Scary Thoughts

Our first reading today consists of two passages that, in keeping with Halloween, might fall under the category of “scary thoughts.” At least that is how some evangelists try to use them. There is a tradition among fundamentalists Christians to attempt to convert others using small pamphlets known as “tracts.” These tracts often contain scary questions such as: “If you died tonight, do you know where your soul will go?”

To add a sense of authority to their message these tracts usually contain a couple of scripture passages. Two popular ones are ones I will read today.

Now, at the outset, lest there be any confusion, I do not intend to put down the writers or users of these tracts, and I certainly don’t intend to make fun of them. I understand them to be quite earnest, if a bit desperate in their faith. I would no more make fun of someone reaching for spiritual certainty and help than I would make fun of a dying family member whose last words seem theologically unsound. There is a time for discussing theology and a time for comfort.

But, in reading the scriptures as we do every week, as a Christian who looks at these matters in a different light, I do want to reclaim these Bible passage from the way that they are being used in these tracts. Theirs is not the final word on the subject.

The first passage is John 11:25-26

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and I am the life. If a man has faith in me, even though he die, he shall come to life; and no one who is alive and has faith shall ever die.”

The second passage comes from 1 Corinthians 15:42-44

So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown in the earth as a perishable thing is raised imperishable. Sown in humiliation, it is raised in glory; sown in weakness, it is raised in power; sown as an animal body, it is raised as a spiritual body.

Notice the scary theme: Death. The John passage is even more scary in that it implies conditional resurrection. That is, one will be resurrected if one has faith in Jesus. Faith is a tricky thing. I can decide walk down this aisle and then immediately walk down the aisle, but I can’t decide to have faith and then just simply have faith.

This creates an unsettling feeling in many who hear these passages. I am reminded of the poster on Fox Mulder’s wall in the TV show the X-Files. The poster stated: “I want to believe.” Well, I may want to believe, but wanting isn’t enough. To satisfy the criteria of the John passage, I actually have to believe. And if I waver, then I get scared. Or I am sure that many people are scared at such loss of faith.

The remedy for many is more certainty and less doubt. The more one witnesses about one’s faith, the more he or she convinces themselves that they are indeed certain. And the more certain, the less scary are thoughts of death.

But certainty comes at a high price. If you are looking for your keys, you stop looking as soon as you find them. This method may work for keys, but does it also work for more nuanced and complex things like Biblical interpretation and an understanding of the body, soul, and death?

You stop looking for your keys, because you are sure you found them, but just because you are given a simple and comforting answer about death and your soul, does that justify that you stop looking further. Does your spiritual growth stop with the first answer?

I have heard testimony of faith that, to me, is just too flat, and superficial to believe, and yet I believe that the people who present this testimony truly believe it. It goes something like this: I was down and out (drugs, prison, divorce, teenage angst) and then a friend offered me a prayer and said that Jesus was the answer and I was saved.

Now, I should repeat, I do not wish to make fun of such stories, even though they seem all too simple and lacking in reflection. To me they read like I was hungry and sitting in the parlor. A friend came up to me, extended a cookie and said, “cookie?” and I was satisfied.

Now, there is clearly more emotional content to the acceptance of salvation than there is the acceptance of a cookie. But I am not sure there is any more cognitive component. And that, to me, is a scary thought.

We learn some math in kindergarten and 1^st grade, a first grader might even be certain that 3+3=6, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t more to learn.  Indeed, it is a little too early to be certain and to “stop looking” to get back to the key analogy.

Just as a final caution, 3+3 isn’t necessarily 6. It is in the base 10 number system that we learn first, but 3+3=1 in base 5. 3+3=2 in base 4. To clarify this analogy, let me suggest a system of modular arithmetic that you are all familiar with: the analog clock. What is 7 hours more than 8pm? It is not 15pm. It is 2am. Here is a case in which 7+8=2.

My point is that math is more complex than our initial instruction would imply. I think that faith is too. To me, the scary thought isn’t “what will happen to my soul if I die tonight?” The real scary thought is, “What will happen to my spiritual growth if I rest on a comfortable certainty and stop seeking.” To repeat: The real scary question is, “What will happen to my spiritual growth if I rest on a comfortable certainty and stop seeking.” 

Isaac's Initiation

Today is Children’s Sabbath and so we have a father-son story: that of Abraham and Isaac.

I think that most of you know the story:

• Abraham prays for a son. 
• He finally gets a son (Isaac). 
• God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. 
• Then at the last second, God spares Isaac.

