Author Archives: andrewmarrosb

It Was Necessary that Jesus Ascend

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With the celebrations of Christmas and Easter and, to some extent, Pentecost, the celebration of Ascension seems to get lost in the shuffle, something of an afterthought if it is thought about at all. Part of the trouble is that it isn’t all that easy to get an idea of what the Ascension is all about, so we wonder: What ‘s the big deal? We celebrated Jesus’s birth at Christmas and his rising from the dead at Easter. What more do we need? Isn’t the Resurrection enough? According to Luke and John the answer is: No.

Another part of the trouble is that the Ascension is a downer with Jesus leaving his disciples. The first aria in J.S. Bach’s Ascension Oratorio is a long lament over Jesus’ departure. Hardly a cause for celebration. If Jesus loves us enough to come to earth and spend time with us, why would Jesus leave us?

Distance as well as closeness, however, typifies our relationship with God. It is put succinctly in the Psalm verse: “For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly.” (Ps. 138: 6) In theological terms, God is radically transcendent, but also radically imminent. God’s immediate presence wouldn’t be all that awesome if God were not transcendent as well, and a god who remains aloof from humans doesn’t exactly catch the heart of humans. Moreover, God’s distance gives humans space to live by decisions humans make while God’s closeness offers guidance to those who are open to it.

Luke describes a forty day period during which Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God and the forgiveness of sins. Most importantly, Jesus opens up the scriptures to the disciples by explaining why it was “necessary” that he suffer and rise from the dead. (As Luke and the other Gospel writers make clear, the “necessity” is human, not divine.) All of these are good thing, such good things that it is puzzling why Jesus would leave rather than continue with them. So what was the problem?

On the road to Emmaus, Cleopas and his companion told Jesus (while not recognizing him) that they had hoped he would “redeem Israel.” (Lk. 24: 21) In opening the scriptures to these two companions, Jesus shifted their lost hope to the need for Jesus to die and rise again. But after opening the scriptures for another forty days, Jesus was still asked: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1: 6) At this point, it was clear that, as long as Jesus was with the disciples, they would be distracted from his opening the scriptures to them. The temptation to triangle Jesus into their human agenda seems to have been irresistible as long as Jesus was physically present. Only if Jesus left them would they have the space to let the scriptures be opened to them so that they could understand the need for Jesus to have died and risen again. Jesus’ leaving also left the disciples as vulnerable to other humans as Jesus himself was while on earth, putting them, and us, in the position of suffering at their hands.

A second reason for the need for Jesus to ascend after a relatively brief time after his Resurrection builds on the first reason but also reinstates the dialectic of transcendence and imminence that had been temporarily compromised by Jesus’ Incarnate presence on earth. In John, Jesus says that only if he goes away can he send the Paraclete to guide them in all truth. In Luke, Jesus promises the disciples that the Holy Spirit will soon come if they wait in Jerusalem. Sure enough, ten days later, the Holy Spirit comes in tongues of fire, giving the disciples the gift of tongues so that they can communicate with other peoples. More importantly, the Holy Spirit guides the disciples into understanding the scriptures that Jesus had opened up for them so that not only did they finally understand that Jesus had to die and rise again, they were inspired to preach this truth along with proclaiming the forgiveness of sins.

In Ephesians, Paul proclaims the reality of the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord, seated at God’s right hand “in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 1: 20) Jesus may be exalted, with “all things under his feet,” but this exalted Jesus remains the crucified Lord who had to die before being so highly exalted. That is, we are not under the rule of a powerful deity, we are under the rule of the crucified one who rose with total forgiveness of those who tortured and killed him. It is this crucified, risen and ascended Lord who appeared to Stephen when he was being stoned for preaching what the Holy Spirit had inspired him to preach, and it was the exalted Jesus who filled Stephen with the same forgiveness of his persecutors. The ascended Lord may be infinitely up on high, but this same Lord sends the Holy Spirit deep into our hearts with the same apostolic message of forgiveness he gave to the disciples.

Dwelling in Sacred Space

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When I read Mircea Eliade as a college student, one of the first things I learned from him was the importance of sacred space, of a designated space being the center of the world. The designation might seem arbitrary in that it could be any space, sort of like Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin planting a pole in the ground and proclaiming it the North Pole. But once a space was designated as sacred, it truly was sacred ground and treated as such. Although the sacred space could be anywhere to begin with, there is a tendency to see certain landscapes, such as tall mountains and luminous lakes, as more likely to be considered holy space than others.

