Monthly Archives: December 2021

As Jesus Grew

Posted on by
Reply
Church window at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Rosemont, PA

The story of Jesus in the Temple at the age of twelve (Lk. 2: 41–41) is unique in the New Testament in that, being the only story about Jesus as an adolescent, it is also the only text that gives us insight into Jesus as a developing person. The infancy narratives show Jesus as a vulnerable baby and stories of Jesus as an adult, thirty years of age, show a pretty steady portrait of Jesus although a few stories hint at some change in Jesus’ perspective, such as the story of the Canaanite woman. (Lk. 18: 1–9). The big turning point in Jesus’ life was the baptism when the heaven’s opened. This was clearly a powerful experience that oriented him for the rest of his life and solidified his identity. It is well-known that early adolescence is a time of transition and a growing sense of identity, and Luke shows us the beginnings of the identity that was firmed up by his baptism.

The biggest transition for an adolescent is to move from parental care and authority to a growing independence in calling the shots for one’s own life. This is a transition that both parents and children have to navigate. That Jesus’ parents assumed that their son had rejoined the caravan for the return trip from Jerusalem (a poor assumption) suggests that they were indeed letting go and giving their son some responsibility for himself. If Jesus had been younger, they would have made sure the boy was with them before the caravan left. As for Jesus, it is obvious that he made an independent decision on his own initiative. This independent choice led to a new dependence beyond his family as Jesus felt drawn to the temple and took advantage of the opportunity to learn and sharpen his own growing insights in conversation with the elders. Although Jesus would, as an adult, have an adversarial relationship with many of the same people, at this time in his life, Jesus asked questions, listened carefully, and weighed the answers for what they could teach him. As often happens with adolescents, Jesus seemed to assume that his parents would know where he would be, another poor assumption..

That Jesus was drawn to the temple and to conversation with the elders indicates that he had a growing sense of a vocation deeply involved with the religious tradition of his people and the time to begin preparing for it had come. When his parents found him, he showed himself to be firm in this growing sense of vocation when he said: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Lk. 2: 49) Like many adolescents, Jesus failed to make himself understood to his parents. Not wishing to be a rebellious adolescent, Jesus returned to Nazareth and “was obedient to them.” (Lk. 2: 51)

The insights into adolescent psychology are pretty good for a writer who had no opportunity to take a course in developmental psychology, but that is not the point of the story. What is important, and something we should ponder, is that Jesus, as truly and fully human as well as divine, developed as a human being as every human being develops. As with everything else human, Jesus leads us through his own human experience in our own navigating of transitions in life.

God’s Christmas Gift

Posted on by
Reply

How can God possibly become a real and true human being? We don’t know. God knows, but God isn’t telling. That is probably because I can’t imagine God giving an answer that would be intelligible to humans. All we know is that God became a human being. Impossible, right? Well, if it really happened, then it isn’t really impossible; it just seems that way. And it is indeed impossible for humans. Only God can do this trick.

So what’s the big deal about God becoming a human being? The big deal, which is an infinitely big deal, is that humans can become God. Impossible! Well, yes. For humans it most certainly is impossible, notwithstanding the many people who have thought they could and failed for all their delusions. Once again, only God can do this trick.

Many Christians are astonished at the prospect although this belief goes back to the early Christian centuries and is enshrined in the second Epistle of St. Peter where Peter says that we become “partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Pet. 1:4) It sounds as presumptuous to some as it sounds impossible, and it is presumptuous and impossible if one thinks in terms of humans having divinity within themselves that they can tap into at will. (Hence the many failures.) But note that I said it is only God who can do this trick. And it doesn’t mean we become “god” in some sort of fusion. If we dissolve, there is no relationship between ourselves and God ,which is a prerequisite for participation in God’s nature. Becoming partakers of the divine nature is a gift which God makes possible by entering human nature and becoming a human being. The thing about a gift is that there must be both a giver and a receiver. So the question is: are we willing to receive the gift of God’s nature or not?

The question is pretty abstract in the terms discussed so far, but the story of Jesus’ birth in Luke brings the question down to earth. By setting the story in the context of the Roman Empire’s exertion of power through the census taken by Quirinius, Luke sets the stage for what the world is like, the world that will welcome Jesus and the gift of deification–or not. That the only shelter Joseph could find when Mary delivered her child was a stable, suggests that Jesus was not welcome to this world, a point made also in John’s Gospel. (Jn. 1: 11-12) The ubiquitous manger scenes make this setting very sweet and romantic, but if one were to feel the cold and smell the smells, it wouldn’t be so romantic. The story emphasizes the vulnerability of the child in spite of that child’s being God, capable of sharing his godhead with us. So far, only Mary and Joseph have welcomed the child into world and are taking care of him as well as they can. In contrast to this stark scene, we have the shepherds in the field seeing the Glory of the Lord and hearing the singing of the heavenly hosts. This reminds me of the double level in Revelation which draws the contrast between the human violence on earth and the rejoicing heavenly choruses in Heaven. For all their fear, the shepherds also receive the Christ Child. At this point, the only welcomers comes from the bottom of society, with the shepherds being the dregs. No red carpets from royalty or even a decent shelter offered by somebody of modest means. So if we think we are above the lowest rank of society, how about us? We should worry that it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a well-healed person to accept the gift of deification.

