77 times: The Difficult Mathematics of Forgiveness
Gen. 50.15-21 Rom. 14.1-12 Mt. 18.21-35
A Sermon for the 10th Anniversary of 9/11
“9/11” we call it. It’s one of those days when most of us remember where we were, a day that began so much like any other day, but that fell suddenly into confusion, and then into horror. When silence finally came in the heart of New York, at the edge of Washington D.C., and in the fields of Pennsylvania, we waited…waited, God forbid, for more…waited for breath…waited for answers.
2967 people murdered. Women, men and children just like us: some whose commitment and courage overcame their fears, as they rushed into buildings or overcame hijackers in the hope that some might be saved. Deep grief and true pride commingled that day, wove through us…broke our hearts. And, we waited.
We waited for our government’s response. We waited and outrage grew, and anger grew, and fear grew, and the three-fold longing for safety, justice, and retribution grew.
Two wars, more than a hundred thousand dead, and more than a million wounded, many of them young men and women whose own courage and commitment led them to serve in our armed forces. Over three trillion dollars spent…an economy in tatters. A political life so polarized and calloused that we deny healthcare to some of those who risked their lives to dig people out of the rubble that day – their courage and pain ignored – because they are not “real” Americans.
Ten years later, we still rightly, deeply grieve the senseless deaths of the victims of 9/11. Ten years later, our hearts are still broken, still breaking. In the calculus of the world we are safer, though less free; we have gotten pay-back, though at a heavy price; we are remembering, we are rebuilding, we are recalling our troops, though we are ill-prepared and ill-equipped to care for the wounds to their bodies, minds, and souls.
Ten years later, as we calculate the consequences of our outrage, fear, and longing for retribution, no matter how justified, we are still hurting, still longing for answers that close the doors of pain. But, the algorithm of anger and retribution does not add up. The sum of our justice has been anything but closure, anything but peace. Ten years later, the incredible courage and sacrifice of so many, and the deepest desires of us all still call out for healing, hope, and peace.
On this 9/11, Jesus speaks a word to us all: a dangerous, difficult, even offensive word. The word is “forgive.” It will not bring closure. But, it will open new futures. It will not remove the scars. But, it will rebuild our strength. It will not wash away the hurt or the memories. But, it will raise a tide of hope. It does not add up, but it is the answer.
Perhaps, Peter’s question to Jesus seems too far removed from this day and from the magnitude of the wrong done ten years ago, to even be asked. After all, he asks only about forgiving another member of the church. Shouldn’t we just leave this to the minor altercations within the congregation…or perhaps, if we stretch, to those within the denomination? Isn’t forgiveness hard enough there?
Yes, oh yes, it is hard enough there. But, Jesus is calling us so much deeper than just into the hurts that occur in our Sunday morning acquaintanships, our midweek ministry collaborations, and our wrestling over tastes, timings, and traditions. He calls us to forgive even the deepest of hurts, betrayals, and humiliations. Peter asks, you see, what to do if one of his most trusted, dearest friends, truly a brother or sister, who has walked with him, suffered with him, risked with him treats him with contempt, disdain, and worse than any physical pain, as though he was nothing. Theirs was truly a “death before dishonor” world, and Peter is asking about forgiveness in the aftermath of the deepest of wounds, in the midst of a living death.
“Seven times?” Peter suggests, maybe with an inkling of God’s remarkable love. Seven times is a lot, more than reasonable…probably foolish, “hurt me once, shame on you; hurt me twice, shame on me.” But seven times, wouldn’t that be about right for God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love: Adam and Eve, Cain, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David…yeah, seven times it is.
Jesus says, “no, not seven…seventy-seven,” which is a rabbi’s way of saying every time, all the time, more than you can imagine, more than makes sense. It doesn’t add up…but that’s the difficult mathematics of forgiveness.
To make the point as clear as can be Jesus tells a tale. A high-ranking servant has run up a debt of $3,500,000,000. Needless to say, he can’t repay. The king is going to hold him accountable, sell off his estate and even his family…it won’t amount to more than a little emotional pay-back, but he’s got to pay something. Then the servant does something unbelievably audacious…he asks for forgiveness. The king matches audacity with audacity and lets the official go: he forgives the debt.
Just a few steps into his freedom, the servant encounters a man who owes him $3,500. And though he has received undeserved freedom he can’t muster even a millionth of that mercy to share. After all, just because the king’s a soft hearted fool…well, business is business, the books have to balance, it’s as simple as 3+4=7.