The early humans who designated sacred space didn’t have any notion of confining God to a certain spot. They instinctively knew that God is everywhere, but they also felt the need to focus. Solomon shares the same insight in his prayer at the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem when he says: “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built! “ (1 Kings 8: 27) Although the Israelites knew that God is everywhere, the temple was a focal point for Jewish piety. The Psalmist exulted in dwelling in the temple with God and longed for it desperately when torn away from it when taken into exile. I have the same sort of experience with the churches I worshiped in while growing up and with the Abbey Church where I have worshiped for more years than I can count. During the Eucharist, I keep getting the sense that the Abbey Church has become the center of the world as the bread and wine is consecrated. Not that the abbey is the only center of the world. There are countless more. As a practical matter, it is much easier to appreciate the fact that God is everywhere and act accordingly when a particular place is entered at a specific time to focus on God. By practicing decorum and reverence in a designated place, we are more apt to practice decorum, and reverence elsewhere.

Stemming from the insight of early humans and Solomon that the Temple cannot contain God are the various prophetic critiques of misuses of the temple for personal advantage of one sort or another. Jeremiah, for example, warned against trusting in words such as “This is the temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord.” (Jer. 7: 4) Hosea insisted that God preferred mercy to burnt offerings. (Hos. 6: 6) Jesus’ act of driving out the money changers was a climax of such prophecies. In Matthew’s version of this story, Jesus then heals the blind and the lame, (Mt. 21: 14) suggesting that such healing is much more in line of what the temple is for than changing money to keep the sacrifices going. Matthew’s placing of these acts of healing seem out of context, but they allude to an odd incident when David attacked the Jebusites and took the city. The defenders taunted David by saying that even the blind and the lame would be able to stop him. (2 Sam. 5: 6) David was believed to hate the blind and the lame as a result of the taunt, but it is more likely that David hated the able-bodied defenders who taunted him. One could say that Jesus was fulfilling David’s conquest of Jerusalem by healing the blind and the lame. In the end, nobody is going to stop Jesus.

John adds that Jesus implied that he himself is the Temple when he said that if the Temple is destroyed, he can rebuild it in three days. (Jn. 2: 19) St. Paul and St. Peter famously extended the human temple to everybody. St. Paul said that each of us is God’s temple, (1 Cor. 6: 10) and St. Peter said we are all living stones “built into a spiritual house.” (1 Pet. 2: 5) Jesus was a particular person who lived on earth at a particular time and place, but he has extended his sanctity as a temple to each of us, not least the blind and lame whom he cured in the temple. In his climactic teaching in Matthew, Jesus said that what we do and don’t do for the “least” of people is done, or not done, to him. (Mt. 25) Peter adds depth to this teaching by reminding us that Jesus was the stone rejected by the builders which has become the cornerstone. (1 Peter. 2: 7) God continues to build God’s house, God’s temple with stones rejected by those who would build human culture.

Just as sacred space can be, and is, anywhere and everywhere, everybody can be, and in fact is, a temple of God. We should treat ourselves and each other accordingly with decorum and reverence.

Resurrection in Miniature

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One of the oldest instinctual human acts is to reverence the bodies of the dead. Only in the most recent years have there been any signs of attenuation of such customs. There are no pragmatic reasons for it. As Søren Kierkegaard noted, the dead can’t pay you back for what we do for them, which makes reverence for the dead a profound act of disinterested love. Why do we have this instinct? Why was it important to the women to bring spices to the tomb at the dawn of the day after the sabbath at great expense? In answering these questions, it occurs to me that there is something awesome about death. How is it that the life that used to fill this body is no longer there? Where did that life go, if it went anywhere? Finding the tomb empty was bewildering to the women. How could they reverence the body if the body was not there? Worse, what sort of disrespectful act might have been committed on the body of a man who had died a criminal’s death?

