I have not enough time to spend blogging,while I am arranging to leave the country, but I just will say that the lessons continue with "eternal life" speech. And it occurs to me that, Jesus although siding witht he pharisees on the topic, his eternal life was tenable during your earthly lifetime, it seems not to be reward after death, but rather something that we cans receive if we partake of his passion (my flesh, my blood) the journey will be long and arid and the only way of surviving it, is by living his life that he shares with us now. Having eternal life now, would have liberate his disciples and us, of the fear of death, which in my opinion is reponsible for many curtailments of the joy of living. One may say, that precisely the fear of death frees people to live life fully, becuase they know they will die. Let have fun now, because we shall die tomorrow. That reminds me of the "Labor will make you free" inscribed on the entrance of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany.
It all depends what kind of life you call the "good life" that you want to live to the fullest.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Saturday, August 19, 2006
POLITICS OF INMORTALITY
During previous weeks I have been talking about the strong (see shellacked mandala or fear and generosity posts) presence of the Exodus story in the gospel passages. Even going back to the feeding of the five thousands, we have seen Jesus re-enacting the Exodus story. I have pondered that Jesus interest in reactivating as if it were such a powerful foundational myth in Israel must also been an important part of his program of re-igniting hope in his audience.
However the exodus of Jesus is not quite the same of the exodus from Egypt, it plays on the historical memory of the people of Israel known as “The Exodus” and it does shares its major motifs and specially its major symbols and breaking points. Like manna, water crossing, feeding. Walking to freedom, passage from state of slavery and scarcity to state of freedom and abundance, to mention a few. But it does it like the one who dyes new hues into old and worn fabric bleached by centuries of fierce sun and heat. He picks up the pattern and repaints a New and quite different Promised Land.
We have talked about that the Israelites of the First century found themselves again “ab intio”, back to square one, slaves and living in scarcity, the problem was they were in Egypt no more, but in the promised land were supposedly they will live in freedom and abundance. There was a dissonance between God promises and reality.
The contractual nature of the relationship of the people of Israel and God, assumed that the people have not fulfilled their side of that bargain and therefore God was off the hook in fulfilling his. There was historical precedence, they had a severe and catastrophic similar covenantal failure when the educate leadership was deported to Babylon. They came back after 500 years, we presume some of them, while others were probably assimilated to Babylonian culture. And joined the locals that were left behind. Similar failure on the covenantal relationships happen when the Northern Kingdom fell to the invader and Israel was reduced to smaller southern portion known as Judah. Jesus and most of his followers were descendants of that disappeared kingdom in the northen part and seen as suspicious by their southern brothers.
Now, at the time of Jesus no one was free, and Jesus audience with some noted Gospel exceptions, were a raggedly riffraff. For this crowd the hope of liberation was not a philosophical or theological musing of the well-fed-ivory-tower-scholars, but a rather more crude, pungent and pressing need. Studies have it that the level of poverty in Israel at the turn of the first century was widespread and deep, as in hand to mouth. It is from this urgency that Jesus frequently scoffs at the Pharisee and Sadducee political parties, who although nationalistic the first and lacayune the second have both failed to provide guidance to the people in such dire times and spent all of their energy in endless arguing of the finer points of the law and the correctness of doctrine.
The Sadducees close to the Romans and the puppet government in Jerusalem did not believe in life eternal and went on to prove that one could derive a clear direction from the text of the law to sustain such believe. For the Sadducees when one died we sleeps in the Lord until and that is that. No wonder they were consumed with “earthly concerns” if they could deal with their meaning in life by succeeding here and now. The pharisees, who scoffed at the Romans for having other religion and being not form the chosen people, believed in the idea that life prolongs itself beyond its physicality. Some of the stories told by Jesus seemed to indicate that he was at least within that group of ideas akin or close to the pharisee party.
However the exodus of Jesus is not quite the same of the exodus from Egypt, it plays on the historical memory of the people of Israel known as “The Exodus” and it does shares its major motifs and specially its major symbols and breaking points. Like manna, water crossing, feeding. Walking to freedom, passage from state of slavery and scarcity to state of freedom and abundance, to mention a few. But it does it like the one who dyes new hues into old and worn fabric bleached by centuries of fierce sun and heat. He picks up the pattern and repaints a New and quite different Promised Land.
We have talked about that the Israelites of the First century found themselves again “ab intio”, back to square one, slaves and living in scarcity, the problem was they were in Egypt no more, but in the promised land were supposedly they will live in freedom and abundance. There was a dissonance between God promises and reality.
