So far as reception of the sacrament is concerned, I agree with Jürgen Moltmann: Jesus' invitation to his Table is prevenient – there for the taking. For me the Eucharist is multivalent and its meanings inexhaustible. But the question as to age or condition (or whatever) at reception of the sacrament interests me especially since the Reformers insisted on keeping Word and Sacrament tightly yoked; in losing the Word, the late Medieval Church had lost the essence of the sacraments, and I’m convinced there have been and continue to be churches that have "lost" the sacraments and in doing so have lost the Word's essence, since God’s self giving in Jesus Christ is at the heart of both proclaimed Word and visible Word.
But part of the reasoning against admitting infants and young children to the Table is in the need to retain the unity of Word and Sacrament, so for some people the question becomes whether the potential recipient has heard and received the read and proclaimed Word. This evening I've simply putting the suggestion out for consideration since, despite having said that, I feel none of us is "keeper of the sacraments" and authorized to exclude those whom Jesus already has included.
One more note, though. Robert McAfee Brown suggests persons who in their daily lives haven't been practicing justice, righteousness, hospitality and inclusion maybe should be excluded from the eschatological Eucharistic feast! Any ideas on that?
Friday, May 23, 2003
Thursday, April 24, 2003
Another reply to Leahkim
Leahkim, you wrote:
Often people who don’t believe things can happen, they don’t try hard enough for things to happen. Wouldn’t you agree on that? …sometimes it is really hard to draw the line between realist and pessimist. have hoped and still continue to hope…for many impossible things… Many then thought impossible…became so possible and came true. As long as we can keep our head straight and open our hearts to a warmer brighter side…not giving up…Trying our best…. Hope will exist…
Besides… nobody believed that Jesus was going to rise from death…and he did…
Let’s hope and let’s try our best to make that dream and hope…wish come true.
So much to think about! They didn’t believe Jesus was going to rise from death (theological technicality: “be raised” from death) and when they first encountered the Risen Christ, they still didn’t believe it! We humans have tremendously preconceived ideas of what is possible, and sometimes we are so unseeing and unhearing when anything even slightly outside of our concepts of the range of possibility appears in our lives.
Seems as if a lot of what you’re saying is when people don’t believe (trust), then they don’t try doing or accomplishing anything. One of my most recent posts on this site was about God working through us – I read somewhere God does nothing without human cooperation: I won’t go quite that far, as I think at times God does directly intervene in earthly affairs with what we might call a “miracle,” but for the most part not only the Church, the Body of the Risen Christ is responsible for God’s presence and God’s activity and work in the world; in addition, God has no problem with anonymity, not needing or wanting or expecting to get credit for everything the way humans insist upon.
The biblical writers – especially Jesus and the prophets – the early Church we hear about in the book of Acts and the Church today and all people everywhere, find themselves walking and living such an exceedingly fine line between hope and trust and action and “works!” Without necessarily considering and intending our activities and responses as works righteousness, still seems like people truly and firmly believe God should be giving them points or credits adding up on their charts for everything they try to do and achieve. I know I think that way more often than not!
Then, of course, Jesus is extremely clear about whatever we do to “the least of these” is as if we’d done it to him, and therefore to God, as we know Jesus both as human and as the definitive manifestation of Divinity. Because of this, any reasonable person – especially any reasonable Christian, definitely would strive to start and to finish as many kind and merciful and redemptive actions as possible.
As it says in the Bible: “With God all things are possible;” “With God nothing is impossible;” “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” And that’s when and where our trusting hope and our serious action both need to happen! After all, if the Mighty God of all Creation, our God of Majesty, Glory and Sovereignty could be born on this earth into human society and live and die as one of us, what on earth is not possible?!
In any case, since God indwells each of us as Spirit, and since God works through not only Christians, the body of the Risen Christ, in order to be God with humanity but God also has no difficulty at all working through not Christians as well as people who affirm no Higher Power whatsoever, how much more “unbelievable” can you get?
You also said, “Trying our best…” It appears to me one of our most serious human sins is not in trying to be more than we are, more than we were created to be, but our most serious sin is willingness to be less than we are, less than God created us to be! I know I find myself willing to settle for less (OK, less from myself and less from others) than I “should” – and I say “should” very advisedly!
