The Problem With Idols

The problem with idols is that they are not transparent enough. Idols eventually stop, struggling to lead anywhere transcendent or worthy of it. Bad art is similar; too heavy with the presence of the artist, their 'message', emotion, (or whatever) thrust upon us. Good art, in contradistinction, requires the self-dispossession of the artist, allowing the completed work to be neither untrue to the 'stuff' of the piece of art (whether words, clay, canvas, etc.) nor the world it speaks to and out of. Beauty is unveiled in a work of art when, in the depths of the artist where artist and transcendence meet in the metaphor of the creation, what is 'more' in the work is released and made manifest in its creation. This is why the artist and her work is a great metaphor for the God-world relationship, with particular applicability to the Christian conception of creation with its sensitivity to the freedom and integrity of creation. (See Rowan Williams, Grace and Necessity; here for a helpful review.) In the Christian schema of things the 'artist' of creation is the trinitarian God of Father, Son and Spirit, the dance of complete self-giving that is a union of love. The Father self-donates all that the Father has to the Son, and the Son gives all in return in the Spirit. And from this union that is love creation is made with its own substantial (although contingent) form, beauty and integrity.

This metaphor of artist and work of art is also helpful when considering the Incarnation - the Word becoming flesh - of the Son of God as Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is not an idol, for he is the work of the self-dispossessing God of Father, Son and Spirit; indeed, he is the Son in the flesh, whose only identity is to be found in relation to the Father. There is 'space' in Son, both for the 'stuff' of the work (human flesh) and its relation to the world, and the 'more' who is made visible in him, the Father. (See John 1:18).

[The picture is from Frederick Hart's creation sculptures in the Episcopalian Washington National Cathedral.]

An Explicitly Theological Interpretation of Scripture

A theological interpretation of Scripture invites us to understand the text of scripture from an explicitly theological view, and often in a terribly realistic manner! Take the baptism of Jesus as narrated in Mark 1:9-11. Usually the text would be scrutinized from a range of perspectives, including historical (background, what really happened), textual (comparing it to the parallel story in the other three gospels), etc. But what if we took the text really to be narrating 'action' between (in traditional language), Father, Son and Spirit? The Son (Jesus) is bestowed with an experience of the Father's love and pleasure through the gift of the Spirit: "You are my Son, the beloved; with whom I am well pleased." (Mk 1:11).

The church's traditional belief in the Trinity is derived from, amongst other considerations, just such an interpretation of scripture. Rather than only thinking of Jesus and his life, death and resurrection as being played out within our history, it is also possible to think of our history as now included in God's life. That is, think of God as a 'story' of love between Father, Son and Spirit, and this God, by the becoming-human of the Son, has included our 'story' into God's own 'story'. In the story of the baptism of Jesus we are witnessing the very inner life of God, played out within history. We are party to God's own life.

This is an inversion of how we usually see our relationship to God. We usually think of God being included in our story (nothing wrong with this), but the point of the Incarnation (the becoming-human of the Son) is ultimately to include us into God's life. God becomes part of our 'story', so we can become part of God's 'story' of love. And in becoming part of God's story those elements within our history, elements of despair, violence and death, are transformed. We call it resurrection.

The Baptism of Jesus in Mark (And His Crucifixion)

The Gospel for this coming week (RCL/APBA Baptism of the Lord - B) uses Mark's version of the baptism of Jesus. It is interesting to note (what must be surely) the intentional parallels between the baptism of Jesus and his crucifixion in Mark.

The parallels are:

• the use of schizomai (torn/ripped) in Mk 1:10 & 15:38. (Matthew and Luke retain the verb in the crucifixion, but simply use 'opened' in their respective versions of the baptism of Jesus.)
  
  
• The heavens are torn apart, as is the temple curtain. The temple curtain referred to was likely not the curtain separating the Holy of Holies within the temple complex, but the curtain at the entrance to the temple building itself. Josephus (Jewish War 5:212-214) says that this curtain had on it a panoramic vision of the cosmos! (See here also.) If this were so, then this curtain may have been visible from the place of crucifixion, explaining the centurion's 'confession'.
  
