First, you have to have faith.
Faith in the things that should come first
[With longing, joy, hunger, thirst
Faith first
First faith
How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord
Faith is the best thing, the only
First, when you mark it all down
[To hear that old unearthly sound
First faith
Faith first
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost
one one one one one one
not two, not two
one
one?
Friday, January 25, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Mother, Daughter, Holy Ghost
A college campus, wonderful though it is, can be constricting. I feel cooped up if I don't leave it at least once a day. One of my favorite places to escape the hustle and bustle is my church on a quiet afternoon, inside the small chapel with the light off, to just be with God. I know God is with me wherever I go, and I can and do pray elsewhere. But inside the dark little chapel, I just sense God's presence differently, strongly. I guess I'm a traditional worship gal, and dusty hymnals and stained glass connect me deeply with God and God's church throughout time.
I realized, lying on the soft blue carpet, that the tiny room is like a womb. Having taken a class in Psychology and Religion and read my Freud and Jung, I'm getting better at spotting important symbols and neuroses. This dark, soft, warm spot, where I am safe, where I am connected to God closely, where there is peace...
To be a Christian, a female, college-educated (halfway, by now), and an American makes any simple conception of gender impossible. So do my career interests and upbringing as a military brat with a wonderful stay-at-home mother and an equally hardworking, highly successful father. I do think women can and should be pastors. I also think women can work and have a career outside the home, although I'm choosing not to. I'm not planning on having any children because I don't think I personally can balance family and career, and I don't want to be any less of a mother to my hypothetical children than my own mom is to me and my siblings. My heart, frankly, is too small to love the church and kids. I must choose, and I know how I'm supposed to choose.
I think I have thought of God as male for most of my life. In Jungian terms, the anima seeks the animus. Females seek maleness to be psychologically whole. If God is male, and I am female, we are balanced. And for years I was trying to teach myself what it was to be a Christian (God was, thankfully, with me in ways I didn't see at that confusing time), so I believed firmly that scripture is inerrant and to be interpreted literally. The Bible was my main guide, my lifeline, so in my preteen mind it had to mean exactly what the words said or it all would crumble. Say a sinner's prayer and you'll go to heaven. Adam and Eve ate a fruit and got banished. And God is a he. (As you can imagine, my childish, stubborn mind had a real field day with the "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit" verse. But that's a story for another time.) But God slowly taught me much more nuanced ways of thinking, to learn to be comfortable with doubt, ambiguity, and questions, or at least accept that those things are part of an authentic Christian life. For years, though, I still thought, and often now think, of God as male. Gender is so complicated. Still.
But yesterday, in that holy womb, lying facedown and almost asleep, I saw God scoop me up like a mother and hold me to her chest. She didn't say anything. She just held me. And I knew, no matter what happens, my Mother God is with me. Taking good care of me. Protecting me.
The theologically proper answer is that God is male and female and yet beyond gender. Our gender is a reflection of our being made in God's image, as the creation images point out. There is something about male and female that are part of who God is. And yesterday, I connected with the female essence of God's nature. Which should be extremely liberating, the essence of Christian feminism. Women are important because women reflect God's own image. To reject femaleness is to reject our female God.
But patriarchy is still, sadly, alive and well in the church today. Why did Jesus come as a male? Must mean that preaching or leading or guiding require testicles. And being 5'2, because that's about how tall Jesus would have been, and being Jewish, and oh yes, having dirty feet and never wearing pants.
Today is Snarkday, I guess. You'll have to excuse me.
But God goes beyond gender, too. God does not have genitalia. Any language we use about God falls far short of his glory. Words and metaphors are too flat, like a stick figure trying to depict a living, breathing person. Are there any words to explain Christ crucified, the sacraments of baptism and communion, or even the birth of a child or the death of a friend? Yes. But they don't work very well. Gender is one of many metaphors we use to talk about God, and we have to continually remind ourselves that God eludes all our feeble words.
So it was just an image, which is a little better than words, and I was in my Mother God's arms.
Forgive my self-indulgent post today. I think it's important to think about God and gender. And to share encounters with God. Our experiences of God are not our private possessions. God gives us Herself so we can share Her with one another.
Praise Mother, Daughter, and Holy Ghost.
Amen.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Oorah!
So I fell of the wagon with my reading of Raymond Brown's commentary on the Christmas story. But I'm not too upset with myself. I have a lot of things going on in my life outside of books; I'm reading "the great book of the world," as Descartes said. (The only reason I know Descartes said that was I was paying about 75% of my attention to the lecture in early modern philosophy the other day. They have some nifty catchphrases, but in general those philosophers seem to be best at curing insomnia. But I digress.)
Lately I've been thinking a lot about the Marine Corps. There are watershed moments in our lives, experiences after which we are not the same person. The night of February 17th, 2011 was one of them. It was my senior year of high school. God spoke to me-- not audibly, but unmistakably, inside my heart-- and scared the crap out of me. Please pardon my French. That's the best way to describe it. Otto's description of the sacred as the mysterium tramendum et fascinas (a fascinating and terrifying mystery) is definitely true, but it feels cold and clinical apart from actually encountering this holy, other God. Anyway, God doesn't speak clearly to me very often, probably because I'm too loud to listen clearly. Among the things God said to me that night was that I needed to be like a Marine, like my father.
2 Timothy 2:3 says we must be good soldiers of Jesus Christ. Or "good Marines of Jesus Christ. OORAH!" according to the New Jessica Translation.
The years we roamed the country at the command of the Marine Corps... Camp Pendleton, Twenty-Nine Palms, Norfolk, Quantico, the Naval War College... I know I'm missing some. I have lost track of how many schools I've been to. No idea how many houses.
When we talk about family history, it's always prefaced with, "That's when we lived in x-state/base."
