The Living Word, Way, Love, Light ---diverse images

 

"Trust" in Japanese: person (red dot) stands by word (blue)

When reading the Bible with others in a small group, certain interpretations are offered and fine-tuned in dialog as each person brings insights, life experience, outside readings and other sources to the discussion. Gradually a fresh understanding comes into view, sometimes unexpectedly. English language versions of the original Greek (New Testament) and Hebrew (Old/first Testament) carry some resonance of modern times by choice of word or way of phrasing the meaning on the page. Likewise, other languages do something similar, not only rooted in a culture and a landscape, but also reflecting the moment in history (compare King James to the Good News Bible). This role of language in both bringing God's word closer, but paradoxically separating us from the full and long-lasting meaning is a topic that came up today in the Men's Bible Study on Zoom (and in person, for those at the church this morning).

On the one hand the Gospel, including God's only begotten son as a Living Word, is how humans learn new things and interrelate to one another. Just pointing out the limitations of spoken and written words, and the strong urge to frame logical propositions in linear chains, does not mean that non-verbal forms of knowing God (loving God) and getting to know one's Neighbor (love they neighbor; love they self, equally) are discounted. It seems natural and normal and transparent to privilege the verbal medium, especially when comparing it to alternatives like musical expression, immersion in the glory of the natural world, and visual art forms. From the printed page and spoken teaching/preaching we learn how to be God's people, the hands and feet of the Lord on earth, functioning as witnesses and agents authorized to enact God's love. And yet, on the other hand, words have limitations and can be pulled up from their context or be seized in ways that are unloving so as to be used to puff up one's pride or diminish another's worth. Spiritual babes hunger for clear lines of demarcation and simple formulas to follow. But with wider and deeper experience and knowing Jesus' life and examples and teachings, that same person may grow and require less of the "spiritual milk" and more of the spiritual meat so that what may have seemed at first contradictory, paradoxical, or baffling now can be seen without any fear or sense of threat. Differing ways and interpretations, so long as they hold to the core understandings that unite seekers of all kinds, can now be viewed for their value on their own terms, not be discarded for failing to fit into one's own container. 

Mere mortals may try (and should try) to encompass God's meanings and God's will. But clever words or hearts hardened by fixating on one narrow interpretation will never understand all of the Truth. Only humility, vigilance, and persistence will take a person closer to the goal, even when nobody can fully know God in a totalizing and infinite way. Words are what we rely on, but these same words can lead to delusion or instead to clarity. Heavy handed versus having a light touch when wrestling with God's meaning can lead to different outcomes. Perhaps the truth, when it comes to the limits of words, is to be found when the words are treated like temporary vehicles to a larger and much bigger meaning; knowing the words is only part of the way into God's meanings. By memorizing a passage or by rereading a text or by vigorously wrestling with it in the company of others those words sometimes begin to blur and instead there is sometimes a sense of reading "between the lines" (what is not articulated; what is conspicuously absent) and word-roots, Hebrew imagery or Greek choice of words may intersperse with the passage being scrutinized. The result is the words on the page begin to melt and mingle with related meanings and instances from elsewhere in the Bible and in outside sources, too. As such the Word turns into a liquid; something alive, not frozen solid.

Great care, scholarly effort, publishing history has gone into the Bible and many translations to distribute copies around the world's many languages and locations. That is surely important. But while it is necessary, it is not sufficient. The Word of God lives in people's hearts, not in the ink marks on dead trees pulped and bleached for paper. And without people to wrestle with those words according to the lives they live, then the Word is not being lived or being enlivened. Only when the Word meets readers and listeners and those who reflect on it will something valuable arise. Hence, God DOES need people in his universe, not just as hands and feet to carry out teachings, obedience, and be the "show and tell" of Christianity. There is a kind of mutual dependence: People need God, but also God needs flesh and blood, fallible mortals to be the ones who (voluntarily) accept the grace being offered when sin was paid for by Jesus' sacrifice. And His Word (the one between the covers of the bound edition of the Bible) only has reality and consequence when humans open the covers and wrestle with it: Word + engagement = living interpretation rooted in a time and place and language.

Outsider religious way versus seat of power

 The roots of the Jesus Movement to fulfill the teachings of YHWH center on houses of worshipers meeting secretly, since neither the Establishment of Jewish leaders, nor by extension the Roman occupiers wanted to see something that did not conform to peaceful social order and status quo. Later, the early church spread along the trade and transportation routes around the Mediterranean basin and attracted not only Jews far from Jerusalem's sway, but other God-fearers, as well as pagans - citizens of Rome, its slaves, and those from inside and outside the Empire.

The status of outlaw sect of Judaism changed overnight with the declaration by Constantine at the beginning of the 4th century C.E. that Christianity would be the State Religion of the Empire and that he would be its champion in the wide world (the Edict of Milan in 313, which declared tolerance for Christianity in the Roman Empire). His pledge to do this if YHWH would allow military victory thus was fulfilled after defeating the attackers at the battle of Milvian Bridge.

From now on the followers of The Way could own property, govern themselves openly, establish schools of learning and all the things that make a group of people an organization and perpetuate it until at last becoming a self-sustaining institution. Hierarchies grew, buildings were endowed, traditions of knowledge expanded, and doctrinal hairs were split ever more finely. With power comes corruption. Reforms came and sometimes gained traction. Sects splintered and power in the World grew bigger and bigger.

