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“This exhibition, which points to the complex connections between the Arts, Sciences, and Faith is an excellent tool to facilitate discussions about the future of creation in the context of posthumanism.”
John Franklin, Executive Director, IMAGO Arts
Introduction
The story of Cain and Abel is of foundational significance in many ways. It is the first act of violence, and within that, it is the first murder – specifically fratricide, it is also the first mention of blood. After Cain has killed Abel, he becomes the founder of the first city, which is not unique to the Bible, “The myth of Cain is presented in a classic fashion. One of the two brothers kills the other, and the Cainite community is founded” (Girard, “Things Hidden”146). In the Roman myth, Romulus kills his brother Remus and the city of Rome is founded. However, the Scriptures tell the story differently. The murder is presented as deeply wrong and affecting of the world. Cain is not seen as a hero for founding a city, but he faces the consequences of his sin. God, in response to Cain’s actions, clearly pronounces murder as prohibited but yet, does not engage in retribution. Through this discovery of Genesis 4:1-16, I will show the significance of the first violent act and how it prefigures Christ. Within this foundation, I will discuss the blood of Abel and its cry from the ground, the breaking of the interconnectedness of humanity with the land as well as God’s shockingly non-retributive response. I will then show how Hebrews chapter 12 takes these archetypes of righteousness and wickedness and states that we are the guilty party and Christ the innocent victim – his blood speaks a better word than Abel’s. This paper will examine the themes of violence and vengeance in the Cain and Abel story and show how the author of Hebrews argues that Christ’s blood has the final say.
I. The Founding Murder
The Violence of Cain
Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Genesis 4:8
There are many assumptions and studies that question the nature of Cain’s sacrifice and what made it so that God did not look upon it like he did Abel’s. However, the focal point of the story is Cain’s response. Detail is spent in the story on Cain’s response and then YHWH’s response to Cain. Little detail is given elsewhere: we are not told why Cain’s offering was rejected or perceived to be, we are not told Cain’s motivations in killing his brother, or what might have ensued in their time in the field. What we have is a portrait of Cain. His attempt to give to God. His hurt. God’s warning to him that his disposition may allow space for sin, his violent action, Cain’s response to God, the response of the ground with Abel’s innocent blood and God’s response.
In the garden, Adam and Eve choose against God. This is the first story that depicts the fall of humanity. The next story, written in parallel to the first, is Genesis 4:1-16. This explains violence as the first outflow of the fall. By Genesis chapter six, violence is cited as the reason for the ruin and collapse of creation (v.11). Cain had a choice just like Adam and Eve, and after being warned by God, Cain chose violence. It is notable that YHWH does not describe the sin living in Cain, it is something that is “crouching at your door; it desires to have you.” (v7), animal-like, just like with Adam and Eve. The violence of Cain is depicted as a human who does not master his desire and so strikes his innocent brother whom he is meant to be “keeping” (v.9b) and so in shedding innocent blood, it foreshadows the innocent blood shed by Christ on the cross (Morris). Cain becomes the archetype of the wicked and his brother the innocent.
Cain’s violence and the taking of his brother’s life can also be described within the framework of mimetic theory. As Cain and Abel were both desirous of God’s favour – they are desiring the same thing. To Cain’s perception, Abel became the object that was in the way of his peace and his feeling of having God’s favour: if Abel were not there, then his countenance would be lifted. Cain’s conflict was internal, “all humans desire in this way, and that the way by which we produce peace is by the expulsion of someone held to be responsible for our conflicts” (Alison 21).
David Bentley Hart, YOU ARE GODS: On Nature and Supernature
(Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 2022) – Reflection by Bradley Jersak
Based solely on repetition in every one of David Bentley Hart’s books, articles, lectures, and podcasts, his most scathing condemnation of any opposing argument is that it’s incoherent—i.e., confusing, incomprehensible. Given this savant’s comprehensive genius for language, philosophy, theology, history, mythology, literature, music, and baseball (a shortlist of his expertise), it’s not inexcusable if he seems to be the offender-in-chief of incoherence. But bear with me (and him)…
HART’S UNINTELLIGIBLE PATOIS
In his efforts to reteach peons the English language, Hart’s penchant for using precise, inaccessible, archaic, and invented vocabulary can seem self-defeating, if not self-indulgent. That’s aside from the dozens(?) of foreign languages he can use.
But I want to learn from him, so I keep track of words and ideas he thinks I should know. I’m reading You Are Gods: On Nature and Supernature right now. I’ve recorded the following terms for further study since I could only guess what they meant and wouldn’t dare define, much less use in polite company. Please, repeat them aloud:
These are just from the Introduction and Chapter 1: dessicating, repristinated, recrudescence, fustian, theogonic, contrapuntal, fugal, pleonasm, patiency, goetic, leporine/leporinity, rapitude, ship of Theseus conundrum, mereological, deictic, patois, asperous, necrophile, adventitious, velleity, cyclophoria, inchoate, conduced, irrefrangible, aetiological, proleptic, incommiscible, quiddity.
Even my spell-checker was bewildered by seven in the list! But so what? My omniscient cell phone is within arm’s reach. Using a dictionary isn’t just time-consuming; it’s educational—learn or do not! If discovering new words and new ideas is not your thing, Hart’s not your guy and theology is not your passion. Far better to bypass this gibberish about God and get right to talking directly to God. And please pray for us while you’re there.
HART’S INCOHERENT OPPONENTS
Hart’s assaults on opponents’ ideas and reasoning can also feel convoluted, but from my vantage point, that’s largely because he’s right—whether their logic is incoherent or morally repugnant (Hart’s other big slam). His main targets, Calvin/Calvinism and the Manualist or Two-Tier Thomism are a case in point.
I’m not so sure the sane man is to blame when diagnosing a disorder. Sometimes the doctor must enter the fantasy world of his patients to beckon them out. Remember how the prisoners in Plato’s cave of delusion ridiculed their newly freed companion when, compelled by love, he returned from the sunlight back into their world with good news. He was judged as deluded and disoriented, when really,… well, you get it.
HART’S INCOMPREHENSIBLE TOPICS
But aside from their disagreements, Hart and his interlocutors are debating topics that can seem obscure, irrelevant, and a bit silly all on their own. Eye-rolling is not always out of order. Yet Hart’s concerns may also have pastoral consequences, especially where the gospel has been perverted by errors (e.g., eternal conscious torment, limited atonement, original sin) and the flock suffers spiritual abuse under toxic teaching. So, what he does kind of matters, if indirectly, even to the casual ‘believer.’