The contractual nature of the relationship of the people of Israel and God, assumed that the people have not fulfilled their side of that bargain and therefore God was off the hook in fulfilling his. There was historical precedence, they had a severe and catastrophic similar covenantal failure when the educate leadership was deported to Babylon. They came back after 500 years, we presume some of them, while others were probably assimilated to Babylonian culture. And joined the locals that were left behind. Similar failure on the covenantal relationships happen when the Northern Kingdom fell to the invader and Israel was reduced to smaller southern portion known as Judah. Jesus and most of his followers were descendants of that disappeared kingdom in the northen part and seen as suspicious by their southern brothers.
Now, at the time of Jesus no one was free, and Jesus audience with some noted Gospel exceptions, were a raggedly riffraff. For this crowd the hope of liberation was not a philosophical or theological musing of the well-fed-ivory-tower-scholars, but a rather more crude, pungent and pressing need. Studies have it that the level of poverty in Israel at the turn of the first century was widespread and deep, as in hand to mouth. It is from this urgency that Jesus frequently scoffs at the Pharisee and Sadducee political parties, who although nationalistic the first and lacayune the second have both failed to provide guidance to the people in such dire times and spent all of their energy in endless arguing of the finer points of the law and the correctness of doctrine.
The Sadducees close to the Romans and the puppet government in Jerusalem did not believe in life eternal and went on to prove that one could derive a clear direction from the text of the law to sustain such believe. For the Sadducees when one died we sleeps in the Lord until and that is that. No wonder they were consumed with “earthly concerns” if they could deal with their meaning in life by succeeding here and now. The pharisees, who scoffed at the Romans for having other religion and being not form the chosen people, believed in the idea that life prolongs itself beyond its physicality. Some of the stories told by Jesus seemed to indicate that he was at least within that group of ideas akin or close to the pharisee party.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Breast Cancer and Bread that Came from Heaven
I have only dial-up this week and I am afraid I can not blog much. This week I have been looking into getting supplies to my niece in Cuba, she is about thirty and she had a mastectomy, she said she did it because she wants to look after her children and when she found out that she had a growth in her left breast that turned up to be malignant, she said she did not have to think too much. It make me think of Jesus begin the bread that came from heaven and the incredible power and responsibility of nurturing those to whom you have a duty to. She make me think of Jesus, whom Presiding-bishop elect called "Our Mother" in line with the mystics. How God was able to sacrifice his own self for the salvation of the world, the power and responsibility of nurture. Jesus seemingly feeds us with nothing better than his own self, in the most common but also the ever present at the dinner table "bread". He is the manna that will feed the people of Israel as the walk away from "Egyptian slavery" to the true freedom of the messianic promised land. What a feat! Convincing his followers that they were not indeed responsible for the "Egyptian" status they find themselves in the Land of Milk and Honey, but they were put there again by the political and economic class who stole both milk and honey. What Jesus promises though is not an instant solution but a pilgrimage of 40 years in the desert, to break away from internalized slavery and move into freedom. Exodus is what he promises, the promised land is still far away. Reigniting the foundational myth of Israel is his long term goal, and for the long journey he offers himself as "the bread that came form heaven", we can not hoard it because it will be enough for the day -panis cotidianum- of the dominical prayer.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
THE SHELLACKED SAND MANDALA
Luke 9:28-36
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+9:28-36&vnum=yes&version=nrsv
I met this man in the north market in Columbus, Ohio, during our 2003 General Convention. The market has just closed and I was looking for a place to eat something light, was like five or six o’clock and this man was manning a stall, actually the only stall open in the market, with his two daughters and an older man besides him. The dress was peculiar because it reminded me of the Old Order of Amish, straw hat, bear, no shoes, plain and rough material shirt. The girls were having a good time playing but their dress was simple, the older man looked very similar in appearance to the younger man, I think in his late thirties. He seemed to be the two little girls father. There was a cell phone on the table and a credit card machine the only two reminders in the whole scene that I was still in USA 2006.
The stuff he was selling were beeswax candles and honey and sweets, I do not remember much. He had some fliers about the wax and the honey and one shabbily printed flyer on the Old Quakers, my mother was a Quaker before becoming a Communist and I engaged him in conversation, he was very pleasant and well read, quoted Plato. He was critical of the modern Quakers that engage in social work or human development in the world as a matter of program ad not as an specific prompting of the inward Christ. The session we had just finished was one of acute arguments over the authority of Scriptures and I asked him to comment.
