A Man from Lebanon: Nineteen Centuries Afterward

“Master, Master of Light,
Whose eye dwells in the seeking fingers of the blind,
You are still despised and mocked,
A man too weak and infirm to be God,
A God too much man to call forth adoration.
Their mass and their hymn,
Their sacrament and their rosary, are for their imprisoned self.
You are their yet distant self, their far-off cry, and their passion.

But Master, Sky-heart, Knight of our fairer dream,
You do still tread this day;
Nor bows nor spears shall stay your steps.
You walk through all our arrows.
You smile down upon us,
And though you are the youngest of us all
You father us all.

Poet, Singer, Great Heart,
May our God bless your name,
And the womb that held you, and the breasts that gave you milk.
And may God forgive us all.”

-Kahlil Gibran

 

Parable of the Trees

Now when they told Jotham, he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim, and lifted his voice and called out. Thus he said to them, “Listen to me, O men of Shechem, that God may listen to you. Once the trees went forth to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, ‘Reign over us!’ But the olive tree said to them, ‘Shall I leave my fatness with which God and men are honored, and go to wave over the trees?’ Then the trees said to the fig tree, ‘You come, reign over us!’ But the fig tree said to them, ‘Shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit, and go to wave over the trees?’ Then the trees said to the vine, ‘You come, reign over us!’ But the vine said to them, ‘Shall I leave my new wine, which cheers God and men, and go to wave over the trees?’ Finally all the trees said to the bramble, ‘You come, reign over us!’ The bramble said to the trees, ‘If in truth you are anointing me as king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, may fire come out from the bramble and consume the cedars of Lebanon.’”

Judges 9

 

Black and White

Let me be clear from the outset that this is only a hypothesis.

What if, behind the scenes of politics, art, religion, psychology, and sociology, there is some fundamental struggle between two opposing forces? I wind up seeing things this way even when I’m not trying to. A favorite movie of mine, Donnie Darko, has a motivational speaker who preaches on the dichotomy of love and fear. He was one of the bad guys. I didn’t like him and don’t much like the real life people he represents, but I think I like his idea (minus the hypocrisy and arrogance).

It seems that in every area of life where people find meaning and get excited there are those who are trying to prove themselves and there are those who are already comfortable, the nervous and the confident. How that plays out in the world of politics or religion or art or relationships may vary, but it seems that most people are operating with one of two background stories. Either the one that begins in confusion and fear, builds with nervous activity, and ends in worry or the one that begins with strength, builds with love, and ends in confidence.

This comes as a surprise to me because I was brought up to believe that everyone started out with the bad story and then some switched over. I still believe that a person can change stories, but I’m pleasantly puzzled by those who somehow start off healthy.

 

Sand and Foam

“Once every hundred years Jesus of Nazareth meets Jesus of the Christian in a garden among the hills of Lebanon, and they talk long. And each time Jesus of Nazareth goes away saying to Jesus of the Christian, ‘My friend, I fear we shall never, never agree.’” -Kahlil Gibran

 

Atonement?

Sometimes I think we might be better off without any atonement theory at all.

Some premises I think most mainstream Protestants would agree with: (1)Separation from God is the direct consequence not of God’s action but of (non-divine) human action; (2)reconciliation is ultimately initiated by God; (3) God’s love for humanity and his acts of reconciliation toward humanity are not motivated by human good deeds.

All this to say, it is we who create the need for reconciliation, and it is God who freely offers reconciliation. So if God is the kind of God who freely reconciles, how is he also the God who requires blood to atone for sin? Not so free after all. Sure, free for us, but somebody’s got to pay.

And if God is the kind of guy who would make the required payment for us to give us reconciliation, then why would he require payment at all in the first place?

