A Bit on Redemptive Retreats from Exodus 12:31-42 August 15, 2008

Now that the tenth plague has swept through Egypt, there is no hesitation whatsoever about the departure of the Israelites from Egypt.  The fear of death and further destruction has motivated the Egyptians to do everything necessary to speed the release of the Israelites from their country.  They aren’t thinking any longer of the economic benefits of retaining the Israelites, whereas before they argued that they needed the labor for bricks and for gathering hay lest the country’s economy crash.  But now the threat of economic crash means nothing in light of the loss of the oldest of the next generation, the leaders for the future of Egypt have been suddenly taken and the populace’ outlook on their future has been radically altered as well.  The Israelites were also probably just as bewildered at this sudden change of events as the Egyptians; they were accustomed to the abuses of oppression that the sudden freedom to just leave would have been disorienting.  They had to begin to orient themselves to life as free people of God; and to help them along towards this goal, God’s might had prompted the Egyptians to start unloading their gold, silver, and clothing on them in order to motivate them to leave more quickly.

Having lived as slaves for generation upon generation, the Israelites had to learn how to live as free people.  We have this learning curve as well, having become so accustomed to living in a sinful world where we are oppressed and made to serve the will of an evil ruler.  But when we are freed, we have to learn the culture and the manners of God’s kingdom of which we become citizens.  In so many ways, we see the world through the eyes of sin and in terms of the values and priorities of the kingdoms of this world.  We mistake the ‘plunder’ or benefits that we take from the world, in the grace of Yahweh, for a benefit bestowed on us by the world rather than by God himself.  The generosity of the Egyptians in those last days of the Israelites’ time in Egypt was not a reflection on the character of the Egyptians but on the character of Yahweh, who had proven his power and presence before everyone.  We have likewise been pursued; but rather than staking his claim on the firstborn children of every family (both Egyptian and Israelite, remember, though he let the sacrifice of a lamb stand in the stead of the Israelites’ children), he has now made his claim on us by giving his only begotten Son on our behalf.

A Bit On Natural Disasters and Human Responsibility February 6, 2008

I was thinking today about natural disasters. Here’re some of my thoughts.  I assume here that the Garden was the pattern for all creation and that Adam and Eve acted as representatives of all humanity.

Created in the image of God, we are responsible for allowing evil to enter creation on account of the fall. Prior to the encounter with the serpent, though, it seems that the charge of God to Adam and Eve would have involved them noticing when foreign and malicious creatures entered the Garden. Well before the serpent ever had a chance to speak, then, Adam and Eve should have expelled him from the Garden (yes, this is somewhat speculative, but I think it makes sense). As the rulers of creation, Adam and Eve should have eliminated any and all threat to the well-being of the growing plot of Paradise they were entrusted with. Instead, when directly confronted with the enemy, they chose to trust him over God.

So where did that get them? God, still honoring their position as rulers of creation, inquires about their sudden need to hide from him. He does not accuse, but elicits a confession (sort of) of their failure. By welcoming and submitting to a malicious outsider, Adam and Eve admitted the worst kind of disaster into their kingdom. Both their dominion and their dynasty were cursed on account of their foolishness; the land would work against Adam in his pursuit of food, and human life would no longer be secure in creation–meaning the life-long task of a mother bearing up her children would be wrought with the possibility of death and other kinds of destruction, such as lack of sufficient food.

The action God takes is in driving them from that place as broken images of their Creator. While he is still the sovereign ruler, never at any point does God go back on the promises he makes or the covenants he cuts. He created Adam and Eve as rulers of creation, and promises that–in the midst of the curse–the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. As the pinnacle of creation, humanity would be the one to drive out the chaos we had invited in. As God makes covenants with Abraham, Moses, and David, we see his commitment to honor the created dignity of humanity. He never bypasses the responsibility he gave humans on their first day of existence. His redemption, in every way, comes through human agency–and fails through human agency as well. And this redemption is not just a redemption of the soul or a cleansing of guilt, but it is the redemption that will make all of creation into a place fit for the dwelling of its Creator, a place where no human life is threatened by the vicissitudes of creation’s self-adjustment (fires, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, etc.).

Because God chose humanity as his regal representatives on earth, though, he does not overstep our bounds. While his power would permit him to, his character and will would not. God is setting all things right through the very people through whom all things went wrong. We may look at the condition of the world, though, and wonder how anything we could do would ever be able to change things like tsunamis and earthquakes.  Even our best engineers can’t manufacture a way to prevent tectonic shifts thousands of feet below sea level.  How can God’s plan for the redemption of all creation be a good plan, then? We see his commitment to this plan of redemption foremost in the incarnation of the Son.  As the old formula goes, he became what he was not to do what we could not, but he remained what he was so we could become what we are not.  In other words, by being fully man and fully God, Jesus creates the world anew as the King and ruler for which humanity, creation, and the Spirit are still groaning.  He has brought new creation in his resurrection from the dead, but that new creation has not yet been made effective in every nook and cranny of the world.  The promise of redemption invested in his second advent is the banishment of all sin and all evil from creation.

