted by God as you are, and I hope the sentiments I express, resonate in that “human” way that knows no faith.)

Holy Righteousness

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forgiveness, Jesus, love, Paul Tillich, Pharisee, Prodigal Son, sin, Sinning Woman

Today’s gospel is the story of the Prodigal Son. Yes, I know, the picture at left, is not that, but bear with me.

Paul Tillich paired the story of the Prodigal Son with the story of the sinful woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears. I think it is a good match.

But, as did Tillich, I focus on the elder son in the Prodigal story, and the Pharisee in the sinning woman story. (And you should assume that the kernel of what I relate is pure Tillich.)

In both cases, we deal with righteous individuals. The elder son is so familiar to us, and frankly I’ve always had a soft spot for him. He’s the obedient one, the one who doesn’t get in trouble. If he were a girl, he’d be called a goodie-two-shoes.

What is often missed is that the Pharisee by all accounts is an obedient one as well. Although we are wont to think of Pharisees as those who spout what they don’t preach, actually they did. They defined things in their own way, and then lived them to the letter. Much of Jesus’ condemnation of them had to do, not with their lack of piety, but that they often missed the point of piety. It was form over substance that was their problem.

Here, there is no complaint that this Pharisee was not righteous. He was, by all accounts. Jesus thinks well of Simon it seems and Simon has honored the Lord with an invitation to dinner, a clear sign of hospitality.

In both cases, the rule-follower gets no respect. The sinner is upheld and pampered with praise. And you have to ask why.

Jesus suggests the answer. In both cases, the sinner has sinned hugely, gigantically in fact. One is a whore and the other a frequenter of whores. And God, in his immense graciousness, has forgiven them. Yet this is not the real point either.

Both ASK for and receive forgiveness, and their gratitude is immense. Jesus in fact says this:

It is someone who is forgiven little who shows little love.

What does this mean?

Tillich suggests and I certainly concur, that Jesus tells us that both the elder son and Pharisee are technically righteous, and what’s more they know it. And they expect to be acknowledged as such. They are quick to point out the flaws of others.

Yet, they are not comfortable in their righteousness, and that is why they struggle so hard to be righteous or more properly perfectly obedient to the letter of the law in the Pharisee’s case, and obedient to a father’s home rules in the other.

Tillich sees this psychologically as suggesting that for such a person, there is no feeling of being forgiven, they feel constantly unappreciated, unloved, and unrewarded. This expresses as a lack of ability to love on their part.

They cannot love greatly, and they thus are always judging others as coming up short. The acknowledged sinner, however, is overwhelmed by the graciousness of God’s forgiveness and loves God, and themselves finally precisely because God loves them. They realize they are worthy. Such people invariably can turn that self-love and God-love outward to a greater world. They love greatly.

The woman who wept over Jesus’ feet did not in fact love first, she accepted that she was loved by God, and thus accepted the forgiveness offered. She is to be commended.

The Pharisee and elder brother? They are still locked in their anger and feeling that somehow they still don’t measure up, simply because they are not accorded the blessings they feel they would receive if God truly found them acceptable.

The lesson for each of us I think is to explore the Pharisee/elder brother in ourselves. Are we doing all the “stuff” of righteous behavior? Are  we always attending to our prayers and our rosaries, and our church attendance, our acts of charity, and then wondering why God isn’t blessing us more? Are we concluding that we have not been deliberate enough, focused enough, pious enough, faithful enough?

Are we feeling less than worthy of God’s love, and thus are we more prone to point to others as appearing to do less than us. At least we are not them! we think.

Does this explain the mind of the fundogelical? The bible pounding, “amen” “Praise God” types who can explain in detail why this person, this group, this whatever are not what God wants them to be? Does this explain why certain people want there to be a hell where all those they think are not as good as they, will find themselves?

I rather think it explains them. But they are but the extreme side of the equation. We all, as I said, have to fight down that urge. We all need to accept, really accept God’s gracious love, and not connect our forgiveness with some “sign” of blessing, leaving our lives free of stress and trouble.

We, perhaps, shockingly, would all be better off to have been the whore than the goodie-two-shoes. We might have the capacity to love more, forgive more, and be joyous.

Amen.

In the Hands of an Angry God?

