Tag: humanity

Imagine Another Way

Psalm 127:1-2 Unless Abba God builds the house, their labor is in vain who build it. Unless Abba God  watches over the city, in vain the watcher keeps their vigil.

Introduction

We’re marching forward here in the gospel of Mark and learning, in every which way, what it looks like to be a disciple of Christ. And while I’ve stressed (because Mark has stressed) that it’s hard and can be (very) uncomfortable, the actual point is that following Christ, being a disciple of Jesus, is really and simply about being human…fully, and totally, materially and spiritually, from the inniest parts of our souls to the outiest surfaces of our body. For Mark’s Jesus, being fully and totally human requires a few things, full dependence on God through faith in Christ by the power of the indwelling divine Spirit. It’s this triune foundation that nourishes us in the amniotic fluid of divine love, bears us into the world swaddled in divine love, and continues to grow us toward divine love that is faith making itself known in the world through acts of love for God’s beloved. As the psalm tells us this morning: “Unless Abba God builds the house, their labor is in vain who build it. Unless Abba God  watches over the city, in vain the watcher keeps their vigil.”

In other words, when left to our own devices and to our own cleverness we create kingdoms and orders that remove us from not only God but from our own humanity. It is not some evil force that makes even well-intentioned systems and structures inhuman, it’s our own doing. We create hierarchies, in groups and out groups, uses and thems; we determine who is worth saving and who isn’t; we fabricate narratives elevating some above others because of wealth, skin, gender and sex, religion, age, abledness… We do this. And Jesus came, according to Mark, to expose these tendencies of the inhabitants of the kingdom of humanity and to usher them into the reign of God as citizens who make a difference in the world just by being willing to be utterly and completely human by loving (in word and deed) those whom God loves. By faith in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, disciples of Christ become those human beings—fully dependent on God—who see through elaborate presentations of power and prestige and dare to imagine another way, a better way, a more human way defined by the reign of God and to the wellbeing of the neighbor.

Mark 12:38-44

And then [Jesus] was saying in his teaching, “You perceive from the scribes, those who desire to walk around in the apparel of the elite and [be] greeted deferentially in the places of assembly and [desire] the most honorable seat in the synagogue and the chief place at the table at dinner, the ones who take material advantage of the households of widows and for pretexts pray for a long time; they, they will receive a greater judgment…” (Mk. 12:38-40)

Apart from what we experienced last week between Jesus and the scribe who “got it,” we are back with Jesus’s continual denunciation of self-aggrandized power run amok.[1] Literally. Jesus has zero tolerance for these scribes[2] and exposes their “general character” manifesting as “ostentatious, exploitative, and hypocritical”.[3] Jesus proposes to his disciples, in this passage, another way of being (and leading) in the world, a way he, Jesus, the Son of God and of Humanity, will take which is the way he expects his disciples[4] to take, too.[5]

If you thought that the politics of Jesus emphasized being nice and tolerant, this passage blows that notion to smithereens; Jesus is thoroughly polemical[6] right now, and that’s why he broad brushed an entire group of Jewish authority[7] when he says: You perceive from the scribes those who desire…. The “you perceive” is a command, meaning YOU look….LOOK! And the “those who desire” modifies the scribes as those who have the ambition to abuse their power and to exploit the people. In other words, Jesus is saying, Look, LOOK!, look at how the scribes not only exploit the people but that they desire to do it… They desire[8] the glory their fancy/celebratory robes[9] bring them, the deferential greetings[10] their rank demands from those who are inferior, the best seats, and to siphon the livelihood from widows through being paid for their long prayers.[11] And when it comes to leaders who opt for arrogant self-involvement at the expense of God’s people—especially the weak and least of these in society like widows[12]—God takes massive issue and divine judgment comes…not for the people so deceived and duped, but for those in authority who capitalized on and benefited from such deception. This is quite literally what the major and minor prophets are all about, and this is why Jesus then says, they, they will receive a greater (divine[13]) judgment!

Then, according to the text, Mark tells us, And then after sitting down opposite the treasury he was looking at how the crowd is throwing money into the treasury. And many wealthy people were throwing in much. And then a poor widow came and threw in two of the smallest amounts of money[14] (which is a quadrans). This scene is jarring, it doesn’t seem to fit with what has just come before. Or is it? Seems there’s some ostentatious public[15] demonstrations of the rich throwing large sums of money[16] into the various thirteen “trumpet chests” [17]. It’s here where there’s an overlap: Jesus, again, has zero tolerance for ostentation and zero tolerance for exploitation. Thus, it’s not so much an attack on the rich per se but on the desire to show off how much one can and is giving thus drawing attention to oneself (like the Scribes in the marketplaces in their robes).[18] In this way, it can also be (potentially) an attack on institutions that allow the exploitation and extortion of widows their business for their own benefit—donations for the poor were done elsewhere apart from these trumpet chests.[19]

Jesus, in response to witnessing the widow’s offering, according to Mark, says, Truly I say to you—so take notice—that the poor widow threw much more into the treasury than all others; for all others threw in out of that which abounds, but she threw in out of her poverty all she was having, her entire livelihood. We’ve often made this offering a type of virtue even to the extent that some churches have suggested that you must give all you have to prove your faithfulness. It is possible that Jesus is glorifying her self-sacrifice and even honoring her heartfelt gift. It could be, too, that Jesus is placing a certain amount of emphasis on the reality that this widow just gave to the temple the means of her next meal when it may have been better for her to eat and live another day.[20] It is possible that Jesus is calling out the narrative justifying stealing from such people their very livelihood.[21] Thus, like the scribes, the human religious authority, consumed by the ideologies of the kingdom of humanity, have turned the temple into a money making institution, granting more and more power and privilege to the themselves (thus the cycle repeats from the beginning).

Conclusion

What do we take away from this? It is not to give all you have, though, during pledge month…give what you can! But more importantly, the point of this passage for us, today, is that humility carries way more currency in the economy of the reign of God than self-aggrandizement. This isn’t about not tooting your horn once in a while because you did something great or something great happened—you need not resort to just saying, “It’s all Jesus!”, Jesus wants you to receive the credit, too! This is about how we participate in systems and institutions that are prone to extorting and taking advantage of the least of these (and some of these least of these includes you). It’s about our faith in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, that we, as disciples of Christ, become human beings—fully dependent on God—who see through elaborate presentations of power and prestige and dare to imagine another way, a better way, a more human way defined by the reign of God and to the wellbeing of the neighbor. We are to be truly and fully human in a world demanding to grow ever more inhuman.

[1] R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 489. “Apart from vv. 28-34, it is true, all the scribes we have met in this gospel have been critics, if not openly enemies, of Jesus, and here in Jerusalem their hostility has come to a head as Jesus had predicted…But there is no comparable denunciation of the priests or elders.”

[2] France, Mark, 491. “In that case the subjects of these participles are not a new group, or even a subgroup of the scribes, but must still be the scribes in general.”

[3] France, Mark, 489.

[4] France, Mark, 490. “These remarks, too, are addressed specifically to the disciples….and do not form part of the public denunciation of the scribes. Jesus again calls those who follow him to abandon the world’s conventions of importance: the first are to be last and the last first.”

[5] France, Mark, 489. “But the warning here is not related to what they. May have in mind to do to Jesus, but to their general character as ostentatious, exploitative, and hypocritical…In this context the effect is to offer the crowd a choice as to the sort of leader they will follow, and Jesus pulls no punches in exposing the shortcomings of scribes in general.”

