Incarnational Theology

I need to respond to “incarnational!”

By definition Christianity is incarnational, consequently Christian theology is incarnational! Our central Christian hermeneutic is that our transcendent God of glory and majesty lived on this earth and died on a tree of shame as one of us, in the course of ordinary linear human history; in Jesus we discover the mighty God of all creation most fully and wholly self-revealed in those who are the weakest, the most defenseless, most insignificant and least consequential in their relationships to reputable society and to the economic and political establishments; Jesus showed us and told us the presence of the Holy One of Being is most abundantly and completely found in the “least of these,” hidden yet apparent in the manger, in the everyday words and actions of Jesus of Nazareth, the “Human One”; apparent and hidden in the human Jesus dying defenseless on the cross of death which for us becomes the instrument of our new life: in Jesus God “shared our common lot,” as the UCC Statement of Faith concisely says of God’s incarnation, God’s “enfleshment” in Jesus.

And Jesus tells us whenever we serve one of the “least of these” in essence we serve him and therefore we serve the Holy and Living One, the God beyond Time and beyond Space, since we confess Jesus as the definitive demonstration and expression of God’s glory and majesty – and power.

Mother Teresa really “got it” – to Mother Teresa her people were the Christ and to her people she was the Christ! But more than Mother Teresa personally “getting it” herself, the Spirit of God and of the Christ – the Spirit each of us received in baptism – indwelt Mother Teresa and worked through her life and ministry.

God and Law and Order

Do you think God stands in opposition to law & order? Is God an anarchist?

Well, – as at least some evidence of God’s point of view regarding "law and order," we can consider the "P" Pentateuch source – and then there’s always Paul’s Spirit-filled and Spirit-led admonition to the Corinthians to do their prophesying and speaking in tongues "decently and in order." In terms of anarchy, God’s definitely an anarchist concerning the established, comfortable (uncomfortable?), top-down-authority arrangement of human power and clout, with a scandalous preference for "the lost, the least, the little and the last" to quote Robert Farrar Capon’s succinct summary.

There’s lots more, but I wanted to respond to your question!

God and Power

In this Sunday’s Genesis 9 pericope, God sets his bow – his weapon – in the clouds as a sign of the covenant; God lays down his bow – his weapon; in passion for relationship with creation – with us – our God disarms!! God’s bow in the cloud becomes a physical, visible, sensible sign of God’s covenant of grace with Noah and with every living creature; a foretaste of God’s ultimate covenant of grace as Jesus the Christ dies completely defenseless and weaponless, without revenge or retribution.

Genesis 9:12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my bow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth…”

Power and Sovereignty

As Christians our ultimate model of power is our God of glory, majesty and sovereignty willingly abrogating that power and becoming “small for us in Christ” – as Martin Luther expressed it: small enough to die. For us. From Christmas and the vulnerability of the manger we go to Good Friday and the vulnerability and absolute defenselessness of the cross. As Christians we confess we find the height of God’s sovereignty in the vulnerability and weakness – in the hiddenness – of a human dying on the scandal of a tree. We discover and recognize the fullness of the Shekinah Glory – the glory of the presence of God – in the weakness of Jesus, “The Human One,” who dies without defense. And that powerlessness proved enough to annihilate the powers and principalities; it was sufficient to effect the death of the old order of death itself; Jesus’ dying on the tree of death that paradoxically becomes the Tree of Life. Our Good Friday / East Sunday proclamation is the end of the supremacy of death and the birth, the ascendancy of the primacy of life – the eschatological reign of the Power of God, most eloquently uncovered and found in the Lordship of Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified and risen One both Human and Divine who shared our common lot and in whose birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension we know and affirm the definitive manifestation of the God beyond time and beyond space. For Paul, the human Jesus becomes the divine Christ at his death and resurrection…and Paul determined “to preach only Christ crucified.”

Synagogue and Basilica...

Synagogue and Basilica are meeting places...Church is people! Some Christians are careful to refer to the church building, physical plant as “meeting house.” The Churches of the Reformation usually reserve “church” as the word for either the local church or the universal church catholic and use terms like “synod,” “conference,” “association,” “presbytery,” etc., for the in-between entities or expressions of the Church.