It is a bit of a difficult story to hear. It is brief, yet full of possibilities. I don’t suppose to tell you definitively how you should interpret the story, but I will offer you a way out: a way to hear the story and not hate Abraham.

When we hear the story of Abraham and Isaac we often pause to ask, “What was Abraham thinking?” Was he insane? What kind of religious fanatic would even consider killing his own son, let alone making preparations to do so?

But, since our focus is on children today, I propose to ask another question: What was Isaac feeling?

Fear, I am sure as he lay bound and Abraham raised the knife for the offering, but what beyond that: disillusionment?  Contrast this feeling of disillusionment with how Isaac would have felt about his father just days before.

Consider who his father is: Abraham. We know him as the father of three faiths (Judiasm, Christianity, and Islam)—the great patriarch. He wasn’t just any man, he was someone who talked to God. He made a covenant with God, and God was already making good on his end of this covenant. Isaac himself was the fulfillment of this promise that God made to Abraham. I wonder if Isaac knew this. Imagine if he did.  He would have idolized Abraham for his relationship to God, and he would likely have felt woefully inadequate as a gift from God.

But perhaps we are looking at the story with too much hindsight. What would it have been like to have been Isaac just before that trip to Mt. Mariah?

Abraham at this time is not yet a great patriarch. He is an old man with only two young children. He has no grandchildren. He has some wealth. He has slaves, property, and live stock.

So how does a man like this—well off, but not particularly special—become a patriarch? How does he raise his sons so that they will carry on his family name? He can’t simply spoil Isaac and baby him. We see this lesson retold in second and third generation industrialists. They often become playboys—men with no particular moral or leadership distinction, and adult children who squander the wealth of earlier generations. (We see this with girls too. Paris Hilton comes to mind.)  

Isaac had to be different. Abraham has to make Isaac tough—he has to turn a boy into a man, and a father, and not just any father, but the father of all the tribes of Israel. He has to make Isaac a patriarch too. Isaac has to be his own man. He can’t just be an imitation or a follower of his father—he has to come into his own.

Isaac, like all of us, knows his own flaws. He knows his own shadow side. He knows he has fears, and doubts, and fragilities. Indeed, in what we learn of Isaac from the Bible, things are often happening to Isaac. We see it in this story, and the other big story involving Isaac is how his youngest son and wife conspire to trick him.

But, for now, in Isaac’s eyes, his father, as seen in the eyes of a young child, is a little too perfect. Most fathers are for young children. Fathers are like gods. They are all powerful. Hopefully, they are powerful for good, sometimes for ill, but powerful and they speak with authority. Their presence brings deliverance (and sometimes fear), and their absence brings longing and lack.

How could Isaac ever hope to measure up to a father like Abraham—a father who speaks to God—and a father whom God makes a covenant with?

There is notion that is ingrained in the psyche of premodern people. Abraham knew it—perhaps he wouldn’t articulate it in these modern psychological terms, but he knew it (as did others of his time and as do the gangs, drill sergeants, fraternities, and secret societies of today). Their knowledge is evidenced by their respective initiation practices; each knows the dangers of an idealized father.

What better way to transform a childish boy into a man and eventually into a father than to show that boy that he can attain what the father is—indeed even to surpass the father in some way. The first step it to bring the father down to earth—down to reality. The father cannot continue to be a god to the son. The father cannot be an idol. In a coming-of-age initiation, it may appear that the son’s life is in danger—that Isaac’s life is in danger—but the reality is that it is the idealization of the father than ends up dying.

The son gets to live as his own man, only after the idealized father is killed and the son can see the father as a man (not a god): a man of faults, doubts, fears, and excesses.

Despite what the story implies at the beginning and as it unfolds, Isaac doesn’t die. Isaac gains his life. It is often said that in substituting the Ram, God gives Isaac to Abraham a second time. That is to look at the story from above, but from Isaac’s perspective, in his initiation on Mt. Mariah, Isaac is able to see his father clearly for the first time. (Compare this story to the Star Wars saga. It is like when Luke Skywaker first sees his father without the Darth Vader mask. You will recall that just before this scene, Darth Vader tries to kill Luke—that is, he tries to kill his own son. It sounds a little like the Abraham and Isaac story.)

 For Isaac and for Skywalker, each in this pivotal moment first sees both the dark side of his father, as well as the frailty and the light side, and, in seeing this juxtaposition in one all-too-human individual, the two of them share a bond and the torch is passed to a new generation.

Now that you have heard me talk about the story, let us now hear the enduring words of the story as found in the book of Genesis.