It’s no surprise that word gets back to the king; better to rat out the rat than end up his next victim. The king is swift to act; but it’s not so much that he rescinds his forgiveness as it is that he recognizes that the wicked servant never really let the forgiveness get into his heart.
That’s the point Jesus is making. If we understand the depth of God’s love for us, if we take to heart that God will not hold even the biggest debts, transgressions, or sins against us, then our hearts will open to the power of forgiving others. It doesn’t make sense, it makes hope. It doesn’t seek revenge, it brings redemption. Forgiveness doesn’t add up…it multiplies.
Forgiveness is simply the way of God. When Jesus was crucified, suffering a senseless death because of the anger, pride, and fear of the Roman and Jewish leaders, God responded with resurrection, not retribution…healing, hope, and peace for us all. A new future unfolding for each one of us, and the muscular courage to love again, to love more, to love even those who hurt us.
On this tenth anniversary of 9/11 it isn’t just the wounds of that day that call for forgiveness. The political wounds that divide our nation cry out. The fear that turns us from our neighbors and defines relationship by documentation cries out. The hurtful words and the empty silences that break our families cry out.
We can apply the calculus of anger and live lives bound by the desire for retribution and the chains of fear. We can keep looking for closure only to find our future shuttered. We can wait for things finally to add up.
Or with courage and compassion we can take to heart Christ’s offer of hope, strength and a future, a life of real freedom. We can forgive. In Christ’s name, in the Spirit’s power, in the Father’s way, for the sake of the world, we can forgive.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Doctrinal Absolutes
A few weeks ago, during a “Bible Study” I regularly lead, a participant asked the question, “Aren’t there some doctrinal absolutes to being a Christian?” I’ll be honest: I was more than a little surprised. Over the years, the group has been fairly consistent in opening doors of understanding rather than closing them. Looking back, I realize it was a direct response to another participant roundly dismissing most of what the church has said about Jesus as fabrications and fantasies designed to preserve power for the church and state. Considering how the door was slammed in their faces, I really shouldn’t have been surprised that they slammed right back.
I asked the group to share what they thought were some of the doctrinal absolutes, the “Christian bottom-line.” The response was quick, loud, and singular…“The Virgin birth.” I was floored and fascinated. Of all the possibilities, they chose the one that is most wrapped in sentiment, the one about which two of the gospel writers (Mark and John) say nothing at all, and another (Matthew), at best, implies, and one in which Paul the Apostle has no interest whatsoever. I chalk it up to hearts longing for hope and to the good people of marketing departments everywhere.
If the folks in the group had said, “incarnation” I wouldn’t have flinched (other than at the shock of hearing someone other than a pastor or seminarian say the word). But, let’s be honest, besides being a 4-syllable word, “incarnation” is just too open ended for people who are longing for certainty in an uncertain world. “Virgin birth” is tidy, very tidy, and reassures us that Jesus’ isn’t really like us, so we don’t have to worry about being really like him. “Virgin birth” just cleans things up in so many ways. Which is precisely the intention of doctrinal absolutes: keep God untouched by human messiness, and humans untouched by divine messiness.
I much prefer the messiness. It is frustrating, and fascinating, and the ground of our growth as human beings. It is, also, an honest assessment of God as presented by the authors of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Years ago, I realized that I needed to stop trying to reconcile the varying images of God in scripture. The God who both commands the slaughter of men, women, children and animals as a testimony the slaughters’ dependence on God and who showers people with wealth as a sign of blessing, cannot be reconciled with the God who both calls us to love (sacrifice for) our enemies, and to give up the pursuit of wealth as our testimony to our dependence on God.
Scripture does not provide us with doctrinal absolutes or monolithic statements about God. Instead, it raises up the faith-filled reflections of hundreds (thousands?) of individuals, each one of them trying to make sense of their life and their times. Their reflections are conditioned and contextual…and precisely because of that, rich with meaning and mirrors to help us in making sense of our lives and times.
I asked the group to share what they thought were some of the doctrinal absolutes, the “Christian bottom-line.” The response was quick, loud, and singular…“The Virgin birth.” I was floored and fascinated. Of all the possibilities, they chose the one that is most wrapped in sentiment, the one about which two of the gospel writers (Mark and John) say nothing at all, and another (Matthew), at best, implies, and one in which Paul the Apostle has no interest whatsoever. I chalk it up to hearts longing for hope and to the good people of marketing departments everywhere.