Still boxes in the basement with misspelled scrawls of movers... my Bitty Baby box reads "Billy Baby."
The best friends I left, the boys never kissed, all the high school proms and graduations I was supposed to attend, new school songs and colors and playground games and lunch tables that couldn't fit a new girl...
A couple churches, visited but never loved, Grandma letting me play with her purse on Christmas Eve, me yawning, why are we doing this, and then later my kid's Bible under my bed, God the only friend who never quit writing back...
There's a picture on my bookshelf, still, me aged four standing with Daddy outside our house in the desert, a real desert called Twenty-Nine Palms and Josh with the blond hair in my first grade class in Tennessee didn't believe me about the desert and called me a liar to my face, right before Daddy went to Okinawa so I wouldn't forget about him for six months. Mommy crying, Daddy wiping tears away and kissing my head, me saying, "Don't worry Mommy. He'll come home tonight" and she's shaking her head no, no
9/11/01, in Rhode Island this time, too close to New York, Daddy's standing in front of the TV: "The world changed today. The world will never be the same." "What do you mean, Daddy?" But he doesn't answer, just watches, and my mom watches him, silently afraid.
Iraq the first time, 2004, he told me in the mall so I would think it's no big deal, except rivers of tears are flowing down my face... what if, what if... God I can't bear it. Standing in the airport, my little brother this time is the one assuring us he'll be home soon, and I yell at him to be quiet, and before he leaves Daddy buys me a bagel but I can't eat it, can't stop shaking...
Iraq the second time, 2006, I email him every day and he writes me back every day, about the mean girls in my class, the one who took a picture of me dressing in PE because I was so ugly, so awkward, a child in a woman's body, the one who said my new blue eye shadow looked like a black eye... Dad listened to it all. Sometimes I can't say anything to anyone else, just sit and try not to think about the news, God if you do this to me, I will never speak to you again, the nightmares with Taps and a coffin, the quiet dreams in which he was downstairs making coffee all along, the rare times he can talk on the phone and I can't talk, can't bear it, and Christmas is an intrusion, I cry more and we buy a little tree, a Charlie Brown tree, for the kitchen table. We aren't going to Illinois this year, just us in California, we'll open gifts but the real celebration is still a month away, when he comes home-- he WILL come home-- safe and sound.
And he comes home and then retires, and I cry even more, and we come to Missouri. And I still have stuff backstage. We made sacrifices in ways we don't understand. Don't begrudge us our government health care benefits, our commissary savings, if you lived in the same town your whole life and have had friends and a church that loved you your whole life long.
So God called me to live that kind of life, again. I want a safe life, to have my first and last Christmas tree in one house, to hear my walls whisper decades of love they have seen. And God said, No. No safety, but a life of total obedience to him, complete surrender, to be among the few, the proud, to hear God say "Semper Fi" over me when I face him in glory. This is the theology in my veins, this is my calling.
From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, we fight our country's battles in the land, on air and sea. First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean, we are proud to claim the title of United States Marine. Our flags unfurled to every breeze, from dawn to setting sun, we have fought in every clime and place where we could take a gun. In the snow of far-off northern lands, and in sunny tropic scenes, you will find us always on the job, the United States Marines.
And the best part, for a religion junkie like me: If the Army and the Navy ever look on heaven's scenes, they will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines!
God called me using the language of my past. May we hall heed God's voice echoing through our years and Scripture to obey him absolutely, to cry out OORAH to our Commander and King.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about the Marine Corps. There are watershed moments in our lives, experiences after which we are not the same person. The night of February 17th, 2011 was one of them. It was my senior year of high school. God spoke to me-- not audibly, but unmistakably, inside my heart-- and scared the crap out of me. Please pardon my French. That's the best way to describe it. Otto's description of the sacred as the mysterium tramendum et fascinas (a fascinating and terrifying mystery) is definitely true, but it feels cold and clinical apart from actually encountering this holy, other God. Anyway, God doesn't speak clearly to me very often, probably because I'm too loud to listen clearly. Among the things God said to me that night was that I needed to be like a Marine, like my father.
2 Timothy 2:3 says we must be good soldiers of Jesus Christ. Or "good Marines of Jesus Christ. OORAH!" according to the New Jessica Translation.
The years we roamed the country at the command of the Marine Corps... Camp Pendleton, Twenty-Nine Palms, Norfolk, Quantico, the Naval War College... I know I'm missing some. I have lost track of how many schools I've been to. No idea how many houses.
When we talk about family history, it's always prefaced with, "That's when we lived in x-state/base."
Still boxes in the basement with misspelled scrawls of movers... my Bitty Baby box reads "Billy Baby."
The best friends I left, the boys never kissed, all the high school proms and graduations I was supposed to attend, new school songs and colors and playground games and lunch tables that couldn't fit a new girl...
A couple churches, visited but never loved, Grandma letting me play with her purse on Christmas Eve, me yawning, why are we doing this, and then later my kid's Bible under my bed, God the only friend who never quit writing back...
There's a picture on my bookshelf, still, me aged four standing with Daddy outside our house in the desert, a real desert called Twenty-Nine Palms and Josh with the blond hair in my first grade class in Tennessee didn't believe me about the desert and called me a liar to my face, right before Daddy went to Okinawa so I wouldn't forget about him for six months. Mommy crying, Daddy wiping tears away and kissing my head, me saying, "Don't worry Mommy. He'll come home tonight" and she's shaking her head no, no
9/11/01, in Rhode Island this time, too close to New York, Daddy's standing in front of the TV: "The world changed today. The world will never be the same." "What do you mean, Daddy?" But he doesn't answer, just watches, and my mom watches him, silently afraid.