Psalm 137

A reading of Psalm 137:

By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept

    when we remembered Zion.

There on the willow-trees

    we hung up or harps,

for there those who carried us off

    demanded music and singing,

and our captors called on us to be merry:

Understand what is going on here. This psalm is written in Babylon by Israelites who were taken there after the fall of Zion. The Israelites sitting by the rivers in Babylon are sad. They have hung their harps in trees because they have no interest in playing them. And yet their captors come to them and demand music. The Babylonians say:

‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion.’

But the Israelites reflect:

How could we sing the Lord’s song

    in a foreign land?

Making a promise to remember, the Israelites express their love for Zion—the land and life they were forced to leave. Further remember that this is not just land, but the place where their temple was located. It was where they talked to God—where they were protected by God—and governed by God. In remembering Jerusalem, they remember their life in closeness to God:

If I forget you, O Jerusalem,

    let my right hand wither away;

let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth

    if I do not remember you,

if I do not set Jersalem

    above my highest joy.

The next line, I think, asks for the Lord to take some revenge upon their captors. Using “remember” and “against” in an ominous manner, the Israelites pray:

Remember, O Lord, against the people of Edom

    the day of Jerusalem’s fall,

when they said, ‘Down with it, down with it,

    down to its very foundations!’

O Babylon, Babylon the destroyer,

    happy the man who repays you

    for all that you did to us!

Happy is he who shall seize your children

    And dash them against a rock.

Psalm 137 starts out as a sorrowful psalm about Israelites in exile after the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians. It starts in sorrow, but takes a vengeful turn at the end. As a result of this last line, the Psalm becomes controversial and problematic for use in worship. As a result, some worship leaders take the easy way out and choose not to include it as part of a worship service because it is too difficult to explain.

Others wish that it weren’t even included in the Bible, counting it as one of the least likely lines present in the Bible to have been inspired by God.

Some try to explain it by drawing attention to the mindset of the Israelites at the time: Jerusalem had just been sacked by the Babylonians. Many of their men were killed in battle. Many of their children were no doubt killed and many of their women were raped as spoils of war. The Babylonians would have killed the infants of the Israelites so that these young Israelite mothers would, in that way, be free to raise new children fathered by Babylonian soldiers. So we can see it as an “eye for an eye” expression.

We can also see it as expressing, not hatred against infants, but the length of time that the Israelites foresaw as being their time in captivity. If captivity lasted a generation, then the Babylonian babies of today would be their captors of the future. Dashing babies against a rock is a bit like the human version of the expression: nipping it in the bud: deal with something little before it becomes bigger and tougher.

As a way of taking away some of its shock, some would also point out that there was an emptiness to their “wish.” Given their subjugation, there is little chance that the Israelites actually could dash any Babylonian babies against a rock.

Others yet refer to this a “cursing” psalm and understand its use as a way of dealing with human frustration and anger. Its inclusion is an example of how the Bible can be “brutally honest” when addressing human emotion, even when what we want isn’t what we should want.

One thing is clear: The inclusion of Psalm 137 (in the Bible and as a reading in a worship service) poses a challenge to the reader and to the listener. It nearly jumps off the page demanding a response. Do we apologize for it? Do we excuse the Israelites for wishing it? Do we justify their request given their own hardship? Or do we address it in some other manner?  

Divine Truth

I used to think that truth about divine reality was simply too big for us humans to grasp in its entirety. As I saw it then, we were each like the blind men in the parable who each feel and describe part of an elephant. One man, feeling a front leg, describes it as an upright pillar. Another man under the belly describes it as an expansive ceiling. A man at the back being flicked by the tail describes it as a fan that brushes him lightly.

Each man captures a piece of the truth, but none can see the whole truth—the whole elephant.  

I used to think that the religions of the world were like this: blind attempts to describe a reality beyond our grasp—each partially right, but all incomplete. No one ever saw God in God’s entirety.

But in this metaphor, it is assumed that there is a truth to be known—it is just too big for any of us to grasp. This truth is the Elephant.

Now, I am not sure that the elephant is really present in any kind of objective sense in which a statement about it could, at some theoretical level, be judged to be right and a wrong. Rather than an elephant, I now consider God to be more like you and I in that moment right before we come to a decision. In that moment of unrealized pregnancy of possibilities, we hold mutual exclusivities in the same compartment. (I could go to the store. I could make dinner. I could take a walk.) At that moment I am all these possibilities and none of these objective truths. I wonder if this is the way God is at all times.

