Sunday, January 29, 2017

WORSHIP AS KENOSIS - Part IV - Jesus and Kenosis

"And when Jesus had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when evening was come he was there alone."   Matthew 14:23 [AKJV]

It might strike some of you odd that I start a post on Jesus and kenosis with an obscure verse like this rather than Philippians 2. This verse is easily overlooked because it is squeezed between two of Jesus's famous miracles, the feeding of the five thousand and his walking on water.  The reason I chose to start this discussion with this verse is because in the midst of all the great things Jesus is said to have done, it shows him as the human being he is - tired, worn out, in need of getting away and recharging.

A TWO-TRACK CHRISTOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

There are two theological tracks to choose from when discussing Jesus and kenosis. Simply put, both tracks can be summed up in the concept of Jesus as the Christ being True God and True Man.  The most popular and most orthodox track is the one based on Philippians 2 - what is referred to as High Christology or high-descending Christology.  For the purpose of this post, I'll call it Track One.

TRACK ONE

In Track One. Jesus empties himself of his divine nature to become one of us. The New Testament largely supports this view.  The Gospel of John, as I have explained in numerous posts, not only supports it but largely generates it and takes it to its highest level - Jesus as the only-begotten Son of God, through whom all of creation came into being.  In this track Jesus, as True God descends to become True Man, while never letting go of being True God. 

This perspective is pretty much ingrained in Christian thinking today.  In mainline, more liturgical churches, we say creeds which underscore this view in almost every service offered: " For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven." (Nicene Creed).  It's hard to escape that theology without feeling heretical, but I think its wrong theology and increasingly irrelevant in today's world. 

Being an Episcopalian, however, I'm not one to throw things away.  Rather, I prefer to dust the apostolic creeds off, put them in a tarnish proof bag and shelve them for the time being.  You never know when they might come in handy.  But I think in the world we live in today, we would do well to revisit Jesus and entertain a healthy skepticism about beliefs in general.  The Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry has encouraged us to  engage in a new Jesus Movement.  I think that is wise advice, which brings me to Track Two.

TRACK TWO

The Synoptic Gospels, particularly the teachings of Jesus, in the light of the Hebrew Scriptures, offer a different perspective, which is referred to as low-ascending Christology in some circles.  I will refer to it as Track Two.  In this more obscure view (considered by some heretical), Jesus is totally human in every sense of the word, just like you and me, and God chooses him.  In a manner similar to God choosing Abraham to be the father of the Chosen People,  Jesus is chosen to be his identified son; as God's point-man for redeeming humanity to its rightful place.

In Track Two, Jesus divests himself, not of his divinity, but rather the human proclivity to seek power and glory in order to let the power and glory of God shine through his humanity and bring about a new vision of humanity in the service of others.  In the end, as I have stated in my last post, Jesus so empties himself of power, of his own will, that the only thing left in his dying breath is the very the essence of our humanity, the breath of God, the very image of God that we are all made in.  In this track, Jesus's resurrection is a spiritual resurrection, as Paul indicates in 1 Corinthians 15:42-25.  Jesus is restored, Jesus is resurrected in the full image of God - Jesus is one with God.  In this sense, Jesus becomes true to God - realized God - while never letting go of his and our true humanity. 

What makes the difference between these two perspectives is that while Track One is an attempt to show how deeply God loves us by sending his only begotten Son to die for us, it's almost impossible to see Jesus as something to emulate because Jesus isn't really one of us from the beginning - he becomes one of us.  There's always that nagging thought that Jesus was able to do what he did because he was God, not because he was human.  In Track One Jesus is the perfect human, a sinless human, a spotless human whose only handicap is that he put on our skin. Read the Gospel of John, and you'll see that Jesus is portrayed as figuratively walking about a foot or two above the ground. 

How do you follow that act? 

You don't.  In fact, you can't. 

The only thing you can do is believe it. 

And let's be honest, if there was ever a time to question beliefs promoted as facts, now's the time.

Track Two looks at Jesus completely differently.  In Track Two Jesus is our exemplar. He is one of us because he starts, ends, and is raised as one of us.  Track Two is how I believe the first followers of Jesus understood Jesus.  In fact, they called him the Way, someone you could follow.


THE SPONTINAITY OF GOD
 
 
We rarely, if ever, talk about God as being spontaneous. I don't believe the word, spontaneous or a similar concept, is ever used in the Bible, even though God is portrayed as being spontaneous from time to time.  The problem is we like to think of God as always having a plan - the master-mind and master-manipulator of the universe, but the bible also tells us that we cannot fathom the mind of God.
 
When I hear preachers, theologians, and regular Christian folk talk about God having plan, I can't help but smile.  We like the idea that God has a plan.  Everyone should have a plan about something.  Right?

God having a plan means we should be able to figure God out if we can figure God's plan out.   The reason I smile is because, God being God, doesn't need a plan.
 
God is the plan. 
 
And here's what I mean by that:
 
Start reading the Bible from Genesis, chapter one, verse one.  God is spontaneous in the very first verse of the Bible.  Was there a plan when he created the world?  Was there a plan when he created Adam and then later had to create Eve to help Adam out?  Was there a plan when she ate of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?  Track One says yes, Track Two says perhaps, but not necessarily. If there is a plan, its not one can predict and it speaks to God's constancy rather than God's consistency
 
One thing is to see a pattern, but is a pattern really a plan?  

Think for a moment:  Why Eve?  Why Abram?  Why Moses?  Why Paul?  Why Jesus?  Why these particular people?

Once we start trying to figure out God's plan we run into all sorts of theological quandaries. We feel compelled to explain why these individuals were chosen, and we are tempted to come up with reasons and say something of their exceptional nature.  All of a sudden, we start feeling the trap of predestination.

