Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Beyond "Without the Shedding of Blood" - Brad Jersak

 

Beyond “Without the Shedding of Blood …”

 

I must say, I am thoroughly enjoying Christian theology in the budding era of a post-retributive Gospel. With the Western rediscovery of the Beautiful News, I’m feeling—dare I say it—positively born again! I am in awe and worship of the Father of Love, the cruciform God enfleshed in Jesus of Nazareth. The symbol of the ‘old rugged cross’ has once again come to represent, for me, God’s essential nature: namely, his self-giving, radically forgiving, co-suffering love. And that’s good news for everyone! On the cross, in the face of human cruelty and bloodlust, God-in-Christ revealed his bottom line character: a mercy that endures forever—the loving-kindness that is everlasting. We discover that ‘the blood of Jesus’—i.e. a metonym for God’s self-offering, sacrificial love—can wash anything. Anything. Anyone.

 

Still, there will be holdouts that believe real justice requires retribution, vengeance and satisfaction of wrath. It’s okay. Many of us did … for nearly five hundred years. Happily, I can say it’s a passé ‘thing’ that and we are getting over it. Hang in there! The shelf life of the vengeful punisher is coming due and should pass away in not too many generations.

 

Admittedly, that stubborn old retributive system is also rather dangerous. I write this during a weekend when a famous Christian politician declared to the NRA that if she were “in charge,” she’d let terrorists know that “waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”Lord, have mercy! Such a departure from the Jesus Way! But don’t hate her for her moment of sacrilege; it is what it is and didn’t come from nowhere. Maybe you’d say it too in the right context for a sufficient honorarium … on the Colbert Report perhaps? We all have our x-amount pieces of silver … this is why Jesus died even for Judas.

 

Moreover, such betrayals are not merely founded on a secular Constitution; they have rich backstories in Christian theologies of retribution. If, in our theology, God needs to use torture to bring about freedom, why should we be surprised when we become like the One we worship? Just a week or two ago, a radio preacher again made it very clear that if Easter means anything, it “begins with Christ dying to satisfy the wrath of God.”

 

Some theologians I respect to the point of a borderline man-crush (with apologies to New Testament Wright) repeatedly insist that the angry God who can only be assuaged through a violent sacrifice is just a caricature that no one really believes in or preaches seriously. If only it were true. Sad to say, the caricature claim is an unsubstantiated cliché exposed easily enough by the trick question, “Then how does atonement work?” 

 

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Tierra Nueva, Benedictine Hospitality to the Gangs

Jesus with the Cross is Lifted Up on High - John Tauler (14th c.)

Jesus with the Cross is lifted up on high.

When, then, they had fastened Jesus to the Cross, straightway His cruel executioners raised Him, together with the Cross, with great rage, and they savagely placed the Holy Cross in the hole of the rock, and they let it fall down therein, so that by this fall all Christ’s members and inward parts were shaken with cruel pain, and all the more cruel for having before been so tightly stretched. And again the Sacred Wounds of His hands and feet broke forth like fountains, and began to flow in streams. Of a truth, these are the four rivers of paradise, that go forth from 290the garden of pleasure, and water the whole earth.

O all ye that thirst! come to the waters, and draw with joy from the Saviour’s fountains. Suck honey from the rock, and oil and wine from the hard rock. Buy without silver, and without any price, wine and milk. For truly this is that cornerstone, firm, and which cannot be shaken, rejected indeed by the Jews, but chosen by the Gentiles, which Jacob, that is to say, the Father of Heaven, raised as a sign of grace and mercy and peace, and anointed with the oil of mercy. Come all ye, as many as love God, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, for it is exceeding fertile, and rich, and aboundeth with all delights. The river of pleasure, which goeth out from the midst of paradise, that is, from Christ’s wounded side, floweth through the whole of it. This is truly the land of promise, flowing with milk and honey. Here is seen the cluster hanging on the staff. Here is the rock twice struck with the rod, which poureth forth not only living waters, but rivers of oil; so that as many as go up this mountain may be sanctified, and may say with the loving soul in the Canticle of Canticles: “Thy name is as oil poured out.” Here, also, is the vessel full of the oil of grace, which was sent by the Father upon earth, that the sick man might be healed thereby, 291who, going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves, and was left half dead from his wounds; in which also is contained the price of our salvation. And this vessel was not only pierced in many places, but its end was also knocked out, so that every man may draw therefrom as it pleaseth him. And this Christ testifieth concerning Himself, when He saith, “I was poured out like water.” Moreover, although the vessel is small, yet it is ever full, having been blessed by God, so that never will the oil fail, as long as there are empty vessels to receive it.