I can’t lose sight of God’s self revelation in the Christ, and I do equate the historical Jesus and the Christ. And since we’re Christed when we reveal, proclaim God to the world (2 Corinthians 5:18 19) we are called (ekklesia, “called out” (of the world)) to reveal God to the world. As you pointed out, during Paul’s ministry, the Way later known as “Christianity” hadn’t yet been fully grown.

Although there’s definitely and clearly a sometimes neglected third dimension, spiritual dimension to Jesus’ Gospel, I want to return to my earlier caution against over-spiritualizing Jesus’ life and mission. Jesus’ revelation of the Father is earthy, earthly and earthbound. So is the Way of Jesus! Though Jesus’ way also is contemplation. For some reason the 19th and 20th centuries lost sight of this earthly reality – something it’s easy for relatively comfortable middle-class types to do.

Liberation theology categories bring us back to God’s self revelation in scripture and in the Christ Event. Mary of the Magnificat is a central liberation theology concept and text:

“He has pulled down princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly, the hungry he has filled with good things, the rich sent empty away.” –Luke 1:52 53

These words are grounded! Aren’t those happenings demonstrated by Jesus’ life and kerygma, Jesus’ proclamation? I also like the liberation theology theme of the obliteration of SHAME: middle-class mainline U.S. Christianity often emphasizes annihilation of individual sin and guilt…as devastating and as paralyzing as sin and guilt can be, shame is a far more cosmic category, visited upon individuals, cultures and societies by forces outside of themselves, forces over which they have no control – Paul’s apocalyptic “powers and principalities.” …although the historical roots of deutero-Paul’s exposition of and concern with the powers and principalities was somewhat “other than” what I’ve been writing about.

To paraphrase Christiaan Beker in Paul’s Apocalyptic Gospel, the Church is the sign of the dawn of the new age and of the powers of life over and against the powers of death, and God calls the Church to active engagement with the world in order to fulfill its redemptive mission in the world. As I’d express it, God calls the Church, the Body of the Risen Christ, to be an instrument of grace to the world.

As an aside, although, as you suggested, Paul may have been calling “on the Name of the Lord” on the fabled Damascus Road, I’m not completely convinced, since often grace and salvation break unbidden into life…into this world.

Administration of Baptism

From Paul we know we’re baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection and we’re baptized – immersed – into a boundless community. So concerning administration of baptism, we need to ask what is the Good Friday / Easter proclamation into which we’re baptized? And what are the characteristics and the qualities of the Galatians 3:28 community?

The first verse of the first lesson for the first Sunday of Advent (our current year B): “Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” —Isaiah 64:1

Though sometimes we refer to the sacraments as “efficacious,” which generally is defined as their being channels of grace or as having “saving power,” the sacraments themselves don’t save; so denying either sacrament to anyone doesn’t mean we’re refusing them the wholeness and the now-ness of God’s actualization of the time of salvation in Christ Jesus. God’s extravagance indisputably doesn’t depend upon the church’s performing the sacraments – the sacraments remain signs of grace; they don’t actualize grace. The sacraments signify and replicate the Christ Event rather than actually being the salvific Christ Event. Yahweh’s neither needing nor requiring protection or tribute from the people was one of the many revolutionary and sensational aspects of Israel’s God and consonant with that reality; many of you observed God’s faithfulness no way is limited to those of us who celebrate sacramental liturgies; God cannot do other than be faithful to her / his essence of redemptive love for all creation.

