Category: exegesis

A sign of contradiction

I am beginning to wonder about a fairly fundamental orientation of the church.  The church has largely understood and accepted the role of being or bringing Christ to the world.  I do not want to rehearse the misguided ways that the church has understood this mission, namely through colonial disbursement.  It is not hard to understand how people can come to the conclusion that contemporary global capitalism is an extension of an earlier theology.  In both practices there is a message of hope that is articulated by the saved/wealthy and in both cases the message never seems to play out as being truly good news for the pagan/poor.

I came across a sort of ominous foreshadowing of this orientation to the church’s message in The Epistle to Diognetus (2nd century).  In upholding love of neighbour the author of this text states,

[H]e who takes upon himself the burden of his neighbour; he who, in whatsoever respect he may be superior, is ready to benefit another who is deficient; he who, whatsoever things he has received from God, by distributing these to the needy, becomes a god to those who receive [his benefits]: he is an imitator of God.

Now to be sure the early church was not in the same position as it was to rise to in the 4th century but the logic of disbursement is already elevated to a strong paternalistic even divine tone.  While we are uncomfortable with saying that we ‘become a god’ in this imitation, that is essentially what we are saying theologically when we talk about imitating Christ, isn’t it?

In any event, this Sunday I preached on the presentation of Jesus in the Temple in Luke 2.  This is a story of reception, of receiving the Messiah.  And how does Simeon the priest receive Jesus?

Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
29     “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;
30     for my eyes have seen your salvation,
31     which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32     a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”
A beautiful image hope and peace but then Simeon turns to Mary and says,
This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed (sign of contradiction) so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.
Here are a few excerpts from the tail end of my sermon.
So what does it mean to receive Jesus as a sign of contradiction?  I did a bit of research on this phrase and found that the Catholic Church has an entire doctrine based around it.  This doctrine holds that the church is to be a sign of contradiction; that the church in its holiness it will be rejected or opposed.  There is an element of this doctrine that I can appreciate.  I believe that to live out the vision of the Gospel will lead to contradiction and opposition in the world.  But as I understand it there is a destructive assumption at work in this expression.  The assumption is that it is the church the has the privileged knowledge of how Jesus becomes present in the world.  This doctrine assumes that it is no longer the church that needs to receive the sign of contradiction.  In trying to hold this doctrine the church itself can actually become immune to the presence of Christ.  . . . When you believe that your way of life has a privileged or even exclusive access to ultimate human truth then it will be near impossible to receive a sign of contradiction; you control the rules of the games and determine the value of those around you.
. . .

The church, and particularly the Mennonite church, has elevated the call to discipleship, the call of being like Jesus in the world.  Mennonites have fought theological wars over this matter.  When other churches focused simply on the death and resurrection of Jesus, or the centrality of Communion the Mennonites demanded that we also give attention to Jesus life, how he taught, what he did, how he treated people.  But where is the theology that asks how we might receive the presence of God precisely from outside our theology and our expression?  How does our theology and our practice prepare us to receive something that contradicts our theology and our practice?

. . .

Our tradition affirms that the church is the body of Christ and yet Christ must remain fugitive.  Already as a child in the Gospels Jesus flees to Egypt after Joseph received a vision of Herod’s plot to kill Jesus.  The French activist and philosopher Simone Weil is quoted as saying, “We must always be ready to change sides, like justice, the eternal fugitive from the camp of the victors.”  We cannot secure the place of Christ, but we can hope to receive Christ.  Our vision remains universal because there is no place we will not seek this Christ.  Our theology and practice remains fragmented because we are never so Christ-like that we cannot receive again this child, this man, this saviour, this God.  Our theology and our faith is only as healthy as it is able to receive from outside of its expression.  I am wondering if we have made a fundamental error in our basic understanding of the church’s mission.  We go out not to bring the message of Christ.  We go out to receive it, to encounter the fugitive.

I am not exactly breaking new theological ground and I am not claiming to overturn any notion of having content or a message of some sort.  I do however sense that there is still a horrendous imbalance in how churches continue to view themselves as fortresses of divine truth.  And this line of thinking has helped me to challenge a basic Mennonite goal of discipleship.  While discipleship has always been problematic I have not heard it addressed from the basic shift from giving to receiving Christ.
Thoughts?

Why should I hope in the LORD any longer?