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angry God, born again, cleansing fo the temple, compassion, fundamentalism, Jesus, judgment, love, personal salvation, social issues

Yesterday I was reading blogs, and came across a gem from Christian at Sharp Iron. His post is entitled, Mel Gibson in the Hands of an Angry God. Some of the insights Christian offers were profound and helpful in my ever ongoing quest to understand the mind and motivation of the fundamentalist.

I’ll be summarizing some of his points and expanding upon them, but please do go read his post. It is well worth your time.

Christian has that unique position of having traveled from the far right evangelical to the more moderate middle. He speaks with first hand experience of what it means to be of the “born again” genre. Born again seems to refer in the fundamentalist mind, to one who has surrendered to Christ. And that seems to mean one who has publicly admitted that they belief that Christ is savior, come to earth to die for our sins and through our faith in him, guarantees our eternal life.

Christian ponders how this coincides with who Jesus was as prophet, healer, and revisionist Jew. And he offers, I submit, an excellent rationale for how conservative Christians reconstruct Jesus to fit into their already extant worldview.

He in effect claims that they fail in the born again transformation, merely carrying their inborn anger at “the way things are” over into their new faith. God becomes the avenger of all that they dislike, and Jesus, as he puts it, will return with  wrath upon “those who have it coming.”

In this he provides I believe a big answer to why fundamentalists are the way they are.

Let me explain. First lets look at the concept of being “born again.” Although the Right Wing Christian believes born again refers to “acceptance of Jesus as personal savior” it quite clearly doesn’t mean this at all. Refer to John 3:3-8 wherein Jesus explains what it means. He says that being born again is not belief in him but being reborn (transformed) by the Spirit.

Moreover, the Greek phrase is gennatha anothen.  While it can be translated as “born again,” it is more properly translated as “born from above.” This latter is the translation of the NRSV. Indeed, the KJV (preferred text of fundamentalists) ONLY translates anothen as again in these two verses from John: 3:3 and 3:7. In every other place, the KJV translates the word in some other way.

More to the point, the purpose of being born of Spirit, is to be transformed. And this is where Christian makes his point most strongly. They are not really transformed at all.

 One of the most serious errors that fundamentalists make in their “theology” is to equate the bible as some textbook guide to PERSONAL salvation. It is not that, and never was. It is NOT what Jesus taught.

Sure, Jesus spoke TO people, but his message was not directed toward some personal piety that would guarantee  “salvation to individuals. He spoke, rather, against the prevailing cultural consensus of his time–against the Holiness codes and purity codes and that strict adherence to these was what would save Israel. Rather, he charged that one must have a heart of compassion and love, and by following that, they were imitating the Father’s love and compassion, and THAT would save Israel.

What the fundamentalist gets wrong is he “transforms his conduct from drinking, gambling, whoring, swearing, and all manner of PERSONAL inadequacies and presumed evils, and then goes to church regularly, or at least reads the bible a good deal, and declares to everyone within hearing that they too must do as he has done or they will be condemned.

God is the avenger who will punish those who are not born again, Jesus will judge and consign to Hell all slackers upon his second coming. Nowhere is there a true transformation which causes one to love one’s enemies and  that by “doing  unto the least of these” you do it to me.

War and hatred are not discarded as any fair reading of Jesus’ preaching would entail. Instead, the fundamentalist retains all his angers and hatred for others in the guise as Christian points out, of “righteous indignation” which they happily show you in the New Testament. Indeed the “Cleansing of the Temple” is found in all four gospels. It remains the singular statement of perhaps an angry Jesus.

I say perhaps because there is nothing said about anger at all in the synoptic versions. In Matt. 21:10-17, Mk. 11:11, and Lk. 19:45,  all agree, “he came into the temple and drove out the moneychangers and overturned the tables. Nothing is said about anger. Nor  does John’s version, (thought by many to be the closest to accuracy) Jn. 2: 13-17.

As Christian points out, this event could hardly have been a new thing for Jesus. He had been in the Temple many times. There was nothing new in what was going on there. He could not have been truly angry; rather, he wished to make a point, to get the events of his final days in Jerusalem underway. All texts report that the disturbance got the attention of the high priests and the scribes and Pharisees. It was this that was the final straw, and they determined that his ministry must be stopped lest it gain the upper hand. That fairly seems to have been his motivation.