And I agree when Don suggests what an awesome model of the inclusivity of God’s Sovereignty it is to welcome and to baptize the stranger in our midst – the outcast who may never again be in our community’s presence. As Abraham Heschel reminds us, God is an outcast, God is in exile, and as Jesus tells us, when we minister to the sojourner, the “other,” the not-like-us, we serve Jesus – in fact we serve the Wholly and Holy Other Whom Jesus manifests and represents. Since God excludes no one from this New Sovereignty no matter what, how can we exclude anyone from the font or from the table? But do we need to baptize or celebrate Eucharist? Though Jesus did command us to baptize and to remember him with bread and cup…

Throughout the biblical witness are a proliferation of “types” or foreshadowings of the decisive reconciliation between heaven and earth, the ultimate experience of heaven-on-earth and earth-in-heaven in the Christ Event, but finally, Good Friday / Easter Sunday declares and completes (with God word and action form a single indissoluble entity) God’s ultimate and definitive covenant of grace with all creation. The early morning light of Easter dawn pronounces and reveals with physical, material symbols we humans can comprehend: empty tomb, stone rolled away, speech…the presence of the Eschaton: the death of the old order of death itself and the inauguration of the new: God’s presence with us, among us and within us; the permanent, infinite, everlasting covenant of grace of God’s Jubilee Rule of Shalom – the realm of “enough” – for everyone and justice for all. God has torn open the heavens and come down to earth to dwell forever with us, among us and within us. Baptism remains a sign of this freely given, undying covenant that’s engagement, meeting, reconciliation between heaven and earth; baptism signifies salvation, Jubilee, deliverance from the power, control, authority, dominion, influence, of death and destruction. We live in the new dominion – not in strength, might and power, but in weakness and vulnerability – of the never ending, abundant and recklessly extravagant reality of life lived in the Spirit of the God who has torn apart the heavens and all creation trembles with new and renewed life at the establishment of the abundance of God’s Justice, Shalom, and Jubilee here on earth. For all creation. For us.

Just like us, Jesus was baptized into community: a community he constantly demonstrated and proved to be one without boundaries or barriers to total inclusivity: Jew, Gentile, stranger, citizen inhabitant, male, female, child, adult.

Baptism is God’s remembrance to us of our call to walk with Jesus as Jesus walks beside us, wherever our walk may journey, because we walk with the One Whose answer always is resurrection.

Christ Event

You asked about the Christ Event

You asked about the Christ Event. It's familiar theological shorthand or jargon and refers to the fullness and completion of salvation in Jesus' birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension. "Event" emphasizes Christianity’s claim that God acts most definitely and most definitively within the context of human history, and so emphasizes that our salvation's not just a vague religious generality but actually something quite un-religious, very un-otherworldly: God's invasion into the course of human history in order to fulfill all of his promises, in order to draw creation back to its Creator, all of this occurring in an actual "event" that happened within definable linear, chronological time and at a specific longitude and latitude, on a stage filled with human actors. You know...like "wind event," "terrorist event," cardiac event"...I hope this helps!

"Jesus is 'myth'?" Gerhard von Rad points out that myth has a greater degree of density than history. I'd assume density makes myth truer than history, at least in some sense. But I also know Jesus was a human person, like you and me, one who lived and walked etc., on this earth in the course of human history – whatever meaning you choose to assign to that. And as Holy Spirit, Jesus does live within us, but (in my humble orthodoxy!) I also meet Jesus again and again not only in the scriptures as the "unique and authoritative witness to God's activity and God's word to me" ("divine revelation, human disclosure" again); I also meet Jesus as the Spirit indwelling me and I meet Christ Jesus in others, whether or not they specifically define themselves as Christians or as Jesus people of some kind or another.

What I'm saying here is I have a serious problem with your use of the word "myth," though clearly there's a whole lot about Jesus that's far larger-than-life, at least larger than life as I commonly experience it. In The God of Jesus, Stephen Patterson says Paul's Jesus gradually assumes gigantic (otherworldly?) mythic proportions.

Andrew Wyeth's John Wesley?

Your likening the John Wesley portrait to an Andrew Wyeth painting…

Your likening the John Wesley portrait to an Andrew Wyeth painting really appeals to me! I don't know all that much about Methodism. I know, of course, that John and Charles wrote 8,000–10,000 hymns that are very highly regarded by all Christians, and that Methodism began as a "heart" rather than as a "head" movement. That is to say they weren't frantically writing multiple volumes of theology the way Luther and Calvin were, though the later date of the Wesleyan movement may have been part of the reason for that – being further removed in time from Medieval scholarship. And the possibility of perfection through the work of the Holy Spirit originally was built into Wesleyan theology though it seems as if that's no longer emphasized: in other words, a theology of the "Third Article" (Sanctification) of the Creed rather than of the First Article (Creation) or of the Second Article (Redemption).

