What Is The Lens Through Which You Read Scripture?

Welcome to the inaugural Adelaide Anglican Blog Conference 2009 on the place of Scripture in the Anglican Communion, and using as a point of departure the clause on Scripture in the GAFCON final statement.

2. We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.

I have enjoyed reading other blog conferences (von Balthasar and Barth) and thought it a simple way for Adelaide Anglicans to enjoy and participate in some locally generated theological discussion. Of course, our national and international readers are most welcome! A special thanks to our contributors whose posts will appear on Classic Theology New over the next two weeks. all are free to comment and engage, and debate, if you wish.

GAFCON is the latest result of the ongoing dispute in the Anglican Communion over the ministry of women and the sex life of (particularly ordained) Anglicans. Conceived as an alternative to the Lambeth Conference, GAFCON ended up a conference for Anglican clergy and lay alike from around the world. I have to admit to not being an avid listener or watcher of such conferences, whether official or schismatic. I have not acquainted myself with the huge amount of material GAFCONs (I will use this term throughout to mean both attenders of GAFCON and non-attending supporters) seem to be generating for themselves. However, a couple of points stand out. The first is the very unanglican Primates Council where, so it would appear, a small group determine the orthodoxy (or not) of churches and dioceses. A strange development in Anglicanism (and we should remember that GAFCONs would hold themselves out to be the traditionalists in the current debates) more at home in a church of either a more Protestant or Roman persuasion.

The second is the statement on Scripture. Unsurprising in this statement is the affirmation that the Scriptures "contain all things necessary for salvation" (from the ordinal), and the qualifier “canonical” as a tool in the correct translation and interpretation of Scripture. The surprise in this statement is the words “plain” and “consensual”. Consensual is unusual in the context because I perceive it to be a qualifier I would associate with the more catholic end of the Christian church. I am amazed that representatives of the Diocese of Sydney would put their signature to such a qualifier. Does the consensus of the church include the figurative readings of the patristic period and the middle ages? I can’t imagine how a consensual reading of Scripture could not, but such readings are anathema, I would have thought, to the theological method of Sydney. And if we are to abide by a consensual reading of Scripture, how does reform come in the church? Presumably not through the Bible! Did the Sydney representatives really think about this? Perhaps GAFCONs are thinking that their interpretation of Scripture in relation to who has sex with whom is the consensus of interpretive opinion. Whether this be true or not, for not the first time in trying to claim the whole of the tradition, GAFCONS have overstretched themselves with the qualifier “consensual”.

Perhaps of more interest is the qualifier “plain”. What could GAFCONs mean by this? I would have expected a qualifier like “literal”. Perhaps “literal” has a bit too much baggage these days. So what does “plain” mean? Take, for example, Luke 14:33:

“So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions."

What is the plain meaning of the text? If we mean by plain transparent, it seems almost obvious: true discipleship is shown by your material poverty. The history of interpretation of Jesus’ admonitions to give up all one’s possessions (and there are many such counsels from Jesus to evangelical poverty) includes St Anthony (Life of Antony, 4) literally giving away everything in the early days of Christian monasticism. But is this kind of command to be applied literally to all of us at all times? Is this kind of statement from Jesus to be taken as a sine qua non of Christian discipleship?

I already hear the GAFCON response. The canonical interpretation means that this one verse is to be placed in the context of the whole of Scripture. I agree. When read (interpreted) in the context of Luke-Acts, the above verse is not a universal command. Luke makes the first disciples give away everything, not necessarily later disciples. (See Lk 5:11; “everything” is missing in Mark’s original at Mk 1:20; and notice in the sermon on the plain in Lk 6:20 the blessing of evangelical poverty seems to be applied to the already poor disciples alone; while the recipients of Jesus’ teaching are broadened as the admonitions change, see Lk 6:27. See also Lk 12:22; 19:8; Acts 2:44-45; 4:32-5:12 ) Paul does not teach the universal necessity of giving away all one’s possessions, and the Old Testament has a more balanced view of wealth. And if we were to apply a consensual reading of Jesus’ commands to give away all one’s possessions, we would most definitely not end up universalizing the command. So from the perspective of a canonical and consensual reading of Scripture we should not universalize the command to evangelical, material poverty. But if this is the case, what is the plain meaning of Lk 14:33?