This I think helps us to understand why right wing Christians maintain that war is a viable means to an end, and indeed seem to be in the forefront of promoting it to secure political ends. It explains why the death penalty finds adherents in this group.

It also I think, explains why social justice issues, fall on deaf ears, as regards them. All too often those on the margins, like those in the time of Jesus, were not good believers. Not good followers of the rules. Condemned by the Pharisees as unclean, as sinful by their conduct or failure to abide by the purity and holiness codes, they were the very folks that Jesus spent their time with. But alas, as we are all to a degree wont to do, we discard that which doesn’t fit our preconceived notions.

The fundamentalist finds fertile ground in the Hebrew Scriptures for an angry, avenging God. They relate to this God who will right all the wrongs they themselves perceive, and they then pervert and subvert the message of Jesus to conform as the returning JUDGE of all.

As Christian points out, this is not transforming, but merely recreating God and Jesus to suit one’s own proclivities. Personal salvation is the only goal, the Kingdom is only about heavenly mansions where we will get to live like the rich finally.

It explains a lot.

Amen.

Plain Meaning?

Tags

bible, ethics, Jesus, love, Matthew, violence

Today’s Gospel is Matthew 10:34-39. To those who are deeply trained in biblical scholarship and know the difficulties of interpretation, this passage brings shudders.

Shudders, because in the hands of those who believe that there is such a thing as “plain meaning” much evil can be wrought from it.

I had no desire to tackle this passage myself, but unfortunately apparently I am supposed to, since I read an article in a theological journal this morning on Christian ethics and integrity and authenticity, and, well, this passage simply makes the point so well.

So you see, I really had no choice. I’m learning that being hit over the head once is sufficient, thanks be to God!

If we are to live an ethical life, the writer argues, then consistency is called for. He claims a couple of ways of looking at it. First there is the “purity” paradigm wherein the person claims a dominate value (loving God) and subsumes all of life’s decisions to it. The other is called the integrity paradigm and reflects a coherence among all life’s capacities and needs coming to unity in a richness of existence. ¹

It is a bit technical but what I think the author gets at is the idea that we can become quite rigid under the purity paradigm. We get caught up defining what constitutes proper “love of God” by how ever we interpret that to mean, and by what means we use to determine it. Biblical literalists would obviously see it differently than a social justice progressive.

Along comes Jesus, telling us that:

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

We are headed for trouble here. The literalist can easily in his “plain meaning” mode, suggest that Jesus here endorses violence to attain the ends he promotes. Certainly those demented souls who shoot doctors who perform abortions, so read the passage. Loving God means upholding their interpretation of what God wants. They must wield the sword.

But as we say again and again, context is everything here. First of all, read the entire chapter. If you do, you will see that Jesus is telling his disciples what they will encounter in spreading the message. He sends them out to do good words and to preach the message of love, hope and repentence. But he warns them that they will not always be met with friendship and welcoming.

The Word is a sword, calling forth extraordinary effort that some are unwilling to make. To these the disciples are admonished to leave those towns “shaking the dust from your sandals.” They are not told to beat unbelievers into submission or to stone them. Hardly are they told to take up sword against them.

No, Jesus, merely reminds them that the Gospel message, though one of hope and joy is also a difficult one to live by, and there are powers who will find it in opposition to their lives of greed and priviledge.

So difficult is this, that entire households will be split between those that will come unto them and those that won’t. They are not to fear, for God is with them and will protect them.

If indeed families split over his teachings, then let it be so. For love of God does comes first, or should. But indeed, remember, it is following Jesus that is the way to show that love of God. And Jesus message is always about healing, forgiveness, love, and hope. There are simply too many references to Jesus’ admonishment of violence as not the “way” to think otherwise.

When Jesus says at the end,

Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

he does not speak, in my opinion of martyrdom so much as he tells us that we only think we have life. Until we are willing to risk all for love and justice and our neighbor, we have no real life, only a shadow ephemeral life. When we are willing to set that aside, and offer our lives fully to other, then we will finally gain our real life in God.

The cross is not suffering on behalf of Jesus or God. Rather it is the willingness to actuate love in all circumstances, regardless of consequences. We find love at the center of all things. We support and congratulate love. We celebrate it in each other without reference to status, gender, orientation, or any other human thing. For God made all to his good desire.

