Monday, February 29, 2016

THE APOSTLE PAUL - Part I


Commentary of St. Paul’s Hymn to Love (1 Corinthians 13) | Mind ...

Note:  In this post I am beginning a short series that examines the evolution of salvation theology at the very beginning of Christianity.  What I find intriguing is that the earliest known documentation of this event is not the gospels but rather the epistles of the Apostle Paul, a rather enigmatic figure, who shows up on the Christian scene after this event, "as one untimely born" 1Cor. 15:8.  The question that arises is whether Paul is writing from what he was taught after his conversion which later are compiled in the four gospels of the New Testament or does Paul's theology shape and influence how the gospels are eventual written.

I like Paul.

I need to say that up front because as you read this post, you may be led to think otherwise. For instance, I don't agree with everything Paul says, or, to be more specific, I don't agree that everything that has been attributed to Paul is Paul speaking; as in, his being named the author of the letter to the Hebrews, the two Timothy letters, and Ephesians.  

Paul is, in my opinion, the first authentic Christian.  In fact, many people consider Paul to be the founder of Christianity. I won't argue that.   There can be no doubt that Paul's letters shaped and continues to shape Christianity.  What I like most about Paul is that the letters he wrote reveal an authentic human who writes from both the head and the heart.

Paul's letters strike me as a rarity in ancient literature because of the personal content that is poured into them.  What I find in Paul's letters is a mind grappling with a newfound faith-source.  Paul is constantly torn between his conflicting identities; that of his former identify as Saul and his converted identity as Paul.  In Paul I find a combination of characteristics the likes of Jacob and Jeremiah  found in Hebrew Scriptures, a person who struggles with who he is and then is compelled to talk about it.  As such, Paul becomes an interesting character study whose writings invite a certain degree of analysis.

What intrigues me most about Paul is that his letter predate all other canonical literature in the New Testament.  The layout of the New Testament canon is misleading; in that, it is not concerned about the chronological order of the writings it contains. Instead its format begins with the "historical" account of Jesus ministry and life, then proceeds to Acts of the Apostles and finally to the letters of Paul and others.  It gives the impression of being in chronological when in fact it is not.  What is also confusing is that Paul's letters are not in any chronological order and begins with what might be considered his last epistle, the Epistle to the Romans, which presents what many might consider his most mature theological writing.

My reason for writing this post is to examine, Paul's understanding of the resurrection event which is so central to his theological perspective.  This may sound like a waste of time to devout Christians who readily believe in and accept the physical resurrection of Jesus on Easter and who assume that their understanding of the resurrection is the same as Paul's understanding.  I contend, however, that Paul's view of the resurrection is not what most Christians think it is or understand why it becomes so central in Paul's theology to the point of excluding almost everything that Jesus said or did prior to his death and resurrection. 

As a historical figure, it is difficult to know Paul.  One can deduce from his writings something of his mind and theological perspective.  We also have the Acts of the Apostles that give us some idea of Paul within the historic context of his time.  The tendency by modern Christians is  to ignore the contentious environment Paul's ministry caused and the role it played in forming his theology.  In this post  I will briefly delve into what I feel leads Paul to interpret Jesus' resurrection in a way that is unfamiliar to most, even though, it is quite evident in his letters.

Finally, as an introduction to Paul, I am positing that all four of the gospels are likely to have been influenced by Paul's theological view of the resurrection event rather than they influencing his theology. Whether Paul's particular view of Jesus' resurrection was entirely Paul's idea cannot be fully established.  What can be established is that he is the one who writes about it.

Pauline theology becomes the foundation upon which orthodox Christianity is built.  I contend that Paul's theology was catapulted into eventual dominance as the result of a singular historical event that changed the religious landscape Paul's time. I will explain further along in this post.  For the moment I need to say a few words about Paul as a person.

PAUL AND PARADOX

Paul is a paradox of tragedy and ecstasy all rolled into one package.  He's both slave of Christ and freed by grace.  Given this dichotomous mix, Paul does what most of us do, try to find a balanced emotional response to our inner conflicts.  He suffers in his joy and rejoices in his suffering.

Paradox abounds in Paul's very fabric.  Paul as Saul persecuted the early Christians. Paul is the Johnny-come-lately apostle.  He never knew Jesus prior to Jesus's death and resurrection. Throughout his ministry Paul readily identified and prided himself as a being a Pharisee in several of his letters. He comes to know Jesus through revelation via a vision.  As a result of his conversion and persecutory past, Paul is reluctantly received into the Church at Jerusalem and sent as a missionary to spread the gospel to Jews throughout the Roman empire to help support the Church in Jerusalem.

Paul is also a product of two world views.  He is both a Jew and  a Roman citizen. Not much is made of this until his arrest in Jerusalem where he reveals that he is a "natural born" citizen of Rome.  There has been much speculation about this with some putting forth that Paul's father was awarded citizenship or bought it at some point.  A more likely scenario, in my mind, is that Paul's father was a natural born Roman citizen and his mother was Jewish, since being Jewish is conveyed through the mother, not the father. It is clear that Paul was raised Jewish which could mean his father was a gentile follower of Judaism. 