Such quandaries are put to rest once we understand the spontaneous nature of God.  There is an ambiguity in the choices God makes and I suggest that this ambiguity is important in understanding the love of God in our lives and in the lives of the people we read about in the Bible. 

True Love is spontaneous, unpredictable while being constant, and unwavering in its reliability. Above all else, God is love, and as the ancient hymn "Ubi Caritas" says, "Where true charity and love dwell, God himself is there." The presence of God, as Love is all around us and in us. 

You may be thinking by now, what has spontaneity of God have to do with the kenotic state of Jesus? In studying scripture, a pattern I see is that God works very close to where people are at; where we're at.  God rarely interferes but is constantly involved in what we're doing. 

I see God gently guiding and shaping  the flow and contours of our own human progression, both as individuals and human history as a whole.. There is always a sense of choice and spontaneity in the realms of the human and the divine.   There is a great deal of latitude within the immensity of God and this is why it is important that we understand the role of spontaneity of God in the kenotic state of Jesus as you will hopefully see and come to appreciate.
 
 

THE KENOTIC STATE OF JESUS
 
 
So I invite you to journey with me on an adventure into Christology's Track Two. We start with choices.  God chose Jesus to be his son. 

Before going further, I think it fair to ask how can anyone say that with any degree of certainty? 

One can't. 

The fact is one could say there was a mutual choice in Jesus becoming identified as God's son. One might also ask why am I not capitalizing "Son?"    Personally, I think there's a good a reason to capitalize the term "Son" when applied to Jesus, but I want to be careful in differentiating between the Track One view of Jesus being considered God's only-begotten Son and Jesus being the exemplar son, an example and template for all of God's children. 

As far as God choosing Jesus to be his son, this can be deduced from the earliest Christian writings; the Epistles of Paul and the Gospel of Mark.  Paul, being the earliest Christian writer says nothing of Jesus birth other than he was born of a woman and born under the law [Gal.4:4]. 

This is a curious statement that gets overlooked because the context starts with the word, "In the fullness of time God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law..."  When we hear the word "sent" the orthodox mind immediately thinks, sent from heaven, but that is not at all clear in Paul's writings.  It could also mean that Jesus was sent forth into ministry at the fullness of time.

Then we have the earliest gospel, the Gospel of Mark.  There is no mention of Jesus's birth in Mark.  Jesus show up on the redemption stage literally out of the blue.  Jesus introduction in the earliest Gospel of Mark merely states:

"And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in the Jordan. And straightway, coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened ,and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."  Mark 1:9-11 [AKJV]

That's it.

Chapter One of Mark is mimicked in almost identical terms in Chapters 3 of  the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew.  What is interesting in these accounts is that apparently Jesus did not know he was God's son until after being baptized, why else would God have to tell him that he is his son?   This has all the appearance of a choice and revelation.  It is also in keeping with God's modus operandi of picking someone who, for all appearance, is an average Joe like Abraham.

In Mark, Jesus comes to John the Baptist to be baptized, to be changed, and God does just that by declaring him to be his son.   The inner conversations that occurs in most like events in the Bible were likely experienced as private visions, intuition and/or revelation  that are spoken aloud in all of scripture for us to understand the workings of God's inner dialogue with our thoughts.  How Jesus came to see God as his Father, as our Father, is explained in mythical or mystical terminology and presented as real time events that anyone could have witnessed if they had been there. The irony of allegory, metaphor, and myth is that in order to understand them, one has to treat them as real events to get at their meanings, which are often hidden in one's visceral feelings towards what is being told.  Detach from them and one loses their meaning.

The fact is, nobody today was present when Jesus was baptized.  The writer of Mark was not present.  At best it is a story related by others some forty to fifty years after its occurrence.  The point is (and it is a very important point) that in Mark we see God choosing Jesus to be his son and throughout the rest of the Synoptic Gospels we see Jesus choosing to see God as his Father, the Father of us all.  This was not a new theological perspective, but rather an old theological perspective brought to new light in the person of Jesus.

This revelation, this insight. or intuition about being chosen to be God's exemplar child results in Jesus being driven into the wilderness, which I see as a metaphor for life.  Most ancient theisms have their heroes or gods or demi-gods experience some sort of similar challenge or test that affirms who they are.  Jesus being sent into the wilderness follows this pattern, but is given a unique twist that often is underappreciated. The wilderness is where Jesus engages in a kenotic process of emptying himself of any delusions he has about his self and who he is.

In the case of Jesus, he does not come to the conclusion that he is the Son of God; as in, he is the fullness of God in the flesh.  He is content to let God say that of him and to embrace it without proof. In the end, Jesus defines his true kenotic Self in relation to God as his Father in terms of his being the Son of Man, to be the everyman exemplar chosen by God. 

In fact, a close reading of the temptation story in the Gospel of Luke shows that Jesus resisted the temptation to test if God really was his Father.  The court of heaven's appointed adversary, Satan, tests Jesus on three fronts and two levels:  The three fronts are, the drive to survive, the desire to succeed, and defying faith in favor of certainty regarding what God says. The two levels in which these temptations are carried out are on a physical/mental and mental/spiritual levels.

In essence, Satan is employing the same test/temptation that was given to Eve to exert personal will over the will of God.   Whereas Eve succumbs to her desire to be like God, thus testing whether God's word is valid, Jesus does neither.  Jesus has the advantage of scripture to rebut Satan's temptations and tests.
 