If it wasn’t already plain(!), the plain meaning of the text cannot mean literal, obvious, or transparent, as if we can simply and easily and immediately extract and apply the meaning of any individual text. We must always interpret the text. This is an important point, for GAFCONs like to say that the fight in the Anglican Communion is about the authority of Scripture. However, the qualifiers “plain” (whatever it means), “canonical”, and “consensual” fall within the domain of interpretation. These qualifiers raise the question – and this is the critical question in the Anglican Communion at the moment, as it has always been in the history of the church – of what makes an authentic Christian interpretation of Scripture. I would think that the debate in the church is not about whether we use the Bhagavad Gita to determine who has sex with whom, but how the Bible is to be read on the question.

I have a suggestion to make: the plain meaning of a text can (occasionally it doesn’t!) become plain (in the sense of apparent) once a reader applies an interpretive technique and lens to the text. (See here for a plain reading of the Psalms from a Christological view, but a reading that is anything but obvious.) Clause 2 of the GAFCON Final Statement is suggesting at least parts of an interpretive model: canonical and (historic and) consensual. But if the plain sense comes after interpretation, how do we know an authentic Christian interpretation when we see it? And for that matter, is such a distinction between authentically Christian or not theologically justifiable? I would have thought that this is the issue at the heart of the fight in the Anglican Communion.

Let me state what I understand to have been the universal practice of the church. It will be a broad-brush picture requiring more refinement at some later point on my blog, but the major points will be clear enough. At the outset, though, let me say that I have sympathy with GAFCONish concerns for the authentic interpretation of Scripture. I think it is possible to make bad interpretations of Scripture which are utterly contrary to the truth Scripture embodies. I cite, as an example of a bad use of Scripture, Sydney’s bizarre doctrinal split (here and here) between the being of God from the persons of the Trinity. This is another case of GAFCONs attempting to universalize their peculiar and idiosyncratic perspective, with the result the clear difference between them and the consensus of the Christian faith. (How ironic!)

Essentially, the canon of truth revealed to us in Jesus Christ transcends any single embodiment of it, whether Scripture, Creeds or liturgy. All of the former do truly embody and carry the truth revealed to us in Christ, but we are not (meant to be) bibliolatrists and whatever the pejorative term is for those people (if they exist) who mistake the other instruments and embodiments of the truth (e.g. Creeds and liturgy) with the truth itself. True, without these instruments and embodiments of the truth, the faith would be lost. Equally true, without people who embody the truth, these instruments alone cannot carry the faith of the church. (Remember, St Paul had to be taught the faith by people; his superlative revelation was insufficient. [See 1Cor 13:23) Of all the instruments and embodiments listed above, Scripture is primary, but it is Jesus Christ who is the truth. (John 1:17; 14:6)

Where does this leave us in a search for an objective means to determine a true or false interpretation of Scripture? The temptation is to construct a rule of faith that can be applied in a logical manner to determine the soundness of a particular interpretation of Scripture. No such rule exists. The rule of faith is the truth itself that is revealed in Christ and held intuitively (but not irrationally) by the church. It is (truly) embodied in the Scriptures, but without this intuitive and complete knowledge the Scriptures will always be misused. Those who wrote (what would become) the New Testament (with its idiosyncratic interpretation of the Old Testament in comparison to the continuing Jewish tradition) and those who determined which books would be included in the canon of the Scriptures and wrote the Creeds, held this faith, wrote about it, preached it, worshipped according to it, and lived it. No one can come to a true knowledge of the God revealed in Jesus Christ in the abstract, detached from the life and teaching of the church, that body of disciples who have carried this revelation for 2000 years, and embodied this truth in their Scriptures, Creeds and liturgy.

This necessarily makes the life of the church messier than the logical application of a set of propositions would allow. However, this is not to say that all is permitted. For example, interpretations of Scripture that do not carefully attend to the text, or ignore the canon of Scripture, or offend the aesthetic whole of the truth as embodied in Scripture, Creeds and liturgy will always be suspect. Moreover, the Scriptures, read correctly through the hermeneutical lens of the Creeds, will disallow interpretations of Scripture that deny the Trinitarian theology of the church, the double homoousios of Jesus, the resurrection of the body, etc. Sometimes it takes longer to adjudicate particular claims and interpretations; sometimes not so long. This also means, however, that it is always possible that what appears to be a novel interpretation is shown to be consistent with the truth and to be upheld. (The use of the Bible against slavery is a good case.) There is no way around this.

