Lenten Reflections: Day 34

Posted on April 8, 2017 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

All Israel Will Be Saved

Phantombild Paulus von Tarsus

At the instigation of German journalist Michael Hesemann the North Rhine-Westphalia State Investigation Bureau created a Facial Composite (it sounds better in German: Phantombild) of Paul of Tarsus. Given that there are no living witnesses of the man, and the oldest portrait of him dates from three centuries after his death, this must be considered a work of the imagination. Looks like a nice man, though.

Today’s second reading from the Daily Office Lectionary is, in my opinion, the main point in the long Letter of Paul to the Romans, and it concludes the discussion that started in Romans 1.16. Both Jews and Greeks have had the good news of Jesus preached to them.  Some Jews and some Gentiles have come to know it as the power of God by the faith that is given them. As their salvation is due to the faith that is given to them, a faith that depends upon the sacrifice of Jesus, Gentile Christians have no business to be proud in comparison to Jewish Christians or Jews. Indeed, whereas Paul probably believes that non Christian Gentiles are subject to punishment for their perverse ways, in the reading below he believes that all Israel will be saved despite any sins or unbelief.

Rom 11.25–36
So that you may not claim to be wiser than you are, brothers and sisters, I want you to understand this mystery: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved; as it is written,
‘Out of Zion will come the Deliverer;
he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.’
‘And this is my covenant with them,
when I take away their sins.’
As regards the gospel they are enemies of God for your sake; but as regards election they are beloved, for the sake of their ancestors; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

 O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways!
‘For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counsellor?’
‘Or who has given a gift to him,
to receive a gift in return?’
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever. Amen.

Paul simply assumes that God will be merciful to all of Israel despite their individual hardening of hearts. Paul acknowledges that this might appear incomprehensible – but God’s judgements are inscrutable, unsearchable, and deeper than we can know.

Ax I’ve been working my way through Paul’s Letter to the Romans it is apparent to me that Paul is not presenting a systematic theology, despite whatever later Biblical scholars and theologians might have thought. Paul here reminds me of his discussion of marriage in First Corinthians Chapter Seven, where he seems to be making up things on the fly.  In this letter Paul is creating an elaborate exhortation to the Romans that incorporates several insights that undoubtedly owe much to his preaching, but Paul has not worked out all the implications and details, and there is a degree of paradox, contradiction, and opacity. We ask questions that did not occur to Paul.

So what are those insights? I cannot enumerate all of them, but these are the most significant ones in Romans:
1) God has declared that Jesus is the Messiah by raising him from the dead.
2) Jesus is prophesised in the Scriptures. Paul repeatedly refers to them apparently from memory, in Greek. He is probably quoting from the Greek translation known as the Septuagint. Paul saw the Jewish scriptures as a testimony to Jesus.
3) As is expected by Jews generally, this Jesus as Messiah is descended from David.
4) The gospel is to be preached to both Jews and Gentiles.
5) Paul has been called by God to bring the good news to Gentiles, an act of grace by God.
6) A person who has faith has received salvation – they will not be judged for their actions but because they have faith. This is not to say that their actions are not good, but simply that these acts are not the basis for God’s mercy.
7) Subjectively, faith is a kind of obedience. However, faith is also, from the God’s eye perspective, something fore-ordained and predestined. Paul accepts this paradox of apparent free will and yet determinism by God.
8) “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth.” In other words, God will judge the pagan Gentiles for evil thoughts and actions.
9) Christian Gentiles have no basis for judgement, for they are in the good graces of God not by their good deeds, but because of God’s mercy on them, which is manifested in them by faith.
10) Judgement and partiality by Gentiles of others suggests that they are relying on their good deeds, and not living by faith (this goes back to the undoubted commandment of Jesus that his followers should not judge others).
11) Jews who rely on observing the law to escape judgement are also not living by faith. They will be found to have fallen short of the law, especially hypocrites who say one thing and do another. However, Jews who observe the law as a manifestation of faith will be saved.
12) Jews like Paul who have accepted the gospel are no longer bound by the law, but if they observe parts of it in the name of the gospel, or as a manifestation of faith, they do no wrong.
13) Gentile Christians are not required to live in accordance with the Torah, as they are not Jews.
13) All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. This is true of Gentiles as well as Jews, whether following the law written on their hearts or the Torah.
14) Christians live by the spirit of God that is within them, but can fall back into old ways (such as judging others). Gentile Christians were previously ruled by sin and death. Christians are free from sin.
15) Christ dies for us, but Paul does not explain how this reconciles us to God.
16) Christians are united with Christ in his death, so that we might rise with him.
17) The spirit is manifested in calling God “Abba, Father” and by sighs too deep for words.
18) All Israel will be saved.

