As noted in the first post of this series on a Call For A True Christian Reformation, the teachings about Jesus of Nazareth are preeminent in shaping Christianity; in that, they carry more weight than the teachings of Jesus do. In these first posts, I am broadly addressing the core teaching of Christianity as found in the New Testament, which are the basis upon which all orthodox Christian doctrines are derived. Christian doctrine is largely shaped by the teachings about Jesus which are found primarily in the Epistles and the Gospel of John. The Synoptic Gospels also contain teachings about Jesus, but the importance of the Synoptic Gospels lies in the fact that they are the primary and most reliable source for finding the teachings of Jesus.
The teachings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels consist of sayings, parables, conversations, and most importantly how he carried out his ministry. What one must keep in mind is that there was no one taking notes when Jesus was talking. What we have in the synoptic gospels is recall of what Jesus said pieced together to form a linear narrative about his ministry. Recall is imprecise, at best, but it is all we have from possible second or third-hand sources.
Modern research on recall shows that people directly involved in conversations and traumatic events forget details of an event or a conversation very quickly; in a matter of days or months. Since most of these gospels were written at least one to two decades after Jesus's death, they drew from other written sources that predate them. Biblical scholars point to a common source they labeled as "Q." What is lost to us completely is who or what informed this source, this "Quelle".
One of the fallacies that a true Christian reformation must cope with is the concept of the Holy Bible as the inerrant Word of God. I consider this view an "acceptable heresy" within orthodoxy, but a heresy nevertheless. One cannot understand scripture, if one holds this view. It is likely that Jesus didn't say many of the things recorded in any of the Synoptic Gospels exactly as they are written and I am convinced that most of of what he is quoted as saying in the Gospel of John is the theological perspective of its authors put in Jesus's voice. It is also important to understand that scriptural inspiration is not magical or any more mystical than the works of Shakespeare or Mark Twain.
What strikes me as the easiest things for his disciples and followers to have remembered, however, are the stories of what Jesus did and the parables he told. Like jokes and anecdotes, it easier to remember something that connects with us on an emotional or experiential level; something that says a lot with a few words or makes us think. The "sayings" of Jesus are memorable, including, the sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John (the point of having Jesus say them). Putting the Gospel of John aside for the moment, I want to take a broad look at the sayings of Jesus as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels.
THE SAYINGS OF JESUS
Jesus is noted as having given two sermons in the Synoptic Gospels; the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew and the Sermon on the Plain as recorded in the Gospel of Luke. Both of these sermons contain similar content and could be considered one basic sermon. What is more likely is that these sermons are a collection of various sayings of Jesus that his disciples recalled and were placed in a sermon format to preserve them.
The Sermon on the Mount is the lengthier of the two collections and may have been expanded on, as I consider the Gospel of Matthew to be a later Gospel than the Gospel of Luke. The author(s) of the Gospel of Luke spreads some of the teachings of Jesus found in the Sermon on the Mount throughout its narrative, presenting them as dialogues Jesus had with his disciples or with scribes and others who asked him questions. These teachings of Jesus are largely based on the Hebrew Scriptures found in the Torah, the Psalms and the Prophets. Jesus revamps them in a short memorable form. What they largely deal with is how we should understand ourselves, our neighbors, and our religious practices.
The sayings of Jesus expose Jesus to be well educated in the Hebrew Scriptures. What they reveal is a masterful application of his knowledge of the Prophets and the Psalms. What these collection of sayings also expose is Jesus as the reformer he was.
Perhaps describing Jesus as a reformer seems like an attempt to bring Jesus too far down to earth. People don't seem to have a problem with call Jesus a prophet. I suspect that is because the term prophet has a divine, mystical aura around it. The truth is that prophets are and were reformers; especially the minor prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus strikes me as being more of a reformer than a prophet.
The sayings in his sermons utilize the Hebrew Scriptures to form a new script based on seeing life as a gift, both in the natural world around us and in the human world we have created. This is a perspective that has been largely lost to Christianity in the past eighteen hundred years. Jesus was teaching perennial truths found in the Hebrew Scriptures; shaping them in new and meaningful ways and deepening their meanings and application.
For example, if you are to love your neighbor you need to love yourself because if you don't have love for your self, it will be hard for you to love others and almost impossible for them to love you. Jesus, however, expands this foundational teaching found in the Hebrew Scriptures to define one's neighbor as every other human being; including one's enemies. Furthermore, Jesus teaches that one cannot love God without loving what God loves, which is everything that God created, including who we are as individuals.
Where Jesus the reformer comes into plain sight, however, is when he addresses the hypocrisy of the religious establishment of his day. If we are to take Jesus' teachings on hypocrisy seriously, then we must apply them to our own religious establishments within Christianity and ask where the hypocrisy resides, because if it was true in Jesus' experience, it is true in our experiences. Jesus' harshest words are directed at those who are in authority or think they are in control their religion.
All religious institutions, at some point, tend towards legalism and gate keeping. This largely is the result of what I have described as the differentiating paradigm of religion. Jesus had none of that. He didn't attack the religion itself and we need to be careful when talking about reform that we don't confuse Christian institutionalism with basic Christianity.
We also need to understand that in the New Testament, itself, there are sown the seeds of hypocrisy that naturally occur as a religion evolves. These seeds mostly reside in the teaching about Jesus.
THE PARABLES OF JESUS
The parables of Jesus are only found in the Synoptic Gospels and are the finest example of Jesus's teaching method to help people grasp the message of reformation that he was trying to initiate, a reformation aimed at changing perception (of seeing things for what they truly are) and a reformation of the heart (caring about and loving the things that God cares for and loves). These remarkable short stories frequently turn reality as we know and the reality we've created and keep perpetuating upside down. Robert Capon, an Episcopalian priest wrote a series of books on Jesus's parables in which he identified these teachings as "Parables of the Kingdom," "Parables of Grace," and "Parables of Judgment." They provide a good introductory course into what Jesus was addressing in his use of them.
The beauty of these parables is that they offer us characters we can relate to. If there are more than one character like the Story of the Prodigal Son or the Good Samaritan, the listener can consider each character as representing a characteristic each of us possess. Some of Jesus' parables may strike us as strange, like a shepherd who leaves his flock to find a stray, a woman who obsesses over a lost coin, an unjust steward who is rewarded for reducing the debts owed his master to find favor with those who owe his master a debt, or the owner of a vineyard who pays the same daily wage to someone who worked for him from sun up to those who showed up as the last hour and only worked a short time. Such parables point to the depth of God's unconditional love and grace for all.
Jesus frequently talks about money or wealth in his parable to illustrate that the value of the things we value possess little value in the eyes of God. Jesus referred to money as unrighteous mammon. Mammon consists of those things that have no intrinsic spiritual value to a person. Unrighteous mammon is simply Jesus' way to underscore this truth. Jesus wasn't against wealth, but was concerned how it was used. What he seems to be mostly against was placing undue value on it; as in treating its acquisition as an end rather than a means.
As Jesus saw it, money was meant to be spent on righteous causes. Hoarding money was anathema to Jesus as illustrated in his parable about a master giving his servants varying amounts of coins while was away. Perhaps one of the best illustrations on Jesus view of money is the story of a woman anointing Jesus's head in the Gospel of Mark with expensive nard ointment, an event recorded in the Gospel John as anointing Jesus's feet that caused Judas Iscariot to criticize Jesus for allowing it to be spent in such a wasteful manner.
Jesus's parables also address religious hypocrisy in the form of treating religious notoriety as being favored by God. The parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector or the Rich man and Lazarus reveal Jesus as the reformer without having addressing the form of religion or the possession of wealth. Rather, Jesus points out it is how we practice life and worship as a sincere form of humility, of knowing whose we are that matters.
Jesus addresses the core, the heart of who we are and what we are to be about. It is there that true reformation must take place. Perspective is everything when it comes to reformation. How do we approach prayer? How do we understand the material gifts, the personal talents, and the personal abilities we have?
For example, in both the Gospel of Mark and Luke is told the story of Jesus sitting with his disciples near the Temple's treasury are watching people give their money to the temple, how the rich indeed were giving much, but then a poor widow approaches with a small mite and throws it into the treasury. Jesus observes and tells his disciples that this poor widow gave more than the wealthiest because they gave only a portion of what they possessed, but this poor woman gave all that she had. Jesus drew his parabolic teaching method from his observations of life in general. That, in itself, is a teaching Jesus gives us - to be observant; to look beyond that which glitters and notice the ignored and find the parabolic teachings being presented in the daily events of life.
THE CONVERSATIONS OF JESUS
All of the Gospels contain conversations that Jesus had with his disciples, with scribes, with Pharisees, and with the curious. What is important for us is to pay attention to the context in which these conversations take place. It is also important to set aside what one has been taught about these conversations and take them in with fresh eyes and ears.
Most Christians have been taught to see those who are asking questions or entering into conversations with Jesus; in particular, to see the scribes and Pharisees as trying to trick Jesus. In fact, the Gospels themselves will at times provide editorial comments telling us this is what is going on. Don't go there. Try to take the questions seriously, as asked with sincerity. The reason I say this is because if one doesn't take such questions seriously, it tends to taint the answer Jesus' gives as being similarly insincere and containing a touch of cynicism. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus answers questions directly. In the Gospel of John, Jesus tends to answer the questions people should have asked.
For example, in both Mark 10 and Matthew 19 the Pharisees ask Jesus a question about divorce. Both of these Gospels editorialize the intent of the Pharisees in asking this question as test. Perhaps, but they have a biblical ground for asking it; namely, Deuteronomy 24. If they were testing Jesus to see to what extent Jesus knew the law, it would have been a no-brainer for Jesus, but was that their intent? I don't think so. Both the Pharisees and the scribes were interested in legal application. They knew Jesus knew that it was legal to divorce a wife for cause; in fact, Jesus references cause as a reason in his answer, but they seem to be asking a clarifying question regarding the root of the law, which Jesus bases his answer on.
In his answer, Jesus the reformer brings them back to the basics. He quotes Genesis 2 in saying that when a man and a women are joined in marriage they become one flesh; in essence, one person. Jesus's only reason for permitting a divorce is for infidelity. What is interesting in the telling of this story in Mark and Matthew is that there is a slight but very important difference in their versions of what Jesus is telling the Pharisees. In Matthew, Jesus only addresses the fact that only a man was permitted to divorce his wife, but in Mark, Jesus finishes his comments by saying that a wife can divorce her husband for the same cause of infidelity.