Often people who don’t believe things can happen, they don’t try hard enough for things to happen. Wouldn’t you agree on that? …sometimes it is really hard to draw the line between realist and pessimist. have hoped and still continue to hope…for many impossible things… Many then thought impossible…became so possible and came true. As long as we can keep our head straight and open our hearts to a warmer brighter side…not giving up…Trying our best…. Hope will exist…
Besides… nobody believed that Jesus was going to rise from death…and he did…
Let’s hope and let’s try our best to make that dream and hope…wish come true.
So much to think about! They didn’t believe Jesus was going to rise from death (theological technicality: “be raised” from death) and when they first encountered the Risen Christ, they still didn’t believe it! We humans have tremendously preconceived ideas of what is possible, and sometimes we are so unseeing and unhearing when anything even slightly outside of our concepts of the range of possibility appears in our lives.
Seems as if a lot of what you’re saying is when people don’t believe (trust), then they don’t try doing or accomplishing anything. One of my most recent posts on this site was about God working through us – I read somewhere God does nothing without human cooperation: I won’t go quite that far, as I think at times God does directly intervene in earthly affairs with what we might call a “miracle,” but for the most part not only the Church, the Body of the Risen Christ is responsible for God’s presence and God’s activity and work in the world; in addition, God has no problem with anonymity, not needing or wanting or expecting to get credit for everything the way humans insist upon.
The biblical writers – especially Jesus and the prophets – the early Church we hear about in the book of Acts and the Church today and all people everywhere, find themselves walking and living such an exceedingly fine line between hope and trust and action and “works!” Without necessarily considering and intending our activities and responses as works righteousness, still seems like people truly and firmly believe God should be giving them points or credits adding up on their charts for everything they try to do and achieve. I know I think that way more often than not!
Then, of course, Jesus is extremely clear about whatever we do to “the least of these” is as if we’d done it to him, and therefore to God, as we know Jesus both as human and as the definitive manifestation of Divinity. Because of this, any reasonable person – especially any reasonable Christian, definitely would strive to start and to finish as many kind and merciful and redemptive actions as possible.
As it says in the Bible: “With God all things are possible;” “With God nothing is impossible;” “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” And that’s when and where our trusting hope and our serious action both need to happen! After all, if the Mighty God of all Creation, our God of Majesty, Glory and Sovereignty could be born on this earth into human society and live and die as one of us, what on earth is not possible?!
In any case, since God indwells each of us as Spirit, and since God works through not only Christians, the body of the Risen Christ, in order to be God with humanity but God also has no difficulty at all working through not Christians as well as people who affirm no Higher Power whatsoever, how much more “unbelievable” can you get?
You also said, “Trying our best…” It appears to me one of our most serious human sins is not in trying to be more than we are, more than we were created to be, but our most serious sin is willingness to be less than we are, less than God created us to be! I know I find myself willing to settle for less (OK, less from myself and less from others) than I “should” – and I say “should” very advisedly!
Holy Week 2003
It’s after Easter; I’d started writing this early in Holy Week, intending to email it to friends and post it on my theology website, Desert Spirit’s Fire Alive. But since I didn’t finish it sufficiently to meet my own timeline, here it is now!
The rumors of war became war, and reports are the allies have been victorious in combat and in their soon to be occupying endeavors. Again contemplating the One both crucified and risen, Whose Word above all is God’s Word of Life to us and for us…
...today I’m moving from the more academic to the more explicitly experiential, so rather than commenting on the War in Iraq that’s winding down, I’ll write about God’s actions in my own life. As again I think about and finally begin feeling about these past years of my journey with the Lord of Life, I watch myself on the periphery of my current communities – ecclesial or otherwise, actual and virtual – and even as I ask myself why I don’t risk integrating myself further into the life of those groups, I’m constantly aware moving closer into the center also invariably and inevitably means moving closer to the edge and the concomitant risk of my being pushed off the edge into marginalization again! Dramatic, but true! Really!
As I’ve frequently mentioned during this past year, our God’s ultimate passion is to journey with the people, and as the Bible and Jesus tell us and show us, its being about the journey means God goes everywhere with you and with me and God can be found by us especially when we meet together in community.
Many, many thanks to all of you who’ve been accompanying me on this walk in trust of the Living One. Without naming specific names (there are so many of you and I couldn’t leave out any of you), special appreciation to those of you who’ve encouraged me in spiritual practice outside the usual expressions of mainline Protestantism. Although I’m convinced I’ll always, always affirm the Reformation “solas,” these new experiences have helped in my remaining not only a Christian of Reformation tradition but also a Reforming Christian.
Extreme thanks, also, to the very many of you who in actual or virtual conversation have provoked my thinking (not hard to do, but still I appreciate it!) that – among other things – has resulted in my website, Desert Spirits Fire Alive!