I know some Methodists are into glossalalia and they also have a strong tradition of lay testimony and lay preaching. And like the other mainline churches, Methodists in this country (as well as in the UK) have a powerful practice of biblically-based social and political activism.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but when you mention knowing Methodists in the 1940s and 1950s, do you think you were old enough and aware enough of religious styles to be able to discern all that much about Methodism? "…serious, sober sided, self disciplined, examples of the Protestant work ethic." With this I agree, though a lot of that "Protestant work ethic" actually is the government bureaucrat's work ethic. Although I'd rather not generalize, it's also true a whole lot of the more intellectual "head" theology these days still comes from the Lutheran and Reformed traditions. Those folks have such well-tuned minds and can turn out some exceptional material!

History?!

As you said, the concept of the progressive march of history is a Western one. But we now live in the interregnum between the Eternity that was before the dawn of “time” and the Eternity that will be after the end of “history,” when the Word of God, predestined in Eternity to the restoration, redemption and salvation of all Creation will prevail and linear, historical time will end.

A comment about doing biblical theology: as Christians we (I) run with some basic assumptions:

• God’s supreme, most conclusive self-revelation is found in Jesus of Nazareth – a human, born of human parents, who walked and lived on this created earth in historical, measurable space and time. Jesus’ person and work reveals the transcendent as immanent.

• The God and Father of Jesus the Christ is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the “I AM” of the Covenant on Mount Sinai.

• God is God of history, God of nature.

• Creation is a product of the will of God and therefore distinct and separate from God. Humankind is part of creation. God indwells all creation as Holy Spirit.

• (Therefore,) just as our own individual history in time, space and place reveals our identify, our corporate history reveals the Living God in ways understandable to us as human creatures.

• The outrage, the strange world the Bible reveals is the offense of a Holy God Who dares and risks his very Self, His reputation, by invading human history and living as one of us in order to re-reveal Himself to creation, in order to reconcile creation to its Creator.

Once people settle comfortable into a place and a space they often forget who they are, who God is: a God Who travels and sojourns with the people, a stranger and a sojourner with the people, God of History, “God of Great Surprises,” in Corita Kent’s words!

Meaning is central to our lives as humans. And as you pointed out, the meaning of the Exodus is freedom, liberation, hospitality to the stranger and to the sojourner…I love that God tells Israel he is a stranger and a sojourner on the land with Israel – forever! And the many stories in which hospitality shown to the stranger equates with giving hospitality to God.

Comfortably settled in space and place, people often try to define God, the indefinable, indescribable One, and not only to picture and define God, the wholly Other but ultimately to objectify God and to deify objects. This is one of the many temptations of “civilization,” “citification.” The nomadic religion and way of Israel and of Jesus is a religion and a way of promise. Nomadic religion is religion of history. If only we’d observe the first commandment, life would be so easy. The first commandment is all we need!

You underlined and ?-marked “The Biblical Witness.” Maybe you’ve noticed the phrase is kind of a buzz word. However, your question was “…what does Leah mean here?” When I say “the biblical witness” I’m referring to the broad sweep of recorded revelation: myth, saga, history, prophecy, eschatology, apocalyptic, poetry – everything…but beyond that, I assume all these writings witness to God’s ongoing activity in human history and most definitively in the Christ Event. And as you probably realize, I trust in the essential inspiration of scripture and I trust its canonization was Spirit-ed. However, I also believe a lot of human writing and human activity is Spirit-led, which means I see the compilation of the Bible as somewhat accidental, though an inspired accident! As always, I claim God’s most authentic and fullest self-revelation is found, seen, heard, touched, smelled, tasted, felt – in, with and under the everyday ongoing activities of human life.

