Often it's illuminating to look for the original meaning of a religious phrase. Often you find that it's been distorted beyond recognition--but then you also find that the new meanings it's taken on have an illuminating power of their own.
So. The "Son of God" once meant simply the "King of Israel," period. Like "the Son of Heaven" was ruler of China.
To call someone a "son of" anything can merely mean that he somehow resembles whatever he is "son of." Like the "Sons of Thunder." But there's also that metaphorical family relationship.
Jesus led us to understand ourselves as "God's children." Outside of John, he doesn't go around sounding like: "I'm the Son of God and you're not." He tells us to look on God as a good father to us, to trust God, depend on God, love and obey God, not as a ruler or a boss but as one truly akin to us.
Ursula Le Guin in _The Lathe of Heaven_ quotes from Chuange Tse XXIII:
"Those whom heaven helps we call the sons of heaven. They do not learn it by learning. They do not work it by working. They do not reason it by using reason..."
The good news for us is that we are all God's children in this sense.
But if we don't believe this... then we don't believe it.
It's hard to help someone who's too busy struggling, dispairing, or frantically maintaining denial of imagined horrors. And for the "wicked," mercy can look a lot like wrath.
{A friend of mine, counselling men whom courts had referred in cases of wife-beating, found many of them utterly unrepentant, sure that what they'd done was entirely right and proper. All he could do for some was to pray. At the moment he was praying for one particularly bad example, the man was on his way to his wife's with every intention of killing her. The police caught him on the way, and he ended up spending a long time in jail, time enough to think things over and sort them out differently. Our jails and prisons are a scandal, an accustomed atrocity, institutions that should be abolished. But the effect, this time, was good.}
Theological types have gotten fond of calling God "wholly other." This is valid in the sense of "wholly unlike our habitual selves"--even when our habits are good ones. But we can understand God better as "wholly akin." Wholly akin to what is deepest in us, most alive, most creative and unexpected.
November 23, 2006
November 22, 2006
gospel according to mark 1:14-20
Jesus begins to preach the gospel, and to call men to follow him
1:14-15 - It was after John's arrest that Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the Gospel of God, saying, "The time has come at last - the kingdom of God has arrived. You must change your hearts and minds and believe the good news."
1:16-17 - As he walked along the shore of the Lake of Galilee, he saw two fishermen, Simon and his brother Andrew, casting their nets into the water. "Come and follow me, and I will teach you to catch men!" he cried.
1:18 - At once they dropped their nets, and followed him.
1:19-20 - Then he went a little further along the shore and saw James the son of Zebedee, aboard a boat with his brother John, overhauling their nets. At once he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and went off after him.
November 21, 2006
temptations/david
Mark's tradition doesn't specify the temptations. We just don't know. The traditions that do specify can for the present purpose be taken to be an alternate Christology.Mark presents Jesus encountering the Holy Spirit in an ecstatic experience of the heavens being sundered and a voice claiming you are my dearly-beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!
This is a secret event. Jesus hears and sees. No one else does. This troubles the author of John's gospel who transfers the vision to the Baptist so an outside source can witness to Jesus' sonship to Heaven.
For Mark the immediate effect of the immediate result of the descent of the Holy spirit, the sundering of the heavens, the adoption of Jesus by God -- is for the Holy Spirit to drive Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by the satan.
The Holy Spirit does this. And during this time no one was with him but wild animals, and only the angels were there to care for him.
Such is the inward life of the Christ. Sent into harm's way by the Holy Spirit. To be tested by the Evil One. This is what it means to be a son of God. This is what it means to be led by the spirit.
November 20, 2006
What's Jesus Doing In the Wilderness?
1:12-13 Then the Spirit sent him out at once into the desert, and there he remained for forty days while Satan tempted him. During this time no one was with him but wild animals, and only the angels were there to care for him."
"Forty days," of course, is one of those phrases that sounds more specific than it is. "Somewhere between a couple weeks and a couple months," then. But this is more or less parallel to forty years of Exodus; Jesus has just been given title to the Promised Land, but he needs to spend some time wandering in the wilderness on the way. Since the Jews under Moses got uppity, kvetched and came close to mutiny, Jesus gets tempted by Satan.
Since Jesus has just been awarded a potential death sentence, he's got very practical reasons for leaving civilization awhile. We don't know how conspicuous his anointing was. There's the example in 2 Kings 9: "Then Elisha the prophet called one of the sons of the prophets and said to him: 'Gird up your loins, and take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Tamoth-gilead. And when you arrive, look there for Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi, and go in and bid him rise from among his fellows, and lead him to an inner chamber. Then take the flask of oil, and pour it on his head, and say: "Thus says the Lord, I anoint you king over Israel." Then open the door and flee; do not tarry.' " This happens; Jehu then dashes out to massacre the former king and his family and all available supporters. Although Jehu's situation and response were quite different, Jesus too could have been anointed secretly, even in private.