Where does this leave the GAFCON Scripture clause? I think GAFCON in its explicit statement on Scripture missed an opportunity to further the debate. While “canonical” and “consensual” go some way, inserting “plain” doesn’t really go anywhere at all. The question we must ask of each other is this: what lens do you use to interpret Scripture? Canonical is good, as is consensual, although secondary to canonical. But alone not enough, for the great heresies can still use the canon and find some common ground in the tradition. How do you determine what is authentic and permissible? And if you say you don’t have such a lens, or that Scripture itself (perhaps more likely from a conservative framework) or Jesus himself (more likely from a liberal framework) is your lens, think again. It is the lens you bring to Scripture or Jesus in the Scriptures that is the question. For my part, the lenses I use are the traditional core doctrines of the church, functioning both theologically and hermeneutically. I will elucidate my thoughts further in the coming weeks on this blog, but here are the core doctrines which are meant to be not just theology, but hermeneutical keys. (This is one of the functions of doctrine.) The doctrines are:

• The doctrine of the Incarnation, especially the double homoousios, and hypostatic union.

• The doctrine of the Trinity

• The Christian doctrine of transcendence and non-competitive divinity

• The doctrine of grace

But more on these another time!


Further Reading:

This is a superb post on the rule of faith and its relationship to Scripture. And make sure you read the dialogue Halden has with a commentator in the comments section. This is also very good from Halden.

On the deposit of faith, see T. F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith, pp. 30-35. On the canon of truth (or rule of faith), especially as embodied in the credal formulation of the double homoousion, see Torrance, Trinitarian Faith, pp. 125-132.

For a beautiful summary of the doctrine of transcendence and non-competitive divinity applied to Jesus, see Kathryn Tanner, Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity, pp. 1-33.

On the “plain” meaning of the text in the patristic era, see Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy. An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology, pp. 31-40.

Some Thoughts on Lent

By the Revd Ron Keynes

For many years now, I have tended to wander from the traditional view and expression of the Season of Lent, on the grounds – dare I say it? – that tradition seems to have missed the real point. This Season of preparation for Easter is designed to follow the life and experience of Jesus following His baptism in the River Jordan by John the Baptist. Of course, what followed that baptism closely, was Jesus’ six weeks in the wilderness, a sort of parallel to the experience of Israel during the Exodus. Such isolation can often heighten one’s thoughts and perceptions. (Isn’t that why people go bush for a while?)
Those tales of Jesus’ temptations (which I prefer to describe as testings) never seemed to make a lot of sense to me, even as a young person. Stones into bread, and all that! If you look at it literally, is no great thing even if Jesus was starving. If He did alter those stones, what difference would it make really? And how does such a thing constitute temptation? One has to resort to holy talk to get past that one. However, if you understand the story ‘Jewishly,’ then a whole new world opens up. This calls for the exercise of your imagination – Biblical imagination. Here is an attempt to present a pictorial perception of facing enormous challenges.

You see, what was happening in those significant six weeks, was for Jesus to ponder the huge question: if He were ‘Son of God’ how was He meant to operate; how does such a one gather a following of people who would understand and become lifelong disciples? It was a powerful question of the nature or pattern of leadership He was meant to follow. If we look at those ‘temptations’ one by one, I hope you will understand what I mean. On top of that, Jesus would have had that marvellous series of Servant Songs from Isaiah (ii) to ponder …… as should we all.

Stones into bread. If you equate what was going on there with, say, patterns of leadership – and making progress – in the human world, you will catch sight perhaps even suddenly. Living as He did in the Roman Empire, our Lord would have understood the Roman method of leadership. ‘Bread and circuses’ was that old theme, followed by so many later politicians and despots as well. Divert people from the real issues! Fill their gut and ignore their spirit! And get on with your control of people while they are distracted!!! That was the challenge for Jesus, and it must not have taken long before He saw the devastating nature of the challenge. Follow the Roman way, and actually bribe or even force people into discipleship. Mind you, the greater challenge was when one realizes that to reject that path was only to choose a rather harder, more demanding path towards gaining disciples. People would have to think first, before deciding whether or not to commit! And you would have to be aware of the vast difficulty of getting people to think, let alone getting any further along the path than that. Do you catch sight now?

Jumping from the Temple pinnacle. When I was writing this, the media had been full of stories of the Tour Down Under and its noted overseas competitor. Or of that late movie star who is garnering all manner of posthumous attention. (Lot of good it will do the poor bloke!) Why is it that people almost long to ape their superstars? How unreal can you get????