As an apostle sent to spread the gospel to the Jewish communities located in larger cities of the empire, Paul finds that his most willing converts are not Jews, but rather gentiles who are attracted to Judaism or who are intrigued by Paul's message.  His familiarity with the Hellenized world likely provided a urbane patina to his delivery of the gospel.  For Example, Paul's familiarity with Greek mythology and philosophy is evident in his speech to the Athenians in the Agora ( Acts 17: 16-34).

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES - THE GOSPEL OF PAUL

Paul's journey into Christianity is strictly about his relationship to the resurrected Christ he encountered on the road to Damascus. Paul's vision-like encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus is crucial to understanding Paul. The only thing Paul sees in this encounter is a bright light, but the voice he hears is identified as being Jesus.  The experience left Paul physically blind, and spiritually confused. It was for Paul  a religion-shattering moment.

The Acts of the Apostles traces the history of the early church from the point of Jesus' ascension into heaven through Paul's supposed final journey to Rome.  The first six chapters of Acts do not mention Paul, but rather spends time talking about Peter and setting the stage for Paul's arrival at the end of Chapter 7, the account of Stephen's martyrdom, has Paul holding the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen to death.

Acts attempts to fill in the blanks to what Paul alludes to in his Epistles.  Undoubtedly the Acts of the Apostles was written after the time of both Peter and Paul and would place it somewhere in the vicinity of last two decades of the first century CE, if not slightly later.  From chapter seven to the end of Acts, chapter twenty-eight, Acts follows the travails, travels and trials of Paul  The Acts of the Apostles clearly places Paul, not Peter or even Jesus, as the major architect of the Christian Church. 

PAUL AND CHRIST

Paul's relationship to the historical Jesus; the Jesus who lived in Galilee, told parables, healed the sick, preached in the synagogues and on the mountain tops is non-existent.  He knows Jesus only after the fact of his life on Earth.  As such, Paul makes mention of only one direct quote that was attributed to Jesus before his crucifixion and that is in relation to the Last Supper, what is commonly referred to as the word of institution (1Cor. 11:24-25).  The only other quote Paul makes is asking Christ to remove his thorn in the flesh to which Christ tells him in some manner, "My grace is sufficient..." (2Cor. 12:9). That's all Paul ever presents as a direct teaching he received from Jesus mentioned in his epistles. 

Everything Paul talks about in his epistles refers strictly to Jesus as the Christ.  Paul never mentions Jesus's birth, his relationship with his disciples, Jesus' mother, any of Jesus' parables, his Sermon on the Mount, his miracles.  There is no way of knowing what Paul actually knew about the earthly ministry of Jesus.   As far as Paul is concerned (based on his epistles) the only activities of Jesus' human life on this planet, relevant to Paul's ministry, started on Maundy Thursday and ended on Good Friday.  Easter begins a whole new chapter when Jesus becomes, in Paul's lexicon, the risen Christ.

PAUL'S ADOPTION MATRIX

One of the curious terms used by Paul, particularly in his epistle to the Romans, is the word adoption. It is used three times in this epistle:  Roman 8:15, 8:23, and 9:4.  He also uses it in Galatians 4:5. Why adoption and not a straight out claim that everyone, by virtue of one's birth, is a child of God as intimated in Genesis 1 is, in my opinion, one of the perplexing questions that Paul's epistles raise.

Paul's use of adoption appears to be a theological attempt at bridging a religious gap that was the result of Judaism's indelible link to the Jewish people and the fact that Christianity, in its nascent years, was very much linked to Judaism as an emerging Judaic sect, not the separate religion it is today.

Paul's world was largely polytheistic, and in an empire that was cosmopolitan; where people could largely practice whatever religion they chose as long as they gave their due to the imperial religious cult, ethnic religions were viewed with suspicion by the Romans.  Rome tolerated Judaism in order to keep the peace.  Palestine, as a province within the empire, was allowed to practice its religion, Judaism, without interference and by extension Rome offered limited protection to Jewish communities that existed throughout the empire.  Rome did not particularly like Judaism which viewed its accommodation of it as a practical annoyance, and in less than a decade of Paul's death, Rome would actively attempt to eliminate it.

This was the tense environment in which Paul is writing.  This environment undoubtedly shaped Paul's theological perspective. Paul's initial mission was to bring the gospel of Jesus to ethnic Jews who were not familiar with this new brand of Judaism.  The object was to garner adherents and financial support for the church in Jerusalem.  Given the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the empire, many Jewish synagogues had a gentile following, some were proselytes, some remained gentile followers.  As a result, Paul's message appears to have resonated with this gentile audience more than with the ethnic Jewish community.