Iraq the first time, 2004, he told me in the mall so I would think it's no big deal, except rivers of tears are flowing down my face... what if, what if... God I can't bear it. Standing in the airport, my little brother this time is the one assuring us he'll be home soon, and I yell at him to be quiet, and before he leaves Daddy buys me a bagel but I can't eat it, can't stop shaking...
Iraq the second time, 2006, I email him every day and he writes me back every day, about the mean girls in my class, the one who took a picture of me dressing in PE because I was so ugly, so awkward, a child in a woman's body, the one who said my new blue eye shadow looked like a black eye... Dad listened to it all. Sometimes I can't say anything to anyone else, just sit and try not to think about the news, God if you do this to me, I will never speak to you again, the nightmares with Taps and a coffin, the quiet dreams in which he was downstairs making coffee all along, the rare times he can talk on the phone and I can't talk, can't bear it, and Christmas is an intrusion, I cry more and we buy a little tree, a Charlie Brown tree, for the kitchen table. We aren't going to Illinois this year, just us in California, we'll open gifts but the real celebration is still a month away, when he comes home-- he WILL come home-- safe and sound.
And he comes home and then retires, and I cry even more, and we come to Missouri. And I still have stuff backstage. We made sacrifices in ways we don't understand. Don't begrudge us our government health care benefits, our commissary savings, if you lived in the same town your whole life and have had friends and a church that loved you your whole life long.
So God called me to live that kind of life, again. I want a safe life, to have my first and last Christmas tree in one house, to hear my walls whisper decades of love they have seen. And God said, No. No safety, but a life of total obedience to him, complete surrender, to be among the few, the proud, to hear God say "Semper Fi" over me when I face him in glory. This is the theology in my veins, this is my calling.
From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, we fight our country's battles in the land, on air and sea. First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean, we are proud to claim the title of United States Marine. Our flags unfurled to every breeze, from dawn to setting sun, we have fought in every clime and place where we could take a gun. In the snow of far-off northern lands, and in sunny tropic scenes, you will find us always on the job, the United States Marines.
And the best part, for a religion junkie like me: If the Army and the Navy ever look on heaven's scenes, they will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines!
God called me using the language of my past. May we hall heed God's voice echoing through our years and Scripture to obey him absolutely, to cry out OORAH to our Commander and King.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
A Homework Sigh
I was sitting on the couch, stumbling through the commentary on Luke 1:5-25, and sighing. "That sounds like a homework sigh," my mother said. In some ways, it was. The beginning of Luke is as elusive to me as my assigned readings of Plato or the Qur'an. In college, you never understand one hundred percent of the reading for a class. You are lucky if you understand seventy-five percent. Or maybe I'm just stupid.
Anyway, I'm sighing about the attention Luke pays to John the Baptist. Christmas is coming! Who gives a flying fish about John? The Son of God is about to be born! It really annoys me when I don't understand something in the Bible. How dare God put something in the Bible I can't figure out? Why don't pastors preach on John the Baptist? I can only remember hearing one sermon on this text, and it was preached by a pastor I don't like very much whom I'm trying to forget. I want to contact every pastor I like and demand a sermon on JBap (as my commentary calls him, rather like a rapper or university president, a la "T-Pain").
Maybe God will help me puzzle through this. If anybody has any ideas on interpreting JBap in Luke, let me know. I'm going to tentatively try now.
Luke carefully connects Zechariah, JBap's father, to OT history-- he and his wife are "descended from Aaron" and there are echoes and even a few verbatim quotes from OT stories of barren couples receiving children from God. The OT and NT are inseparably intertwined, one story of God and his people, and every instance of God's faithfulness to an individual is really part of a much bigger story. Our rugged American individualism is, in most cases, sin.
Old Zech and his wife are "upright" in God's sight, even though they don't have a child. The classic theodicy that our troubles are punishment for sin, although certainly sometimes true, fails in this case. It's also important to remember that God intervenes in their old age, although they probably had been hoping, praying, trying for a baby for a long time. I think God rarely solves our problems the second we ask. In my cynical moments I say it's because God enjoys watching us beg for mercy, but I think in reality there's deeper, disciplinary value to waiting on God, even if God didn't cause the trouble in the first place.
Anyway, the day Luke introduces us to Zech is a very lucky day. He drew lots and got to burn the afternoon incense, a sacred honor a priest usually received only once in his lifetime. (Again, note how the righteous sage got this honor late in life.) Why does the angel come now, in the Temple? I firmly believe we can encounter God everywhere, not just in the sanctuary. So does Luke; Gabriel comes to Mary at her house. But I've had some special moments with God in empty sanctuaries, so I guess I can see why.
Brown connects this episode with Gabriel's appearance to the prophet Daniel in Daniel 9-10. He talks about "the seventy weeks of years" and "the desolating sacrilege" in the Temple-- eschatological signs. Because of some linguistic parallels, the fact that Gabriel is specifically mentioned, and the appearance happens in the temple suggests that the seventy weeks of years is in some sense, over. The years of suffering Israel spent waiting for redemption are over, in a way, because JBap, the forerunner of Jesus, is coming. Of course, Christians believe in the "not yet" of eschatology too, as we await Jesus' Second Coming and the birth of the new creation. But a new era of salvation history has come!
I'm trying to understand JBap's vocation. He's called to be the Elijah (Malachi 3:1) that makes people ready for Jesus. But isn't that the vocation of any pastor/prophet/chaplain/counselor? Or am I egotistically comparing my probable vocation with that of the greatest among those born of women (Luke 7:28)? I pray that if I am a pastor, I will bring lost "sons of Israel to the Lord their God" and "make ready for the Lord a prepared people."