During Jesus’ life, we see much welcoming as crowds of people follow Jesus to receive healing and to listen to his words. Many of them are of the lowest classes but there are a few higher-ups who welcome Jesus, at least up to a point, with Simon the Leper being an example. But with the religious and political leadership, not so much. Religious and politicians should ponder this. When the Empire struck back after Jesus cleansed the temple, the welcome of just a few days before evaporated and Jesus died on the cross, alone, or almost alone. Not much of a welcome there.

There is more to welcoming God than welcoming a certain baby born in a stable some two thousand years ago. We can do this sentimentally in prayerful exercises and then get on with life. But if we really welcome God, we welcome everything Jesus said and did throughout his life. Which is to say we welcome the self-giving of God entering humanity, and we don’t try to become “god” on our own terms since welcoming God’s humanity involves welcoming our own. More challenging, we must welcome everybody else, even if they don’t welcome us, since Jesus welcomed them and still does. More challenging still, the gift of God’s nature means serving others, not asking them to serve us. Receiving the gift of God’s divinity gives us the gift of rejoicing with the heavenly hosts who sang to the shepherds, but it also gives us the gift of poverty and the vulnerability of a stable and then the vulnerability of the cross. The gift of participation in the divine nature is free, but it is also just as costly for us as it is for God.

Preparing the Way of the Lord

Posted on by
Reply

Advent is an odd sort of beginning for the liturgical year. In one respect , it is the beginning of the story of Jesus, starting with his conception and St. John the Baptist’s preaching as a forerunner of Jesus, but in another respect, Advent is thought to be about the end of the story, the end of the world with the “second coming” of Jesus. Or is it? John the Baptist is a transitionary character who points to a great good God will do without knowing what it is going to be. Might the “end” of the story really be another transition? Malachi’s image of God being like a refiner’s fire (Mal. 3:2) sounds ominous and violent, a perfect image for God burning up the world in a fit of anger. But a refiner’s fire is not destructive; it is constructive, even healing. As a refiner’s fire restores metals to their best condition, God’s refining fire purifies the sons of Levi so that they can offer their sacrifices. The refining fire is not an ending but a new beginning. In what other ways might the ministry of John the Baptist be a new beginning for us today?

Luke has John begin his preaching with a quote from Isaiah which stands by itself with no elaboration. John’s quote features the leveling of valleys and mountains in order to “prepare the way of the Lord.” The image of leveling can be threatening as it calls up fears of violent revolutionaries leveling everything to the ground out of anger and resentment. But this is not the kind of leveling Isaiah and John are envisioning. Isaiah was proclaiming the leveling of valleys and mountains in order to remove the obstacles between Babylonia and Jerusalem so that the Jews could return safely to their homeland. The way to prepare for the Lord, then, is to remove obstacles that we put between each other. In an online discussion of this reading, it was suggested that one way we smooth the way for others is to create barrier-free access for handicapped people although it was noted that we still have more progress to make since the distance of a barrier-free route can be quite extensive. In any case, this image gives us a small parable of the greater project of removing obstacles placed in the paths of the helpless. One way to do this would be to pass legislation that makes voting easier for people instead of harder. On paper or in a spoken sermon, removing barriers may sound like a calm action, but in reality, we are, first of all, removing obstacles in ourselves that cause us to stumble in the way of the Lord. Since we are likely to find that many of these obstacles have been mistaken for parts of ourselves instead of invasive infections, removing these obstacles may well feel like being refined by fire. Another way to say the same thing is to note that the Way of the Lord is from Empire whether in the household or a nation-state (Babylon) to Jerusalem, the freedom of a new beginning of life without obstacles between each other and God. Hence the importance of Luke meticulously listing the imperial rulers three times in the first three chapters of his Gospel.

In parallel to John’s introducing his ministry with an otherwise unelaborated quote from Isaiah, Luke has Jesus inaugurate his ministry with another quote from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” We do well to place these two quotes side by side as they add up to a fuller program of preparing the way of the Lord by freeing the oppressed from the obstacles we place before them..

In John’s Gospel, John the Baptist famously said of his relationship with Jesus: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (Jn. 3: 30) As my confessor of many years reminded me often, we must be like John the Baptist: decreasing so that Christ may increase within each of us. Letting Christ increase in us, of course has us decreasing ourselves by removing the obstacles in ourselves so as to prepare the way of the Lord.