I don't think I've ever heard a sermon on that obscure fact; that from Jesus's perspective, infidelity works both ways and he gave women the right to divorce their husbands for cause. In this case, Mark depicts Jesus making a fundamental change in how divorce should be viewed. This would have been perceived as scandalous by most, but neither Mark or Matthew tell us what kind of response the Pharisees had to what Jesus said.
What this conversation does not do, however, is define marriage. Marriage is never defined in scripture. Scripture merely provides legal (in the religious sense) or ethical parameters for the human practice of marriage. In Jesus' day polygamy was widely practiced. There is no one man and one woman definition that can be derived from anything said in scripture. In the New Testament, the closest thing to defining marital parameters as a one man and one woman relationship is in the 1 Timothy 3, a bishop should be married to one wife. This is sometimes defined as being married only once. Jesus, however, never defines marriage but rather answers the questions addressed to him.
Jesus takes a similar approach regarding questions about the end times. He does not bring up the topic; rather, he addresses the topic because it is brought up by his disciples or others. Again, as with marriage, Jesus shows himself to be a reformer. Apocalyptic themes were popular at a time when Judea was under foreign occupation and rule. Those were tough times and people were intrigued by the idea that God would directly intervene and end the persistent state of occupation that Judah encountered ever since its re-establishment as a kingdom.
Jesus turns this theme on its head and takes it beyond the realm of what we would call nationalism today and makes it personal, makes it judgmental; as in, what one does today will have a personal effect on what will occur at the end of time. He brings the whole topic down to present relationships; as in, how we treat others will be the standard of God's judgement. To worry about tomorrow requires that we are concerned with how we treat today.
THE EXAMPLES OF JESUS
Jesus also taught by example. This is perhaps the most important type of teaching. The injunction "Follow me," the invitation given by Jesus to his disciples was meant to do more than drop everything and tag along beside Jesus, but rather became an invitation to emulate Jesus's actions. Jesus reaches out to the fringe of society; to the least, to the ill, to the pariah of his day. Jesus was accessible to whoever approached to a Roman Centurion, a Syro-Phonecian woman, and to little children. Jesus touched the untouchable and was touched by the unclean. Jesus broke Sabbath laws to address the hypocrisy of religious hoop jumping. Jesus accepted the unacceptable of his culture and forgave the unforgivable by his religion. Jesus prayed and taught us to pray by example. Jesus lived life in the light of God as "Our Father," not just his Father. Jesus exemplified what being truly human meant.
Most importantly, Jesus gave of himself until there was no more self to give. Jesus lived into being the Son that God proclaimed to him to be at his baptism. Living into who we are eventually leads to living out who we are, as Jesus exemplified.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Sunday, January 19, 2020
A CALL FOR A TRUE CHRISTIAN REFORMATION - Part III - Teachings About Jesus
If there is to be a reformation of Christianity, the teachings of Christianity must be examined. The most import of these are the scriptures of the New Testament. In part two of this series, I touched on differentiating between what Jesus taught and the teachings about Jesus. In that post, I noted that the teachings about Jesus dominates Christian dialogue at the expense of his teachings. While I believe that continues to be the case, I also feel there is renewed interest in the teachings of Jesus that have been increasingly connected to social and environmental awareness in the Twenty-first century. In this post, I want to briefly spend time considering the teachings about Jesus in the New Testament.
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
Perhaps, the most pivotal book in the New Testament is the Book of Acts. Written by Luke, the author of the Gospel of Luke, Acts forms the bridge between the Synoptic Gospels and the epistles of Paul, Peter, and James. The Book of Acts is the only writing that records the earliest history of the Church that we know of. It provides background to why the letters of Paul are written and records the earliest attempts by Paul to reform the Church regarding the inclusion of gentiles without their having to convert to Judaism. Although the Acts of the Apostles was written after Paul's letters, we could not possibly understand who Paul is or why he was writing without this vitally important book.
The Book of Acts begins by picking up with Jesus ascension into heaven. Like Luke's nativity story, the ascension story is necessary, if not a convenient, means to explain why Jesus is no longer present on the earth after his resurrection. Ascension stories, like divine birth stories, would not have struck anyone in antiquity as being beyond the realm of possibilities.
The first part of Acts also gives us an account of the first teachings about Jesus as presented by Peter. Peter dominates the first twelve chapters of Acts. This is important as it establishes Peter as the primary spokesperson for who Jesus is. Peter's presence in Acts gives credibility to Paul being an apostle. Acts also presents Peter as an early reformer of this new movement within Judaism, even though he is portrayed as a rather reluctant one when it came to the inclusion of gentiles.
THE EPISTLES
Broadly speaking, the teachings about Jesus in the New Testament come in the form of anecdotes in the Gospels and theological editorials in the Epistles. Let's start with the Epistles of Paul, which are the earliest known New Testament writings. Paul's letters largely address particular concerns he has about the churches he helped establish in the Greek cities of the Roman Empire or to particular individuals; such as, Philemon, Titus and Timothy. It is likely that some, if not all, of Paul's letters were edited by later disciples of his or may have been written in his name. Then there are letters attributed to James, the brother of Jesus followed by the letters of Peter, the letters of John, the letter of Jude (the brother of James), and finally the very esoteric Book of Revelation.
Apart from the Book of Revelation, all of these last groups are addressing particular concerns their authors had at the time of their writing. What they expose,however, is that within a short time after Jesus's resurrection (within fifty years), there was a diverse understanding about who Jesus is. We know this because there are explicit warnings in several of these epistles to avoid specific teachers and their teachings about who Jesus is, which didn't agree with teachings of the authors of these epistles.
What is important to understand about these writings is that they represent an understanding of Jesus that made the most theological sense to the people living in second through the fifth centuries C.E.. They become part of the cannon even though letters like 2 John and 3 John are notably mysterious in nature. In fact, 3 John never mentions Jesus by name. Standing back from an indoctrinated viewpoint, one can see that these letters make little to no reference by their authors about any direct teaching of Jesus found in the Synoptic Gospels. I find that very interesting and odd. If it were not for the Gospels, one would know nothing about anything Jesus taught or did from these epistles.
The letters of Paul come the closest to giving us a picture of Jesus as understood by the earliest followers of Jesus, but Paul's frame of reference is through a vision and is largely concerned with last three days of Jesus's life on earth; Maundy Thursday (the Last Supper), Good Friday (Jesus's crucifixion), and Easter (Jesus's resurrection). Paul's letters are centered in accepting what cannot be known about Jesus from a purely intellectual point of view. Paul's letters expound on the importance of three things when it comes to understanding Jesus, one's experience with Jesus as found through faith, hope and love. For Paul, the post-resurrection Jesus is understood in the light of his experience of Jesus as a spiritual being imprinted with our humanity. Paul did not know Jesus prior to the resurrection event. So he references almost none of Jesus's teachings found in the Synoptic Gospels.
Other epistles are notable for their attempt to prevent what their authors considered were heretical views about who Jesus is. One could argue that even though they do not make direct reference to what Jesus taught, they maintain the fundamental substance of what he taught. Perhaps, but if they do that, it is done in an exclusive fashion by addressing the Elect, the "selected" followers of Jesus. According to the Gospels, Jesus was not that selective about who he dealt with. What we see in all of these letters is the onset of institutionalized Christianity; Christianity as a religion in its own right. As is true with all nascent religions, Christianity gets off track within the fifty years of its nominal founder's teachings.
The assumption most Christians have when reading the Epistles is that their authors were well versed in the Gospels we have today. The likelihood is that they weren't. For example, most biblical scholars believe that the first Christian writings were the letters of Paul with the possible exception of the Gospel of Mark being written during that same time period.
The fact that the stories of Jesus's ministry are sparsely mentioned in any of the epistles does not mean Paul and others did not know of them or some of them, but if they did they largely opted to stick with what those stories said about Jesus rather than paying attention to what Jesus actually as taught in those gospels. A Gospel like John, where Jesus talks a lot about himself should have been a great reference source for them but it wasn't. It is likely that the letters of Paul, Peter, and James predate authorship of all the canonical Gospels.
What is interesting in the early epistles is their referencing the Hebrew Scriptures in explaining who Jesus is. This is particularly noticeable in the Epistle to the Hebrews. What marks this epistle as Pauline in nature is its distancing any comparison between Jesus to Moses and associating Jesus with the mysterious high priest Melchizidek and Abraham. This would be understandable where Paul is concerned because of his views on law and faith, but I will get into that in later posts.
What the Epistles affirm about Jesus of Nazareth is that Jesus is the Christ and is the Son of God. What is not affirmed, except in 1 John, is that Jesus is God's only Son. That designation was a late Johannine descriptor found only in the Gospel of John and the First Epistle of John. In Hebrews 5:4-5 we are offered a differing understanding of Jesus as God's Son, as in being called to be God's Son, similar to Aaron's call, "No one takes honor upon himself; he must be called by God just as Aaron was. So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, 'You are my son; today I have begotten you [made you who you are] .'" And when did this declaration occur? According to the synoptic Gospels (the place all three of these gospels are in agreement) was at his baptism. It is also was declared during Jesus's transfiguration.
If one was to check out all the references made to Hebrew Scriptures in the Letter to the Hebrews, one can clearly see that understanding Jesus as God's Son is derived from how the Hebrew Scriptures used this term. A son of God, was something that would be applied to a king or a leader who carried out God's will. It did not mean a divine being. It meant a human being called to serve a divine purpose. What is important about this being stated in Hebrews is that it exposes the Gospel of John's and 1 John's attestation that Jesus is God's only Son begotten before creation as being inconsistent with the understanding of term God's Son elsewhere in the New Testament and in the Hebrew Scriptures.
This seemingly small discrepancy of placing one word, "only" or placing emphasis in the Nicene on "begotten, not made" point to the vexing questions as to who or precisely what Jesus is. What the Church, in general, came to was a complex compromise that tried to avoid making Jesus being a demigod by establishing a mysterious paradox that made Jesus fully "True God" and "True Man." While one can find the process and arguments that led to this compromise interesting, if not amusing, it answered nothing. That one word, "only," removed Jesus as being on the same level as us and placed him on a higher pedestal than the demigods of ancient Greece and Rome and made Jesus God above all gods to the extent that any understanding of God, in Christianity, had to be seen through the lens of Jesus Christ.