I must admit that my knowledge of the Society of Friends is very superficial, so I was surprised when he said that there was no way we could really know what Jesus meant or the circumstances in which his sayings were said, he said, I think, that words can never convey a story in full. Therefore they wait upon God to give them the word for this time, that well could be interpretation of Scripture or something totally new.
It was refreshing to see somebody dress like a peasant from before the turn of the century, with the name conservative attached to himself speaking so liberally about the authority of Scripture. The foundation of what he said were not a sign of arrogance but humble understanding and acceptance that words can never contained a whole experience. That is why we have resorted to poetry and the arts in general to provide insights that words cannot efficiently and fully ever provide.
How parents can describe in words how their children looked like when they were born, how they felt, how other people felt and responded to their coming into the world. How to apprehend the entire story in words? Or tape for that matter?.
I think the history of the value of Scripture as the Word of God is tied up to the history of the Reformation, a revolt of the Universities against the ignorance of the clergy at the break of the Renaissance. Not surprising still to this day, in some of the Lutheran denominations, clergy garb is the black academic gown worn by University professors. Luther principle of “sola scriptura” (only scripture) is paired with “sola gratia”(only grace). Interesting that he found a balance between a written and somewhat fixed record of God’s work in the past -Scriptures- and the most fluid and experiential: God’s grace.
The gospel passage of today is one of those beautiful instances in which we need to imagine Scripture. We need to sit and purposely contemplate the Divine and to consider such contemplation sufficient in itself. We need to enhance the text and open ourselves to te experience.
The undertow of the passage is still the ancient story of Exodus. I have said that the whole section of this stories from the rejection at Nazareth, the feeding of the 5,000, the walking on water and the Transfiguration had underneath the ancient and well know story of Exodus. The retelling of which was re-enacted in all Jewish homes during Passover.
The theological problem of the time, could be the fact that the Jews were slaves in Egypt and still remain slaves in the Promised Land, against the promise of the Lord to bring them to a land of milk ad honey, instead they lived in squalor and from hand to mouth. The reconciliation of God’s will with the presence of evil, one of the thorniest issues in Christianity according to conservative Anglican theologian Stott, was most likely also a serious problem in the Israel of the first century.
The Jewish understanding of cause and effect mediated by the contractual nature of their relationship with God will make them believe that they or their ancestors before them were sinners and because of that they will were today neither free or wealthy. Not only they were poor and slaves but their were the only ones to be blame for it. Wonderful idea for the oppressor class to convinced the oppressed that they are the ones to be blamed for their status in life. The complexity and codification of religious practices and their lack of resources and time made the poor sink even further into guilt.
In short the people of Israel were like an abused wife convinced by her abuser that is her clumsiness in ironing or lack of ability in cooking that makes her responsible for her “just” punishment. And here Jesus, in the feeding of the 5,000, or walking on water or being transformed on the Mount is reminding them that is not God’s will their present misery, and that it is certainly man abusing of his free will. He reminds them of the foundational myth of Israel, the story of Exodus so they can break away from the stupor of years of theological abuse and break free again.
The journey with Jesus, was a like a new journey with a new Moses to a new promised land. One that you engage with the essentials for travel, one in which you know yourself to be homeless in the world and recipient of the hospitality of faith. One in which you know that God multiplies scarcity into abundance. One in which God shares his very self in the midst of the storm reassuring us and calming the elements. It is also a journey with God’s endorsement, like when Moses met God and his face shone, Jesus clothes became dazzling white.
Moses came down with the seeds of Scripture, the Ten Commandments tablets, second edition, while Jesus, Elijah and Moses were talking about Jesus impending passion in Jerusalem. The New Law of this New Moses seems not be a catalogue dos and don’ts, but rather an experience, a sacrificial one to boot. One in which the need for a scapegoating and its consequent mimetic violence will be extinguished. So instead of written law, Jesus brings a law written in our hearts.
There are many differences between Jesus and Mohamed, and I will not even to attempt to name them all, but one that is clear to me is that Mohamed wrote a book -Quran- that he claimed inspired by God to the letter, but Jesus on the other hand lived a life and die on the cross for us. The only instance in which we know of Jesus writing was during the forgiving of the adulteress, when he wrote something on the sand.
The stories of Hebrew Scriptures in the present authoritative list were put together by the so-called Council of Jamnia in 90 after Christ and the stories about Jesus we call the Gospels and the rest of the letters and most of the New Testament were not accepted as authoritative until the Council of Constantinople 381 and 397 with the Council of Carthage a council for the local church of North Africa.