The point of this story is that Jesus is wrung out of any desire for personal power or personal glory. I maintain the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness was originally a Track Two story. If Jesus was God's only begotten Son from birth, from the very foundation of the universe, the temptation would have been considered a waste of time, a mere show. In Track Two these events have real teeth, and Jesus as a pure human chosen to be the exemplar of all God's children really sweats, really doubts, really gets hungry, really loses sleep, really suffers in silence and is really tempted to think about himself and his own needs.

It is not until he resists the temptation to utilize the power of God for his own benefit, that he is shown becoming faint and losing self.  It is then, in this cracking up state, that the real power of God comes shining through in form of angels ministering to Jesus.  As the late song writer Leonard Cohen put it, it's the cracks in our lives that let the light shine through.  Jesus is no different in that regard.

Jesus being sent into the wilderness is one of two major kenotic experiences in Jesus's life. In that experience, Jesus empties himself of all pretentions of self as to who he is or could be to allow him to identify with all other selves, all the children of God that are. Throughout his ministry, Jesus excluded no one as a child of God.   The second is also a wilderness experience; being alone in the darkness of night in the Garden of Gethsemane or the Mount of Olives.  There, at the end of his active teaching and preaching ministry, Jesus finds himself alone facing, once again, the temptation to do something for himself, to cling to the life he so much loves, and once again he empties himself of the drive to survive and the desire to succeed.  There he empties himself of his last drop of willpower to be open to all that God is.

The question that arises in all of this kenotic undertaking of Jesus is what led him, or better put, what allowed him to do it.  Yes God chose Jesus to be his son, the exemplar child for all of us, but if he is our exemplar, what are we to make of him and our lives?   And what does this have to do with worship?

WORSHIP

Let's begin with worship.  There are many forms of worship.  Regardless of the form or method there is one word that stands out when it comes to worship - giving; as in,  giving praise, giving honor, giving glory, and giving thanks.  The other side of worship is what we get out of it, peace of mind, forgiveness, communion with God and our neighbor, etc.   This is what we think of when we go to church or perhaps temple and synagogue. 

There is a another part to worship, another part of giving that is rarely mentioned, at least in Christian circles, and that is devotion.

Worship as devotion is perhaps the deepest form of worship.  By devotion, I am not talking about reading little devotional tracts or saying routine prayers, rather, by devotion I am talking about a way of life, worship as a way of life.  Devotion demands a giving up of our selves, our sense of personal power and will.  Devotion requires creating an inner space that reflects the constancy of God's love. 

Jesus was devoted to God in a way that emptied himself, to make room in his heart, to make the rough places plain.  I see Jesus in a constant state of devotion, a constant state of worship as kenosis.  Kenosis is not just emptying oneself, but emptying for a purpose, emptying to make room, emptying to create a space for God  and for humanity to dwell within.  Jesus shows us this way.  Jesus, himself, needed time for himself, away from the multitudes, to go up into a high place, alone, in the dark to be devoted to the very source of his being, to empty himself of the baggage that he acquired in the healing of those who came to him, to empty himself of the ignorance he encountered, the arrogance that met him, to make room for those who did such things, to make room for those who said nothing. 

In track Two, Jesus is depicted as a work in progress from the moment of his baptism to the day of his resurrection.  He is our example, and we need this example today more than ever.  We need to be devoted to God as Jesus was devoted to God, to let humanity dwell in us as it did in Jesus.   We need to be open to God's spontaneity - God's creative love in our lives - to mimic it.   To that end or to accomplish that end, Jesus advised, "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.


PERFECTION THROUGH KENOSIS

To be honest I often misquoted Matthew 5:48.  As an ardent Track One Christian in my earlier days - where Jesus was totally God from the dawn of time, I quoted this verse as if Jesus was talking about himself, "Be ye perfect as I am perfect."  In Track One Christology, that would be honest mistake but it is not what Jesus said. 

What Jesus said (to quote the Authorized King James Version) is, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."  I have to thank my parish priest for correcting me.  I'm glad he did because it deepens what Jesus was talking about. 

Putting this text in its context, one recognizes it as coming at the end of Jesus's teaching about loving one's neighbors and one's enemies as oneself.  This is the perfection of our Father in heaven - making room for all that is and loving that which God loves - everything. 

The entire Sermon on the Mount could be a teaching about kenosis because it turns all of our most firm ideas and ideologies about reality upside down.  As Christians we readily agree with all these teachings on an intellectual level, but most of us struggle with seeing them as being practical in our workaday existence.  It begins with redefining blessedness or leading a blessed life.  It makes us face the harsh realities of life, spiritual poverty, suffering and mourning, being the object of persecution and hatred in a different light, seeing them as a way to empty ourselves of pretense by embracing the factualness of their existence in the midst of God's love for those who go through such ordeals and those who put others through such ordeals. 

It's not a popular idea.  It never has been and is not likely to become one anytime soon, but it is what we who, identify ourselves as followers of Jesus are called to do.  It must become our devotion, our way of life.  It is why I prefer the title of agnostic rather than believer.  I'm an agnostic for Jesus, for God.  It's not what I know or what I believe, but rather that I try to maintain faith, hope, and love in spite of what I think I know and believe. 

It's not easy and I am not anywhere near getting close to accomplishing any of it.  On my best days, I try to emulate Jesus (if I'm mindful enough); as work in progress.  In general, I see myself like everyone else;  my friends, my neighbors,  and my enemies.  As best I can tell, we're all works in progress, and speaking for myself, I have to admit I screw this up on a regular basis because despite what I think I know and think I believe, none of it really matters if it gets in the way of seeing the divine presence in all that is and trying to make room for it all in the small chambers of my heart.

The only way I can imagine getting to close to this is to practice devotion in the form of kenosis, to daily empty the garbage of  my self in order to make room for the Self I identify as God that is found in all things.   To accomplish that, I frequently find myself finding a corner in my house to sit quietly and let my thoughts tumble by. 