Suddenly seeing the two men in dazzling clothes only compounded the bewilderment. These “men,” presumably angels, teased the women for looking for the living among the dead. (Lk. 24: 5) True, if one is looking for a live person, a tomb is not the best place to look, but the women had come to reverence a dead person who had meant much to them, and a tomb is the right place to look for that. As it turns out, the women who came to the tomb are the first to be told that Jesus is risen. They are also derided for not having expected this outcome, but since this is the only time in the history of the world that a dead person has risen bodily from the dead, they can be pardoned for not expecting it, Jesus’ prophesies of dying and rising notwithstanding. After all, the disciples didn’t believe Jesus when he said he was going to be killed. How could such a great man come to such an end? And if they didn’t believe Jesus was going to die, they would hardly have gotten to the notion he would rise again. Given the reaction of the women at the tomb, they hadn’t believed these prophesies any more than the disciples did.

It is highly significant that the first persons to be told about Jesus’ rising were not the disciples, but this small group of women who came to care for a dead body by anointing it with spices. One could say they got a lot more for their kind action than they bargained for. What if nobody had come to the tomb to reverence the body of Jesus? Would the resurrection have been made known? The story following in Luke gives us the first resurrection appearance of Jesus himself, but it isn’t straight-forward. The two disciples on the Road to Emmaus don’t recognize Jesus, but they invite him to stay with them when they come to an inn at eventide. If they had not kindly invited the stranger to stay and share supper with them, would they ever have seen the man as Jesus resurrected from the dead?

When the two disciples run back to Jerusalem to tell the other followers of Jesus, they are told that Jesus had appeared to Simon Peter. Although one would think this appearance the most momentous of all, it is mentioned almost in passing. Even Paul gives it more prominence is his list of appearances. (1 Cor. 15: 5) Luke then concludes with Jesus appearing to all of the disciples. It all seems low-key and very quiet. Hardly earth-shaking as the Resurrection is in Matthew.

I suggest we think further about how closely tied the Resurrection appearances in Luke are to small acts of human kindness. In Brothers Karamazov, Dmitri tells of how a man’s small act of giving him a bag of nuts made a deep impression on him. Such acts may seem to accomplish little, but they are the stuff of the resurrected life that abides.

The Prodigal Parable

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The Parable traditionally known as The Prodigal Son (Lk. 15: 11–32) is obviously a story of estrangement and reconciliation and forgiveness. So clear is this message, there should be no diluting or compromising it with violence, discord, or unforgiveness. However, the United States, a country filled with active churches, has the highest rate of incarceration in the world by a large margin. On top of that, we are seeing a spirit of vengeance in politics that seems to keep on growing. Does this parable’s meaning just disappear at the church door on the way out to the “real” world? A lawyer, Preston Shipp, author of Confessions of a Former-Prosecutor is an example of this disconnect. While raised in the church, he dreamed of being a prosecuting attorney from a fairly young age to protect society from the bad guys who victimized the good people. For many years, he fulfilled this dream by working at the state attorney’s office in Nashville. All this time, Jesus’ parable was in a totally alien universe, to judge by his own account. So, somehow, the simple and clear message of the parable is extraordinarily difficult to hear and believe in and act out in life. Why is this? Does the Parable itself give us insights into these difficulties? Let us take a look for ourselves with the help of Preston Shipp.

The elder brother’s relationship with his younger brother is not brotherly, although I suppose a cynic might say that’s what brotherhood is. Given the outrageous way the younger brother left home (demanding, not requesting his half of the inheritance) there are understandable reasons for this attitude. In any case, the elder brother’s calling his younger brother “that son of yours” in speaking with his father, suggests a highly depersonalized relationship with his brother. Preston Shipp writes about how he realized that the justice system is designed to prevent a prosecutor from having any personal awareness of the person he was prosecuting, let alone a relationship. This changed when a professor he had in college asked him to teach some law classes for college credit in a woman’s prison. This experience of bonding with incarcerated persons lead him to leave the prosecutor’s office. He now works for the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. Clearly, the way we manage relationships has a lot to do with how forgiving, or not, we might be. The second time Preston taught a course, he was highly impressed by a woman named Cyntoia Brown. She was underage when convicted of murder, but was sentenced as an adult. As he learned of her exposure to sex trafficking from an early age and other factors, he saw a person in a way that a prosecuting attorney is not encouraged to see a defendant. Imagine his shock when he received a copy of a court document he had filed while still working as a prosecutor, showing that he himself had rejected her appeal of a 51-year sentence and had never recollected it after meeting her in class.