Importantly, Jesus answered Pilate by saying "my kingdom is not of this world." And a good deal of the meaning behind the phrase of the Lord's Prayer, "...Thy will be done; on Earth as in Heaven," is about one's own heart. That is, the Kingdom is not something standing on the surface of the planet, but instead dwells within each practitioner's own heart: the person's attitudes, habits of talking, strength of relationships, daily exercise of care for others, expressions of humility and also unshakeable faith, and so on. Therefore, the watershed begun with Constantine the Great to bring Christ-followers into the light of the world to freely worship and evangelize, is a mixed blessing and curse. The blessing is the reduction in persecution. The curse is the accumulating power, generation by generation, that imposes temptation and corruption.

Given the choice of fringe religion and mainstream institution, perhaps most would opt for today's model. But maybe there is a third way, neither institutionalized rigidity nor small-time desperation. Perhaps the sweetest form of The Way is to be in the World but not of the World; blessed by the material well-being and physical abundance that may be put to good use, but not redirected from stewardship of God's creation and distracted by stewardship of "stuff" bought or bequeathed from the faithful.

The question remains: can it still be Christianity when there is wealth and power and prominence involved?

Us versus Them restated as "we together"

Early August 2020 the guest on the weekly radio show, "On Being," was the poet Marilyn Nelson, in a rebroadcast of the original 2017 conversation with host Krista Tippett. She compares God seekers who expect to find God and God-at-work somewhere outside themselves ("magic mentality") to the people who see God at work in all places and times, including in their own selves ("alliance mentality").

Image search result for 'Marilyn Nelson poet' (8/2020)

Quoting the interview (full text link appended, below), she says:

I think people who have a “magic mentality” believe that God is something out there that we have to find to connect with and people who have an “alliance mentality” know that God is inside of us and in our connections with each other and with the world, that God exists within and between, not exterior to us, but within us and between us. I think that’s what he was trying to say... There is no separation. We are a part of God. That’s — isn’t that the ecstatic experience? We recognize that. And some people know that just naturally. Other people have to learn it. [emphasis added]

Other authors and thinkers from the Stewards of Earth tradition in Abrahamic religions have said something similar with regard to perceptions in public about "nature" versus society, or  "the natural world" ---as if the definition of "nature" consists of everything apart from human lives. Whereas industrialized, Western societies have cultivated an imaginary separation of human (cultural and technologically mediated) environment from all of the land and waters that people require to live, other societies have viewed the human/non-human boundary as much blurrier and movable. One instance of the "nature" concept being cut-off from human life comes from the translation into Japanese from the English concept of "nature." There was no exact pre-existing Japanese word, so a new one was coined, ShiZen (the kanji character 'shi' means "of itself" and 'zen' means something like "wild vitality").

In the particular phrase, above, "We are a part of God," there is a poetic double-meaning, or perhaps it is best described as ironic reflection. One meaning is "a part" or one of many pieces that all together contributes to the whole. Another meaning, this time a clever pun, is "apart" or separated from the rest. Taking the spoken word and transcribing it as "We are a part of God" means that we cannot be separated from God since we are integral to what and who and why God is. But taking the spoken word and transcribing it as "We are apart of God" means that we stand outside of God's ways and spend our waking hours seeking a way back in.

[from https://onbeing.org/programs/marilyn-nelson-communal-pondering-in-a-noisy-world/#transcript ]

Christians for risk: in love, in faith, in relationships

leaping fish heads up the ladder, unknowing what follows this next step - 49503 Z.I.P. code

The the right of center this freeze-frame taken from fall equinox at the Grand Rapids, Michigan fish ladder shows a coho salmon heading upstream during the annual spawning season. It makes a good illustration of the "theme music" for Christianity: risk, pressing beyond what is familiar and possibly free of conflict or uncertainties. The quotation about the duty of newspapers has also been adopted by leaders of church communities, as well, "To comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable" (attributed to Finley Peter Dunne, 1902). But what does it mean to own this shaky side of Jesus-following?

strangers and friends sometimes swap places - but Jesus was friend to all

Faith is one of the pillars for spiritual growth, along with Hope and Love (charity; karitas). What all these have in common is the opportunity, or perhaps requirement, to step beyond the things that one is certain about, to take chances in being disappointed, injured, or worse. Stated inversely, without some risk to yourself and your beliefs can the faith, or hope, or love be true and authentic. By extension of the life told of the rabbi from Nazareth, if his divinity was a secret super-power and nothing was ever risked in the Temptation by Satan, or in the many public ministries, then can we truly say he was one of us mortals? Loving truly involves the risk of being hurt. Exercising faith truly involves the risk of being hurt or confused or daunted. Hoping truly involves the risk of your heart being broken. In this same spirit of chancing failure (in human eyes; not God's eyes, since forever and all ways you are loved), there is a delicate touch required when growing spiritually: not gripping too hard on the parts of The Way that you know best, but being willing to let go or let slip those things that first seemed to be absolute, tidy, streamlined verities. For as soon as you congratulated yourself for having things figured out, comprehending the wholeness of a teaching or commandment, that is the time that you have boxed yourself in. Understanding something infinite is too big for one person's experience to encompass. So the best way to develop spiritually is to seize upon bigger and better comprehension, but all the while remain vigilant and seeking after more and better ways to engage with Creation and the Creator.