Jeremy over at AUFS has written an important post on abuse and theodicy.  I found the piece moving on a number of levels.  First, it is rare to find such a short post packed with equal parts confession and critique.  It is both moving and forceful.  Second, it picks up an weaves a number of threads that I find myself currently tangled in.

The post is in part a reflection of Jeremy’s clinical internship in psychology.  More specifically, it is an engagement with the tragedy, pervasiveness, and damage of childhood sexual abuse.  The post then moves towards to an engagement of how theologians could possibly respond to such a reality.

For this Jeremy sets two broad poles.  There is either the ‘psychotic’ response of somehow saying this is all part of God’s plan.  Or there is a broadly ‘process-oriented’ view that conceives God as a non-coercive reality and places the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of humanity.  The first view is a clearly horrific and almost always (or ultimately) damaging articulation on a number of levels.  The second view helps avoid some of the former’s inadequacies (to put it mildly) but is pushed and viewed itself as being too ‘convenient’ and a ‘cheap way’ of avoiding the question of such a God and such a reality.

As if Jeremy’s concise post was not insightful enough the comment thread bore out a range of responses to further thicken the engagement (with some developing and some falling into the initial account).  As I mentioned above, I am writing this now because this is both a practical and intellectual question for me that is indeed pressing.  So what follows is simply an attempt at articulating what I am already doing and thinking so it might further challenged or developed.

First I will begin with my ‘practical theology’.  In the last two years I have been increasingly influenced by aspects of death-of-god theology and more recently process theology.  Academically I consider myself an expert in neither areas.  However, the result of this formation has, perhaps surprisingly, made one its greatest impacts in how I offer pastoral care.  I have become keenly sensitive in how any forms of theodicy enter my own expressions of care.  This has been helpful, and I have posted briefly about it before.  The greatest difficulty in this has been trying to respond well when people are looking to me to console them with a particular notion of God (a God that might feel good in the moment but will come back with vengeance if followed too far), or when a well-meaning visitor is also there and invokes such theologies.  I try and return the conversation to the strengths and support that I see manifest and while I am naturally a rabid ‘meaning-maker’ I refrain from doing so in that context.

But then I pray for them.  I pray.  I don’t know.  I guess I pray like I lead the congregation in prayer on Sunday.  I don’t really know what I am doing.  The intentional part is one of naming, using language to vocalize and externalize particular realities; to put them out there before us, to have to sit with them.  And then it is asking and seeking.  I don’t know, I just do this.  I hope.  But this implies a theology of course.  Just maybe there is a God who can intervene but then what does that tell me . . .  And so theology runs aground and perhaps prayer is obscene.  It definitely feels that way at times.  It can be therapeutic but would it loose its magic if I named it as such?

I think prayer can remain viable but I am hesitant to let it slip into what I consider a vacuous liberalizing of it, but why would I be hesitant?  If prayer is powerful, but perhaps not for the reasons I once thought it was, then should I not embrace and explore that differing power?  But again lingering, what if God is listening . . . but then immediately after . . . so goddammit God has been listening?!  I am hesitant and fearful about talking about God to my three year old, about praying with him.  We do give thanks (but again there is lingering here).  And I do try and invoke blessings.  To prayers that are involuntarily on my lips are God dammit and God bless ’em.

The second half of my engagement with this post was regarding the related point of my intellectual development.  I have been recently influenced by the process theology of Catherine Keller and some of the related orientation of Dan Barber (also a contributor at AUFS).  The major shift here is thinking about what it means to try and keep nothing out of play, nothing unaffected.  In this way I cannot hide an ideological/idolatrous ‘core’ that will determine in advance how I define and position people, groups, and situations around me.  So, because of my profession and confession does this model, if followed through on, end in becoming a convenient or cheap way of avoiding the question of God and suffering?  I think it depends.  It does in some ways avoid the question.  Or for me, at present, it rejects the question in most of the terms.  But this orientation has given me a renewed understanding of bearing with the chaos (as Keller, and Barber, put it).  But there is certainly no immediate payoff.  It has not made me more effective.  It does not make me more hopeful (but maybe not less hopeful either).  At present it simply helps orient me to a tradition that has power, and could be more constructively powerful.  But things are still at play with me.  I hope it does not lead me away from the church.  There is much strength in the tradition I work within.  I also support me family with it.  But I do hope I follow through on seeing and proclaiming a good news of life.

