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>Reading the Bible Better: Talents

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We have all read the parable of the Talents
Matthew 25:14-30 (New American Standard Bible)
Parable of the Talents
 14 For it is just like a man about to go on a journey, who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them.
 15″To one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey.
 16″Immediately the one who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and gained five more talents.
 17″In the same manner the one who had received the two talents gained two more.
 18″But he who received the one talent went away, and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
 19″Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.
 20″The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.’
 21″His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave You were faithful with a few things, I will (I)put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’
 22″Also the one who had received the two talents came up and said, ‘Master, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I have gained two more talents.’
 23″His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’
 24″And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed.
 25’And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’
 26″But his master answered and said to him, ‘You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed.
 27’Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest.
 28’Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.’
 29″For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.
 30″Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.


 Here’s the thing:  what if we have not understood the environment and the context that Jesus was speaking to enough to understand what is going on in this parable?


 Several weeks ago I put forward two theories about our understanding of the Bible:

  •  we would benefit to know more about the first century context
  •  we would benefit to know more about the genres that the Scriptures were written in
 This parable is a perfect example of those two ideas.
 A talent was the largest denomination of currency available in Jesus’s day. It weighed 72 pounds and required several servants to carry. It was used once a year to pay estate taxes.
 When Jesus says that some servant received several talents his first century audience would have known that this was absurdum.  They would have known immediately that this was a political or economic lampoon.
 It is also interesting to note that the Jewish rate of interest was capped at 12%. Anything more than that was considered unethical.
 So when we listen to Jesus tell this fictitious story, there are two things that may not be obvious to us as 21st-century listeners:

  • The first is that those servants that are applauded/esteemed in this parable would have been perceived as villains and potentially booed or jeered by the original audience.
  • The second is that the servant that buries his treasure was the hero in this story!
It is possible that the servant who buries his treasure is the good guy both as Jesus tells the story and as it was heard by the first century audience!  Keep in mind that this is in an agrarian society  and that by sticking his money in the ground he has demonstrated to his master that money does not grow and will not feed his family. 
 In this sense, he is sticking it to the man by saying that participating in an predatory economic system of profit does not feed me and those I care about.  Money does not grow and you cannot eat it.  This guy might be the hero of Jesus’ story. 
Now-  Somebody might object at this point and say “he is called a wicked and lazy servant”, but I would point out that Jesus does not call him that… Jesus is telling a story where the evil landlord is calling him that.   This is a huge distinction.
Just because of the phrase “evil and lazy servant” appears in the text does not mean that Jesus is assigning it to the man. And this is where our lack of knowledge about the genre of parable betrays us.  If we do not know how to read a parable then we are in danger of mis-reading the parable. 
 It might be interesting at this point to note that the word “talent” did not come to mean what it does in our modern definition until somewhere around the 13th century.  This is one of the first instances we have of a word’s definition actually coming from an interpretation of Scripture.  Talent came to mean skill or ability in the 13th century because of this very passage.  Before that it had never meant what it means in our contemporary understanding.  Talent was a Roman denomination of money.  When Jesus told this story he was clearly meaning it as an economic teaching.
At this point, we have to be willing to come to terms with the fact that we may have been reading this parable exactly the opposite as Jesus meant it.