Given that sin is any violation of God’s will for his world and evil is anything that seeks to thwart or prevent wholeness in creation (including the abundant life Jesus promised), this means that the threat of natural disasters on human life and well-being will pass when humanity takes its rightful place as benevolent rulers over creation–primarily in the person of Jesus, the Son of David.  Because God has willed that humanity represent his rule in creation and is not willing to overstep that declaration, he does not undermine us by preventing events that, by virtue of admitting the serpent as an authority in the Garden, we are responsible for admitting into creation.  But he has already taken all the necessary steps to work against the rupture in the order of the world that has made natural disasters a reality, and in his desire that none should perish he will patiently rule earth from heaven until that final day comes when he will claim his throne here among us.

Regulation of Religion October 11, 2007

There’s an insightful op-ed piece in the NY Times today that explores the dynamics behind government regulation of religion.  The author is Slavoj Zizek, a philosopher who takes matters of theology and religion very seriously.  It seems that the Chinese government has passed a law that requires all Tibetan regions to obtain permission for reincarnation to take place under their watch.  While this may offend our cultural sensitivity as Americans, Zizek provides a well-played rebuke to our regard for the heritage of other cultures.  Read it here.

A Bit on Evolution: From Dust to Personhood? September 22, 2007

A few months ago I made my way joyfully through Christopher Seitz’s edited volume Nicene Christianity: The Future for a New Ecumenism. The volume is a worthwhile read for more reasons than I could lay out here, but I found J. Augustine Di Noia’s article on the line from the Nicene Creed ‘by whom all things were made’ to be particularly challenging to my understanding of creation and personhood. He draws on one of the most influential theologians in my own studies, Colin Gunton, and takes the scientific data seriously in order to unpack how we understand God’s creatorship and our own identity as persons.

Di Noia’s aim in his chapter is “to recover and articulate the Christian understanding of the cosmos as a person-friendly place.” His path to this goal is mapped according to Gunton’s “theology of relatedness” as it applies to the trinitarian theology of creation. According to Di Noia, creation exists “because of the divine desire to share the communion of trinitarian life with persons who are not God” (65). Affirming Christian tradition, Di Noia says that creation is the result God’s entirely free, personal agency in Word and Wisdom. Moreover, “human persons are created in the image of God in order to become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:3-4) and thus to share in the communion of the trinitarian life and in the divine dominion of the created universe. At the heart of the divine act of creation is the divine desire to make room for created persons in the communion of the uncreated Persons of the Blessed Trinity through adoptive participation in Christ” (68).

I quote Di Noia here at length to demonstrate to, well, myself as well as others from a similar background as my own regarding questions about Genesis 1 & 2 that Di Noia is not off his rocker in his view of who God is or who we are–so the reflections that follow can’t make me feel too crazy. In the last two sentences of the previous paragraph he affirms that humans are created in the image of God for dignified communion with Father, Son, and Spirit; we are given the task of exercising dominion over the world God has placed us in as his image-bearers; and we accomplish both this communion and dominion through Christ’s work on our behalf.

Without getting into the creatio ex nihilo discussion here, I want to lay out what I’ve found most challenging from this chapter–namely, that as the pinnacle of creation and those entrusted to represent and reflect God to creation, evolution through every stage of created matter gives us the physical history within creation to fulfill our identity as the imago dei. Could the theory of evolution heighten our status as image bearers, opposed to lower us (as often seems to be the assumption in Christian circles)? Perhaps by bringing us through a process of ascendency from dust to personhood and installing us as priests in the garden to steward and rule over creation, God made it so that we are at home with all aspects of creation–their form is in our personal history. Intrinsic to who we are, then, is a relatability to creation (being made from dust–origin as well as substance) and a relatability to God (being made into persons). We are truly priests in every place we may venture in God’s creation; as Herman Bavinck says, “Because the universe is God’s creation, it is also his revelation and self-manifestation. There is not an atom of the world that does not reflect his deity.” Or, there is not an atom of the world that does not reflect his personality, since his deity is in fact personal.  Even on this view, then, there was never a point at which humanity’s initial creation was not personal.

Moreover, beyond our hearts being idol factories, I think this perspective gives ample explanation for the propensity of humans to connect in deeply meaningful and religious ways with creation–nature is personal in that it has been created and is being sustained by our personal God, though nature is not itself person.   This is to say that there is both something in ourselves (desire for a god and a connection to creation) and something in creation (the personal touch of God) that make us desire a connection with it.  The connection we have to creation, though, is only properly put into perspective when we are put in proper relationship to the Creator.