A lot of the irresolution I constantly live with, which has been over the top as well, can be redeemed only by becoming redemptive for others. Last week I though a lot and felt a whole lot as the Church moved into another Holy Week and particularly another Good Friday, but with constant awareness our God's final answer always is Resurrection: above all God’s Word is the “Word of Life!” To us and, above all, for us.
Thank you, thank you, thank you all!
The rumors of war became war, and reports are the allies have been victorious in combat and in their soon to be occupying endeavors. Again contemplating the One both crucified and risen, Whose Word above all is God’s Word of Life to us and for us…
...today I’m moving from the more academic to the more explicitly experiential, so rather than commenting on the War in Iraq that’s winding down, I’ll write about God’s actions in my own life. As again I think about and finally begin feeling about these past years of my journey with the Lord of Life, I watch myself on the periphery of my current communities – ecclesial or otherwise, actual and virtual – and even as I ask myself why I don’t risk integrating myself further into the life of those groups, I’m constantly aware moving closer into the center also invariably and inevitably means moving closer to the edge and the concomitant risk of my being pushed off the edge into marginalization again! Dramatic, but true! Really!
As I’ve frequently mentioned during this past year, our God’s ultimate passion is to journey with the people, and as the Bible and Jesus tell us and show us, its being about the journey means God goes everywhere with you and with me and God can be found by us especially when we meet together in community.
Many, many thanks to all of you who’ve been accompanying me on this walk in trust of the Living One. Without naming specific names (there are so many of you and I couldn’t leave out any of you), special appreciation to those of you who’ve encouraged me in spiritual practice outside the usual expressions of mainline Protestantism. Although I’m convinced I’ll always, always affirm the Reformation “solas,” these new experiences have helped in my remaining not only a Christian of Reformation tradition but also a Reforming Christian.
Extreme thanks, also, to the very many of you who in actual or virtual conversation have provoked my thinking (not hard to do, but still I appreciate it!) that – among other things – has resulted in my website, Desert Spirits Fire Alive!
A lot of the irresolution I constantly live with, which has been over the top as well, can be redeemed only by becoming redemptive for others. Last week I though a lot and felt a whole lot as the Church moved into another Holy Week and particularly another Good Friday, but with constant awareness our God's final answer always is Resurrection: above all God’s Word is the “Word of Life!” To us and, above all, for us.
Thank you, thank you, thank you all!
Sunday, April 20, 2003
God Among Us!
According to the Bible (and Jesus!), here’s how it works:
God says, “I have heard the cry of my people and I have come down to deliver them from slavery and bring them into a broad land flowing with milk and honey!”
Then God says: “Hey Moses! I’m sending you to Pharaoh and you’re gonna tell Pharaoh to set my people free [so they may hold a Feast to me in the wilderness…]! Then you will lead my people out of Egyptian bondage, through the desert and into the Land of Promise, a place of freedom flowing with milk and honey.”
A little later the people beg: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down to earth!”
Then, as Walter Brueggemann expresses it: “This baby named ‘Save!!!!!’”…born into human history, born of a woman, born under the law…in order to deliver those of us under the law!
And still later: “Wait here in Jerusalem until you are clothed with Power from on High; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Samaria and even unto the ends of the earth.”
Now? We’re the ones immersed into Jesus’ death and resurrection in the waters of baptism, we’re the people “clothed with Power from on High!”
Once again God says, “I have heard the cry of my people and I have come down to deliver them from slavery and bring them into a broad land flowing with milk and honey!… Then you [that’s us, the Church!] will lead the people out of bondage, through the desert and into the Land of Promise, a place of freedom flowing with milk and honey.”
To deliver God’s people into the paradisiacal Kingdom of God on earth: from life under the law and into the Promised Land of the Reign of Grace. Presbyterians describe the Church as “The exhibition of the Kingdom of God!!” May we be the exhibition and the realization of Heaven to a world in pain and bondage a world still in need of deliverance…even though it is past the ninth hour and the temple veil has been torn apart; even though it is early Easter dawn and the stone has been rolled away!
God says, “I have heard the cry of my people and I have come down to deliver them from slavery and bring them into a broad land flowing with milk and honey!”
Then God says: “Hey Moses! I’m sending you to Pharaoh and you’re gonna tell Pharaoh to set my people free [so they may hold a Feast to me in the wilderness…]! Then you will lead my people out of Egyptian bondage, through the desert and into the Land of Promise, a place of freedom flowing with milk and honey.”