I read a taxonomy of the Christian walk someone had invented according to what they considered a biblical model. Its seven marks were kinda like Luther’s Seven Marks of the True Church. First was “the mark of the stable: begin where God says.”No, not true!!! God always begins where we say! It’s exactly as you wrote, “He meets us where we are in our understanding.” Jesus reveals a Servant God who continues to condescend, who serves us. We serve Jesus’ God most perfectly in serving one another. In meeting others where they are, in beginning where they say. As you often point out, most especially in welcoming and in serving the stranger in our midst. Jesus is our ultimate model, in every way.

You wrote, “Jesus…is God showing us Himself…” Yes!!! Amen!!! Jesus shows us a sym-pathetic, com-passionate God who suffers, grieves, rejoices with us. The God of Love who does not condemn. Do you know the song “Endless Love” that Diana Ross and Lionel Richie sang long ago? Mariah Carey and Luther Vandross recorded it more recently. I love the line in the song, “And love, I’ll be a fool for you.” Those words perfectly summarize God’s intervention in history – God’s intervention in each of our individual lives, our God’s passion for humanity.

Although I can’t quote the passage exactly, in I and Thou Martin Buber speaks of “primitive man” being asleep much of the time and says in effect, “most of his waking hours also are sleep.” Isn’t that what you’ve been saying about all of us? We need to awaken to, come home to, God who is beyond time-bound and space-bound history. In “that day” each of us will be found: no longer sojourners, no longer “resident aliens.” We’ll be at home and at oneness with ourselves, one another and with our God.

theodicy notes

How does Christianity explain this world of hurt?

As you may realize, the short version of Christianity’s answers are:

1. Creation suffers, struggles and grieves in pain with death’s agents and with death itself because creation is fallen. All of the incalculable manifestations of death point toward this fallenness. How did this fallenness, asunder-ness, this sin come about? By humanity’s not living in the image of the God in Whose image God created them; by abrogating their call to creativity and community and, paradoxically, by grasping the gift of freedom - which also means they’ve made a whole lot of mistakes and taken lots of missteps.

2. Christianity’s answer is a free and sovereign God of mercy and love, justice and life Who in freedom and sovereignty suffers, struggles and grieves with creation: a God Whose answer always is resurrection. This God, Who raised Jesus from death to new life, is manifest in all creation and present to every one of us, most specifically in the Church as the new Body of the Risen Christ. God is present in, with and under creation with the hope, the promise and the reality of redemption. BUT, the signs of God’s presence remain elusive – our Free God cannot and will not be contained: “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” Just as you said, God cannot be limited by time and space and, as I keep trying to explain, I agree. Even as revealed in the human Jesus, God cannot be contained limited or defined. In freedom God remains the One Who will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy…though still, response to creation's needs continues to be God’s primary passion.

3. My point about death’s agents and about death itself is that the sum of the parts not only is synergistic in being greater than the literal addition of the parts, but it’s also vastly different in kind from any of the individual parts and assumes a real liveliness and a dynamic of its own. Although at their origins the “powers and principalities” are practically inert, in combination they take off on their own with a cosmic presence and a cosmic influence far beyond anything they ever could have as discrete elements. They become real persons with personalities and with tremendous power to extinguish life. This gets back to what I wrote about the infrastructure supporting the epistructure. Possibly systems of all kinds begin with the individual? –Colossians 2:15; –Ephesians 6:12

Having said that. I remember your telling me you don’t go with the theology of the Servant God. Yes, it is one of Christianity’s main theological currents, and it’s also where we derive our Christian identity of a servant people. We know the God Who condescends to us and identifies with us in every way, ultimately in the death of Jesus of Nazareth, in Jesus’ death meeting us in the experience we all inevitably have in common. And God again meets us in the experience for which we hope in Jesus’ resurrection.


Theology/Theodicy Question

Originally posted in a slightly different version on Best Friends Animal Society Forums.

Trust me to jump in whenever there's a "theological question!" "Why God allows this" is the question of theodicy, and there's general consensus that none of the world religions or spiritual ways possess anything remotely resembling an adequate answer.

