“On the night he was betrayed”
The words of institution
passed on through the Apostle Paul
begin with a reminder,
a reminder of betrayal.
But the betrayer is not named.
The conspiracy is not placed
on the neck of Judas,
nor is it necessarily confined
to the inner circle of twelve,
who each fell away
in their own right.
More specific traditions
about the last supper,
likely exist as Paul writes,
but Paul has his own concerns.
The Corinthian assembly
is missing the mark
when it comes to living in the spirit
of the rituals they practice.
Where there should be unity
and mutual sharing
there is division
based on socioeconomic status.
By not naming the betrayer,
Paul implicates the Corinthians
as they fail to consider
the deeper meanings
of their actions.
The implication is potentially universal.
In a way, all of humanity
has a share in the betrayal.
All miss the mark
and fall short of God's glory,
to paraphrase Paul's thinking
in another letter.
Faced with utter betrayal,
the surety of human failure,
and a potentially disastrous end
to his earthly mission,
Jesus responded with a simple,
yet radical act of hospitality.
He took a humble loaf of bread,
and as he broke it said,
“this is my body, broken for you
do this in remembrance of me.”
Jesus offers himself, his very body,
symbolically in the loaf of bread.
Jesus gives his followers
a way to physically know him
and experience his real
and abundant presence.
But bread alone is not enough.
A body without the Spirit
will be incomplete.
A mission without motivation
will not get off the ground.
A community without covenant
will not truly be community.
So Jesus took the cup and said:
“This cup is the new covenant
of my blood,
Whenever you drink it,
do it in remembrance of me.”
This new covenant
has a complicated relationship
with older covenants.
The new does not replace the old
making them null and void,
nor does the new
merely supplement the old,
as if they were inferior.
Rather, the cup offers
renewed understanding
of God's desire for covenant
every time it is shared.
Paul's record of the words of institution
ends like it begins...
with a reminder.
“You proclaim Jesus' death
until Christ comes.”
Again, there is purpose
in the way that Paul
presents the tradition.
He invites the Corinthians
to consider what is at stake
in the rituals that they practice
and the possible implications
of superficial participation.
But this need not be reason
to restrict access to communion.
There is much at stake;
the potential cost of discipleship
is found within
the powerful symbols
of the bread and the cup,
but ability to partake
is not about courage or conviction.
It is not about
worth or understanding.
These concepts are not addressed
in the simple refrain,
“do this in remembrance of me.”
Jesus served the first communion
without asking questions.
He served those who would fail him
and those who would betray him.
In doing so,
he entrusted them with his mission
of radical hospitality
and transformative justice
in the face of failure, betrayal,
and even death.
As we examine ourselves today,
centered in God's presence,
it is likely that we will find
courage and conviction
in limited supply.
It is also likely
that worth and understanding
lie just beyond our reach.
But our invitation to the table
is still open
and we still have a share
in the mission of Christ,
in this world and for this world.
The bread and the cup,
come with the promise
of Christ's real
and abundant presence
in our work, in our suffering,
and in the outpouring
of our lives,
for the sake of God's
dwelling among us.
May this communion
help draw us closer to God
and closer to one another
in this time of deep centering.
May it inspire us
to acts of love
and hospitality
even in times of difficulty
and times of trial.
May it remind us
that every time we share,
and every time we serve,
we do it in remembrance
of Jesus Christ,
whose love knows no bounds.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Friday, April 4, 2014
Experiential God Knowledge
How can anything be known about God? I have been sitting with this question for quite a while now. Indeed, how can anything be known about anything? At the most basic level, the knower explores, experiences, and discovers. Information is gathered through the senses and interpreted through various processes, both internal and external to the knower. By this definition, knowledge in general, and knowledge of God in specific, is entirely experiential. To modern materialistic understanding, knowledge depends on observable and measurable facts.
Theology presents some interesting challenges to these basic assumptions. Faced with a lack of observable and measurable facts, the very existence of God is rightly questioned and challenged. Some will find within their experience enough evidence to convince them that there truly is a God, but not all will have such experience. There will even be those whose negative experiences will tell them that there is no God and there will be those who are quite sure that God does not care. All of these outcomes are inevitable if theology is a purely experiential pursuit.