[6] France, Mark, 490. “What is now recorded, however, is not so much teaching as polemic.”

[7] France, Mark, 489. “…this is polemics in the context of a highly charged and potentially fatal confrontation, and a suitably broad brush is applied.”

[8] William C. Placher, Mark, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 181. “Beware of those who hold the chief seats, Augustine writes, ‘Not because they hold them, but because they love them.’ Those who are condemned put on a good appearance of piety praying long prayers, but what they seek is honor and wealth.”

[9] France, Mark, 490. “a στολή is not an everyday garment, but a festive or celebratory robe…and suggests ‘dressing up’.”

[10] France, Mark, 490. “Deferential ἀσπασμοί are a mark of social standing…”

[11] France, Mark, 492. “…προφάσει would naturally describe the fraudulent means by which it is achieved. In that case the reference cold be to the sort of payment for the prayers of a religious professional which became common in mediaeval Christianity.”

[12] France, Mark, 491. “The vulnerability of widows is a recurrent theme in biblical literature, so that to defraud them is particularly despicable.”

[13] France, Mark, 492. Κρίμα a reference to “….God’s eschatological judgment, of which Jesus has spoken so vividly…”

[14] France, Mark, 493. “The λεπτόν was the smallest denomination of currency in use, a copper coin less than a centimetre in diameter and worth less than one hundredth of a denarius (which was itself half the value of the half-shekel temple tax).”

[15] France, Mark, 489. “The scene is in the Court of the Women, so-called not because it was a specifically for women but because it was the nearest point to the temple building proper which was open to women. Here stood a range of thirteen ‘trumpet chests’…designed to receive monetary offerings, including not only the half-shekel temple tax but also ‘freewill offerings’. The half-shekel was obligatory for men, but any contribution to the other chests was voluntary, and would be noticed by anyone who, like Jesus and his disciples, was watching…perhaps it was a recognised tourist attraction.”

[16] France, Mark, 492. “χαλκός is strictly ‘copper’ or ‘bronze’, and the widow’s two coins would be of copper.” And, “But the large sums donated by the rich would presumably be in silver or gold coins… so that χαλκός is here used in its more general sense of ‘money’.”

[17] France, Mark, 492. “γαζοφυλάκον…its reference here to the collecting chests in the Court of the Women is demanded by the context…”

[18] France, Mark, 489-490. “Jesus’ comment on the widow’s offering is not an attack on wealth or the wealthy as such, but rather on the scale of values which takes more account of the amount of a gift than of the dedication of the giver. It develops further the new perspective of the kingdom of God which Jesus has been so assiduously teaching his disciples on the way to Jerusalem specially his comments responding to their astonishment at his treatment of the rich man in 10:23-27.”

[19] France, Mark, 493. “All contributions were therefore for the work of the temple; charitable donations for the poor were made separately.”

[20] France, Mark, 493. “While Jesus was not averse to exaggeration to make a point, it is quite possible that in first-century Palestine the donation of two [copper coins] would have left a poor widow without the means for her next meal.”

[21] Placher, Mark, 182. Alt reading: the widow mistakenly gives into a system that is bleeding her dry “Jesus lamented the widow’s contribution”

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Will They Know?

Psalm 138:8-9 Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you keep me safe; you stretch forth your hand against the fury of my enemies; your right hand shall save me. God will make good God’s purpose for me; Abba God, your love endures for ever; do not abandon the works of your hands.

Introduction

Last week we touched on a few things. First, “What now?” Now that we find ourselves walking in the steps of the disciples, we are also faced with the same question they had, “What now?” And in this way we share in that same moment even though our place in history is very different; the question and the situation overlaps with similarity: we are without Jesus, just as they were; we are with the Holy Spirit, just as they were; we are called to participate in God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation in the world for the beloved, just as they were. Moving forward is precarious business and makes this time in our liturgical calendar EXTRAordinary rather than just ordinary.

Paul is our faithful guide through these beginning steps; for he knows what it’s like to be upended by Christ and brought to life by the Holy Spirit to the glory of God. So, second, Paul brought us into the necessity of full dependence on God, God’s word, and God’s spirit. We are exhorted to proclaim Jesus Christ (died, raised, and ascended) and not our own dogmas; this leads us to elevate the neighbor as the principal concern in our life (individually and together). To proclaim Christ into the world is to love the neighbor because to love the neighbor is to proclaim Christ because Christ is brought to the neighbor through our words and deeds (which both fuel proclamation). According to Paul, we must see Christ in our neighbor and our neighbor in Christ, thus, to love Christ is to love the neighbor and to proclaim Christ is to bring Christ closer to the neighbor whom Christ loves.

And, third, we do this as cheap, breakable vessels charged to carry within ourselves the very treasure of God: God’s self and God’s word. We are no longer our own, but we are Christ’s and if Christ’s than our neighbor’s and the world’s. We serve God and God’s mission in the world as vessels easily fractured but never destroyed because God’s strength is made known in our weakness; that makes us very strong.

But Paul isn’t finished with his “jars of clay”; there’s more to the story, there’s more to the answer to “What now?”

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

Therefore, we are not growing weary, rather even though our outer humanity is being utterly destroyed, yet our inner [humanity] is being made new day after day. For our immediate, light tribulation according to excellence is being worked out for us toward the surpassing eternal weight of glory, fixing our gaze not on the things that are perceived but [on] the things which cannot be perceived, for the things that can be perceived [are] temporary, but the things that cannot be perceived [are] eternal]. (2 Cor. 4:16-18)

Paul shifts the Corinthian’s attention away from the material to the spiritual. He does this in part because he is rendering his suffering, his struggle, his pain and turmoil as movement of the spiritual realm within the temporal realm. Paul’s faith places a demand on his body to speak (‘I believed therefore I spoke,’ also we, we believe, therefore we also speak (v.13). Faith leads to proclamation; love leads to deeds… there’s no way around it either for Paul or for scripture.[1],[2] Thus, if for Paul then for the disciples, too.

Pain and toil, tumult and suffering are going to come to those who move through the world turning the material world upside and bringing into reality the spiritual world; for Paul to really love God is to lead the lover through the torment of loving the neighbor in the world because this love of God which is love of neighbor is going to demand from the lover acts and words of love (the good news) for the beloved.[3] What Paul is talking about here are deeds and words that go beyond mere acts of charity and niceness because neither of those things necessitates the depth of love of God thus of God’s beloved (the neighbor). You can do those things without love and without gaining the attention of the system (because. The system isn’t going to create much fuss about it because it isn’t impacted by charity or niceness). But to really love God and God’s beloved in the world is to dare to transgress the red-lined boundaries drawn by the rulers of the kingdom of humanity forcing most to be out and few (who qualify) to be in. To love God and God’s beloved is to call sham on the inherent tendencies of the kingdom of humanity that gains power from us-ing and them-ing, friend-ing and foe-ing, including and excluding.