Although the elder son is dutiful in the sense of staying home and working on his father’s farm, the way he berates his father for receiving his younger brother suggests he has little love for the work or for his father. Serious dissatisfaction with one’s work and family situation can harden the heart and make one less inclined to forgive. However, when the father tells the elder brother that everything he has, his elder son also has, we gain the suspicion that perhaps the elder brother was surrounded with blessings, like fattened calves, that he did not see or appreciate. Such lack of appreciation also dampens a sense of forgiveness of other people. The elder brother may have stayed with his father geographically, but his mind and heart seem to have been miles away.

The trauma of abuse or violent crime can make it difficult for the victim to forgive. Preston Shipp encountered many such crimes and knows what they cost the victims, although he also realized that the justice system did nothing to assist such victims except to feed any vengeance they might have. There is nothing in the parable to suggest that the elder brother had suffered any such trauma. The father, on the other hand, was surely traumatized by his younger son’s departure, and yet he welcomed him back with open arms. Cyntoia Brown was traumatized when she saw that her appeal had been denied and that Preston Shipp had been the one who reviewed it and rejected it. Preston expected to be skewered by her when he came to the next class, but he found her deeply forgiving, in spite of her hurt. This particular story has a happy ending in that, with the help of some celebrities taking up her cause which brought her into the public eye, Cyntoia was finally released from prison and has become an activist for many social causes, hoping to prevent what happened to her from happening to other people.

Shipp explains in many ways how vengeance is systemic in our judicial system and throughout our country’s cultural system. This system of vengeance is greatly exacerbated by systemic racism that has characterized American culture since colonial times and continues unabated to the present day. Racism, of course, entails much depersonalization of the other. More important, participation in such as system skews our perception of reality where many things taken for granted shouldn’t be. Will we ever bottom out of this collective sin the way the younger brother bottomed out of his sensual sins? On the other hand, this parable depicts a party being celebrated by an entire household, except for the elder brother. We can take this party as an image of a society transformed by forgiveness and reconciliation, an eschatological vision, we might say. Surely this party is an image of God, in Christ, “reconciling the world to himself.” (1 Cor. 19) Does this image attract us in any way, enough for us to desire to enter into it? Or are we more attracted to a society governed by the elder brother as he berates his father for such a celebration?

.When the father says to his elder son that the younger son had been dead and has come to life, (Lk. 15: 32) the story shifts to the Paschal Mystery. Such radical forgiveness makes one vulnerable, as the father was vulnerable. Who would want to be treated as the younger son treated his father? Who would want to be treated the way the older son treated his father? It is sobering to recall that the person who told this beautiful and edifying story was crucified as a criminal. Can we trust that this victim is risen and is still inviting us to the party?

Embracing the Fox

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When Jesus calls Herod “that fox,” (Lk. 13: 32) many associations, especially those from childhood, come to mind. In my case, there are the Uncle Remus stories of Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox and, of course, Aesop’s Fables. The animal stories by Thornton W. Burgess were among the first story books I heard as a small child, and they were the among first books I read for myself. Would Jesus have heard any such stories as a child? In the case of Aesop, it’s possible. It seems that children everywhere grow up with animal stories with foxes often being prominent.

The quality of being a cunning predator, often transformed as a trickster of sorts, is basic to many of the anthropological portrayals of foxes in the legends. In one of Aesop’s Fables, a fox tells a cock how much it wants to hear the bird sing. Indulging in pride over his voice, he is vulnerable to being carried off for the fox’s next meal. The townspeople, however, chase the fox because the cock belongs to them. So the cock suggests that the fox tell the people the cock belongs to it. Of course, when the fox opens its mouth to say that, the cock escapes. So the fox is outfoxed. Br’er Rabbit is always finding ways to outwit Br’er Fox, most famously by getting Br’er Fox to throw him into the brier patch where he can disentangle himself from the tar baby. In the Burgess books, Reddy the Fox goes from one flamboyant trick to the next. When I was an adolescent and Igor Stravinsky became a favorite composer, I listened to the short dramatic work Renard. Renard, another trickster fox, spanned several European traditions including the Russian version Stravinsky used. One of Renard’s tricks is to dress up as a nun and offer to hear the cock’s confession and give absolution. There seems to be some ecclesiastical confusion here, not least the ongoing problem of a predator posing in clerical garb. The cock makes himself vulnerable by being—well, cocky, and the cock needs to be rescued by the Cat and the Goat. It is not simply a case that a fox, like a rooster, has to eat. Reddy the Fox literally bites off more than he can chew by running off with the farmer’s plump hen, not for his supper, but for bragging rights.

