If the notes of disagreement that I have received from members and friends of the congregation are any indication, the messages of the past several weeks have struck a chord. In this season after Pentecost, through the first 13 weeks of this season, I planned to shape an understanding of our Christian calling that is fulfilled when we subject ourselves to the power of God's indwelling Spirit. This theological view of human nature is, obviously, quite controversial.
The anthropology here suggests that human beings - all and each one - are of the same essential nature as Jesus. Especially in the Gospel According to Mark, Jesus is a human being, who is adopted by God in Baptism in order to accomplish God's will on Earth. It is not Jesus' essential nature as the Son of God that renders him able and willing to do God's will, but the power of God's Spirit upon and within him.
Over the past several weeks, events have invited us to apply the lesson of adoption in the Spirit to a radical sense of equality. If every person receives the same Spirit, then each one is to be held as important, worthy, valuable and as potential to God's reign and realm. Therefore, where and when there are incidents of discrimination, we are invited to stand with Christ against them. This includes the fact that black people get pulled over by police for no reason, as happened last week to a member of the congregation. I understand that white people get pulled over too, but it is typically for a reason or reasons. When an officer has to manufacture a reason for pulling over a motorist, then the officer is overstepping her or his authority. This happens disproportionately to minorities. It is an injustice.
Clearly, when a white supremacist enters a traditionally black church in Charleston, South Carolina and guns down nine innocent Bible study participants, it is an injustice. What is even more tragic is that we, as a society, continue to produce persons who are so filled with anger and hate that they would take such violent action. In fact, it seems that we are more supportive of radicalized words of hate, judgment, rejection and partisanship. Personal attacks are commonplace. We vilify "the liberals" or blame everything on "the conservatives." We call each other things like "stupid," "ignorant," "ugly," "fat," or "delusional." All of it is angry, violent, and judgmental. It is injustice.
If we are ever to live in God's will, if we are ever to establish God's reign and realm on Earth, then that work must begin with a renewed sense of commonality, unity and a rejection of that which divides and separates us. We must start with the very essence of human nature. If each of us is like Christ Jesus, then no one will tolerate mistreatment of any brother or sister. No injustice would be supported or condoned.
June is Gay Pride Month. It may be uncomfortable for some to think that a recognition of LBGT rights and openness and affirmation of alternative life-styles is a separate issue. But is it not. It is the same issue. Acceptance and embrace of LBGT persons is about justice.
Apparently, not everyone agrees. Yes, I am aware. And, yes, I am sensitive to the controversy. I firmly and wholeheartedly believe, however, that it is time that we get over our sometimes subtle biases and stand with Christ for the benefit of every and each person.
Monday, June 22, 2015
Monday, June 08, 2015
Holiness and Service
There is an inverse relationship between the degree to which we hold Jesus as a divine character and the degree to which we feel ourselves to be empowered by God's Holy Spirit. Surprisingly, if one thinks of Jesus as the divine Son of God, whose essential nature renders him able on Earth to do God's will, then we will tend to diminish the role of the Holy Spirit in ourselves. If we think of Jesus as a human being, just like each of us, who is empowered for his ministry and mission by the Spirit of his Baptism, then we will tend to understand that we are similarly, but uniquely, empowered by the same Spirit.
For those who take part in our twice-weekly Bible studies at Shiloh, the relationship can be understood as an inverse relationship between Christology and Pneumatology. Christology is an attempted definition of the one by whom we are saved, while Pneumatology deals with our understanding of the role of God's Holy Spirit. As it turns out, a high Christology results in a low Pneumatology. A low Christology equates to a high Pneumatology.
A more practical explanation comes organically, since we are in year B of the Revised Common Lectionary. Throughout year B, our concentration for the themes of worship come from the Gospel According to Mark. In Mark's Gospel, Jesus is drawn differently than in the other synoptics and John. Mark's Gospel begins with Jesus' Baptism. This is purposeful and meaningful. The author is making a very important point. His point is simply that Jesus' ability to do on Earth what God calls him to do is a function of the Holy Spirit, not of Jesus' essential nature. This is a low Christology and a high Pneumatology.
Throughout year B of the Revised Common Lectionary, we have the opportunity in the Church to examine the human side of Jesus, to see him as one of us, empowered uniquely by God's Spirit to accomplish what God directs. Mark does not deify Jesus. Instead, the author allows Jesus to wrestle with an unfolding awareness of the power of God's Spirit, and with means of utilizing the Spirit to do what is best for all and each person that Jesus encounters. The power to do God's will comes from God's Spirit in Jesus, not from his position as the Son of God. He is adopted to it.