If the folks in the group had said, “incarnation” I wouldn’t have flinched (other than at the shock of hearing someone other than a pastor or seminarian say the word). But, let’s be honest, besides being a 4-syllable word, “incarnation” is just too open ended for people who are longing for certainty in an uncertain world. “Virgin birth” is tidy, very tidy, and reassures us that Jesus’ isn’t really like us, so we don’t have to worry about being really like him. “Virgin birth” just cleans things up in so many ways. Which is precisely the intention of doctrinal absolutes: keep God untouched by human messiness, and humans untouched by divine messiness.
I much prefer the messiness. It is frustrating, and fascinating, and the ground of our growth as human beings. It is, also, an honest assessment of God as presented by the authors of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Years ago, I realized that I needed to stop trying to reconcile the varying images of God in scripture. The God who both commands the slaughter of men, women, children and animals as a testimony the slaughters’ dependence on God and who showers people with wealth as a sign of blessing, cannot be reconciled with the God who both calls us to love (sacrifice for) our enemies, and to give up the pursuit of wealth as our testimony to our dependence on God.
Scripture does not provide us with doctrinal absolutes or monolithic statements about God. Instead, it raises up the faith-filled reflections of hundreds (thousands?) of individuals, each one of them trying to make sense of their life and their times. Their reflections are conditioned and contextual…and precisely because of that, rich with meaning and mirrors to help us in making sense of our lives and times.
Monday, February 21, 2011
When I Speak of God
-- it feels risky, but following are core elements of my faith as it has developed over the last 40 years, much of it rooted in my studies at the Univ. of Chicago in the late 70's, and all of it unfolding in the last 10 years --
When I speak of God, I am not speaking of any of the images by which my early faith formed meaning and expression. I am not speaking of any of the images that shape the worship I lead or the hymns I sing within the walls of the churches I serve. No supreme being, no almighty, no stern judge, no demander of sacrifice or punishment, no commander of slaughter or hand of devastation. No healer of every ill or keeper from all harm. No offerer or withholder of forgiveness in return for some measure of obedience or repentance. Perhaps least of all one who sends a son to horrific (though hardly unique) death, no practitioner of child sacrifice in the name of “love.”
I am not speaking of a person in either the ancient philosophical sense, or the modern psychological sense. Certainly, I am not speaking of a white haired old man sitting on a throne.
Instead, I speak of what I do not know…only describe what I experience: “God” is a verbal noun, (if a noun at all). “Godding” would be a better word if it wasn’t so cumbersome and awkward. God is beyond being and non-being, beyond rational and irrational, beyond anything that can be held onto by head, or heart, or hand for even a moment. I am of a mind with those who speak of God as “gifting” or as “event”; my own word is “horizon.” Horizon: never fixed, always moving, always an invitation into an unfolding experience/reality. God is the edge of our constantly changing and unfolding moment. [Moments are all we have. Neither past nor future being anything more than currently held memories or expectations shaping our experience of the moment.] So, God is a continually extended invitation into the unfolding of life. In that sense, God is the flow of life, not life’s container. I can acknowledge God to be the source of life, but not one that flows from the past, or from the beginnings. Instead God draws from the edge of unfolding toward the unfolding. In the structured terms of our 4 dimensional descriptions, God draws us forward through life.
Sticking with the horizon metaphor and a Trinitarian model, the Holy Spirit is the light that shines from the horizon enabling us to see it; the sunrise on the moment. (I suppose also at times the sunset, but not as an ending…as a promise.) It is light that exposes the unfolding, shines on the way to the horizon, reveals the complex reality of the interconnectedness and interdependence of moments (mine and yours). As such, the Holy Spirit is the power of relationship, the coordination of the divine dance of God and life, God and us.
Which brings me to the Son – the dancer on the horizon, the way toward the horizon. Given that time is a human construct, a convenience for organizing memory and hope in the unfolding moment, all talk of the “pre-existence” of the Son is pointless, if not meaningless. So also the talk of virgin birth – perhaps not without meaning, but, really quite unnecessary. Jesus is “Son of God” not by virtue of his beginnings, but in the way he manifests the invitation, the unfolding of life. He is “Son of God” in the way he exposes the moment and interrelationship…in the way he dances on the horizon.