Stories of trickster foxes and other animal tricksters are funny, They certainly tickle the funny bone of small children who feel overwhelmed by the power everybody else has over them. Since these stories reflect human behavior, they give us a chance to laugh at ourselves, if we are wise enough to see when the shoe fits. In the case of the Burgess books, just about every animal gets a story for itself, so that sympathy shifts from one character to another. A child might root for Reddy the Fox when he runs off with a plump hen, but roots for Danny Meadow Mouse when he is chased by an owl.

In short, these stories reflect the rivalrous relationships humans carry on with each other in all their comic dimensions. Not surprisingly, vanity is constantly the downfall of one rival or the other. But there is a sobering side to the comedy if we reflect that it is based on rivalry between predator and prey (and some characters are both.) It is no accident that the same dynamics come up time and again. When human relationships become rivalrous, it becomes a perpetual motion machine that keeps on going, just as the stories keep on coming with Renard up to his old tricks and his rivals up to theirs to outwit him in turn. In calling Herod “that fox,” Jesus is indicating that Herod, certainly a predator if not necessarily a trickster, is perpetuating the same old rivalry game as Renard and all other foxes in the fables. When Jesus laments the destruction of Jerusalem, he is showing us that all Jerusalem is caught in the fox’s game.

But instead of acting like a cocky cock or attacking the fox as the Cat and Goat do, Jesus yearns to gather Jerusalem’s children “as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” (Lk. 13: 34) But we are not willing. After all, we would have to give up our predator/prey games that seem to give life so much of its meaning. But Jesus has already thrown a monkey wrench into the fox’s game by his gesture. Jesus pushes the monkey wrench deeper into the heart of the cosmos when he opens wide his arms on the cross, like a hen gathering its young.

When Paul tells the Philippians to imitate him, (Phil. 3: 17) he himself is imitating Jesus as the Mother Hen who renounces the fox’s games and makes himself vulnerable. Another example Paul holds up for imitation is Abraham in his act of faith. (Rom. 4: 3–5) When he has no heir and no hope of an heir, it is hard to be consoled by the countless stars in the sky. When we are overwhelmed by predatory foxes, we yearn for the Lion of Judah, not a Mother Hen with wings extended. But Abraham “believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” (Gen 1 5: 6) Can we hold steadfast in such faith? There is much need for the embrace of love in the face of so much widespread predatory trickery today. Can we even go so far as to join Jesus’ embrace of all foxes that they, too, may live in the Kingdom?

See also: The Prophet between the Fox and the Hen

Forgiveness as Gift

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Jesus’ teachings of love for one’s enemies and returning good for evil (Lk. 6: 27–31) are deeply inspiring and edifying as long as one doesn’t live by them. There is a tendency to regard these teachings as one regards a beautiful work of art: wonderful to look at but not something to guide my life. In any case, this teaching suddenly becomes not so beautiful when somebody maliciously wrongs me. All of a sudden, revenge is as compelling as it is sweet. That is to say, forgiveness is very difficult when the wrong is serious, when one has suffered badly on account of what another person has done. People who suffered serious abuse as children struggle with the pain all their lives and understandably have great difficulty forgiving their abusers. Pressuring such a person to do the “Christian” thing tends to amplify the pain of the abuse.

Taken in isolation, the moment Joseph forgives the brothers who had sold him into slavery (Gen 45: 4–9) seems to work smoothly, making forgiveness seem simple. But if one considers the whole story of which this moment is the climax, it is clear that the forgiveness did not come easily. The ordeals that Joseph subjected his brothers to once he recognized them may possibly be a calm and calculated attempt to test their moral fibre, giving them a chance to show improvement, but the ordeals come across to me as vengeful and punishing. Would Joseph have kept Benjamin in Egypt and sent the other brothers away if nobody protested the orchestrated framing of Benjamin? Who knows? It is Judah’s offer to take his brother’s place that breaks down the hostility Joseph had shown up to then. And when their father dies, the brothers still fear that Joseph will take revenge on them and Joseph has to reassure them.