Throughout the Season After Pentecost in year B of the Revised Common Lectionary, Mark's low Christology invites the Church to embrace a very high Pneumatology. We embrace a Holy Spirit that equipped Jesus and now equips us. We strive to understand and practice the ministry for which the Spirit enables us and to which the ministry of Jesus Christ calls us. As it did in Jesus, so the Spirit does in us.
If I may be so bold, I suggest that the contemporary Church of Jesus Christ struggles with a low Christology and a high Pneumatology, precisely because it levels the ground between Jesus' essential nature and ours. We have been conditioned to think of Jesus as "other," as unlike typical humanity, as being of divine origin and character. Mark's Gospel erases that distinction, or at least blurs its lines, to the point where we can see ourselves in Jesus. A careful reading of the text allows us to see ourselves both as equal to Jesus and equally empowered by God's Holy Spirit.
The Season After Pentecost becomes crucial in the liturgical calendar. The Church understands itself as the body of Christ, empowered, like Christ Jesus, by God's own Spirit, in order to establish God's will as an earthly way of life. The Church is completion of the promise that was made throughout history, and in Christ Jesus, to bring God's kingdom (forgive, please, the male imagery).
So, I invite every reader of The Shiloh Insider to entertain, at least for this liturgical season, the possibility that we are equal in essential nature to Jesus and equally empowered by God's own Spirit to accomplish God's will on earth.
For those who take part in our twice-weekly Bible studies at Shiloh, the relationship can be understood as an inverse relationship between Christology and Pneumatology. Christology is an attempted definition of the one by whom we are saved, while Pneumatology deals with our understanding of the role of God's Holy Spirit. As it turns out, a high Christology results in a low Pneumatology. A low Christology equates to a high Pneumatology.
A more practical explanation comes organically, since we are in year B of the Revised Common Lectionary. Throughout year B, our concentration for the themes of worship come from the Gospel According to Mark. In Mark's Gospel, Jesus is drawn differently than in the other synoptics and John. Mark's Gospel begins with Jesus' Baptism. This is purposeful and meaningful. The author is making a very important point. His point is simply that Jesus' ability to do on Earth what God calls him to do is a function of the Holy Spirit, not of Jesus' essential nature. This is a low Christology and a high Pneumatology.
Throughout year B of the Revised Common Lectionary, we have the opportunity in the Church to examine the human side of Jesus, to see him as one of us, empowered uniquely by God's Spirit to accomplish what God directs. Mark does not deify Jesus. Instead, the author allows Jesus to wrestle with an unfolding awareness of the power of God's Spirit, and with means of utilizing the Spirit to do what is best for all and each person that Jesus encounters. The power to do God's will comes from God's Spirit in Jesus, not from his position as the Son of God. He is adopted to it.
Throughout the Season After Pentecost in year B of the Revised Common Lectionary, Mark's low Christology invites the Church to embrace a very high Pneumatology. We embrace a Holy Spirit that equipped Jesus and now equips us. We strive to understand and practice the ministry for which the Spirit enables us and to which the ministry of Jesus Christ calls us. As it did in Jesus, so the Spirit does in us.
If I may be so bold, I suggest that the contemporary Church of Jesus Christ struggles with a low Christology and a high Pneumatology, precisely because it levels the ground between Jesus' essential nature and ours. We have been conditioned to think of Jesus as "other," as unlike typical humanity, as being of divine origin and character. Mark's Gospel erases that distinction, or at least blurs its lines, to the point where we can see ourselves in Jesus. A careful reading of the text allows us to see ourselves both as equal to Jesus and equally empowered by God's Holy Spirit.
The Season After Pentecost becomes crucial in the liturgical calendar. The Church understands itself as the body of Christ, empowered, like Christ Jesus, by God's own Spirit, in order to establish God's will as an earthly way of life. The Church is completion of the promise that was made throughout history, and in Christ Jesus, to bring God's kingdom (forgive, please, the male imagery).
So, I invite every reader of The Shiloh Insider to entertain, at least for this liturgical season, the possibility that we are equal in essential nature to Jesus and equally empowered by God's own Spirit to accomplish God's will on earth.
Monday, June 01, 2015
Spirit or Flesh: How About Both?
Christianity, perhaps from its roots in the Hellenistic dualism of Plato and others, has often claimed the life of the spirit over the life of the flesh. The result of such a division has sometimes been the absolute denigration of anything that is historical, practical or reasonable. As a result, things that are spiritual must be other-worldly, ahistorical, beyond the bounds of human existence. Nothing good, holy or acceptable to God can come of corporeal existence. So we place Heaven/Hell outside of human history. We place God in a heavenly realm, where spirit dwells.