The best that can be done under this assumption is to invite people to give this God thing a try in order to see if it works for them. Enter into the experience, come and worship! Taste and see! This is all well and good and there are many faithful communities that do this well enough. Yet, what is the message that is given for those who for whatever reason fail to share the God experience at a particular occasion? Try again next week? Find another community that works for you?
Maybe there needs to be an acceptance of inevitability, that not everyone will be able to experience God. If this is the case though, I think those of us who find God knowledge through experience are not using our imaginations enough. It is not that we need to abandon experience and find some other way to know God. Experience is always a part of the equation. What I hope to get across is that God is greater than our experience. How can this be embodied in a way that honors experience, but also honors those who have not experienced?
Theology presents some interesting challenges to these basic assumptions. Faced with a lack of observable and measurable facts, the very existence of God is rightly questioned and challenged. Some will find within their experience enough evidence to convince them that there truly is a God, but not all will have such experience. There will even be those whose negative experiences will tell them that there is no God and there will be those who are quite sure that God does not care. All of these outcomes are inevitable if theology is a purely experiential pursuit.
The best that can be done under this assumption is to invite people to give this God thing a try in order to see if it works for them. Enter into the experience, come and worship! Taste and see! This is all well and good and there are many faithful communities that do this well enough. Yet, what is the message that is given for those who for whatever reason fail to share the God experience at a particular occasion? Try again next week? Find another community that works for you?
Maybe there needs to be an acceptance of inevitability, that not everyone will be able to experience God. If this is the case though, I think those of us who find God knowledge through experience are not using our imaginations enough. It is not that we need to abandon experience and find some other way to know God. Experience is always a part of the equation. What I hope to get across is that God is greater than our experience. How can this be embodied in a way that honors experience, but also honors those who have not experienced?
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Contemplating the Holy
Currently, I find myself gravitating toward the concept of holiness. Part of this is that my recent Bible reading has included the book of Deuteronomy. It is a foundational book for the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures and it is one that I have not spent very much time with. But I am discovering that holiness is very much a part of the theological subtext within this book of laws. It is treated very basically that to see God, to know God fully, means death. To participate in theophony, to hear the voice of God, is frightening enough. Somehow, the nation of Israel survived hearing from God on the mountain. Just living through a Divine encounter is treated with awe.
While holiness may seem pretty basic, it is far from settled. It would be quite orthodox to say that God alone is truly holy and everything else just is not. At least other things cannot be holy in the same way that God is holy. Yet, many would contend that there is that which is holy in all things. Some may find panentheism compelling, that God's very self is present in all things. Also, certain spaces, objects, actions, and people are held as holy. Some traditions even find these things essential to faithful living. Perhaps God makes them holy, or holiness is something that human beings can assign. Maybe the effort to make life holy, even if it is theoretically impossible, counts for something. Attempting to create holiness could even be a basic human need.
There is good and bad in every approach to the Holy, but my own contemplative sense of things draws me into encounters with the Holy as completely other. Only in the immanent presence of a transcendent other can there be transformation. Not surprisingly, I find myself in a place of paradoxical tension. To speak of the transcendent having presence is contradictory. The very nature of God as transcendent being cannot really be understood. Hence the belief that to know God fully means death. Yet, the possibility of knowing God, the possibility of encountering the Holy and surviving, is what changed the course of history for the ancient Israelites and promises to change the course of our own history today.
While holiness may seem pretty basic, it is far from settled. It would be quite orthodox to say that God alone is truly holy and everything else just is not. At least other things cannot be holy in the same way that God is holy. Yet, many would contend that there is that which is holy in all things. Some may find panentheism compelling, that God's very self is present in all things. Also, certain spaces, objects, actions, and people are held as holy. Some traditions even find these things essential to faithful living. Perhaps God makes them holy, or holiness is something that human beings can assign. Maybe the effort to make life holy, even if it is theoretically impossible, counts for something. Attempting to create holiness could even be a basic human need.