Given the tenuous situation these Jewish communities were in undoubtedly led the leaders of the synagogues to avoid as much conflict and attention of the Roman authorities as they possibly could. They tried to avoid at all costs anything that would draw negative attention to them or that would undermine the continuity of  these communities.   Paul's new version of Judaism was not well received by these leaders.  After being thrown out of the synagogue in more than one city and on more than one occasion, Paul carried his message to the streets which caught the attention of other gentiles and the gentile church began to grow. This created tension between the leaders of the church in Jerusalem and Paul.

[Side Note:  The tension in the Book of Acts is attributed to the Pharisees who were members of the Church in Jerusalem.  It should be noted that during Jesus' time the Pharisees were intrigued by, if  not, friendly towards Jesus. That they get a bad reputation in the gospels may have more to do with the contentious relationship they had with Paul within the Church  at Jerusalem which was later written back into gospel narratives.  It was Sadducees who sought to kill Jesus, not the Pharisees. In fact, Luke 13:31 says the Pharisees warned Jesus that Herod was out to kill him.]

What Paul experienced in his ministry was surprise at the capacity for faith of those outside the Jewish community.  As such, faith becomes the cornerstone for Paul's paradigmatic shift in theology, but this is not easy path for Paul to take.  As a Pharisee, Paul is well aware of the legal obstacles that stood in the way of a straightforward path to inclusion of gentiles into this new Judaic sect called, "The Way."  While he works for the inclusion of gentiles into the church, he struggles within himself on how to address the turmoil it creates. 

It seems reasonable that what comes to bear on Paul's thought process is not his Judaic upbringing but rather his Hellenized one. Paul is simply trying to present his case in the form of Socratic argument: "If this then that..."  and so on.   In order to do so, however, Paul had to base his premise on something that would enable him to make logical argument that would support the inclusion of gentiles into the church without having to become Jewish.

THE RESURRECTION RESET

To accomplish this Paul establishes a new paradigm based on the concept that Christ's resurrection is a new creation, a reset of God's original creation.  Jesus becomes the Christ of God, the new Adam of God's new creative order.  Jesus, as the Christ of God becomes the heavenly (spiritual) first born Son of God by virtue of being raised by God from the dead as the first fruit of a new spiritual creation. [1Cor. 15:45, 2 Cor. 5:15, and Gal. 6:15]


Of course this leads to a host of questions. What does this mean for the Chosen People, the Jews?What does this mean for the rest of humanity?  Paul begins walking a fine theological line.  In making Jesus the first-born, the spiritually-natural born Son of God by virtue, not of his physical birth by Mary, but by his divine birth of being resurrected to new life by God the Father, Paul levels the playing field.  There is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no slave or free man [Gal 3:28]. Ethnicity and any other identifying mark that differentiates us on earth (on this side of life) is removed, means nothing.

As a Jew, Paul saw himself as child of Abraham and as a Christian Paul saw himself more than that; he saw himself as a child of God through "adoption."  Paul reads this formula back into who he identifies as a true child of Abraham - one who has faith in Christ Jesus as one's Lord and savior. The argument becomes rather convoluted in his Epistle to the Romans. Paul speaks specifically about the patriarch of the Judaism, Abraham's, faith and connecting Abraham's faith to faith in Christ as synonymous types. In fact, Paul reads Christ into almost every important event in the history of the Hebrew people. 

At the reset point of Jesus' resurrection, Paul says the best we can get to on this side of life is adoption.  We can be adopted as children of God, made heirs with Christ by faith in the resurrected Christ Jesus.  We have to wait, however, for our own spiritual rebirth at the time of final resurrection. This becomes Paul's answer to the issue of whether a male individual needs to become a Jew; that is, circumcised before being identified as a Christian because such identities mean nothing in the light of Jesus' resurrection and God's new creative order.

Paul's point is that the only thing necessary for salvation is to have a faith like Abraham's, a faith embedded in Christ Jesus.  In trying to bridge the ethnic gap of who is considered a Christian and who is not, as with all attempts to differentiate who is and who isn't saved, Paul, in my opinion, fails to make the definitive leap of faith of full inclusion of the human species as beneficiaries of God's grace. 

Paul's use of adoption implies that everyone is at the reset point on this side of life and, as yet, is not a natural/spiritual born child of God. This theological point will continue to shape Christianity's theological perspective throughout the millennia to the present. It will figure prominently in Augustine's doctrine of original sin.  The logical result of Paul's adoptive matrix says if you're not a child of God than you must be a child of someone else - a godless child of the world, a child of the flesh.  The term "flesh" is oft repeated in Paul's letter to the Romans as a pejorative. Adoption on this side of life becomes the assurance of becoming a full heir with Christ at the final resurrection.

Another logical consequence is that the adopted do not choose the adoptive parent, the parent chooses the child. Paul falls extremely short of saying that everyone is adopted.  In fact, he falls short of saying that adoption is open for everyone.  Instead, Paul works from the perspective that not everyone is going to be saved; that some will be lost, including, those who claim to be children of Abraham.  As such Paul introduces the Church to the concept of predestination [Roman 8:29 & 30 which is further developed in a work some attribute to Paul, Ephesians 1:5 & 1:11]. It is important to remember that although Paul worked for inclusion, he lived in a world of dualism and his thought process was dualistic.