The problem with this picture is, of course, that, in Pentecost, Spirit dwells in humanity. It is not separated from human existence or corporeal nature. Spirit is experienced within human history, as a product of words and acts that reflect the virtues that are taught in the archetype of Christ's Crucifixion and Resurrection, as well as reflected as "heavenly virtues" in Hellenistic culture.
If the Spirit is granted us in Pentecost, then it is necessarily part and parcel of the human historical experience. It is a mistake to place the realm of the Spirit beyond human history or outside of corporeal existence. Instead, we must work at establishing human history and corporeal existence as an experience of the Spirit.
In Hellenism, this practice establishes the reason for which humans exist. The realm of the Spirit, in the Heavens, mingles with the realm of the flesh in everything that lives. God breathes God's Spirit into otherwise unanimated matter. The Spirit is the very life that lives and moves and has its being. That Spirit belongs to the Divine and is not considered to be the possession or property of the flesh in which it dwells. All life is an admixture of spirit and flesh, of energy and matter. In modern physics, one might say that all life is derived from the motion of some form of wave, particle or string that brings and comprises life itself. It may or may not be corporeal in nature, but its effects and presence is both measurable and noticeable. While life exists, then, it is of both Divine and corporeal nature. The task of those who are aware of their natural and essential identity is to bring the spiritual virtues to bear within corporeal and historical nature.
There is no division here between Spirit and flesh. In fact, Spirit is granted everything that lives in order to construct all corporeal life as an experience of the Spirit. These are the "heavenly virtues" that humans experience as "good" or of Divine origin. It turns out that the same dynamic exists in the archetype that is established in Christ's Crucifixion/Resurrection. Sacrifice for the sake of others is the highest heavenly virtue, core to the world's religions and common to every decent human practice.
When we remove the Spirit from human potentiality, we render God's realm as external to human existence. This is contrary to the theology of Pentecost, where humanity is empowered to establish God's realm on Earth. Human beings, so empowered and enabled, can establish God's will. It is time that we marry the two - Spirit and flesh - instead of divide them. Human existence is not an either/or proposition but a both/and. Pentecost says that we are able, if willing, to live according to God's will on Earth. Maybe something like "Spirit in Flesh" or "Flesh by Spirit" better articulate the Pentecost season than "Spirit or Flesh."
The problem with this picture is, of course, that, in Pentecost, Spirit dwells in humanity. It is not separated from human existence or corporeal nature. Spirit is experienced within human history, as a product of words and acts that reflect the virtues that are taught in the archetype of Christ's Crucifixion and Resurrection, as well as reflected as "heavenly virtues" in Hellenistic culture.
If the Spirit is granted us in Pentecost, then it is necessarily part and parcel of the human historical experience. It is a mistake to place the realm of the Spirit beyond human history or outside of corporeal existence. Instead, we must work at establishing human history and corporeal existence as an experience of the Spirit.
In Hellenism, this practice establishes the reason for which humans exist. The realm of the Spirit, in the Heavens, mingles with the realm of the flesh in everything that lives. God breathes God's Spirit into otherwise unanimated matter. The Spirit is the very life that lives and moves and has its being. That Spirit belongs to the Divine and is not considered to be the possession or property of the flesh in which it dwells. All life is an admixture of spirit and flesh, of energy and matter. In modern physics, one might say that all life is derived from the motion of some form of wave, particle or string that brings and comprises life itself. It may or may not be corporeal in nature, but its effects and presence is both measurable and noticeable. While life exists, then, it is of both Divine and corporeal nature. The task of those who are aware of their natural and essential identity is to bring the spiritual virtues to bear within corporeal and historical nature.
There is no division here between Spirit and flesh. In fact, Spirit is granted everything that lives in order to construct all corporeal life as an experience of the Spirit. These are the "heavenly virtues" that humans experience as "good" or of Divine origin. It turns out that the same dynamic exists in the archetype that is established in Christ's Crucifixion/Resurrection. Sacrifice for the sake of others is the highest heavenly virtue, core to the world's religions and common to every decent human practice.
When we remove the Spirit from human potentiality, we render God's realm as external to human existence. This is contrary to the theology of Pentecost, where humanity is empowered to establish God's realm on Earth. Human beings, so empowered and enabled, can establish God's will. It is time that we marry the two - Spirit and flesh - instead of divide them. Human existence is not an either/or proposition but a both/and. Pentecost says that we are able, if willing, to live according to God's will on Earth. Maybe something like "Spirit in Flesh" or "Flesh by Spirit" better articulate the Pentecost season than "Spirit or Flesh."
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