To step over these boundaries, to proclaim God’s love into this oppression and marginalization, is to draw radical attention to yourself and thus draw unto your mortal body the pain and suffering delivered by the kings of this material world. To conjure up the spiritual realm into the temporal realm is to up-end and un-do all that the kingdom of humanity values and esteems and will bring the heat down upon you. But this is why Paul then goes on to stress that he will be raised with Christ—for we know that the one who raised Jesus and us with Jesus will raise and will place [us] with you (v. 14). For Paul, the promised resurrection with Christ made him bolder and more active not smugger and more complacent in his future. It made him put everything on the line and not store it all up like grain in silos. He knew that no matter what happened to this outer body, this material body, there was (for him and all believers) a new body with Christ and with the community.[4] Therefore there was no reason to hold back and there was no reason for the Corinthian community to be worried because all the suffering and pain because of all things (Paul’s preaching and doing)[5] is for their benefit[6] and to the glory of God so that God’s grace and God’s love is abounding yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

This is why Paul then moves to speak of inner and outer humanity; these are not two separate entities vying for importance, rather Paul is speaking about the one person from two different viewpoints: the outer viewpoint (the material perspective: morality, praxis)[7] and the inner viewpoint (from the spiritual perspective: new creation).[8] In other words, Paul is employing a type of merism here, using two extreme points to speak of a whole, and in this case, he’s speaking of the whole person. And even if the material body, the outer humanity, is diminishing—through trial and tumult, pain and suffering, persecution and threat—the spiritual body, the inner humanity is not diminishing because nothing can steal from God’s glory and grace made manifest in the believer’s new creation.[9] And so Paul can exhort the Corinthian believers to fix their gaze on things that cannot be perceived rather than things that can be perceived because whatever is perceived is that which is passing away, temporal, temporary and will disappoint time and time again because it always goes away. Whether it is wealth, security, comfort, lack of trouble, things of this ilk are all based on the temporal, a material reality that is fleeting, and they will return to dust. Thus, to focus on Christ, press into God’s word, and rely fully on God’s Spirit is to fix the gaze on things that cannot be perceived and thus can never (ever!) pass away because they are of God and thus of the spiritual realm and are the things of eternity, never passing away thus a lasting reality rather than a temporary one.[10] Thus, as Paul fixes his own gaze on things not perceived, he exhorts the Corinthians to follow suit.[11]

Conclusion

So, Paul moves us closer to answering the question proposed by this ecclesiastical EXTRAordinary time: “What now?” Both the Christian and the Christian community will live in the tension of being in the world but not of the world, to quote John’s Jesus. We are exhorted to suspend disbelief especially when everything seems to be pointing to and advocating for death, indifference, and captivity. We must dare to step into the gap, the void, into the margins and fringe to carry our proclamation (in word and deed) of God’s good news and participate in God’s long esteemed mission and revolution in the world to bring divine love, life, and liberation to the beloved. To adhere to this tension and daring to enter in will render you, the believer, the epicenter of the material realm and the spiritual realm, where both collide and coalesce. For, according to Paul, it is the believer who can—with eyes fixed on that which cannot be seen—call out and expose that which is perceived to be false, as a sham, as a mocking of life by death, of love by indifference, of liberation by captivity.

Today we sing, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” So, part of answering “What now?” is honestly asking, “Will they?”

[1] Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC, eds. I Howard Marshall and Donald A Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 351. “Although suffering is part and parcel of the apostolic ministry, faith in God and in the gospel cannot but lead to the proclamation of the good news the open declaration of the truth (v. 2b).”

[2] Harris, Second Corinthians, 351. “…Paul views himself as sharing ‘the same spirit of faith’ as was expressed by the psalmist when he said ‘I believe, and therefore I spoke.’”

[3] Harris, Second Corinthians, 352. “…Paul is clearly focusing on the principle ‘faith leads to speech’ or ‘believing is the ground…for speaking.’ As the principle applies to his case, Paul is affirming that in spite of the inroads of θάνατος in his life (v. 12a), his unswerving belief in God and in the gospel as God’s powerful instrument to bring salvation to everyone who has faith…made it natural and necessary for him to declare (λαλεῖν) the good news.”

[4] Harris, Second Corinthians, 353. “For Paul, Christ’s resurrection formed the guarantee of believers’ resurrection, which is the probable significance of the phrase σὺν Ἰησοῦ.”

[5] Harris, Second Corinthians, 356. Τὰ πάντα “refers to all that Paul does and that happens to him, but in particular his preaching (vv. 2-3, 5, 7) and his suffering (vv. 8-12).”

[6] Harris, Second Corinthians, 356. “The apostle reminds his converts that all aspects of his life promote not his own good but theirs—a sentiment already expressed…”

[7] Harris, Second Corinthians, 360. “He is contemplating his total existence from two contrasting viewpoints. The ‘outer self’ is the whole person from the standpoint of one’s ‘creaturely mortality,’ the physical aspect of the person.”

[8] Harris, Second Corinthians, 360. “The ‘inner self’ is …the whole person as a ‘new creation’ (5:17) or a ‘new person’ (Col. 3:9-10), ‘the renewed being of the Christian,’ the spiritual aspect of the believer.”

[9] Harris, Second Corinthians, 363. “…[Paul] had this paradoxical attitude toward affliction because his spiritual sights were set on the δόξα that could not be seen but was continuing to be produced.”

[10] Harris, Second Corinthians, 364. “Paul had not fixed his gaze exclusively on τὰ μὴ βλεπόμεν. Rather, he is affirming that his affections were on the ‘the realm above’…on lasting realities—some future, but others already present although still be fully realized.”

[11] Harris, Second Corinthians, 365. “Christians should be characterized by a fixation on invisible, enteral realities. Paradoxically, their eyes are riveted on what cannot be seen. The world of sense does not determine their outlook and action.”

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words like blood

words flow through me like the very blood that flows and moves through my veins and arteries in opposing directions through various delicate tubes weaving and wending throughout my body so everything I write comes from me not merely my mind or my heart but both and my body too and that flow and fluidity is a stream of my own being leaving me and entering the world but that old and over used analogy that this written thing is a begotten baby whose cord must now be cut so that the baby may live in the world falls flat because it is a lie nothing written has ever felt like it is not still connected to me in some form whether bad or good and should I point out that such an analogy is they way men view birth and child rearing because I am mom and there is no way that simply cutting the cord of the human I just birthed means that it is now detached from and not a part of me on its own and of its own through nourishing and encouraging and training and walking along side I grow more attached to the very child that I once held in my body and then strapped to my breast by cloth tied about my body and who now walks beside me and towers above me larger than I and so I cannot help but think that as maternally defensive as I am over my babies turned young adults due to profound and deep attachment that the same thing would occur with the other product that my body produces through herself because this thing that I have written bears in likeness to me and carries with it my genetic material even if merely collections of letters and shapes forming places to pause in various forms it is an animated thing not a cold product like a can or a shovel or a thing to be kicked about purchased sold used as a means to an end it is a line from me to the one who reads it an intimate momentary bond that holds for however many minutes it takes to walk together from the beginning to the end and I think the sooner we come to terms with the interconnectedness of art from the artist to the one who is engaged and encountered by the art the sooner we will be made aware that we are not stoic producers in a world demanding product and material but co-creators divinely inspired swirled up and spun about in the divine delight of begetting and creating living breathing things in the world that tie us to us in a beautiful silvery spiritual and mystical thread spun by the divine light of heaven dropped by spinning spools releasing their brilliant and delicate and thin string and material into eager hands of listening and watching creatures ready to participate in this thing called humanity and willing to step thread in hand curious enough to pick up the stray end of another and allow heart beats and blood flows and intimate connectivity to bond risking exposure and rejection and still feeling deep awareness of self and union because these words have flown through me like the very blood that flows and moves through my veins and arteries…

***

inspired by Dorothee Sölle’s discussion of “Co-Creator” in To work and to Love: A Theology of Creation