His is a life of vulnerability; the horizon is a place of risk not a place of power or miracles. It is a place of hope, and not a place of expiation, transaction (however holy), or atonement. Though near the end of his journey there was a cross on the horizon, it was never an instrument of redemption. The cross is a final statement, a final outburst of darkness, retribution, disconnection, and radical individualism. The resurrection (an unexplainable event, the stuff of poetry not logic, data, or science) stands as a rejection of atonement, not its completion and not as a reward for obedience. It is a statement of grace and the unfolding that continues through and beyond death. The Son of God, then, is the incarnate invitation to the horizon even as a corpse – life is more than waiting for death, and death is no end but an unfolding into interconnection at a level we do not understand and cannot know, except in accepting its role in our own unfolding.
When I speak of God, I am not speaking of any of the images by which my early faith formed meaning and expression. I am not speaking of any of the images that shape the worship I lead or the hymns I sing within the walls of the churches I serve. No supreme being, no almighty, no stern judge, no demander of sacrifice or punishment, no commander of slaughter or hand of devastation. No healer of every ill or keeper from all harm. No offerer or withholder of forgiveness in return for some measure of obedience or repentance. Perhaps least of all one who sends a son to horrific (though hardly unique) death, no practitioner of child sacrifice in the name of “love.”
I am not speaking of a person in either the ancient philosophical sense, or the modern psychological sense. Certainly, I am not speaking of a white haired old man sitting on a throne.
Instead, I speak of what I do not know…only describe what I experience: “God” is a verbal noun, (if a noun at all). “Godding” would be a better word if it wasn’t so cumbersome and awkward. God is beyond being and non-being, beyond rational and irrational, beyond anything that can be held onto by head, or heart, or hand for even a moment. I am of a mind with those who speak of God as “gifting” or as “event”; my own word is “horizon.” Horizon: never fixed, always moving, always an invitation into an unfolding experience/reality. God is the edge of our constantly changing and unfolding moment. [Moments are all we have. Neither past nor future being anything more than currently held memories or expectations shaping our experience of the moment.] So, God is a continually extended invitation into the unfolding of life. In that sense, God is the flow of life, not life’s container. I can acknowledge God to be the source of life, but not one that flows from the past, or from the beginnings. Instead God draws from the edge of unfolding toward the unfolding. In the structured terms of our 4 dimensional descriptions, God draws us forward through life.
Sticking with the horizon metaphor and a Trinitarian model, the Holy Spirit is the light that shines from the horizon enabling us to see it; the sunrise on the moment. (I suppose also at times the sunset, but not as an ending…as a promise.) It is light that exposes the unfolding, shines on the way to the horizon, reveals the complex reality of the interconnectedness and interdependence of moments (mine and yours). As such, the Holy Spirit is the power of relationship, the coordination of the divine dance of God and life, God and us.
Which brings me to the Son – the dancer on the horizon, the way toward the horizon. Given that time is a human construct, a convenience for organizing memory and hope in the unfolding moment, all talk of the “pre-existence” of the Son is pointless, if not meaningless. So also the talk of virgin birth – perhaps not without meaning, but, really quite unnecessary. Jesus is “Son of God” not by virtue of his beginnings, but in the way he manifests the invitation, the unfolding of life. He is “Son of God” in the way he exposes the moment and interrelationship…in the way he dances on the horizon.
His is a life of vulnerability; the horizon is a place of risk not a place of power or miracles. It is a place of hope, and not a place of expiation, transaction (however holy), or atonement. Though near the end of his journey there was a cross on the horizon, it was never an instrument of redemption. The cross is a final statement, a final outburst of darkness, retribution, disconnection, and radical individualism. The resurrection (an unexplainable event, the stuff of poetry not logic, data, or science) stands as a rejection of atonement, not its completion and not as a reward for obedience. It is a statement of grace and the unfolding that continues through and beyond death. The Son of God, then, is the incarnate invitation to the horizon even as a corpse – life is more than waiting for death, and death is no end but an unfolding into interconnection at a level we do not understand and cannot know, except in accepting its role in our own unfolding.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Myth, Metaphor and History
A reader asked, “Would you please offer some insight into your use of the terms 'myth' and 'metaphor'? The blog might mistakenly be interpreted as consistent with the theology of the Jesus Seminar which is in conflict with the ELCA's stance on the divinity of the Trinity.”