Paul also takes issue with Judaic law and spends a great deal of time discussing this.  While he cannot find it within himself to outright deny its relevance he tries to mitigate its redemptive effectiveness. Paul argues that the law is effective on this side of life, but it cannot lead one to become a child of God; that only faith in Christ Jesus can accomplish that as an act of God's grace through no personal merit any person's part - It's not something we choose. 


A CATAPULTING EVENT

Near the end of Acts, we read that a compromise is reached with the leaders of church in Jerusalem and James, the younger brother of Jesus.  The Church in Jerusalem will accept uncircumcised male gentiles into the fold on the condition that they keep from things offered to idols, and from ingesting blood and meat that was strangled, along from refraining from fornication (Acts 21:25).

As part of the compromise it is evident that Paul must take a penitential, atoning stance, having to shave his head, and purify himself and commit to being "orderly and keeping the law."  (Acts 21:24).  Ironically, as Paul is making a show of penitence for his endeavors in Jerusalem he is arrested, tried before the Sanhedrin, claims his Roman citizenship and is packed off to Rome to be tried by Caesar.  We never know for sure how things turn out for Paul. 

What catapults Paul's letters to the authoritative level they now have is not that his views were accepted by the church in Jerusalem, because they clearly were not, but rather the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, which not only saw the destruction of the Temple but also the church in Jerusalem.  This event would also foster the split between Judaism and Christianity.  Paul's reasoning did not win the debate with Pharisees within the church at Jerusalem and it is the Pharisees who survived the events of 70 CE and kept Judaism alive.  Since there was a clear division between Christianity and Judaism, the Pharisees end up being unjustly vilified, for the most part, in the Christian gospels.

Had the events of 70 CE not occurred, one can only wonder if Paul's epistles would have remained as influential as they became.  Paul's theological perspective was shaped both by his experience of the risen Christ and his experience with the conversion of gentiles to Christianity. Paul defines Jesus' resurrection as a reset point in story of human salvation - "If Christ be not risen, then is your preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." [I Cor. 15:14] 

What evolves from Paul's personal struggle over inclusion and his adoptive theology will be the subject of future posts.

Until then, stay faithful.









Monday, February 15, 2016

A HOLY LENT

Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you.'"  Luke 4:9&10a 

(All texts in this post are in accordance with the Revised Common Lectionary and taken from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA)

On this first Sunday in Lent, we begin where we left off on the First Sunday after Epiphany; after Jesus' baptism by John, with Jesus driven by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days; the forty days we commemorate during this season of Lent. We find ourselves with a weary and worn out Jesus, who has been fasting and praying.

As we walk with Jesus through the wilderness on this side of life, we hear, along with Jesus, the tempting voice  (personified as the devil) telling Jesus - telling us - showing Jesus - showing us what could be if we just give up and give into the momentary illusion of perpetual self-gratification, popularity, and power. 

There's a great deal of human logic in this voice.  Its worldly wisdom resonates with our pragmatic, albeit short-sighted perspectives, of looking out for "number one - prompting us to ignore the messes of the present and choose those elusive, greener-looking pastures that are always just beyond our reach.
  
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We see Jesus resisting with every ounce of his being:

To the temptation of perpetual self-gratification, the temptation to turn stone into bread - to fulfill one's desires whenever and with whatever is available, Jesus says, "It is written, 'Man does not live on bread alone.'"  (Deuteronomy 8:3)

To the allure of become the darling of the world, if he would give in and bow a little - just says please - Jesus says, "It is written, 'worship the Lord your God and serve him only.'" (Deuteronomy 6:13)

The greatest challenge is save for last; tempting Jesus to test himself in order to get and answer to that perennial existential question, "Who am I?"

"Who am I?" - "Who are we?" form a subconscious loop prompting us to define who we are as individuals and groups at any given moment or situation.  In the moment of Jesus' fasting and prayer, the challenge was, "Who are you Jesus?"

"Are you really God's son?"

Doubt can be a burden too great to bear.  The human mind wants to know - And all Jesus had to do to get the devil off his back and out of his head was to prove the he was God's son. 

To make this more challenging, the devil takes Jesus (takes us to the pinnacle of the Temple) God's house on earth:

"Surely, if you are who you say you are; God's son (God's children), surely God won't let something bad happen to you in God's own house - in his own back yard!"

"Are you who you think you are?  Why don't you jump and find out?"

"Do you really have faith in God, because if you don't jump, are you too afraid to find out?"

"Jump - Prove your faith."

"Is God really watching out for you?" 

"Come on - take a good look at yourself, Jesus.  You've been through the wringer these past forty days.  You're a mess."

"Where's your abba - your daddy in all of this?  Is he even here?" 