That’s where we rely on the patient souls who will wrestle through his words, debates, and topics (and even enjoy it) to bring back a sample coin from his treasury. Distilling Hart can be as hard as understanding him, and when one presumes to interpret him, the odds of misrepresenting him are high. Nevertheless, I occasionally dare to give it a go because he’s worth it and so are those who can’t read him. I can bear the guilt of saying it wrong. Or better, I’m happy to offer an imperfect reflection that makes sense to me.
For today, I’ll share just one coin, but it’s good and important. I hope readers find it helpful. If so, credit to Hart. If not, my bad.
ON “FINAL CAUSE”
In You Are Gods, David Bentley Hart advances five premises (p. xvii), the first of which reads,
“The sole sufficient natural end of all spiritual creatures is the supernatural, and grace is nothing but the necessary liberation of all creatures for their natural ends.”
The essays in his book expand on this thesis, which, once you see it, shouldn’t be unseen.
To begin with, let’s take a moment to learn about “final cause.” The Greek philosopher Aristotle thought about different ways we talk about “cause.” He named four types of cause in our world:
I want to focus on this fourth type of cause. The wonderful thing about “final cause” is that the end goal of a thing actually causes its creation. Chairs allow for sitting, they don’t create sitting. The desire to sit causes and creates the chair! That’s how the end can cause the beginning.
Now let’s take a living thing, like an acorn that grows into an oak tree. The final cause of the acorn is… the oak tree! That is, acorns are created to produce and become oak trees. And so oak trees cause acorns so that acorns grow to maturity as oaks. It’s like the ultimate purpose or end of a thing (the oak) is calling what it causes (the acorn) to become what it will finally be.
Further, Aristotle taught that the ultimate purpose or telos of a thing (the oak) is already somehow internal to what it has caused (the acorn). That is, the properties of the oak tree are already there in that little acorn, intrinsic to it. We now know this to be true from DNA and genome studies. The longevity of an oak tree is already baked into the DNA of the acorn.
ON “NATURAL ENDS”
What Aristotle called the “final cause” is, therefore, also the “natural end” of that thing. The natural end of an acorn is the oak. The end is there in the beginning, so that acorns don’t magically become something else… they become what they were always to become by nature.
Now Hart turns to spiritual beings, such as people. What is your natural end as a spiritual being? To discover this our final cause, we look to the Scriptures. Paul says that we are being “transfigured from glory to glory into the image of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 3:18). Peter says that we are “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). John says that when Jesus appears, “we shall be like him” (1 Jn. 3:2).
Paul called this transformation metamorphosis (transfiguration). The church fathers called it theosis, divinization, or deification. Their formula was, “God became human [Incarnation] so humanity could become divine [deification]… that’s right: in Christ, we are prospective “gods.” Hence Jesus striking claim that became Hart’s book title: “You are gods” (Jn. 10:34/Ps. 82:6).
Shocking, yes, but here’s the math: Jesus is, by nature, the image of God (fully human, fully divine). You are, by nature, created in that image, and by grace, being transformed into that same image (fully humanized, fully divinized). And what you will become (your natural end) is intrinsic to who you are now. You are, in the words of Gary Best, naturally supernatural. Your “final cause” is calling you into this transformation, from acorn to oak, caterpillar to butterfly, natural to supernatural, because that is your natural end.
A NECESSARY LIBERATION
Now back to Hart’s premise:
“The sole sufficient natural end of all spiritual creatures is the supernatural, and grace is nothing but the necessary liberation of all creatures for their natural ends.”
If I understand him, Hart is saying that as a spiritual creature, your natural end can be nothing less than supernatural. That by necessity, grace will free all creatures, all people, you and me to our natural ends, without fail. In fact, in premise 3, he says,
“No spiritual creature could fail to achieve its naturally supernatural end unless God himself were the direct moral cause of evil in that creature, which is impossible. Conversely, God [since God is good] saves creatures by removing… impediments to their union with him.”
In other words, your transformation from acorn to oak cannot not happen in a universe where God is good and not evil, because saving grace removes every impediment to that end. A God that could, but would not, so free us, would be immoral and not a savior at all.
Note too that Hart further specifies our natural end and final cause: the final cause of our supernatural end is union with God. Union with God inexorably draws humanity (and all creation) to its telos (end) where “God is all and in all” (1 Cor. 15:28). And that ultimate union is, again, intrinsic to our humanity because God has already united Godself to humanity in Jesus Christ—(1) from the creation of the cosmos, (2) in the Incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth, and (3) through his Passion and resurrection.
See for example Colossians 1 (the italicized all and everything are my emphasis):
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; allthings have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 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.
THE HUMANITY OF GOD
Now with the words of Jesus, his apostles, and the church fathers behind him, Hart’s radical 4th premise may resonate:
“God became human so that humans should become God [a la Athanasius]. Only the God who is always already human can become human. Only a humanity that is always already divine can become God.”
Wait, what? I was ready for the first and third elements of this premise. If our natural end (divinization) is intrinsic to humanity, then it follows that something divine already appears in us now in seed form. Hart identifies that seed as our natural desire for the Transcendent Good (even when our desires are obviously disordered). He argues that we cannot have a natural desire for transcendence unless that desire is internal to who we are—spiritual beings whose first cause is our supernatural, divinized end.
But what does Hart mean by saying “Only the God who is always already human can become human?” Very odd, right?
Yet maybe no more odd than John calling Jesus Christ “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8).
The key here is the divine humanity of Jesus Christ, the God-man—in eternity and in time. Where “through the Passion, Jesus Christ, as man, becomes that which, as God, he always is” (Fr. John Behr). As Behr teaches it, it’s not that there was an eternal "pre-incarnate Word" who was not human, then later became human. Rather, we must always start with the One Lord Jesus Christ, human and divine, crucified and risen, and then we say, “This One, the cruciform Lamb, is the eternal Word and Son of God, Creator of all things, whose image was the pattern for humanity, and in whose image, humanity is becoming.”
Why? Because eternity is not “before” anything. Eternity is not on some “before and then later” everlasting timeline. Eternity is timeless and every point in time is immediately present to the eternal now.
When Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” who is talking? The human God who descends from above time, from eternity, from outside of time. And eternity is forever indivisibly and directly united with time through the Cross. On this, see John Behr, The Mystery of Christ.
So in Hart, perhaps the humanity of God “is already” as for Behr, “As God, he always is,” as for Jesus, “Before Abraham, I AM.” The grammatical clue is the present tense of eternity (as in "Christ IS risen), the union of the eternal God to his human life in space and time, so that God always IS the human Lamb slain from both the foundations of the cosmos and outside Jerusalem, at once.
This is a Mystery. Don’t worry. Be at peace. If I sound incoherent, be gracious. I’ve been reading David Bentley Hart. We’d covet your prayers.
Far beyond crucifixion by execution, the Cross of Christ has, historically, generated a Good News proclamation—the gospel of God’s saving work through Jesus’ death and resurrection. That gospel was announced through a great banquet of biblical metaphors describing the means, meaning, and outcomes of the Paschal Mystery—with the Passover Lamb’s liberation from death and bondage as the central New Testament image.
In addition to the gospel message and the biblical metaphors that fill out its meaning, theologians have speculated as to WHY and HOW the Cross (both death and resurrection) saves people across time. We call the array of responses to those questions “atonement theories.” These should not be confused with the gospel as such or Scripture’s metaphors.1
Some of these theories use the language of “satisfaction,” a theme that recurs in some of the key Messianic texts of the Hebrew prophets. This begs the questions, (1) who was satisfied, (2) what was being satisfied, and (3) what brought that satisfaction. Some key Latin theologians opined on these questions, always narrowing the question to how God is satisfied:
Augustine – early 5th century
Augustine describes God’s satisfaction in On the Holy Trinity, where he vehemently denies any sense that Christ’s death was required to appease the Father. He argues that the Father did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, and so was already satisfied from all eternity. The triune God is forever satisfied by their own superabundant, eternal love, prior even to (and resulting in) the Incarnation. There was no lack in God that needed satisfaction, since God IS infinite love and cannot be diminished, but out of the fulness, God sent the Beloved Son.
Anselm – end of the first millennium
Anselm was not so sure. When he asked why God needed to become human (in Cur Deus Homo), Anselm defaulted to medieval tort law and the bygone practice of dueling for honor. He concluded that our sin had offended God’s honor and needed to be redressed. God’s honor could only be adequately satisfied by someone both divine and human. In Anselm, God’s honor was satisfied by the perfect obedience of Jesus.
John Calvin – early 16th century
The Genevan reformer, John Calvin, doubled down on satisfaction as wrath-appeasement. In Calvin’s Institutes, he writes that our sin is an affront to the justice of God, whose wrath (not love, not honor) needed to be appeased—not by mere obedience, but by a punishment that fit the crime. Since God is eternal, the penal debt for human sin had to be paid out in an eternal person. It’s not enough to crucify an innocent man for half a day—the infinite wrath of God needed to be poured out in Christ’s body, soul, and spirit. In fact, Christ had to endure the tortures of eternal hell (while on the Cross) to satiate God’s wrath.
Paganizing the Gospel
If we review the trajectory of satisfaction in these theories, they drift further from divine grace into projections of angry human retribution. In The Day the Revolution Began, Tom Wright called this devolving progression “paganizing the gospel” (p. 147). He says that John’s Gospel does not say, “God so hated the world that he killed his only Son.” The gift of the Incarnation and the power of the Cross is that we see infinite Love and Light and Life come into the world out of the plenitude of God’s heart, even as it is refracted through human rebellion and violent retribution. Thus, God in Christ subverts the Cross into our salvation, but that’s galaxies away from assigning the pound-of-flesh justice to our heavenly Father.
That said, expunging satisfaction of implications of a diminishment in God’s nature or need for appeasement does not mean jettisoning satisfaction altogether. In fact, we can read its broader and more beautiful sense in two key passages that prefigure the Passion of the Christ. In fact, teasing out satisfaction in these texts magnifies the gospel message.
Psalm 22
I’ve written extensively on Psalm 22 both in A More Christlike God and online (here, here, and here, focusing specifically on how the “cry of dereliction” (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”) is drawn from the larger crucifixion narrative described in David’s poem. And I have regularly noted how verses 22-24 explicitly proclaim of God:
For he did NOT despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did NOT hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.
The cry of dereliction is, therefore, not a statement of God-forsakenness, but a plea that God hears and answers, so that Jesus will say in John, “You will leave me all alone. Yet I am NOT alone, for my Father is with me” (John 16:32) But in this essay, I will proceed to the verses that follow to pick up on the satisfaction motif.
The Poor Shall Eat and Be Satisfied
In the paragraph following the prophecies of Christ’s suffering and God’s salvation, the Psalmist turns to some specific, glorious outcomes. In verse 26, who is satisfied?
26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever!
These phrases anticipate the banqueting table of God to which Jesus often refers. Remember that Christ’s invitation included the poor, the lame, the blind—those sold on street corners or huddled behind hedges. He tells his disciples to compel them to attend and be filled—those hungry (body, soul and spirit) will be satisfied with good things (Luke 1:53).
All the Families and Nations Included
But not only the poor! God’s heart is to include:
“Done it.” Done what? God in Christ has secured their deliverance, prepared a banquet, and satisfied ALL families in ALL nations—whether dead, alive, or yet to live—with the bottomless cup of salvation!
Isaiah 53
Similarly, I have frequently visited Isaiah 53 (since Stricken by God? 2007) to demonstrate that it was mankind who “despised and rejected” Christ (vs. 3) and we who mistakenly considered Christ “punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted,” (vs. 4), but in fact it was our sins, wrath, and punishment he endured (vs. 5). The Lord does not “lay on him the iniquities of us all” (vs. 6) as a punishment he needs to inflict to satisfy his honor, justice, or wrath. Rather, by bearing (enduring) and forgiving our sin rather than condemning us, the Lamb slain intercedes for the transgressors (Isa. 53:12) and reconciles the world to God, not counting our sins against us (2 Cor. 5:19). In that sense, Christ’s life becomes “an offering for sin” (Isa 53:10)—a grace-gift of radically-forgiving, self-giving love rather than some retributive mechanism to meet a forensic requirement in God. I’ve also elsewhere addressed the translation disparity in Isaiah 53:10 between the Masoretic Text (“It pleased the Lord to crush him”) and the Septuagint (“It pleased the Lord to cleanse/heal him”). But now let’s pick up on the satisfaction theme once again.