I will not question the faith of the early church, which often did have very few patchy pieces of the new scriptures. Even more we do not know exactly how they were consider in the community. What was important for them and for me is that those scriptures said about the One they loved so much that they did not want to offend him, not because of fear of retribution, but rather for fear of facing in solitude a troubled world.
It reminded the story of the sand mandala, a special creation of Tibetan Buddhism - and I am not going to enter into details about it other than to say that is made with colored sand deposited in a highly stylized form. The story goes that a Japanese tourist after taping the building of one he asked to be able to take home to which the monks smiling agreed, and then he proceeded to shellac the whole thing.
Peter’s response to the fleeting apparition of the Divine was to try to fix in time the experience, codifying it -building tabernacles as in the Feast of Booths- understandable human desire of moving from faith to certitude, specially when face with great challenges. It is no different that the desire in some Anglican corners to go back to the law written in stone and abandon the more fragile, exposed and rather fluid law of grace. It is not surprising that most mega-churches are built on the same principles, because people want the certainty of law to face the monumental cultural changes that Americans and most of the affluent North Atlantic Affluent societies are presently facing. To a world in flux we Christians have no to other choice but to get on the boat until we get to our true home. We have no to other choice but to trust God that our present homelessness in the world can only be faced with the hospitality of faith, that we need to do ministry without bling-bling. We have no other choice that be faithful to a God that can convert two fish and five loaves of bread in food enough for many.
We can shellac the Divine presence to take home to join touristic souvenirs but be certain that you will be worshiping an idol not the true and living God. He is my Son, listen to Him
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+9:28-36&vnum=yes&version=nrsv
I met this man in the north market in Columbus, Ohio, during our 2003 General Convention. The market has just closed and I was looking for a place to eat something light, was like five or six o’clock and this man was manning a stall, actually the only stall open in the market, with his two daughters and an older man besides him. The dress was peculiar because it reminded me of the Old Order of Amish, straw hat, bear, no shoes, plain and rough material shirt. The girls were having a good time playing but their dress was simple, the older man looked very similar in appearance to the younger man, I think in his late thirties. He seemed to be the two little girls father. There was a cell phone on the table and a credit card machine the only two reminders in the whole scene that I was still in USA 2006.
The stuff he was selling were beeswax candles and honey and sweets, I do not remember much. He had some fliers about the wax and the honey and one shabbily printed flyer on the Old Quakers, my mother was a Quaker before becoming a Communist and I engaged him in conversation, he was very pleasant and well read, quoted Plato. He was critical of the modern Quakers that engage in social work or human development in the world as a matter of program ad not as an specific prompting of the inward Christ. The session we had just finished was one of acute arguments over the authority of Scriptures and I asked him to comment.
I must admit that my knowledge of the Society of Friends is very superficial, so I was surprised when he said that there was no way we could really know what Jesus meant or the circumstances in which his sayings were said, he said, I think, that words can never convey a story in full. Therefore they wait upon God to give them the word for this time, that well could be interpretation of Scripture or something totally new.
It was refreshing to see somebody dress like a peasant from before the turn of the century, with the name conservative attached to himself speaking so liberally about the authority of Scripture. The foundation of what he said were not a sign of arrogance but humble understanding and acceptance that words can never contained a whole experience. That is why we have resorted to poetry and the arts in general to provide insights that words cannot efficiently and fully ever provide.
How parents can describe in words how their children looked like when they were born, how they felt, how other people felt and responded to their coming into the world. How to apprehend the entire story in words? Or tape for that matter?.
I think the history of the value of Scripture as the Word of God is tied up to the history of the Reformation, a revolt of the Universities against the ignorance of the clergy at the break of the Renaissance. Not surprising still to this day, in some of the Lutheran denominations, clergy garb is the black academic gown worn by University professors. Luther principle of “sola scriptura” (only scripture) is paired with “sola gratia”(only grace). Interesting that he found a balance between a written and somewhat fixed record of God’s work in the past -Scriptures- and the most fluid and experiential: God’s grace.
The gospel passage of today is one of those beautiful instances in which we need to imagine Scripture. We need to sit and purposely contemplate the Divine and to consider such contemplation sufficient in itself. We need to enhance the text and open ourselves to te experience.