The man who buried his treasure may actually be the hero of this story! And the servants who derived income from a double percentage gain may have been a wicked participant in an oppressive system. 
A capitalist reading of this passage may actually result in an exultation in the exact opposite purpose for which Jesus meant it.  This is a grave realization. 
If the man who buried his treasure is indeed the hero of this story and he is – by means of a prophetic act – demonstrating the fatal flaw of an opportunistic (predatory) economic enterprise… then we may have been sold a  faulty view of both the kingdom and the financial enterprise of this world.  This is a sobering possibility.
Most people that I talk to do not know that the talent was a denomination of money. They do not know that it weighed 72 pounds. They do not know that it required several servants to carry. They do not know that it was used as an estate tax once a year. This is information that radically changes the way we read the parable.
I am not a fan of either/or, this or that, in or out, us or them, dualism and binary thinking. That is well-established. In this one instance, however, it is clear to me that these are two very different readings and that one reading supports the status quo of Imperial economics and the other is a subversive reading that undermines the way things are and the ‘powers that be’ !
Jesus does not call the servant who buries the money a “wicked and lazy servant” he puts that phrase in the mouth of the wicked landowner.  When people say to me that “the Bible says… that man was a wicked lazy servant” they are misunderstanding the very purpose for which the parable was spoken. We must acknowledge that it is the wicked landowner who calls the servant by that title.
On a side note –  think about what we are saying about God if we think of the wicked landowner as God.  We are saying that God is absent. We are saying that God us harsh. We are saying that God is ruthless.  Is this really what we want to say about God?
 Is this what we think God is like?
I am not blaming those who have been taught to read the Bible this way –  but the simple fact is that it is not how Jesus meant it in the first century nor is it how his original audience would’ve heard it. 
 If we are going to read the Bible better we have got to know more about the first century and we have got to know more about the genres that Scripture is written in.
 This is simply a snapshot of how our ignorance of those two areas … and how 2000 years of dust have blurred the original picture. 
0

>a hellish week

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Well this backfired! Last week was “hellish” and I was so excited to tackle the subject that I re-arranged the next month of posts to get to it!  

We were having a wonderful conversation here about it last week and then on Friday, the Rob Bell “Love Wins” rumors started and I researched all weekend and followed the buzz. I was all ready to go to town in this week’s post. Here is how it was going to start:
Do you need to believe in Hell to follow Jesus?
Do you need to believe in Hell to be a Christian?
Do you need to believe in Hell to go to Heaven? 
Is there a difference between following Jesus, being a Christian, and going to heaven?

The answer the that last question is “yes” there can be a difference between those three.  
This is a very tricky set of questions and I want to be careful with how we chat about it.
Let me say right up front where I am on the issue. 
  1. I do believe in an existence called “hell”… mostly because of the verses in the Bible.
  2. I do not believe that it is necessarily what has been pictured in Dante’s Inferno or what has been described in Fire and Brimstone sermons over the years.
  3. I am not sure that all the humans souls that I was taught would go there will end up there.
  4. I am not convinced that Hell is only a place after you die.
  5. I do not think that the Gospel is to get you to pray one prayer, one time, so that one part of you (your soul) will not go to hell after you die. 
I was off to a good start. 


I read posts by Rachel Held Evans, and by Tony Jones , a whole bunch of conservative blogs and then this one on hell. 
I was rounding the corner – I was going to talk about how Hebrews 9:27  “Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” does not settle the matter in a single verse.
I was going to try and connect with historical views of Biblical words and concepts that have so much variation and how exciting it can be to think outside of the one dimensional “Heaven and Hell” we have been given to see that God’s love and God’s justice are not two different things.
I got in Facebook debates where I said things like 

“ It comes with a deep misreading of the NT texts and especially the Apocalyptic literate of books like Revelation. but that is for another conversation…  as far a Bell’s book goes: what if he comes out and says that God’s love seethes in a holy judgment against injustice and burns away our sin and shame in the end? That would be cool.”

and 

I am not a universalist. I am not saying Rob Bell is right. I am not saying that Love Wins. I am simply saying that A) maybe it is not as cut and dried and we have been told and that B) maybe we missed the good news of the Gospel and think that it was the suit & tie preachers say through the microphone.

I talked to friends and family on the phone about it. Then I rounded the corner into the week and …  I just petered out.  I start my new job this week. I have several projects coming due at school and with different partnerships I have been developing… and I  just don’t feel like constructing the smorgasbord I had planned on. I am just not feeling it. I lost the steam. 
I mean – I could say again that I think it is odd how the Apostle Paul never – not even once – in all of his letters or sermons in Acts – uses the word ‘hell’ and that it does not seem to be a motivating factor for him for preaching the gospel or for the work of salvation.  
I could reiterate the verses about Christ’s work of reconciliation that seem far more relevant this week than they even did last week when I used them.