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Lenten Readings: Day 33

Posted on April 7, 2017 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

Grafting the Olive Tree

olive-tree-bchaaleh-4-678x381

“The whole point of grafting is that each part of the grafted tree keeps its original character.” – Greek olive tree farmer talking to author Sara Alexi

In today’s second reading from the Daily Office Lectionary Paul is building to the climax of his Letter to the Romans, in which he addresses the Gentile Christians about their pride versus Jews and Jewish Christians.

Rom 11.13–24
Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I glorify my ministry in order to make my own people jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead! If the part of the dough offered as first fruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; and if the root is holy, then the branches also are holy.

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the rich root of the olive tree, do not vaunt yourselves over the branches. If you do vaunt yourselves, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. You will say, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps he will not spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity towards those who have fallen, but God’s kindness towards you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. And even those of Israel, if they do not persist in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree.

Paul uses the metaphor of grafting in order to deflate any pride the Gentile Christians might have. Grafting involves taking the young stalk of a plant of one species or variety (the scion) and attaching it to another plant (the root or rootstock) so that it takes advantage of its vascular system. Plants can naturally grow together, so humans have long used it as a method of growing various types of fruit. Typically the rootstock is of a wild variety that is resistant to disease, grows easily, but does not produce much fruit or fruit of a small size. The scion is typically domesticated, productive, and desirable. Grafting is used with fruit trees like apples, vines such as grapes for wine, ornamentals such as roses and cacti, and sometimes unusual combinations such as potatoes and tomatoes. In Paul’s time the grafting of domesticated olive scions onto wild varieties of olive rootstock was everywhere. Once the graft (or grafts) have taken, most of the wild branches are broken off so that the domesticated scions can derive sustenance from the rootstock.

Paul twists the metaphor, though. Instead of grafting a domestic scion onto a wild rootstock, Paul describes the extension of the Gospel to Gentiles as the grafting of a wild scion on a domesticated rootstock, which no farmer would actually do. This twisted metaphor corresponds to the surprising mission to God to the Gentiles – its strange, like the father in the story of the prodigal son, or the owner who pays all his workers the same regardless of whether they worked all day or one hour.

Gentiles have no right to be proud, as if they were better than the Jews who were broken off the plant so that they might be grafted in. The Gentiles did nothing to deserve being grafted in, as they have faith as a gift from God. Then Paul talks about how Israel will be grafted it anyway, provided they do not persist in unbelief. That could mean that either Israel will turn to Christ, or that they will be re-grafted in on the basis that their faith is similar to that of the patriarchs and prophets (most probably the former, but things develop in the rest of the chapter).

The grafting of the Gentiles into Israel is described as” unnatural” which in Greek is παρὰ φύσιν (para phusin, or “contrary to nature”). Interestingly, this is the same phrase used to condemn same-sex behaviour in Romans 1.26; this prompts the question is that if God does unnatural things, is there an argument that not all things considered contrary to nature are necessarily wrong, but if filled with grace and love may become praiseworthy?

Finally, as the Greek farmer said to Sara Alexi, “The whole point of grafting is that each part of the grafted tree keeps its original character.” If one really understands grafting, the rootstock must stay alive and continue as it was. The Gentile Christians who are disappointed that Jewish Christians and Jews continue with their practices and observances are people who do not understand this principle. There may be some graft chimeras life Paul, but the rootstock in this case remains Jewish.

Tomorrow we conclude the Lenten Readings from Romans (we pick up with Romans in chapter twelve on the Tuesday after the Sixth Sunday of Easter). Starting on Monday in Holy Week, we read bits and pieces from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, First and Second Corinthians, and finish with passages from the First Letter of Peter and the Letter to the Hebrews.

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Lenten Readings: Day 32

Posted on April 6, 2017 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

Inclusion

Art High Museum Bill Traylor

Untitled (Exciting Event: House with Figures) Bill Traylor (c. 1854–1949) Montgomery, Alabama c. 1939–1947 Poster paint and pencil on cardboard 13 1/2 x 13 7/8 in. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, T. Marshall Hahn Collection, 1997.114

Has God rejected the Jews? For much of the past twenty centuries most Christians have answered, “Yes.” Most Christians believed that they had a new covenant through Christ withh God, and that this replaced the old covenants. The Church was seen as the new, improved Israel ; this kind of theology is called “supersessionism“. Judaism was tolerated at best as a reminder of what God did not want Christians to be. While Jesus, his disciples and Paul were all Jews, this was ignored and forgotten, so that to some Christians it coma as a shocking suggestion that Jesus was a normal Jew, indistinguishable from his peers (which is why Judas had to identify him to the Temple police). In the 16th century Martin Luther, although initially well disposed to Jews, eventually became a profoundly anti-Jewish author, advocating that they be driven from Christendom, their synagogues destroyed, and their books destroyed. This had a profound effect upon German attitudes towards Judaism, and was a major contribution to Antisemitism (discrimination on the basis or Jewish race, not just Jewish religion).