The undertow of the passage is still the ancient story of Exodus. I have said that the whole section of this stories from the rejection at Nazareth, the feeding of the 5,000, the walking on water and the Transfiguration had underneath the ancient and well know story of Exodus. The retelling of which was re-enacted in all Jewish homes during Passover.
The theological problem of the time, could be the fact that the Jews were slaves in Egypt and still remain slaves in the Promised Land, against the promise of the Lord to bring them to a land of milk ad honey, instead they lived in squalor and from hand to mouth. The reconciliation of God’s will with the presence of evil, one of the thorniest issues in Christianity according to conservative Anglican theologian Stott, was most likely also a serious problem in the Israel of the first century.
The Jewish understanding of cause and effect mediated by the contractual nature of their relationship with God will make them believe that they or their ancestors before them were sinners and because of that they will were today neither free or wealthy. Not only they were poor and slaves but their were the only ones to be blame for it. Wonderful idea for the oppressor class to convinced the oppressed that they are the ones to be blamed for their status in life. The complexity and codification of religious practices and their lack of resources and time made the poor sink even further into guilt.
In short the people of Israel were like an abused wife convinced by her abuser that is her clumsiness in ironing or lack of ability in cooking that makes her responsible for her “just” punishment. And here Jesus, in the feeding of the 5,000, or walking on water or being transformed on the Mount is reminding them that is not God’s will their present misery, and that it is certainly man abusing of his free will. He reminds them of the foundational myth of Israel, the story of Exodus so they can break away from the stupor of years of theological abuse and break free again.
The journey with Jesus, was a like a new journey with a new Moses to a new promised land. One that you engage with the essentials for travel, one in which you know yourself to be homeless in the world and recipient of the hospitality of faith. One in which you know that God multiplies scarcity into abundance. One in which God shares his very self in the midst of the storm reassuring us and calming the elements. It is also a journey with God’s endorsement, like when Moses met God and his face shone, Jesus clothes became dazzling white.
Moses came down with the seeds of Scripture, the Ten Commandments tablets, second edition, while Jesus, Elijah and Moses were talking about Jesus impending passion in Jerusalem. The New Law of this New Moses seems not be a catalogue dos and don’ts, but rather an experience, a sacrificial one to boot. One in which the need for a scapegoating and its consequent mimetic violence will be extinguished. So instead of written law, Jesus brings a law written in our hearts.
There are many differences between Jesus and Mohamed, and I will not even to attempt to name them all, but one that is clear to me is that Mohamed wrote a book -Quran- that he claimed inspired by God to the letter, but Jesus on the other hand lived a life and die on the cross for us. The only instance in which we know of Jesus writing was during the forgiving of the adulteress, when he wrote something on the sand.
The stories of Hebrew Scriptures in the present authoritative list were put together by the so-called Council of Jamnia in 90 after Christ and the stories about Jesus we call the Gospels and the rest of the letters and most of the New Testament were not accepted as authoritative until the Council of Constantinople 381 and 397 with the Council of Carthage a council for the local church of North Africa.
I will not question the faith of the early church, which often did have very few patchy pieces of the new scriptures. Even more we do not know exactly how they were consider in the community. What was important for them and for me is that those scriptures said about the One they loved so much that they did not want to offend him, not because of fear of retribution, but rather for fear of facing in solitude a troubled world.
It reminded the story of the sand mandala, a special creation of Tibetan Buddhism - and I am not going to enter into details about it other than to say that is made with colored sand deposited in a highly stylized form. The story goes that a Japanese tourist after taping the building of one he asked to be able to take home to which the monks smiling agreed, and then he proceeded to shellac the whole thing.
Peter’s response to the fleeting apparition of the Divine was to try to fix in time the experience, codifying it -building tabernacles as in the Feast of Booths- understandable human desire of moving from faith to certitude, specially when face with great challenges. It is no different that the desire in some Anglican corners to go back to the law written in stone and abandon the more fragile, exposed and rather fluid law of grace. It is not surprising that most mega-churches are built on the same principles, because people want the certainty of law to face the monumental cultural changes that Americans and most of the affluent North Atlantic Affluent societies are presently facing. To a world in flux we Christians have no to other choice but to get on the boat until we get to our true home. We have no to other choice but to trust God that our present homelessness in the world can only be faced with the hospitality of faith, that we need to do ministry without bling-bling. We have no other choice that be faithful to a God that can convert two fish and five loaves of bread in food enough for many.
We can shellac the Divine presence to take home to join touristic souvenirs but be certain that you will be worshiping an idol not the true and living God. He is my Son, listen to Him
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