By “myth” I mean a story that communicates values that are foundational to a way of seeing the world, or that try to explain why things are the way they are. Maybe the best examples are the creation stories in the first two chapters of Genesis. The first, Gen. 1.1-2.3, declares the intentionality and the goodness of creation, culminating with the creation of human beings in equality, and climaxing with a declaration of the goodness of all things (even the chaotic deep). The second, Gen. 2.4-24, explains the “order of creation” is reversed from the prior myth to explain the dominance of men over animals and over women (from our current perspective, in contradiction to, or at least in tension with the first myth). Neither story was intended to provide scientific fact, but instead to provide meaning and the context for socialization. Such myths occupy Genesis up to the introduction of Abram’s genealogy in chapter 11.
By “metaphor” I mean metaphor as we learned it in elementary school: “The use of a word or phrase to refer to something that it isn’t, invoking a direct similarity between the word or phrase used and the thing described, but in the case of English without the words like or as, which would imply a similie.” (thanks to wiktionary.org) So, “God is my rock.” doesn’t mean that God is a chunk of igneous material, it means that my experience of God is one of solidness. So also with words like, king, mighty, lord, father…each is referent pointing to some aspect of experience of God using the language and experience of the world. Whatever degree of accuracy they have in describing the experience of God, they also ALL reach a point of failure. So it is with all of our God-talk.
Mention of the Jesus Seminar brings me to the subject of history. I haven’t spent much time reading the works of the people of the Jesus Seminar, and certainly haven’t lost any sleep over their statements and conclusions. I do value the literary work they have done, and the way in which their work has contributed to broader understandings of the gospels and early Christianity. But I really have no interest in any search for the “historical” Jesus. All history is truncated truth, historical fiction. “What really happened” is totally inaccessible to us…to me that phrase is genuinely nonsense. All we have are stories/reports made by someone with their own particular perspective and purpose edited by others with their own particular perspectives and purposes. Even in the most mundane of events all we have is a tiny facet of an incredibly complex gem. I hold this to be true of the Bible and of all of our God-talk. Truth is in the meaning the stories bear, not the details.
In regards the Trinity, I’ve pulled the following from the ELCA “Statements of Faith” (http://www.elca.org/What-We-Believe/Statements-of-Belief.aspx): “Lutherans believe in the Triune God. God created and loves all of creation -- the earth and the seas and all of the world’s inhabitants. We believe that God's Son, Jesus Christ, transforms lives through his death on the cross and his new life, and we trust that God's Spirit is active in the world.”
This and the more detailed statement that can be found are actually fairly generic statements, and really don’t specify the content of the title “God’s Son”, so I’m not sure that they preclude the conclusions of the Jesus Seminar or my thoughts about the divinity of Jesus. Those who follow the way of Jesus have explained his divinity, and the Trinity, in many ways over the centuries. The creeds, though certainly affirmed by the ELCA, don’t seem to be held as the only statements of faith, just broadly shared statements of faith.
But, if I’m judged to be a bit heretical I’m okay with that. Orthodoxy is about maintaining the status quo…it has always been the heretics who have moved the church forward.
By “myth” I mean a story that communicates values that are foundational to a way of seeing the world, or that try to explain why things are the way they are. Maybe the best examples are the creation stories in the first two chapters of Genesis. The first, Gen. 1.1-2.3, declares the intentionality and the goodness of creation, culminating with the creation of human beings in equality, and climaxing with a declaration of the goodness of all things (even the chaotic deep). The second, Gen. 2.4-24, explains the “order of creation” is reversed from the prior myth to explain the dominance of men over animals and over women (from our current perspective, in contradiction to, or at least in tension with the first myth). Neither story was intended to provide scientific fact, but instead to provide meaning and the context for socialization. Such myths occupy Genesis up to the introduction of Abram’s genealogy in chapter 11.
By “metaphor” I mean metaphor as we learned it in elementary school: “The use of a word or phrase to refer to something that it isn’t, invoking a direct similarity between the word or phrase used and the thing described, but in the case of English without the words like or as, which would imply a similie.” (thanks to wiktionary.org) So, “God is my rock.” doesn’t mean that God is a chunk of igneous material, it means that my experience of God is one of solidness. So also with words like, king, mighty, lord, father…each is referent pointing to some aspect of experience of God using the language and experience of the world. Whatever degree of accuracy they have in describing the experience of God, they also ALL reach a point of failure. So it is with all of our God-talk.