Christ is Satisfied by the Offspring of His Labor
When, by grace, the Lord “poured out his life, bore the sin of many, and made intercession for us,” he effectively transfigured humanity’s heinous murder into a love-offering. Having done that,
10b he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. 11 After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
The pronouns here are tricky. Is “he” Yahweh or the Suffering Servant? YES. As God was in Christ, Yahweh is the One pierced in the Servant (Zech. 12:10). In fact, let’s deliberately refrain from disambiguation on this point. Instead, we’ll focus on satisfaction. Earlier, I denied that anything is ever lacking or diminished in God’s eternal nature, whether by our sin or any other factor. Otherwise, God’s nature (i.e., infinite love) would be subject to external powers. God would be rendered less than God. No satisfaction is necessary to restore what can’t be lacking in God.
However, God’s good creation is still unfurling toward its telos in Christ, when at the telos, God will be all and in all (1 Cor. 15:28). That mission will only be satisfied with the retrieval of every last lost coin, the rescue of every last sheep, and the homecoming of every last son and daughter. The thing lacking, in other words, is us. Only when the full number of the elect (ALL humanity) has been summed up in Christ (Eph 1:8-10) will the end of the ages come to its fulness.
With that in mind, Isaiah 53 reads the Cross from its telos (the End). At the Cross (again, death and resurrection are indivisible), Jesus Christ “sees his offspring”—the “joy set before him” (Heb. 12:2)—he will “see the light of life, and be satisfied.” Some translations include a note to say, “He will see the fruit of his suffering and will be satisfied.”
So, is God somehow satisfied in the work of the Cross? Yes. What satisfies him? By the fruit of his suffering. By seeing, in advance, the offspring (children of the Son). And this by virtue of the Father empowering the Son by the Spirit to see from the Cross the End when the fullness of his love for the world is satisfied.
OUTRO
So, do I believe satisfaction is a theme relevant to our preaching of the Cross? Absolutely, but the history of satisfaction theories requires extra care, lest we slip back into retributive models of appeasement where the Cross is insufficient for sin apart from some expression of divine punishment.
I think sometimes the issue of satisfaction resides in our fallen imaginations. We see the evil in our world and cannot imagine solutions that truly rectify human atrocities or take them seriously without some retribution. I understand that. I want that. But I'm now convinced that the part of me that demands payback, payoff, or pay-down has yet to be crucified with Christ. What I need are the eyes to see "There's wonderworking power in the precious blood of Christ" that IS the restitution for every sin and reparation for every harm... where the Almighty power is Love.
I'm now convinced there is NOTHING his blood can't wash. From the lyrics of 2nd Chapter of Acts (“Which way the wind blows”), God in Christ “TOOK the sins of sinning,” and he ain't paying them back. So, if we’re to take up satisfaction, let it be in the mission of Christ to accomplish to the uttermost the restoration of the cosmos according to the almighty Love of God, to whom I bow for the Last Word:
“I declare the END from the beginning, and ancient times from what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose WILL stand, and ALL My good pleasure I WILL accomplish” (Isaiah 46:10).
Notes
[1] For details on these distinctions, with examples, see Bradley Jersak, A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel (2015).
"Their king is the angel from the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon—the Destroyer."(Revelation 9:11).
How Will You Show Up?
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do what I say?” (Luke 6:46).
- Jesus of Nazareth
It’s disconcerting when our discovery of God’s everywhere-present grace leads us to inaction in that grace, rather than motivating and mobilizing us to be instruments of grace in our world. "Revolutionary Love" activist Valarie Kaur calls us to find our way to “showing up.” Kaur relates what it is to "show up" through stories and lessons in her profound must-read book, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love. It expands on the teachings she conveys on her site and in her talks. She summarizes the call to "show up" as follows:
The only way we will survive as a people is if we show up… I believe that you are the midwives in this time of great transition, tasked with birthing a new future for all of us.
So I’ve come to ask you, how will you show up? How will you let bravery lead you? And how will you show up with love?... the greatest social reformers in history have built and sustained entire non-violent movements to change the world that were rooted, that were grounded in love; love as a wellspring for courage, not love as a rush of feeling, but love as sweet labor, fierce and demanding and imperfect and life-giving, love as a choice that we make over and over again.
Revolutionary love is the choice to enter into labor, for others, for our opponents, and for ourselves. The first practice: See no stranger. All the great wisdom traditions of the world carry a vision of oneness; the idea that we are interconnected and interdependent, that we can look upon the face of anyone or anything and say as a spiritual declaration and a biological fact, “You are a part of me I do not yet know.i
Valarie is an American Sikh who champions the transforming power of love in the traditions of Jesus, Guru Nanak, Gandhi, and MLK. I share the bare bones of her vision here because when it comes time to reconstructing or reorientating our lives, our faith, and our practice toward the Light of Love, her voice and her mission draw me deep into the heart of the Jesus Way.
Christians and ex-Christians alike would do well to sit at her feet for a season. Kaur’s learning hubii guides readers and educators into the practice of “revolutionary love.” Here she develops a three-fold strategy for “showing up” around the words (1) wonder, (2) grieve, and (3) fight.
To wonder is to cultivate a sense of awe and openness to others’ thoughts and experiences, their pain, their wants and needs. It is to look upon the face of anyone or anything and say: You are a part of me I do not yet know. Wonder is an orientation to humility: recognizing that others are as complex and infinite to themselves as we are to ourselves. Wondering about a person gives us information for how to love them. You can practice wonder for all others – animals, trees, living beings, and the earth. Wonder gives you information for how to care for them. Wonder is the wellspring of love.
To grieve with others is to share their pain, without trying to minimize or erase it. Grieving with others requires a willingness to be transformed by their experiences, especially those who have suffered trauma and violence. Grieving collectively and in community gives us the information to build solidarity, to fight for justice, and even to share in one another’s joy.
To fight is to choose to protect those in harm’s way. To fight with revolutionary love is to fight against injustice alongside those most impacted by harm, in a way that preserves our opponents’ humanity as well as our own. When we fight for those outside our immediate circle, our love becomes revolutionary.
