Jesus said to those who might leave their lives and follow him on his missionary journey into a new and different life, "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of heaven is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel." Immediately upon hearing his invitation into an entirely new way of life, Andrew and Simon left their nets and followed. So did James and John.
We can assume that these would-be disciples may have had some previous experience with Jesus. It is not a great leap in the history of Jesus to suggest that he may have been an Essene disciple of John the Baptist, somewhere near the Jordan River, outside of Jerusalem. It is also not a giant leap to assume that others may have been connected to John's Essene community as well, even others such as James and John and Simon and Andrew. It is reasonable to assume that Jesus knew these men from his association with them as members of John's Essene settlement. When John had been arrested, his disciples fled, returning, in this case, to Galilee, to their fishing businesses and their former lives. The call to these men makes sense if they know Jesus as the one who has now stepped forward to take John's place.
But, in Jesus, something new is afoot. In him, something is different. This is not John's rhetoric about redemption and forgiveness. This is not a baptism that is based in the cleansing waters or the traditional Essene ritual. These men sense immediately that there is something different about Jesus. Then they hear his call. Nothing will ever be the same again hereafter. He calls them to a whole new way of life.
What is this new life to which Jesus calls his disciples? What is this new teaching? How is it different from either the Temple Judaism of the elders or the Essene Messianism of their teacher, John? They know that this is something new...but what?
Firstly, Jesus calls his disciples out of the negativity of the traditional practices of Temple Judaism. That Judaism is founded upon human sinfulness and the need to placate a God who demands absolute adherence to the laws of their ancestors. Humans compensate for their inherent pathology only by participating in the rituals, liturgies and traditional observances of the institutional faith. It says that Human beings are bad, deserving of God's wrath. Or, conversely, members of the institutional faith are superior to others, particularly those of other nationalities, because they are the ones who practice absolute adherence to God's laws. Temple Judaism is at once negative and, because of the institutional practices, superior.
Secondly, Jesus calls his disciples to repent of their involvement in the negativity and superiority of Temple Judaism. He calls them to turn from a negative understanding of human nature to a positive one. He wants his disciples to thing very highly of themselves, not in a way that it reflects the arrogance of Temple Judaism, but in a way that it feeds self-esteem and basic ego. Jesus wants them to understand themselves as capable, enabled and empowered to bring this new way of life to practical application. Jesus also wants them to understand others - all others and every other - as being similarly valued and deserving of honor and respect.
Thirdly, Jesus calls his disciples to enter into the good news that is at hand. Because the kingdom is coming, and because God's will is about to reign, Jesus' disciples are to be understood as messengers of good news (gospel). This runs counter to John's dire warnings of Messianism and apocalyptic, about the need for repentance and forgiveness of sins. This new life, Jesus may suggest, is about providing a positive message instead of dire warnings. It is welcoming, accepting, uplifting, whereas John's message was frightening, threatening and destructive.
Jesus invited disciples out of traditional negativity, to repent of their collusion with religious movements that have made people feel badly about themselves and fear an angry God, and into a practical life-style that helps people feel good about themselves and their God.
So Jesus invites us today. Are you tired yet of the negativity? Are you not worn out by religious movements that call us names and lay on us impossible and impractical beliefs and practices? Would you rather not be part of a positive life-style, an inter-personally-based movement of respect and dignity? Would you like to repent of all the negativity, the dire warnings, the destructive demands and the fear of God and turn to a loving and gracious God who thinks highly of and loves God's people - all of them and each of them?
Now is the time to give up all the negativity and follow him. Leave all that baggage. Abandon the judgmentalism and criticism of self and others. Help yourselves and others feel better about your and themselves, to feel God's acceptance, empowerment and equipping call to servanthood and ministry. Step out of unhealthy and impossible religious practice and into an age of care, concern, sacrifice, kindness and mercy. Step from law into grace. Now is the time!
Monday, January 26, 2015
Monday, January 12, 2015
Positive or Negative Anthropology?
Why would anyone belong to any organization that told them that they were bad, evil, flawed, broken, unable and ignorant? Would persons rather not know that they are good, skilled, talented, empowered, enabled, potential, and relied upon?
Seemingly not. At least, not just yet.
In preparing a schematic for the theological differences between traditional church "orthodoxy to the law" and the Progressive Church "theology of grace," I listed under "Anthropology" a negative for the traditional, law-based theological system and a positive for the Progressive Church.