The Anglican theologian Sarah Coakley noted that in the Hebrew Bible, forgiveness is considered to be the prerogative of God alone. The only verb besides the Hebrew verb “to forgive” which was reserved to God alone is bara, “to create.” Creation and forgiveness make a powerful pair of prerogatives. This is why when Jesus pronounced the forgiveness of sins, he was accused of claiming to be God. Perhaps it is as impossible for humans to forgive as it is impossible for humans to create a world out of nothing. But if it is not our place to forgive sins, why does Jesus tell us to forgive even our enemies? If we are not capable of forgiving them, which often seems to be the case, is Jesus asking us to do the impossible?

Paul’s powerful proclamation of the resurrection of the body in 1 Cor. 15 doesn’t seem to be relevant to the question of forgiveness, but maybe we should examine the question in case it is relevant after all. Paul makes it clear that the resurrection body is a gift from God. (1 Cor. 15: 38) We are not capable of giving ourselves a resurrection body and nobody is telling us that we should try. Is forgiveness as impossible as giving ourselves a resurrection body? If the resurrection body is a recreation, then maybe the answer is Yes. Later on, Paul tells us that the physical body is created out of the dust, as was the body of Adam, and we are created in that image. But the heavenly body is created according to the image of “the man from heaven,” which is Christ. Could it be that Jesus, in claiming the divine prerogative of forgiveness, is passing on that prerogative and ability to us as fundamental to the our re-creation in Christ? Joseph forgives his brothers in the context of divine providence. Such discernment makes forgiveness much more possible. For myself, I have experienced forgiveness, not as an accomplishment, but as a gift from God. I did not forgive another person; God forgave that person through me.

Let us return to the notion that Jesus’ teaching on love of enemies is like a beautiful work of art. Are we really unaffected by a work of art that we admire deeply? No. A work of art may not seem to have any practical value, but it has an effect on one who encounters it. Over time, the effect of a work of art can sink down into a person to the extent that it brings about a small transformation. How much more could the beauty of Jesus’ teaching of forgiveness and love of enemies sink more and more deeply into us over time, bringing us closer and closer to what Paul called “the Mind of Christ?”

Freeing the Body

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During the governorship of Nehemiah, when the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt to protect the returning exiles from Babylon, the scribe Ezra read the Law of Moses to the people.(Neh. 8: 1–12) The Law of Moses taught the Jews how they were to live together in community under the God who had first delivered them from Egypt and latterly, from Babylon. The people wept. Was that because they realized how short they fell from what the Law of Moses required of them? Or did they weep for joy because they knew what was asked of them and knew what to do? In any case, Ezra told the people to go and have a great feast to celebrate the reading of the Law. Touchingly, Ezra told them to send portions “to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord.” (Neh. 8: 10) Clearly, such sharing is what the Law of Moses is all about.

In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul teaches the values of Christian community through the analogy between the human body and the Body of Christ. (1 Cor. 12: 12–31) Both are one while composed of many members, each with a distinctive function for the benefit of the whole. Each member has need of all the other members, even, rather especially, the supposedly weaker members of the body. If a member of the body were to be considered foreign and so expelled, the whole body would suffer the loss.

Luke inaugurates Jesus’ ministry with his appearance at the synagogue in Nazareth. While Ezra read the Law of Moses, Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah, after which he said: “today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk. 4: 21) This implies that Jesus himself has been anointed by the Spirit and that he is bringing about what Isaiah had prophesied. That is, Jesus is bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freeing the oppressed, and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor. Quite a lot to proclaim in a society where many people were imprisoned in many ways, blind in many ways, and poor in many ways. One could say that Jesus has put the table sharing enjoined by Ezra and the caring of one part of the body by the others enjoined by Paul on steroids. Given this prominent placing in Luke’s Gospel, we should rank this brief teaching alongside the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew as a baseline teaching for a life devoted to Jesus.