Knocking Down Our Idols - by Caleb Miller

It has been said that "In the beginning God made man in His image, and man has returned the favor ever since".

 

What does this mean? It means that in nearly every area our "theology" (thoughts and words we say about God) has been shaped by how we view ourselves. The opposite is also true, how we view our God is largely shaped by how we view ourselves. If we abhor something, we naturally assume that our God abhors the same thing. We can't stand people of a different sexual preference, so we assume that God cannot.

 

And so it goes. We continue shaping God, molding Him into our image. We do as Paul said in Romans 1:23 - "making the incorruptible God into the image of corruptible man". We cling to idols we have made in our minds, some shaped by preconceived notions of God found on the pages of our bibles, others shape by societal and parental pressure. We hold on to personal vendettas and carve a little more of the idol, until in the end we have a God that looks more and more like a mirror image of ourselves rather than the forever loving Abba of Jesus Christ. 

 

It's time we knock our idols down. It's time we look to these graven images and insist that they will no longer have any sway over the revelation Jesus has given to us about His Father - whom He called "your Father" to a massive group of unbelievers. The moment we begin using our bibles, doctrines, theological constructs, personal preferences and the like to defend a God that looks nothing like Jesus, we are caught in the midst of idolatry. Brennan Manning has this amazing statement in his book "Abba's Child" where he says: "Have you grappled with the core question of your faith, which is not ‘Is Jesus God-like?’ but ‘Is God Jesus-like”.

 

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Water to Wine (some of my story) -- Brian Zahnd

Ten years later it’s time to tell some of my story…

I was halfway to ninety, midway through life, and I’d reached a full-blown crisis. Call it a garden variety mid-life crisis if you want, but it was something more than that. You might say it was a theological crisis, though that makes it sound too cerebral. The unease I felt came from a deeper place than a mental file labeled “theology.” My life was like that U2 song stuck on repeat — I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. I was wrestling with an uneasy feeling that the kind of Christianity I had built my life around was somehow deficient. Not wrong, but lacking. It seemed watery and weak. In my most honest moments I couldn’t help but notice that the Christianity I knew seemed to lack the kind of robust authenticity that made Jesus so fascinating. And I’d always been utterly fascinated by Jesus. Jesus wasn’t in question, but Christianity American style was.

I became a committed Christian during the Jesus Movement. I was the high school “Jesus freak” and by the tender age of twenty-two I had founded a church — as ridiculous as that sounds now! After a prolonged slow start I eventually enjoyed what most would call a “successful ministry.” At one point during the 1990’s our church was dubbed “one of the twenty fastest growing churches in America.” I was a success. Ta-da!

But by 2003, now in my mid-forties, I had become, what shall I say?…bored, restless, discontent. From a certain perspective things couldn’t have been better. I had a large church with a large staff supported by a large budget worshiping in a large complex. I was large and in charge! I had made it to the big time. But I had become increasingly dissatisfied. I was weary of the tired clichés of bumper-sticker evangelicalism. I was disenchanted by a paper-thin Christianity propped up by cheap certitude. The politicized faith of the Religious Right was driving me crazy. I was yearning for something deeper, richer, fuller. Let me say it this way —I was in Cana and the wine had run out. I needed Jesus to perform a miracle.