Mention of the Jesus Seminar brings me to the subject of history. I haven’t spent much time reading the works of the people of the Jesus Seminar, and certainly haven’t lost any sleep over their statements and conclusions. I do value the literary work they have done, and the way in which their work has contributed to broader understandings of the gospels and early Christianity. But I really have no interest in any search for the “historical” Jesus. All history is truncated truth, historical fiction. “What really happened” is totally inaccessible to us…to me that phrase is genuinely nonsense. All we have are stories/reports made by someone with their own particular perspective and purpose edited by others with their own particular perspectives and purposes. Even in the most mundane of events all we have is a tiny facet of an incredibly complex gem. I hold this to be true of the Bible and of all of our God-talk. Truth is in the meaning the stories bear, not the details.
In regards the Trinity, I’ve pulled the following from the ELCA “Statements of Faith” (http://www.elca.org/What-We-Believe/Statements-of-Belief.aspx): “Lutherans believe in the Triune God. God created and loves all of creation -- the earth and the seas and all of the world’s inhabitants. We believe that God's Son, Jesus Christ, transforms lives through his death on the cross and his new life, and we trust that God's Spirit is active in the world.”
This and the more detailed statement that can be found are actually fairly generic statements, and really don’t specify the content of the title “God’s Son”, so I’m not sure that they preclude the conclusions of the Jesus Seminar or my thoughts about the divinity of Jesus. Those who follow the way of Jesus have explained his divinity, and the Trinity, in many ways over the centuries. The creeds, though certainly affirmed by the ELCA, don’t seem to be held as the only statements of faith, just broadly shared statements of faith.
But, if I’m judged to be a bit heretical I’m okay with that. Orthodoxy is about maintaining the status quo…it has always been the heretics who have moved the church forward.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Speaking a Little More of God
As much as I don’t like “belief” statements, they are hard to avoid if we are going to speak at all of God. But, let caution abound. Let’s be clear that our statements aren’t “absolute truth” but bits of poetry, verbal paintings, lyrics of a song in which it is the melody that truly bears the meaning and the words, only intonations of the theme.
I come back to this because a reader asked me about the creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian) of the church. The question was whether I can speak them with authenticity, and with authenticity invite others to speak them in worship and especially in the rite of baptism.
I understand the creeds as metaphorical statements…attempts at explanation of the experience of God, the “Subject” of faith. My problem with belief statements comes when they are pitched as truth in some form other than metaphoric. The creeds heavily reflect the imperial, familial, and theological contexts/battles of their day as understood by the winners of the battles. The creeds are best attempts, the poetry (though not great poetry) of explaining the unexplainable. “Born of the virgin Mary” for example, expresses a counter point to the same claim by some of the Roman emperors’ and their biographers. It leverages a meaning shift in the translation of the Septuagint (unmarried young woman (Hebrew) to virgin (Greek), in an effort to come to terms with the existence of such a unique man as Jesus of Nazareth, whose apparently questionable parentage opened the door for holy imagination.
I also see the creeds as statements that provide the range of understandings necessary to meet the needs of the different developmental stages of faith. They can sustain concrete operational thinking as well as higher stage thinking.
I can recite the creeds, and invite others to do so, “authentically” because they connect us to the historical process of faith development and because they are wonderful (if dated) metaphors of faith. I can also speak them as an act of pastoral care for those present whose faith views remain rooted in the simplistic magical/supernatural view of God.
Baptismally, asking parents to confess the creed is no different than asking parents to engage their children in scripture where they will learn the creation myths, the patriarchal/matriarchal legends, parables, etc. The creeds are texts of the community and speak the thoughts, and times, and challenges of the past into our time. They are resources for our time, but they do not define our thoughts, times and challenges or delimit the on-going conversation.
I come back to this because a reader asked me about the creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian) of the church. The question was whether I can speak them with authenticity, and with authenticity invite others to speak them in worship and especially in the rite of baptism.
I understand the creeds as metaphorical statements…attempts at explanation of the experience of God, the “Subject” of faith. My problem with belief statements comes when they are pitched as truth in some form other than metaphoric. The creeds heavily reflect the imperial, familial, and theological contexts/battles of their day as understood by the winners of the battles. The creeds are best attempts, the poetry (though not great poetry) of explaining the unexplainable. “Born of the virgin Mary” for example, expresses a counter point to the same claim by some of the Roman emperors’ and their biographers. It leverages a meaning shift in the translation of the Septuagint (unmarried young woman (Hebrew) to virgin (Greek), in an effort to come to terms with the existence of such a unique man as Jesus of Nazareth, whose apparently questionable parentage opened the door for holy imagination.