One wonders, then, what these folks did with the following passage, today’s second reading from the Daily Office Lectionary.

Rom 11.1–12
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? ‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars; I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.’ But what is the divine reply to him? ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

Paul seems to suggest that at the present time, that is, when he was dictating this letter to the Romans, that there were many like him, foreknown by God to be called in grace to be a follower of Jesus. Paul sees himself in some respects as another Elijah, and recounts the story from the First Book of Kings, Chapter 19, where the prophet flees Ahab and Jezebel flees and believes he is utterly alone. But God says, no, there are yet seven thousand in Israel who are faithful. Likewise, Paul sees a faithful remnant among the Jews living at his time.

 What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written,
‘God gave them a sluggish spirit,
eyes that would not see
and ears that would not hear,
down to this very day.’
And David says,
‘Let their table become a snare and a trap,
a stumbling-block and a retribution for them;
let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see,
and keep their backs for ever bent.’

So I ask, have they stumbled so as to fall? By no means! But through their stumbling salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their stumbling means riches for the world, and if their defeat means riches for Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!

Paul sees the majority of the Jews experiencing  a hardening of the heart. As is his practice, he backs this up with a scriptural quotation. It is not at all clear where Paul is quoting from in the first scriptural reference – perhaps one of Isaiah’s diatribes against those who would combine the worship of Yahweh with Ba’al or some other Canaanite god. The second reference is to Psalm 69.22, although it is out of context – in the original it is part of a curse that the psalmist is casting on those who persecute him.

But then Paul pulls the rug out from under his readers, readers who may already be quite critical of Jewish Christians and all the rest of the Jews. Paul points out that through Jewish stumbling and an apparent defeat salvation has come to the Gentiles, but God in divine mercy and grace will include the Jews in salvation in full accord with the covenant. There is no supersession, only an expansion of grace given to Gentiles. This gets expanded in the next chapter or so.

The point about this is that while God is just, a more central characteristic is that God is  so spendthrift and generous that it explodes the ideas of fairness and equity. God does not want to exclude but include, and so takes the risky step of becoming vulnerable and suffering with us. God, outside of creation, enters into creation but is treated as an outsider by both the Jewish leaders and the Roman authorities. He is a disappointment to the Zealots and impractical to the Herodians. He does not stand apart as the Essenes did, and dares to talk to women, Samaritans, and pagans. He comes from the margins of Jewish society, from Galilee, which had been settled by Jews only a few generations before. His death of the cross remains a stumbling block to his own people and is utter foolishness to pagans. The good news his disciples proclaimed was so outrageously out there that most people found it perverse and cultish. It should never have succeeded. And yet it did.

I think that one of the reasons it succeeded was that the message of Jesus was an invitation to join at the table where there is always room for more. Inclusion is sometimes derided by some Christians, but I would like to think that God’s love is greater than any constraints I can think of to put on it.

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Lenten Readings: Day 31

Posted on April 5, 2017 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

To the Ends of the World

Beachy Head

Beachy Head, England

The very first time I flew out to Vancouver was in 1986, when I attended a Divinity Students Conference at the old Vancouver Divinity School. After flying across mainland Canada for five hours Vancouver was finally in sight. As we approached the city we flew past it out over the ocean, ultimately to turn around and land at YVR – but I had the most unreasonable sensation that I had flown out beyond the edge of the known world. After all, beyond the west coast, what was there but the immense Pacific Ocean, a huge void? As it turned out, what was just beyond the Lower Mainland of British Columbia was Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, where I have lived since 1995, but I did not know that then. All I could think was that if Jerusalem was the centre from which the gospel was proclaimed, this was about as far away from it as you could get. This was the End of the World.

Why does Paul preach the Gospel? Apart from the strong impression that Jesus asked him personally to do so, he also feels that in doing so he plays a role in the  fulfillment of the scriptures. A strong theme in Christian theology of the last days (aka eschatology) is that before the Son of Man returns the good news of Jesus must be preached to the ends of the world.

Rom 10.14–21
But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’ But not all have obeyed the good news; for Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our message?’ So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.