At times, some of them glisten and I have to listen for a bit and then let it go to see if it comes back later on.  If it does, it might end up in one of these posts. 

I pray, not regularly or in prescribed way or in the neurotic sense of trying to get God to do something or stop something.  I pray when I become aware I need to empty the garbage - the inner garbage that I have collected.  I pray when I'm asked, at the time I'm being asked or I'll forget. I pray trying to remember the names of people who've asked for prayer or who I'm mindful of needing it.  I pray for those I don't know, but who I can feel need prayer, need God's presence, which I know is there for them  - mentioning  them reminds me that God is not only there for them, but also for me and the people I love. I pray for the events that disturb me, the people that disturb me -  and after I've done a fair amount of venting  -  I try to bring them into my heart where I can embrace them because it does my heart good to do so after I cleared the trash of my venting away- seriously. 

There seems to be a spiritual wisdom in the practical advice, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."  I think that's a saying Jesus might have come up with.  Hmmm...  At any rate the best place to do that is in one's heart. I totally get why Jesus needed to get away to let go and let God, to empty out in order to make space for what comes around the corner.  That's where worship comes in to help us get our hearts' priorities straight, which will be subject of my next post.

Until next time, stay faithful.  





Sunday, January 22, 2017

THE LENS OF THE CROSS - A homily


“For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  [1Cor.1:18]

For us who are called to follow Jesus, I would suggest that the cross is a lens through which we see the power of God, the power of love, working through the person of Jesus.   As I thought about what Paul wrote, a hymn came to mind that is more associated with Lent than Epiphany, but one which I feel sheds some light on what Paul wrote.

So I invite you to briefly meditate with me on a hymn written in 18th century by the Father of English hymnody, Isaac Watt who wrote:

                                    When I survey the wondrous cross where
 the young Prince of Glory died,
 my richest gain I count but loss,
 and pour contempt on all my pride. 


What do we see when we look at the cross – those we see in our churches and hanging on the walls of our homes? 

 Most of the crosses we see today are made of polished metal or wood - some gilded and encrusted with jewels making it difficult to imagine the rough- hewn wood used to execute traitors, rebels, thieves and murderers on – the cross that Jesus was crucified on.

When we see the cross of Jesus, do we wonder about the injustice in the world that it represents?

When we see the cross, do we see the people we crucify – the people we misjudge, the people we feel the world would be better off without; the bad people who we feel deserve what they get?   Do we see them on Jesus’s cross?

Do we see the people who misjudge and think ill of us?  Do we see our enemies on that cross?

Do we see ourselves on that cross, as the failures we sometimes are for the wrongs we have done and the good we have left undone– for our lack of forgiveness and mercy we are called to do? 

Do we see the people we love, our family members, our friends and our neighbors? 

When we survey that wondrous cross – do we see Jesus?  Because in Jesus we’re all there – all of us – all that is – is on that cross – right there with Jesus.  Because of Jesus, that instrument of torturous death created as cruel tool of human justice becomes the symbol of transforming love in the unfathomable humanity of Jesus.  For on the cross, the very human Jesus did something extraordinarily human. 

Let me say that again, on the cross, the very human Jesus did something extraordinarily human. 

The Gospel of Luke tells us that in the midst of his agony, in the midst of his despair, in the midst of feeling abandoned by the very God he loved as his Father, in the midst of feeling unforgiven, he forgave.  He forgave his tormentor, his enemies, those who hated him, those who mocked him, those who crucified him, and those who abandoned him.

There, in the brokenness of his body, in the brokenness of his contrite heart, and there, in the humility of his emptied spirit, he offered and made a space for all of us and for the God he loved as Father to dwell in unity.   There in that broken, contrite, and humble space he forgave all there is to forgive, and in that eternal moment of unrelenting, undying forgiveness, he restored the relationship between humanity and divinity – between God and mankind.  [Hebrews 10]

So Isaac Watts writes:


Forbid it Lord, that I should boast
                                    save in the cross of Christ my God;
                                    all the vain things that charm me most,
                                    I sacrifice them to his blood.


When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Let this cup pass from me, yet not my will, but your will” there was no booming voice from heaven telling Jesus what to do.  Unlike Adam and Eve in another garden, Jesus didn’t seek power through knowing.  Jesus emptied himself of any sense of power, including the power of his own will. 
And Jesus’s prayer was met with silence – a silence that spoke of choice.

Like us, Jesus always faced a choice – a choice he had from the moment he was sent into the wilderness to be tempted, a choice he had in every step of his ministry – the choice to turn away, to think of number one or to face those who approached. 

Some Jesus scholars have made the intriguing suggestion that when Jesus took his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane or the Mount of Olives he was considering making an escape through the wooded area under the cover of darkness.  The Gospels tells us the disciples were armed and ready for a fight, but Jesus’s struggle was fought  in prayer.  

It was a very human moment, no matter how one looks at it, and it was a very pivotal moment in the redemption narrative. In fact, the story of redemption, the story of salvation hinges on the choice Jesus made that night. The Gospels tells us when he heard the footsteps of those seeking his arrest, instead of running Jesus turned to meet them as he always turned to meet those who approached. He met them in the peace of God.  With every step of his journey into the love of God, Jesus emptied himself of his own will, seeking only to love God by loving that which God loves – the whole of creation.

It is clear that Jesus did not want to die and we can deduce from the psalmist and prophets that God never willed his death or anyone’s death as some sort of blood sacrifice to pay the price of sin.  [Genesis 22, Psalm 51:17, Isaiah 57:15]

In the final analysis, we can say with confidence that Jesus died because Jesus loved.