  • Colossians 1:20 “and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

  • Romans 5:10  “For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”

  • 2 Corinthians 5:18  “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation”
I could go a number of directions with it… but in the end I guess I will just put it out there and see if anybody has an aspect of this that they are especially interested in talking about?  
… otherwise I will just wait for the “Love Wins”  book to come out at the end of march and we can take it up then. 



6

>a couple of (quick) things

>I am running a day behind.  Between the Rob Bell controversy and getting ready for my new job …

so here are a couple of things that you may want to look at in prep for tomorrow. Our topic will be “Do you have to believe in Hell to go to Heaven?”

So here is the Rob Bell video

Here is a blog series that I am doing for Hombrewed about the new Brian McLaren book.

Here is something that I wrote about ‘Perfect Theology‘ (hint: there is none)

see you tomorrow!

0

>Friday Follow up: thoughts on following

>What a great week of discussion! After honing this down a bit, I wanted to post it and get some thoughts:

In John 14:6, when Jesus says  “I am the way”  – that Jesus’ way is the humility that we see in John 13 (washing the disciples’ feet)

When he says “I am the truth” – that Jesus in the revelation of God.

When he says “I am the life” that it is Jesus’ life that reconciles ALL things to God.
I get that from verses like:

Colossians 1:20 “and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

Romans 5:10 
“For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”

2 Corinthians 5:18 “
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation”

When he says “no one comes to the Father but through me” – he is saying ‘everyone who comes to God comes through me’. Jesus reconciled ALL things to God.

This is built on the previous understanding that:

In was in response to Thomas asking about “where you are going”. Thomas would not have had the concept of the after-life that we have. He was a first century Hebrew.

So Jesus says ‘it’s not about the way to where I am going – I am the way’. Jesus is clearly not talking about “life after you die”. 
When Jesus says “no one comes to the Father” – IF we think that the Father lives in heaven (3 tiered Universe) , then we think that Jesus is talking about Heaven only he is saying ‘the father” . So the Father = heaven.
But I don’t believe that ANY of that is what is going on in that passage!
Just think about these 4 ideas:
  • the word Hindu does not appear in the Bible. So the Bible has nothing to say about Hindus. If we do… then we are INTERPRETing things that are in the Bible and APPLYing them to Hindus. 
  • as a 1st century Hebrew, Thomas was not asking about our concept of heaven.
  • Jesus was not talking about “life after you die”
  • Jesus was talking about a KIND of relationship with God (the way he had) before you die. 

Instead, it was an invitation to a caliber of connection with God that is only found in Jesus’ way (servanthood) and Jesus’ life (that reconciled all things to God). 
Now, some have asked about the possibility of this verse being about both the relationship here and also affecting eternity.  I could go with that… as long as we begin by acknowledging that it is not primarily or even initially about eternity.  
That passage in John 14:6  is about how we live now (Jesus’ way), the radical impact on our whole existence (Jesus’ truth) and  the entrance to that (Jesus’ life).  
14

>Black Women, Jews and Hindus

>We need to address how we read the Bible. There is a whole study of how we interact with and interpret texts – it’s called Hermeneutics. Many of us (most? ) are taught one way to read the Bible – that can be devotionally, ‘literally’ *  or allegorically, etc.

There are many ways of reading the Bible – I am not going to pretend that every way is good or that any interpretation is equally valid, helpful, or faithful.  This is why we need to talk about how we read the Bible.

Last week we talked about Jesus and Rome –  pigs and water.  [link here]

I would like to try and build on that for our conversation here.

 Jews

One of the truly horrific aspects of Christian History is the anti-Semitism that has plagued the Church
for 1900 years.  It started early on in the 2nd century** and it peaked in the Holocaust of WWII. There is no way to escape the incriminating evidence of nearly two millennia but I would like to address something rather odd in the argument that lies behind it.

The Jews did not kill Jesus.  This accusation that ‘the Jews killed Jesus’ has been around for 1800 years.  It is ridiculous.

Let’s be clear about two things:

  1. Jesus laid down his life willingly.  In that sense no one killed Jesus. In John 10: 17-18 Jesus says “ The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
  2. If anyone did kill Jesus (which we already established that they did not) it would be the Italians. Romans are the one who nailed Jesus to the cross! The Italians killed Jesus (if anyone did).