But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have; for
‘Their voice has gone out to all the earth,
and their words to the ends of the world.’
Again I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says,
‘I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation;
with a foolish nation I will make you angry.’
Then Isaiah is so bold as to say,
‘I have been found by those who did not seek me;
I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.’
But of Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.’

Paul again, using something like a proto-Talmudic method, quotes verses in support of this view. In sequence, and with the NRSV translations from the source text, they are:

Isaiah 52.7: How beautiful upon the mountains
   are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news,
   who announces salvation,
   who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’
Isaiah 53.1: Who has believed what we have heard?
   And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
Psalm 19.4: yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
Deuteronomy 32.21: So I will make them jealous with what is no people,
   provoke them with a foolish nation.
Isaiah 65.1-2: I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask,
   to be found by those who did not seek me.
I said, ‘Here I am, here I am’,
   to a nation that did not call on my name.
I held out my hands all day long
   to a rebellious people

Paul again appears to be quoting from memory from the Septuagint, the Jewish translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. The impression made by this concatenation of verses is that God will reach out to the Gentiles, and that the Israelites/Jews were repeatedly rebellious. The extension of God’s mercy is intended to provoke the Jews.

Paul wanted to go to the ends of the earth in order to proclaim the good news. He wanted to expedite the coming of the Son of man. Interestingly, this same belief and impetus was behind St. patrick when he went to Ireland. For that missionary bishop Ireland was about as far and distant a place as one could go; beyond Ireland was only water. In 1910 the World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh reflected the same belief – that the kingdom of God would be hastened by the preaching of the gospel to all peoples. The ends of the world for them were places like Mecca and the far west of China.

The gospel is proclaimed both geographically and temporally. Christianity has for many decades ceased to be a European religion. If anything, the average Christian today is a female African. Europe and North America are arguably less Christian than they were, largely due to the rise of agnosticism. The mission for Western evangelists today is not overseas, it is literally outside our door.

As it turns out the actual antipodes of Jerusalem is several thousand km northeast of New Zealand. The nearest inhabited land seems to be an island called Rapa Iti, a very isolated island that is part of French Polynesia. The indigenous Polynesians seem to have arrived only in the 13th century, and today some 500 people live there. Because it is considered part of France, its people are all EU citizens, and can freely travel to the EU to live and work. From what I can tell from the Internet, all the inhabitants of the island are Christian.

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Lenten Readings: Day 30

Posted on April 4, 2017 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

Zeal is Not Enough

Seal not Zeal

I said “Zeal”, not “Seal”.

In today’s second reading from the Daily Office Lectionary Paul describes zealous Jews as still being ignorant of the righteousness of God, as they do not recognise Jesus as the Messiah. Of course, Paul was like that before God called him, so he is really describing a former version of himself.

Rom 10.1–13
Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. I can testify that they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened. For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

Christ is the end of the law not in the sense that the Law or Torah is overthrown, but because Paul believes Jesus death and resurrection was “according to the scriptures”.

Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that ‘the person who does these things will live by them.’

The quotation here is from Leviticus 18.5.

But the righteousness that comes from faith says, ‘Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?” ’ (that is, to bring Christ down) ‘or “Who will descend into the abyss?” ’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say?
‘The word is near you,
on your lips and in your heart’
(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);

Again, Paul quotes from the Torah, although he is probably paraphrasing again. The NRSV translates Deuteronomy 30.12-14 this way:

12It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ 13Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ 14No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.

The original does not seem to refer to burial or death, and Paul’s interpretation of it as a descent from heaven and a rising from the dead seems a bit strange to our modern minds, but it is well within the traditions of Midrash. Paul’s interpretation of verse 14 continues with a Christological vein:

because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

As strange as we may find Paul’s reading of the Torah, it was in fact the dominant way of reading any scripture up until the Reformation in the 16th century. The ancient Christians read scripture in a four-fold way. First, they read it literally, as a kind of history. They were frankly not very interested in the type of reading. The second type is the moral reading, giving us instruction in how to live. Obviously, this is important in order to known what to do and how to order one’s life. The third is allegorical, which is what Paul is doing with Deuteronomy – he is reading the passage as a reference to Christ, even though it does not refer to the Messiah at all. Finally, the fourth method is anagogical, which means “climbing up”, and it refers to a reading that is concerned with our ultimate fate; this is how Paul reads Leviticus, as a kind of eschatology. If someone seeks to derive righteousness from the law, then one will be judged by that law. Living by faith is both different and results in the merciful grace of God.