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The One of Peace

Sermon on Micah 5:2-5a

Luke 1:46b, 53-54 My soul proclaims the greatness of God… God has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich God has sent away empty. God has come to the help of God’s servant Israel, for God has remembered God’s promise of mercy… 

Introduction 

It’s nice to be in charge, right? It’s an ego boost to be the boss, the one where the buck stops. It’s fun to be the leader, the one who decides this and that, and here and there, the one who tells this and that person what to do and what to say. The more power the better, right? For isn’t it in the acquisition of power and dominance—the incessant climbing of the occupational ladder—where I achieve my true human liberty and freedom? As I climb up, I’m freed from the constraints of the lower echelons of human existence, and I finally have that long awaited liberty where none can tread on me. The higher up I move along this ladder, the more I acquire the rewards and accolades of this system, and the more I’m lifted out of the muck and mire of obligation to anyone else. (There’s something wrong with someone who is content with the middle or, God forbid, the lowest rung of the ladder; who wants to stay there?) Here, at the top or near the top, I’m my own law. Here, I am respected. Here, I’m freed from the tyranny of others. Here I’m that which I have strived for: powerful. I get to holler at subordinates and underlings, echoing Eric Cartman from the cartoon series, South Park, “Respect my ah-thor-ah-tah!” It’s nice to be in charge, right?  

Or is it… 

Once I start seeing my leadership in the schema of the personal acquisition of power—and the continual pursuit there in—I will ignore that the ladder I am hoisting myself upon is always made up of the human bodies I was charged to guide and lead in the first place. The bodies will be used to an end to satisfy the unquenchable thirst of a bloated and an autonomous self, untethered from the mores of being human: the humility of existence made tangible in the willing and sometimes not-so-willing self-surrender of the self to other humans in the activity of love. To climb that ladder as far as I can, I must turn off the “human” part of my humanity, which—if you are doing the math—renders to near zero “humanity.” And the farther-up I go pursuing the acquisition of power and privilege, the deeper-in I’m pushed into what can only be described as a solitary confinement with walls built of competition and fear– it only takes one slip (slide?) to fall from that glory. It’s nice to be in charge, right? 

Or is it…. 

Micah 5:2-5a 

And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, 
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. 

And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great 
to the ends of the earth; 

and he shall be the one of peace.  

Micah 5:4-5

The bulk of Micah’s message (from the beginning of the book to the end) is embedded in Micah’s mission to expose the sins of Jacob and Israel, being the first prophet to declare the destruction of Jerusalem.[1] What sins does Micah expose? In short: moral corruption. The long of it is that there is violence (from the wealthy and powerful) and the proliferation of lies.[2] And the even longer of it is: the heads of the houses of Jacob and the rulers of Israel “abhor justice and pervert equity” and the brick and mortar of their cities are the wrong-doing of the leaders and the spilled blood of the people.[3] And, according to Micah who is emboldened by the passionate Spirit of God in the face of such violence,[4] God will not tolerate this depraved leadership, profiting off of the bodies and souls of God’s beloved.[5]

In the prophesy, Micah, so moved by God’s Spirit, transitions from exposing sins and naming the trespasses of Israel’s and Jacob’s leaders to speaking of one who will be raised up from the small clan of Bethlehem of Ephrathah. This one will be of old and of the ancient of days. This humble one from a humble tribe will be called out to lead God’s beloved in the name of God and in the Spirit of God: delighting in unconditional and unceasing love, forgiveness, mercy, and humility.[6] Specifically in our portion of the text, Micah’s prophesy moves toward a God who rejects the idea of letting iniquity run amok[7] even if the city itself is complacent.[8] so, God comes, and in that God comes, there will be forgiveness and peace because when God comes, so to comes the true leadership of Israel defined not by humanity but by God, the one of peace.[9]

Conclusion

Micah’s words haunt me. Israel’s leadership has run away with Israel for its own power and privilege. And God is coming to rescue God’s beloved. Woe to that leadership so bent on self-aggrandizement and power and authority and privilege; violent leadership that uses the beloved as a means to their own end will be exposed in God’s light of truth. Leadership so bent in this way is in direct opposition to God and God’s conception of leading and can meet no other end in God but death. God has a very specific interpretation of what it means to lead, especially leading God’s beloved: it is done through mercy, kindness, humility, love, and forgiveness. To be completely frank, God doesn’t like it when human leaders forget themselves and become drunk with power and abusive and violent, resulting in the oppression and marginalization of God’s beloved. God will come and rescue the beloved from such domination. Thus, the judgment of this prophecy is targeted at me, the leader of God’s beloved—and others like me holding power and authority. God will come for the beloved and in that the beloved is sought and liberated from oppressive and violent leadership, so too will the violent and oppressive leaders be liberated. It’s nice to be in charge, right? Or is it?

With what shall I come before the Lord,
    and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
    with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
    with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:7-8

It’s into the presence of God I am called. I am pulled off my ladder of power and am dragged onto the carpet; I am beckoned into the light; I am exposed by the Spirit’s prophetic utterance still fresh on Micah’s lips. I am asked to come close and to hear and to see what means to be a good leader. And, it’s not defined in the way that I think it should be: through the acquisition of more and more power and lording it over those under my charge. It won’t look like making people feel small so I can feel big. It won’t even look elite, special, or privileged. Rather, this good leader will look remarkably like a humble and vulnerable infant wrapped in meager rags, laid in a manger, dwelling among the creation in its earthy glory, surrounded by dirty shepherds and an exhausted woman of color. I am asked here: can you lead like this? For here lies the true leader, the one from the ancient of days who knows no end of time but is now a tiny baby in swaddling clothes: humble and accessible to anyone; can you lead like this…of the people for the people? Can you love them like I do?

That this prophetic utterance of Micah is for me it is for you, too. Because divine love does not remain dormant when the beloved is in need: hope exists. We can, right now during this season of Advent in 2021, hope. We can hope because we dwell in and are invited into a story of God acting on behalf of the beloved by coming in the judgment of God’s love to give life to all the beloved trapped and held captive in violent systems—when the captive is set free, so too will the captor be set free through death into new life. We are all beckoned—leaders and the lead alike—to walk humble with God and like God, in love and mercy and forgiveness and humility. And we are called to walk this way not just here in this place, but out in the world, furthering the elastic reach of divine love in the world and for the beloved out there.

O come, Desire of nations,

bind in one the hearts of all [hu]mankind;

bid thou our sad divisions cease

and be thy self our King of Peace.

O come, O come Emmanuel,

and ransom captive Israel,

that mourns in lonely exile here

until the Son of God appear.

[1] 1 Abraham J. Heschel The Prophets “Micah” New York: JPS, 1962. 98 “Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah, apparently regarded the purpose of his mission to be ‘to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin’ (3:8). He was the first prophet to predict the destruction of Jerusalem.” 

[2] Heschel Prophets 98. “In his eyes the fatal sin is the sin of moral corruption. The rich men are full of violence, and the inhabitants speak lies: ‘Their tongue is deceitful in their mouth’ (6:12).”

[3] Heschel Prophets 98 “The prophet directs his rebuke particularly against the ‘heads of the house of Jacob and the rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice and pervert all equity.’ It is because ‘they build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong’ (3:9-10) that Zion and Jerusalem will be destroyed.”