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Reflections on the Cross and Wounds -- Rufinus

14. He Was Crucified Under Pontius Pilate and Was Buried: He Descended into Hell. The Apostle Paul teaches us that we ought to have “the eyes of our understand549ing enlightened”3283 “that we may understand what is the height and breadth and depth.”3284 “The height and breadth and depth” is a description of the Cross, of which that part which is fixed in the earth he calls the depth, the height that which is erected upon the earth and reaches upward, the breadth that which is spread out to the right hand and to the left. Since, therefore, there are so many kinds of death by which it is given to men to depart this life, why does the Apostle wish us to have our understanding enlightened so as to know the reason why, of all of them, the Cross was chosen in preference for the death of the Saviour. We must know, then, that that Cross was a triumph. It was a signal trophy. A triumph is a token of victory over an enemy. Since then Christ, when He came, brought three kingdoms at once into subjection under His sway (for this He signifies when he says, “That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth”),3285 and conquered all of these by His death, a death was sought answerable to the mystery, so that being lifted up in the air, and subduing the powers of the air, He might make a display of His victory over these supernatural and celestial powers. Moreover the holy Prophet says that “all the day long He stretched out His hands”3286 to the people on the earth, that He might both make protestation to unbelievers and invite believers: finally, by that part which is sunk under the earth, He signified His bringing into subjection to Himself the kingdoms of the nether world.

Tyrannius Rufinus or Rufinus of Aquileia (Rufinus Aquileiensis; 340/345 – 410) was a monk, historian, and theologian. He is most known as atranslator of Greek patristic material into Latin—especially the work of Origen.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf203.vi.xiii.xv.html

I Thought It Was Good News -- by Chris Falson

This is a demo recording but by popular demand I am making this available before the actual album is recorded later this year.  This song (hopefully) speaks for itself... and while many have felt rejected by Jesus or God... the rejection really comes from people who either should know better... or don't really know at all. 

Share the song around, listen or download it for free or if you want to help fund the revolution purchase the track at the price of your choosing. Cheers!

 

I Thought it was Good News 
by Chris Falson 
(c) Leather Chair Songs 2014 

There'll be no end to the holy wars 
while the one in the right is wielding the sword 
in the name of the Lord 

yeah a lot of blood has spilled over this living word 
But it seems as if nobody ever heard 
a word he say 

I thought is was good news 

When the ones in the pulpit are merely fans 
Not friends nor lovers of the son of man 
How can they understand his plans 

The Kingdom gates no longer open wide 
How many bruised and broken will be denied 
And have to stay on the outside 

I thought it was good news 

Yeah sometimes I wonder if we're talking bout the same man 
Turned water into wine and healed the deaf and blind 
And stepped into the gutter to love this heart if mine 

I can read it in Red it says anyone 
Any woman and man born under the sun 
come on run to me 

I don't see any barrier or stipulation 
about color or race or orientation 
its an open invitation

 

released 23 April 2014 

Drum loops from David Raven, Tambourine from Danny Ybarra, guitars, bass

and very tired (on tour) voice from moi

license - all rights reserved

How Does “Dying For Our Sins” Work? - Brian Zahnd

How Does “Dying For Our Sins” Work?
Brian Zahnd

When we say “Jesus died for our sins,” what does that mean? It’s undeniably an essential confession of Christian faith, but how does it work? This much I’m sure of, it’s not reducible to just one thing. I’ve just finished preaching eight sermons on “The Crucified God” and I know I’ve barely scratched the surface of what the cross means. To try to reduce the death of Jesus to a single meaning is an impoverished approach to the mystery of the cross. I’m especially talking about those tidy explanations of the cross known as “atonement theories.” I find most of them inadequate; others I find repellent. Particularly abhorrent are those theories that portray the Father of Jesus as a pagan deity who can only be placated by the barbarism of child sacrifice. The god who is mollified by throwing a virgin into a volcano or by nailing his son to a tree is not the Abba of Jesus!

Neither is the death of Jesus a kind of quid pro quo by which God gains the necessary capital to forgive sinners. No! Jesus does not save us from God; Jesus reveals God! Jesus does not provide God with the capacity to forgive; Jesus reveals God as forgiving love. An “economic model” of the cross just won’t work. It’s not as if God is saying, “Look, I’d love to forgive you, but I’ve got to pay off Justice first, and, you know how she is, she’s a tough goddess, she requires due payment.” This understanding of the cross begs the question of who exactly is in charge — the Father of Jesus or some abstract ideal called “Justice”?