That is the sword–the sword of radical love-that will one day be beat into a plowshare when all bend the knee of the heart and confess that God is where we each and every one of us move and have our being.

Amen.

———

Footnote

1. Schweiker, William, Consistency and Christian Ethics, The Anglican Theological Review, Vol. 90, #3, Summer 2008, pg. 567.

Never Let You Go

Tags

Book Reviews, Erin Healy, fiction, Inspirational, love

I received this book from Booksnooze (look along the right sidebar) for review. I wish to extend my thanks.

This is a book that would benefit from your not knowing it is Christian fiction up front (I unfortunately read the inside pages.)

I say this for, within a very few pages in, a mystery ensued that I was eager to figure out. Knowing as I did of it’s genre, I discarded rather immediately that the heroine of the book was mentally deranged!

For indeed this is a book about angels and demons and good and yes you guessed it–evil. Yet, to say that is to give nothing away, since it is genuinely laced with plenty of suspense and intrigue.

A young, single mother, abandoned by a drugged out husband, and confronted by a past lover,  then her husband’s drug dealer who claims monies are owed, a father who has lost his mind, a sister murdered by  the old lover, and a mother who skitters around the country reviewing restaurants, contends with a convergence of all these people back into her life in one hellish few days.

Molly, the daughter, is the center of Lexi’s life, the only anchor for her in a sea of troubles. A rather precocious child, Molly seems to delight everyone she meets, and there is nothing Lexi will not do to give her daughter a better chance. Working two jobs, taking on a roommate, and doing without are all in service to giving Molly a normal and happy childhood.

Until of course all goes awry suddenly. Grant, her husband returns to town after seven years and desires to reconnect with his daughter. Lexi is opposed, still trapped in anger. Then Warden returns and badgers Lexi into testifying for her former lover Norm at his parole hearing–the very person who had murdered her sister Tara.  Grant returns with Lexi’s mother, who  abandoned Lexi’s father when he lost his mind, not being able to cope with the loss of both daughter and husband.

Warden has the uncanny and mysterious ability to appear all to often where he should not be. He knows “too much” and his threats are veiled, ultimately against Molly. Lexi finds herself questioning her own sanity at times as she tries to dodge and control all these unwanted people in her life.

The only sane, yet still confusing, element in her life is Angelo, the unexplained blond giant of a man who seems to suddenly be there whenever he is needed. He saves Molly, he saves Lexi, and works at the hospital where her father lives.

Enigmatically, Angelo, never seems to give “straight” answers to much that Lexi asks, but rather encourages her to be guided by love, rather than the hatred, anger, and despair that crowd her mind in the face of the swirling disaster that boils perilously ever closer to her quiet life with Molly.

Of course, it all comes to a head, and you begin to read faster and faster, wondering how it will all play out. Being a Christian novel, you expect of course, that the good guys will win, but how it will occur, remains a mystery that you yearn to solve.

This is not great fiction–I won’t mislead you. You won’t find the great American novel here. But, if you are looking for a good beach read this summer, this would be perfect. Not so convoluted in its plot that you are having to go back and remind yourself of who’s who, yet, satisfying in its drama, you can blissfully sip that pina colada, apply a bit more sunscreen, and relax into a world of  dark intrigue in early spring in the mountains.  

Of additional interest here is a list of questions at the end of the novel, suitable for a book club selection group. If your church has one, and you like to read some fiction now and then, you might investigate this as a choice. The relationships within the book are such that they can easily serve as topics to investigate our own relationships with loved ones who have disappointed us over the years.

Of seminal interest is the concept of love as a means to overcome anger, hatred, and painful loss. A discussion of this topic, love, is alone worth the price of the book, for it brings forth the most difficult places to retain love–abandonment, criminal victimization, and parent-child roles.

This book was provided by Booksnooze, through agreement with the publisher, Thomas Nelson. Other than receiving the book at no cost to me, there are no other stipulations. The review opinion is mine alone. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Reflecting Reflections Reflectively

Tags

Ash Wednesday, boredom, empathy, Evan Bayh, God, Jesus, Lent, love, penance

I have no clue what “bored out of my skull” means. It makes no sense, which I think is common to a lot of silly phrases we throw about haphazardly. In any case, I am not bored either in or out of mine, but I’m reflecting.