Understandably, what the ancient authors of these epistles and the ancient theologians of that time couldn't do was say that Jesus was one of us without some sort of title that differentiated him from us. Jesus as the Son of God, Jesus as Christ (the anointed - the chosen), and Jesus as Lord became the identity they found useful in differentiating him from the identity he had in Galilee; as simply Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter's son. [NOTE: Capitalization of the word "son" or lord does not appear in the Greek Texts. That it is done in modern translations speaks to the fact that we continue to edit the New Testament with an orthodox agenda in mind Such seemingly small nuances subliminally entrench orthodox compliance as to who Jesus is.]
While the letters of Paul, Peter, and James are notable for their frequent references or connection to Hebrew Scriptures, the letters of John and Jude make no references to the Hebrew Scriptures, which, in my opinion, dates them as written at a much later time than those of Paul, Peter, and James. Even the Book of Revelation makes sparse references to the Hebrew Scriptures, drawing, in a few instances, from the Book of Daniel and the Psalms.
The fact that we see Hebrew Scripture referenced in the earlier epistles is, in my opinion, an attempt to keep Jesus very human because the Hebrew Scriptures do not divinize any human being; not Abraham, not Moses, and not Elijah. Elijah might have ascended to heaven on a fiery chariot and although the Letter of Jude references a legend about Moses' body being at the center of a debate between the Archangel Michel and the devil with Michael winning and taking Moses' body to heaven, neither of them were thought of as being divinized or as being equal to God. That thinking occurs only in one Christian school of theological thought, the Johannine scriptures.
THE GOSPELS
I have written what amounts to be a full commentary on the Gospel of John and if the reader wishes to explore that commentary you can start here and proceed to the posts that follow that Gospel. The Gospel of John is, in its entirety, a teaching about Jesus. There is very little in the Gospel of John that I would attribute to being something Jesus actually said.
The Gospel of John resonates with the synoptic gospels of Mark, Luke, and Matthew in that it references certain events that occurred in those Gospels. John, however, is a work of theology; in particular, it is the primary source for a field of Christian theology known as Christology. John is unique; in that, it talks about Jesus in Jesus's own voice and thus it has carried great weight in shaping how we see Jesus today. The Johannine writings have placed Jesus on the high, unreachable, pedestal that Christianity has come to embrace for that past eighteen hundred years. I will probably be referencing these writings throughout many of these posts, but for the present, I want to spend some time with the teachings about Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels.
Even in the Synoptic Gospels, the teachings about Jesus dominate. What they offer that the Gospel of John doesn't offer is a credible account of what Jesus actually said to the people of his day. Some of the teachings of Jesus appear interwoven into stories about Jesus, that form the context of the teachings about Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. The stories of Jesus' miracles readily come to mind. In my opinion, there are two types of miracle stories in the Synoptic Gospels, miracles that Jesus actually performed and miracles that say something about who Jesus is.
Miracles are a tricky topic. I believe that miracles happen and that we experience the miraculous more than we think, but miracles don't convince us of anything. Miracles happen to Christians, non-Christians, and people who don't believe in a God. Miracles are part of the mystery called life. Miracles involve some perceived good that has occurred that generally wouldn't have occurred within a given set of circumstances.
Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, in one of his books, said something to the effect that stories about miracles never converted any person hearing or reading about them to a particular religion. I would add that miracles are highly personal and if you try telling a person about a miracle that you experienced, the person you are telling it to will either accept it as something good that happened to you or will try to explain it as something that probably has a logical or scientific reason for it having occurred. From personal experience, I can attest to what Rabbi Sachs has said. As such, I won't bother trying to explain miracles, because there is no adequate way of doing so.
In Jesus's day, miracles were more obvious because there was no cure for so many things plaguing people. Jesus was depicted as a healer in the Gospels, who had the ability to raise people understood to be dead back to life [See the story of Jarius's daughter in Luke 8:49-56]. Whether these stories are factual is irrelevant. All of these stories serve as a context to say something about who Jesus is. Healing stories all say something about Jesus's understanding and view of life, death, and the world in which he and we live.
Then there are what I would call the Grand Miracles; miracles like Jesus calming the seas, Jesus walking on the water, and Jesus feeding the four or five thousand. It is unlikely that any of these actually occurred. People don't walk on water, and feeding four of five thousand people from two loaves and five fish is not real, but saying that does not make these stories meaningless. The fact is such stories are loaded with meaning, more than the healing miracles stories are. These stories are saying a great deal about Jesus and about how we should emulate him.
I have talked about the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus walking on water as portrayed in the Gospel of John, which is how I would treat it in any of the Gospels. Understanding the imagery of these stories are vital to understand what they are saying about Jesus, how Jesus viewed the world, how Jesus understood trouble, how Jesus approached situations that were difficult, and how we need to get out of our comfort zones and take a risk at doing something Jesus would do, metaphorically speaking. These Grand Miracle stories are grand by the way they depict Jesus being light enough to rise above the chaos of the life in which he and we live; to feed people with what they really need in order to sustain life, to give when there is nothing apparent to give. What they are not is fact. Like all mythic tales they address the deeper topic of truth and are an attempt to establish the truth of this man's, this Jesus of Nazareth's teachings.
Finally, there are events depicted in the Gospels that are likely to have a basis in reality, but again take on meanings that they likely did not have as they occurred. The question is whether the conversations that took place in these recorded events reflect something that Jesus actually taught. Regardless of whether they were actually said by Jesus or were word placed in Jesus's mouth they are saying something about Jesus more than they depict a teaching of Jesus.
What the Synoptic Gospels tread lightly about when talking about Jesus is attempting to put words into Jesus's mouth about himself. The Synoptic Gospels frequently use the ambiguous term, "Son of Man" when they have Jesus saying something of himself. Theologians try to make this have a meaning in the sense that the Book of Daniel references this title, which is used only twice in those prophecies, but if Jesus used this title his use seems to me to be more in keeping with how the prophet Ezekiel used this term (ninety-five times) to underscore that he was a human like the people he was addressing; that he was not different from them and, therefore, what he was saying applied to them also.
The teachings about Jesus in the all of the canonical Gospels are important, as they form how we have come to understand Jesus from the perspective of the authors of these Gospels. In my next post, I will examine the teachings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
Perhaps, the most pivotal book in the New Testament is the Book of Acts. Written by Luke, the author of the Gospel of Luke, Acts forms the bridge between the Synoptic Gospels and the epistles of Paul, Peter, and James. The Book of Acts is the only writing that records the earliest history of the Church that we know of. It provides background to why the letters of Paul are written and records the earliest attempts by Paul to reform the Church regarding the inclusion of gentiles without their having to convert to Judaism. Although the Acts of the Apostles was written after Paul's letters, we could not possibly understand who Paul is or why he was writing without this vitally important book.
The Book of Acts begins by picking up with Jesus ascension into heaven. Like Luke's nativity story, the ascension story is necessary, if not a convenient, means to explain why Jesus is no longer present on the earth after his resurrection. Ascension stories, like divine birth stories, would not have struck anyone in antiquity as being beyond the realm of possibilities.
The first part of Acts also gives us an account of the first teachings about Jesus as presented by Peter. Peter dominates the first twelve chapters of Acts. This is important as it establishes Peter as the primary spokesperson for who Jesus is. Peter's presence in Acts gives credibility to Paul being an apostle. Acts also presents Peter as an early reformer of this new movement within Judaism, even though he is portrayed as a rather reluctant one when it came to the inclusion of gentiles.
One of the most important aspects of Acts, is that it tells the story of Christianity's Pentecost event, in which the Spirit of God descends on the apostles gathered in a room to celebrate the Jewish Feast of Pentecost, which represents a symbolic transfer of God's favor on Jesus's followers. I believe this story to be pivotal in the untold story as Judaism and Christianity go their separate ways over time. Acts depicts the growing conflict between Judaism and the Jewish followers of Jesus. It depicts the first known act of persecution of Jesus's followers by Jews who weren't; most notably by the Pharisee, Saul who became the apostle, Paul.
Broadly speaking, the teachings about Jesus in the New Testament come in the form of anecdotes in the Gospels and theological editorials in the Epistles. Let's start with the Epistles of Paul, which are the earliest known New Testament writings. Paul's letters largely address particular concerns he has about the churches he helped establish in the Greek cities of the Roman Empire or to particular individuals; such as, Philemon, Titus and Timothy. It is likely that some, if not all, of Paul's letters were edited by later disciples of his or may have been written in his name. Then there are letters attributed to James, the brother of Jesus followed by the letters of Peter, the letters of John, the letter of Jude (the brother of James), and finally the very esoteric Book of Revelation.
Apart from the Book of Revelation, all of these last groups are addressing particular concerns their authors had at the time of their writing. What they expose,however, is that within a short time after Jesus's resurrection (within fifty years), there was a diverse understanding about who Jesus is. We know this because there are explicit warnings in several of these epistles to avoid specific teachers and their teachings about who Jesus is, which didn't agree with teachings of the authors of these epistles.
What is important to understand about these writings is that they represent an understanding of Jesus that made the most theological sense to the people living in second through the fifth centuries C.E.. They become part of the cannon even though letters like 2 John and 3 John are notably mysterious in nature. In fact, 3 John never mentions Jesus by name. Standing back from an indoctrinated viewpoint, one can see that these letters make little to no reference by their authors about any direct teaching of Jesus found in the Synoptic Gospels. I find that very interesting and odd. If it were not for the Gospels, one would know nothing about anything Jesus taught or did from these epistles.
The letters of Paul come the closest to giving us a picture of Jesus as understood by the earliest followers of Jesus, but Paul's frame of reference is through a vision and is largely concerned with last three days of Jesus's life on earth; Maundy Thursday (the Last Supper), Good Friday (Jesus's crucifixion), and Easter (Jesus's resurrection). Paul's letters are centered in accepting what cannot be known about Jesus from a purely intellectual point of view. Paul's letters expound on the importance of three things when it comes to understanding Jesus, one's experience with Jesus as found through faith, hope and love. For Paul, the post-resurrection Jesus is understood in the light of his experience of Jesus as a spiritual being imprinted with our humanity. Paul did not know Jesus prior to the resurrection event. So he references almost none of Jesus's teachings found in the Synoptic Gospels.
Other epistles are notable for their attempt to prevent what their authors considered were heretical views about who Jesus is. One could argue that even though they do not make direct reference to what Jesus taught, they maintain the fundamental substance of what he taught. Perhaps, but if they do that, it is done in an exclusive fashion by addressing the Elect, the "selected" followers of Jesus. According to the Gospels, Jesus was not that selective about who he dealt with. What we see in all of these letters is the onset of institutionalized Christianity; Christianity as a religion in its own right. As is true with all nascent religions, Christianity gets off track within the fifty years of its nominal founder's teachings.