If Jesus were to pursue this pattern of surprising, stunning, inveigling people by all the stunning things He could do, surely people would follow in drives, wouldn’t they? Just look at the rapt attention people seem to give to movie stars and royals, and sportspeople. What a way to go! But if Jesus took that path to gain a following, a moment’s thought is all it takes to recognize how shallow and self-seeking such a following would be. Jump from the pinnacle, Lord, and we will ask to try something harder. Something more demanding. And if He did, would anyone believe really, anyone repent and change direction? There is only a snowflake’s chance in Hell, is there not?

What few people stop to notice is, that from here on Jesus refused to use miracle as a means to gain people’s following and loyalty. As John has it in his Gospel, there were no miracles; there were only signs, pointers, something to ponder and think about. And we miss the point if we make any more of them.

Fall down and worship Satan. What in the name of fortune does it mean to ‘worship Satan?’ Who the @#$% is Satan anyhow? Come on a journey, but wear your seat belt for a moment. There is a lot of argy-bargy around in some circles when the great deceiver rates a mention. Go back through Scripture and see, when you boil it all down, ‘Satan’ is the Biblical expression for the source of evil and untruth. Satan, pardon me, when you reduce it to reality, is your capacity and mine to behave and live like ‘Adam’ who – as the story had it – dethroned the real God and set himself up as substitute. Or, to put it another way, who tempts you – and be honest. So don’t go looking for something outside of you, except when it comes to others’ capacity for evil.

This challenge to Jesus, who was tested and tempted the same way you are, was to water down the truth, spin, fiddle, or most of all, turn the truth into a lie and the lie into the truth. What am I talking about? Watch the politicians, or better still, watch yourself. Fiddles, lies, half-truths, mistruths, spin, or even that great Australian word of two syllables. (You know that word I mean!) Look and see the extent to which this terribly human characteristic makes such total mess of relationships, personal, social, national and international. Truth unadorned is the only path to wholeness, to what the Scriptures call salvation. Wholeness. And for Jesus to have chosen that path would have been to have emasculated and destroyed the entire Gospel. I kid you not. So thank heaven you have a Lord Who recognized the real issues and turned His back on them.

One final shock to the system: that challenge for Jesus, which continued right through His ministry, is the same challenge that faces all His priests and bishops (some of whom tend to ignore or avoid the realities) but it does not end there. This same challenge falls on us all, people of God. Like our Lord, we need to be aware of our calling. And that make take a little hard work.

So when I say that I am no traditionalist when it come to Lent, I mean I see no call for breast-beating and going without. I see only the annual reminder to get back to the basics of faithfulness and commitment in the face of whatever contrary pressure.

As someone else often says, you know it makes sense!

Adelaide Anglican Blog Conference Begins Next Week!

The Adelaide Anglican Blog Conference is just around the corner. The topic is clause 2 of the GAFCON final statement from Jerusalem:

We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.

I will start the ball rolling on Monday, March 23. And each post from the other contributors will roll out each few days thereafter. It will be sure to generate some theological thinking and questions, not to mention debate. You are invited to read the posts and comment. Theological discussion welcome!

Is Religion the Cause of Conflict?

In an address given in Singapore in 2007 Rowan Williams presented a persuasive and novel answer to the question of religious violence in society. Secular society accuses religions of fomenting violence because of the tendency of religions to claim absolute, and irreconcilable, religious truths. The Enlightenment correctly saw that the claims and counter-claims to truth of differing religious perspectives cannot all be absolutely true. While that observation seems basic and self-obvious, the erroneous conclusion on the part of secularism since has been that religious belief must therefore be considered private belief and personal opinion, without any absolute truth claims. Religion, so the argument goes, is a conditional loyalty, subordinate to the loyalties demonstrable from neutral, natural reason. It is important to recognise that any belief, whether allegedly private or public, can be used in the cause of conflict, violence and war. Democracy doesn't like totalitarian competitors, and the greatest genocidal maniacs in history have all been atheists: Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot. Any and all beliefs need to be put into the public domain, and in this light examined for their public truth. Moreover, part of this scrutiny should include the resources each constellation of beliefs has for resisting conflict and war. Christianity has two related resources. The first is Jesus himself. His teaching is notoriously difficult to twist into an ideology of war. The life and death of Jesus were consistent with his teaching, even to the point of forgiving his persecutors and those who mocked him. The second resource (not exclusive to Christianity) is belief in transcendent truth. This is utterly inconsistent with the relativism of our age. Truth is not dependent on our belief in it, or practice of it. It is beyond and greater than our belief in it or action on its behalf. Indeed, because the truth is transcendent, Jesus was able to die, even suffering a death that, perhaps to him at the time, seemed to mean the complete failure of his mission. The truth will win out, and to put it bluntly, if we have irreconcilable differences I don't need to shoot you to resolve the difference in belief. Without a belief in the transcendence of truth, it is difficult to see how war can be avoided. he Bolsheviks, good atheists that they were, were at least consistent at this point.