There is good and bad in every approach to the Holy, but my own contemplative sense of things draws me into encounters with the Holy as completely other. Only in the immanent presence of a transcendent other can there be transformation. Not surprisingly, I find myself in a place of paradoxical tension. To speak of the transcendent having presence is contradictory. The very nature of God as transcendent being cannot really be understood. Hence the belief that to know God fully means death. Yet, the possibility of knowing God, the possibility of encountering the Holy and surviving, is what changed the course of history for the ancient Israelites and promises to change the course of our own history today.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Human Limitation and Ethics
Is it possible to boil theology down to a single basic concept? If I were to blow up everything that I think that I understand about God and sift through the wreckage, what would be the single indestructible diamond of truth that would remain intact? Maybe the construction of the previous questions provides a clue. It is impossible to think theologically without resorting to metaphor. All that we, as human beings, can do is try to use concepts that we know to explain concepts that we cannot possibly know. So, the beginning of theology must be a confession of human limitation, if not absolute powerlessness.
Again, I am confronted by the underlying assumptions of the Christian tradition and its interpretation of sacred texts. Augustine's conversion happened when he realized his utter powerlessness and found hope in his reading of the apostle Paul's approach to the doctrine of grace. His influence can be traced through other towering theologians such as Luther, Calvin, Barth, and many others. Theologians of many different stripes, especially in the American context, often sense a difficult uphill climb against a firmly entrenched Calvinistic notion of utter human depravity. This is where much of my theological wrestling takes place, somewhere on the spectrum of human limitation, but not quite on the extreme end of depravity.
Exactly where we place our understanding of human limitation can be problematic. Utter depravity, or even a less hard lined understanding of powerlessness, can be a very damaging ideology, especially for people who are already marginalized. It can also blind those of us who are privileged to the advantages that we have, what we might be able to accomplish because of them, and how they might be taking a toll on the disadvantaged. Denying human limitation altogether can also be problematic because it results in the kind of self worship that completely blinds us to the suffering of our neighbors, or causes us to blame those who suffer for their suffering.
It is interesting how quickly theology can become a conversation about ethical complexities. The shema of Judeo-Christian theology, "love God and love neighbor" almost seems intuitive. When we talk about God, we talk about something greater than ourselves toward which we strive. This is an intensely ethical pursuit in which human limitation cannot help but be apparent. Faith is ultimately how we deal with human limitation and the trauma that it so often causes. It is my belief that God, revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is a tremendously powerful resource in approaching the many issues that result from human limitation, ethical or otherwise.
Again, I am confronted by the underlying assumptions of the Christian tradition and its interpretation of sacred texts. Augustine's conversion happened when he realized his utter powerlessness and found hope in his reading of the apostle Paul's approach to the doctrine of grace. His influence can be traced through other towering theologians such as Luther, Calvin, Barth, and many others. Theologians of many different stripes, especially in the American context, often sense a difficult uphill climb against a firmly entrenched Calvinistic notion of utter human depravity. This is where much of my theological wrestling takes place, somewhere on the spectrum of human limitation, but not quite on the extreme end of depravity.
Exactly where we place our understanding of human limitation can be problematic. Utter depravity, or even a less hard lined understanding of powerlessness, can be a very damaging ideology, especially for people who are already marginalized. It can also blind those of us who are privileged to the advantages that we have, what we might be able to accomplish because of them, and how they might be taking a toll on the disadvantaged. Denying human limitation altogether can also be problematic because it results in the kind of self worship that completely blinds us to the suffering of our neighbors, or causes us to blame those who suffer for their suffering.
It is interesting how quickly theology can become a conversation about ethical complexities. The shema of Judeo-Christian theology, "love God and love neighbor" almost seems intuitive. When we talk about God, we talk about something greater than ourselves toward which we strive. This is an intensely ethical pursuit in which human limitation cannot help but be apparent. Faith is ultimately how we deal with human limitation and the trauma that it so often causes. It is my belief that God, revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is a tremendously powerful resource in approaching the many issues that result from human limitation, ethical or otherwise.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
A frustrating point of being stuck
Sometimes theology feels more like sculpting than building. At the beginning, there may be a rough image of what the finished product will look like, but there is trial and error along the way until something beautiful emerges. I started with a broken metaphor and tried to make it work, even though I knew that there is no adequate place from which to launch a ground-up theology. Maybe I am just not a disciplined enough systematic thinker to really take on such a task, or maybe it is just not a compelling way to approach the broad topic of writing about God. There is a paradox at every turn and every theological statement is a profound mystery, especially when the prime reference point, the at once fully human and fully divine Jesus Christ, is so befuddling.