When we confess with Paul that “Christ died for our sins,” we don’t mean that God required the vicious murder of his Son in order to forgive. How would that work anyway? Did God have some scale of torture that once met would “satisfy his wrath?” Think it through and you’ll see the problem. Was death not enough to satisfy this god? Did it have to be death by crucifixion? Did torture have to be part of the equation? And how does that work? Was there a minimum number of lashes required in the scourging? Did the thorny crown have to have a certain number of thorns in order for this god to call the scales balanced?

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Resistance is Fertile: Christ is Risen and Death has Died

Christ is risen from the dead

Trampling down death by death

And upon those in the tomb bestowing life

- Paschal Easter Hymn

 

Contrary to the boasting of most fictional alien invaders, resistance is not always futile. In truth, sometimes resistance is fertile.

 

Case in point, a new friend was resisting the idea—even the possibility—that at the point of death, there may still be hope. Is death a locked door beyond which there is no further opportunity to hear and respond to the good news? My friend is sure of this. He cited the two classic texts, long known as deal-killers for any hope of a ‘second-chance’ at salvation:

 

“… it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment [κρίσις]”

(Hebrews 9:27).

 

And of course from the mouth of our Lord himself,

 

²⁵ But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime received thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

²⁶ And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence (Luke 16:25-26).

 

That should just about wrap up the conversation, right? But resistance is fertile!

 

I suggested that early Christians—in proclaiming ‘the harrowing of hades’—believed and taught that on Holy Saturday, Christ descended into hell (or hades), preached to the dead, and conquering death, led a parade of captives out of the grave. This idea was originally drawn from Ephesian 4:8-10, 1 Peter 3:19-21 and 4:6, then affirmed in the Apostles Creed. Jesus too proclaimed that “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and they who hear shall live” (John 1:25-26). This reality is written beautifully into the Eastern icon of the Harrowing of Hades, where Christ has descended to find Adam and Eve, his lost children, and to lead them out from the hades into paradise.

 

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Here Comes the Nighttime - Arcade Fire

When the sun goes down
When the sun goes down you head inside
'Cause the lights don't work
Yeah nothing works they say you don't mind
Here comes the night time
Here comes the night time
Here comes the night time

And the missionaries
They tell us we will be left behind
Been left behind
A thousand times, a thousand times

If you want to be righteous
If you want to be righteous, get in line
'Cause here comes the night time

Here comes the night time
Here comes the night time
Here comes the night time
Here comes the night time
Here comes the night
Here comes the night time
Look out, here comes the night time!

They say, heaven's a place
Yeah, heaven's a place and they know where it is
But you know where it is?
It's behind the gate, they won't let you in
And when they hear the beat, coming from the street, they lock the door
But if there's no music up in heaven, then what's it for?

Noah: A review by Abp. Lazar Puhalo

BRIEF REVIEW OF THE MOVIE "NOAH."

I have not seen a movie for decades. In the 1980s, I used to take my son Adam to a movie on Sunday afternoons, following the Divine Liturgy. We usually went to a kung fu flick, although Adam suffered through Passage to India and Driving Miss Daisy with me.

Going to see a movie this evening took some build up — the lure of the movie house popcorn mostly. I had, however, been asked to review the new movie NOAH, a rough take-off on the Biblical story of Noah and the Ark. The popcorn was a great deal better than the movie. Nevertheless, many of the more harsh complaints about the movie missed the positive message near the end of it.

People point out that this cinema does not carefully follow the Scriptural summary of the Gilgamish Epic — the source of the Noah story. They are correct up to a point. The human race in general is portrayed as drop-outs from Mordor, and the use of some early Gnostic writings such as the Book of Enoch introduces the Watchers, spirits which, in classic Gnostic fashion have been cast down into material bodies.

Indeed, the version of the creation narrative given by Noah in the movie is actually sound and is a very good offering of a unity between religion and modern science. The solution to the maintenance and feeding of the animals on the ark is also handled in an imaginative way that resolves one of the great problems that arises from the biblical narrative: the animals are all simply put to sleep for the duration of voyage.