"You want to know, don't you?   I know you do"

"Jump."

"It'll be a win/win outcome for you. If God saves you, fine, - I go away.  If not... well - at least you won't be living...  a lie."

"Surely, God will send his angels to protect you."  (Psalm 91:11&12)


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We are all subjected to such inner dialogues.  We are constantly tempted to go for the greener-looking pastures on this side of life, to bow to the temporal; to be a god for a season - 

And why not?  What do we have to lose?

Win/win - right?

Let's face it, it's hard to resist the vistas of temporal reality, hard to ignore the voices both out there and in here (inside one's head), challenging - questioning us to prove who we are and what we're made of. 

At the end of Luke's wilderness narrative, Jesus puts aside the need to prove himself and choose, instead, to listen to that voice which was still ringing in his ears of his heart, after his baptism; the voice of God saying, "You are my beloved, my son, in you I am well pleased."  (Luke 3:22) 

The same voice that spoke to our hearts in our baptisms - "You are mine and I am well pleased with you."  This too forms a continuous loop at the level of our hearts - that whispers ever so gently along with every one of our heat beats, in every moment and situation on this side of life.

The narrative we heard today in Luke is nothing more than a continuation of the narrative that started back in Genesis when this world-wise, serpentine voice got into Eve's head, telling her she had nothing to worry  about (a win/win situation) about eating the forbidden fruit - that she'd become like God. (Genesis 3)  It's a narrative that continues with us today.

Jesus, listening to the voice of God ringing in the ears of his heart, sent the Devil packing for the moment with these words, "It is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"  (Deuteronomy 6:15) 

 In Jesus's final response the devil's true agenda is exposed; trying to get God to jump. 

What tests us tests God.  We are, after all, made in God's image.  We are God's children.

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Throughout Luke's narrative, Jesus's responses were taken from the Book of Deuteronomy - Each one contains a sermon in itself.  We would do well to fill our mind with such scriptures as to take up enough space to limit the type of mental challenges that try to creep in.

The apostle Paul quoted Deuteronomy in his letter to the Romans this morning. (Roman 10:8b-13)  He reminded us, "the word is near you, on you lips and in your heart." (Deuteronomy 30:14)

St. Benedict, in his monastic rule, says, "Listen... and turn... with the ear of your hearts."  (Prologue to the Rule of Benedict)

We are free to choose to live in our heads - or - we can live from the heart, the dwelling place of God, the place where God speaks to us.

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Lent is an old English word meaning Spring - a season of transition and change.  Turning - changing is a constant process on this side of life. 

We humans are, after all, seasonal creatures and creatures for a season.

We have come to associate the Season of Lent with reflection and repentance; as in, taking into account what we've done and  what we left undone and trying to amend or adjust our lives and way of thinking. 

The Franciscan contemplative and theologian, Richard Rohr tells us that the true meaning of  repent is to "change our perspective" to look at things differently.

("Alternative Orthodoxy - Week I - A Different World View,"  Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, Center for Action and Contemplation, February 7, 2016)

Change is inevitable.  The only choice we really have with the challenges that changes bring is how to view them.

A Holy Lent literally means, "Other Spring." 

A Holy Lent invites us to look at this side of life "otherly; " from the heart rather than the head and to listen to voice that gently bears us up - the voice that says, "You are mine."


Until next time, stay faithful.









Monday, February 8, 2016

LOVE BEYOND BELIEF

So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1Corinthians 13:13

 
Last but not least of what I have identified as the affective elements is love.  There is nothing certain in faith, hope and love except the potential capacity to deal with adversity, suffering, and the uncertainty of life. Being affective, they are influential in shaping our perspectives and responses to what life brings.

If you have never read 1 Corinthians 13 or haven't done so in long time, read it now.  The apostle Paul's treatise on love is, in my opinion, his finest moment.  The love of God commonly referred to as agape or unconditional love is present in all aspects of true human love, whether it be the love of family, friends, or the intimate, erotic love between two individuals.

There is no manifestation of true love that is not, at its core, agape.

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

I reference this agape love as unconditional love as opposed to the conditional or conditioned love of infatuation, obsession, and possession.  Love that is unconditional resides in all of us, just as faith and hope resides in all because God resides in all, but like faith and hope unconditional love can be hidden and ignored by infatuation, obsession, and possession which fuel the illusion of certainty, the "forbidden fruit" of feigned truth.  Even the presence of God in our lives can be clouded over by these things.  Nevertheless, they are always present.

The reason Paul declares love to be the greatest of the three affective elements is because unconditional love is always present in every sincere act of faith and hope.  Paul and other New Testament writers offer marriage as the prime example for demonstrating and examining unconditional love, a place where unconditional love in action should be obvious, but, then as now, is unfortunately not always the case and is why the Christian epistles spend a good amount of time talking about presenting marriage as the union between Christ and his Church.  It's application, however, extends far beyond marriage, the family, and the Church.