Some of you on these message boards know my perspective is Christian; theology is one of my principal passions! In the seminary classroom we learn about biblical content and sources and redaction and authorship and about scholarship and "higher criticism"; we learn responsible biblical interpretation (especially for preaching and teaching), church history, languages...but we don't get easy answers for all the hardest questions of life and existence.

As one of you wrote, "we flawed humans let God (and creation) down." Humans abrogated their charge, their stewardship over creation. That's one of the partial answers theologians often give; in other words, sin has inevitable consequences of brokenness, dysfunction and decay, and those consequential costs frequently escalate - or at times disintegrate - into something immensely chaotic, seemingly random and completely out of control. The sin, whether thought, word, or action, in itself is a sign of separation between humans, God and creation, and the sin also causes further disjunction between heaven and earth. A couple of you observed, "we disobeyed God in the garden," and that's another traditional and accurate but still incomplete answer.

Historically there have been a multitude of suggestions and ideas as to just what is this "image of God" in which humans, as the crown of creation (as a matter of fact woman is the chronological crown of creation) are made. To me one of the most credible ways we human creatures image the Divine is with our free will or agency: all so true about disobedience in that paradisiacal Eden of Genesis 2 and Genesis 3, but it's also true at the moment of violating God's authority that caused a such a rupture in the relationship among humans, creation, and their Creator, humans also seized the gift of agency or free will and therefore at the same time also took responsibility for their daily lives and their own well being, just as someone here mentioned. And as she says, free will also means "free choices." Sadly correct that at that same time humanity gave up the stewardship of creation God had charged them with as well, just as one of you already said.

In terms of "Why God allows this," although God's sovereignty is one of Christian theology's main spins on the biblical revelation, we always distinguish between God's perfect will and God's permissive will; that is to say, God never would plan suffering, grief, pain and brokenness, but since humans have the gift (=given) of free will, God doesn't force us to do good and avoid evil. Created in the image of our free God—God's freedom is another essential tenet of biblical theology—humans also are free to some extent.

Furthermore, God is watching and God does know when you pay kindness to animals or to humans or to the earth or to any part of God's cosmic creation, the total environment included! And as you suggested, prayer indeed is one of the most important ways we share responsibility with God.

And everyone, please remember: the day will come when all our enemies will be defeated, will be no more, including the enemy of death! Once again, my perspective is Christian, and the Bible claims Jesus' death and resurrection resulted in the death of death. Parts of the New Testament witness seem confused and confusing but the general Christian conviction is that although salvation/ wholeness/ reconciliation and all the rest of the promises of God already are "done deeds," in Jesus Christ, but there's still a sense in which creation remains fallen. We also have the indwelling Spirit, enabling our response in prayer, word and action to the many needs we see about us. And there will come a day we'll see, hear, touch and live totally within a redeemed and restored creation. That day will be the fullness of redemption. We talk a lot on these Furoms about "Rainbow Bridge." The familiar story begins, "Just this side of heaven..." When each of us and each of our animals leaves this temporary body, we go to the Rainbow Bridge, or a place that closely parallels it, where it's almost heaven. At the end time (the Eschaton in biblical Greek) all creation will be reunited and restored and in perfect bodies. No longer will we dwell "Just this side of heaven"; we'll live in the fullness and completion of heaven, the arrival of the Day of Jesus Christ, the world of a restored creation. What form will that take? Another subject of major speculation!

As the book of Job 12:7-10 reminds us all:

You have only to ask the cattle, for them to instruct you, and the birds of the sky, for them to inform you. The creeping things of earth will give you lessons, and the fish of the sea provide you an explanation: there is not one such creature but will know that the hand of God has arranged things like this! In his hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of every human being!