A little later the people beg: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down to earth!”
Then, as Walter Brueggemann expresses it: “This baby named ‘Save!!!!!’”…born into human history, born of a woman, born under the law…in order to deliver those of us under the law!
And still later: “Wait here in Jerusalem until you are clothed with Power from on High; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Samaria and even unto the ends of the earth.”
Now? We’re the ones immersed into Jesus’ death and resurrection in the waters of baptism, we’re the people “clothed with Power from on High!”
Once again God says, “I have heard the cry of my people and I have come down to deliver them from slavery and bring them into a broad land flowing with milk and honey!… Then you [that’s us, the Church!] will lead the people out of bondage, through the desert and into the Land of Promise, a place of freedom flowing with milk and honey.”
To deliver God’s people into the paradisiacal Kingdom of God on earth: from life under the law and into the Promised Land of the Reign of Grace. Presbyterians describe the Church as “The exhibition of the Kingdom of God!!” May we be the exhibition and the realization of Heaven to a world in pain and bondage a world still in need of deliverance…even though it is past the ninth hour and the temple veil has been torn apart; even though it is early Easter dawn and the stone has been rolled away!
Saturday, April 19, 2003
Words about Hope
Leahkim! Thank you for the ideas – since you’ve been reading Homeland, I’ll thank Lu Xun, as well!
You said:
Hope is not a virtue that was with us from the beginning. Hope is something that springs forth from nothingness. Hope is something that exists only for those who know how to hope. Hope exists only for those who believe in it. And in the end, those who persist in thinking that hope does not exist, simply end up proving themselves right.
I want to pick up on “Hope…springs forth from nothingness” and “Hope exists only for those who believe in it.”
Hope springs forth from nothingness? So true: creation and re-creation and the New Creation spring forth from:
1) emptiness, void, abyss
2) Chaos, disarray
3) Death. Absence of life.
God’s living Word, Jesus Christ calls forth Creation, re-creation and the New Creation.
As we move into Easter but look back to Advent, the beginning of the church’s liturgical year, the way God’s judgment always is illuminated and clarified by hope – often joyously dancing out of sin, aimlessness and destruction - is unmistakable, just as our endless immersion in God’s ever-present compassion, mercy and love is abundantly plain.
As we meet Christ Jesus, the One both crucified and risen in the Eucharist and in the world – in one another and especially in the stranger, sojourner and the not-like-us in our midst and also beyond the confines of our neighborhood – and as we offer hospitality to that alien – we, the Church, the Body of the risen Christ, as individuals and as a community move beyond hope to actualize and enact in our midst a time of salvation and of wholeness both for the “other” and for ourselves! All of us, the outsider and those we know and who are similar to us journey from an absence of life and community, from nothingness and emptiness between “us” and “them,” to connectedness and community: to life and the possibility of even more life!
But does the hope capable of generating life in this present moment, that evokes the presence of Spirit…does hope exist “only for those who believe in it?” I’m not convinced! In the Biblical witness – and each of our lives – so very often God works mightily in spite of us, far more frequently than because of us! But I am persuaded a lively hope can be a whole lot easier for those of us who’ve already experienced it and who because of experience find trust in hope easier.
You said:
Hope is not a virtue that was with us from the beginning. Hope is something that springs forth from nothingness. Hope is something that exists only for those who know how to hope. Hope exists only for those who believe in it. And in the end, those who persist in thinking that hope does not exist, simply end up proving themselves right.
I want to pick up on “Hope…springs forth from nothingness” and “Hope exists only for those who believe in it.”
Hope springs forth from nothingness? So true: creation and re-creation and the New Creation spring forth from:
1) emptiness, void, abyss
2) Chaos, disarray
3) Death. Absence of life.
God’s living Word, Jesus Christ calls forth Creation, re-creation and the New Creation.
As we move into Easter but look back to Advent, the beginning of the church’s liturgical year, the way God’s judgment always is illuminated and clarified by hope – often joyously dancing out of sin, aimlessness and destruction - is unmistakable, just as our endless immersion in God’s ever-present compassion, mercy and love is abundantly plain.
As we meet Christ Jesus, the One both crucified and risen in the Eucharist and in the world – in one another and especially in the stranger, sojourner and the not-like-us in our midst and also beyond the confines of our neighborhood – and as we offer hospitality to that alien – we, the Church, the Body of the risen Christ, as individuals and as a community move beyond hope to actualize and enact in our midst a time of salvation and of wholeness both for the “other” and for ourselves! All of us, the outsider and those we know and who are similar to us journey from an absence of life and community, from nothingness and emptiness between “us” and “them,” to connectedness and community: to life and the possibility of even more life!