Around the time of reading Jeremy’s post I came across a little referenced passage in 2 Kings 6.  Famine was severe.  Pigeon shit had a monetary trade value.  The king of Israel hears a story of a women who was convinced by another woman to cook and eat her son and that the next day the other woman would cook her own son.  The first woman agrees and they eat her son but the next day the other woman (who suggested the plan) does not offer her son as a meal.  The king tears his clothes and runs murderously out towards the Elisha the prophet.  After all, the prophets at this time in the Bible are the ‘rain-makers’.  The king says succinctly, “This trouble is from the Lord! Why should I hope in the Lord any longer?”

Elisha here is the only theologian who can respond in this situation.  And he gives no refutation for this scenario.  He seeks to save his own life when the king approaches him.  He gives a ‘miraculous’ bounty the next day (to refute that such a miracle is not possible) but he apparently cannot resurrect the already consumed child (he did resurrect a child in 2 Kgs 4) nor does he mention him.  This strikes me as the sort of bind any theology is going to find itself in with respect to suffering.  Turning to Job he does not escape it either, but at least he does provide a resource and hope for engagement in our bondage (though the text of course includes its own problematics in all this).

I would like to have a better conclusion to all this, but it seems that is part of the problem so I will leave it at that for now.

Initial thoughts on the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8

The Ethiopian eunuch is biding his time.  Well, his time . . . I guess I am not sure.  Our time remains marked by a language that demands his masculinity, his balls, in any event.  It is not his time, as time now possesses <strike>him</strike> the eunuch.  Perhaps it is better to say the eunuch waits.  But waiting is a terrible term.  It gives the illusion of passivity and detachment.  What does the eunuch do?  The eunuch reads,

Like a sheep he was led to slaughter,
and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.

In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.

The eunuch reads the words of his own silence.  There is silence but there are alsosilenced words.  These words remain internal or are ignored as foreign or corrupt.  So the eunuch pronounces his silence.

How does one become a eunuch and what does it mean?  I have read just a little.  The eunuch in many traditions is close to power, either human or divine.  The eunuch can be a priest.  The eunuch can be a royal official.  The eunuch is close to power but does not draw close to this power.  Rather the eunuch is positioned close to power.  The eunuch is allowed next to power because power has been stripped from the eunuch.  The eunuch is a place holder.

As the eunuch recites the eunuch’s silenced words for his life is taken away from the earth he remembers his encounter with a teacher of the law on his visit to Jerusalem.  The scribe tells him of the corruption in the Greek text that he is reading.  The prophecy is of one who is cut off from the land of living.  This, this must be a castrated one.  What else could such an expression mean?  The eunuch feels something welling up within him but as yet there is no release, no outlet for his urge and desire.

The eunuch’s tradition positions him next to power by stripping him of life.  What sort of power could this be?  It is the power of death.  But what of this foreign religion?  This religion that in its founding traditions denies a eunuch from even gathering in worship.  He again recalls the scribe who looked on him with pity reciting the blunt prohibition from Deuteronomy,

No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD.

The God of Israel does not gather passive servants (eunuchs) to minister in the Temple.  The God Israel does not even allow them to gather in worship. But what of this castrated one who was silenced and humiliated as I was?  Does the prophet speak of himself or someone else?

An alternative (to) education

Here is last Sunday’s sermon on the new covenant in Jeremiah 31.  I welcome feedback and pushback.

31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

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A Note on Luke 7:35

I am not a huge proponent of the ideology that says one must know Greek and Hebrew to really understand the Bible, though of course, we must have those who do know it.  Anyway, I will be preaching on Luke 7:31-35 which culminates in the fairly well known saying by Jesus,
Wisdom is vindicated by all her children.
I don’t always do a much work in the original text but I thought I would take a quick look and saw the relatively simple construction of this phrase.

καὶ ἐδικαιώθη ἡ σοφία ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν τέκνων αὐτῆς
and / passive verb ‘be justified,released’ / wisdom / from, by / all her children

Another simple and direct translation could be,
Wisdom is freed from all her children

This strikes me as offering an altogether different sense given so much of the preceding context speaks about various ‘genealogical lines’, namely that of a mother and son, John and disciples, John and Jesus, John and those of the Kingdom of God.