Word of God: Bible, Jesus

BUT THE BIBLE [AND JESUS!] REVEAL GOD'S PRESENCE incarnate in our midst: 'God among us; God within us!' In the ark of the covenant, tabernacle & temple the sign of God's presence was physical and tangible – 'sensible' [Westminster Catechism] but its revelation was static, unmoving & iconic and therefore an imperfect representation of the God of the Bible we know as dynamic, free & elusive. And those artifacts eventually led to a return of the imperial religion of Egypt, as well. The 'God-Spell' is not that eventually we will live with God but rather that God lives with us! Here and now! The 'SCANDAL' of the Gospel is a Holy God who condescends to live and die as one of us, a Transcendent Other revealed and revealed over and over again in common, ordinary, everyday 'sensible' things – as common as water, bread & wine; as common as the neighbor next door. As common as US!!! Just as Jesus was a living, breathing, moving revelation of God, so are we! In baptism we are called to be and to show salvation to one another and especially to the stranger in our midst. The salvation/wholeness/healing we bring is a redemption, a 'buying back' of ourselves to ourselves, to one another and to our Creator; a 'redeeming' that lives and moves and breathes and changes with every human need. Just as God's primary passion is response to human need, that becomes our primary passion – our baptism makes our response in grace and freedom possible and 'sensibly' apparent. The ark, tabernacle and temple can be seen as imperfect 'types' of Christ, therefore as imperfect representations of God, but Jesus himself lived – and died – as a perfect representation [I used to say 'ultimate & definitive manifestation' but haven't used that phrase for a long time] of the loving, merciful, free and elusive God who responds not to our attempts to contain God for our own edification ['imperial religion'] but instead responds to our need, to the world's need for redemption and sanctification and for 'holiness.' Does this work for you? My point is, despite the Christ Event, we still live in a fallen world. Our call, our ministry is the reconciliation of the world to itself and to its Creator. 'God...sets before us the ways of life & death.' In other words, the ministry is in our living and in our lives: this is Pentecost, we're 'clothed with Power from on High;'the ball's in our court now.

Reformation Stuff

Here's some of what I'd emphasize:

First, we Protestants also affirm tradition, and a person or a people without history and tradition is a no-one. Did you ever see the play, Conversations with my Father? If not, check it out!

I'll begin with the UCC Free Pulpit Statement:

"Freedom of the pulpit in matters of faith and morals, according to the dictates of the Word of God, the work of the Holy Spirit, the traditions of the UCC, and the realities of the world."

You can point out the UCC's "traditions" go back as far as those of the Church at Rome, and until the Continental European Reformation included the same ones. And, of course, the traditions of the UCC probably are the broadest, most varied and most diverse of any denomination anywhere. :)

Our Protestant (I currently like a capital "P") traditions include those of worship – especially the TWO sacraments – scriptural interpretation, biblical and systematic theology, social activism, political activism: just as the Roman branch of the Church also affirms and celebrates traditions in all of those areas.

Agreed there are differences between the late medieval Roman Catholic Church that so appalled Luther and the other Reformers and today's RCC – and agreed there've been times we church bodies that evolved from the Reformation haven't always kept faith with the promise and intent to continue re-forming!

In losing the Word, the late medieval church had lost the essence and the sense of the sacraments, just as today there are some churches that have "lost" the sacraments, thereby losing the Word's essence. Part of the Reformers' – esp Calvin and Luther – spirit and genius was their insistence on always holding Word and Sacrament together in tandem and in tension.

Mike, I keep returning to Scripture...

From "In the beginning, God..." to "...'I am coming soon.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!" the biblical witness reveals God's passion for creation, for creation's needs, healing, redemption, completion and wholeness = holiness.

The Bible – and supremely Jesus – are about the outrage of a Holy, Transcendent Other who actively reveals himself in the nitty-gritty (remember "nitty-gritty?") of everyday, earthbound human history. Clarence Hilliard says we gotta become like "the funky Black nigger Jesus," (remember "funky?") who even took part in human death and dying, just like us, so our first death of baptism into Jesus' death would not only cancel our second death but also transform it, since that baptism's also into Jesus' resurrection.

One of my primary points is that the sacraments not only point toward the saving Christ Event and in a sense replicate it; the sacraments also model or image and are microcosms for us of the way God continues acting and working and being in our world, in our human history, within the medium/milieu we know best, the everyday life in which we live and breathe, suffer and rejoice – just plain interact with each other :)

Because of this, I often quote the Methodist Book of Discipline: the very idea of transubstantiation "overthroweth the nature of a sacrament!" (This is most certainly true :)!)