See, from his head, his hands, his feet
                                    sorrow and love flow mingled down!
                                    Did e’re such love and sorrow meet
                                    or thorns compose so rich a crown?

So what did God see when he looked at the cross that Jesus died on?

God, as our heavenly Father, saw his hope and faith in the goodness of the humanity he created affirmed in the love of Jesus, and in Jesus’s all too human suffering and love, God saw creation restored to its rightful place – a creation made right with God – humanity reflecting the very essence of God - Love.

In Jesus, God sees God. For God is love. 

Through the love of Jesus God sees all of us. Jesus died as one of us – as us – out of love for our heavenly Father who he trusted beyond any certainty of an outcome. [Philippians 2]

In the deathly silence he felt on the cross, Jesus chose to forgive. In Jesus’s forgiveness, God forgives all - And God raised Jesus up and in Jesus, God raises us all.  In Jesus, God saw death’s threat to hold back love, destroyed. 

In the death of Jesus, the power of God’s love for humanity was affirmed in the humanity of Jesus's love for God.

When we survey the wondrous cross of Jesus being brought down the aisle of this church, do we feel the draw; do we hear the call to follow that cross to where ever it leads us – to follow Jesus?

When we see the cross do we feel the strength of God to stand firm in the face injustice and meet it with the face love and the peace of God?

When we see the cross are we reminded to forgive as we have been forgiven – to raise up as we have been raised?

Like Jesus, we have choices each and every day on how to live our lives.  We can see this mortal coil, as William Shakespeare put it, as the be all and end all of all there is to life and live as if there is no tomorrow  -  Or we can see life through the lens of Jesus wondrous cross and say with Isaac Watts:


                                    Were the whole realm of nature mine,
                                    that were an offering far too small;
                                    Love so amazing, so divine
                                    demands my soul, my life, my all.




Thursday, January 19, 2017

WORSHIP AS KENOSIS - Part III - The Broken Spirit and The Contrite Heart

For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it:
thou delightest not in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit:
a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.


Psalm 51:16 & 17  The Authorized King James Version


For thus saith the high and lofty One
that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy;
I dwell in the high and holy place,
with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit,
to revive the spirit of the humble,
and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

 
Isaiah 57:15  The Authorized King James Version
THE HEART



The heart is the seat of our being. This is a biological fact and spiritual truth.  Without the heart our biological life ends. Without the heart our spiritual life has no meaning. The heart is the locus of our deepest emotional or spiritual feelings.  As such, the heart is more than a metaphor as it has both a physical and spiritual function.  The Bible understands both the difference and the connection  between the heat and the mind.  They are often mentioned together as heart and mind.




The heart is mentioned 884 times in Authorized King James Version of the Bible.  The Psalms mention it 130 times followed by Proverbs 82 times, Jeremiah 57 times and Deuteronomy 45 times.  In the New Testament, the Synoptic Gospels talk about the heart 53 times and Paul's Epistle to the Romans and his  first and second Epistle to the Corinthians mentions it 30 times.
   



Why does this matter? 




Perhaps it doesn't, but I think it interesting that in the Book of Leviticus, for example, the heart is mentioned only 4 times and the Gospel of John only mentions it 6 times.  I find it interesting that books of the Bible that don't mention the heart tend to be more legalistic or rigid and ... well ...heartless.  It's something to ponder.




The Bible differentiates between the heart and the mind, but usually if the mind is being mentioned, it is done in connection with the heart. Again, there is also a scientific connection between the two as we know that our thoughts and emotions have a direct effect on the heart.
 




THE BROKEN SPIRIT AND THE CONTRITE HEART




In both Hebrew and Latin the word translated as contrite means to crush or pulverize into powder.

As such, contrition is understood to mean a deep remorse for one's sins, and there are many examples of this meaning in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures.   I would like to offer another perspective on contrition and it's connection to the heart.


The heart is the body's most active muscle. It's a powerhouse of filling up and squeezing out both physically and spiritually.  Metaphorically, the heart can be a hoarder, a place where we store our emotional garbage, never letting go of the things that bother us or attract us in some way for fear that letting go is synonymous with giving in.  


A contrite heart is a healthy heart, a heart that is rhythmic, a heart that flows.  It's like a wine press that, on an emotional or spiritual level, takes a lot of things in but presses them, sorts them out, and produces a sweet flow that improves with age.  This is the kenotic experience, this taking in and emptying out.  


The contemplative mind is close to the contrite heart, as the contemplative mind allows for the flow of thoughts without getting stuck on any particular thought.  It is similar to the humble spirit that Isaiah mentions.  The humble spirit, the deflated the spirit, and the contrite heart, the squeezed out heart, are an open spirit and an open heart.  


The humble (deflated) spirit and the contrite (empty) heart are entities that don't hold onto the smallness of selfishness in the form of insisting one is right or justified when one clearly isn't. These open entities are receptive to the love and light of God, as opposed to a conflated, self righteous spirit and a rock solid, concretized heart.

A WAY OF LIVING


When one considers the heart and mind in the light of worship, one begins to realize that worship is being talked about as a way of life or a byproduct of life.  The Psalms and the prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah, brought this to the forefront of our awareness.  Nothing is more vital to and intimate in our lives than our hearts and minds.  True worship begins and is accomplished there.



The two active attributes of God - love and light - are connected to the heart and mind.  The heart is the seat of love and the mind the receptacle of light.  Sacrifice in the sense used by the psalmists and prophets is about opening the heart and the mind to receive the love and light of God - to make way in the desert of our lives a highway for God.




The influx of God's light and love produces a natural outpouring of gratitude and thanksgiving.  Kenosis allows us a clear vision that life is an intimate gift of God.  It permits one to feel and experience the influx of God's presence which results in an outpouring of one's love in gratitude as a sacrifice of thanksgiving.