Do we really need a three-fold God; at once filled, emptied, and out-poured? Has the modern/postmodern world made such philosophical mysticism obsolete? Maybe no one cares for complex speculations about abstract concepts. They do not put food on the table and do not directly impact our lives. We want concrete and certain truth. If it does not fit into our personal construction of reality, we either take it on faith to be true or reject it out of hand, there is no middle ground, no room for mystery, no patience for paradox. How can these things possibly be compelling when we are all so distracted by survival or fulfilling our insatiable appetites? I believe that God speaks to this condition. I believe that God calls us to something more than survival and consumption. I believe that how we think about and talk about God is important if we are to find true meaning in life.
I know that this is a rant stemming from my own personal frustration. I am in good company with Qoheleth, the author of Ecclesiastes, who saw the pointlessness in all things. This is where I am stuck right now, on Jesus Christ, kenosis, and the Trinity. These are important persons and concepts to me and my faith. There is not room in all the world for all the books that could be written on any one of these ideas and so I am frantically swimming in a deep ocean of theology. Mostly, I want my ideas to be compelling and I want to make something profound and beautiful that others can easily engage with. Blogging for me always seems to be an endless and unfocused work in progress. Maybe I will find a clear and concise way forward for my ideas.
Do we really need a three-fold God; at once filled, emptied, and out-poured? Has the modern/postmodern world made such philosophical mysticism obsolete? Maybe no one cares for complex speculations about abstract concepts. They do not put food on the table and do not directly impact our lives. We want concrete and certain truth. If it does not fit into our personal construction of reality, we either take it on faith to be true or reject it out of hand, there is no middle ground, no room for mystery, no patience for paradox. How can these things possibly be compelling when we are all so distracted by survival or fulfilling our insatiable appetites? I believe that God speaks to this condition. I believe that God calls us to something more than survival and consumption. I believe that how we think about and talk about God is important if we are to find true meaning in life.
I know that this is a rant stemming from my own personal frustration. I am in good company with Qoheleth, the author of Ecclesiastes, who saw the pointlessness in all things. This is where I am stuck right now, on Jesus Christ, kenosis, and the Trinity. These are important persons and concepts to me and my faith. There is not room in all the world for all the books that could be written on any one of these ideas and so I am frantically swimming in a deep ocean of theology. Mostly, I want my ideas to be compelling and I want to make something profound and beautiful that others can easily engage with. Blogging for me always seems to be an endless and unfocused work in progress. Maybe I will find a clear and concise way forward for my ideas.
Jesus Christ: God Emptied
I find myself wondering why I went on such a doctrinal tangent in beginning my ground-up theology. If I started out by stating that my goals were apologetic and that I would stay mostly in the reason corner of the Wesleyan quadrilateral, then it seems quite odd to start from a standpoint of tradition. Yet, it does help to know the basic assumptions that I am working with. So far, I have named Jesus Christ as the fully human and fully divine second person of the Trinity (the Son of God), who, in taking on human form, was emptied of divine qualities. His birth into this world was a significant and extraordinary event, showing God's freedom to intervene in the course of human history in unexpected ways. In moving into reflections on the earthly life of Jesus, it is worth exploring further the concept of Jesus Christ as God emptied.
Kenosis is a difficult concept to reconcile with the Chalcedonian formulation of Jesus having both fully human and fully divine natures. One way around this problem is to make a distinction between divine qualities and divine nature. Divine qualities are all of the omnis (omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, etc...) and any other way God, or any divine being for that matter, may be described. All of these ways of describing God are of course limited and God is free to have or not have any of them and still remain fully God. Simply stated, God may or may not display divine qualities and may choose to give them up, but will always have a divine nature, because God is God, even if God decides to change. It may even be possible to say that God is absolutely free to be or not to be God, but will always have a divine nature.