In last night's Discovery Time (contemporary, non-traditional) service at Shiloh Church, I noted the negative and positive anthropologies of the different ways of understanding baptism. Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins is founded on a negative anthropology. It says that humans are inherently sinful, originally flawed, naturally unable to do God's will. They stand in need of a rite or ritual, an elixir or ceremony, that fixes them, that repairs their inherent illness. That elixir is provided by water baptism. The alternative is, of course, a spiritual baptism. In the case or spiritual baptism, humans are empowered, enabled, called and sent. All humans become "beloved sons and daughters of God," upon whom God may rely and through whom God's will is faithfully represented on Earth.
A theology of law or orthodoxy requires a negative anthropology. It demands that persons see themselves in need of repair, inherently broken, unrelentingly sinful. It provides for sacraments, rites, rituals and liturgies that promise to repair the inherent human flaw and promises that their practice renders one just good enough to earn eternal reward. "Whew! Just made it!"
A theology of grace demands a positive anthropology. A theology of grace requires that we understand humans as able, skilled, talented, inspired, equipped, called, having a vocation in life, faithful and gifted. Baptism is entree into utilizing the gifts of the Spirit to bring God's will as our way of life on Earth. Human beings can. Because of the Holy Spirit, they are able. As a result of the free gift of God's Spirit, human being share a common vocation and calling. They share a unified purpose and aim for life. Humans are to use the gifts, talent, creativity and imagination that each and all are given in odder to bring about a way of life that better reflects God's will for every person in every place.
Yet, people want to argue with a positive anthropology. People tend to cling to the old, familiar negativity of a theology of law and orthodoxy. In the Progressive Church movement, we fully acknowledge that none of us is a perfect reflection of God's will. We are not called to perfection. We are simply called to utilize the gifts that God has made available to us, as best we are able, to establish an alternative way of life that reflects the ethic of Christ and the heavenly virtues by which he lived and ministered.
I would argue that we cannot do so from a negative understanding of human nature. We cannot establish an alternative, Godly life-style if we are mired in the negativity of law and orthodoxy. May God someday set us free from the law and orthodoxy of the church's past, in order that we may live boldly into the world's future grace.
Seemingly not. At least, not just yet.
In preparing a schematic for the theological differences between traditional church "orthodoxy to the law" and the Progressive Church "theology of grace," I listed under "Anthropology" a negative for the traditional, law-based theological system and a positive for the Progressive Church.
In last night's Discovery Time (contemporary, non-traditional) service at Shiloh Church, I noted the negative and positive anthropologies of the different ways of understanding baptism. Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins is founded on a negative anthropology. It says that humans are inherently sinful, originally flawed, naturally unable to do God's will. They stand in need of a rite or ritual, an elixir or ceremony, that fixes them, that repairs their inherent illness. That elixir is provided by water baptism. The alternative is, of course, a spiritual baptism. In the case or spiritual baptism, humans are empowered, enabled, called and sent. All humans become "beloved sons and daughters of God," upon whom God may rely and through whom God's will is faithfully represented on Earth.
A theology of law or orthodoxy requires a negative anthropology. It demands that persons see themselves in need of repair, inherently broken, unrelentingly sinful. It provides for sacraments, rites, rituals and liturgies that promise to repair the inherent human flaw and promises that their practice renders one just good enough to earn eternal reward. "Whew! Just made it!"
A theology of grace demands a positive anthropology. A theology of grace requires that we understand humans as able, skilled, talented, inspired, equipped, called, having a vocation in life, faithful and gifted. Baptism is entree into utilizing the gifts of the Spirit to bring God's will as our way of life on Earth. Human beings can. Because of the Holy Spirit, they are able. As a result of the free gift of God's Spirit, human being share a common vocation and calling. They share a unified purpose and aim for life. Humans are to use the gifts, talent, creativity and imagination that each and all are given in odder to bring about a way of life that better reflects God's will for every person in every place.
Yet, people want to argue with a positive anthropology. People tend to cling to the old, familiar negativity of a theology of law and orthodoxy. In the Progressive Church movement, we fully acknowledge that none of us is a perfect reflection of God's will. We are not called to perfection. We are simply called to utilize the gifts that God has made available to us, as best we are able, to establish an alternative way of life that reflects the ethic of Christ and the heavenly virtues by which he lived and ministered.
I would argue that we cannot do so from a negative understanding of human nature. We cannot establish an alternative, Godly life-style if we are mired in the negativity of law and orthodoxy. May God someday set us free from the law and orthodoxy of the church's past, in order that we may live boldly into the world's future grace.