The assumption most Christians have when reading the Epistles is that their authors were well versed in the Gospels we have today. The likelihood is that they weren't. For example, most biblical scholars believe that the first Christian writings were the letters of Paul with the possible exception of the Gospel of Mark being written during that same time period.
The fact that the stories of Jesus's ministry are sparsely mentioned in any of the epistles does not mean Paul and others did not know of them or some of them, but if they did they largely opted to stick with what those stories said about Jesus rather than paying attention to what Jesus actually as taught in those gospels. A Gospel like John, where Jesus talks a lot about himself should have been a great reference source for them but it wasn't. It is likely that the letters of Paul, Peter, and James predate authorship of all the canonical Gospels.
What is interesting in the early epistles is their referencing the Hebrew Scriptures in explaining who Jesus is. This is particularly noticeable in the Epistle to the Hebrews. What marks this epistle as Pauline in nature is its distancing any comparison between Jesus to Moses and associating Jesus with the mysterious high priest Melchizidek and Abraham. This would be understandable where Paul is concerned because of his views on law and faith, but I will get into that in later posts.
What the Epistles affirm about Jesus of Nazareth is that Jesus is the Christ and is the Son of God. What is not affirmed, except in 1 John, is that Jesus is God's only Son. That designation was a late Johannine descriptor found only in the Gospel of John and the First Epistle of John. In Hebrews 5:4-5 we are offered a differing understanding of Jesus as God's Son, as in being called to be God's Son, similar to Aaron's call, "No one takes honor upon himself; he must be called by God just as Aaron was. So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, 'You are my son; today I have begotten you [made you who you are] .'" And when did this declaration occur? According to the synoptic Gospels (the place all three of these gospels are in agreement) was at his baptism. It is also was declared during Jesus's transfiguration.
If one was to check out all the references made to Hebrew Scriptures in the Letter to the Hebrews, one can clearly see that understanding Jesus as God's Son is derived from how the Hebrew Scriptures used this term. A son of God, was something that would be applied to a king or a leader who carried out God's will. It did not mean a divine being. It meant a human being called to serve a divine purpose. What is important about this being stated in Hebrews is that it exposes the Gospel of John's and 1 John's attestation that Jesus is God's only Son begotten before creation as being inconsistent with the understanding of term God's Son elsewhere in the New Testament and in the Hebrew Scriptures.
This seemingly small discrepancy of placing one word, "only" or placing emphasis in the Nicene on "begotten, not made" point to the vexing questions as to who or precisely what Jesus is. What the Church, in general, came to was a complex compromise that tried to avoid making Jesus being a demigod by establishing a mysterious paradox that made Jesus fully "True God" and "True Man." While one can find the process and arguments that led to this compromise interesting, if not amusing, it answered nothing. That one word, "only," removed Jesus as being on the same level as us and placed him on a higher pedestal than the demigods of ancient Greece and Rome and made Jesus God above all gods to the extent that any understanding of God, in Christianity, had to be seen through the lens of Jesus Christ.
Understandably, what the ancient authors of these epistles and the ancient theologians of that time couldn't do was say that Jesus was one of us without some sort of title that differentiated him from us. Jesus as the Son of God, Jesus as Christ (the anointed - the chosen), and Jesus as Lord became the identity they found useful in differentiating him from the identity he had in Galilee; as simply Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter's son. [NOTE: Capitalization of the word "son" or lord does not appear in the Greek Texts. That it is done in modern translations speaks to the fact that we continue to edit the New Testament with an orthodox agenda in mind Such seemingly small nuances subliminally entrench orthodox compliance as to who Jesus is.]
While the letters of Paul, Peter, and James are notable for their frequent references or connection to Hebrew Scriptures, the letters of John and Jude make no references to the Hebrew Scriptures, which, in my opinion, dates them as written at a much later time than those of Paul, Peter, and James. Even the Book of Revelation makes sparse references to the Hebrew Scriptures, drawing, in a few instances, from the Book of Daniel and the Psalms.
The fact that we see Hebrew Scripture referenced in the earlier epistles is, in my opinion, an attempt to keep Jesus very human because the Hebrew Scriptures do not divinize any human being; not Abraham, not Moses, and not Elijah. Elijah might have ascended to heaven on a fiery chariot and although the Letter of Jude references a legend about Moses' body being at the center of a debate between the Archangel Michel and the devil with Michael winning and taking Moses' body to heaven, neither of them were thought of as being divinized or as being equal to God. That thinking occurs only in one Christian school of theological thought, the Johannine scriptures.
THE GOSPELS
I have written what amounts to be a full commentary on the Gospel of John and if the reader wishes to explore that commentary you can start here and proceed to the posts that follow that Gospel. The Gospel of John is, in its entirety, a teaching about Jesus. There is very little in the Gospel of John that I would attribute to being something Jesus actually said.
The Gospel of John resonates with the synoptic gospels of Mark, Luke, and Matthew in that it references certain events that occurred in those Gospels. John, however, is a work of theology; in particular, it is the primary source for a field of Christian theology known as Christology. John is unique; in that, it talks about Jesus in Jesus's own voice and thus it has carried great weight in shaping how we see Jesus today. The Johannine writings have placed Jesus on the high, unreachable, pedestal that Christianity has come to embrace for that past eighteen hundred years. I will probably be referencing these writings throughout many of these posts, but for the present, I want to spend some time with the teachings about Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels.
Even in the Synoptic Gospels, the teachings about Jesus dominate. What they offer that the Gospel of John doesn't offer is a credible account of what Jesus actually said to the people of his day. Some of the teachings of Jesus appear interwoven into stories about Jesus, that form the context of the teachings about Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. The stories of Jesus' miracles readily come to mind. In my opinion, there are two types of miracle stories in the Synoptic Gospels, miracles that Jesus actually performed and miracles that say something about who Jesus is.
Miracles are a tricky topic. I believe that miracles happen and that we experience the miraculous more than we think, but miracles don't convince us of anything. Miracles happen to Christians, non-Christians, and people who don't believe in a God. Miracles are part of the mystery called life. Miracles involve some perceived good that has occurred that generally wouldn't have occurred within a given set of circumstances.
Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, in one of his books, said something to the effect that stories about miracles never converted any person hearing or reading about them to a particular religion. I would add that miracles are highly personal and if you try telling a person about a miracle that you experienced, the person you are telling it to will either accept it as something good that happened to you or will try to explain it as something that probably has a logical or scientific reason for it having occurred. From personal experience, I can attest to what Rabbi Sachs has said. As such, I won't bother trying to explain miracles, because there is no adequate way of doing so.
In Jesus's day, miracles were more obvious because there was no cure for so many things plaguing people. Jesus was depicted as a healer in the Gospels, who had the ability to raise people understood to be dead back to life [See the story of Jarius's daughter in Luke 8:49-56]. Whether these stories are factual is irrelevant. All of these stories serve as a context to say something about who Jesus is. Healing stories all say something about Jesus's understanding and view of life, death, and the world in which he and we live.
Then there are what I would call the Grand Miracles; miracles like Jesus calming the seas, Jesus walking on the water, and Jesus feeding the four or five thousand. It is unlikely that any of these actually occurred. People don't walk on water, and feeding four of five thousand people from two loaves and five fish is not real, but saying that does not make these stories meaningless. The fact is such stories are loaded with meaning, more than the healing miracles stories are. These stories are saying a great deal about Jesus and about how we should emulate him.
I have talked about the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus walking on water as portrayed in the Gospel of John, which is how I would treat it in any of the Gospels. Understanding the imagery of these stories are vital to understand what they are saying about Jesus, how Jesus viewed the world, how Jesus understood trouble, how Jesus approached situations that were difficult, and how we need to get out of our comfort zones and take a risk at doing something Jesus would do, metaphorically speaking. These Grand Miracle stories are grand by the way they depict Jesus being light enough to rise above the chaos of the life in which he and we live; to feed people with what they really need in order to sustain life, to give when there is nothing apparent to give. What they are not is fact. Like all mythic tales they address the deeper topic of truth and are an attempt to establish the truth of this man's, this Jesus of Nazareth's teachings.
Finally, there are events depicted in the Gospels that are likely to have a basis in reality, but again take on meanings that they likely did not have as they occurred. The question is whether the conversations that took place in these recorded events reflect something that Jesus actually taught. Regardless of whether they were actually said by Jesus or were word placed in Jesus's mouth they are saying something about Jesus more than they depict a teaching of Jesus.
What the Synoptic Gospels tread lightly about when talking about Jesus is attempting to put words into Jesus's mouth about himself. The Synoptic Gospels frequently use the ambiguous term, "Son of Man" when they have Jesus saying something of himself. Theologians try to make this have a meaning in the sense that the Book of Daniel references this title, which is used only twice in those prophecies, but if Jesus used this title his use seems to me to be more in keeping with how the prophet Ezekiel used this term (ninety-five times) to underscore that he was a human like the people he was addressing; that he was not different from them and, therefore, what he was saying applied to them also.
The teachings about Jesus in the all of the canonical Gospels are important, as they form how we have come to understand Jesus from the perspective of the authors of these Gospels. In my next post, I will examine the teachings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
Thursday, January 16, 2020
A CALL FOR A TRUE CHRISTIAN REFORMATION - Part II - Being True to Jesus
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father,
Through him all things were made,
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
from the Nicene Creed
A true reformation of Christianity requires an examination of what are considered the basic, core beliefs of Christianity, and by core beliefs, I mean what we believe to be true about Jesus. If one is Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or from a mainline Protestant denomination you will recognize the second article of the Nicene Creed quoted above. Even if you don't recognize it or have never said it, this creed and these words have shaped how most (not all) Christians throughout the world understand who Jesus is.
The potency of this creed is such that reception into most mainline denominations is contingent on believing or at least professing this creed and acknowledging the premise established in its second article, but this creed has a less than stellar history.
This creed was intended to unify Christianity behind a common belief system that identified who was or wasn't a true Christian back in the early days of legalized Christianity in the latter part of the Roman Empire. It's establishment as the standard Christian belief, however, would result in the persecuted becoming the persecutors a few decades after its promulgation in 325 CE. There are blood stains on its history.