If the fog deconstruction has left you feeling lost and vulnerable, I commend Kaur’s story, life, and training as a compass for the disoriented. As a teaser, I've embedded one of her inspiring talks here:
i. Valarie Kaur, Keynote talk: “Valarie Kaur: Breath! Push! The Labor of Revolutionary Love,” Bioneers (Nov. 13, 2019). <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIrl_Ob0jvg>.
Speaking wisely of the cross.
The cross means no one else has to die for the
world to be made right again.
Not one more person has to die to balance a
scale, to ensure that we have enough of
whatever it is, to satisfy vengeance, to make
my life more convenient, to improve the quality
of another person's existence, or please add
any of our deadly rationales. They all belong in
Gehenna.
We will die and some will be killed, but
Christians, as people who believe the death of
Christ is the only death that can make the
world right again-trust that when God dies for
the world he loves as a human that death itself
dies-we ought to be be the people who say to
the spirit of Cain in all the ways that spirit
arises in us, "No more!"
Image: Peter Howson, Harrowing of Hell
exhibition, detail, 1999.
Holy Week Means No Holy War: Remembering Fr Alexander Men in the Light of Christ’s Glorious Passion
Chris E.W. Green
CLICK HERE to Download the PDF
Given what is happening, and what is about to happen, in Russia and Ukraine, Holy Week is an especially fitting time to remember Fr Alexander Men, who was murdered (some say martyred) in 1990, after more than thirty years of priestly service and public witness in and around Moscow. Unsurprisingly, Fr Men’s work for renewal met with resistance from national as well as ecclesial authorities. And, as s Michael Plekon explains, even after his death he remained a controversial figure, at least in some circles.
In the last few years of his life, Men became a somewhat prominent figure, a voice for a truly worldly Christianity. But early on Sunday morning, September 9, 1990, on his way to serve the Divine Liturgy, Fr Men was attacked, struck in the skull from behind with an axe. He managed to drag himself back to his house but died in the hospital from loss of blood. He was only 55 years old. In the days before his death, he seems to have had some sense that the end was near.
The following is an excerpt from one of Fr Men’s sermons commemorating the martyred St Philip II, Metropolitan of Moscow, whom Fr Men revered as an icon of faithful witness. Given its tragic relevance, it is worth quoting at length:
… In the history of our motherland, there were two periods in which tyranny paralyzed our people: the reign of Tsar Ivan, whom we call “Terrible,” and again in the time of Stalin, who admired Ivan and tried to follow his bloody example. Across the centuries, he perceived in that executioner a kindred spirit. And so it was that Ivan the Terrible, who struck fear in the heart of the church and the people of Russia, was doomed to live in fear…
Continue reading "Holy Week Means No Holy War: Remembering Fr Alexander Men - by Chris E.W. Green" »
“Retribution” in Isaac the Syrian
I also maintain that those who are punished in Gehenna are scourged by the scourge of love. Nay, what is so bitter and vehement as the torment of love? I mean that those who have become conscious that they have sinned against love suffer greater torment from this than from any fear of punishment. For the sorrow caused in the heart by sin against love is more poignant than any torment. It would be improper for a man to think that sinners in Gehenna are deprived of the love of God. Love . . . is given to all. But the power of love works in two ways: it torments sinners, even as happens here when a friend suffers from a friend; but it becomes a source of joy for those who have observed its duties. Thus, I say that this is the torment of Gehenna: bitter regret. But love inebriates the souls of the sons of heaven by its delectability.
[The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, I/28 (1984)]
Sin is the fruit of free will. There was a time when sin did not exist, and there will be a time when it will not exist. Gehenna is the fruit of sin. At some point in time, it had a beginning, but its end is not known. Death, however, is a dispensation of the wisdom of the creator. I will rule only a short time over nature; then it will be totally abolished. Satan’s1 name derives from voluntary turning aside from the truth; it is not an indication that he exists as such naturally.
[The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, I/27 (1984)]
To suppose the retribution for evil acts is to be found in him is abominable. By implying that he makes use of such a great and difficult thing out of retribution, we are attributing a weakness to the Divine Nature. We cannot even believe such a thing can be found in those human beings who live a virtuous and upright life and whose thoughts are entirely in accord with the divine will – let alone believe of God that he has done something out of retribution for anticipated evil acts in connection with those whose nature he has brought into being with honour and great love. Knowing them and all their conduct, the flow of his grace did not dry up from them: not even after they started living amid many evil deeds did he withhold his care for them, even for a moment.
[ The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, I/28 (1984)]
If someone says that [God] has put up with them here on earth in order that his patience may be known – with the idea that he would later punish them mercilessly – such a person thinks in an unspeakable blasphemous way about god because of his infantile way of thinking: he is removing form God his kindness, goodness, and compassion: all the things because of which he truly bears with inners and wicked men. Such a person is attributing to God enslavement to passions, imagining that he has not consented to their being chastised here with a view to a much greater misfortune he has prepared for them, in exchange for a short-lived patience. Not only does such a person fail to attribute something praiseworthy to God, but he also calumniates him.
[Isaac of Nineveh, “The Second Part’, Chapters IV-XLI, Sebastian Brock (1995): 39, 2]
[1] This is the Syriac etymology given to the word ‘Satan’ (from sta, ‘to turn aside’).
This is Part I of Archbishop Lazar's presentation to the CEMES symposium in Thessaloniki, Greece (29 March, 2022).
INTENT
The intent of this paper is to explore the general background of the present invasion of Ukraine and then focus on the problem of the ecclesiastical support for the invasion given by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow of the Russian Orthodox Church and others of his hierarchs. Finally, we wish to make a response to the reasons given by the Patriarch and do some hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church for supporting the military invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine.
POLITICAL BACKGROUND TO RUSSIA'S INVASION
With regard to the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, I will not discount the ideas that the rapid and radical expansion of NATO had something to do with influencing this. The idea that NATO wished to create a massive naval base on the Crimean Peninsula certainly helped to provoke the Russian seizure of Crimea. However, there is absolutely nothing that will excuse the invasion of the independent republic of Ukraine and the massive war crimes that are taking place with the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians and the destruction of Ukrainian cities. I will examine the ideological factors, including the religious justification for this horrendous action, even if only briefly.