I guess the best I can say is that JBap highlights that God doesn't just dump the sacred in our laps. He prepares us for himself, and the best we can hope for is to be the JBap to others around us, whether they are encountering Jesus for the first time or ten millionth time. Maybe that's why Luke is starting with JBap, and Matthew with the slightly boring genealogy. We need to prepare, we need Lent before Easter, Advent before Christmas, time for our hard, confused hearts to melt before our fiery God. Maybe JBap prepares us for Jesus in Luke's narrative in subtle ways I can't quite grasp. Maybe I need to acknowledge and even celebrate the many ways God stands beyond my understanding.
Zechariah responds with skepticism-- "But how am I to know?" Apparently he hasn't been so impertinent as to lose his chance to father the second Elijah. But he is made deaf and mute. And after Elizabeth conceives her son, she withdraws from society for five months. Solitude, as long as it has spiritual purpose and a definite end, is healthy. (Unending isolation obviously is not.) But maybe when we encounter the mystery of God, sometimes the proper response is to have some special God-and-me time. I require a lot of solitude, and if I'm particularly cranky, you may want to ask me how much quality alone time I have gotten lately. Zech and Lizzy remind me it's okay to claim that solitude when I need it, and not spend it on Tumblr and Facebook, but on my knees and in my journal and Bible.
My reflections seem a bit lame. They definitely can't constitute a sermon. If you have any ideas for improvement, please tell me. Now I'm going to go have a snack so my head quits spinning.
Anyway, I'm sighing about the attention Luke pays to John the Baptist. Christmas is coming! Who gives a flying fish about John? The Son of God is about to be born! It really annoys me when I don't understand something in the Bible. How dare God put something in the Bible I can't figure out? Why don't pastors preach on John the Baptist? I can only remember hearing one sermon on this text, and it was preached by a pastor I don't like very much whom I'm trying to forget. I want to contact every pastor I like and demand a sermon on JBap (as my commentary calls him, rather like a rapper or university president, a la "T-Pain").
Maybe God will help me puzzle through this. If anybody has any ideas on interpreting JBap in Luke, let me know. I'm going to tentatively try now.
Luke carefully connects Zechariah, JBap's father, to OT history-- he and his wife are "descended from Aaron" and there are echoes and even a few verbatim quotes from OT stories of barren couples receiving children from God. The OT and NT are inseparably intertwined, one story of God and his people, and every instance of God's faithfulness to an individual is really part of a much bigger story. Our rugged American individualism is, in most cases, sin.
Old Zech and his wife are "upright" in God's sight, even though they don't have a child. The classic theodicy that our troubles are punishment for sin, although certainly sometimes true, fails in this case. It's also important to remember that God intervenes in their old age, although they probably had been hoping, praying, trying for a baby for a long time. I think God rarely solves our problems the second we ask. In my cynical moments I say it's because God enjoys watching us beg for mercy, but I think in reality there's deeper, disciplinary value to waiting on God, even if God didn't cause the trouble in the first place.
Anyway, the day Luke introduces us to Zech is a very lucky day. He drew lots and got to burn the afternoon incense, a sacred honor a priest usually received only once in his lifetime. (Again, note how the righteous sage got this honor late in life.) Why does the angel come now, in the Temple? I firmly believe we can encounter God everywhere, not just in the sanctuary. So does Luke; Gabriel comes to Mary at her house. But I've had some special moments with God in empty sanctuaries, so I guess I can see why.
Brown connects this episode with Gabriel's appearance to the prophet Daniel in Daniel 9-10. He talks about "the seventy weeks of years" and "the desolating sacrilege" in the Temple-- eschatological signs. Because of some linguistic parallels, the fact that Gabriel is specifically mentioned, and the appearance happens in the temple suggests that the seventy weeks of years is in some sense, over. The years of suffering Israel spent waiting for redemption are over, in a way, because JBap, the forerunner of Jesus, is coming. Of course, Christians believe in the "not yet" of eschatology too, as we await Jesus' Second Coming and the birth of the new creation. But a new era of salvation history has come!
I'm trying to understand JBap's vocation. He's called to be the Elijah (Malachi 3:1) that makes people ready for Jesus. But isn't that the vocation of any pastor/prophet/chaplain/counselor? Or am I egotistically comparing my probable vocation with that of the greatest among those born of women (Luke 7:28)? I pray that if I am a pastor, I will bring lost "sons of Israel to the Lord their God" and "make ready for the Lord a prepared people."
I guess the best I can say is that JBap highlights that God doesn't just dump the sacred in our laps. He prepares us for himself, and the best we can hope for is to be the JBap to others around us, whether they are encountering Jesus for the first time or ten millionth time. Maybe that's why Luke is starting with JBap, and Matthew with the slightly boring genealogy. We need to prepare, we need Lent before Easter, Advent before Christmas, time for our hard, confused hearts to melt before our fiery God. Maybe JBap prepares us for Jesus in Luke's narrative in subtle ways I can't quite grasp. Maybe I need to acknowledge and even celebrate the many ways God stands beyond my understanding.
Zechariah responds with skepticism-- "But how am I to know?" Apparently he hasn't been so impertinent as to lose his chance to father the second Elijah. But he is made deaf and mute. And after Elizabeth conceives her son, she withdraws from society for five months. Solitude, as long as it has spiritual purpose and a definite end, is healthy. (Unending isolation obviously is not.) But maybe when we encounter the mystery of God, sometimes the proper response is to have some special God-and-me time. I require a lot of solitude, and if I'm particularly cranky, you may want to ask me how much quality alone time I have gotten lately. Zech and Lizzy remind me it's okay to claim that solitude when I need it, and not spend it on Tumblr and Facebook, but on my knees and in my journal and Bible.
My reflections seem a bit lame. They definitely can't constitute a sermon. If you have any ideas for improvement, please tell me. Now I'm going to go have a snack so my head quits spinning.