I live in a paradox. But don’t we all. Mine is that I seem to find a certain calmness in organizing my life into rituals. I get up at the same time, go through the same motions of making bed, cleaning up kitchen, making coffee, praying, cooking, studying. Dinner is at the same time, cleanup, computer time, news, shower, reading and meditation, TV. 

I find a certain comfort in “accomplishing” the day. But, then I can get “bored” with the sameness, the repetitive slogging through of innumerable bed makings and all the rest. I have been heard to say, “I’m just bored with taking a shower because it’s six o’clock.”

There is a certain grouchy grumbling going on here. That probably is why I’m unburdening myself. Yet, in the great continuum of life, I’m doing better than even at the moment. I’m making it. I’m surviving the trauma of a winter that refuses to let go. I’m assessing where I am and what I am doing. I’m pondering.

Reading blogs the last few days have lightened my mood. Gracious, but some of you are having much worse troubles than I am. That makes me feel better, and THAT thought makes me feel worse. If you get my drift. We all, to a degree can feel better when finding others who are doing so much worse.

Winter has sucked, but frankly, not as badly as some places in the US of A. Our woes have been tied to lots of other mishaps and unexpected disasters. Unexpected? Since they turn up with regularity, there is little unexpected except perhaps the EXACT form this one will take. I weep, and pray with certainty for the improvement of conditions for many, known and unknown. I know God did not cause it, and I know he won’t “fix” it, except through the open-hearted response of those who have relationship with Him.

It’s not a good thing to arrive at Ash Wednesday, unprepared. We are to be thinking during the run up to the most solemn of days, of what kind of penance we should be doing during the Lenten period. What are we going to “give up?” Soda or ice cream? Wasting time on FB? Playing online poker? Should we add something? More devotions? More volunteering? More something. More time thinking about the sacrifice of Jesus, the perfect and total obedience–the showing of us poor oh too human beings how to love completely and selflessly.

It all makes one feel inadequate of course. I cannot approach the Christ. I fail sometimes before the words of repentance are even out of my mouth, my tongue still curling over the last syllable. Jesus, of course understands, and forgives, and upholds, and encourages. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I turn my back. It depends–how raw is the pain? How much do I need to wallow in self pity if only for a few hours? Better people than me, far better, do better.

I look out the window and I see the sea of white that seems ever present. In fact, it comes close to being hard to remember when it was not like this. I decide my “give ups” and my “add ons” for the upcoming weeks. I shall try to do these practices mindfully and with great humility at my poor attempts. But I will be kind to myself too, for I know deeply that God offers such amazing grace each moment.

Somehow the distant clang of politics, and sports, and all that jazz, (are you eating up the lovely metaphors here?) resounds in quiet. Evan Bayh calls it quits and leaves the party in the lurch. A suspicious call (at least to me) at the pairs figure skating, Sarah sarahing, Dick “the Dick” Cheney, cheneying. . .  it all fades into a fair buzz, not subject to identification.

It is time to retreat into a mysterious world of silence, contemplating a broken world from afar. Yes we are in the world but not OF it as they say. At moments like this I remove myself from it. I dispassionately see it tattered and raw, from too much fighting, too little understanding and love seemingly relegated to personal relationships. No “fellow man” need apply.

This is the business of Lent. It is prospective examined. It is readjusting the continuum and making a nest for oneself there, somewhere between the extremes, somewhere safer than those places inhabited by Haitians and Iraqis, Afghans,  Iranians, and others who struggle with famine, war, and lack of freedom.

 It is time to pull up one’s boots and trudge on, for my life is so much easier than millions of others. Think of that. I am not walking miles for fresh water, nor standing in long lines for subsistence food rations. I am not making home in a tent, nor standing in more lines for showers and toilets. I am not worried that bombs will land upon me. I am not concerned with being incarcerated for thinking out loud.

Where I started was the thought that this winter was penance enough for Lent. But see? It certainly is not. Empathy is perhaps my theme this Lent. How to find it, grow it, and use it for the benefit of my brothers and sisters around the globe. I wish you all a blessed Lent, as we approach this fateful period. Give thanks for your own well being, rejoice in that, but do, I beg you, remember that you cannot escape responsibility. Am I my brother’s keeper Cain asked? Yes, yes you are and I am, all of us, on board this fragile planet held in God’s hand.