In addressing the current conflict in the Republic of Ukraine and the roots of this conflict we do have to briefly look back in history. Our national foundational mythologies often explain some of our later tragedies. The idea of the city of Kiev in the beginnings of what would eventually become Russian history should be briefly examined. The city itself was created by Vikings from Scandinavia, and the first principality which existed there was a Norse principality. The idea that there was a nation-state in ancient Kiev is not entirely correct. At the time the Viking colonialists and the local tribes which were gathering around them ultimately formed a series of appanage principalities that were largely entities governed by local warlords. The principality of Kiev, ruled by the Norse Rurik dynasty until it collapsed in the 1100s, was a "city-state" from which the surrounding area was ruled. Both Russia and Ukraine make a claim for their foundation story, and both mythologize it. Presently, this foundation story and the mythos that accompanies it figures into the justification for the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Notwithstanding, both countries are fully constituted independent nations that happened to share a similar foundation story and mythos. This shared origin story and mythos figures into the creation of the mentality and doctrine behind the present invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
A certain segment of both the political and religious elite and Russia has not been able to reconcile itself to the fact that Ukraine is a fully constituted republic, a nation self-contained and independent. This has led to peculiar both political and religious concepts, even novel doctrines about the relationship between Russia and Ukraine. These concepts and doctrines are perverse, but this is not the first time such unstable and catastrophic results have arisen from such foundation mythos. A "mystical" vision of this foundation mythos can prevent the acceptance of present realities and can often cause real tragedies.
In this particular case, this common foundational mythos appears to be being used as one of the perverted pretexts for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Certain leaders simply cannot come to grasp the reality that Ukraine has developed its own culture and language, some aspects of which it shares with, not only other Slavic peoples but other Eastern Europeans.
THE PROBLEM OF IRREDENTISM
Before I touch on the actually heretical doctrine put forth by religious authorities in Russia to try to help justify the invasion, I want to speak of another disturbing political motion that certainly figures into this matter, and we have heard it voiced by Mr. Putin, and in some ways endorsed by the Russian Orthodox Church. This ideological problem is the concept of irredentism.
Basically, irredentism is a doctrine or concept whereby areas of a country outside your own in which a majority of your particular nationality lives should be united to your country, by force if necessary. The doctrine was first annunciated in Italy in the 19th century. The most famous use of this doctrine was in the Third Reich, Nazi Germany, which is the doctrine of irredentism as a pretext to seize the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia – a military action that later led to the full invasion of Czechoslovakia by the German army. The same doctrine has been used by Mr. Putin’s government with regard to Luhansk and Donbas in Ukraine, followed by the full invasion of that nation.
THE ECCLESIASTICAL ISSUE
We must begin this discussion by examining a new messianic religio/political doctrine put forth by the Russian Orthodox Church in support of the military invasion of Ukraine--a doctrine that is clearly heresy and that goes well beyond the heresy of phyletism1 the new doctrine of "Russkii Mir."
The heretical doctrine called "Russkii Mir," in essence conceives of the Russian state as having a messianic calling to invade and purify other countries, beginning with Ukraine, a former subservient republic in the Soviet Union. The roots of this new doctrine are found in previous manifestations of Russian mysticism and religious thought. This doctrine reflects back on the two older concepts of "Holy Rus'" and the idea of Moscow as the "Third Rome." These two phyletistic1 doctrines are summed up in the heresy of "Russki Mir," a messianic delusion that accords a special Messiahship to the State and thus makes the State an idolatry. That the Russian Orthodox Church fully endorses the doctrine makes it a genuine heresy.
What has been formed is a straightforward "cult of the State" into which the Russian Orthodox Church has been incorporated. This delusional doctrine accords to the Russian State, and to Mister Putin in particular, a "Mandate of Heaven" to act as a "purifier of nations." This is an extremely dangerous doctrine, and it is shocking that Russian Church officials would accept and advance this idea, surely knowing that it is a heresy and a betrayal of the concept of the Church itself.
It is notable that in the justification for this horrendous invasion of the Republic of Ukraine, reference is being made to the time of Ivan the Terrible. Ivan was a bloodthirsty tyrant who invaded surrounding principalities and territories and incorporated them into the Muscovite State, which was the centre of the future Russian Empire. His deeds are among the most unspeakable in history. However, he is now one of the heroes of the current Russian regime which is invading Ukraine.
Aside from this doctrine, it is one of the most peculiar and devious scapegoating excuses that the Moscow Patriarch and Metropolitan Hilarion of the Russian State Church have given for and hoping to support this war. The justifications given by the Patriarch of Moscow and other senior hierarchy for their support for this immoral and illegal invasion of a sovereign nation by their own nation. A scapegoat refers to the Hebrew practice of ritually placing the sins of the nation on the back of a goat which would then be driven into the wilderness bearing away the guilt for the sins and wickedness of the tribe. Among the peculiarities of this religious practice was the fact that it also took away the responsibility of the people for their sins and wickedness. This is the nature of "scapegoating," it puts the blame for your own actions onto someone else so that you are no longer responsible for your deeds and actions. Simply, it is a way of denying your responsibility and guilt by pointing to someone else. That is what I would like to discuss here.
Patriarch Kyrill and Metropolitan Hilarion Have chosen a small marginalized and, quite frankly, persecuted group of human beings as a scapegoat. They have suggested that the existence of an LGBT community and the possibility of "pride parades" in Ukraine are among the justifications for the slaughter of tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens of all ages and the destruction of ancient Ukrainian cities. The staggering immorality of this conclusion is self-evident.
Russian Orthodox hierarchs are thus giving this horrendous invasion an aura of more complete messianic ideology by adding a weak theological or spiritual motivation, simply a deadly prelest (spiritual delusion).
The fact that the thousands of people being wantonly and ruthlessly killed are fellow Orthodox Christians only compounds the wickedness of the actions.
The idea of using a remote "moral" issue in order to justify the gross immorality and criminality of the mass murder and the destruction of the cities of the Ukrainian people must make the demons tremble.
[CLICK HERE for the entire paper, which includes Part 2].
SUMMARY
In summarizing the paper which I have presented, I have the following considerations in mind.