There is no specific list of temptations in this (probably) first gospel. Perhaps Jesus recounted the experience in the course of his ethical teachings, to be eventually incorporated into "Q", and hence into Matthew and Luke. Since he is not shown explicitly fasting here, but like Moses depending on God for his sustenance, this would fit with what he says in Matthew, to not be concerned about what we'll have to eat, drink, or wear, and how.
Perhaps not. There are plenty of literary and theological explications, of why Satan would choose these particular temptations; we can't assume however that they are any more authentic than the appropriate speeches that historians customarily composed for prominent figures. Napoleon's General Cambrone was asked to surrender at Waterloo, for example, and was quoted as saying, "The Old Guard dies but never surrenders," while according to Hemingway he answered simply, "Merde!" (Known at "le mot de Cambrone" among polite Frenchmen of Hemingway's day.)
John Yoder in _The Politics of Jesus_ said: "All the options laid before Jesus by the tempter are ways of being king." But Yoder was assuming that Jesus shared in God's omnipotence, and could feed multitudes as often as and whenever he chose. Becoming a wholesale dispensor of manna would have brought Jesus a following, but not one of much use against Roman soldiers. It would put him into an awkward intellectual position: preaching "Food, drink, and clothing are of little importance," to an audience hanging around waiting to be fed. To a modern Christian, it suggests some stereotypical secular charity, meeting people's physical needs while offering nothing whatsoever for their presumed spiritual hungers. It makes a nice religious-sounding criticism of the so-called "Welfare State" ideal (which was certainly more Christian than the current system of malign neglect.) Mainly, it does not seem to have been what God ordered.
The other two alternatives seem like opposites. One would have involved a foolhardy form of "trust," going immediately to the Temple in Jerusalem to claim his kingship directly ("cast himself down from the top"), trusting God to save him from the consequences. But this was not what Jesus was led to do. That would have been acting on the idea of "Trust in God"--but without consulting God about it, which would have constituted "testing God" rather than acknowledging God as a living reality with ideas of his own.
The other would have been to accept Satan's help. This could mean any of several things.
One, to "work within the system" by seeking Roman approval. Could the Romans have accepted a new client king? Probably yes; the Herodians were not Jewish, which made their rule illegitimate in many people's eyes. The trouble was, there was an inherent conflict between Roman interests and those of the local population. And the Roman commercial economy was incompatible with the demands of the Torah. So "working with" both God and Caesar was out of the question.
Two, to use "Satan's methods." It may not technically violate the Golden Rule for warriors to kill each another, both sides willing to fight--but it is not love by any plausible definition. God's rule allows for war, even uses war, but can't be based on war. Previous rulers of Israel had swords and soldiers; David had been "a man of blood," an effective one at that. But while David would ask the Lord, "Should I go up?" to a fight, his successors would count the swords on either side and make their own decisions. Dependence on military force leads inexorably towards worship of military force.
Three, then, would be any effort to rule by "one's own power"--not just by military calculation, but by putting faith in any use of personal cunning or wisdom (of which Jesus had an abundance!)
Jesus could not rule by a heedless "faith" in God, nor by faith in his personal powers, nor by any "balance" between the two. He would need to use all the powers he'd been given and to also depend utterly upon God; only God could make this either possible or worthwhile.
"Forty days," of course, is one of those phrases that sounds more specific than it is. "Somewhere between a couple weeks and a couple months," then. But this is more or less parallel to forty years of Exodus; Jesus has just been given title to the Promised Land, but he needs to spend some time wandering in the wilderness on the way. Since the Jews under Moses got uppity, kvetched and came close to mutiny, Jesus gets tempted by Satan.
Since Jesus has just been awarded a potential death sentence, he's got very practical reasons for leaving civilization awhile. We don't know how conspicuous his anointing was. There's the example in 2 Kings 9: "Then Elisha the prophet called one of the sons of the prophets and said to him: 'Gird up your loins, and take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Tamoth-gilead. And when you arrive, look there for Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi, and go in and bid him rise from among his fellows, and lead him to an inner chamber. Then take the flask of oil, and pour it on his head, and say: "Thus says the Lord, I anoint you king over Israel." Then open the door and flee; do not tarry.' " This happens; Jehu then dashes out to massacre the former king and his family and all available supporters. Although Jehu's situation and response were quite different, Jesus too could have been anointed secretly, even in private.
There is no specific list of temptations in this (probably) first gospel. Perhaps Jesus recounted the experience in the course of his ethical teachings, to be eventually incorporated into "Q", and hence into Matthew and Luke. Since he is not shown explicitly fasting here, but like Moses depending on God for his sustenance, this would fit with what he says in Matthew, to not be concerned about what we'll have to eat, drink, or wear, and how.