The giftedness of life is easily buried by the things of one's life; therefore, the kenotic experience exposes us to our being the unique image of God that each person is.




There is a reason why the prophets and Jesus hold the poor, the sick, the needy, and small children before us.  Those that have little and are dependent are also more likely to feel the influx of God's love and light with gratitude than those of us who have much.




When love can only be understood and expressed as a thing - a tangible gift rather than a heartfelt feeling, it is hard to live a life of gratitude and thanksgiving without a daily infusion of things.  When things are not given or offered, disappointment and frustration take the place of gratitude and the mind can become filled with the darkness of doubt or the paranoia of certitude, making  the heart a repository of anger and fear.


In Christianity, the person of Jesus is presented as the prime example of the kenotic way of life.  The kenotic state of Jesus is generally described Christologically, as Christ's divestiture of divine power to become one of us in the person of Jesus.  There is another way of looking at Jesus, as the raising of Christ as opposed to the descending of Christ from heaven to Earth.


In my next post, I will take a look at Jesus and kenosis.


Until next time, stay faithful.

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

WORSHIP AS KENOSIS - Part II - Atonement

"The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."   John 1:29 The Authorized King James Version

"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly... But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Much more then, being now justified by his blood we shall be saved from wrath through him.  For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.  And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement."  Romans 5:6, 8 - 11  The Authorized King James Version



Atonement is such a dicey theological topic, especially for Christianity.  In fact this is my second attempt to write a post about it.  Why it is so dicey is, in my opinion, that it begs a question that haunts me and, I have no doubt, other thinking Christians:

"Did Jesus have to die for our sins?" 

I have no doubt that Jesus was wrongfully killed, and I can certainly understand the temptation to make out of such a tragedy something purposeful, and yet, if its purpose was to forgive the world its sins (a worthy cause) as in atonement for the sins of the world or to pay the debt of sin for the world, who was the payment going to? 

If the wages of sin is death, who was paid off?  Who or what was satiated by the death of Jesus?   God?  Satan?  Death?

ATONEMENT


In order to understand the quandary, we need to understand "atonement."  The Hebrew word, כפר (kaphar), means to atone; as in, to cover over, to pacify, to propitiate.  From it comes the Hebrew term we're most familiar with, the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, יום םיפור
     
What interested me most about this word is how infrequently it is actually used in the Bible.  In the Hebrew Scriptures it is used in 92 verses of which 44 verses are found in the Book of Leviticus and 11 verses are found in its neighbor the Book of Numbers.  The term is not used in the Greek New Testament.  That it finds its way into English translations is because one can infer it, but the term is not specifically used in the original texts.  So why do Christians use it? 

Here I think we need to rely on historical and hermeneutical context. If one were to rely on defining atonement as forgiveness of sins, then the logic is that atonement appeases God; in that we are powerless against the effects of sin and must appease God to take care of it by turning away from them, covering them, or removing them - a very ancient belief that has managed to stick around.

In an earlier post, I stated that the essential nature of God cannot be offended.  I'm going to stick with that assessment.  So what brought us to this quandary of sin needing to be atoned?   I believe we managed to get there through the differentiating paradigm of religion - of not being able to reconcile the differences we encounter, in the suffering caused by our perceptions of difference between each other, creation, and the God who created all things. We suffer from knowing good and evil; in knowing that something - whatever it is - either has to be right or wrong - good or bad.  It sounds so simple, but let's face it, we're obsessed with this adventure of differentiating in the form of discrimination, of judging things and people.

According to Genesis, it is the burden we bear as the "know-it-alls" we have evolved into.  By stepping back and looking at the broad spectrum of human history, what we know is that we never feel completely satisfied with or are sure of ourselves or others.  This sense of incompleteness, of being different, of lacking certainty, endlessly gnaws at us and made us into the religious creatures we are, clumping around diverse ideological beliefs about who we are, why we're here, where we've been, and where we're headed.

That atonement is a prominent fixture in Judaism and Christianity is the result of finding a logical way out of the perceived hole or holes we find ourselves in, which is identified as sin - the chasm we feel between us and the concept of God as the holy, the righteous, and the complete.

I believe atonement finds it footing in our desire to do something about this divided feeling which is often brought to our awareness when things in our lives get rough and tough.  We need a sense that we can do something about the uncontrollable situations we find ourselves in, including, when we perceive things are not right between ourselves and God.  We seek power, in order to find a way out.  We appeal to the power of God through appeasement in the form of ritual sacrifice.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The Book of Leviticus is concerned with Temple Worship and personal cleanliness as a constant state of being worship-worthy under the guise of Moses's instructions on Tabernacle worship. Everything from eating to bodily functions has a ritual attached to it. The Book of Leviticus comes across portraying God as a demanding deity who has no tolerance for screwing up when it comes to acts of worship. Most notably is the story of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, who used incense in a way not prescribed by God and are summarily killed by God on the spot.  


This is not the patient portrayal of God found at the beginning or the end of the Torah, in Genesis and Deuteronomy. Theologically, the Torah does not appear to be linear set of writings.  Let me clarify by saying that while there is a historic storyline, the theology of the Torah is highly evolved from its presentation of history.  In fact, there are different theologies presented in the Torah.  Atonement is a theological perspective that is associated with priestcraft and ritual purity.  


Like the Gospel of John in the Christian New Testament, the Book of Leviticus is written during a time of religious crisis for the Jewish people.  It was likely written over prolonged period of time extending from just before the destruction of the first Temple to around the fourth century BCE.   

Both Leviticus and the Gospel of John engage in a great deal rhetorical finger pointing as to why the first and second Temples are destroyed without actually saying it.  