It also seems altogether plausible that both translation could be put forward as opposed to having to choose.

Any thoughts?  We’ll see what I come up with for Sunday.

Obligatory posting of sermon preached on 9/11 – Instruments of grace

Mark 11:22-25

Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.  Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”

It is a delicate task to speak about mountains being cast into the sea on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.  I choose this passage because its initial impression on me was that it spoke about something powerful, something significant.  As we acknowledge what this day marks we also look forward to what in many ways stands as the beginning of the year for the work of the church. As pastoral staff we decided to develop a series this Fall that would help us face various topics and issues that we shape and that we are shaped by.  Over the weeks we will look at the environment and economics, technology and inter-religious relations.  Squarely facing the pressures that come from these areas can often feel like facing a mountain.  Even more challenging is that in the Mennonite church we attempt to face our mountains without the traditional means of dynamite.  We attempt, whether or not we succeed, to approach the mountain without violence.  We affirm in fact that it is at the mountain that we un-learn violence.  As First Mennonite Church’s vision statement reads we seek to be instruments of God’s grace on earth.  So what of these instruments, these tools?  And what of the mountain before us?

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Notes from the Exodus

I would say the most concerted and continuous effort that I made in formal studies was in the area of biblical Hebrew. This is a sort of sad statement given the level of proficiency I have maintained. Recently though I have taken to preach on the OT passages of the Lectionary and, being summer, I find myself with a bit more time to work in the ‘original text’. This Sunday will be Exodus 1:1-2:10. I have greatly appreciated the small (and significant) nuances that have emerged from even a basic walk through the Hebrew.

Many of the observations can be made from the English as well.  The most clear is the precedent of ‘creation’ as a guiding motif in the Moses narrative.  We find Joseph and his brothers dead but the Israelites remained “fruitful and prolific” a common refrain in the creation story.

In light of this expanding foreign race Pharaoh decides to deal ‘shrewdly’ with them so they do not join the enemy.  The word join is a play on the name Joseph (to be added to) a figure of blessing for Egypt who has now been forgotten and his descendents are deemed a threat.

Pharaoh sets slave-drivers over the Israelites in work of ‘mortar and brick’ which is an allusion to the building of the Tower of Babel.

In response to Pharaoh’s increasing pressure on the people (and their increasing expansion) there is an order to kill the male children in child-birth.  Here we find the famous mid-wive’s of civil disobedience who do not follow the law.  What I find interesting is that their names, Shiphrah and Puah, indicate a type of ‘signalling’ of what is coming.  Shiphrah is a feminine form related to the Shophar which is a trumpet that is often used to refer to the coming of the presence of God (Ex 19:16).  Puah, as near as I can figure, is a variation on an onomatopoetic verb used to describe the sounds of a woman in labour, again ushering in the presence of something new.  The women here stand as the vanguard in the revolt creating space for the liberation of their people.

Verse 12 of chapter one contains two interesting expressions.  The NRSV reads,

the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.

‘Spread’ is a suitable translation but does not have the visceral connotations as the Hebrew does in which there seems to be some implied ‘breach’ of a clear boundary.  When used in the relation to a holy space the word is often translated ‘break’ as in the Lord will ‘break out’ upon you.  ‘Dread’ is also a curious translation.  The word is not used often in the Hebrew Bible.  The term is used in several instances to refer to a sort of naseous sickness over a given situation.  It is the way the people feel after having eaten manna for too long.  It is the way a person can literally feel sick with fear.  Given some of the recent readings on abjection I picture this verse to be saying that the Egyptians tried to crush the Hebrews like a bug and ended up splattering guts all over them.

Thinking about the abject as neither subject (self) nor object (enemy)  also led me to consider another image that was not really illuminated by the Hebrew but important nonetheless.  Verse ten of chapter one reads,

Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.

In this construct the Israelite is neither self nor object.  They form a type of appendage to the Egyptian kingdom.  The abject is a part of what sustains the subject so long as it does not ultimately become the object (or worse become its own subject!).  So long as it does not ‘break out’ of the boundary set by the subject (read: colonialism).

And of course one of the more well known observations is how the ‘vessel’ that Moses is set adrift on is the same word for Ark used in the Flood account.

So anyway, we’ll see if this takes me anywhere closer to a coherent sermon.