I also see the creeds as statements that provide the range of understandings necessary to meet the needs of the different developmental stages of faith. They can sustain concrete operational thinking as well as higher stage thinking.
I can recite the creeds, and invite others to do so, “authentically” because they connect us to the historical process of faith development and because they are wonderful (if dated) metaphors of faith. I can also speak them as an act of pastoral care for those present whose faith views remain rooted in the simplistic magical/supernatural view of God.
Baptismally, asking parents to confess the creed is no different than asking parents to engage their children in scripture where they will learn the creation myths, the patriarchal/matriarchal legends, parables, etc. The creeds are texts of the community and speak the thoughts, and times, and challenges of the past into our time. They are resources for our time, but they do not define our thoughts, times and challenges or delimit the on-going conversation.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Speaking of God
God
That’s really all we can say “about” God. It may be no more than a name, a signifier, a pointer to something to which we can’t find any other way to point. “God” is more of a verb than a noun: third person (singular?), present active indicative – or perhaps a participle, “God-ing”.
Much beyond that we can’t really say with any confidence – or at least, shouldn’t. But, we do say much beyond that. For some of us it is a necessity, even a compulsion. (Perhaps, for others still, it is an addiction, which would explain their propensity to use god-talk as a divider of people, the power behind shaming and condemnation.) Even so-called “atheists” seem compelled to talk about God, often with a vehemence that doesn’t quite fit with the basic premise of atheism.
The dangers inherent in talking about God ought to give all of us pause…call us all to confession. Everything we say “about” God is a bit of a lie: hiding the truth, mis/shaping the truth as much as telling it. Each word we speak about God attempts to contain the uncontainable. Even to say “God is,” or “God exists” wraps God up in being and excludes or vilifies non-being, (which it seems to me is not a biblical approach at all). It isn’t any better to say that God is “beyond” being and non-being, “beyond” meaning “not there, but out there”, and still giving God a locale, a proper place in our scheme of things.
From my point of view there’s even a problem with saying, “I believe in God.” Belief has come to mean holding, as exclusively true, a set of statements about God. That’s a sort of arrogance that turns God into a possession, a tool for our own purposes. Belief is a propositional thing, a statement of expected outcomes in view of probabilities. I believe that the sun will “rise” in the morning; there is no guarantee, just a very high probability based on the evidence available. I believe that all of the particles (atomic, sub-atomic, quantum, etc.) that make up my body will cohere while I write this sentence. Again, no guarantees, but high probability. I’m not at all sure as much can be said about God…at least not as the answerer of prayers, intervener for the poor, solver of our problems, healer of our ills, protector of truth, justice and the American way (a good description for Superman, but I don’t believe in him at all).
I think it’s better to say that I have faith in God. Faith is not propositional, evidential: it is a matter of orientation, action, visual field. Faith is a way of seeing, moving, standing in the world.
That’s why this I am pursuing theo-poetics, not theology. Our “…ologies” are systems of propositions and probabilities. Poetry is encounter, description not prescription or proscription. It is about the on-going collusion of possibilities and impossibilities that daily unfolds in the improbable. Poetry speaks with what is not said as much as it does with what is. Poetry points to the unspeakable with humble incompleteness and heady precision, without stumbling on truth claims, much less exclusive truth claims. It is honest about its lying, straight-forward in it doubts, and unapologetic about its truth telling. But that’s what happens when we confess that a word is both less and so much more than can be said – especially a word like “God.”
That’s really all we can say “about” God. It may be no more than a name, a signifier, a pointer to something to which we can’t find any other way to point. “God” is more of a verb than a noun: third person (singular?), present active indicative – or perhaps a participle, “God-ing”.
Much beyond that we can’t really say with any confidence – or at least, shouldn’t. But, we do say much beyond that. For some of us it is a necessity, even a compulsion. (Perhaps, for others still, it is an addiction, which would explain their propensity to use god-talk as a divider of people, the power behind shaming and condemnation.) Even so-called “atheists” seem compelled to talk about God, often with a vehemence that doesn’t quite fit with the basic premise of atheism.