  
• The descent of the Spirit and the descending tear of the temple curtain, explicitly mentioned by Mark.
  
  
• The voice announcing the sonship of Jesus, in the first case the voice of God, in the latter the voice of the centurion.
  
  
• The use of pneuma (Spirit, 1:10) and cognate (breathed, 15:39)
  
  
• John the Baptist as Elijah (1:6; 9:13) and waiting for Elijah (15:35)

Interestingly, baptism and crucifixion can be coordinated with the transfiguration in similar terms (See Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, p. 391):

• descending cloud
• a voice announcing the sonship of Jesus
• and the appearance of Elijah.
  
  

All three theophanies come at key intervals: the beginning of Jesus' ministry, the 'middle'of his ministry after Peter's confession, the first passion prediction, and Peter's misunderstanding of the nature of Jesus' messiahship. (See Mk 8:27-38). And each of the theophanies increase in public visibility as the gospel unfolds, from Jesus' private experience at his baptism, to the three witnesses to the transfiguration, to th very public event of crucifixion, curtain tearing and death of Jesus.

Possible ideas to explore:

• The apocalyptic nature of the baptism of Jesus. (See Isa 64:1-2)
  
  
• The heavens torn open heralds God's access to the world in the first place rather than our access to God.

Epiphany

A guest blog from the Revd Ron Keynes.

One of the sad things about the season of Epiphany is that it tends to occur when people are on holidays, and so miss out on the emphasis. On top of that, the somewhat weird title of the Season can be off-putting too.

In a culture when there is rarely complete darkness, we miss the dramatic point and purpose of this Season. Quite some years ago, I had a young lass from a previous parish stay with me at Riverton. There the Rectory was somewhat out of town. When we retired for the night, there was a sudden yell from her room! When I wondered what was wrong, the scared reply was that she could not see a thing. She had been used to city living, when streetlights were on all night. The outcome was that we left a light on at the back of the house so she felt safe. Light! Epiphany!

Epiphany, you see, is what happens when suddenly there is light in a dark place. Not only does it help to see where you are; it also enables one to see where we need to head. And that is one of the powerful messages of Epiphany. Stars for the Magi; and a vast change of direction for the Jewish faithful. No longer was religion something for personal and individual comfort; this Faith is a direction to head for all humans who looked for the truth about life. It was certainly so for those Magi, who to all intents and purposes were personae non grata as far as Israel was concerned. I dare to suggest that some more recent Christians have been off-put to realize that these were occultists, but who dared to follow wherever the truth led them.

One of my comments about the readings chosen for the Season this year (RCL, Year B) is that the stress offered to us is that not only is this Faith once delivered meant to be that light to lighten the Gentiles, but – and I ask you to ponder the readings this Season – that the People of God are called, themselves, to be lights themselves. Part of our role as the People of God is - like those Magi – to follow the truth and to share it with anyone we meet who is not yet aware of the realities. Christianity is not for religious people: it is for honest searchers after truth, and for anyone else who catches sight of the light. ‘Religion’ never was a personal and private matter. This Faith is for the reconciliation of all people, to each other as much as to God.

Journey of the Magi by T. S. Eliot

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For the journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death,
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Remind Me To Buy One Of These In the New Year (Not)

For The Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio (Part IV) by W. H. Auden

Part IV

CHORUS


He is the Way.
Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.

He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.


And check this out for a bit of commentary on Auden and what he was trying to achieve with this poem (and generally).

For The Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio (Part III) by W. H. Auden

Part III

Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree,

Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes --

Some have got broken -- and carrying them up to the attic.

The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,

And the children got ready for school. There are enough

Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week --

Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,

Stayed up so late, attempted -- quite unsuccessfully --

To love all of our relatives, and in general

Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again

As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed

To do more than entertain it as an agreeable

Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,

Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,

The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.

The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,

And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware

Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought

Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now

Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,

Back in the moderate Aristotelian city

Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's geometry

And Newton's mechanics would account for our experience,

And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.