So the question has to be asked: why have the Italians not come under condemnation and persecution for the death of Jesus?  The answers to that are revealing.

The seat of Catholic power (the Vatican) is in Rome… said another way – those who are in power are in charge of the narrative
It is difficult to punish descendants for the actions of previous generations. (unless they participate in the same oppressive activities)

The reason that the Italians get off scott-free tells me something. It tells me that Jesus and the Bible have almost nothing to do with the treatment of the Jews in Church History. This is one of those cases where we do what we would have done anyway and just find Bible verses to hide behind.

 Hindus

Whenever other religions come up in conversation, somebody will invariably go immediately to John 14:6 where Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Now, I love this verse as much as the next choir-boy [I have written about it multiple times]  but there are a couple of things that need to be addressed before it is applied thickly to whatever religious wall we are erecting.

Jesus probably did not know about Hindus and definitely did not know about Muslims***.  Therefore we can say with a fair amount of confidence that Jesus was not – in any way – commenting on whether Hindus or Muslims had a relationship with God.

Look – Jesus was not commenting on Hindus or Muslims! He was making a positive statement about the potential of having a certain caliber of relationship with God – he was not saying something negative about Hindus or Muslims … ALL that I am saying is that you can NOT use John 14:6 for a proof-text of something that Jesus was absolutely NOT addressing.

Go back and read the story in context. Ask yourself “what was Jesus saying – what was he talking about”.  Then draw a circle around it and on the other side of that circle write “everything else” and that is what Jesus is NOT addressing in John 14:6.

 Black Women

There is no easy way for me to ease into this. There is no clever anecdote for me to wade into the subject, so just let me spit it out.

Times have changed… things are different … and we need to learn to listen.

Now, we can all agree that the Copernican Revolution affected the way that everyone – even modern Christians – see the universe (cosmos).  Then there is the influence of people like Newton who deeply impacted our understanding of the world and how it works. Said another way …

between the Telescope and the Microscope we know that the world works very differently than those who wrote the Bible thought that it did.

And that is ok! We are fine. Faith is still possible and the church is still intact. We can deal with new realities and we can adjust to new information.

All of this is to say that we know that the world works differently and we admit that things are different than they were when the Bible was written. This is why it is so important that we listen to people when they talk to us about the impact that the Bible has had on them and their communities.

When women talk about passages in the Bible that have been oppressive or hurtful to them…we need to listen.

When African-Americans talk about passages in the Bible that validate or at least assume slavery… we need to listen.

They are telling us something. They are telling us that the world is not the same as it was in the 1st Century and though it may be less ‘scientific’ than the microscope or telescope – it is not less profound, impactful or true.

I have lots to say about how Paul was (in my opinion) a voice of liberation and progressive freedom in his day.  But what I have to say about Paul in the 1st century is not as important as what black women may have to say about the impact of those same  passages in the 21st century.

*   we have discussed over & over again how no one actually reads the Bible literally.

**  there are many scholars who say that it started in the Apostolic age already in the 1st century.

*** Islam started in the 7th century.

18

>Jesus and Pigs

>

There is a problem when it comes to reading the Bible in the modern world.  It’s not that big of a problem – unless we don’t deal with it and then it becomes a huge giant nightmare.

Let me say something positive first. I am a fan of everyone having the Bible in their own language and in their own hand. I am a proud Protestant. I would not want to live in an era where everyone did not have access to the Bible in their language.  I like this aspect of the world and era that I live in.

We read the Bible. Not reading the Bible is not our problem. Sometimes preachers get on people for not reading their Bibles enough. I disagree.  I think that people are generally reading the Bible enough. That is not our problem. (I know these are generalities – just go with me for a second)


I do, however, think that there are two problems when it comes to reading the Bible.

  1. The first is that  we don’t know enough about the first century.
  2. The second is that we don’t know enough about the genres that the books of Scripture are written in.