Paul's definition of unconditional love is summed up in verses four through seven of 1 Corinthians 13:

Love  -

1.  Is patient
2.  Is kind
3.  Does not envy
4.  Does not boast
5.  Is not proud
6.  Is not rude
7.  Is not self-seeking
8.  Is not easily angered
9.  Keeps no record of wrongs
10. Does not delight in evil
11. Rejoices with truth
12. Always protects
13. Always trusts (πιστευει - always acts from faith)
14. Always hopes
15. Always perseveres

The Holy Bible, New International Version 1984 by the International Bible Society

What Paul lists as definitions or manifestations of love is the very image of God in action.  It is a very interesting list that requires more than a cursory glance.  It goes far beyond niceties.  It is presented as the lifestyle we humans were made for.

When I look at the list Paul provided, I am humbled because it appears to be such a tall order, and I know that more often than I care to admit I do exactly the opposite of the things listed.  What mitigates my self-loathing, however. is the fact that I'm not alone. Paul struggled with this as we all do. See Romans 7:18-20.  My point, however, is not to make an excuse but rather an observation.

When I look at the fifteen ways that unconditional love shows itself, it is not that I or anyone consistently demonstrate all fifteen manifestations all the time, but rather when any one of us exercises patience, kindness... refrains from being rude, looks past the wrongs of another...  rejoices with truth, etc. unconditional love breaks through.

What is important, therefore, is that we are mindful of the ways that unconditional love breaks through.

Not every situation is alike.  Some situations call for patience, some call for kindness, some call for restraint on our part, and some may even call for anger.  We don't always think of those moments as displaying love but Paul says they are, and I would agree that when we do these things from the position of care and compassion for another, unconditional love is active.

Near the end of this list Paul says there are some attributes of unconditional love that are always present.  Love always protects.  Love always trusts - always acts from the perspective of faith. Love always hopes. Love always perseveres.   What Paul tells us is that whenever we exercise unconditional love, these are always present.  "Always" in this sense literally means  "all ways."

Unconditional love is multi-dimensional. There is no known barrier that can prevent unconditional love from breaking through.  Whenever it is exercised in any of its forms it always protects whatever or whoever one is being patient, kind, or slow to anger with.  Unconditional love does not work from a perspective of knowing a certain outcome.  It is always acting from the perspective of faith and hope.  As such, it never stops being active.

The last of these always - "always perseveres" connotes the eternal love of God that is present in any acts of unconditional love.

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE IS NEITHER SELFISH NOR SELFLESS

Love seeks to fulfill the needs of the other as the only means of being truly fulfilled in one's self.

Love is never selfish or selfless.

In fact, Jesus tell us to love our neighbors and our enemies as ourselves. The reality Jesus is pointing to is that one cannot effectively love another person without having a sense of self love and self preservation; of seeing one's self as the other. We often hear of altruistic love as being a selfless act as in someone who preserves and protects the life of another human at the risk of losing one's own life.  Giving up one's life for one's friends or another person is not a selfless act; rather, it is the ultimate self-fulfilling act.

I am always impressed by the humility of those who have accomplished some heroic deed, who say, "I'm not hero.  I just did what I had to do" or something to that effect.  Such statements are a testimony to the self-filling aspect of love.  Love of the other has a rebound effect - saving the life of another is, in essence, saving my life. It is perhaps the greatest testimony to our sense of interconnectedness with all things.  Loving the other is loving myself - is loving God who resides in me and in the other.

Selfishness, like anything we deem "ish" in modern parlance; such as, meeting someplace at five-ish or as in the TV sitcom "Blackish," is saying that whatever is "ish" is not fully what that something is. To be selfish is not being fully self - fully who one is - is not a full self. 

Unconditional love can only occur in the context of the full self.

Unconditional love is transcendent and its effects are often unseen or go unrecognized in the short term. As such, unconditional love has an infective property that stays with a person to whom love have been given.

When working as a Human Rights advocate in a mental health institution, I would of my own volition seek out or at the request of a unit's staff or a psychiatrist meet with some extremely angry individuals, who on our first meeting would rake me over the coals in no uncertain terms and often in language that could wither a person, but I never reacted to the expressions of their anger which I saw and understood as expressions of pain.  I just listened patiently until I was told to leave, which sometimes could happen within a few seconds of meeting.

My first encounter with that type of anger, that type of pain, made me think I would not hear from these individuals again only to receive a call, sometimes weeks and even months later from that individual asking me to visit them.  All such experiences led to innumerable visits in which I listened to their pain and anguish, sometime for hours. It could be very draining, but eventually in all of these cases the person in the patient emerged. Where there was once only anger and anguish a smile would break through and laughter, and I knew that healing was happening.   This is why I believe Paul placed patience first in the list of unconditional love's manifestations.

If one is expecting an immediate return of love, especially when dealing with a difficult situation, than one is not loving in an unconditional sense.