The simple fact is that this creed tells us nothing. It is a remarkably void of meaning and guidance. It is a pathetic attempt to explain the truly mysterious and ineffable source of our being by couching the reality of who Jesus is in mystical terms in order to satisfy and protect the imperial visage and power of the Roman emperor, Constantine I, under whose watchful eye it was developed. Most importantly for the early Church, it managed to secure imperial patronage for the emperor having forfeited the required title of "Son of God," an identity held by previous emperors. What wasn't forfeited was the title of pontiff maximus or acting as the divinely appointed high priest or from the Christian viewpoint, serving as Christ's regent on earth, a title later transferred to the Bishop of Rome as the Vicar of Christ. If any reader would like to pursue this history further, I recommend two books by Charles Freeman, "The Closing of the Western Mind" and "AD 381."
The potency of this creed is directly related to its use as the premise to maintain control over those claiming to be Christian and to give authority to the hierarchal structure of mainline Christianity. It continues to be the agent by which mainline churches identify who is or isn't a Christian. And even if it is not regularly spoken or used in worship services or strongly enforced today, it continues to define what orthodox (right-minded) Christianity is. As noted above, in many denominations one cannot be received as a member, identified as a Christian, or become a pastor or a priest unless one can confess this creed and protect its authority as the Church's primary doctrinal position on who God in Christ is.
I'm an Episcopalian (until I'm thrown out) and fully recognize and understand the prevalence of this creed throughout the liturgies found in the Episcopal Church's "Book of Common Prayer." I've heard people whole-heartedly stand by this creed even though I am fairly confident they don't understand it or know anything about it. It's treated in most liturgical churches as a Church's Pledge of Allegiance said every Sunday, but this creed is so unlike the Pledge of Allegiance to the USA flag which tells one something about who Americans are and how they're supposed to act. This creed does none of that.
THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS AND THE TEACHINGS ABOUT JESUS
At this point, I need to differentiate between Christianity and what I understand to be the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Throughout many of my posts, I have differentiated the teachings of Jesus as opposed to the teachings about Jesus as found in the canonical New Testament. Let me be clear that I am not advocating throwing out the New Testament canon or throwing away the Nicene Creed, but rather I am advocating a need to understand them and learn what they are and what they are not in the light of the knowledge we possess today; knowledge about ourselves, our world, and the universe we live in. In the case of the Nicene Creed, I would simply shelve it as a historical artifact amongst any number of documents associated with the bloody history of the Church.
Christianity and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth are not exactly synonymous. Christianity contains the teaching of Jesus, but most Christian teachings go far beyond them to the point of making them irrelevant. Christianity puts on less than equal footing the teachings of Jesus with the teachings about Jesus. One can easily differentiate between the teaching of Jesus and the teachings about Jesus in the Gospels, if one wants to. Thomas Jefferson notably did back in his day. It is the teaching about Jesus in Christianity that have received the greatest attention and such teachings continue to dominate Christian dialogue. In my opinion, that needs to change if there is to be any hope for a reformation. We must be able to differentiate between the two types of teaching and decide that the teachings of Jesus carry more weight than the speculative teachings about Jesus.
So the basic question at the heart of this call to reformation is the question that began to derail Christianity beginning around the start of the second century C. E. and brought us to the point of no return during the Council of Nicea at the start of the fourth century C.E.
WHO IS JESUS?
To even ask this question in the twenty-first century feels odd because if we were talking about anyone else the answer would be a simple and straightforward, "Jesus is a man; as in, Jesus is a human being." That isn't hard to say unless you consider yourself a Christian; in which case, you are likely to add that Jesus is the Son of God. But let's stick with the provable for the moment.
It is important to keep Jesus human. Jesus is a human being. Period. Full stop.
Let us stay with that because keeping Jesus human makes being a human a good thing.
As I said in my previous post, in order to sift through eighteen hundred or more years of doctrine and theology, I may inject some new or newly brought to light ideas that have been around for some time.
Allow me to inject and offer a much simpler creed for consideration as we start the sifting through process:
WHAT IS TRUE ABOUT JESUS IS TRUE ABOUT US.
Or let's try turning this around and say,
WHAT IS TRUE ABOUT OUR NATURE IS TRUE ABOUT JESUS' NATURE.
Compare those statements with the second article of the Nicene Creed. Are they in any way comparable? If so, where do they connect? Where do they disconnect?
Let's face it. There are some glaring disconnects. If I would have quoted the full second article of the creed, one could recognize being born, suffering, dying and possibly resurrection as things Jesus experienced and that we have and will eventually experience. Other than that there is nothing.
Which is easier to wrap one's head and heart around, a Jesus who comes down from heaven or a Jesus who is one of us and understands exactly who we are and, more importantly, raises us up to understand who we are and whose we are?
It might be easier to want to believe in a Jesus who came down from heaven, because in that sense, we're off the hook trying to act or be like Jesus. The fact is one has to suspend a lot of what we know about being a human being if we want to keep Jesus in the "TRUE GOD" category of Christian doctrine.
I can hear the questions, but what about...? You can fill in anything you like in that question: such as, what about the stories of his birth? What about the miracles? What about the resurrection?
These are all good questions; all necessary questions, and questions that need to be addressed, but in due time.
THE GOSPELS AS EDITORIALS
If I were to define Holy Scripture in the light of how we understand literature in the twenty-first century, I would define all of scripture, all writings considered holy, as "other," as being editorial in nature. They are commentaries on what people thought about God or the gods in relationship to us humans and why the human condition is such as it is. Yes, they are, at times, based on historical or reflect common events. Frequently they engage in creating speculative stories about why we exist to illustrate how we should relate to each other and to the source of our being, but fundamentally they are editorial and they are largely editorials that have been edited throughout their existence by scholars. There is nothing magical or mysterious about their being scripture or that any of them are the direct "Word of God." They are, in fact, words about God and, more importantly, they are words about who we are in this vast universe.
All writing is inspired, including this post. I'm not claiming that God is directly inspiring me to write what I'm writing, but the topic of God is, the question who is Jesus is, the topic of Christianity is, the topic of religion as a whole is. Such topics are inspiring in themselves. I believe in inspiration.
And what I'm writing is editorial by nature. That's what all human efforts at literature is; a way of expressing who we are, what we feel, what we think and a way of figuring ourselves out.
This only becomes problematic when, as twenty-first century individuals, we start trying to relate to the editorial perspective of someone who is writing from a first and second century perspective of their world and trying to make it relevant to the world we live in.
Admittedly, I am walking a theological tightrope here, but stay with me.
What I am not saying is that the Gospels are false or were written as an attempt to mislead us. The authors understood why they were writing in the way they wrote. They understood metaphor, the significance of applying numerology and astrology in their world and they used them, editorially, to explain the experience of Jesus. If they mislead us today, it is because of the way we were taught to understand them and to believe such indoctrinated understandings as truth.
Let's take the birth of Jesus as told in the Gospel of Luke and Matthew.
In the first century CE, very few people would have possessed an understanding that all humans are alike. Civilization in any part of the world, at the time, would have been extremely stratified socially. Slaves were the predominant social class of the day. Slaves were dispensable. Human existence was precarious at best and many lived by hook or by crook.
If someone was going to address or change the living conditions of the time, they had to be an extreme exception; especially, if they came from a class other than those in power. Added to this was the view of human suffering based on sinfulness or incurring the wrath of the gods for some reason, which could only be appeased through sacrifice. A view that would shape Christianity's understanding of Jesus' death. People didn't just raise themselves to a higher level of being unless the gods were involved. Look at any religion of the time. Any recognized founder or leader had to be raised up to that level by the god or appointed by God, and such resurrections were largely viewed as the result of direct, divine intervention.
Saying that Jesus was the Messiah after being born of a carpenter and his wife from the dusty Galilean outpost of Nazareth would have had little appeal if that is all that was known of his origins. So it stands to reason that there must be more, and these early sincere authors of the Gospels garnered speculative meanings from other known events of his life that could be useful, like being born in Bethlehem and spending some of his early years in Egypt.
Without any angelic embellishments or travels by seers from the East, these events are likely to have happened. By themselves there is nothing mystical or mysterious about them.
The strange thing about the synoptic Gospels is that the earliest, Mark, makes no attempt to explain Jesus' origin but rather, in keeping with much of Hebrew scripture's depiction of notable persons, has him appear on the world stage when he starts his ministry. It would appear to me that is because Mark's audience was primarily Jewish and saw themselves as Jewish followers of Jesus. Matthew and Luke both talk about Jesus' birth but from very different perspectives and with an obvious agenda detected in the way they editorialize the event. Did angels appear to shepherds? Did wise men make their way to offer gold, frankincense, and myrrh? Probably not and there is definitely nothing in the historical record or any other human experience to back any of those stories up.
The most disturbing feature of Matthew's and Luke's description of Jesus' birth is that it is not a fully human birth at all. And the reason, in their minds, was that Jesus just couldn't be exactly one of us at all. Jesus had to have a direct link to God, himself, if he, like other legendary figures in Greek, Roman and Egyptian lore was to find acceptance in the peoples of those regions and those religions.
Think about that for a moment; in terms of our understanding of things today.
What does this "necessity" of Jesus having to be a demi-god say about us?
It certainly paints the male of our species in less than a capable light.
Are we so unclean, so filthy and unsalvageable that God could only "come down" and impregnate an innocent, young, virgin girl to make sure their offspring, his Son, would be the spotless Lamb of God portrayed in the Gospel of John?
That's the stuff of ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian religions of the day. It certainly wasn't a Jewish notion.
It only makes sense given the time in which it was written and the audience that would have received such stories. These stories are editorial commentaries; in that, if Christianity was to make any inroads into the pagan world of ancient Greece and Rome, there needed to be some semblance, some reference to their understanding of how a divine presence is manifested in a human being to make the story of Jesus palatable to the religious tastes of that audience.
Theologically speaking in the twenty-first century, it is vitally important to understand that reasoning and to understand and accept Jesus as having a biological human father who impregnated his biological human mother; that he is not the product of a divine tryst. It makes no sense today, and we shouldn't try to act like it does. That is not to say, we can't find meanings in these stories. Mythic language is used to convey truths that are not readily explained by mere facts. Myths are highly editorial about the human condition.
The true Jesus didn't come down from heaven. He was raised up. He had to grow up just like the rest of us guys. And Jesus had to evolve into the person we know as the Christ. There is nothing magical about or mystical about his origins other than the mystery surrounding our own existence, and that is mysterious enough.
The importance of Jesus being just like us and we being just like Jesus is that in Jesus of Nazareth God, that Being in which we live and move and have our being, re-establishes and shows who we truly are and how we ought to act.