[4] Heschel Prophets 99. “To the soul of Micah, the taste of God’s word is bitter. In his love for Zion and his people, he is tormented by the vision of the things to come…” 

[5] Heschel Prophets 99. “Here, amidst a people who walk haughtily (2:3), stands a prophet who relentlessly predicts disaster and disgrace for the leaders as well as for the nation, maintaining that ‘her wound is incurable’ (1:9), that the Lord is ‘devising evil’ against the people: ‘It will be an evil time’ (2:3).” 

[6] Heschel Prophets 99. “Micah does not question the justice of the severe punishment which he predicts for his people. Yet it is not in the name of justice that he speaks but in the name of a God who ‘delights in steadfast love,’ ‘pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression’ (7:18).” 

[7] Heschel Prophets 100 “Yet, there is reluctance and sorrow in that anger. It is as if God were apologizing for His severity, for His refusal to be complacent to iniquity. This is God’s apology to Israel. He cannot forget ‘the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked’ or ‘acquit the man with wicked scales and with a bag of deceitful weights’ (6:10, 11).”

[8] Heschel Prophets 100 “‘Answer Me!’ calls the voice of God. But who hears the call? ‘The voice of the Lord cries to the city’ (6:9), but the city is complacent.”

[9] Heschel Prophets 101 “Together with the word of doom, Micah proclaims the vision of redemption. God will forgive ‘the remnant of His inheritance,’ and will cast all their sins ‘into the depths of the sea’ (7:18 f.), and every man shall sit under his vine and ‘under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid’ (4:4).”

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To Be Celebrated

Sermon on 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

Psalm 138:1-2 I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with my whole heart; before the gods I will sing your praise. I will bow down toward your holy temple and praise your Name, because of your love and faithfulness…

Introduction

In the relationship between the material and the spiritual, we find ourselves wanting to create order and hierarchy between the two to resolve the discomfort we feel realizing the binary isn’t so clear. Which one is more important? Some say the spiritual, others the material. An answer of both, crosses eyes. Make it clean and neat for me! We like things to be ordered rightly and when they refuse to exist in specific categories we get upset. Our language about and around the spiritual and material and the relationship of both stumbles as it tries to find location and substance. What is is yet it is also not all there is. Right? A table is a table and it is not a table because what is a table?

On a more personal level, we speak of our bodies as if they’re mere Edgar suits (a reference to the movie Men in Black) housing the soul, the spirit, the spark—the conglomerate of mutant alien cockroaches—as if the body doesn’t matter, and we’re above the body. But then when that body hurts from physical or emotional pain or sickness, we find ourselves restrained by the body and alerted to its importance. We call our bodies “it” rather than using our pronouns to speak of our body, reducing it to a thing that is other than us. And we can force others into the degradation of the body as we try to deny them the right to be as they are inside and out.

Religion is participant and culprit in creating a hierarchy and hard distinction between the material and the spiritual. Christian Church history is replete with instances of preference for the soul as being the thing that matters ultimately. The rhetoric around mission and evangelistic work is repent and believe and save your soul from eternal torment. The threat was death physical and then ultimate death spiritual, but the emphasis was on the soul’s primacy over the body. In our Christian tradition we speak of spiritual rewards for obedience and for faith while ignoring physical needs and demands of the human beings to whom we are called to minister. In modern church contexts, the gospel is used to justify the suffering in the body through oppression and marginalization with the promise of the future bodily resurrection—suffer now and later you will be given that liberation you so long for.

But there isn’t a hierarchy; both are crucially important.

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

On which account we are not growing weary but even if the outer self is being destroyed nevertheless the inner self is being received again day after day. For the light immediate [moment] of our affliction is working for us for the purpose of the surpassing eternal weight of glory surpassing into surpassing excellence. While we are not regarding attentively the things which can be perceived but things which cannot be perceived. For the things which can be perceived [are] temporary, but the things which cannot be perceived [are] eternal.[1]

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

It seems as if Paul advocates for a dualist interpretation of Christian life—the bifurcation of the “spiritual” from the “material”. However, the thrust of the Christian proclamation denies this interpretation. Paul acknowledges an inner and outer “self”, but what Paul isn’t making one better than the other or wrenching them apart as if they’re two distinct things. The inner self isn’t a full self without the outer self; for Paul, the soul isn’t poured into a body like a cup holding water. Paul is very aware of the paradox of human life in two forms (inner and outer) yet one.

Paul explains the common spirit of the faith is the thing animating the proclamation of the gospel which—when proclaimed and heard—generates faith (4:13). Despite challenges and tribulations Paul faced bodily, his faith propelled him forward to proclaim the gospel.[2] The believing isn’t just spiritual believing for Paul but leads to the material act of speaking/doing for the glory of God. In v. 14, Paul draws on the imagery of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead as the source of our hope: we, too, will be raised from the dead being incorporated into the eternal divine life of God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. For Paul, that Jesus was physically/bodily raised is important and functions in the background of the following discussion on the inner and outer person.[3] It’s not that Paul’s noncorporeal soul will go to heaven when he dies wherein he’ll live forever with God, but that the trajectory of Paul’s life transitioning through death—believed to be imminent—will have its destiny in bodily life with God in heaven on Earth.[4]

Transitioning to vv. 16-18, we must keep the fluidity of activity between the spiritual and the material. When Paul speaks of the inner and outer self, it is anathema to assume he’s ripping the human person into two different things or parts inner/outer, soul/body. Rather, it’s about two perspectives based on one experience in the world: from within and from without. Both are the one person.[5] Just as the voice in my head when I complain about that messy room and the voice that I use to request the room be cleaned are one and the same voice in two experiences: inner and outer.

For Paul, the resiliency of the outer self is dependent on the inner person untouched directly by the violence of the world though the experience of the world endured by the outer person informs how the inner person responds to the world. As the outer self migrates through chronological time into divine time, the inner self changes but doesn’t decay like the outer self. The more experience the outer self has (through aging, experience, trials and tribulations), the more the inner self accumulates knowledge and wisdom. It’s literally why we grow more confident as we age, why our gray hairs speak to wisdom, and our wrinkles tell profound stories of experiences of delight and disappointment.

So, even as Paul’s outer self suffers destruction from time and experience, his inner self renews; this then animates his material continuing in the world until the outer self no longer moves—at which point he’ll await the raising up with Christ of his full self.[6] In other words, the inner self (that which cannot be perceived) is resilient even when the outer self (that which can be perceived) breaks down but these aren’t two separate selves, but one in the same from two difference perspectives of and experiences in the world. Even if the outer self is halted by death, manifesting its temporality, the inner self will be the continuity between this life and the next in the resurrection of that body in its glorified eternal form.[7] The material and the spiritual participate together to the glory of God.

Conclusion

The supposed dichotomy between the spiritual and material is a false one, and it’s violent. We must, in all urgency, reject such a dichotomy. Through the false dichotomy of inner and outer, body and soul, spiritual and material we’ve been complicit in subjugating fellow human beings, forcing them to ignore the violence done to their bodies for the hope of something better in the future. We’ve kept people from liberty and freedom, life and love now with the promise of something else in another life. We’ve deprived people of justice and dignity by wrongly prioritizing the suffering of the menial body as the purification of the majestic soul, asking them to endure what we don’t have to endure. Our God took on flesh and walked the earth, healing the bodies of those cast out and neglected by the dominant culture of state and religion; when we deny bodily, material, and outer necessity to bodily and material outer beings we are denying the incarnation of the Christ, God of very God. As those who confess Christ born, lived, died, raised, and ascended, we cannot deny the importance of the body, material, and outer self for anyone, neither for ourselves nor for others. For God so loved the world and everyone and everything in it like this: God became human to love and rescue the Beloved.