It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets

Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten

The office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen

The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,

The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.

For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly

Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be

Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that moment

We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;

Remembering the stable where for once in our lives

Everything became a You and nothing was an It.

And craving the sensation but ignoring the cause,

We look round for something, no matter what, to inhibit

Our self-reflection, and the obvious thing for that purpose

Would be some great suffering. So, once we have met the Son,

We are tempted ever after to pray to the Father;

"Lead us into temptation and evil for our sake."

They will come, all right, don't worry; probably in a form

That we do not expect, and certainly with a force

More dreadful than we can imagine. In the meantime

There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,

Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem

From insignificance. The happy morning is over,

The night of agony still to come; the time is noon:

When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing

Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure

A silence that is neither for nor against her faith

That God's Will will be done, That, in spite of her prayers,

God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph.

The Holy Innocents

Today, in the Anglican calendar here in Australia, we remember the Holy Innocents. Some other churches of the Holy Innocents:

Episcopalian
Church of England

God (in the Crucified-Risen Jesus) Is With Us

 There are many passages which can be cut from Scripture as epitomizing the good news of Jesus. Here is one from St Paul: "If God is for us, who is against us?" (Rom 8:31) That is, God is on our side, for us, with us. But if that sounds a little anti-climactic, it is only because we have been influenced by the gospel of Jesus in the first place. (Western culture's debt to Christianity is large indeed, and lives on still.) The news that God is on our side and never against us was good news, and very different news, in the time of the early church. Think of the Greek gods and their myths; at best inconsistent and untrustworthy, and at worst, immoral. The Christian gospel is quite simply this, that God is with us. But not 'with us' in some general sense or hypothetical 'spiritual' sense, but with us in the deepest and most intimate manner. God in Jesus takes on our flesh, real human flesh, made of stardust like the flesh on our bones, lives a complete life (from manger to sepulchre), is betrayed, tortured and suffers, eventually dying through public and humiliating execution on the cross. (God is with us!) And from the inside of the experience and knowledge of our humanity, Jesus is raised from the dead, to a new and transformed existence. (God is with us!)

In Matthew's account of the announcement to Mary of her pregnancy, she is told that the child within her is Immanuel, God with us. (Matt 1:18-25) And then, the very last sentence of the Gospel of Matthew, has the risen Jesus declare to his disciples, "I am with you always, to the end of the age." The Gospel is sandwiched between these two declarations of God's presence with us in Jesus Christ. And the content of this declaration is given to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Very real, very engaged with real human lives, in real human history, giving us a real human hope grounded in God.

The problem for most of us is that we live as though this is not true. Often we live as though God does not even exist, or we imagine God as a fatherly figure in the sky! God is as close to us as our own flesh. God knows what it is like to be one of us, with all that it entails. God knows what it is like to be betrayed, to be rejected, to suffer, to die. And to be raised again. In Jesus God comes to us as a real human to show that we too can be truly human. God comes to us and offers a basis for trust and hope, for courage and confidence in life and its end. God comes to us to take us where we cannot go by ourselves, into the very heart of God.

Now we are touching the true meaning of Christmas.

Born Amongst the Dung (Kids' Talk)

The point of this Christmas Kids' Talk is to contrast the God of Jesus with the idol we carry around with us.

• Start by asking the kids who was at the first Christmas for the birth of Jesus the king.
• Collect answers, and then ask what was also there. Answers like cows etc are easy. But keep on saying, 'But you have forgotten something.' The kids will start coming up with funny answers like, "The inn keeper's lantern.' That's when to introduce the forgotten ingredient.
• Have a bag of animal dung up the back. Get someone to bring it down. Say things like, "Don't drop it," and "Hey, did anyone drop one?". But don't directly let on to what is in the bag.
• Then show them, and make the contrast: where do kings usually get born? And Jesus, born amongst the dung?
• the God of Jesus doesn't do what we expect; or something about God on the side of ordinary people, or the poor, or something of that nature fits.
  