Moreover, the Creator is referred to directly and in a manner that does not contradict the Bible at all. It was irritating that Ham and Japeth were without wives and there were only six people on the ark, but lets get to two points which many critics seem to be missing; well, perhaps three. One evil leader manages to sneak aboard the ark before it is fully afloat. He is a tempter, and kind of “satan” the tempter, adversary and deceiver who tempts Noah’s son Ham.

Cracks of Light and Scars of Gold -- by Brad Jersak

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There's a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in

 

The religious ego -- our 'inner Pharisee' -- demands perfection, is embarrassed by our failings and punishes us for them with self-loathing. Co-opting the God-given conscience, it ascends to the judgment seat reserved for Christ alone and points the accusing finger of condemnation. The fruit is anxiety, shame and an intense desire to shrink back, to burrow into the mud and hide out our years. It reminds us of our inadequacy and sets up this ordinance of hypocrisy: "Your failings disqualify you -- how dare you 'let your light so shine before men,' knowing that your life is unworthy of the message you carry." The religious ego would humiliate us into a shroud of perpetual silence. 

David knew the weight of his own desperate failures and the public crucifixion of his reputation as a man supposedly "after God's own heart." His confession in Psalm 51 would become part of the national public hymnal, repeated regularly not only by the Levitical worshipers, but also later in the weekly chants of Chrysostom's Divine Liturgy. The original lyrical process would no doubt have sounded much more guttural, when David groans,

Have mercy on me, O God,
    because of your unfailing love.
Because of your great compassion,
    blot out the stain of my sins.
Wash me clean from my guilt.
    Purify me from my sin.
For I recognize my rebellion;
    it haunts me day and night.

         (Psalm 51:1-3)

I imagine Paul, too, preaching in his early years to congregations that included widows and orphans of his own persecution, would have found that his 'sin was ever before him,' staring him in the face through grieving eyes not yet ready to forgive or trust. 

Eventually, though, he comes to this: 

6 For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. 

7 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. 

Sympathy for the Devil…or Pilate -- Brian Zahnd

Sympathy for the Devil…or Pilate
Brian Zahnd

Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man’s soul and faith
And I was ‘round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

–The Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil

In his fascinating novel, The Master and Margarita, Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov creates an imaginary conversation between the Roman governor Pontius Pilate and the Galilean prophet Yeshua. When asked about his views on government, Bulgakov’s Yeshua says, “All power is a form of violence over people.” The peasant preacher of Bulgakov’s novel goes on to contrast the governments of power and violence with the peaceable kingdom of truth and justice. In response Pontius Pilate rages, “There never has been, nor yet shall be a greater or more perfect government in this world than the rule of the emperor Tiberius!” When Pilate asks Yeshua if he believes this kingdom of truth will come, Yeshua answers with conviction, “It will.” Pilate cannot stand for this. In a memorable passage Bulgakov’s Pilate rails against the possibility of the kingdom of God ever coming and supplanting Caesar’s empire.

“It will never come!” Pilate suddenly shouted. Many years ago in the Valley of the Virgins Pilate had shouted in that same voice to his horsemen: “Cut them down! Cut them down!” And again he raised his parade-ground voice, “Criminal! Criminal! Criminal! Do you imagine, you miserable creature, that a Roman Procurator could release a man who has said what you have said to me? I don’t believe in your ideas!”

In The Master and Margarita, Pontius Pilate seems to have little personal animosity toward the wandering Galilean preacher, but Pilate hates his ideas. In the end what forces the Procurator to condemn Yeshua to crucifixion is the preacher’s revolutionary ideas about power, truth, and violence. Like Pilate we too wrestle with the conflict we have between Jesus and his unsettling ideas. We often want to separate Jesus from his ideas.

This bifurcation between Jesus and his political ideas has a history — it can be traced back to the early fourth century when Christianity first attained favored status in the Roman Empire. In October of 312 the Roman general Constantine came to power after winning a decisive battle in which he used Christian symbols as a fetish, placing them as talismans upon the weapons of war. (The incongruence is absolutely stunning!) Having emerged victorious in a Roman civil war and securing his position as emperor, Constantine attributed his military victory to the Christian god. In short order the wheels were set in motion for Christianity to become the state religion of the Roman Empire. The kingdom of God had been eclipsed by Christian empire.

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