On another note, there is no shame for humans to have evolved from apes, as the age-old evolution line goes. It seems that the Enlightenment has given animals a rather bad reputation, what with all the talk of animal instincts and uncontrollable desires; but animals hold the dignity of their position as part of the creation that God called ‘good.’ They also are personal, though not themselves persons. But instead of saying we descended from apes, perhaps it would be more accurate to say we ascended from apes as God brought us ever-closer to the specialized appointment in creation he had for his image bearers. Besides, it’s not surprising that God would spend so much time, attention, and delighted work in shaping and forming adam (humans) from adamah (dirt) before putting on the final touch of the breath of life.

I’m still unsure where I come out on this, but thinking over it for a few months has been enough to make me mutter ‘huh’ a whole lot. This is very different from what I’ve been taught–and I do have to admit how impressed I am with Di Noia’s heavy reliance on Colin Gunton (Di Noia being a Dominican priest who works for the Vatican). I recommend you check out Di Noia’s 10 page chapter since there’s much worthy insight I left out here in favor of trying to articulate some of my own thoughts on the matter.

A Bit on Gender: Another Hyperlink September 5, 2007

The Church has adopted a multitude of approaches to addressing cultural attitudes towards gender–some hostile, some inclusive, some ignorant.  I think regardless of where one falls out in their views of how men and women are to relate in the kingdom of God and how feminist theology might serve to improve or destroy the current theological landscape, Lilian Calles Barger’s brief lecture to Christian academics offers a much-needed perspective on how to approach and interact with the increasing number of women who find Christianity disappointing due to the way gender issues are addressed.  Go here to read Women’s Culture: The Gospel and the Future, and then let me know what you think.

Link August 30, 2007

Fascinating

A Bit on Incarnation: Reflection on Mt. 25:40 August 24, 2007

The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

There are a lot of things that keep me awake at night and this is one of them.  Not so much because I suffer from an irrational fear of hell, but because it bothers me how sentimental this verse always sounds to me.  I don’t like sentimental things.  That’s probably one of the reasons I tend to be irrationally unpatriotic–not because I don’t love America (I do), but because so much patriotism feels like a sentimental white-washing of the true worth of America.  Sometimes I feel like the verse at hand is a whitewashed way of challenging Christians to give to the poor or to do small deeds that have a big impact.  Both of these are important, but it’s more the assumption behind this verse that dogs me.  Why is it that what we do for the least of these, we do for the King (here, the King being the Son of Man, being Jesus)?  This parable was told before the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus–before the giving the of Spirit–and in regard to all make and manner of persons, particularly those invisible to the rest of society (cf. the goats, “when did we see you…?”)

So what’s gone on that makes it so Jesus can identify himself with the hungry, the stranger, the unclothed, the sick, the imprisoned?  Notice: not just relate to, but identify with?  The incarnation.  He is a human person.  Yes, he’s got all the particularity and all the specificity that any of us have–male, Jewish, 1st century, Galilee, 5′9″ or whatever, dark eyes, dark hair, incisive personality, compelling communicator, outgoing, self-disciplined, responsible, caring, a get-it-done kind of guy.  But he’s human–fleshly, embodied, real.  The joining of the Logos, the Son, to the stuff of us means he relates to all of us, understands all of us, and identifies with all of us–each of us in our entirety and all of us in our numerity (see, I really am a patriot).

In this passage, he highlights the significance of our relationship to the invisible figures in our society by making explicit that it’s a direct parallel to our relationship with him.  He took on their humanity too–not just ours.  And where we draw false divides between who’s worth our effort and who’s not, who’s worth our sacrifice and who’s not, who’s worth our notice and who’s not, we ignore the full implications of the reality of his humanity.  We forget (or fail to ever remember) the scope of his mission, the commission of his resurrection–that humanity might be made whole, and through humanity the whole cosmos.

And we communicate our failure to know Jesus in his humanity by failing to offer water to the thirsty, by forgetting to feed the hungry, by neglecting to clothe the unclothed, by quarantining the sick, by considering ourselves better than the prisoners.  So what’s our confession that “by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man” worth if it doesn’t elicit forth in caring for those for whom no one else cares?

He took on all of our humanity–he was fully man–and we are to take on all of humanity.  He identifies himself with all of us, and as his people we are to identify with all of each other.  In this way, Jesus’ taking on of our flesh, means my taking off of my flesh in a sense.  He got into us so we could get out of ourselves.  And how did he become incarnate?  By the power of the Holy Spirit.  So how do we, in a sense, excarnate from ourselves in order to recarnate with others?  By the power of the Holy Spirit.