It is difficult for me to express how important this issue is in our contemporary situation.
It would be overstating it to say that we don’t know how to read the Bible.  
It would be understating it to say that we just need to read it more.  One might even go as far as to say that if we are reading it wrong, then reading that way more will just create more of a problem!

This is what I want to address over the next 4 weeks with this conversation.

I will start with a story that illustrates both the points (about the 1st Century and about the genres).

The story of Jesus and ‘Legion’ (you can go read this is  Mark 5 and Luke 8)

Here are three readings of that story:  modern-Literal, Political, and Post-Colonial

In the modern-Literal reading, Jesus goes over to this region called the Decapolis which is primarily inhabited by gentiles. He finds this guy chained up because he is being tormented by a large number of demons and had become a danger to himself and to the town folk. Jesus comes over – the only time he was ever in that area on that side of the sea – and he casts out the demons. But the demons make a deal with Jesus and so he casts them into a herd of pigs – which immediately run down the hill into the sea and drown. The townspeople are not happy with Jesus for wrecking their economic livelihood and agricultural income.  They ask Jesus to leave. The guy – now freed from his torment – asks to come with Jesus and Jesus tells him to go back into town and testify.
It is not said if he wanted to leave because a) he was mad at the people for chaining him out there or b) the people would be mad at the guy for what happened to the pigs.

This is a straight forward reading and when one does not know much about the first century … it is probably the reading that you would go with. The story is about demons, pigs, and people. And that is about all.   The application is that Jesus loves this one guy more than a bunch of livestock and is concerned with the well–being of a single person more than the livelihood of an entire town.

In a political reading, the lens of first century politics gives the story a different look. Jesus goes into a Roman occupied territory (think about the name Decapolis). He encounters a man tormented by a foreign occupier with a Roman name (Legion is a military term) and frees this man who is bound by casting out the alien presence into pigs – which are unclean to the Hebrew mind.  It is also notable that a pig had been sacrificed in the Jerusalem Temple in the time between the Hebrew (older) Testament and the beginning of our newer (christian) Testament.
The story that we get Hanukkah from is found in the Maccabean revolt. This uprising was ultimately set off by the sacrifice of a pig (called the abomination of desolation) in the Temple.
But in our story,  what to do with the pigs drowning is water?  I have heard two good explanations.The first revolves around the Egyptian army drowning in the Exodus and so drawing of the imagery of Jesus (as a Moses character) liberating his people out of captivity.  The second has to do with Shamanism (both ancient and modern) which puts extracted bad things (tumors, spirits, venom, etc.) into water to neutralize them.

Either way – knowing about the Political landscape of the 1st Century makes it possible to say maybe demons aren’t demons and pigs aren’t pigs in this sense.   

Of course the obvious thing  is to say “Well, can’t it be both?” that Jesus really did cast out the demons but that the way Luke told the story allows them to be not JUST demons.  This way, pigs are pigs but they are not just pigs. Demons, likewise, are real demons who are really cast out … but they are not just demons – there is another implication to them.

Here is my point though! You can not have the possibility of pigs not being pigs or pigs being more than pigs unless you know something about the politics of the 1st century!   Otherwise pigs are only pigs and nothing more.   In that case, we may be missing more than half the message of Jesus or at the message as it was portrayed by the Gospel writer.

Added Bonus:
After I had already written this post, I heard another take on this passage. At Big Tent Christianity last week, Anthony Smith (the Postmodern Negro) and Tripp Fuller (of Homebrewed Christianity) had a dialogue about post-colonial Pentecostalism and race.

In this lens the reading of this passage takes on a very different look. The story becomes a model or a type of parable that is recreated over and over again.

The man is in chains (slavery) and the free culture keeps him outside. Jesus finds him and Jesus frees him. This exposes the disgraceful treatment of this man by those who are free. The liberation comes at great price (the pigs) and collateral damage (the economy). The man wants to flee and go with Jesus but Jesus asks him to stay and testify to those that who had bound him – to be an uncomfortable presence for them and to not simply be an “out of sight – out of mind” part of their past .