As much as Protestants hate to admit it, the standard given in the gospels for entering the Kingdom is quite simple: merciful people in; unmerciful people out. If you are the kind of person who truly accepts God’s mercy (be it simply mercy or ‘mercy’ that someone paid for), then you must be the kind of person who not only receives it but also dispenses it. Check the red letters in your Bible, and see if I’m wrong. The contrapositive is also true: if you don’t dispense mercy, you have not accepted mercy. And if you will not receive mercy, it is your own standards that will judge you (Matt 7, Mark 4, & Luke 6).

The work of Christ in the passion and resurrection is, of course, central to Christianity. But if we read Paul as a follower of Jesus rather than his reinventor, those Pauline passages that are so often used in atonement theories take on a new shade of meaning. If we take Jesus’ words on the forgiveness seriously and give them primacy, mainstream atonement theories will be called into question.

 

Subordination

Yoder talks about the apparent divide between the ethic of Jesus and the ethic of the New Testament letters. The mainstream church takes the instruction about subordination to authority and sees in it an implicit endorsement of a conservative, status quo supporting ethic. Yoder, however, sees in this call to subordination something Christlike. Instead of seeing Jesus, the prophetic revolutionary, versus the realistic need to come up with a sustainable way of life, we should realize that both Jesus and the ethic given in the epistles are calling for a revolution in the way that revolutions are understood.

Like any other revolutionary, Jesus calls out the supporters of the status quo for what they are: hypocrits. The way things are is bad. Rich oppressing poor. Man oppressing wife. Diginifed oppressing young. Owner oppressing slave. Roman (read: state) oppressing Jew (read: member of nonconformist religion or, simply, foreigner).

Because Jesus’ ethic is so radical, we assume that it must be in contradiction to the call to subordination found in the epistles. That we make such an illogical leap is a testament to the appallingly inadequate education to which most of us Westerners have been assigned.

The (early) Christian revolutionary message goes beyond the shallow revolutions to which we are accustomed. The revolution of Jesus is not simply, “Those in power are bad, so let’s rebel.” No! The revolution of Jesus calls for introspection. The revolution of Jesus calls not just for a change in the world structures but also for the revolutionary to look first at herself. First comes “Repent.” Then he says, “…for the kingdom is at hand.”

Too many conservatives stop at personally repentance.

Too many liberals skip ahead to the kingdom at hand.

To ignore either is to ignore Jesus.

The follower of Jesus walks as Jesus walked. Not only was Jesus’ condemnation of the world’s structures revolutionary. His response to these evil powers was a revolutionary way of being revolutionary. He submitted. He submitted to evil men… even to death.

“By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.”

 

Authority

Not only has this been on my mind lately, it’s a good place to start. Christian churches and denominations distinguish themselves in all sorts of ways. These distinctions are often trivial or superficial. Within the broad range of those religious organizations which call themselves ‘Christian,’ I choose to categorize most fundamentally by source of authority.

Taking any characteristic of a religious group into consideration and asking why such a characteristic exists, one will eventually come to some sort of root assumption or assumptions. In reality these root assumptions are not chosen because they make sense. They are only ever chosen because they bring the owner of the assumption some sort of satisfaction. The satisfaction may be with the assumption itself, but it is more likely that the assumption allows for physical comfort, peace of mind, or a sense of significance.

In my experience there are only four general kinds of root assumptions utilized by nominally Christian organizations and individuals. They are assumptions about where truth is to be found: either within the teaching of a holy group/tradition, a holy document, subjective experience, or a holy person. These foundational starting places of belief are sometimes explicitly announced but are sometimes unknown even to those who embrace them.

I was planning to rant on about the pros and cons of each, but that will have to be left alone for now. What strikes me at the moment is the similarity between the four possibilities. They are all examples of what Rene Girard calls mimesis. He claims that all people have their identities rooted in the imitation of someone or something or some group.

I believe that, too a large degree, we can choose whom or what we will imitate. I choose (undubitably hypocritically) to imitate a person. The ‘Christian’ who roots belief and finds ultimate authority elsewhere is keeping his hypocrisy very close to the surface.