Christmas and Tiny Coffins
Every adult American who does not live under a rock knows about the tragedy in Connecticut last week. The sheer brutality is appalling. For twenty-seven families, Christmas will never be the same. But according to Matthew's gospel, slaughter of the holy innocents was part of the very first Christmas. Herod, in his attempt to kill the baby Jesus, has all the boys aged two and younger in Bethlehem slaughtered. I can't imagine the depth of grief a person experiences upon losing a precious child, the searing silence unpunctured by laughter, a Christmas tree with far too few gifts beneath it... God, I'm watching my baby sister play in my room as I type this and getting a lump in my throat imagining what the big sisters in Bethlehem experienced, and what the big sisters of Newton must be going through right now...
I like knowing why something happens, but there really is no answer to why a horror like the Sandy Hook shooting happened. Yet it comforts me to know Matthew does not say God caused that to happen. He quotes a passage from Jeremiah about Rachel weeping for her children, but refrains from saying that the slaughter happened to fulfill that OT passage, like he does with his other OT quotes. Implicitly, the gospel tells us that God did not cause those children to die. I think that should be a comfort. Our God is neither a master puppeteer nor a murderer. Instead, he weeps beside us in our suffering. I don't believe anyone, not even the most distraught, grief-stricken mother, is more upset about Sandy Hook than God is.
I think the slaughter of the holy innocents has an important function in the Christmas story. Even though God's Son has been born, the eternal Word become flesh, bad things will still happen. We cannot pretend that Christmas means the end of our suffering. Only Jesus' second coming can give us that. But in light of Christmas, our suffering should be transformed. Matthew says, "A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted, because they are no more," quoting Jeremiah 31:15. But this is in the middle of a long chapter of God's promise to gather the people of Israel and issue a new covenant in which God forgives Israel's sins and writes his law on Israel's hearts.
Jesus' life, death, and resurrection and establishment of the church is the beginning of the answer to the promises laid out in Jeremiah 35. "He who scattered Israel will gather him and will keep him as a shepherd to a flock" (Jer 31:10)-- Jesus shepherds his church by his earthly example and gift of the Holy Spirit. He gathers all his people into one Israel and casts out those who are not the true Israel based, on the basis of accepting or rejecting Jesus, the stone over which many stumble and many others are saved. "The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when the city shall be rebuilt for the LORD... It shall never again be uprooted or overthrown," proclaims Jeremiah. Jesus is returning, and he will build a new earth, and every holy innocent will be resurrected to new life.
By describing the grief of the mothers in Bethlehem with a verse in this context, Matthew illustrates the way Christmas transforms grief. Because of Christmas, we should grieve in expectation of Jesus' return and establishment of a holy kingdom wherein we will all live together, forever. And we should grieve with the knowledge that in Jesus' saving death and resurrection, he is our shepherd right now. Like Rachel's tears, our tears should be in the context of the kind of hope celebrated in Jeremiah 31. Cry we will, and must, when sad things happen. But because of Christmas, we must not despair.
Now I'd like to move on to another interesting thing in this section of Matthew-- the many parallels to Moses' early life. Jesus and Moses are both in Egypt, both protected from evil powers. There are places where the Greek wording is the same as in the LXX (Greek translation) of Exodus. Thus, Jesus is a prophet like Moses, as was promised. Again, God fulfills his promise. Another fascinating book on the Bible I was reading entitled The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel explains that Moses' early childhood illustrates a biblical tendency to intertwine home and exile, to obscure any simple answer to the question of where the character in question is from. I think this OT tendency paves the way for eschatology. Jesus isn't really from anywhere-- not truly from Bethlehem, nor Egypt nor Nazareth, spending his years of ministry wandering Israel-- but from God.
I remember meeting the principal of the elementary school where I went to third grade while enrolling in late August with my parents. Unfortunately, he asked, "Where are you from?" I froze, stared at my shoes, and said nothing. Later, my mom told me I could have just said I was born in California, but that didn't seem to cover all my bases. Moses and Jesus would have the same problem. Transiency, rootlessness, a spiritual homelessness...these feelings occasionally tug on the hearts of even the lucky souls who lived their whole life in the same county. These feelings are part of being human on our unredeemed earth. They remind us that we are not home; our home is with God, just like Jesus.
It is said of Jesus, "He shall be a Nazorean." This refers to more than simply Nazareth. A Nazaritie in the OT was a person who was specially dedicated to God from birth, and as a symbol of this commitment could not drink alcohol or get a haircut. Hence Jesus, too, is specially dedicated to God. Matthew helpfully uses a category of reference his Jewish readers knew well yet was still ancient and slightly exotic-- this Nazarite vow-- to highlight Jesus' special relationship to God. That's a lesson that emerges again and again throughout the Bible: the importance of using contemporary idiom to explain eternal truths. It's something the church today would do well to remember (tough for this traditional worship gal!)
But the phrase can also be traced to Isaiah 11:1, "There will come a shoot from the root of Jesse, and from his roots a branch (Heb: Nazir) will blossom." God has kept his promise to send a Davidic Messiah, and Jesus is the most high, beautiful, important result of that tree. There is something deliciously arrogant about what Matthew is saying here. The centuries of Jewish history are just preparing for Jesus, the ultimate branch out of the tree. I pray for the similar, single-minded conclusion that Jesus is the branch in my life, in the life of the church, that we are just the roots setting the stage for him, our crowning glory and best part.
Well, there was a lot to be said here. If Christmas cannot speak to these deep questions of language and identity, to the profound sorrow of tiny coffins, it is meaningless. But it can, and does, if only like the magi we are willing to seek and find.