There’s that which can be perceived and that which cannot be perceived, that which is temporary/mortal and permanent/eternal, but not good and bad, better and worse. I want you to have a profound sense of the beauty and importance of the whole person. The body matters. The soul matters. The inner and outer selves matter. It is by the body we go through the world. We feel in the body, we understand through the body, we’re treated according to the body. Thus, our experiences in the world are not uniform because bodies aren’t interchangeable. My experience in the world is different than yours because our bodies are different and unique. The experiences of the outer self influence and inform the feelings and storytelling of the inner self. The way the inner self identifies influences and informs the material expression of those feelings and story in the outer self. We’re paradoxical mixes of that which is perceived and that which is not perceived; and we’re all unique expressions of this vibrant multifaceted humanity—each human worthy to be celebrated as they are, as the beloved children of God.

[1] Translation mine unless stated otherwise

[2] Murray J. Harris The Second Epistle to the Corinthians: A commentary on the Greek Text. NIGTC. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005. 352, “As the principle applies to his case, Paul is affirming that in spite of the inroads of θανατος in his life (v.12a), his unswerving belief in God and in the gospel as God’s powerful instrument to bring salvation to everyone who has faith…made it natural and necessary for him to declare…the good news.”

[3] Harris 2 Corinthians 353, “…but also his Christian conviction that Christ’s resurrection was a pledge of the resurrection of believers (v.14). If persecution or toil should precipitate his actual death, he knew that a resurrection comparable to Christ’s was his destiny as a believer.”

[4] Harris 2 Corinthians 354, “…it should occasion no surprise that here he speaks of his own resurrection, at the same time tactfully assuming his readers’ survival until the Parousia… ‘I, Paul’ as Christian who expects to die before the Parousia from ‘you Corinthians,’ who may well be alive at the time of the second advent. 1 Corinthian’s 15 indicates that in Paul’s thought both the living and the dead will be ‘transformed’ on the last day…but only the dead will be ‘raised’…’Resurrection’ implies prior death.”

[5] Harris 2 Corinthians 359-60, “Because Paul’s anthropology is aspecitival not partitive, and synthetic not analytic, when he speaks of ‘our outward self’ and ‘our inward self’ he is not thinking of two distinct entities, ‘the body’ …and ‘the soul’…with the former as the receptable for the latter. He is, rather, contemplating his total existence from two contrasting viewpoints. The ‘outer self’ is the whole person form the standpoint of one’s “creaturely mortality,’ the physical aspect of the person…The ‘inner self’ is not to be equated with the νους … ‚that which survives death,‘ or even  with the corporate new humanity in Christ. Rather it is the whole person as a ‘new creation’ (5:17) or a ‘new person’ (Col. 3:9-10)…the spiritual aspect of the believer.”

[6] Harris 2 Corinthians 360, “For Paul, the spiritual body was not simply the state of the renewed ‘inner self’ at the time of the believer’s death, but it seems a priori likely that he saw a relationship between the two, that he regarded resurrection not as ta creatio ex nihilo, a sudden divine operation unrelated to the past, but as the fulfillment of a spiritual process begun at regeneration. The daily renewal of the ‘inward person’ …contributed toward the progressive transformation of the believer into the image of Christ in a process that would be accelerated and completed by resurrection.”

[7] Harris 2 Corinthians 373, “Compared with the earthly and therefore transient character of the σωμα ψυχικον, the σωμα πνευματικον is permanent, transcending all the effects of time. Compared with earthly corporeality, with its irreversible tendency to decay, which finally issues in death, the heavenly embodiment provided by God is indestructible, incapable of any deterioration or dissolution.”

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God is Love

1 John 4:7-21

Psalm 22:24, 29 My praise is of him in the great assembly; I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him… My soul shall live for him; my descendants shall serve him; they shall be known as the Lord’S for ever.

Introduction

I’ll confess that over the past few years I’ve found it easier to say, “God is dead” than, “God is love.” It seems we are daily forced to navigate a world decorated with the placards of death and destruction, mischief and malice, greed and grief. With a single swipe up, we easily witness death’s toll rise as our sisters and brothers are seized by pandemic, suffocated in the grip of hatred and prejudice, and neglected for the preference of self-indulgence. It is hard to reconcile the manifold tragedy we see all around us and the claim “God is love.” The world feels absent love especially at a cosmic level. God feels gone.

I wish I could say (with confidence): even though the world feels divested of divine love, the church stands as a bastion of the perpetuity of this love. Sadly, I cannot. The very institution charged to carry on the precious treasure of the life-giving message of God’s love is also the institution that participates—by word and deed—in the same violence and destruction of so called “secular” institutions. It seems that the proclamation God is love and its twin “God loves us” are trapped under systems of the necessity of right thought wedded to faulty interpretations of what it means and looks like to be a follower of Christ. We’ve become mesmerized by our image and not God’s and what makes us feel pious and good. We’d rather quibble over fabric, wood, stone, and precious metal than throw open doors and arms tossing religiosity to the wind to embrace the “least of these.”

With so much pain and turmoil around us, maybe it would be better to throw in the towel, admit the failure of this divine experiment, and confess, with the 19th century genius existential philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche,

“…Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead.”[1]

Friedrich Nietzsche “The Parable of the Madman”

1 John 4:7-21

Beloved, let us love one another because Love is from God; all who love both have been birthed from God and know God…In this way the love of God was manifested in us, because God sent forth [God’s] only begotten son into the cosmos so that we might live through him. In this is love: not that we we[2] have loved God but that [God God] has loved us and sent [God’s] son as atonement for our sins. Beloved, if in this way God loved us, also we we ought to love one another…We we love because [God God] first loved us. [3]

1 Jn 4:7, 9-11, 19

According to John’s first epistle, love is from God because God is love. He goes so far to say that those who love are the ones who have been birthed of God. Then he quickly moves to describe how divine love is brought forth in those who have been born of God and thus of love. Harkening to the imagery of the gospel of John chapter 3—“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (v.16, NRSV)—the author articulates: the love of God precedes our love for God. [4]

Pushing the imagery further, we can also say, in accordance with Gen 1, that the wind of God hovering over the formless void and the face of the deep is the same as love.[5] Everything about the cosmos is embedded and submerged in divine love. Divine love is the creative force animating the cosmos; the very fabric of our material being is nurtured and produced from love. Thus, even as God’s love predates our love for God. Love itself is older than time and recorded human history. We neither know of a time nor can conceive an era when love didn’t exist. (As Rev. Teri pointed out last week: God loved and loves the dinosaurs!) Our scope is cosmic: God loved and loves without end.[6]

And as God loved the cosmos into being so to does God in God’s love rescue the cosmos and its inhabitants from the plight of humanity by entering that very plight unto death. It is for this reason the epistle writer uses the events of Good Friday through Easter as the lens to comprehend the preceding and continuation of God’s love from one end of the cosmos to the other. God’s love is so profound that not only can it create but it can recreate. That which is dead can be made alive. Christ died on the cross, was buried, and then walked out of tomb. God’s love produced what is (creation) and then went beyond that to grant us the possibility of what could be (recreation).

The epitome of divine love is manifest in standing in solidarity with suffering and stuck humanity threatened with death and destruction and liberating them from it even if they brought it upon themselves. This is unconditional love, and therefore divine love can exist into eternity because it’s based on the eternal source that is God and not conditioned on this or that behavior of the beloved. Conditional love isn’t love; it’s a contract. There is no contract in God’s love language. God just loves because love loves. Where there is love there is God.