In quantum physics light is described as having properties of both a wave and a particle. Each of these states is mutually exclusive. It cannot be both. Yet, prior to observation it seems to be both. Then along comes a scientist running an experiment that forces the light to make a decision: wave or particle? I need to know right now. Then, as a result of that observation (that perspective) the pregnancy of possibilities that is the light in its natural state is forced to make a choice. Sometimes it chooses particle, sometimes it chooses wave.

I wonder if God is like this too: a reality, not just too large for any of us to grasp (like the blind men who cannot see the entire elephant for what it is), but like you and I prior to a decision, or like light prior to observation. Perhaps divine reality is not yet an objective fact, but a plethora of possibilities offered to the world.

So long as you remain in that moment prior to a decision, I cannot know you. I have to wait until you act, then I know you as the one making dinner, or the one taking the dog for a walk. Prior to your decision, there is no objective fact to be known about that decision, for it has not yet happened. I now think God is like this: a host of possibilities not yet concrete.

What would it be like if God came to a decision? What would it be like to see God as an object of our perception? The writers of the Bible seem to realize its danger. “No one can see God and live” they caution. The Messiah would wipe out the world as we know it.

Our lives are a fluctuation between a moment of indecision followed by a moment of expression. We see the expressions of others—the indecision, the holding of mutually exclusive possibilities, remains hidden in the other’s interiority. What if God is like this moment of the other’s interior indecision: not something to ever be witnessed second hand; not something objective about which one could utter something true or false about, but forever possibilities for us to make actual?

Did God speak to Moses from a burning bush? Is Jesus God’s begotten son? Did God bring Mohammed up to heaven? Does God play hid and seek with “himself” in creating multiplicity? Is any single truth to be found here, like the single elephant beyond each of the blind men’s reach? Or is God all of these at once: both particle and wave, both the God of Christians, and the God of Islam, both the God who lead the Jews out of captivity, and the Hindu God who plays hide and go seek with himself?

Some will demand that it has to be one to the exclusion of the others. I suspect that God is none of these in any concrete sense, and all of these in a potential sense. God is a God of the future, calling creation into existence by the lure of possibilities. We must not look to the past to find God as a concrete object, but to listen to God’s call, drawing us to something beyond where we are right now, to something better.

Faith in science

Gillette wrote:

... I don't have FAITH that the room light will go on when I flick the switch, or that the elevator will go up and not crash when I press the button. I KNOW it will form past experience
I have lots of prior empirical evidence and evidence form others in my culture that a light will turn on when pressed.
No "faith" required.
Faith is belief in the absence of evidence. We have plenty of evidence for science and for daily mechanical phenomena.

Let's sharpen our pencils so as to make finer distinctions. As David Hume argued, one cannot prove that the future will be like the present. Past experience just tells us about regularities. It does not guarantee that the light will come on with the flick of the switch.
What kind of faith must I have about light switches, elevators, and rockets?
It is obviously not blind faith, for I have some strong indicators about what will most likely happen that are based on my experience and my understanding of science. Despite all my experience, however, I have no guarantee. So, strictly speaking, this is akin to faith.
Indeed, the faith that the future will be be described by the same natural regularities as the present is the faith (or founding assumption) upon which all science is based. It is not blind faith, but is is still faith.

Christianity is a relationship, not a religion

Some will make the claim:

It is a relationship w/ Jesus Christ. You can be religious and still not make it into the Kingdom of God. Religion can not get you into Heaven only Jesus can. When you die and stand b4 God it wont matter how religious you were, what will matter is if you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Remember the Bible says that everyone who says Lord Lord will not go to Heaven. Religion is false but Jesus is the real deal.

Whenever I hear this "relationship" version of Christianity, it is always expressed in just this way and in almost exactly these words. This consistency of expression clearly points to an organized system of belief. What is religion but organized belief?

Now, why would someone want to claim that Christianity was not a religion? Christianity has a long history of exceptionalism. Hegel is exemplary in this regard.

The motivation, I suspect, is that these "relationship" Christians have an emotional need to feel special. Since there are many religions, as Christians they would be one type of religion person among many. This is hardly special. But, if all the rest were religions and Christianity was unique -- a "relationship" -- then Christians would be exceptional.

Proof text

One proof text does not establish a "Biblical Truth." The Bible says many things, not all of them in logical agreement. You distort its complexity when you proof text.