The Temptations of Jesus (in Mark)

From earliest times trial and temptation has been seen not as failure, but as opportunities for people to show their obedience to God. To successfully endure the trial or temptation made one acceptable to God. Jesus is the prime example of this. The New Testament is not embarrassed at all that he was tested or tempted. (See Mark 1:2-13; Heb 4:15) In fact, it is absolutely critical to the whole gospel that he was. Jesus was tempted – by the evil one, by his opponents, and by his disciples even (e.g. see Mark 8:31-33) – and was obedient, even to death on the cross. (Phil 2:8) The cross was the climax of this testing, and the most severe form of it. (Mark 14:34-36) And it is because Jesus was faithful, even in the face of this prolonged and severe testing, that we are saved. And because he endured temptation and was obedient, we too can do it. (This is the point of the Book of Hebrews, see Heb 2:10, 14-18; 12:1-11) Life is full of temptations, with the Spirit of Christ we are not defeated but will emerge victorious through and with him.

Which is just my opening statement really, so more on this later.

When You Are Tempted

If you hear the voice of temptation, here are some strategies that will help you resist, if that is what you wish.

1.

The simple strategies:

• Keep away from the temptation, or keep your attention elsewhere.
• Refuse to play with the temptation in your mind; this is an act of will.
  
• If you have given the temptation ground to develop in your mind, pray 'mantra' style, using a sentence of Scripture. Stay with the 'mantra', and pray that God will show you a way through.

2. Treat the temptation as a symptom, but of what? Find out the cause and deal with it, and the temptation will, over time, diminish in intensity. (Use strategies from 1 above while addressing the root cause.)

3. Ask these questions: Who are you? If you follow the voice of this temptation, who do you become? Do you want to be this person? If your answer is 'No', remember this, for it will strengthen your will.

4. Temptations often appear as a way of escaping an unhappy situation. Or perhaps you feel a fake, or perhaps there is an inconsistency between who you are and an aspect of your current life. If so, then act, but following the temptation is rarely the way. There are usually more reasonable and mature ways of dealing with the problem, and these solutions will usually have less negative consequences than will result from following the temptation.

And to finish, a quote for reflection from Ron Rolheiser (about the great benefit in hanging in there):

Almost everything within our culture invites us to avoid tension and to resolve it whenever possible, even at the cost of some more noble instincts. This is true for virtually every aspect of contemporary life, save those areas where we can be fiercely ascetical and sweat blood for purposes of our careers or the health and slimness of our bodies. Waiting in frustration and inconsummation is not our strong point. From minor frustrations, like waiting in a queue at the bank or the bus stop, to more major frustrations with interpersonal tensions and our unresolved sexual needs, we find it difficult to stay inside of unresolved tension. Jacques Maritain once stated that one of the great spiritual tragedies is that so many people of good will would become persons of noble soul if only they would not panic and resolve the painful tensions within their lives too prematurely, but rather stay with them long enough, as one does in a dark night of the soul, until those tensions are transformed and help give birth to what is most noble inside of us – compassion, forgiveness and love. (Ronald Rolheiser)

The Bright Field

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

R.S.Thomas

What is the Meaning of Life?

What is the meaning of life? That was all - a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with the years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark. (Virginia Wolf, To the Lighthouse

)

Megawhat?

A good critique of paganism-in-the-guise-of-Christianity Church.

The Transfiguration

The transfiguration in Mark is a high point of the Gospel. He has just predicted his death (8:31-33; and will do so another two times, 9:30-32; and 10:32-35), commanded a cruciform way of discipleship (8:34-38) and now is transfigured in the company of Elijah and Moses. And what happens? A voice of self-effacement from heaven, the Father (ah, the Trinity again!), says "Listen to him." (9:7) We are being directed back to Jesus' prediction of his death and his teaching about his disciples picking up the cross and following him. Our attention is being diverted from the glory of transfiguration to the gory road of the cross. But the two are connected; the road terminating in transfiguration is the way of the cross. To seek transfiguration apart from the cross is the perennial temptation of us all, but it is not the way of Jesus and his disciples. (See Philippians 3:10-11) Resurrection, transfiguration and glory are the goal of the Christian life, indeed, for the whole of creation, but there is no path to the top of the mountain (see Mk 9:2) apart from the way of Jesus.