Tuesday, January 06, 2015
Which Baptism?
Paul asked some strangers whom he encountered in the course of his missionary journeys, "With which baptism were you baptized?" (Acts 19:3) In the midst of the conversation, Paul discovered that these unfortunate would-be followers had only heard of John's baptism. They knew only a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.
The problem with a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins is that it needs to be repeated, often, in most cases. Those who know only a baptism about one's cleanliness, purity and righteousness are doomed to stand in need of perpetual and frequent baptism. The affects of the spiritual cleansing are impermanent.
I think this is what a young lady meant when she told me recently about her need to be "re-baptized." What she meant, I suppose, was that she was at a point in her life where she was ready again to dedicate herself to God's will for her. In order to get from her recent past to the future, however, she needed to cleanse herself of the past, to rededicate herself, to be made pure again. Unfortunately, or not, I think her intent is all tied up in traditional "shoulds" and "oughts," or more honestly in the traditional "should nots" and "ought nots." Faithfulness, to her, means following the rules and expectations of purity and righteousness.
But there is a different baptism, one of which the Church is shockingly unaware. It is the baptism of spiritual empowerment, of being equipped for doing God's will, of living in the light of Christ. It is not about being cleansed but about being equipped, just like Jesus, for the mission and ministry to which God's will calls us. This baptism is about acceptance and vocation more than it remains, in the traditional sense, about our eternal salvation.
Into which baptism were you baptized. Are you baptized in water or in the Spirit?
We at Shiloh are aware that the Spirit empowers us for ministry and service. It equips each of us, in unique ways, to accomplish God's will in the world. The Spirit breathes from the core of our being in order to bring God's love, forgiveness, compassion, grace, mercy and miraculous acceptance to everyone in every place. Baptism in the Spirit is about our ability and willingness to share the vocation of ministry and service in such powerful and meaningful ways that we change lives.
Perhaps the difference can be expressed best as the baptism for vocation and calling or baptism for righteousness and purity under the law. This Sunday, we will draw some stark lines between the two, and invite each of us to embrace again the baptism of vocation and calling, to accept again the baptism of the Spirit, to recognize again that we are empowered and equipped to represent God's will in, to and for the world in which we live.
If you want to be re-baptized in the baptism of empowerment and vocation, then you can't miss this coming Sunday! We worship at 8:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Everyone is welcome!
The problem with a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins is that it needs to be repeated, often, in most cases. Those who know only a baptism about one's cleanliness, purity and righteousness are doomed to stand in need of perpetual and frequent baptism. The affects of the spiritual cleansing are impermanent.
I think this is what a young lady meant when she told me recently about her need to be "re-baptized." What she meant, I suppose, was that she was at a point in her life where she was ready again to dedicate herself to God's will for her. In order to get from her recent past to the future, however, she needed to cleanse herself of the past, to rededicate herself, to be made pure again. Unfortunately, or not, I think her intent is all tied up in traditional "shoulds" and "oughts," or more honestly in the traditional "should nots" and "ought nots." Faithfulness, to her, means following the rules and expectations of purity and righteousness.
But there is a different baptism, one of which the Church is shockingly unaware. It is the baptism of spiritual empowerment, of being equipped for doing God's will, of living in the light of Christ. It is not about being cleansed but about being equipped, just like Jesus, for the mission and ministry to which God's will calls us. This baptism is about acceptance and vocation more than it remains, in the traditional sense, about our eternal salvation.
Into which baptism were you baptized. Are you baptized in water or in the Spirit?
We at Shiloh are aware that the Spirit empowers us for ministry and service. It equips each of us, in unique ways, to accomplish God's will in the world. The Spirit breathes from the core of our being in order to bring God's love, forgiveness, compassion, grace, mercy and miraculous acceptance to everyone in every place. Baptism in the Spirit is about our ability and willingness to share the vocation of ministry and service in such powerful and meaningful ways that we change lives.
Perhaps the difference can be expressed best as the baptism for vocation and calling or baptism for righteousness and purity under the law. This Sunday, we will draw some stark lines between the two, and invite each of us to embrace again the baptism of vocation and calling, to accept again the baptism of the Spirit, to recognize again that we are empowered and equipped to represent God's will in, to and for the world in which we live.
If you want to be re-baptized in the baptism of empowerment and vocation, then you can't miss this coming Sunday! We worship at 8:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Everyone is welcome!
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