I want to focus on something that I consider to be a very dangerous religious/political delusion – delusion as well as ideology. I keep coming to the Chinese expression, "mandate of heaven." I am using the expression, but I feel that I am also expressing a psychological condition which can involve, not just one person or group of people, but even a whole national self-identity. I suppose one should begin with the "temptation on the Mount" as a revelation. We can say that it is a revelation about Antichrist, who would accept all the things which Christ rejected, and perhaps that is its primary revelation.
Perhaps all of the manifestations of hyper-religiosity and a Messiah complex are actually manifestations of a type of antichrist. When people come to think that they have a "mandate of heaven" to be either the "Scourge of God" or the "sword of Allah" for the purification of a nation, mankind, etc., and when that Messiah complex extends to a nations image of itself, or even a particular religion's image of itself, giving either that nation or that religion – or a national religion combination – a sense of righteous privilege or even obligation to dominate others, other nations, other people and enforce what they perceive to be the will of God, the will of Allah, there is a dangerous extremism which that entity can actually perceive as God’s special ministry for them. I certainly feel that there is something coarser and pragmatic behind Mister Putin's actions, but the "mystical andspiritual" justifications of them is especially disturbing. That these justifications are being given even a tacit blessing by the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy only adds gravity to the matter.
To some degree we did see it in the doctrine of "manifest destiny," and some shade of it in a "British-Israel complex." We certainly saw it in the person of Ivan the Terrible, who slaughtered by day and prayed by night, alternating between his warrior persona and his ascetic persona.
We have seen episodes of this national messiah-ism in Russian history and expansionism before. There are all manner of psychiatric designations which refer to such a condition. I prefer to refer to it as those who are obsessed with having the mandate of heaven and a Messiah complex. I see that at work to one degree or another in this doctrine of "Russkii Mir" and the preoccupation of the Moscow patriarchate with LGBT community, merging it with this doctrine of "Russkii Mir."
In summary, I wish to work out a way of expressing this. When a nation with such a doctrine is intent on the obliteration of another nation and the ruthless massacre of its population, it would be hard to exaggerate the intensity of this demonic messianic complex. It is quite evident that the Putin/Kyril Construct is a, to lesser or greater degree, something that considers itself to have this mandate of heaven, and also to be possessed of a delusional messianic complex. Not only a heresy but a major blasphemy. And possibly a grave danger to the world.
NOTES
1. Phylitism Is a heresy which blends the Church with the State in a way that actually identifies the Church and the state as one. In actual practice, it renders the Church subservient to the State.
The Spectrum of Suffering, the Medicine of Mercy
By Josh J. Valley
This article is written in honour of martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the 77th year since his execution at the direct order of Adolph Hitler at Flossenbürg concentration camp in 1945. It is dedicated to all those with mental illness and addictions who still suffer today and have lost their lives due to chemical dependency, suicide and maltreatment.
Suffering comes in many forms. Traditionally, Christianity has thought of suffering in terms of the “outcast” suffering from poverty, war, and disease. This is true of many who suffer (and have suffered) given the immense physiological (whole body) pain that manifests from being crushed by the wheel of systemic injustice. Human beings, as philosopher James K.A. Smith rightly puts it, are “fully-embodied creatures,” and as such, suffer on a spectrum. And the spectrum is widening.
It is true that the most visible of sufferers are represented in the neglected social classes or victims of war, for instance, but when we look at it in the context of addiction—a dis-ease of body, mind, heart and soul— we will start to see that many suffer (not only visibly, but in hiding) in a world that has become addicted to the “dopamine hits” of a consumeristic, pleasure-driven world that sells fantasy, power and escape in real and instant time. One addict may suffer visibly on the streets from opioid or fentanyl abuse, another isolated and hidden in a penthouse suite immeshed in the sexual exploits of pornography and virtual sex, and still another who suffers from his parents’ basement caught up in the endless temptations of online gambling as a way to cope with the deep pain of existential uncertainty.
We can call this the Great Dopamine Chase. Addiction does not discriminate. And the spectrum is widening.
Integrated into the very fabric of western society is the toxic and profit-driven Empire of Consumerism, backed by Big Data and Big Government, that in plain sight lures humanity away from each other and reality and into a digitally fabricated “metaverse” and “consumerverse” that usurps the spirituality of everyday life, the sacredness of the earth and the deep need for reality-grounded relationships and concrete community belonging. Many are able to integrate such activities into their lives and still stay afloat as a relatively functioning member of society—whatever that means—despite the spiritual and psychological evidence pointing to a historic crisis of meaning, belonging, depression, and emotional intelligence.
What social scientists, brain scientists, and the great spiritual leaders can agree on fundamentally, is that the Empire of Consumerism in all its twenty-first century manifestations, has come to replace the inherent concepts and concrete reality of human spirituality, which cries out for the human race to turn inward and embrace the wounded and traumatized soul and brain, instead of outward into the world of distraction, escape and the self-medication of life’s traumas.
Addiction is a spirituality crisis mainly because its sufferers find themselves disconnected in the areas that a healthy spirituality can heal and create meaningful connection and belonging: our relationship with ourselves, our loved ones, and a Higher Power (or a power outside of us). Furthermore, behind such scourging pain that addictions cause, is a brain and nervous system that learns how to cope with trauma and emotional distress through substances and compulsive behaviours that illicit dopamine in search of euphoria rather than a spirituality-based approach to healing and coming to terms with a human reality of intensified distress and anxieties in a more human way.
While the macrocosm of society’s collective spiritual, mental, and social disintegration into consumeristic addiction is captured by both western social science and the emotionally aware spirituality of the modern Christian mystics—one only has to be familiar with the late spiritual giant Henri Nouwen’s writings and Brene Brown’s recent research into the science of human nature to realize the convergence (see Brown’s foreword to Nouwen’s Love Henri: Letters on the Spiritual Life )—the microcosm of addiction portrayed in individuals’ lives who spiral out of control into unmanageability and chaos is captured anonymously in the stories and pain of those who have entered into recovery or the “rooms” of the Great “AA” communities which have emerged to support and assist addicts whose lives became unmanageable through substance abuse of many kinds, including process addictions like sex, gambling, shopping, social media, and gaming, for instance.
Defining the level of addiction between a person of relatively good mental health and social functioning who shops too much on Amazon, for instance, and that whose lives spiral out of control into compulsive behaviours like sex addiction or liver-failing alcoholism, for instance, is readily observable. The former perhaps has an addiction to consumeristic binging as a way to cope with the stress that life may bring, calling it self-care or treating oneself to a self-soothing luxury. While the latter, having perhaps dealt with childhood trauma and the parental discouragement of being vulnerable (i.e. “sharing feelings”), use substances as a way of coping with daily life, vs. a way to casually maintain a sense of value or self-love.