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

Listening to God (Kids' Talk)

A kids' talk on prayer as listening to God.

Get someone up to talk about something. Prearrange with them that you will interrupt them continually by telling what they should be saying, or "What about ..." They take the interruptions gracefully, but eventually challenge you to let them speak as this is what you asked them to do. The point to the kids: we think of prayer as talking to God, but it is also listening to God.

Conflict Between Kingdoms: Mk 1:21-28

Let’s go through the story. It’s the Sabbath, so like a good Jew Jesus is off to synagogue.(1:21) We are told he teaches them as one with authority, and not as the scribes.(1:22. Remember, this is Jesus on the scribes ’ turf.)And then a demon-possessed man confronts him.(1:23) Defiance on the part of the demon soon becomes fear.(1:24) Jesus then exorcises the man (1:25-26) and once again those in the synagogue marvel at his authority to teach and heal. (1;27. Note that there is an alternative translation at this point ; “A new teaching! With authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”)

Notice in this story that the content of the teaching of Jesus is omitted. Notice also how the specifics of the exorcism are hardly mentioned, unlike other stories of healing and exorcisms we get in the Gospels. (For example, Mk 9: 14-29) Notice also that we are told not merely that Jesus taught with authority, but that his authoritative teaching was unlike the teaching of the scribes. And the story finishes with another discussion of the authority of Jesus, making the story of the exorcism framed by discussion of Jesus’ authority, before and after.

That’s why this story is not exactly about the content of teaching of Jesus. Nor is it merely a story demonstrating Jesus’ power over the demon, otherwise why frame the exorcism with the contrast between Jesus and the scribes? There is more at work here than a simple healing/exorcism story, or a story just highlighting the authority of Jesus. This is about conflict. This is about the reign of God, and how that reign brings in its wake conflict. A few verses before our reading Jesus begins his ministry proper by proclaiming the nearness of the reign of God (1:14-15), calling the first disciples (1:16-20),and then immediately is in conflict with those opposed to the reign of God. (1:21-27: see also 2:5-12; 2:15-17; 2:23-28: 3:1-6; 3:20-30; etc.)

Can't Hide From God (Kids' Talk)

The Prophet Jonah


Have a game of hide and seek in the church, one child hiding and someone else finding. This is the lead into the idea of hiding from God. Where could we hide from God? Where could we end and God forget us?

Tell story of Jonah, and at each major point project a picture:

God had a task for him, but he didn't want to do it. God wanted him to go to a city and tellthe people to change their bad ways. So

he fled on a boat

but God had other ideas and made a big storm

so the sailors through Jonah overboard! And

just when he thought he was lost, he was swallowed by a dirty great fish, and

just when he thought God had forgotten him,

the fish vomited him out on the shore, right next to the city where Jonah had to go.

So he went up there and told them what God said. Lucky he did because they listened tohim and changed their ways!

Stardust Saves All

The Incarnation tells us that Jesus was more than a teacher; the content of the gift of salvation is not a new teaching alone which can bring enlightenment to those who ponder it, but stardust that brings an eternal reconciliation. The tendency is to in someway split or peel off Jesus from the content of salvation. So he can become more like a prophet or an expression of the universal presence of God inherent in all of us from birth. The great heretics were much more subtle than the modern versions that try to tear asunder what God has united.

A truly astonishing implication of the Incarnation is that human flesh can save the whole cosmos. That is, a human being, living a very human life like you and I, can redeem everything and unite all with God. Can you feel your humanity reaching for, desiring salvation? Does it feel like human flesh made from stardust, just like your flesh, can be the point of salvation for all creation?

Jonah, Jesus and the Freedom of God

The character of Jonah in the Bible embodies the self-mockery and humility that is central to the Jewish-Christian tradition. Jonah, a prophet who flees from God's commission; who then proclaims the message of destruction to the Ninevehites in a less than exuberant manner; and then, when the Ninevehites repent, and God forgives them, Jonah is so fed up that he wants to die! So Jonah goes out of the city to watch what will happen to the city. God makes a nice shady plant to grow up over him to shade him, but then a worm destroys the plant, and a hot east wind arises, such that Jonah once again wishes to die. And then comes the punchline: Jonah is angry about the demise of the shady plant, a plant for which he did not labour or form. And yet, when God is merciful to the inhabitants of Nineveh and does not destroy them, Jonah is angry. Are not the inhabitants of Nineveh worthy of God's mercy? If Jonah wishes the plant not to die, for which he contributed nothing toward, cannot God spare hundreds of thousands of lives of which all are God's creation?