A post-colonial reading talks of liberation, of exposing the shameful treatment of ‘the other’, and of speaking truth to power.  This is a powerful reading that places Jesus squarely in our midst again and allows the Gospel to speak with real power to our real situations.

It is important to note that post-colonial readings are not merely allegories or metaphors – they are read as real events that really impact our real world… but they are not simply literalistic one-dimensional readings like the our first model (modern-literal).

There are many more interpretations that merit to be in the conversation – I simply wanted to introduce these three in order to say that A) what was happening in the first century matters to how we read the newer Testament  B) what genre a text is written in matters to how we read it.

The post-colonial reading introduces a third:
C) that the world we live in is both a lens and a light through which we read and view the text. That is called interpretation and that is our focus for next week.  

9

>We believe in Hope

>I was reading a book the other day and I stumbled onto an interesting idea.  It comes from the great contemporary theologian Miroslav Volf.

I am headed to Big Tent Christianity this week and next week will start a series of post on reading the Bible. Here is something to think (and talk) about

Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. As Christians we will assert this as the truth. But we cannot assert it as absolute knowledge, we can not assert as the final truth. Short of becoming God, humans cannot possess the final truth… All Christian beliefs are our beliefs, human beliefs and as such always provisional beliefs. We assert that they are true; but we make this assertion provisionally. I called this provisional certitude. There is, if you want, an absoluteness about our beliefs: We cannot relinquish our standpoint but rather assert that it is true. So the ground on which we stand as we act and reflect his firm. Yet we assert our standpoint as true in a provisional way: we believe our beliefs are true. This hinders us from becoming arrogant and oppressive.



This is a fascinating idea for the 21st Century.  I think it holds something for us.

 Later he takes it up even another notch when he adds “if we understand our views as provisionally true, we will have to understand the views of others as possibly true.”

Now that is some epistemic humility for ya  !!    That might take some getting used to.

1

>Crucifying Job’s God

>Act 1: Crucifixion is topic that has been written about for centuries. The first 500 years of Christianity were contentious on this issue and 500 years ago it became the source of a major schism between the Protestants and the Catholics. It is currently being hotly debated again – in the publishing industry, on blogs, and in pulpits.

If you look it up you will find everything from ancient Penal Substitution theories to modern Bloodless theories.
You will find Forensic theories, Governmental theories, Satisfaction theories, Recapitulation theories and everything in between.

They will have names like Christus Victor or Ransom Theory.  But one thing that they will all agree on is twofold:

  1. something divinely significant happened on the cross
  2. Jesus impacted both humanity and eternity by what happened on the cross

I hate that there is so much division and venomous aggression from those in one camp toward those in another.  I do not think that it cast Jesus in the best light nor does it bring Jesus the type of exalted glory that should come by looking at this subject!

I really like how Larry Shelton comes at this. In his book Cross and Covenant he surveys them all and suggests using the analogy of golf clubs. If each of these views is seen – not as the totality of truth – but, as an angle or perspective that is useful in certain situations for a specific purpose. I like this a lot.  The idea of gleaning meaning from a collection of metaphors is pretty sweet.

Of course, if you have a collection of golf clubs you are going to need an organizing principle – a golf bag if you will. Here lies the brilliance of his approach: Shelton says that the collecting concept is Covenant. Covenant is relational and it runs from the front to the back of our religion.

Act 2: Here is where I am at on this.

The crucifixion means a great deal to me, as it does to many. To me, the incarnation, the teaching and model of Jesus’ life, the crucifixion, and the resurrection   are the four things that form the core of the Gospel web. Pentecost and the coming of the Comforter launch us into the Acts of the Apostles and the rest of church history.  The importance of the crucifixion would not get much disagreement. What we think happened there, however, would.

Here is the question that I think exposes it. This is the the litmus test that brings it to the surface: where was God on Good Friday?  When you envision the Passion Play, what role have you cast God in?

Let me tell you the three most common answers:

  1. God is off the stage. God has abandoned Jesus and has pulled back from him in his suffering. 
  2. God is with the Romans. God is punishing Jesus for the sins of the world, taking out his wrath. 
  3. God is with Jesus. God was in Christ is a unique way and therefor God suffered with Jesus. This is what Jurgen Multmann calls the Crucified God. The God part of Jesus suffered and died, not just the human part of Jesus. 