Regardless of the case, what we need is a trauma and addiction informed Christianity that, quite frankly, is not oblivious to brain science, human vulnerability, deep spirituality, and the need for meaningful belonging. Instead, Christianity in the west has opted for the “Ye Olde” moral crusading, religious scapegoating, and the “pristine”— above reproach attitude— of a quasi-church fuelled by ideological toxicity, moral platitudes, promises of individual wealth and literalist polemics. Unfortunately, these various “brands” of Christianity have come to replace the substantial and merciful Christ of faith who identifies with the mentally ill, the disenfranchised and the stigmatized—visible or hidden, impoverished or provided for.
But Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us of the crucified God who “is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.”
Addiction, when placed in the context of psychosocial trauma, demands not a rigidly moralistic response of judgement, stand-offish-ness or turning a blind eye, but a response of merciful community outpouring for the deeply wounded soul and traumatized brain looking for a steady supply of dopamine to numb the pain of shame, resentments, and self-hatred from years of childhood trauma and the stigmatization of society.
Bonhoeffer, as he often does, speaks to us today with prophetic relevance. Echoing Carl Jung and his work on the Shadow Self, he states: “Nothing that we despise in other [people] is inherently absent from ourselves. We must learn to regard people less in light of what they do or omit to do, and more in light of what they suffer.
Jung believed the shadow self to be the unconscious dark side of the personality. According to him the shadow self is prone to psychological projection, in which a unconscious personal inferiority is recognized as a perceived moral deficiency in someone else.
Referring to Jesus’s teaching on removing the log in our own eye before brushing away the sawdust in someone else’s, Bonhoeffer reminds us that:
“Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others, we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”
Elaine Heath, in her book The Mystic Way of Evangelism, takes a fresh look at the way God views and responds to human beings and what we call “sin.” Heath casts the character, Julian of Norwich, in her revitalized story of human sin and redemption. Speaking of Julian, Heath writes: “she locates sin in the context of wounds, offering a therapeutic vision of redemption.” Julian’s approach captures the heart of the gospel, where God looks upon the traumatized addict with wisdom and a Father-like heart. In Julian’s therapeutic redemption, God looks upon human beings “with pity and not with blame.” He does so because He can see the “original wounds” behind humanity’s sin and suffering—wounds that He wants to heal so deeply, that God is willing to be “crushed” so His children can have everlasting peace (Isaiah 53:5).
Heath attributes the deterioration of Christian mission, in our case, how we view and respond to trauma and addiction, to the cultural accommodation in the Church. Instead of living a life of faithful discipleship and self-giving love and mercy, Christians have allowed “consumerism, competitiveness, and individualism” to invade their lives and supplant a spirituality of mercy.
Thankfully, we have voices like Bonhoeffer and Richard Rohr who confront us in our cultural accommodation. Rohr writes in Breathing Under Water,
“What humiliated and wounded addict cannot look on the image of the crucified Jesus and see himself or herself? Who would not rush toward surrender and communion with such a crucified God, who against all expectations, shares in our powerlessness, our failure, and our indignity? Who would not find himself revealed, renamed, and released inside of such a God? As theologian Sebastian Moore said many years ago in a book of the same name, ‘the crucified Jesus is no stranger.’ Jesus is no stranger to history, no stranger to the soul, no stranger to any who have suffered—but a stranger to all others—even to many Christians. Jesus is more than anything else the God of all who suffer—more than any tribal god that can be encompassed in a single religion.”
Jesus is the God of the Cross—and all-embracing merciful Savior who moves according to a logic of mercy for the traumatized addict. What is the Way of Jesus? Pope Francis tells us in The Name of God Is Mercy: Jesus “doesn't reproach [addicts] for their fragility and their wounds but…treats them with the medicine of mercy.”
“Jesus moves according to a different logic,” Francis continues. “At his own risk and danger he goes up to the leper and restores him, he heals him. In so doing, he shows us a new horizon, the logic of God who is love, a God who desires the salvation of all [people]. Jesus touched the leper and brought him back into the community. He didn't sit down at a desk and study the situation, he didn't consult the experts for pros an cons. What really mattered to him was reaching stranded people and saving them, like the Good Shepherd who leaves the flock to save one lost sheep. Then, as today, this kind of logic and conduct can be shocking, it provokes angry mutterings from those who are only ever used to having things fit into their preconceived notions and ritual purity instead of letting themselves be surprised by reality, by a greater love or a higher standard. Jesus goes and heals and integrates the marginalized, the ones who are outside the city, the ones outside the encampment.
…In so doing he shows us the way.”
A TALE OF TWO LOST SONS
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So Jesus told them this parable:
“There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.
“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”
A TALE OF TWO CHURCHES, 2022
“All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So Jesus told them this parable…”
In other words, in addition to Luke, we have the Pharisees to thank for this extraordinary glimpse into the Kingdom of God that Jesus is bringing into the world. Thank you, Pharisees! I take back all those critical things I’ve ever said about you. Well, maybe not all.
Because to mention the Pharisees is to send up a giant flare—here come the bad guys. And certainly their eagerness to eliminate Jesus plus Jesus’ bold warnings—Woe to you, Pharisees, hypocrites that you are!—have combined to make the Christian tradition regard the Pharisees as religion at its worst.
This is all well-known stuff, but we must also keep in mind this is not how they were seen by their contemporaries. Their fellow Jews by and large admired their goal, viz. to purify Israel and prepare for the Kingdom of God’s coming. How? By zealously, thoroughly, meticulously observing the law. They were the lawyers for whom the study of the law was equal to worship in the Temple. Those who didn’t share their pious zeal for the law they regarded as nominal Jews, in name only, hardly better than Gentile sinners.
Yet if there’s anyone in this parable who is simply lost--present tense, estranged from the heart of God, it’s the elder son, though he has never left home, never missed a day’s work on the family farm. The elder son sees the Father’s gracious welcome of his prodigal little brother as a great injustice, indeed even a personal disrespect to himself. “All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” This is what the Pharisees found unacceptable.
A review of the elder brother’s case against his Father shows the following progression.
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