Rowan Williams' Christmas Message

For the complete text of the Christmas Message from Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, see here. An excellent example of the implications of the traditional faith of the church.

...In a Complete Human Life...

Human beings, left to themselves, have imagined God in all sorts of shapes; but - although there were one or two instances, in Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt, of gods being pictured as boys - it took Christianity to introduce the world to the idea of God in the form of a baby: in the form of complete dependence and fragility, without power or control. If you stop to think about it, it is still shocking. And it is also deeply challenging.

God chose to show himself to us in a complete human life, telling us that every stage in human existence, from conception to maturity and even death, was in principle capable of telling us something about God. (Rowan Williams, from his Christmas message.)

Saying 'Yes' to God (Kids' Talk)

The gist of the kids' talk for Mary's acceptance of God's invitation to bear Jesus:

• Start with an invitation they have to say 'yes' to. E.g. another child asking them to be their friend.
  
  
• The prop is something you have said 'yes' to. I talked about saying 'yes' to ordination, and had my orders to show.
  
  
• The most important things in life we have to say 'yes' to. Asked for examples, included in this the congregation.
  
  
• Being a disciple of jesus
  
  
• Mary's 'yes' as the paradigm.
  

The Strange Christological Excess of the Old Testament (Part III)

The point of the preceding posts (here and here, and this began the train of thought) is that it is only in the light of faith in Christ that the continuity between Jesus and what went before him can be glimpsed. And it is not a nice, neat, simple, linear progression from one to the other. Jesus was a surprise. Those who like the linear approach seem to think that this 'proves' that Jesus is the messiah. (and provides a handy ground for condemning those who have missed this obvious progression and fulfillment.) But it is the surprise of faith in Jesus that strikes me. And it is this surprise, the way in which Jesus does not fit the expectations of the day, that lends credibility to the claims of faith. Where did the strange claims come from? Were they just made up? (Because, without the claims themselves, it is difficult to see how Jesus is the fulfillment of the expectations of the Old Testament.) And if a non-believer were to assert that the claims about Jesus (e.g. his resurrection) are made up, where did they come from? There were plenty of other claims to fabricate that would have met the expectations of the day, been more believable, and therefore more attractive to a Jewish audience. The lack of fit between Jesus and the expectations of the Jews demands explanation.

In all of this there is an excess in the Old Testament that allows for the strange twist that leads from the Old Testament to Jesus, but the excess is only accessed via a Christological reading of the text. And the Christological content is provided by Jesus, crucified and risen.

The Strange Christological Excess of the Old Testament (Part II)

John the Baptist's own expectation of the messiah is another case in point of the strange fulfillment that Jesus brought to the expectations of his day. Advent 3 had the interrogation of the Baptist by the Jerusalem authorities as related in the Gospel of John, where he did not deny but confessed that he was not the light. But we know that before the Baptist died he questioned whether Jesus really was the messiah. (Matt 11:3-6) (Interestingly, Jesus didn't doubt the authenticity of John the Baptist as the one who was to prepare the way. [Matt 11:7-15]) John's preaching would suggest that he expected a messiah who was to bring damnation and judgement, with the possibility of salvation for a few. Jesus, on the other hand, seemed to be a prophet primarily of forgiveness and acceptance, with the possibility of damnation. In Lk 4:16-21, Jesus announces his manifesto in the words of the prophet Isaiah (61:1-2), but omits the last half verse, "and the day of vengeance of our God." Vengeance is not absent in the preaching of Jesus, but it is subordinated to the forgiving love of God. The Old Testament knows that God's ways with Israel cannot be encapsulated within the punishment/reward cycle of straight law, but Jesus takes this to an unexpected crescendo.

The Strange Christological Excess of the Old Testament (Part I)

It would seem that some Christians are tempted to think of Christianity fulfilling the hopes of Israel in a direct and linear way. That is, any objective reading of the Old Testament without the New Testament leads directly to Jesus as the messiah, Son of God, etc. Exactly what everyone should have been expecting. Almost as if any idiot should have been ready for him, if only they would put aside their ideological spectacles. There is a nice straight line, so the argument goes, from Israel to Jesus. I've never really been able to see it myself. I have always thought that Jesus and his 'career' was a bit of a shock. (And not just for the Old Testament!)