The political implications are enormous, both in Jesus’ time and in the present day. However, we should not leave the implementation of this program to the politicians, especially at a time when many politicians are going in the opposite direction. We ourselves should seek out those who are imprisoned in any way, perhaps in hatred or fear, and try to free them. Likewise, we should heal our own blindness so as to heal the blindness of others in whatever way we and others are blind. And so on with the other items in this list. That is to say, we need to accept healing and freedom in order to heal and free others.

When we speak of freeing captives and healing the blind, we tend to think that some people are captured and others are captors. Some people are blind and some are blinded by others. When we think in those terms, our own fear of being blinded or captured tempts us to join the blinders and captors. But that is only an alternate form of imprisonment and blindness. That is, those who capture others, imprison others, blind others, are just as imprisoned and captured and blind as the victims. One could say it is an inverted body where, instead of each part of the body caring for the others, each part tries to capture and imprison the others. What a way to have a complete breakdown in the health of the body!

This inaugural sermon of Jesus is a challenge to begin anew, which is what the year of the Lord’s favor, the Jubilee, is all about. The Jubilee year in the Law of Moses is God’s way of periodically offering all of us a new start by canceling debts and returning land to those from whom it had been alienated. Captives are freed to get a new start. So far, the people who think they are the captors and imprisoners have, at least for the most part, resisted efforts to implement this biblical teaching. Can we ever learn that nobody is free unless everybody is free? Can we learn to desire true freedom for ourselves which entails giving freedom to others? Can we open our eyes so that we can help others open their eyes?

See also How About a Jubilee? for similar reflections

God’s Eternal Choice

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During the Christmas season, we celebrate the Incarnation: the mystery of God becoming a human being. For such a thing to happen, there must be an intersection of time and Eternity. Understanding time is easy, Or is it? I think we can all sympathize with St. Augustine of Hippo when he said he understood time until you asked him to explain it. Maybe we can’t explain time but it has familiarity in that we live in it the way a fish lives in the water. Eternity is something else. We don’t live in it and we really can’t conceive of living in it. We might be tempted to say that Eternity is the opposite of time, but that isn’t right. My theology professor said that Eternity has nothing to do with time. That means Eternity can’t even be the opposite of time as that would be to relate the two and that is what can’t be done. We could say that Eternity is for God and time is for us and leave it at that. But once Jesus was born, time is for God as well as for us. Does this mean that Eternity will be for us some day? But if Eternity should be a future possibility, it would be connected with time after all. Does that mean Eternity won’t be Eternity any more? Maybe we just haven’t begun to grasp what Eternity is all about.

God’s being eternal is one of the reasons that God is usually thought to be unchanging and unchangeable. But to consider the notion of God changing, or not changing, relates God to time yet again. More to the point, there is the Biblical record of God’s interacting with time bound creatures such as we. So whatever it might mean for God to be unchanging, it doesn’t mean that God is some cosmic blob that never does anything. The first chapter of Ephesians offers us a powerful vision of what an unchanging but dynamic God is like. The “God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ” has “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 1: 3) Moreover, we have been chosen “before the foundation of the world” and destined for adoption as God’s children “according to the good pleasure of his will.” (Eph. 1: 4-5) A God who blesses and chooses us from the foundation of the world is infinitely active rather than infinitely motionless. But Paul is also telling us that this will of blessing and choosing is constant. It may be active, infinitely active, but it is steady, unchanging.

We have a powerful example of the effect of God’s active, steady blessing and choosing in the 31st chapter of Jeremiah. Israel’s experience in time has been nothing short of catastrophic. Babylon invaded Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and deported the more important people to Babylon, leaving Jerusalem in ruins. Jeremiah himself proclaimed Yahweh’s presence in the midst of this disaster because of the sins and apostasy of the people. But in the 31st chapter, Jeremiah is prophesying the return from the Babylonian exile: “See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here.” (Jer. 31: 8) With God interacting in time, a great new thing is about to happen, but what, in time, is great and new, and unheard of, is a result of a steady act of blessing and choosing on the part of God. This steady and unchanging will shows itself both in bringing Israel to repentance and restoring Israel to its homeland.