Defining the Undefinable

Tags

Christianity, feminist, God, Jesus, liberation, love, praxis, social concerns, theology

God does speak to me from time to time. He has a particular way of going about it. I can never be sure at first, which is why he beats me over the head with what ever it is he wants me to know. To explain, he tells me the same thing over and over by diverse ways. Finally I see that, and go, “okay, gotcha boss.”

Mostly this time, God has been reinforcing my train of thought. If you’ve been reading the posts “What is the Message” and my review of Robin Meyers’ book, “Saving Jesus from the Church.” you will see where I’m heading. I’ve been seeing that Church needs to be redirected to praxis rather than a continuation of the ongoing theological conversation of who bests defines Christianity and what is sin and how are we saved.

I mentioned that Presiding Bishop Schori’s remarks about individual salvation being inadequate added to the mix. So that was three things. I had also begun pondering Martin Buber’s “I-thou versus I-it” philosophy, in which he posits that humans are engaged in one or the other at all times. I-thou is subject to subject or in equal respect and mutuality. I-it refers to me and the other as an it, or object. It’s value is only that of enhancing me in some way or furthering my personal aims.

Last night, God let me again visit these subjects, and finally I was convinced that indeed I was on the right track. We were watching Bill Moyer’s Journal. His guests were Dr. Cornel West, theologian from Princeton, Dr. Serene Jones, President of Union Theological Seminary in NYC, and Dr. Gary Dorrien, Reinhold Neibuhr Professor of Social Ethics at UTS. They were talking about the “Christian” take on our world wide economic decline.

Their discussion was wide ranging and involved ultimately what in some sense can be called a reform movement within Christendom. They spoke of the evils of greed and love in action. All three spoke to the fact that the students in seminary today are burning with a desire to live and work authentically following Jesus in full praxis. I suspect that more traditional theology falls by the wayside. It is the time of liberation, feminist, black, and other theologies which seek to reclaim the original message of Jesus.

It got me to thinking late last night as I, in one of my wide awake middle of the night moments, sat on the porch and looked up at the Milky Way, ablaze with stars. Thinking of God, I realized something, something quite obvious I suspect. Once we are past the big three: omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, we are essentially done talking about God in the singular. Which is not to say that even this is right. Who is to say that God doesn’t have siblings and parents, and aunts and uncles, all busily engaged on their own planes of reality. But on this plane, we contend there is but One God.

Yet, by the first act, that of creation, God is no longer One, but in relationship, for creation was  all about relationship. It continues to be so. My poem the other day about perspective between life on the big and small is but relationship, a shared universe, a shared planet. My piece on vegetarianism and meat eaters again notes that we are in a cycle of shared life and death and symbiosis.

Trinity may or may not be real, it is our way of explaining what we can’t really explain. But if true or not, the message is the same. Intimacy, mutuality, love, compassion, interrelatedness,   are the rule, the norm. Man is not meant to be alone as God said, and there are few humans who do well in seclusion. We thrive on relationship, I-thou which is healthy, or I-it which is not so healthy.

Evolutionary psychologists would no doubt claim that this is an evolutionary plus, designed to help ensure the survival of the species by promoting breeding and offspring. Believers would claim that it echoes a design infused in all creation by the Creator. It is why I am “in the image of” after all.

Rather than suggesting that God somehow “looks” like us, in the image of signifies that we are relational as God is relational.

It is not enough to merely state the obvious, but to ingest it, and digest it, and make it apart of ourselves. Relational means truly that I am my brother’s keeper, and it is my perfect duty to help ensure that he is fed, clothed, returned to health, and upheld as fully as I am myself. He is me, and I am him, and we are, and God is.

At the end of Bill Moyer’s conversation with these three, he revisited some food pantries that they had been to some months ago. As you can imagine, the situation is more dire than before. Person after person related their stories of having worked for years, decades in fact, only to find themselves struggling to stretch food, and meagre, simple food it is, from week to week. Children given “enough” but not as much as they would wish, meals of crackers and peanut butter.

I have contributed to our food pantry through our church. I softly said to the Contrarian, “Monday I’ll inquire who is our liaison at “Loaves and Fishes” and. . .”

“Yes,” he replied, knowing where I was going, and not needing me to finish.

It is no longer just enough to drop a bag of cans in the basket. Jesus walks before me beckoning me and you to much more than that. “Okay, gotcha boss.”