Conclusion

Going back to the quotation above from Nietzsche. The quote is only in part. The Parable of the Madman is more profound than the portion I referenced.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him — you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

Friedrich Nietzsche “The Parable of the Madman”

Far from pessimistic, Nietzsche’s words partake of possibility and hope. God is not dead because we cannot kill Love. What Nietzsche refers to as “God” isn’t “God” but what we’ve crafted and fashioned to be “God.” And this “God” is dead. The false idols we have constructed of God and propped up in the name of God are the ones that are being exposed as monsters and must be torn down. The death and destruction we see abounding around us isn’t because God is dead; rather, it’s because we’ve baptized (in the name of God) the death dealing and life destroying structures and systems we’ve built and curated and these we must destroy because they are putrid and septic. The god we’ve presented to the world in our own flesh is a god who has been found wanting and we must kill this “God.” And the only way to do that is to love, to love to the fullest extent of the word and in the most radical interpretation. For where we love there is God, where God is there is life and light and liberation.

“The gravity of her situation settled in on her, closing in on her chest, making it difficult to breathe. Would she put the chains back around her neck or let them go and step forward into love? Her heart beat right up into her throat. She tried to swallow it down, but her mouth was suddenly dry. She sat perfectly still but within she was a child, flailing about, trying to push love away; until another part of herself pulled it to her, holding love out to her. It’s not what you want, it’s what you need. She stopped writhing and pushing and looked at it. She reached out and took love, still afraid. She held love in her hands, not knowing if she held it right…Tell God you are afraid. And thank Him. She couldn’t’ find a way to say she was afraid, but she could at least hold her fear and the love she feared out to Him. So she held our what He was forcing her to carry, her commitment to carry love without even knowing what that meant, her fear, all of it, and took one step forward, making herself say aloud, ‘Alhamdulilah.’”[7]

Laury Silvers The Lover

You are the beloved not because it’s a nice sentiment but because Love started this entire thing and sustains it, always in search of the object of love: you, the world and everything in it from the very small to the very big, the entire cosmos. You are the beloved because you’ve been wrapped up in this ancient and present activity of divine love. You’ve been swept up into the current of the activity of divine love, Beloved. You are the beloved because God is love and is not dead; praise be to God.

[1] Friedrich Nietzsche “The Parable of the Madman” The Gay Science Trans Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1974 (trans). Original publication Die frölich Wissenschaft 1887.III.125.181-2.

[2] The double pronoun use here and following is due to the use of the pronouns with the verb in Greek which indicates an emphatic emphasis on the pronouns. It’s stressing that we did not love God but that

[3] All translations of the text are mine unless otherwise noted.

[4] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996.555 “…aorist indicates past time with reference to the time of speaking.”

[5] Gen 1:1-2 NRSV

[6] The statement here is based on the conception of the aorist verb used in the verse translated. This portion reads, “…αλλ’ οτι αυτος ηγαπησεν ημας…” the ηγαπησεν is an aorist active indicative 3rd person singular verb. Daniel B. Wallace explains that the aorist is best understood as, “as taking a snapshot of the action…” as opposed to a moving picture. And here, “The aorist tense ‘presents an occurrence in summary, viewed as a whole from the outside, without regard for the internal make-up of the occurrence.’” (554).

[7] Laury Silvers The Lover: A Sufi Mystery Kindle Direct Publishing, 2019.254

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Parasitic Parasites

Sancta Colloquia Episode 302 ft. Blake Collier

In this episode of Sancta Colloquia, I sat down with horror movie guru, Blake Collier (@LostinOsmosis). And our focus was: Parasite. In a world of eat or be eaten, are humans autonomous like we, Westerners, like to think humans are? The movie Parasite seems to suggest that it’s symbiotic systems of feeding upon one another: the rich off of the poor, the poor off of the rich. Blake makes the point that the main point of the movie seems to be that in this world we are all parasitic in some way–relationally, economically, politically. It seems there’s an element of human nature that demands parasitic behavior. Blake and I spent a lot of time weaving and wending through the movie, but we were really talking about socio-economic class and the failure of the American Dream and the notion of Capitalism as a system that works. It doesn’t work; it isn’t working; it won’t work. One of the interesting things about modern American objectivist infused capitalism is this notion that it’s great to be on-top, to be the lead dog. But is it? (What is the top? And, can anyone make it to the top? Will Dahye fulfill his dream to parasite his way into the realm of the elite to free his father?) It seems this movie has another thing to say to such a notion: think again. In a system that is built on competition and productivity with emphasis on capital, you get a system where no one is free, no one is living, we are all surviving. Well, as Blake explains, the rich are building legacy to keep wealth captured, the middle class is saving, and the poor are sharing. While the rich have it easier than the poor in some ways (it’s nice to be able to pay bills), neither has that “life” and “freedom” because both are illusions because all people are consumed into the system. And humanity descends into the depths of the flood of demand and greed and suffering where everyone loses their livelihood—because, as Blake explains, success is about moving up in socio-economic brackets (the definition of “rat race.”) While it seems our conversation may have been on the “downer” side of things, there’s hope. Hope lies in being more human and less parasite. According to Blake, “Parasitism ends when we become more human, when we share what we have with one another.”

Intrigued? You should be. Listen here:

http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/screamingpods/SanctaColloquia/sanctacolloquia-11.mp3

Blake Collier is a film critic and associate editor for Reel World Theology. His speciality is studying and writing about horror culture and theology. He contributes to Mockingbird, The Curator, Rise Up Daily & Grindhouse Theology. You can find all of his articles and publications at his website, www.blakeicollier.com. You can also interact with him on Twitter, @LostinOsmosis.

 

Further reading/viewing/listening:

Films:

Parasite (of course!)
The Wailing
The Platform (Netflix)
Gretel & Hansel (2020)
Us
Snowpiercer
Ready or Not (2019)
Knives Out (2019)
Reads:
My work – 
Others:
Men, Women, and Chain Saws by Carol Clover
Horror Noire by Robin Means Coleman
Podcasts:
Horror Vanguard
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Doubt and Encounter

Second Sunday of Easter Meditation: John 20:26-28

(video at the end of the post)

 

“…Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” (Jn 20:26d-28).

Thomas the doubter. We have more patience for the denials of Peter than we do the doubt of Thomas. In the history of “The Top Ten Best Moments of the Disciples,” it seems (often) that Thomas’s doubt ranks just above Judas’s betrayal. Don’t be such a doubting Thomas. Words that silence questions and confusion unto shame and condemnation. It’s only slightly better than being called a Judas.

Shade is thrown in Thomas’s direction because his disbelief hits too close to home. That Thomas’s doubt is recorded for all posterity reminds me, at least once a year, that doubt is…is possible. It reminds me that I do, in fact, doubt. It reminds you that you doubt. Thomas’s story hits the core of our insecurities and tells us that it doesn’t matter how many degrees we have or how many times we’ve read through the bible or how reasonable and rational our apologies for God are…we doubt. All of us.

This doubt feels deadly in a tradition that is orthodox, meaning (simply): right thought. Doubting can seem like unfaithfulness and willful rejection of what God has done and said and this means divine rejection. If I doubt, am I lost? If I am lost, will I be found? Is it all up to me? Jesus even says to Thomas, “‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,’” (Jn 20:29). In this moment it seems that Thomas is chastised for not believing because he wanted physical proof (a very human and rational thing to ask for). We are scared to doubt because there seems to be big risk attached.