In Leviticus the answer is that the people are not worshipping God properly, that they have defiled the Temple and ritual worship. The Jewish people have also led unclean lives, and there becomes an almost obsessive compulsion towards ritual purity as necessary to be absolved for sins that have corrupted the Temple and led to its destruction. Atonement, in the sense portrayed in Leviticus, is used to appease and appeal to God so that God overlooks, covers, and forgives their many sins and iniquities which, given the number of purity rituals, wouldn't be hard to mount up. 

Ritual sacrifice as worship was high theater.  It was meant to be dramatic and awe inspiring.  Worship as a total sense experience in ritual sacrifice was meant to impress upon the worshipper the seriousness of the situation.  While human sacrifice was considered an abomination in Judaism, the fact that the beating heart of a living, breathing animal was stopped, its blood splattered on an altar dedicated to God as a substitute for humans would not have been lost on them. 

After all, human sacrifice was not foreign to them. Their neighbors regularly engaged in appealing to their gods through the sacrifice of their own children, and child sacrifice was suspected to have occurred during the reign of Judah's king, Manasseh.


 
Although atonement is not specifically mentioned in the New Testament, the concept of atonement in Christianity is well established both in doctrine and theology.  Jesus becomes the once and for "many" atoning sacrifice for their sins. (Heb. 9:28)  This is certainly implied in Johannine scripture, as Jesus is portrayed as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Paul also talks about Jesus dying for the sins of the world. This is understandable given that sacrifice was very much part of worship ritual when the New Testament was being written.

HERMENEUTICAL CONTEXT

Early Christian theology sees the death of Jesus as the final propitiation, appeasement, atonement for humanity's entire body of sin and iniquity (past, present, and future sins).  That the word atonement is not specifically found in the New Testament may be due to Greek being unable to find a suitable word to capture this sense of atonement or perhaps that the Greek word interpreted as atonement in English was intended to mean something else entirely.  The word that is sometime defined as atonement is ίλάσχομαι, which means forgiveness or in another form as a means of forgiveness.

In studying this word, I found an interesting notation in the "Greek-English Lexicon of New Testament" by Johannes Louw and Eugene Nida which states, "Though some traditional translations render ίλαστήριον as 'propitiation' this involves a wrong interpretation of the term in question.  Propitiation is essentially a process by which one does a favor to a person in order to make him or her favorably disposed, but in the NT God is never the object of propitiation since he is already on the side of people.  ίλασμός and ίλαστήριον denote a means of forgiveness and not propitiation."

[Greek-English Lexicon of New Testament based on Semantic Domains, by Johannes Louw and Eugene Nida, United Bible Studies, 1989, section 40.12, pg. 504]

This distinction by Louw and Nida is very helpful and telling, which brings me to what I see as a problem in trying to make hermeneutical and historical contexts consistent. To be truthful, other lexicons (ex. Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich) render ίλασμός and ίλαστήριον in terms of propitiation and expiation, but they also acknowledge the fact that they can be translated differently; as in, a means of forgiving sins. Earlier lexicons may do so to bring conformity to how ίλαστήριον  was translated in the English translations  and the doctrinal teachings of the times.   I can understand how a "means of forgiveness" is interpreted as atonement from a historical perspective, but it makes little sense from a hermeneutical point of view; especially, when it is not clear that there is a direct translatable correlation.

What I would bring to bear on this discussion of hermeneutics is that with the historical context of the destruction of the second temple, the meaning of atonement shifted in Judaism where atonement became a matter of the heart that led to a sincere reparation.  For example, an act of reparation between an individual and a person offended or wronged by that individual as being pleasing to God who then overlooks the original misdeeds.  Ironically, in Christianity, the idea of a physical sacrifice being a necessity for the forgiveness of sins stuck, as in Jesus became the once and for many atonement for their sins.

Christian theology seems to struggle with God's role in the death of Jesus; in that, it doesn't fully explain it and tends to deflect any such questions about it to the realm of mystery.  Did Jesus's Father require Jesus to die to appease him or, as it is suggested in some theological circles, did God require it in order to maintain God's righteousness (being consistent with his mandates) while extending his mercy to sinners.   I find such explanations in need of an explanation. They simply don't make sense.

The only role I see God playing in Jesus's death is in raising him from it.

CONSISTENCY VERSUS CONSTANCY

There is a great deal of complexity involved in maintaining a consistent Christian theology of atonement that necessitates Jesus having been a willing sacrifice to remove the sins of the world, as paying some cost created by our sinfulness.  In recent times atonement has been subjected to a theological makeover.   Terms like "atunement" and "at-one-ment" come to mind as a way to lessen the graphic and barbaric implications of a physical blood sacrifice as necessary for the forgiveness of sins and being right with God.

I'm not a big fan of the trendy theological remake of specific terminology in the Bible. I see most remakes an attempt to make the Bible appear consistent in the face of changing theological perspectives.  Even progressive theologians who argue against inerrancy are prone to engage in the act of remaking something they find unpalatable in scripture to offer a consistent portrayal of God and God's purposes.

Our attraction to consistency is, in my opinion, a play for control; a way of exercising power over the powerful or the powerless.  We want our world leaders to be consistent - to be predictable, to stick to what they say or said, no matter how long ago something was said.  If they don't, whatever it is they changed their mind on is considered a flaw, a "flip-flop"  In a like manner, we want God to be consistent, to be predictable, to stick to whatever is said in the bible - in the way that one can interpret it.

Consistency was a term I frequently heard in the field I worked in, mental health; as in providing consistent treatment in order to imprint mental wellness on a patient who was considered unpredictable.  We want a predictable God, just like we want predictable people, so that we know where we stand and what we can do when things go awry.