One fairly obvious thing that gets in the way of the concept of Jesus Christ as God emptied is the tradition of Jesus as a miracle worker. If Jesus had to give up all of the divine qualities in order to become fully human, then his ability to perform miracles is an anomaly. It is logical to question if Jesus' divinity somehow gets in the way of his humanity on this point. An historical-critical approach to this problem is to say that, in Jesus' time, miracle workers were not all that uncommon. Ancient stories about great people quite often included extraordinary or miraculous events. The miracle stories of Jesus may very well have been rhetorical devices utilized by the Gospel writers.
A more faith centered approach to this problem is to say that Jesus' divine nature gave him command over the Holy Spirit, who was really the miracle performing agent. The miracle stories, while they contain a wealth of meaning for life and faith, are mostly about the authority of Jesus as the divine Son. Still, these miracles throw a wrench in the God emptied metaphor. Why did the process of kenosis not empty Jesus of every divine quality, including authority? Taking the form of a slave means giving up all claims to authority. How can God be sovereign and slave at the same time? Perhaps only God can exist in such a profound and paradoxical mystery.
Kenosis is a difficult concept to reconcile with the Chalcedonian formulation of Jesus having both fully human and fully divine natures. One way around this problem is to make a distinction between divine qualities and divine nature. Divine qualities are all of the omnis (omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, etc...) and any other way God, or any divine being for that matter, may be described. All of these ways of describing God are of course limited and God is free to have or not have any of them and still remain fully God. Simply stated, God may or may not display divine qualities and may choose to give them up, but will always have a divine nature, because God is God, even if God decides to change. It may even be possible to say that God is absolutely free to be or not to be God, but will always have a divine nature.
One fairly obvious thing that gets in the way of the concept of Jesus Christ as God emptied is the tradition of Jesus as a miracle worker. If Jesus had to give up all of the divine qualities in order to become fully human, then his ability to perform miracles is an anomaly. It is logical to question if Jesus' divinity somehow gets in the way of his humanity on this point. An historical-critical approach to this problem is to say that, in Jesus' time, miracle workers were not all that uncommon. Ancient stories about great people quite often included extraordinary or miraculous events. The miracle stories of Jesus may very well have been rhetorical devices utilized by the Gospel writers.
A more faith centered approach to this problem is to say that Jesus' divine nature gave him command over the Holy Spirit, who was really the miracle performing agent. The miracle stories, while they contain a wealth of meaning for life and faith, are mostly about the authority of Jesus as the divine Son. Still, these miracles throw a wrench in the God emptied metaphor. Why did the process of kenosis not empty Jesus of every divine quality, including authority? Taking the form of a slave means giving up all claims to authority. How can God be sovereign and slave at the same time? Perhaps only God can exist in such a profound and paradoxical mystery.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Trinity and Incarnation: tiptoeing around heresy
The Trinitarian formulation is one way of handling the paradox of incarnation. Again, the term kenosis is an important concept as God became human in Jesus Christ by letting go of divine qualities, and yet remaining fully divine. One way to talk about where those qualities went at the moment of incarnation is to posit a third divine person along with God the Father and God the Son, namely God the Holy Spirit. It is almost impossible to talk about the Trinity without committing some kind of heresy, so I may be treading on some dangerous ground for some, but this post represents my best shot at making sense out of the Trinity as it pertains to the incarnation.
I cannot think of a satisfying way to get around the masculine language of the traditional names for the three persons of the Trinity. Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer has the problem of assigning specific roles to each person, when all three have a part in creation, redemption, and sustaining life. I have in the past considered the labels God's Mind, God's Body, and God's Spirit, but such categories also seem to undermine the unity of the Godhead. One alternative that I really like is Source, Wellspring, and Water, but it is missing a sense of relationality. The Lover, the Beloved, and the Love between them is a popular one, but it takes some of the person-hood away from the Holy Spirit. I do not find any of these alternatives to be very helpful in terms of incarnation. So, please bear with the masculine language for now.