The good news is, Thomas isn’t lost, left, and abandoned. Zoom out and look at the story as a whole. What we see are those characteristics that are the trademarks of God: long-suffering, patient, merciful, abounding in lovingkindness, and gracious. Thomas doubts; Jesus shows up. In his doubt, Thomas comes face to face with God. Thomas encounters God in the event of faith and what bursts forth from his human lips is a confession: confession of faith and confession of his lack of faith.[1]

In this story, Thomas is truly human. In the first instance he stands on his reason alone where he cannot believe what has been told to him by his peers. In the next moment, Thomas is encountered by God in Christ and believes. “My Lord and my God!” Says Thomas. Thomas sees here what he could not see before based on mere testimony. Thomas, in this moment, sees Jesus as he desires to be seen as the incarnate word of God (John 1). Behold, God!

It is not that we think, but that we doubt where we find ourselves at the core of what it means to be human. Because it is here, in doubt, where we look beyond ourselves, beyond the narrow framework of our mind and imagination. Doubt is our confession of being human. And it’s in this confession where we are, ironically, so very close to God. More often than not, doubt is not that we are far from God, but that we are so close…as close as Jacob, Israel, wrestling with God.

 

 

[1] Thoughts here and following influenced by Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Trans. GR Beasley-Murray and RWN Hoare, JK Riches. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1971. (pp. 689-697).

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Bonhoeffer, Human Life, and Time

Since I’m not on any form of social media right now, I don’t have access to tweet out what I’m reading. So, I’ll be providing interesting quotes from work I’m engaging with for my dissertation via blog post (for the foreseeable future).

I’m very intrigued and have been deeply invested in comprehending Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his conception of the created orders (what he refers to as the divine mandates) and how he employs (or doesn’t employ?) Luther’s doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. (I very literally read every essay and journal article that comes across my radar pertaining to these topics.) Comprehending Bonhoeffer’s doctrines here helps with my engagement with Friedrich Gogarten since he’s employing in his work the same concepts yet in different ways. Bonhoeffer and Gogarten are (for a bit) contemporaries. While there’s a near 20 year difference in age between them (Gogarten being older), there’s a decent chronological overlap with their work–until the 40s when Gogarten gets sick and doesn’t write for about a decade and Bonhoeffer dies in 1945. Anyway, while the overlap is breif (located more in the 20s and 30s), there’s still an overlap…one I’m fascinated with.

There are times when I read something off topic to round out my view to Bonhoeffer. And that’s where Robert Vosloo comes in. I cam across his article, “The Feeling of Time: Bonhoeffer on Temporality and The Fully Human Life” (found in Scriptura 99 (2008) pp 337-349). I loved it. I feel the title captures the essence of the article, and I don’t need to explain too much here about the content of the article. However, I’m offering the following quotes, which I found striking and worthy to share. Be sure, the entire article is definitely worth the time to read and it’s very well written.

(fwiw: the internal quotes within the quotes below are pulled from various works of Bonhoeffer.)

“[Bonhoeffer] wants to think about time with regard to the ethical demand arising from the confrontation with another person. The self enters a state of responsibility and decision at the moment of being addressed by another person. The person that is being addressed is not the idealist’s person of mind or reason but ‘the person in concrete, living individuality.’ This is the person that does not exist ‘in timeless fullness of value and spirit, but in a state of responsibility in the midst of time.’ It is the moment of responsibility in the midst of time that gives birth to the ethical.” (340)

“The temporal intention of a community is to reach the boundary of time (grenzzeitlich) and that of society is time bound (zeitbegrenzt). The eschatological character of community is the basis of the ‘holiness’ of human community life. this holiness reveals the fundamental indissolubility of these life structures. Over against this, society remains time bound and thus the end of history is for society a real end, not merely a boundary. For Bonhoeffer this is the reason why only a community (and not a society) can become a church. Thus the grappling with the concept of tie is for Bonhoeffer important in order to understand the concept of the church. For Bonhoeffer the church is no an unattainable ideal, but a concrete and present reality. The community is in time, but also transcends time. This dialectic s at the hart of Christ’s relation to the church. This relationship is to be understood in a dual sense: ‘(1) The church is already completed in Christ, time is suspended. (2) The Church is to be built within time as the firm foundation. Christ is the historical principle of the church.'” (341).

“For Bonhoeffer, revelation should be thought of in reference to the concept of the church as constituted by the present proclamation of Christ’s death and resurrection. Christian revelation is not something that has happened in the past, but as something in each ‘present’: ‘Christian revelation must occur in the present precisely because it is, in the qualified once-and-for-all occurrence of the cross and the resurrection of Christ, always something “of the future.”‘ Bonhoeffer’s plea is not merely for the importance of the ‘present’, but he also understand the present Christologically.” (344)

“‘…The church must not preach timeless principles however true, but only commandments that are true today. God is “always” God to us “today.”‘  And he continues by emphasizing that these words need embodiment. The gospel becomes concrete in the lives of those who hear and preach.” (345)

“Throughout Bonhoeffer’s Ethics we see Bonhoeffer’s commitment to concrete reality and historic existence. If the question of the good is abstracted from life and history, it becomes a static basic formula that transposes humans into a private and ideal vacuum. This leads either to private withdrawal or misguided enthusiasm. Bonhoeffer’s ethics is a critique of the abstract and the timeless and a plea for the concrete and timeful. This finds it [sic] deepest motivation in Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the interrelation between theology and life. Reflection on Bonhoeffer’s understanding of temporality cannot be separated from his concern for living a fully human life in the face of God’s presence. For Bonhoeffer ‘ethics’  is tied to a definite time and place…Bonhoeffer wants to guard against what he calls the ‘unhealthy takeover of life by the ethical.’ Such a pathological overburdening of life by the ethical destroys the creaturely wholeness of life.” (345)

“In the beginning of this essay, I remarked that the challenge is not merely to reflect on Bonhoeffer’s understanding of time, but also to think with Bonhoeffer (and Levinas) about a more fully human life amidst what can be called an economization of time. Something of the economization of time is reflected in the uncritical embrace of phrases like ‘time is money.’ Time is viewed as something people ‘spend’ or ‘save.’ Time becomes a valuable commodity that one looses if you go to slow. Life becomes a matter of the survival of the fastest. In the process, those who are not fast or mobile enough are marginalized and often suffer materially and emotionally. ‘Economic time’ often infiltrates life in such a way that time for the other, time for hospitality, time for friendships or leisure, is view, often unconsciously, as an unproductive waste of time. Time becomes a valuable possession of the individual to be managed and protected. Such an economization of time robs humanity of its humanness and compromises the witness of Christians to the God who became time and flesh in Jesus Christ.” (347)

“Bonhoeffer’s theology and life testifies to the importance of making and receiving time for the other, time for friendship, time for responsible hospitality and time for peace. The gift of time is what makes us vulnerable, but it is also what enables us to live a full human life….In his reflection After Ten Years…Bonhoeffer writes about the value of time and the pain of lost time. He continues, ‘Time lost is time in which we have failed to live a full human life, gain experience, learn, create, enjoy, and suffer; it is time that has not been filled up, but left empty.’… ‘We have for once learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled–in short, from the perspective of those who suffer.’ In an economizing and polarizing global society of societies, the kairos for Christian witness may reside in the ability to find time for and through the suffering other.” (348)

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