The dangers inherent in talking about God ought to give all of us pause…call us all to confession. Everything we say “about” God is a bit of a lie: hiding the truth, mis/shaping the truth as much as telling it. Each word we speak about God attempts to contain the uncontainable. Even to say “God is,” or “God exists” wraps God up in being and excludes or vilifies non-being, (which it seems to me is not a biblical approach at all). It isn’t any better to say that God is “beyond” being and non-being, “beyond” meaning “not there, but out there”, and still giving God a locale, a proper place in our scheme of things.
From my point of view there’s even a problem with saying, “I believe in God.” Belief has come to mean holding, as exclusively true, a set of statements about God. That’s a sort of arrogance that turns God into a possession, a tool for our own purposes. Belief is a propositional thing, a statement of expected outcomes in view of probabilities. I believe that the sun will “rise” in the morning; there is no guarantee, just a very high probability based on the evidence available. I believe that all of the particles (atomic, sub-atomic, quantum, etc.) that make up my body will cohere while I write this sentence. Again, no guarantees, but high probability. I’m not at all sure as much can be said about God…at least not as the answerer of prayers, intervener for the poor, solver of our problems, healer of our ills, protector of truth, justice and the American way (a good description for Superman, but I don’t believe in him at all).
I think it’s better to say that I have faith in God. Faith is not propositional, evidential: it is a matter of orientation, action, visual field. Faith is a way of seeing, moving, standing in the world.
That’s why this I am pursuing theo-poetics, not theology. Our “…ologies” are systems of propositions and probabilities. Poetry is encounter, description not prescription or proscription. It is about the on-going collusion of possibilities and impossibilities that daily unfolds in the improbable. Poetry speaks with what is not said as much as it does with what is. Poetry points to the unspeakable with humble incompleteness and heady precision, without stumbling on truth claims, much less exclusive truth claims. It is honest about its lying, straight-forward in it doubts, and unapologetic about its truth telling. But that’s what happens when we confess that a word is both less and so much more than can be said – especially a word like “God.”
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Begining Points...with explanations to follow
Some Premises for Christian Theo-poetics - Or Where I Begin
1.We must begin by confessing that whatever we say about “God” is in essence a fiction, or more baldly, a lie, however well intentioned we may be.
2.Cosmology, anthropology, all of our “–ologies”, must reflect current best thoughts and theories of the hard sciences (physics and astronomy come most to mind), and take seriously the insights of the soft sciences (developmental psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, etc).
3.What we “know” about “God” is only what we “know” about Jesus’ teaching, way and life.
4.The synoptic gospels' main use is descriptive – though each comes with its own theological agenda, they are dominated by telling us what Jesus did. The Gospel of John, is more self-consciously an explanation/interpretation of what God was up to in and through Jesus. All of them include embellishments that recast Jesus as a person and a power superior to that of the Roman emperor. They are not "history" or even "biography" in the sense we use the words now.
5.The bible is a collage of the writings of a great many people, each piece subject to the conditions and contexts of the life of the writers and editors and redactors. They reflect the values, philosophies, cosmologies, etc. of particular times and try to explain the unexplainable via those values, etc. There is not a single vision of God. They are inspired in their aim, in their honesty about human beings, and in their on-going usefulness. They are the word of God in the sense that they are about God…not in the sense that they originate from God.
1.We must begin by confessing that whatever we say about “God” is in essence a fiction, or more baldly, a lie, however well intentioned we may be.
2.Cosmology, anthropology, all of our “–ologies”, must reflect current best thoughts and theories of the hard sciences (physics and astronomy come most to mind), and take seriously the insights of the soft sciences (developmental psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, etc).
3.What we “know” about “God” is only what we “know” about Jesus’ teaching, way and life.
4.The synoptic gospels' main use is descriptive – though each comes with its own theological agenda, they are dominated by telling us what Jesus did. The Gospel of John, is more self-consciously an explanation/interpretation of what God was up to in and through Jesus. All of them include embellishments that recast Jesus as a person and a power superior to that of the Roman emperor. They are not "history" or even "biography" in the sense we use the words now.
5.The bible is a collage of the writings of a great many people, each piece subject to the conditions and contexts of the life of the writers and editors and redactors. They reflect the values, philosophies, cosmologies, etc. of particular times and try to explain the unexplainable via those values, etc. There is not a single vision of God. They are inspired in their aim, in their honesty about human beings, and in their on-going usefulness. They are the word of God in the sense that they are about God…not in the sense that they originate from God.
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