IF IT IS TRUE ABOUT JESUS, IT IS TRUE ABOUT US.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father,
Through him all things were made,
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
from the Nicene Creed
A true reformation of Christianity requires an examination of what are considered the basic, core beliefs of Christianity, and by core beliefs, I mean what we believe to be true about Jesus. If one is Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or from a mainline Protestant denomination you will recognize the second article of the Nicene Creed quoted above. Even if you don't recognize it or have never said it, this creed and these words have shaped how most (not all) Christians throughout the world understand who Jesus is.
The potency of this creed is such that reception into most mainline denominations is contingent on believing or at least professing this creed and acknowledging the premise established in its second article, but this creed has a less than stellar history.
This creed was intended to unify Christianity behind a common belief system that identified who was or wasn't a true Christian back in the early days of legalized Christianity in the latter part of the Roman Empire. It's establishment as the standard Christian belief, however, would result in the persecuted becoming the persecutors a few decades after its promulgation in 325 CE. There are blood stains on its history.
The simple fact is that this creed tells us nothing. It is a remarkably void of meaning and guidance. It is a pathetic attempt to explain the truly mysterious and ineffable source of our being by couching the reality of who Jesus is in mystical terms in order to satisfy and protect the imperial visage and power of the Roman emperor, Constantine I, under whose watchful eye it was developed. Most importantly for the early Church, it managed to secure imperial patronage for the emperor having forfeited the required title of "Son of God," an identity held by previous emperors. What wasn't forfeited was the title of pontiff maximus or acting as the divinely appointed high priest or from the Christian viewpoint, serving as Christ's regent on earth, a title later transferred to the Bishop of Rome as the Vicar of Christ. If any reader would like to pursue this history further, I recommend two books by Charles Freeman, "The Closing of the Western Mind" and "AD 381."
The potency of this creed is directly related to its use as the premise to maintain control over those claiming to be Christian and to give authority to the hierarchal structure of mainline Christianity. It continues to be the agent by which mainline churches identify who is or isn't a Christian. And even if it is not regularly spoken or used in worship services or strongly enforced today, it continues to define what orthodox (right-minded) Christianity is. As noted above, in many denominations one cannot be received as a member, identified as a Christian, or become a pastor or a priest unless one can confess this creed and protect its authority as the Church's primary doctrinal position on who God in Christ is.
I'm an Episcopalian (until I'm thrown out) and fully recognize and understand the prevalence of this creed throughout the liturgies found in the Episcopal Church's "Book of Common Prayer." I've heard people whole-heartedly stand by this creed even though I am fairly confident they don't understand it or know anything about it. It's treated in most liturgical churches as a Church's Pledge of Allegiance said every Sunday, but this creed is so unlike the Pledge of Allegiance to the USA flag which tells one something about who Americans are and how they're supposed to act. This creed does none of that.
THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS AND THE TEACHINGS ABOUT JESUS
At this point, I need to differentiate between Christianity and what I understand to be the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Throughout many of my posts, I have differentiated the teachings of Jesus as opposed to the teachings about Jesus as found in the canonical New Testament. Let me be clear that I am not advocating throwing out the New Testament canon or throwing away the Nicene Creed, but rather I am advocating a need to understand them and learn what they are and what they are not in the light of the knowledge we possess today; knowledge about ourselves, our world, and the universe we live in. In the case of the Nicene Creed, I would simply shelve it as a historical artifact amongst any number of documents associated with the bloody history of the Church.
Christianity and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth are not exactly synonymous. Christianity contains the teaching of Jesus, but most Christian teachings go far beyond them to the point of making them irrelevant. Christianity puts on less than equal footing the teachings of Jesus with the teachings about Jesus. One can easily differentiate between the teaching of Jesus and the teachings about Jesus in the Gospels, if one wants to. Thomas Jefferson notably did back in his day. It is the teaching about Jesus in Christianity that have received the greatest attention and such teachings continue to dominate Christian dialogue. In my opinion, that needs to change if there is to be any hope for a reformation. We must be able to differentiate between the two types of teaching and decide that the teachings of Jesus carry more weight than the speculative teachings about Jesus.
So the basic question at the heart of this call to reformation is the question that began to derail Christianity beginning around the start of the second century C. E. and brought us to the point of no return during the Council of Nicea at the start of the fourth century C.E.
WHO IS JESUS?
To even ask this question in the twenty-first century feels odd because if we were talking about anyone else the answer would be a simple and straightforward, "Jesus is a man; as in, Jesus is a human being." That isn't hard to say unless you consider yourself a Christian; in which case, you are likely to add that Jesus is the Son of God. But let's stick with the provable for the moment.
It is important to keep Jesus human. Jesus is a human being. Period. Full stop.
Let us stay with that because keeping Jesus human makes being a human a good thing.
As I said in my previous post, in order to sift through eighteen hundred or more years of doctrine and theology, I may inject some new or newly brought to light ideas that have been around for some time.
Allow me to inject and offer a much simpler creed for consideration as we start the sifting through process:
WHAT IS TRUE ABOUT JESUS IS TRUE ABOUT US.
Or let's try turning this around and say,
WHAT IS TRUE ABOUT OUR NATURE IS TRUE ABOUT JESUS' NATURE.
Compare those statements with the second article of the Nicene Creed. Are they in any way comparable? If so, where do they connect? Where do they disconnect?
Let's face it. There are some glaring disconnects. If I would have quoted the full second article of the creed, one could recognize being born, suffering, dying and possibly resurrection as things Jesus experienced and that we have and will eventually experience. Other than that there is nothing.
Which is easier to wrap one's head and heart around, a Jesus who comes down from heaven or a Jesus who is one of us and understands exactly who we are and, more importantly, raises us up to understand who we are and whose we are?
It might be easier to want to believe in a Jesus who came down from heaven, because in that sense, we're off the hook trying to act or be like Jesus. The fact is one has to suspend a lot of what we know about being a human being if we want to keep Jesus in the "TRUE GOD" category of Christian doctrine.
I can hear the questions, but what about...? You can fill in anything you like in that question: such as, what about the stories of his birth? What about the miracles? What about the resurrection?
These are all good questions; all necessary questions, and questions that need to be addressed, but in due time.
THE GOSPELS AS EDITORIALS
If I were to define Holy Scripture in the light of how we understand literature in the twenty-first century, I would define all of scripture, all writings considered holy, as "other," as being editorial in nature. They are commentaries on what people thought about God or the gods in relationship to us humans and why the human condition is such as it is. Yes, they are, at times, based on historical or reflect common events. Frequently they engage in creating speculative stories about why we exist to illustrate how we should relate to each other and to the source of our being, but fundamentally they are editorial and they are largely editorials that have been edited throughout their existence by scholars. There is nothing magical or mysterious about their being scripture or that any of them are the direct "Word of God." They are, in fact, words about God and, more importantly, they are words about who we are in this vast universe.
All writing is inspired, including this post. I'm not claiming that God is directly inspiring me to write what I'm writing, but the topic of God is, the question who is Jesus is, the topic of Christianity is, the topic of religion as a whole is. Such topics are inspiring in themselves. I believe in inspiration.
And what I'm writing is editorial by nature. That's what all human efforts at literature is; a way of expressing who we are, what we feel, what we think and a way of figuring ourselves out.
This only becomes problematic when, as twenty-first century individuals, we start trying to relate to the editorial perspective of someone who is writing from a first and second century perspective of their world and trying to make it relevant to the world we live in.
Admittedly, I am walking a theological tightrope here, but stay with me.
What I am not saying is that the Gospels are false or were written as an attempt to mislead us. The authors understood why they were writing in the way they wrote. They understood metaphor, the significance of applying numerology and astrology in their world and they used them, editorially, to explain the experience of Jesus. If they mislead us today, it is because of the way we were taught to understand them and to believe such indoctrinated understandings as truth.
Let's take the birth of Jesus as told in the Gospel of Luke and Matthew.
In the first century CE, very few people would have possessed an understanding that all humans are alike. Civilization in any part of the world, at the time, would have been extremely stratified socially. Slaves were the predominant social class of the day. Slaves were dispensable. Human existence was precarious at best and many lived by hook or by crook.
If someone was going to address or change the living conditions of the time, they had to be an extreme exception; especially, if they came from a class other than those in power. Added to this was the view of human suffering based on sinfulness or incurring the wrath of the gods for some reason, which could only be appeased through sacrifice. A view that would shape Christianity's understanding of Jesus' death. People didn't just raise themselves to a higher level of being unless the gods were involved. Look at any religion of the time. Any recognized founder or leader had to be raised up to that level by the god or appointed by God, and such resurrections were largely viewed as the result of direct, divine intervention.
Saying that Jesus was the Messiah after being born of a carpenter and his wife from the dusty Galilean outpost of Nazareth would have had little appeal if that is all that was known of his origins. So it stands to reason that there must be more, and these early sincere authors of the Gospels garnered speculative meanings from other known events of his life that could be useful, like being born in Bethlehem and spending some of his early years in Egypt.
Without any angelic embellishments or travels by seers from the East, these events are likely to have happened. By themselves there is nothing mystical or mysterious about them.
The strange thing about the synoptic Gospels is that the earliest, Mark, makes no attempt to explain Jesus' origin but rather, in keeping with much of Hebrew scripture's depiction of notable persons, has him appear on the world stage when he starts his ministry. It would appear to me that is because Mark's audience was primarily Jewish and saw themselves as Jewish followers of Jesus. Matthew and Luke both talk about Jesus' birth but from very different perspectives and with an obvious agenda detected in the way they editorialize the event. Did angels appear to shepherds? Did wise men make their way to offer gold, frankincense, and myrrh? Probably not and there is definitely nothing in the historical record or any other human experience to back any of those stories up.
The most disturbing feature of Matthew's and Luke's description of Jesus' birth is that it is not a fully human birth at all. And the reason, in their minds, was that Jesus just couldn't be exactly one of us at all. Jesus had to have a direct link to God, himself, if he, like other legendary figures in Greek, Roman and Egyptian lore was to find acceptance in the peoples of those regions and those religions.
Think about that for a moment; in terms of our understanding of things today.
What does this "necessity" of Jesus having to be a demi-god say about us?
It certainly paints the male of our species in less than a capable light.
Are we so unclean, so filthy and unsalvageable that God could only "come down" and impregnate an innocent, young, virgin girl to make sure their offspring, his Son, would be the spotless Lamb of God portrayed in the Gospel of John?
That's the stuff of ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian religions of the day. It certainly wasn't a Jewish notion.