STRONG LOVE VERSUS TOUGH LOVE

The term, "Tough Love" seems to be used less nowadays.  At least I'm not hearing it as much now that I'm retired, but when I worked in mental health I heard it used quite frequently.  I was never comfortable with that term.  Too often what is termed "tough love" is, in essence, obsessive or possessive love - conditional love.

This term frequently came to bear on situations where some adolescent was constantly misbehaving, getting in trouble with the law, and deemed unmanageable at home. Some parents were often at wits end trying to figure out how to control the unruly adolescent and would opt for a tough love approch; sending their adolescent to some type of stringent behavioral modification program, such as a boot camp.

While some adolescents left those experiences better behaved others didn't, and I often wonder about the long range effect of those experiences. What, if anything, did these adolescents learn about unconditional love?  How would they be as a father or a mother raising their own children?

I do not doubt that in some of these cases the tough love approach proceeded from the deeper unconditional love of the parents, but it's application in terms of it being tough love risked unconditional love being morphed to mean conditional love. In more than a few cases it's application was very much about conditions; as in, "You either do it my/our way or you can hit the highway."  Such approaches fell under the category of natural consequences, as in, "You brought this on yourself - You're on your own. I/we can't help you anymore." 

How many adolescents have been shown the door to their home by such conditional love?  I believe the numbers are growing and what becomes more distressing is that many adolescents are being kicked out of their homes or leave because they are not being loved, even when many come from families who identify as Christian or religious.

What a lonely place for anyone to be or not be, especially an adolescent.  It is nothing more than sentencing someone to a human version of hell. I have met people in that place.  I have seen the emptiness, the shell-like features of people in this hell, of what once was and what could be again if released from it. 

Christ descended to hell to release peoples' souls so that they could be.  Can we  who bear Christ's name do less?

LOVE BEYOND BELIEF

Perhaps Jesus's most notable teachings on unconditional love come in the form of two parables, "The Good Samaritan" (Luke 10: 25-37) and "The Prodigal Son" (Luke 15:11-32).

If unfamiliar, with either, read them now.

The parables of Jesus are multi-layered and, in general, address more than one situation.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus differentiates conditional love from unconditional love and demonstrates that what constitutes true self love as being fulfilled in the love shown to an other.

The parable of the Good Samaritan is told in the context of a question given to Jesus by a student of Judaic law, a scribe.  He asks,  "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  The motive for asking this question has been subjected to speculation, but I believe it to be a sincere question given the fact that at the end of this story we are told the scribe gets the message.

Jesus took it as a sincere question and this story is Jesus's response to what lies behind the scribe's question which is a sincere concern for doing what is right - a sincere concern about his own well-being - a sincere expression of his self love.  It is the scribes sincere self-love that Jesus bases this story on.

So Jesus answers his self love question by showing him that his self interest, his self love, is only fulfilled in in serving the interests of others, in the act of providing unconditional love to another person.   An added but extremely important twist to the story is that Jesus demonstrates the universality of unconditional love by casting the person who acts from unconditional love as a Samaritan, someone who would have been viewed with contempt by Jesus's audience at the time.  In this story we see the extent to which unconditional love is applied.

Of course this story has many other applications and meanings, but the point I would make is that Jesus, in telling this story pushes his audience's concept of love - our concept of love - beyond the beliefs we have about who to love and the extent to which love should go.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the majority of the storyline addresses the doings or undoings of the younger son, but the storyline is told only to provide context to what Jesus is getting at, which is the unconditional love demonstrated by the father in this narrative.

One could easily question the indulgent nature of the father by dividing the inheritance he would leave his two sons and allow the younger son to throw his portion away on riotous living.  What comes to play in our adult, parental minds is our inclination to treat love conditionally.  I believe Jesus was well aware of that inclination in telling this story.

Jesus is moving us beyond that mindset to a deeper understanding about unconditional love.  Unconditional love is also about detachment.  There is a point in unconditional love, as the saying goes, "to let go and let God." Letting go is not about tough love but rather is about the strength of love that remains in place and at play even when we let go of the things and of people.  In the context of this story we see that unconditional love is about detaching from our infatuation with things, our obsession with having it our own way.  It is about letting go of our possessiveness of the people in our lives.

Through the younger son's narrative we learn something about the infective property of unconditional love.  When he hits slop-bottom (feeding on the waste thrown to the pigs), the love of his father that has always resided in the depth of his being emerges; a love that has always held him even when left to his own desires.

His father's love was the anchor of his soul that gave him the hope and the faith to finally pick himself up from slop-bottom and make the journey home.  He did so not knowing what reception he would receive, but in faith beyond any belief he anticipates - he hopes beyond any belief that some semblance of his father's love awaits.

When he is still at a distance, his ever faithful, ever hopeful, ever loving father runs to him and when finally embraced in the unconditional loving arms of his father - a love that surpassed all the younger son's beliefs, all is restored and love is returned.

Unconditional love, beyond any belief, always and in all ways comes full circle.

Until next time, stay faithful.

