Perhaps not. There are plenty of literary and theological explications, of why Satan would choose these particular temptations; we can't assume however that they are any more authentic than the appropriate speeches that historians customarily composed for prominent figures. Napoleon's General Cambrone was asked to surrender at Waterloo, for example, and was quoted as saying, "The Old Guard dies but never surrenders," while according to Hemingway he answered simply, "Merde!" (Known at "le mot de Cambrone" among polite Frenchmen of Hemingway's day.)
John Yoder in _The Politics of Jesus_ said: "All the options laid before Jesus by the tempter are ways of being king." But Yoder was assuming that Jesus shared in God's omnipotence, and could feed multitudes as often as and whenever he chose. Becoming a wholesale dispensor of manna would have brought Jesus a following, but not one of much use against Roman soldiers. It would put him into an awkward intellectual position: preaching "Food, drink, and clothing are of little importance," to an audience hanging around waiting to be fed. To a modern Christian, it suggests some stereotypical secular charity, meeting people's physical needs while offering nothing whatsoever for their presumed spiritual hungers. It makes a nice religious-sounding criticism of the so-called "Welfare State" ideal (which was certainly more Christian than the current system of malign neglect.) Mainly, it does not seem to have been what God ordered.
The other two alternatives seem like opposites. One would have involved a foolhardy form of "trust," going immediately to the Temple in Jerusalem to claim his kingship directly ("cast himself down from the top"), trusting God to save him from the consequences. But this was not what Jesus was led to do. That would have been acting on the idea of "Trust in God"--but without consulting God about it, which would have constituted "testing God" rather than acknowledging God as a living reality with ideas of his own.
The other would have been to accept Satan's help. This could mean any of several things.
One, to "work within the system" by seeking Roman approval. Could the Romans have accepted a new client king? Probably yes; the Herodians were not Jewish, which made their rule illegitimate in many people's eyes. The trouble was, there was an inherent conflict between Roman interests and those of the local population. And the Roman commercial economy was incompatible with the demands of the Torah. So "working with" both God and Caesar was out of the question.
Two, to use "Satan's methods." It may not technically violate the Golden Rule for warriors to kill each another, both sides willing to fight--but it is not love by any plausible definition. God's rule allows for war, even uses war, but can't be based on war. Previous rulers of Israel had swords and soldiers; David had been "a man of blood," an effective one at that. But while David would ask the Lord, "Should I go up?" to a fight, his successors would count the swords on either side and make their own decisions. Dependence on military force leads inexorably towards worship of military force.
Three, then, would be any effort to rule by "one's own power"--not just by military calculation, but by putting faith in any use of personal cunning or wisdom (of which Jesus had an abundance!)
Jesus could not rule by a heedless "faith" in God, nor by faith in his personal powers, nor by any "balance" between the two. He would need to use all the powers he'd been given and to also depend utterly upon God; only God could make this either possible or worthwhile.
November 18, 2006
Mark 1:12-13
N THE WILDERNESS
CHRIST of His gentleness
Thirsting and hungering
Walked in the wilderness;
Soft words of grace He spoke
Unto lost desert-folk
That listened wondering.
He heard the bitterns call
From the ruined palace-wall,
Answered them brotherly.
He held communion
With the she-pelican
Of lonely piety.
Basilisk, cockatrice,
Flocked to his homilies,
With mail of dread device,
With monstrous barbed slings,
With eager dragon-eyes;
Great rats on leather wings,
And poor blind broken things,
Foul in their miseries.
And ever with Him went,
Of all His wanderings
Comrade, with ragged coat,
Gaunt ribs--poor innocent--
Bleeding foot, burning throat,
The guileless old scape-goat;
For forty nights and days
Followed in Jesus' ways,
Sure guard behing Him kept,
Tears like a lover wept.
- Robert Graves
CHRIST of His gentleness
Thirsting and hungering
Walked in the wilderness;
Soft words of grace He spoke
Unto lost desert-folk
That listened wondering.
He heard the bitterns call
From the ruined palace-wall,
Answered them brotherly.
He held communion
With the she-pelican
Of lonely piety.
Basilisk, cockatrice,
Flocked to his homilies,
With mail of dread device,
With monstrous barbed slings,
With eager dragon-eyes;
Great rats on leather wings,
And poor blind broken things,
Foul in their miseries.
And ever with Him went,
Of all His wanderings
Comrade, with ragged coat,
Gaunt ribs--poor innocent--
Bleeding foot, burning throat,
The guileless old scape-goat;
For forty nights and days
Followed in Jesus' ways,
Sure guard behing Him kept,
Tears like a lover wept.
- Robert Graves
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