It only makes sense given the time in which it was written and the audience that would have received such stories. These stories are editorial commentaries; in that, if Christianity was to make any inroads into the pagan world of ancient Greece and Rome, there needed to be some semblance, some reference to their understanding of how a divine presence is manifested in a human being to make the story of Jesus palatable to the religious tastes of that audience.
Theologically speaking in the twenty-first century, it is vitally important to understand that reasoning and to understand and accept Jesus as having a biological human father who impregnated his biological human mother; that he is not the product of a divine tryst. It makes no sense today, and we shouldn't try to act like it does. That is not to say, we can't find meanings in these stories. Mythic language is used to convey truths that are not readily explained by mere facts. Myths are highly editorial about the human condition.
The true Jesus didn't come down from heaven. He was raised up. He had to grow up just like the rest of us guys. And Jesus had to evolve into the person we know as the Christ. There is nothing magical about or mystical about his origins other than the mystery surrounding our own existence, and that is mysterious enough.
The importance of Jesus being just like us and we being just like Jesus is that in Jesus of Nazareth God, that Being in which we live and move and have our being, re-establishes and shows who we truly are and how we ought to act.
IF IT IS TRUE ABOUT JESUS, IT IS TRUE ABOUT US.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
A CALL FOR A TRUE CHRISTIAN REFORMATION - Jesus The Reformer
For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. Isaiah 65:17
I have faith in a God whose delight is in creating and making all things new, whose minimalist nature rejoices in experiencing life as evolution and growth. When things get too big, they collapse and so it is on earth as it is in the universe we find ourselves in. All of this is said to put into perspective what I am calling for, a true reformation of Christianity.
Christianity has been fractalized and fractured into thousands of shards that has been the result of trying to guard and maintain control of Christian belief. The irony in this fractalizing process is that all of the pieces basically look alike; are merely small mirror images of what they broke away from. Although Christianity is considered the largest religion in the world, it is extremely fractured and is beginning to collapse under its collective weight. Ecumenism, finding common ground, has not led to preventing this collapse as the relevancy of the Christian Church (as a whole) is what is giving way.
What leads me to consider the time is right for a true reformation to take place is that we are entering into a post-Christian era. Scriptures frequently reference agrarian images to make a point about the minimalist nature of God. Pruning comes to mind; as in, cutting trees and vines back to a manageable size in order to encourage growth.
A true reformation is not about trying to put all the fractalized shards back together again, but about creating a new way of communication between them; a new sense of communion, community, and solidarity within the multifaceted frameworks that exist. There is so much old language that we try to hold on to and imbue with meanings that are hard to convey because such terminology maintains its original meanings. For example, the term atonement comes to mind. In some circles, atonement has been changed to at-one-ment. It's cute but confusing as doesn't eliminate atonement's original meaning. The point is we cannot rid ourselves of the past, but we can shelve it and learn from it.
The Protestant Reformation was not a true reformation by any stretch of the imagination, but rather a grab for power by the various potentates of the time to wrestle control from the papacy. It did not change the hearts and minds of people about God, Jesus, or the Church. It merely broke up the Roman Catholic church. It resulted in no change in understanding God or Jesus or our relationship to that which God loves, which is what a true reformation must result in.
JESUS AS REFORMER
The premise for reformation exists in all religions. Every founder of a religion and every religious prophet was, at heart, a reformer of an existing religion. Jesus was, at heart, trying to reform Judaism; to reclaim and bring to light its foundational truths about God. There is nothing new in what Jesus taught. Everything Jesus taught was based on the foundational truths he saw in Judaism and are found in the Hebrew Scriptures. What was new in what Jesus taught was Jesus' application of them. They appeared new because they were not being applied and hadn't been for generations; a fact that generates most, if not in all, true reformation movements.
What was also new is that he did not attempt to keep everything in the Hebrew Scriptures as relevant and sidestepped what he saw as unhelpful. Like most reformers of an existing religion, Jesus was viewed as a threat. Not much has changed in that respect.
Fundamentalism finds fertile soil in every type of religion. Jesus was no fundamentalist. He didn't try to make everything that appeared to be fundamental to Judaism as being foundational to Judaism.
On the other hand, Jesus did not throw things out. He sidestepped them. He dealt with them only if people brought them up and then would redefine their meaning as rooted in what he saw as foundational to Judaism and being essential to one's understanding of God and our relationship to each other.
Christianity, the religion that emerged from Jesus's attempt to reform and reclaim the religion that was close to his heart, has followed the same problem he was trying to get away from; the cumbersome rules and regulations that divide us and prevent personal and communal growth; that encumber access to our common creator, our father (to use Jesus terminology) for God.
Christianity has become weighted down by its institutional structures and is finding it difficult to help its adherents adapt to a changing world. Frankly, it is sinking in a world of new information about who we are and the universe we live in. It is finding it difficult, if not incapable, of throwing things overboard in order to keep things afloat and sail on the winds that are driving our times. It is time to revisit who Jesus is and what God is about.
WHAT'S THE POINT?
After eighteen hundred years of indoctrination and orthodox dogma, is there any hope that things can be turned around?
Yes.
When we see a lessening or decline in something, there is a chance for new growth. Decline does not mean defeat or an end, but rather it can provide a time of flexibility and reflection. Personally, I see a need for Christianity to get things right and set things right because the world needs to enact what Jesus taught and to emulate what Jesus practiced during his time on earth.
I can only hope and pray that the Being-in-which-we-live-move-and-have-our-being, God, uses this relatively obscure blog of mine in a creative process that results in a true reformation of the followers of Jesus and offers a connection between the innumerable people who love God and recognize God's love for them. I undoubtedly will end up saying things that will be viewed as heresy by some and mindless rambling by others. I can only beg forgiveness on both accounts and ask that you bear with me.
In what is likely to be several post, I wish to convey that a true reformation is about seeking and embracing what is true about God and, for Christians, what is true about Jesus. I also wish to convey that a true reformation is about entering into a kenotic act; of a willingness to let go of long held beliefs that profit no one or fails to bring anyone closer to God. A true reformation is about allowing God's creativity to shape our hearts and minds.
What I am talking about is sifting through roughly eighteen hundred years or more of Christian theology, some of which I will undoubtedly ignore and some I will sided-step. Ironically, perhaps the best way to start sifting through things is by injecting new ideas in order to flush out old ones. Here too I am mindful that what I'm injecting as new may, in fact, be ideas that have been around for centuries which, in the light of more information about ourselves and our universe have taken on greater luster.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
I have faith in a God whose delight is in creating and making all things new, whose minimalist nature rejoices in experiencing life as evolution and growth. When things get too big, they collapse and so it is on earth as it is in the universe we find ourselves in. All of this is said to put into perspective what I am calling for, a true reformation of Christianity.
Christianity has been fractalized and fractured into thousands of shards that has been the result of trying to guard and maintain control of Christian belief. The irony in this fractalizing process is that all of the pieces basically look alike; are merely small mirror images of what they broke away from. Although Christianity is considered the largest religion in the world, it is extremely fractured and is beginning to collapse under its collective weight. Ecumenism, finding common ground, has not led to preventing this collapse as the relevancy of the Christian Church (as a whole) is what is giving way.
What leads me to consider the time is right for a true reformation to take place is that we are entering into a post-Christian era. Scriptures frequently reference agrarian images to make a point about the minimalist nature of God. Pruning comes to mind; as in, cutting trees and vines back to a manageable size in order to encourage growth.
A true reformation is not about trying to put all the fractalized shards back together again, but about creating a new way of communication between them; a new sense of communion, community, and solidarity within the multifaceted frameworks that exist. There is so much old language that we try to hold on to and imbue with meanings that are hard to convey because such terminology maintains its original meanings. For example, the term atonement comes to mind. In some circles, atonement has been changed to at-one-ment. It's cute but confusing as doesn't eliminate atonement's original meaning. The point is we cannot rid ourselves of the past, but we can shelve it and learn from it.
The Protestant Reformation was not a true reformation by any stretch of the imagination, but rather a grab for power by the various potentates of the time to wrestle control from the papacy. It did not change the hearts and minds of people about God, Jesus, or the Church. It merely broke up the Roman Catholic church. It resulted in no change in understanding God or Jesus or our relationship to that which God loves, which is what a true reformation must result in.
JESUS AS REFORMER
The premise for reformation exists in all religions. Every founder of a religion and every religious prophet was, at heart, a reformer of an existing religion. Jesus was, at heart, trying to reform Judaism; to reclaim and bring to light its foundational truths about God. There is nothing new in what Jesus taught. Everything Jesus taught was based on the foundational truths he saw in Judaism and are found in the Hebrew Scriptures. What was new in what Jesus taught was Jesus' application of them. They appeared new because they were not being applied and hadn't been for generations; a fact that generates most, if not in all, true reformation movements.
What was also new is that he did not attempt to keep everything in the Hebrew Scriptures as relevant and sidestepped what he saw as unhelpful. Like most reformers of an existing religion, Jesus was viewed as a threat. Not much has changed in that respect.
Fundamentalism finds fertile soil in every type of religion. Jesus was no fundamentalist. He didn't try to make everything that appeared to be fundamental to Judaism as being foundational to Judaism.
On the other hand, Jesus did not throw things out. He sidestepped them. He dealt with them only if people brought them up and then would redefine their meaning as rooted in what he saw as foundational to Judaism and being essential to one's understanding of God and our relationship to each other.
Christianity, the religion that emerged from Jesus's attempt to reform and reclaim the religion that was close to his heart, has followed the same problem he was trying to get away from; the cumbersome rules and regulations that divide us and prevent personal and communal growth; that encumber access to our common creator, our father (to use Jesus terminology) for God.
Christianity has become weighted down by its institutional structures and is finding it difficult to help its adherents adapt to a changing world. Frankly, it is sinking in a world of new information about who we are and the universe we live in. It is finding it difficult, if not incapable, of throwing things overboard in order to keep things afloat and sail on the winds that are driving our times. It is time to revisit who Jesus is and what God is about.
WHAT'S THE POINT?
After eighteen hundred years of indoctrination and orthodox dogma, is there any hope that things can be turned around?
Yes.
When we see a lessening or decline in something, there is a chance for new growth. Decline does not mean defeat or an end, but rather it can provide a time of flexibility and reflection. Personally, I see a need for Christianity to get things right and set things right because the world needs to enact what Jesus taught and to emulate what Jesus practiced during his time on earth.