I like knowing why something happens, but there really is no answer to why a horror like the Sandy Hook shooting happened. Yet it comforts me to know Matthew does not say God caused that to happen. He quotes a passage from Jeremiah about Rachel weeping for her children, but refrains from saying that the slaughter happened to fulfill that OT passage, like he does with his other OT quotes. Implicitly, the gospel tells us that God did not cause those children to die. I think that should be a comfort. Our God is neither a master puppeteer nor a murderer. Instead, he weeps beside us in our suffering. I don't believe anyone, not even the most distraught, grief-stricken mother, is more upset about Sandy Hook than God is.
I think the slaughter of the holy innocents has an important function in the Christmas story. Even though God's Son has been born, the eternal Word become flesh, bad things will still happen. We cannot pretend that Christmas means the end of our suffering. Only Jesus' second coming can give us that. But in light of Christmas, our suffering should be transformed. Matthew says, "A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted, because they are no more," quoting Jeremiah 31:15. But this is in the middle of a long chapter of God's promise to gather the people of Israel and issue a new covenant in which God forgives Israel's sins and writes his law on Israel's hearts.
Jesus' life, death, and resurrection and establishment of the church is the beginning of the answer to the promises laid out in Jeremiah 35. "He who scattered Israel will gather him and will keep him as a shepherd to a flock" (Jer 31:10)-- Jesus shepherds his church by his earthly example and gift of the Holy Spirit. He gathers all his people into one Israel and casts out those who are not the true Israel based, on the basis of accepting or rejecting Jesus, the stone over which many stumble and many others are saved. "The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when the city shall be rebuilt for the LORD... It shall never again be uprooted or overthrown," proclaims Jeremiah. Jesus is returning, and he will build a new earth, and every holy innocent will be resurrected to new life.
By describing the grief of the mothers in Bethlehem with a verse in this context, Matthew illustrates the way Christmas transforms grief. Because of Christmas, we should grieve in expectation of Jesus' return and establishment of a holy kingdom wherein we will all live together, forever. And we should grieve with the knowledge that in Jesus' saving death and resurrection, he is our shepherd right now. Like Rachel's tears, our tears should be in the context of the kind of hope celebrated in Jeremiah 31. Cry we will, and must, when sad things happen. But because of Christmas, we must not despair.
Now I'd like to move on to another interesting thing in this section of Matthew-- the many parallels to Moses' early life. Jesus and Moses are both in Egypt, both protected from evil powers. There are places where the Greek wording is the same as in the LXX (Greek translation) of Exodus. Thus, Jesus is a prophet like Moses, as was promised. Again, God fulfills his promise. Another fascinating book on the Bible I was reading entitled The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel explains that Moses' early childhood illustrates a biblical tendency to intertwine home and exile, to obscure any simple answer to the question of where the character in question is from. I think this OT tendency paves the way for eschatology. Jesus isn't really from anywhere-- not truly from Bethlehem, nor Egypt nor Nazareth, spending his years of ministry wandering Israel-- but from God.
I remember meeting the principal of the elementary school where I went to third grade while enrolling in late August with my parents. Unfortunately, he asked, "Where are you from?" I froze, stared at my shoes, and said nothing. Later, my mom told me I could have just said I was born in California, but that didn't seem to cover all my bases. Moses and Jesus would have the same problem. Transiency, rootlessness, a spiritual homelessness...these feelings occasionally tug on the hearts of even the lucky souls who lived their whole life in the same county. These feelings are part of being human on our unredeemed earth. They remind us that we are not home; our home is with God, just like Jesus.
It is said of Jesus, "He shall be a Nazorean." This refers to more than simply Nazareth. A Nazaritie in the OT was a person who was specially dedicated to God from birth, and as a symbol of this commitment could not drink alcohol or get a haircut. Hence Jesus, too, is specially dedicated to God. Matthew helpfully uses a category of reference his Jewish readers knew well yet was still ancient and slightly exotic-- this Nazarite vow-- to highlight Jesus' special relationship to God. That's a lesson that emerges again and again throughout the Bible: the importance of using contemporary idiom to explain eternal truths. It's something the church today would do well to remember (tough for this traditional worship gal!)
But the phrase can also be traced to Isaiah 11:1, "There will come a shoot from the root of Jesse, and from his roots a branch (Heb: Nazir) will blossom." God has kept his promise to send a Davidic Messiah, and Jesus is the most high, beautiful, important result of that tree. There is something deliciously arrogant about what Matthew is saying here. The centuries of Jewish history are just preparing for Jesus, the ultimate branch out of the tree. I pray for the similar, single-minded conclusion that Jesus is the branch in my life, in the life of the church, that we are just the roots setting the stage for him, our crowning glory and best part.
Well, there was a lot to be said here. If Christmas cannot speak to these deep questions of language and identity, to the profound sorrow of tiny coffins, it is meaningless. But it can, and does, if only like the magi we are willing to seek and find.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
We Three Kings?
My head is exploding. The Birth of the Messiah's commentary on the magi's visit to Jesus in Matthew 2:1-12 is fascinating and somewhat troubling. We sing "We Three Kings" reverently but uncritically. The magi are never said to be kings, nor specified to be only three in number, and furthermore the point of the story is that Jesus is the only real king. I do enjoy that hymn, but perhaps popular understanding of the magi has obscured what the gospel is trying to say.
One of the most important pieces of the story is that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the town where David was anointed by the prophet Samuel as king. Thus the Micah prophecy is fulfilled. Again, Jesus fulfills the prophecies, the hopes and dreams of every heart. But Jesus is king from his birth; David must wait and wait for God's proper timing for his anointing.
Throughout Jesus' lifetime there is a dual motif of acceptance/worship and rejection/persecution. Even as an infant, he is not universally loved. There is something comforting about this. If even Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is disliked by some, can we really expect anything different?