Getting back to the scandal of a Holy God who risked living and dying as one of us, this God, our God, is Sovereign and Free and so could choose any course of action whatsoever, but not only did our God in passion for relationship and response make creation and then redeem that "fallen" creation, but God chose to continue re-minding us of his favorite manner of acting – because, just like Israel, we kept forgetting. And we still keep on forgetting!

So we remember, actualize and anticipate water, bread and wine made Transcendent at the same time the Transcendent again becomes immanent in creation's earthbound "stuff." Re-minding us and re-showing us the Risen Christ present and apparent, though always elusive and hidden, in the sacraments and now, at Pentecost, also in the Body of the Risen Christ, the Church.

Gosh, I kinda went off on a theology tangent, had I known that's where I'd go I'd have emphasized FAR MORE the Risen Christ's presence in all redeemed creation (which of course is all creation) (yeah, Luther) as well as in the community of faith (Zwingli's emphasis though of course all the Reformers "went there" and "were there" as well).

...just as God raised Jesus the Christ not into some remote, other-worldly far-away "religious" glory but God raised Jesus to earthly, earthbound "glory," among the people he had loved to the end, despite being betrayed into death...

Wedding Prayer

O Holy One of Being, Source of our lives and of our living; O Great Spirit beyond the limits and confines of earth, of the heavens, of space and eternity; O Timeless Spirit Who indwells all of creation and each of Your creatures, today we remember and celebrate Your life in us and our lives with each other. Today we especially praise and thank You for the special gifts to us of Doña and Scruffy; we glorify Your name for gathering us together in honor of their love and commitment. We give thanks to You for the many friendships and furriendships all of us have found on the Best Friends Forum.

And today, O Living One, we implore Your love, mercy and protection for all the animals and critters of land, sea and sky, for all creatures of plains, rivers, prairies, oceans, mountains and lakes and streams. We ask You to particularly bless the animals and staff at Best Friends, and all of us especially plead Your most bountiful blessings and abundant mercies upon farm animals and laboratory animals, the often forgotten ones whose cries of aloneness and pain go unheard.

We send these our words in praise and prayer to You, the One who is our Word of Life, Amen!

Sacred Space again

This is such a thought-provoking topic!

In my first reflection on Sacred Space, I wrote wherever God and the People of God meet is Sacred Space and a Sacred Place; whenever they meet each other is Sacred Time. More about some Sacred Space ideas: I often recall and remember the countless times I’ve dreamed, imagined, meditated, prayed, reflected and just been there in a church or cathedral sanctuary both in this country and in Europe. Over and over again I recapture the sense of the sacred I’ve experienced in those rooms. “Holy” because the sacraments are celebrated in those places and spaces, “sanctified” because there God and people have encountered each other and covenanted with each other; in those sanctuaries people have entered covenant and reaffirmed covenanted relationship with each other and with their God.

And I’ve long been moved by the church building’s being central – literally “in the center,” – at the heart – when the town first was built. In much of Europe the church was the cultural, economic, political, religious and social core…in a plethora of towns in many countries the farmer’s and craft markets still happen in the gathering place around the church.

Throughout the biblical witness are many images of the people of God, but for me the most potent and telling one is that of the Church as the Body of the Risen Christ, proclaiming the death of the old order and the birth of the new. God calls [Martin Luther’s Small Catechism: “…calls, gathers and enlightens the church…”] the Church to Presence and Proclamation. Because we know the Church as the Body of the Risen Christ, in those city squares the church is a real, physical – a tangible, visible – proclamation of the church’s presence in the center of the people, public evidence and public declaration of the resurrection. What’s more, the sound of church bells and carillons makes that proclamation audible! The church in the square conveys an inspiring image of Sacred Space to all the people.

The church building’s authority, the tower, bells, the carillon – and the cross – all are an unyielding presence filling the whole community. In sight and in sound they’re a consolation to the community, a reminder that the presence of the church is the presence and proclamation of the at once Crucified and Risen One.