Jesus tears down walls

Let us consider the historical context to the events leading up to the time that Christians commemorate on Palm Sunday. Passover was (and is) a big deal for the Jews. When Jesus entered the city, many Jews were already gathering in Jerusalem for Passover. Rome responded by sending in extra troops and stepping up their terror campaign of crucifying petty Jewish criminals in hopes of using terror to keep in their place. As Jesus approached Jerusalem he would have been walking past several bodies hanging from crosses on the road leading to the city.

He was walking into a politically charged, terror influenced environment. To the Jews in power, he posed a threat. Jesus threatened to destabilize the uneasy but not completely chaotic balance of power that existed between the Jews and their occupiers.

It is in this context that "King of the Jews" should be heard.

The Jews were expecting a new King. The expected a new Joshua. Jesus shares Joshua's name and Jesus comes from to Jerusalem by way of Jericho. Jesus was also depicted as the new David by way of his two genealogies and the shepard analogies.

Like the Kingship of Joshua and David, the Jews were expecting deliverance here and now in this life and by means of a military victory in this Jewish Kingdom.

Jesus, however, poses a challenge to this Jewish notion of Kingdom. Like Joshua, Jesus also tore down walls, but the walls he tore down were not made of stone and earth, but prejudice. The Kingdom of Jesus was no longer us (Jews) vs. them (Gentiles). In Jesus's Kingdom everyone was welcome. Tearing down these walls was upsetting to some Jews. People like to feel special. As the Passover story reminds them, Jews think of themselves as a special people who have a special relationship with God. Jesus was changing this special status: he touched leapers, he took water from a Samaritan woman at the well, he took license with the law and healed on the Sabbath. As a new baby threatens to divide her parent's attention, so does Jesus' welcoming of outsiders into the Kingdom of God. The Jews are no longer God's special people.

A Hebrew reading of Kingdom of God would suggest that the Kingdom of God was not something up in the sky, but "on earth as it is in heaven". As this notion was communicated to a gentile audience, the language and images would have been Greek. As such, this Hebrew image would have been translated into Greek neoPlatonic language of "ideas" and otherworldly perfections.(Both the Hebrew and the Greek images views have Biblical support. I do not suggest to collapse the two or to argue for one over the other.)

As an alternative to the "King of Heaven" image that is often invoked, I am prompted to ask, what kind of Kingdom would this have been? One answer is the otherworldly Greek image, another comes from Luke 22:27. In this passage, in the Kingdom Jesus was heralding, the greatest is not the ruler at the table, but the servant. To illustrate this, Jesus pointed to himself as the model servant, "Yet here am I among you like a servant."

So often modern Christians set themselves apart from the world and give the impression that they think themselves to be special or uniquely suited to get a special reward in an otherworldly heaven. Against this too common image, I suggest that it is also Biblical to see that the Kingdom that Jesus brought did not have "us" versus "them" distinctions and that the greatest in the Kingdom of God are not the ones that receive the most rewards or who sit in a place of prominence, but are the ones that offer the most in service.

Hebrew and Greek Syncretism

The Hebrew and Greek world views are in many ways different. The Hebrew world view is of a God living with his creation. This life is important. The patriarchs of the Hebrew Bible are promised that their progeny will multiply and prosper. This life in this body is key. References to other realities beyond this one are rare. The Greek world view is different. The Greek world view is not of a God living within creation, but rather representing a perfection above and detached from creation (cf. Plato's Ideas). All those notions of the omni's are Greek notions (omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient). When the Hebrew world intersected with the Greek world (at the time the dominant view) Hebrew notions were thought about and written about in Greek terms and the Greek language. (The NT was written in Greek.) This produced a syncretism in which new notions arose as a result of this translation of Hebrew notions into the Greek world view. Principle among these are notions of an other worldly Heaven and a Hades like Hell (but even worse) as well as apocalyptic visions.

Kingdoms

In Jesus' day, there were two kingdoms: the kingdom of Rome and the kingdom of the Jews--aka the Kingdom of God. (Of course, the kingdom of the Jews was subordinate to the kingdom of Rome.) There were also two "sons of God." Cesar declared himself to be the son of God. Jesus' followers also made the politically subversive claim that Jesus was the son of God. To the Romans this would have sounded like Jesus was posing a threat to Cesar's power. This challenge to the throne is part of the motivation that the Jews in power had to turn Jesus over to the Romans for execution: The Jesus movement threatened the status quo of power between the Jews and Rome. When we read the terms "kingdom of God" and "Son of God" out of their historical context we imagine and project onto those terms "otherworldy " meanings that distort their original political meanings.