Who expected a crucified messiah? Righteous martyrs were crucified, but everyone knew that the messiah would 'win', not 'lose' against the Romans. And who expected the resurrection to begin with a single individual, and then be stuck in an in-between time? Remembering that resurrection belief was more than just life after death, but God's comprehensive defeat of the powers of darkness and death and vindication of the righteous, the resurrection beginning in one person, but then stopping, just didn't make sense. We could extend this list of surprises. For example, Paul says that the church is now the temple (of the Holy Spirit), and whatever the relationship between this temple of the Holy Spirit and the temple then still standing in Jerusalem, it would have been a surprising way to speak for a Jew. Hardly a linear progression from jewish expectation of the time to the followers of the crucified messiah as, in some way, the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Important, But Paraphrased

Here are two important theological insights. However, I can't remember who wrote them. And they are my paraphrases.

In accepting the cross Christ renounced the claim to govern history. This reminds of something Lesslie Newbigin wrote. He said that the cross is evidence of God's sensitivity toward human freedom.

And:
Death was unable to close the door on Jesus and relegate him to the past.

Preparing For Christmas (Kids' Talk)

[We have a Christmas Tree in the worship space.]
Have a look at this ... (the tree)
And why are we doing this? Preparation for Christmas.
How else do we prepare ...

John the Baptist said that the way we can get ready for the coming of Jesus is to say sorry and believe in Jesus (to repent and believe):

• things we have done wrong
• but this is so we know that we need God in our lives

The Durability of God's Word

"Yahweh has planned comfort for the exiles, and none can prevent it." (Walter Brueggemann)

Isaiah proper (chapters 1-39) ends on a note of destruction and despair. Israel's unfaithfulness will not go unpunished. (Isa 39:5-8) Judah will lose its king, city, temple and people; "... nothing shall be left, says the Lord." (39:6) Babylon snuffed out the kingdom of Judah in 586 BC, and took the people into exile as the Assyrians had done previously to the kingdom of Israel (2Kings 17:-6). And just as all seems lost for good, there comes a prophecy from God. 'Second Isaiah' speaks a word of comfort and grace to the people; God will come to them, their exile will end, and they will return home to the promised land. This "comfort" is more than consolation; rather it is God's solidarity and presence with the suffering of the people. Their exile is to end, and they will return home across the desert to the promised land.(Isa 40:1-5; see also Isa 35:8-10) The performative word of God (Isa 40:5,8) has cataclysmic implications for the empire of Babylon. It must fall to let the people go (Isa 40:10-11; Jeremiah 51:34-37; see also Exodus 5:1), and it did in 536 BC, conquered by the ruler of the Medes and Persians, God's (pagan!) servant of judgement, King Cyrus. (See Isa 45:1-7) God's forgiveness of the sins of the people leads from exile to homecoming for Israel; for Babylon it means the defeat of their power and the destruction of their empire. (Isa 40:10) The fall of pagan empire and the return home is not dependent on the strength of mere mortals but rests on God's resolve and decree. (Isa 40:6-8) God will do this. (Isa 40:9-11)

There is an excess in the prophecy of Isaiah 40 that finds its fulfilment in John the Baptist's preaching and ministry. (Mk 1:1-8; Lk 3) God is now acting in Jesus decisively for all those who find themselves in exile and in need of homecoming. This includes the physical exiles and prisoners (see Matt 25:31-46; Lk 4:18-19), the excluded from society, those in need of healing, and all those who know their need and seek their true home.(Matt 11:28-30) The God of grace encountered by Israel now through Israel reaches out to the whole of humankind in Jesus Christ. And like the word that brought the people from exile to homecoming, this word will also accomplish God's will.

"And the Word became flesh ..." (Jn 1:14)

[Advent 2(B), Isaiah 40:1-11; Mk 1:1-8]