Interestingly, it is the priests and Sanhedrin who correctly quote Scripture, that the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem and will shepherd Israel. They know the Bible backwards and forwards. But they miss out on the miracle of Christmas, while the pagans meet the infant Son of God! How tragic! Why? They aren't paying attention. Following God is about way more than just knowing the right answers, reading your Bible and listening to the sermons. It's also about keeping your eyes open to see what God is doing. Christmas asks that we have a real, living faith that is sensitive to God's actions in the world. We have to keep our eyes peeled and our ears on alert, or we just might miss out on Christmas like the priests did. Christmas, Immanuel, comes every day if we are looking.
Furthermore, "You shall shepherd my people Israel," God says of the coming Messiah. Originally, God spoke these words to King David upon his crowning. Matthew says these words are rightly to be applied to Jesus. Thus, Jesus is the only true Shepherd and King. Herod is not the king; the priests are not the shepherd. Christmas demands, then, that we ask ourselves, like the magi did, who the kings of our lives are and dethrone them, prostrating ourselves instead before the Son of God. For American Christians, the "king" is probably not our government, unless we are putting our faith in the government, which unfortunately a minority of Americans do. Instead, our false kings could be career, money, even family. For me sometimes it's good grades or ambition. Similarly, our true Shepherd is Jesus Christ. God does call some people to be pastors, shepherds over the church. But that's always shepherd with a small "s." We can't put our trust in pastors. And pastors can't trust themselves as the ultimate shepherd, because only Jesus can really care for people's souls, and care of the soul ultimately means connecting people to the Great Shepherd. This, too, is a lesson of Christmas.
There is a lot of OT background in the story of the magi. There's a passage in Isaiah 59 that says, "Be enlightened, O Jerusalem, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen (like the star in Matthew is said to have risen) upon you... The wealth of the nations will come to you, all those from Sheba will come bringing gold and frankincense, and proclaiming the salvation of our Lord." God's promise is faithful. Ultimately, as the magi come to Jesus, as Jesus' advent ultimately incorporates the Gentiles more thoroughly into the people of God than ever before, Israel is ultimately edified. When "outsiders" worship Jesus, the "insiders" gain wealth, the "insiders" hear the word of God's salvation. The church has to remember that. We are no longer the Gentiles. Every person who we don't think belongs in church is a Gentile, and when they worship Jesus we experience salvation in new ways. I pray that the church today just won't be like the priests in the story of the magi and miss out on it all.
But we are not just the Jews in this story. We are also the kings, especially the rich American church. Although my bank account has lately seemed like a leaky faucet, I am ridiculously wealthy and privileged by global standards. I'm a twenty year old female without a bunch of babies. I'm going to graduate from college. I don't go to bed hungry, except when I'm so busy I forget to make it to the dining hall. I must humble myself before the boy-king. I have to admit that my money, good luck, and brains are really nothing compared to the glory of the Son of God. I have to bring the best that I have for him and know that it's nothing, nothing, next to what he did for me the first Christmas, at Cavalry, and every day of my life.
Similarly, the word "homage" which Matthew uses hearkens back to the royal Psalm 72:10-11, "May the kings of Sheba and Saba bring gifts; may all the kings pay him homage." But the point is that the kings of the earth worship Jesus, and so Jesus is the realest, truest king. There is so much in this story! So much. I guess I'll keep singing, "We Three Kings," while praying that I and the church worship Jesus as King.
Conceivably
"Conceivably" is a word my father uses a lot to just mean "possibly," so I grew up using it too. It took me a long time to realize that conceiving refers to something more than simple possibility. And yet the infancy narratives are pregnant (pardon the bad pun) with possibility, like a Christmas tree with shiny gifts beneath that you know will be exciting and wonderful, but exactly what they are, you don't yet know. Jesus is always that way; we will never exhaust his possibility, power, or splendor.
I have been reading the commentary on the conception in Matthew's gospel in the Birth of the Messiah book I'm tackling over break. It has some big surprises, parts of which make slightly uncomfortable. For instance, the angel says to Joseph that Mary is "with child through the Holy Spirit." Raymond Brown, the author of this book, explains that this "through" emphasizes Jesus was conceived in a non-sexual way. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit was feminine in Hebrew and neuter in Greek, so there's no hint that the Holy Spirit is a male agent impregnating Mary. Jesus is conceived through the creative action of the Holy Spirit.
Why does this make me uncomfortable? Because Christians are continually, and often rightly, accused of being uncomfortable with sex. (Of course, the Bible does celebrate sex as one of God's good gifts, the Song of Songs being a primary example.) A virginal conception that deliberately avoids sex does not help our bad image in this regard. I guess the answer is that Jesus is fundamentally different from all of humanity. Jesus, although fully human, is not like the rest of us, so he had to be conceived differently. It's not that sex is dirty, but that Jesus is ontologically (philosophy coursework is coming in handy!) other from the rest of humanity. I'm still a bit uncomfortable with the virginal conception. I admit it. I'm hoping reading and reflecting further will help me understand.
The angel goes on to command Joseph to name his son "Jesus," because "he will save his people from their sins." The original meaning of the Hebrew name "Yeshua," the Greek equivalent of which is "Jesus," was "YHWH helps." But popular etymology led people to think it meant "YHWH saves." That's one of many examples of the fact the Bible is not a history or science book. The angel graciously speaks in the idiom of the people to communicate the saving power of Jesus. Just like Matthew uses a genealogy, which would have been important to Jews of his day, his angel uses popular, not linguistically proper, etymology, to convey the good news. So churches and Christians have to find new ways that speak to people today the timeless unchanging gospel.