I can only hope and pray that the Being-in-which-we-live-move-and-have-our-being, God, uses this relatively obscure blog of mine in a creative process that results in a true reformation of the followers of Jesus and offers a connection between the innumerable people who love God and recognize God's love for them. I undoubtedly will end up saying things that will be viewed as heresy by some and mindless rambling by others. I can only beg forgiveness on both accounts and ask that you bear with me.
In what is likely to be several post, I wish to convey that a true reformation is about seeking and embracing what is true about God and, for Christians, what is true about Jesus. I also wish to convey that a true reformation is about entering into a kenotic act; of a willingness to let go of long held beliefs that profit no one or fails to bring anyone closer to God. A true reformation is about allowing God's creativity to shape our hearts and minds.
What I am talking about is sifting through roughly eighteen hundred years or more of Christian theology, some of which I will undoubtedly ignore and some I will sided-step. Ironically, perhaps the best way to start sifting through things is by injecting new ideas in order to flush out old ones. Here too I am mindful that what I'm injecting as new may, in fact, be ideas that have been around for centuries which, in the light of more information about ourselves and our universe have taken on greater luster.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
WAKING UP - A Homily
As we are at the advent of a New Year, I want to share the last homily I gave in 2019. It was written as a New Year's homily for the new Church Year, but it applies to any new year. This homily was delivered at Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton,
South Dakota on December 1, 2019
WAKING UP
+ In the Name of
our loving and life-giving God +
“Wachet
auf, ruft uns die stimme…” is the clarion call of our first hymn in its
original German language.
Waking
up is the perennial theme associated with the first Sunday of Advent, the
beginning of a new Church Year. Equally perennial is that the scripture
readings at the end of a church year and the beginning of a church year focus
on the continuum of end times as beginning times, as an eschatological bridge completing
the old in the new.
Although
the end times are the focus of these readings, they ride on a rail of the
present. When Jesus talks about the end
times, it is usually in response to someone’s question about knowing when such
things will happen or when he sees his disciple being distracted by the wonders
of the Temple, the context in which this morning’s second lesson from the
Gospel of Matthew is set.
When
the Gospels were written, the early Christians were expecting the Second Coming
of Christ to happen in their lifetimes. Before
today’s reading from Matthew, Jesus says, “Truly, I tell you. This generation shall not pass, till all
things are fulfilled.” [1] Jesus goes on to say, however, “But about that
day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only
the Father.”[2] When reading all the accounts of Jesus
talking about the end times in the Gospels, it becomes clear that Jesus uses
the end times to awaken us to what we’re doing right now, today.
Two
thousand years have passed since these scriptures were written and for two
thousand years the call to awaken has not diminished in the context of the times
of each and every successive generation.
While some today continue to focus on getting ready to jump this planet
at the first sign of Christ’s Second Coming, Paul pulls us back from that theological
cliff.
In
our first reading, the apostle Paul picks up this theme of paying attention to
the here and now: “…it is now the moment
for you to wake from sleep …the night is far gone, the day is near.”[3] We are always living in this cusp of
completion, “…the night (the time for
sleep) is far gone, the day is near. Now
(the present) is the moment to wake from sleep.”
One
might ask, “What is this wakeup call all about?
Do we really need one?”
Perhaps
the best way to answer those questions is to personally and sincerely ask
ourselves what we find difficult to open our eyes to. Jesus addresses such questions by causing us
to take a deeper look at our daily lives in the dawning light of the nearing
day.
Jesus
literally goes on a two chapter tirade about the end times in the Gospel of
Matthew when his disciples go dreamy eyed on him about all the glittering,
man-made wonders of the Temple. Within Jesus’s non-stop discourse is included
not only today’s reading, but also the parable of the “Wise and Foolish
Virgins,” about staying awake because the Son of Man, the Bridegroom comes when
least expected, in the dead of night.[4] It includes the parable of the “Talents,” the
coins the head of a household gives his servants while he’s away and returns to
find two of the three servants used them to make a profit for the head of the
household, but one buried the one coin he was given; doing nothing with it,
leading him to cursed and cast out;[5] a
reminder that there is never a time for apathy, as there will be work to be
done until the very end.
Jesus’s
discourse ends by bringing his disciples back to the present time and how we
treat one another. He does this by
ending with the Day of Judgment; with the story how the Son of Man as the King
of Glory will divide the sheep from the goats.
He ends by telling that those considered the sheep are the ones who fed
the King when he was hungry, clothed him when he was naked, visited him when he
was in prison and because of such deeds, they will inherit his kingdom. He ends by telling that, in their sheepish state
of surprise at inheriting the kingdom, the sheep ask the King, “But when did we
do these things,” to which the King replies, “When you did these things to
least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”[6]
What
really demonstrates how asleep we are, is the consistent dismissing the needs
of others as their problem, not ours. What
really can bore us into a coma-like slumber are the judgmental and polarizing efforts
that plague us today; where we are being led to perceive some as clear winners
and others as clear losers.
Advent,
this new Church Year [this New Year 2020], begins with its perennial wake-up call; a call to
becoming what God has always intended us to be, his children; to live into
being just that, as Jesus did with eyes wide open to the present.
Advent
is a prophetic season. It is a season to
get us to look at today and see things for what they are and what they are not.
It is a season to let go of the past, the
darkness of the night long gone. It is a season to awaken to the hope of a
dawning day. It is a season to watch faithfully for the light of the nearing
day. Above all, Advent is a season to
allow the ever present love of God to embrace us in the soon to be born in
us.[7]
Let
us pray:
* * * * * * * * * *
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
[1]
Matthew 24:34
[2]
Matthew 24:36
[3]
Romans 13:11b&12b
[4]
See Matthew 25:1-13
[5]
See Matthew 25:14-30
[6]
See Matthew 25:31-40
[7]
The concept inspired by the hymn, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” by Phillip
Brooks and the line “…cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.”
LIVING GRATEFULLY - A Homily
At the end of 2019, I am posting two homilies I gave during the close of the Church Year that centered around the theme of thanksgiving. This homily was presented at Christ Episcopal Church,
Yankton, South Dakota on November 10, 2019.
LIVING GRATEFULLY
+ In the Name of
our gracious and loving God +
One of the legacies Fr. Jim Pearson established for our church
family was to use the short period between All Saints Day and the First Sunday
of Advent as a season of Thanksgiving.
In keeping with that legacy I invite us to reflect on what it means to
live a life of gratitude as the deepest expression of our faith, hope, and love
in God.
Like so many things in life, developing a life of
gratitude begins at home. So this
morning I give thanks to God for my wife, Kathy; for the love that binds us
together, for her love that sustains me, that keeps me in check, and in so many
ways has shaped me to be the person I am.
I am grateful for our children, our daughters Andrea and Elizabeth, who
bring us much joy.
Gratitude is an essential feature of a healthy home
environment, and it is also an essential feature of a healthy church
environment. And like a family, we don’t
get to choose who becomes a member of it. As Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica,
“We must always give thanks to God for you brothers and sister beloved by the
Lord, because God chose you…”[1] God has chosen all of us because God has
created all of us. Like Paul, we are to
be grateful to God for those who come through our church doors and into our
lives; seeing them and treating them as a gift from God.
It is easy for me to be grateful for this congregation
and grateful to it; for the opportunity to serve as your organist and to be
able to stand here this morning and deliver this homily. I thank God for all of you, who by your very
presence here today is a service to all who are here because all of you, in
your own and various ways, are gifted by God to contribute to the overall
ministry of spreading the Gospel of Christ in your daily lives.
Living life in gratitude readily dismisses the attitude
of taking anyone or anything for granted.
Living life in gratitude requires a dogged determination to seek and to
find the goodness inherent in all of God’s creation; including those who would
treat us badly and those who might be considered an enemy, as we heard in
last’s week’s Gospel.[2] That type of gratitude and grateful living
always seems to be in short supply.
When we think about giving thanks, it is helpful to keep
in mind that throughout our nation’s history this practice; this dogged type of
giving thanks has been woven into our nation’s fabric through various
proclamations from the time of the pilgrims to during and after the
Revolutionary War until Thanksgiving was proclaimed a Federal holiday by
President Lincoln in 1863; a time when our nation faced its greatest
existential threat, the Civil war; a time when there seemed so little to be
thankful for.
It is against the backdrop of uncertain times that giving
thanks as a nation has always been juxtaposed.
It is against the backdrop of uncertain times that our forefathers and
foremothers remind us that we are completely reliant on the blessings of a
benevolent and loving God; that gratitude is to be woven into all our endeavors
to help create a better world for ourselves and our posterity.
It is against such backdrops that giving thanks becomes
more than a momentary nod of appreciation; that living thankfully is to be a
persistent attitude that we, as individuals, as a community of faith, and as a
nation aspire to carry with us at all times; for it is in thankful living that
we are enabled to see and to seize the opportunities in which to exercise
gratitude as kindness and to pay forward the benevolence of God without
exception or expectation of a return in kind.
And grateful living begins with me, it begins with you,
it begins in our homes, and it begins in our church home because gratefulness
cannot be mandated by proclamation or law but must come from the truly grateful
hearts of each and every one of us. So
this morning I ask that we express our gratitude for each other as we share the
peace of Christ with one another (something you’re good at doing very well)
because there is no peace without gratitude.
In closing, I want to share a prayer with you that I have
used at family gatherings on Thanksgiving.
I found this handwritten prayer in the back of a book of poetry
belonging to Kathy’s great aunt, Esther Taskerud.
Aunt Esther was a remarkable woman born and raised in
this state, ahead of her time, a trailblazer, and a pioneer in establishing 4-H
programs in her adopted state of Oregon and serving for a time as a trustee for
the National 4-H foundation. Esther
eventually became the Director of the Home Economics Extension Program at
Oregon State University; a person I was blessed with getting to know and a
person who knew the value of living a life in gratitude.
This is her handwritten prayer. Let us pray:
Eternal and ever loving Father, we remember before Thee,
the weaknesses and sins which so easily betray us in the relationships of the
home; but we remember also in gratitude the depth of Thy mercy and the renewing
power of the forgiveness which is born of love.
We would be strengthened by Thee that Thy desires for our
homes may have fulfillment, that the richness of Thy love may find expression
in us and in our children.
We dedicate to Thee the homes which Thou hast blessed us:
Our
daily life in those homes;
Our
words and deeds;
Our
hopes and aspirations;
Our
hearts and wills;
Beseeching Thee to transform them with the touch of Thy
divine power, and to bring them into harmony with Thy will. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * *
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
[1] 2
Thessalonians 2:13
[2]
See Luke 6:27
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