The answer implied is, "Yes, of course." God is free to be merciful. Many think that Jonah was written after the exile, when the remnant returned from exile out of Babylon. This was a time of a hardening, exclusive and separatist relationship betw Israel and all other people. Jonah reminds the reader that God is not the preserve of a single people, but the God of all, able to show mery even to those not deserving of it. (Nineveh was, after all, th capital of Assyria historically, and it was the Assyrians that destroyed and exiled the northern kingdom in the eighth century BC. For prophecy against Nineveh for its crimes, see Nahum, and Zeph 2:13)

Jesus is the fulfilment of the little parable of Jonah. God is free to bring mercy as God so chooses. Jesus is the active source of salvation for all people. It is too easy to become miserly on behalf of God and make Jesus the point of salvation for just the few chosen ones. Just like Jonah, we might struggle to reconcile justice with mercy, but in Jesus this reconciliation occurs without in any way restricting the freedom of God to bring mercy to the undeserving. Jesus is not just the latest or final way for good, faithful people to show that God should favour them; Jesus is the way in which God will save all people. (Rom 5:15-19) Jesus warns people about the possibility of judgment, and severe judgment at that (the sign of Jonah in Lk 11:29-32 is the repentance and salvation of those people no one expected God to be merciful toward in contrast to the hard hearted listeners of Jesus) but continues to seek out those who might otherwise be lost.

Again, however, let us be careful not to b miserly, albeit oh so subtlely. Many will say that those who do not respond to Jesus, after plenty of opportuity and warning, have condemned themselves. And there is good biblical warrant for this view. But again, it becomes miserly. What if God wishes to save even those whose hearts are so hardened that they do not respond? That is surely what the cross, descent into hell and resurrection is about: God going even to the place of godforsakenness and judgment (hell) to bring the reconciling love of God to those who (according to any reasonable prescription of justice) messed up their salvation.

Out task as a church is not to judge who is in or out, but to proclaim and live the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. This is so even when we wonder if the limits of mercy have been reached. Remember, God is not bound by such restrictions in Jesus Christ.

[The picture above is from the catacombs, and is of Jonah being cast out of the boat.]

From Cephas to Peter (Kids' Talk)

A kids' talk on Jesus changing the name of Cephas to Peter. Applicable for John 1 or Matthew 16.

[Outside Holy Innocents we have a huge rock on which the plaque commemorating the opening of the church is placed.]


Lots of different names in the world; What does your name mean? ...

Jesus changed Cephas' name to Peter; I wonder why?

It means rock.[Go outside to the rock.]

Hey, look at this rock. Tell me about it ... [big, hard, solid, stand on it]

Peter, one of the first disciples, Jesus said would be like a rock for the rest of us; solid, trustworthy ...

Further Notes on John 1:51

John Painter (The Quest for the Messiah, pp. 182-188) presents a persuasive argument for the later addition of John 1:51 to the unit that begins at 1:19 and ends with 2:11. The whole unit is about the quest for the messiah, and its fulfilment. The unit begins with the interrogation of John the Baptist by those sent from Jerusalem. They ask him, 'Are you the Christ?' (John is not "I AM"; compare 1:20, 21 with, for example, 8:28, 58) The next day (1:29; see also 1:43; 2:1 binding this whole unit together) John directs two of his disciples to Jesus, and they stay with him. (1:35-39) Andrew then brings his brother Cephas to Jesus, who renames him Peter. (1:40-42 compare Matt 16:18) Finally, we have Jesus' interaction with Nathaniel (1:43-51), where Jesus promises Nathaniel that he will see greater things than these. (1:50) It is possible that, originally, the narrative continued into John 2 (minus 1:51), with the story of the water into wine. (Jn 2:1-11) This miracle story culminates at 2:11, where the disciples of Jesus see this his first sign, and his glory, and they believed in him. At a later stage (so the persuasive argument goes) 1:51 was inserted, shifting the 'greater things than these' (1:51) from the miracle itself to the Son of Man's glorification and exaltation in the cross and resurrection. The signs in themselves are not the end point of faith. (See 6:30-34)

William Temple, in his Readings in St John's Gospel (First Series: Chapters I-XII), adds a different interpretation to Nathaniel's coming to faith. When Jesus says, "Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?" (1:50), the answer is 'No'. Jesus understands that Nathaniel believes because he wrestled with the origin of Jesus under the fig tree. (1:46). This is why Jesus says Nathaniel is a true Israelite without guile. Nathaniel has wrestled with God just as Jacob/Israel did before him.(Genesis 32:24-29) However, Jesus senses that Nathaniel does not have the deceptive character of Jacob. To emphasise this last point, Temple's translation of 1:47 is, "... truly an Israelite in whom there is no Jacob!" But, despite this twist in interpretation (again persuasive), Temple still thinks that Nathaniel's faith is, according to John, based on an inadequate foundation. It is a better one than faith in a miracle worker, but still not the faith of mature discipleship.