In Jesus Christ, the divine Son, God is revealed as the divine Father. It is the language that Jesus used, as it is recorded in the Gospel narratives. This is not the only way to talk about God, or the only way that God is revealed, but it is has value, despite its limitations and possible harmful interpretations. Traditionally, the role of the Holy Spirit in the incarnation is as the agent through which the Son was conceived in the virgin Mary's womb. What makes this confusing is that the divine Son existed before this conception, with the Father and the Holy Spirit before all of creation. This also illustrates a problem with explaining the Holy Spirit as a product of kenosis in the incarnation. That is not quite what I mean to suggest.
We might think of God the Father as God filled, God the Son as God emptied, and God the Holy Spirit as God out-poured. This could be potentially heretical in a number of ways. It sounds sort of like modalism, that God exists in different states. Basically, God starts out as the Father, then becomes the Son, and then becomes the Holy Spirit. Sort of like if someone uses the fact that water can exist in three different states to try to explain the Trinity. It does not quite work. It could also be a kind of Arianism, a belief that the Son is a lesser divine being than the Father, subordinate and therefore a created being. I do not mean to suggest these options either.
However we may try to explain the Trinity, the fact is that at its core it is an attempt to deal with God being revealed in human form in Jesus Christ and yet at the same time remaining fully God. We could say that, during Jesus' earthly ministry, the distinctiveness of the three persons of God revealed as Trinity were most clearly distinguishable. God the Father remained in heaven, God the Son was emptied of divine qualities in order to become fully human as Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit was the divine qualities without specific place or form. Both before and after the lifetime of Jesus, God's threeness is more indistinguishable and yet it can still be said faithfully and with confidence that God is in three persons.
I cannot think of a satisfying way to get around the masculine language of the traditional names for the three persons of the Trinity. Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer has the problem of assigning specific roles to each person, when all three have a part in creation, redemption, and sustaining life. I have in the past considered the labels God's Mind, God's Body, and God's Spirit, but such categories also seem to undermine the unity of the Godhead. One alternative that I really like is Source, Wellspring, and Water, but it is missing a sense of relationality. The Lover, the Beloved, and the Love between them is a popular one, but it takes some of the person-hood away from the Holy Spirit. I do not find any of these alternatives to be very helpful in terms of incarnation. So, please bear with the masculine language for now.
In Jesus Christ, the divine Son, God is revealed as the divine Father. It is the language that Jesus used, as it is recorded in the Gospel narratives. This is not the only way to talk about God, or the only way that God is revealed, but it is has value, despite its limitations and possible harmful interpretations. Traditionally, the role of the Holy Spirit in the incarnation is as the agent through which the Son was conceived in the virgin Mary's womb. What makes this confusing is that the divine Son existed before this conception, with the Father and the Holy Spirit before all of creation. This also illustrates a problem with explaining the Holy Spirit as a product of kenosis in the incarnation. That is not quite what I mean to suggest.
We might think of God the Father as God filled, God the Son as God emptied, and God the Holy Spirit as God out-poured. This could be potentially heretical in a number of ways. It sounds sort of like modalism, that God exists in different states. Basically, God starts out as the Father, then becomes the Son, and then becomes the Holy Spirit. Sort of like if someone uses the fact that water can exist in three different states to try to explain the Trinity. It does not quite work. It could also be a kind of Arianism, a belief that the Son is a lesser divine being than the Father, subordinate and therefore a created being. I do not mean to suggest these options either.
However we may try to explain the Trinity, the fact is that at its core it is an attempt to deal with God being revealed in human form in Jesus Christ and yet at the same time remaining fully God. We could say that, during Jesus' earthly ministry, the distinctiveness of the three persons of God revealed as Trinity were most clearly distinguishable. God the Father remained in heaven, God the Son was emptied of divine qualities in order to become fully human as Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit was the divine qualities without specific place or form. Both before and after the lifetime of Jesus, God's threeness is more indistinguishable and yet it can still be said faithfully and with confidence that God is in three persons.
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