Monday, February 1, 2016

HOPE BEYOND BELIEF

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.  Romans 15:13

In my post" Faith Beyond Belief", I introduced the affective elements of faith, hope, and love.  In that post I wrote about faith as an active force that affects how we act and do things.  In this post, I will give some thought to the second affective element, hope.

THE GOD OF HOPE

When I was a Lutheran, I recall sermons in which pastors presented hope as a sure thing if you believed in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior; as in, "We have a sure hope in the risen Christ."

I remember getting stumped by that statement - questioning in my mind, "What is a sure hope? Certainly that's a contradiction in terms. Hope, to be hope, is anything but sure."

What those pastors were doing was paraphrasing a section from the Letter to the Hebrews:

"We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain,  where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." Hebrews 6:19 & 20 
                       The Holy Bible, New International Version, 1984, International Bible Society 

If the concept of a "sure hope" wasn't confusing enough for me back then, Paul's Epistle to the Romans is even more challenging.

In the verse I selected at the start this post, God is described as the God of hope.

We sometimes become numb to radical nature of what we call God. We want to have a god of control in order to know where we stand because we know where God stands. 

Hope, attached to God, seems to lessen the appearance of an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent being who has everything under control.

What use is hope to God?

Hope expresses a sense of patient anticipation.  As an attribute of God, hope says something about the workings and the will of God. The hopefulness of God hints at the subtle accommodative way in which God works to do God's creative will. 

The hopefulness of God gives us space and time. It accommodates all of our perspectives and experiences which buffet, twist, and turn us in the sea of life while anchoring the substance of our being, our souls, in God's patient anticipation.  

In other words, God is ever-emerging in and through the activities of life and ever-interacting with life, which bears witness to the old saying, "Where there is life, there is hope" and by extension to say,  "Where there is hope, there is God."

HOPE BEYOND BELIEF

Hope in the Face of Hopelessness

The eminent Jewish neurologist and psychiatrist who survived the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, Victor Frankl, wrote about his observations of those who lived and died in Auschwitz in his book, "Man's Search for Meaning."  In his book, I found a lot of hope.  What Frankl observed is that there were those who died simply because they succumbed to the hopelessness their Nazi tormentors wanted them to succumb to.

Frankl also observed that there were others who faced certain death, who knew that they were scheduled to be executed the next day, who decided in their last moments to celebrate life with their friends and neighbors in that dreadful place as the last willful action of their physical life.  They chose hope beyond belief and in so doing they offered hope, offered life, offered strength to their fellow prisoners.  They demonstrated hope to be an anchor of one's soul that is secure, steadfast, and cannot be taken away by anyone or anything.

Hope in the Fog of Uncertainty

That hope is attached to nautical imagery is not surprising. I think the idea of hope being an affective element in our lives was instilled in me for the first time when I stood next to an actual lighthouse looking out over the Pacific ocean on the Oregon coast.

Walking along this coast with my wife was magical.

The air was a scented mix of pine and saltwater that reminded me of saltwater taffy, and walking on or near the waterfront or beach there was a constant low-level hum even when the ocean was relatively calm that indicated the presence of submerged rock outcroppings that posed a real threat to any ship trying to dock.

Then there was the fog that became so thick that it made it hard to drive on land, and I could only imagine what this was like at sea. I began to understand that the lighthouses became much more than a beautiful sight to behold on land; that it was an essential  beacon of hope pointing to a safe haven. Hope in God is such a beacon amidst the dense uncertainty we encounter throughout our lives.

Hope Amidst Despair

Hope is at the heart of every search and rescue mission that is undertaken in spite of all the evidence - all the knowledge that can shape one's belief that doing so will prove to be an act of futility.

Yet, this is what we do as humans.

We search for the one lost sheep, the one lost person against all odds, and we rejoice when the lost is found. We know that in every culture, regardless of religion or ideology, human beings of all nations will work to save the lost and will cross borders to do so.  This is an amazing testimony to the motivating power of hope.

This was Jesus's mission, to give hope, to be hope, "to be a light to the nations." As Christians this becomes our mission as the Body of Christ in the world.  This is where hope proves to be an attribute of God and demonstrates that hope is anchored in the very activity of God.  All who live in hopefulness present the image of God.  Where there is hope, there is God and this crosses all religious and ideological divides.

Hope as Light

Hope is life-giving.  It allows us to be creative  - to bring about life.  Hope motivates us to live,  to move, and to be in and fill the void of apparent nothingness.

"Let there be light" (Gen. 1:3) was the first hopeful act of God that directly resulted in my writing this post, you reading it; in essence, it led to existence, the being of all that is.  We are the result of God's creative hopefulness.

Hope as a Way of Life

God's hopefulness continues with us. "Let your light shine that others may see your good works," (Matt. 5:16) says Jesus.

Let the creative light of hope become a beacon to the good that results from our acting in faith and out of love. These three elements are bound together with the strength of God's love for what God created.

The God of Hope is the sure and steadfast anchor of our souls.

Until next time, stay faithful.