Angels Ascending and Descending (Jn 1:51)

 The story of the call of Nathaniel is to be understood as the fulfilment of his quest for the messiah. (Jn 1:43-51) When Philip announces to Nathaniel that he has found the messiah (1:45) Nathaniel's answer assumes that he too is looking for the messiah; his surprise is directed at Jesus' origin. 'Can anything good come out of Galilee?" he remarks.(1:46) Nathaniel meets Jesus, and on the basis of an apparent miraculous 'inner sight' comes to believe in Jesus. (1:49) What are we to make of Nathaniel's confession of faith? (1:49) It would seem to be the result of Jesus' ability to 'see' Nathaniel while he, Jesus, was not physically present. (1:48) But Jesus looks forward to a more desirable foundation. ("Do you believe because I have told you ... You will see greater things than these." 1:50) Nathaniel's inadequate foundation for faith will be paralleled in the story of doubting Thomas. Thomas' confession is right ("My Lord and my God!"), but Jesus contrasts Thomas' need for proof/sight with those who will come to believe without seeing. (Jn 20:29) Perhaps the 'greater things' promised to Nathaniel come in Jn 2:1-11. The disciples witness Jesus' first sign/miracle and believe. (2:11) In John's Gospel these signs are tied up with the replacement of religious forms by Jesus himself. So, in the miracle of the water into wine, the miracle signals the replacement of the old Jewish rites of purification with the new wine of Jesus. (Another example of this replacement is to be found in Jn 4:21-26, where Jesus replaces the Jerusalem temple as the 'place' of worship.) However, it is perhaps better to see 1:51 as the fulfilment of the promise of Jesus to Nathaniel, rather than 2;11. What did Jesus mean when he spoke of "angels ascending and descending"? (Jn 1:51) The Old Testament background is the key to Jn 1:51. In Genesis 28:10-22 Jacob (renamed Israel in Gen 32:28) has a dream of a ladder between earth and heaven where the angels ascend and descend, and God stands beside Jacob and confirms the promises made to Abraham, and says that God will be with Jacob. Upon waking up Jacob says:

"How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."(Gen 28:17)

And Jacob names the place Bethel, meaning 'the House of God'. (Bethel would become one of the pre-eminent worship shrines for Israel prior to the ascendancy of the temple at Jerusalem.) Jesus, according to John's Gospel, is now the house of God and gate of heaven. He is the 'place' of true worship. There is now no need for a dream or a ladder, or a physical temple (compare with Jn 2:18-22) for the point of meeting between heaven and earth is now Jesus of Nazareth. This is consistent with the Gospel of John as a whole. In Jn 1:14 we are told that "the Word became flesh and dwelt (literally 'pitched a tent') among us", recalling the tabernacle/tent of the wilderness journey. Jesus is now the tent of meeting. And in Jn 4 Jesus is the replacement of the temple itself. (Jn 4:21-26) But this gate between heaven and earth is most especially seen (and accomplished) on the cross and in the resurrection. It is the cross and the resurrection which are the 'greter things' Jesus promised Nathaniel. All the other signs of the Gospel (like the water into wine) are only partial fulfilments, and therefore, an inadequate basis of faith. It is the crucified-risen Christ who is the true foundation (and object) of faith. And the pinnacle of that faith is to believe without seeing. (Jn 20:29)

The Baptism of Jesus (Kids' Talk)

For the baptism of Jesus I went through the story and at each stage had a projected picture or prop.

1. John the Baptist: camel and locust (picture and live locust respectively)
2. He said get ready for God (picture of the crucifixion)
3. People came out and said ... (I asked the kids what people might be saying about John, and while I did this we had a picture of the congregation on the screen.)
4. He said, 'Be baptised' (picture of the river Jordan)
5. Jesus came and was baptised (picture of baptism with dove)
6. and he heard the voice of God (asked the kids what God might have said to Jesus)

The most important thing about the story of Jesus, to hear in all sorts of ways, "You are my beloved, in whom I am well pleased."

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.