One of those little known passages

Having a recent post from Adam Kotsko in the back of mind a verse in Genesis 35 stood out as though in bold print.  The context is an account of Rachel’s giving birth to the last of the twelve sons of Israel.  Verse 18 reads,

As her soul was departing (for she died), she named him Ben-Oni [Son of my Sorrow]; but his father called him Benjamin [Son of the right hand/strength].

The voice of sorrow dies with the mother and symbol of power arises with the father.  Thank God this perversion is at least recorded.  Oh and a couple of verses later the first born Reuben sleeps with Bilhah mother of Dan and Napthtali.

From Scripture to Spirit; Or, Once again away from liturgy (though perhaps returning again)

[This is a (rather lengthy) sermon I preached this past Sunday on John 16:5-15 and Revelation 1:9-19.]

I just finished my second year of college, papers were submitted and exams completed.  In honour of this occasion my roommates and I thought it would be good to hit the town a let loose a little.  So three of us headed downtown ready for a little mischief.  Now granted we were renting a house in [the small Mennonite town of] Steinbach [the fictional setting of Miriam Toews’ Complicated Kindness] so heading downtown may have limited our options a little.  In any event we hit the 7-11 for some Slurpees.  We pulled a stuffed racoon across the road by string when cars drove by.  You know, wild and crazy college stuff.  In any event as the night wore on we began to wander aimlessly around when eventually we heard some shouting.  We went to get a closer look.  Eventually we came across a man and woman fighting on the driveway.  We were quite close at this point.  Eventually the fight ended, they parted and the man got into his car to drive away.  We quickly hid behind a bush on the next yard.  Now as the man turned the headlights on and backed out of the driveway the car paused for a moment and in that moment lined up directly with the bush we were hiding behind.  The car lights lit up the bush like a light bulb clearly revealing three figures cowering behind it.  The engine was shut off and the door opened and we heard him get out with a yell.  And in that same moment we turned and ran with him coming after us.  Running down a back alley we eventually split up and I found myself running alone, well that is with an angry man coming up behind me.  Now I need to make clear that I am not runner, a sprinter at best, but I knew I could not keep my pace up.  And in those brief moments I needed to make a choice.  Bear in mind I had no idea how big or small, young or old this guy was.  I decided to stop.  As I stopped I turned around, folded my hands behind my back to face and see my pursuer.  I’ll leave it there for now.

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A little Q&A

Question: Why did Jesus die and what did Jesus’ death accomplish?
Answer: Jesus died for our sins and his death paid the penalty for our sins.

The answer comes before the question is even finished.  In fact certain readings of Isaiah would have the answer come before the question.  Is there a particularly Good Friday answer to this question.  Shouldn’t the answer be intimately bound with Good Friday?

If I stay with the text (John was our reading this year) the sequence goes as follows.  Why did Jesus die?  Because he was killed.  What did Jesus’ death accomplish?  Nothing.   So we sit with futility of death.  The God of king and priest is dead because the one and only king and priest is crucified.  By definition then Good Friday sits with atheism and anarchism.  Good Friday sits with the knowledge that the nature of religion and empire is death.

But if you would like something other than death to sit with  and there must be something more than death because the disciples continued to live in the days between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  If you would like some words to come alongside the words of the dead and forsaken God then listen to Jesus again from the cross.  Listen to him before his final words.  He turns to his mother, the woman who gave him birth.  Jesus looks at her and then motions to his disciple standing by her and says, “Here is your son.”  And then he looks at his disciple and motions to his mother saying, “Here is your mother.”  And with these words a community is called.  A community based not on lineage, culture, tradition, status or interests.  This community is called by all who will gather and acknowledge that the gods of this world are dead and the gods of some heaven reserved for the privileged are dead.  So what will live on?  Where will life be found?  Today all we are offered are the words to turn and see our mother, our father, our sons and our daughters among those gathered at the site of death; the site too often created by religion and empire that work to exclude the undesirable.  Jesus has called a people to gather beyond the illusion of religion and beyond the power of empire; to gather in death where we must ask ourselves if love too has died.  And if love has not died . . .  then we must love.  But few of us find that place on our own so must begin by seeking the lost who have been thrust there.  Why did Jesus die?  Maybe first we need to ask another question.  Where did Jesus die?