But does the hope capable of generating life in this present moment, that evokes the presence of Spirit…does hope exist “only for those who believe in it?” I’m not convinced! In the Biblical witness – and each of our lives – so very often God works mightily in spite of us, far more frequently than because of us! But I am persuaded a lively hope can be a whole lot easier for those of us who’ve already experienced it and who because of experience find trust in hope easier.
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Woman who anointed Jesus
Yesterday was Tuesday in Holy Week; at our evening Voices of Eve liturgy we remembered and celebrated the anonymous (to us!) Woman Who Anointed Jesus.
Our conversation afterwards got onto a different track, so I'll write a couple more theological pieces now.
"Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon king!" Members of the temple hierarchy and theological establishment – both guys – anointed Solomon king to reign in glory and live in palatial opulence. They anointed Solomon king within the recognized, reputable and totally expected imperial structure, within the humanly established order of earthly affairs. Jesus talked about "Solomon in all his glory!"
In that society, in that religious culture, prophets, priests, and kings were anointed with oil poured onto their heads; in that time and place, the only feet that got anointed were the feet of dead people, of corpses. At the house of a leper, the dwelling of a person wholly marginalized by society, a woman nameless to us anointed Jesus not to reign in life but anointed Jesus to his death, a dying in the glory of the cross. A woman – someone with no part in the entire Temple array, one who never could be a priest because of gender and caste – anointed Jesus, way outside of legitimately sanctioned and reputable arrangements and expectations, according to worldly reason and logic, but right within God’s upside down, illegitimate order, God's own scheme that invalidates and inverts most people's imaginings of what should be! The Way of the Cross ... the Divinely established order of human affairs.
Our conversation afterwards got onto a different track, so I'll write a couple more theological pieces now.
"Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon king!" Members of the temple hierarchy and theological establishment – both guys – anointed Solomon king to reign in glory and live in palatial opulence. They anointed Solomon king within the recognized, reputable and totally expected imperial structure, within the humanly established order of earthly affairs. Jesus talked about "Solomon in all his glory!"
In that society, in that religious culture, prophets, priests, and kings were anointed with oil poured onto their heads; in that time and place, the only feet that got anointed were the feet of dead people, of corpses. At the house of a leper, the dwelling of a person wholly marginalized by society, a woman nameless to us anointed Jesus not to reign in life but anointed Jesus to his death, a dying in the glory of the cross. A woman – someone with no part in the entire Temple array, one who never could be a priest because of gender and caste – anointed Jesus, way outside of legitimately sanctioned and reputable arrangements and expectations, according to worldly reason and logic, but right within God’s upside down, illegitimate order, God's own scheme that invalidates and inverts most people's imaginings of what should be! The Way of the Cross ... the Divinely established order of human affairs.
Sunday, April 13, 2003
A Lord's Prayer for Justice
A Lord's Prayer for Justice (OFM Capuchin of Ireland)
In our scheme of things, survival of the fittest is the rule. In God’s scheme, survival of the weakest is the rule. God always stands on the side of the weak, and it is there – among the weak – we find God!
Our Father.
Who always stands with the weak, the powerless, the poor, the abandoned. This is the insight of the saints.
Who art in heaven.
Where everything will be reversed, upside down, where the first will be last, and the last will be first.
Hallowed be Thy Name.
May we acknowledge your holiness; your ways are not our ways.
Your Kingdom come.
Help us to create a world where we will walk justly, speak tenderly, and walk humbly with you and with each other.
Your will be done.
Open our freedom to let you in, so the complete mutuality that characterizes your life may flow through our veins.
On earth as in heaven.
May the work of our hands reflect the justice of heaven.
Give.
Life and love to us, and help us always to see everything as a gift. Help us to know nothing comes to us by rights, and that we must give because we have been given to.
Us.
The truly plural ‘us’. Give, not just to our own, but to everyone including those who are very different from the narrow ‘us’.
This day.
Not tomorrow. Do not let us put things off into some indefinite future, so that we can continue to live justified lives in the face of injustice.
Our daily bread.
So each person in the world may have clean air, pure water, enough food, health care, access to education, and so have the basis of a healthy life.
And forgive us our trespasses.
Forgive us our blindness towards our neighbor, our obsessive preoccupation, our racism. Forgive us our capacity to watch the evening news and do nothing about it.