Here's something else interesting here. Matthew is writing against adoptionist Christology that says Jesus was only Christ, or only God's Son, at the time of the resurrection or baptism by John the Baptist. By including the infancy narrative and the virginal conception, Matthew emphasizes that Jesus was the Son of God during his whole time on earth. Interestingly, there's a grain of truth the adoptionist heresies. Orthodox Christians should affirm that Jesus was uniquely exalted upon his resurrection and ascension into heaven. And the biblical accounts of Jesus' baptism portray, in my view, Jesus accepting his unique vocation of sonship and God the Father affirming that vocation. (Good to know it took Jesus until thirty to discern his vocation! That should comfort those of us who go back and forth on what we think we are called to do. Which reminds me; I don't know if I've ever heard a sermon preached on Jesus' baptism, and I think you could easily wring a good month of sermons out of that story and change hearts in the process. Anyway...) But Matthew says Jesus always was the Son of God. Now, according to Raymond Brown, Matthew and Luke do not espouse preexistence Christology like that of John-- "In the beginning was the Word." They don't deny preexistence; they just don't advance it. I'm not sure I agree completely with Brown given the Jewish conception of deity and certain aspects of Matthew and Luke's gospels. Both implicitly and occasionally explicitly highlight Jesus' divinity. Can a divine being have a beginning? I don't think a Jewish monotheist could say yes.
But I'm getting off into the weeds. The point is that the biblical authors should be read in dialogue, with each other and with false teaching. The church has to listen to the biblical witnesses together and separately, and apply the timeless gospel to the false teachings of the day. I don't think there are many adoptionists, per se, in our midst today. But there are people who insist on the humanity of Jesus in ways that tread on his divinity. Christmas holds together the paradox of Jesus, son of David, son of God. I'll continue to think about other contemporary issues the Christmas story can address.
Here's another controversy in Matthew, one that conservative Christians and skeptics have woefully misunderstood. He quotes Isaiah 7:14 in reference to Mary and writes in Greek: "The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, which means, God with us." Now, the Isaiah passage in Hebrew reads "young woman," not virgin, and does not refer to an extraordinary child at all, let alone a Messiah. The child, conceived and borne quite normally, is supposed to be a sign to Israel to continue hoping in God. That's all. So was Matthew just stupid? Was his copy of the OT messed up? This gets into some complicated textual issues I don't understand about the LXX (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) and Syriac translations.
But the lessons for the church are manifold here. Most importantly, Jesus is the ultimate sign of God's presence and the fulfillment of all prophecies and signs. I could never say it in my public liberal arts college philosophy and religion courses, but I do believe Jesus Christ is the true fulfillment of all these prophecies and religious hopes. Muslims find hope in the sunna of Muhammad, a perfect man to show the way. Sound like Jesus, anyone? Plato thought to agathon, the good, is the highest Form that holds all things together, holy and inscrutable, knowledge of which is salvation. Sound like the Trinity, Which is Love? Of course Jesus is the best fulfillment of the Isaiah prophecy, and any prophecy. Jesus is God with us.
Also, the Greek Matthew uses in his citation of Isaiah 7:14 says en gastri hexei (found to be with child), which is not present in the LXX verse but is a phrase throughout the LXX referring to births of important patriarchs and judges. Jesus is like them, incorporates their greatness, and yet surpasses them. Isaac was not God-with-us in the same way Jesus is, and to the extent that Isaac was great or important or utilized by God, this is only because of Jesus. En gastri hexei-- the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
I have hundreds of pages left to read, so there's plenty left to say about the infancy narratives! I haven't even gotten to questions of historicity yet; I'm definitely talking and thinking about them soon, though.
More to come! Let's see if I can finish the book by Christmas!
But I'm getting off into the weeds. The point is that the biblical authors should be read in dialogue, with each other and with false teaching. The church has to listen to the biblical witnesses together and separately, and apply the timeless gospel to the false teachings of the day. I don't think there are many adoptionists, per se, in our midst today. But there are people who insist on the humanity of Jesus in ways that tread on his divinity. Christmas holds together the paradox of Jesus, son of David, son of God. I'll continue to think about other contemporary issues the Christmas story can address.
Here's another controversy in Matthew, one that conservative Christians and skeptics have woefully misunderstood. He quotes Isaiah 7:14 in reference to Mary and writes in Greek: "The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, which means, God with us." Now, the Isaiah passage in Hebrew reads "young woman," not virgin, and does not refer to an extraordinary child at all, let alone a Messiah. The child, conceived and borne quite normally, is supposed to be a sign to Israel to continue hoping in God. That's all. So was Matthew just stupid? Was his copy of the OT messed up? This gets into some complicated textual issues I don't understand about the LXX (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) and Syriac translations.
But the lessons for the church are manifold here. Most importantly, Jesus is the ultimate sign of God's presence and the fulfillment of all prophecies and signs. I could never say it in my public liberal arts college philosophy and religion courses, but I do believe Jesus Christ is the true fulfillment of all these prophecies and religious hopes. Muslims find hope in the sunna of Muhammad, a perfect man to show the way. Sound like Jesus, anyone? Plato thought to agathon, the good, is the highest Form that holds all things together, holy and inscrutable, knowledge of which is salvation. Sound like the Trinity, Which is Love? Of course Jesus is the best fulfillment of the Isaiah prophecy, and any prophecy. Jesus is God with us.
Also, the Greek Matthew uses in his citation of Isaiah 7:14 says en gastri hexei (found to be with child), which is not present in the LXX verse but is a phrase throughout the LXX referring to births of important patriarchs and judges. Jesus is like them, incorporates their greatness, and yet surpasses them. Isaac was not God-with-us in the same way Jesus is, and to the extent that Isaac was great or important or utilized by God, this is only because of Jesus. En gastri hexei-- the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
I have hundreds of pages left to read, so there's plenty left to say about the infancy narratives! I haven't even gotten to questions of historicity yet; I'm definitely talking and thinking about them soon, though.
More to come! Let's see if I can finish the book by Christmas!
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