I do not believe that God abandoned Jesus or that only the human part of Jesus died.
I do not believe that God was on the side of the Romans. Jesus suffered and died unjustly and God was with him on that cross.
I do not believe in the Puppet Master God who is pulling the strings behind that curtain and causing things to happen to punish us or hurt us or destroy us.

This is why we need to be careful about reading that into Psalm 22 ‘my god my god why have you abandoned me.’  It does not mean that God DID abandon Jesus, but that the separation of sin (a broken relationship) felt that way.

This becomes important when we go through tough times, are assaulted or insulted, and suffer unjustly. Where is God in that moment?
The truth is that God is with you. God is suffering with you. God has not abandoned you and God is not punishing you.
A) God is with you.   B) God, in Christ, knows what you are going through  C) Jesus paid that price and now nothing can separate you from the Love of God.

This is where most people who are into Relational Religion would stop.   
I am going to go one step further.

Let me throw out 2 ideas: 

  1. Is it possible that the “Job view” of God (from the Old Testament) was suppose to die on the Cross. That conception of God began to die when God became a man and “it was finished” when God gave his life – unjustly – for us.  It is not only that Jesus died FOR our sins but also that he died BECAUSE of our sins. 
  2. If one reads Romans 8 as : God works for the good with those who love God and are called.   It is NOT that God cause the THINGS to work for us.  It is GOD who works with us for the good.  This allows us to leave behind the obsession that ‘everything happens for a reason.’

Here is why I am saying this:  When someone wins a football game and thanks God, and when someone drops a touchdown and blames God (on Twitter)…is it possible that neither is God’s doing?

This view of God was suppose to die on the cross. God had not abandoned Jesus. God was not on the side of the Romans. God was with Jesus in his suffering.

Here is why this is important:
A) if we use the old dualism (which I do not like) then it is tough to make the case that ‘god’ is all loving AND all powerful. If ‘he’ is loving then ‘he’ is not all powerful and if ‘he’ is all powerful then ‘he’ is not all loving. These old dualism are a trap! that is why it becomes impossible (under Greek metaphysics) for the Incarnation to happen  IF god is THAT transcendent then it becomes impossible to be incarnate or immanent and thus we chalk it up to “mystery”.

B) This idea of God being ‘in control’ … it that like “sovereign”? Because a King is sovereign but not IN CONTROL of all that goes on in his kingdom…

C) So the reason that I say Job’s god dies on the the cross – actually I have been writing a big essay on that – but here are my quick thoughts (5 of them)
#1 God does not cause people to catch or drop touchdowns. That is not what God does. God is not pulling the strings behind the scenes.
#2 God is not doing things TO people. This idea is dead. God partners with or calls to – this is not coercive but is instead persuasive – it is more seductive than dominant.
#3 The idea that God is making deals with the devil to make people (like Job) cry “uncle” dies with Christ on the cross. Jesus died unjustly!! which leads to …
#4 not everything happens “for a reason” Jesus did not only die FOR our sins but BECAUSE of our sins. We have to get rid of this obsession of ‘everything happens for a reason’. It doesn’t. Unless you mean sin, that explains somethings. But stop blaming God.
#5 WWII: The Christian Germans and the non-Christian Japanese make it impossible to draw clean lines between the “Good guys” and “Bad guys”. Victims and oppressors got all messed up in the 20th century. The Christian Orthodox Serbians in the Bosnian war would be more contemporary example.

Act 3: I was introduced to an idea on this topic that was brand new to me. I was listening to a presentation a while ago and something jumped out woke me up. The presenter said that the crucifixion not just opens a way for God to forgive us – but for us to forgive God.  Essentially saying that once Jesus unjustly endures what he does in the flesh, that humanity can not be angry at God for the injustices of life and the cruelty of existence.

God died for us. We can forgive God for not rescuing us from harm, for not stopping assaults, and for not preventing genocide and other atrocities. Jesus is a victim of injustice. Jesus was killed unjustly by the military powers of a foreign occupier.