As a human rights advocate, I frequently found consistent approaches as diminishing the dignity and individuality of the patient.  Trying depict God as a predictable entity that we have a handle on reminds me of the dangers of consistency. At work, I had two quotation on subject of consistency taped above my desk:

"Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead."  - Aldous Huxley

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative" -Oscar Wilde

Consistency gets in the way of perception, of seeing things for what they are and, as Wilde says, it gets in the way of imagination.  God is inscrutable.  God's ways are not our ways.  In the recesses of our reptilian minds, I think the idea of physical sacrifice is desirable because it means we can do something to deflect divine attention from who we think we are.

The problem with Jesus being the atoning sacrifice is that, in the ritual sacrificial the atoning sacrificial victim stays dead - that's the point of atonement - payment is made - and the misdeeds is done.  If God required the sacrifice of his child to pay for the sins of the, God reneged on his own requirement that the wages of sin is death by raising Jesus up.   It was all just an act. I don't see where this preserves God's righteousness while offering mercy to us sinners. To be frank, I think trying to make the death of Jesus, the atoning sacrifice needed to wipe out the sins of the world is simply poor theology. 

Now having said that, am I saying there is no connection between Jesus's death and God forgiving the sins of the world?

No.

What I am saying is that it is poor theology to think that God required Jesus to die in order to forgive the sins of the world.  There is another approach to viewing the death of Jesus that has nothing to do with atonement as the means by which God forgives the sins of the world and that means is kenosis, which I believe has also been subjected to an erroneous theological application regarding the New Testament.

The Bible offers a smorgasbord of theological perspectives that differ greatly at times.  In fact God is depicted as changing God's mind on several occasions. Having that in mind, I see the concept of atonement as requiring a physical sacrifice an evolutionary step in theology of forgiveness and the practice of worship.  In my opinion, it's value is historical rather than functional. As such, I am content to leave atonement as a physical sacrifice or as a human act intended to make reparation for wrongs done to another human and thus pleasing to God without trying to make it something other than that and without turning the death of Jesus into an act of grisly atonement.

By now, if you are a regular reader of my posts, you are aware of my being particular with the certain concepts. Words that are frequently considered synonymous in common usage, I have discovered, are not in theology. For instance, in an English dictionary belief and faith are considered synonymous. By now you know I don't consider them as such.  Consistency is shown to be synonymous with constancy.  I do not consider them as such in theology.

To illustrate this, allow me to make some observations about science and the pursuit of a unified theory of the universe.  I don't think there is anything wrong with looking for a theory that can be consistently applied; that will unlock the mysteries of the universe.  The purpose of science is to look for such things, but in my opinion this search is proving that while there appears to be a constancy to the universe, the universe is constantly inconsistent.  Likewise, there is a constancy about God that is, in my opinion, inconsistent in application.  It has to do with the notion of "God" being what I have referred to as a nominal verb. The universe is still coming into being.  God is still being creative.  As such,  God is love.  God is  light.  The physical properties of the universe appear constant, but their applications may vary given certain conditions.  Love and light are constants but change according to circumstances, or as God famously said to Moses, "I will be what I will be."

Both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures offer a different view of what God is looking for in us and in those who worship. Metaphorically speaking, God is looking for a way into our lives, into our hearts, like Abraham and like Jesus.  The spiritual reality is that God is, and has, and always will be in our lives, but we are limited in grasping the full immensity, immanency, and intimacy of God's presence.  On this side of life we need narratives and high theater to help us wrap our limited senses and our minds around this. This where worship comes in. Worship is that place where we can unload and reconnect in an atmosphere of love, forgiveness, and letting go and letting God, if but for a moment.

In Christianity, atonement and kenosis have a shared application as having happened for our benefit; that our only participation in atonement and kenosis is that we are sinners who have been saved by the blood of Jesus who emptied himself of his divinity to become like us and who atoned for the collective debt our sins have accrued over the centuries.  Such atonement, of course, is based on the condition that we believe this narrative to be true, and it may be true. 

But I consider what I or any one believes does not make things true - no matter how much I want to believe it. Truth, ultimately, is not a matter of belief but a matter of what is.  As such, I feel there is another possible narrative in the scriptures that is just as likely. The other narrative that the Hebrew scripture and the New Testaments offer is that there is a way into kenosis or into a kenotic state connected to worship that gives us a better sense of who God is, who Jesus is, and who we are. Instead of God in the form of Christ coming down to our level, God in Christ is raised up in us, into our awareness by emptying ourselves as Jesus emptied himself of self to become one with God. In my opinion, this is the true nature of worship - the divestiture of self - of the illusion of power. On the surface, that may sound all warm and fluffy, but I contend that it is not; that it has a pragmatic application in theology.

Here's my simple and yet profound take on Jesus and God: Jesus has always been fully and only one of us from the day of his birth to the day of his death, and God has been, is, and will always be part of us from the dawn of creation till its completion or, to put it the other way around, we have been, are, and always will be part of the constancy of God from the dawn of creation till its completion.  This is captured in the concept of Christ being the Alpha and the Omega.

In the present application of God's constancy, we are the individual manifestations of God's image. In this sense, death is not curse or the price one pays for sin.  As I have indicated in a previous post, death is an end to suffering; suffering (not as physical or mental illnesses or disease) as the result of sin is suffering as a loss of relationship with God and with each other; suffering in seeing life as a toil and unfulfilled desires, suffering as a spiritual despair over unanswered questions as to who we are, why we're here, and where we're going.  Theologically, I try not to go much beyond that, as that is plenty.

In my next post, I will discuss the contrite heart as kenosis. 

Until then, stay faithful.