On Christmas Day, we celebrated the birth of Jesus. The Logos who was with God in the beginning, became a human baby as vulnerable as any other baby. (Jn. 1: 1) On this second Sunday after Christmas, we see Jesus at the age of twelve, talking with the elders in the temple and asking them questions. That is, we are seeing a child asking questions about life and seeking answers as children are apt to do as soon as they are old enough to think about such things. This brings us into the paradox of an unchanging God developing in time as a human being. That God would do such a thing tells us that for us, living in time as we do, developing over time by asking questions is a good thing to do. We are also alerted to the significance, in the context of Eternity, of every little thing we do now in time. Here, we are at the beginning of Jesus’ life, but over the next few months, we’ll follow him to the end and beyond. Indeed, Paul says that it is through Jesus Christ that we are adopted as God’s children in God’s unwavering will and choice. That is, Paul is presupposing both the Cross and the Resurrection when he proclaims the destiny chosen for us by God. It is good for us that God’s will is not changeable, but what about us who are changeable? Insofar as our will isn’t so good, it is a good thing that it is changeable with a chance of a change for the better. This is what Israel needed when the consequences of their apostasy brought about the Babylonian Exile. Asking questions and listening to the answers as Jesus did can help bring us to abiding in God’s will that will not change in relation to any one of us or in relation with anybody else.

See also As Jesus Grew

Following the Shepherds

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The shepherds adoring the Christ Child are a staple presence at Christmas time, so much so that we perhaps take them for granted. Most manger scenes and the Christmas Gospel make them seem respectable. Well, real shepherds weren’t the sort that respectable people invited to come and ooh and aah over their newborn babies.

Some of the recent writings I read about Christmas toned down the alleged marginality of shepherds. One writer pointed out that a famous Talmudic statement citing the dishonesty of shepherds was made several centuries after Jesus’ life. Even so, I doubt that shepherds had been respectable bourgeois gentlemen who went downhill a few centuries later. More important, though, these writers drew our attention to the symbolism of shepherds and the biblical allusions in Luke’s Gospel, suggesting that marginality wasn’t such an issue.

Most importantly, the shepherds in the field who, prompted by the host of angels, came to visit the Christ Child point to Jesus’ ancestor King David. They were just outside the city of David, after all. The story of David’s anointing as king is particularly interesting in this regard. (1 Sam. 16) Samuel asked Jesse to bring all of his sons before him. When he brought seven sons, one would thing he had brought them all. After all, seven sons is quite a few, and seven is often taken to be a number of completion in a way that six or eight are not. And yet God told Samuel that not one of the seven sons who passed in front of him was the one chosen to be the king in place of Saul. So Samuel asked Jesse if there is yet another son and finally Jesse admitted that there was one more, the youngest, who was with the sheep. When David was fetched, Samuel knew that this was the one.

The point is, the shepherd boy had been marginalized out of existence until God called for him. This is just one of many, and one of the more subtle, examples of God’s trick of bringing something out of nothing. David then did become something and was, figuratively speaking, the shepherd of Israel for many years. To this day, he is the archetypal king, even if he wasn’t always the best of shepherds. Interestingly, the prophet Nathan used the parable of a sheep to speak a condemnatory word to the king when he acted wrongly in regards to Bathsheba. (2 Sam. 12) Later in his Gospel, Luke contrasts this episode with Jesus’ Parable of the Good Shepherd who left the ninety-nine sheep to seek out the one stray. (Lk. 15: 1-7) The Davidic symbolism, then, actually highlights the marginality of the shepherds, of King David, and therefore, of Jesus himself. In fact, in a more literal way, Jesus has come out of nothing, as Luke tells us that Mary, who had not known a man when Jesus’ birth was announced to her, yet gave birth to this child.

After two thousand years plus, the Christmas story is a part of world culture, although its appropriation by some, maybe even all cultural groups, sometimes seems far-fetched from its beginnings. But do we really adore Jesus as our true king? The news feeds on the Internet raise serious doubts about this. Perhaps Jesus is still as marginal as he was when he was placed in a manger because there was no room for him anywhere else. Can we let the marginal shepherds shepherd us to the manger where the even more marginal child lies? Can we keep our ordered and apparently complete lives open for the One conceived by the Holy Spirit to enter? Do we really have room for Jesus today? Given the troubles in the world, can we open our hearts for God to bring something out of the nothing that surrounds us in our time?