In that moment of violence, God is not with the strong. God is with the weak and those that have been victimized. Just as in the Exodus story, God is not with the Pharaoh, God is with the slave. But this time… God is the victim. Jesus died unjustly.

This opens the door – not only for God to forgive us – but for us to forgive God.

Final Thoughts: I know the idea of forgiving God may rub some people the wrong. Others may get upset by the idea of a concept of God dying. I have gotten in trouble over the years on the podcast for saying that Jerry Falwell’s god is dead.

Try to think of it this way: Gods die all the time. No one worships Thor or Zeus anymore.  At least Job’s god died for a good cause!  Jesus opened the door for us to have a new relationship with God. This is not the Puppet-Master God, this is God as Parent Perfect and loving friend. Then, we were given the gift of Holy Spirit – that Christ could abide with us always.  I don’t know why christian keep trying to save the old God’s life and keep the Job concept around on Life Support.  We should just let that concept of God die it’s natural death (for Christ’s sake). Or, if we really wanted to, we could be more proactive and put it out of it’s misery by crucifying it … the final nail in the coffin as they say.

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>the value of adding an ‘s’

>Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!  I wish you the very best.

It is difficult, to say the least, to give a gift via a blog. Such is the nature of the beast. But if I could give you one thing that would have a big different in this coming year, it would be this: I would give you an ‘s’.

An ‘s’ can be a wonderful thing. Especially when you put it at the end of words that have been made singular but that should be plural!

Two historic examples and then some contemporary ones:

The Industrial Revolution, according to historians like John Merriman, was actually three industrial revolutions.
The first was an agricultural revolution which allowed people to grow more, which encouraged a bigger population and thus all the surplus labor that would be needed. The second was inventions that impacted small groups of workers, like the cotton gin. Then came the big one that generally gets all the headlines with big industry and coal burning factories. The name ‘the industrial revolution’ is a bit of a misnomer that lumps these three together. They actually happened progressively over quite a long period of time.

The same happens with the ‘Protestant Reformation’. Most people don’t know that Luther and Zwingli were kind of up to two different things and that later Calvin came in (initially as a Lutheran) and then there were at least three little reformations. Then there was England’s Anglican movement that was doing its own thing, and the Anabaptists. That is 5 reformation movements.

When it comes to religions, it is often appropriate to add an ‘s’. 

When we lump together the Jewish religion or the Jewish perspective, we may be overlooking the fact that there are three huge branches within Judaism, as well as many other splinters. There is a Reformed Judaism, a Conservative, and an Orthodox.  They are very different from each other.

Islam is the same way – there are over 80 types of Islam. So when we say “Muslims _____”  we may want to be careful and be more specific by adding a plural mentality and saying “some types of Muslims ______”.

Even within Christianity there are God knows how many different kinds of Christianity. So to say that “Christians believe ______” is more than challenging.  It may be misleading.

There are several Judaisms, several types of Islams, and multiple Christian perspectives.

Sometimes people say things like “the Biblical Worldview” as if there is only one. There are actually many worldviews that informed Scripture. Certainly the view of those who wandered in the desert in the Exodus story had a different view of the world than Paul the cosmopolitan Roman citizen of Jewish descent.  And one can clearly see that what Paul wrote in Romans 13 to submit to governments because they do God’s work was a different worldview than the person who wrote Revelation and called Rome ‘Babylon’  and a ‘whore who is drunk on the blood of that nations’. There are many examples that I could use but the important thing to note is that there are many worldviews in the Bible.

We are entering an era of Plurality and Multiplicity. These are two things that I value tremendously.  Adding an ‘s’ is sometimes the key to getting it right – to move it from overly simple singularity to the possibilities of seeing the diversity.

There is not one kind of Judaism or a Jewish perspective. There is not one type of Islam or a singular ‘Muslim’ perspective.  There is not one one kind of Christianity or a single ‘Christian’ perspective.

My gift to you this holiday season is an ‘s’. It may seem little… but trust me, it can be very powerful when used in the right place.

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