As we forgive those who trespass.
Help us to forgive those who victimize us. Help us to mellow our spirit, to not grow bitter with age, to forgive the imperfect parents, the family or the community that wounded us.
And do not put us to the test.
Do not judge only by whether we have fed the hungry, given clothes to the naked, visited the sick, or tried to mend the systems that victimized the poor. Spare us this test, for none of us can stand before this gospel scrutiny. Give us instead more days to mend our ways, our selfishness and our systems.
But deliver us from evil.
Deliver us from the blindness that lets us continue to participate in anonymous systems within which we need not see who gets less as we get more.
Amen!!!
In our scheme of things, survival of the fittest is the rule. In God’s scheme, survival of the weakest is the rule. God always stands on the side of the weak, and it is there – among the weak – we find God!
Our Father.
Who always stands with the weak, the powerless, the poor, the abandoned. This is the insight of the saints.
Who art in heaven.
Where everything will be reversed, upside down, where the first will be last, and the last will be first.
Hallowed be Thy Name.
May we acknowledge your holiness; your ways are not our ways.
Your Kingdom come.
Help us to create a world where we will walk justly, speak tenderly, and walk humbly with you and with each other.
Your will be done.
Open our freedom to let you in, so the complete mutuality that characterizes your life may flow through our veins.
On earth as in heaven.
May the work of our hands reflect the justice of heaven.
Give.
Life and love to us, and help us always to see everything as a gift. Help us to know nothing comes to us by rights, and that we must give because we have been given to.
Us.
The truly plural ‘us’. Give, not just to our own, but to everyone including those who are very different from the narrow ‘us’.
This day.
Not tomorrow. Do not let us put things off into some indefinite future, so that we can continue to live justified lives in the face of injustice.
Our daily bread.
So each person in the world may have clean air, pure water, enough food, health care, access to education, and so have the basis of a healthy life.
And forgive us our trespasses.
Forgive us our blindness towards our neighbor, our obsessive preoccupation, our racism. Forgive us our capacity to watch the evening news and do nothing about it.
As we forgive those who trespass.
Help us to forgive those who victimize us. Help us to mellow our spirit, to not grow bitter with age, to forgive the imperfect parents, the family or the community that wounded us.
And do not put us to the test.
Do not judge only by whether we have fed the hungry, given clothes to the naked, visited the sick, or tried to mend the systems that victimized the poor. Spare us this test, for none of us can stand before this gospel scrutiny. Give us instead more days to mend our ways, our selfishness and our systems.
But deliver us from evil.
Deliver us from the blindness that lets us continue to participate in anonymous systems within which we need not see who gets less as we get more.
Amen!!!
Thursday, April 03, 2003
YHWH
One of the revolutionary thing about YHWH is that Yahweh, unlike the other gods of the Ancient Near East, didn’t require appeasement, tribute, protection or beseeching! What does Yahweh require and demand? Here’s some scriptural evidence:
Amos 5:18-24
I hate, I loathe, I despise your festivals
I am not appeased by and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer Me burnt offerings—and grain offerings—
I will not accept them; …
Spare Me the noise of your songs,
I will not listen to or hear the music of your lutes and harps.
But let justice well up like water,
And righteousness like an unfailing ever-flowing stream.
Micah 6:8
…And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?
3rd Isaiah: Isaiah 58:6-8
Is not this the fast I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to set the broken free, and to shatter every subjugation?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and to bring into your house the homeless, cast-out poor, to cover the naked and defenseless, and not to conceal yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the morning dawn, and your healing shall spring forth speedily; your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of the LORD shall be your safety and security.
Amos 5:18-24
I hate, I loathe, I despise your festivals
I am not appeased by and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer Me burnt offerings—and grain offerings—
I will not accept them; …
Spare Me the noise of your songs,
I will not listen to or hear the music of your lutes and harps.
But let justice well up like water,
And righteousness like an unfailing ever-flowing stream.
Micah 6:8
…And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?
3rd Isaiah: Isaiah 58:6-8
Is not this the fast I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to set the broken free, and to shatter every subjugation?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and to bring into your house the homeless, cast-out poor, to cover the naked and defenseless, and not to conceal yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the morning dawn, and your healing shall spring forth speedily; your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of the LORD shall be your safety and security.
Thursday, March 20, 2003
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.
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.
Saturday, March 08, 2003
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!
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…”
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…”
Monday, February 17, 2003
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.”
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
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.
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.
Thursday, January 16, 2003
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.
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.
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