The Reformers of the 16th century – Luther, Calvin, and others – derided the analogical readings as they believed one could derive anything by analogy. That said, they were stuck with the fact that the bible is shot through with this kind of analogical intertextuality I do not propose that we as modern or post-modern people should revive these methods, but perhaps we should see through our forebears’s use of them and try to discern the meaning behind them.

In this case Paul’s point is clear: zeal in itself is laudable, but it is not enough. Only when combined with a faith in Jesus does it allow one to read the Torah properly and see the world aright. For Gentiles it is the only basis of salvation. For Jews it would seem to be the same, except that, as we shall see in later chapters, Paul asserts that God will not abandon his promises to Israel, but in 11.26 says that “And so all Israel will be saved”. Paul does not go into detail how that happens, but he has hope for Israel.

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Lenten Readings: Day 29

Posted on April 3, 2017 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

Stumbling and Questioning

De Vaartkapoen

De Vaartkapoen (1985), in Molenbeek, Belgium, by Tom Frantzen (1954 – )

Paul in today’s second reading from the Daily Office Lectionary continues to struggle with God’s justice. While committed to the idea that God is just, he also is dealing with the idea that God is in control. Indeed, it is quite clear that in most of the Hebrew Bible that God favours Israel, giving to the Twelve tribes the Promised Land, giving the Torah at Sinai, the covenant with David, and repeatedly delivering it from destruction. But it is also clear that God can chastise Israel, through the words of the prophets, through disease, weather, and foreign armies. But if God is both hardening the hearts of some and bestowing grace and the Spirit on others, is that fair? And if God is hardening hearts, is it fair that the people then pay the penalty of their death and judgement before the throne of God?

Rom 9.19–33
You will say to me then, ‘Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’

Paul’s first strategy is the same as that of God speaking out of the whirlwind to Job: Who are you to question God’s judgement? Does the creator not have rights over their creation?

But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is moulded say to the one who moulds it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use?

Then Paul argues that God has actually been quite patient with those who are perverse and Godless.

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction;

Then he shifts in the same sentence to emphasise the glory God’s grace to those who have faith, which shows his mercy and compassion. He quotes Hosea and Isaiah:

and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— including us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea,
‘Those who were not my people I will call “my people”,
and her who was not beloved I will call “beloved”. ’
‘And in the very place where it was said to them, “You are not my people”,
there they shall be called children of the living God.’
And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, ‘Though the number of the children of Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved; for the Lord will execute his sentence on the earth quickly and decisively.’ And as Isaiah predicted,
‘If the Lord of hosts had not left survivors to us,
we would have fared like Sodom
and been made like Gomorrah.’

Paul probably did not believe that many people would escape the wrath of God. People would be saved on the basis of their faithfulness. I don’t believe that Paul believes that Jews necessarily had to believe in Jesus in order to have a righteous faith, but he probably also believed that it would be better for faithful Jews to accept Jesus as Messiah, as he had. Gentiles, on the other hand, could only be saved on the basis of faith in Christ.

What then are we to say? Gentiles, who did not strive for righteousness, have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; but Israel, who did strive for the righteousness that is based on the law, did not succeed in fulfilling that law. Why not? Because they did not strive for it on the basis of faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling-stone, as it is written,
‘See, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make people stumble,
a rock that will make them fall,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’

I think in the above paragraph the words “Gentiles” and Jews” should be read with the implicit modifier “some”. What is the stumbling block? Paul appears to be quoting from memory a passage from Isaiah, but it is not clear if it is Isaiah 8.14 or 28.16. Interestingly almost the same form of quotation shows up in 1 Peter 2.6; Jewett in his commentary suggests that Pauline preaching was the source for the author of the later letter attributed to Peter. In Isaiah the stumbling block is clearly Messianic, and Paul picks up on that. In First Corinthians 1.22-24 Paul says,

For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

The reason Paul thinks most Jews reject Jesus as Messiah is because they are appalled by the idea that not only was the Messiah crucified, but he was supposed to die “for us in accordance with the scriptures”; Paul probably thought that way himself. In Romans the crucified Messiah continues to be a stumbling block – although in later chapters of the letter Paul states that despite this God will honour his promises to Israel. Now, a stumbling block in Greek is “skandalon” and our word “scandal” comes from that. The death of Jesus is both a stumbling block and a scandal.

While I acknowledge the power of God, I am also committed to assume that God is just. I hesitate to think that God would allow others to fall into error just so others saved by his grace might be grateful for God’s mercy on them and not those whose hearts had been hardened. It creates the image of God as a puppet master, where we have the illusion of free will and a righteous faith, but its all just the divine playing with clay.

So what do we say? Well, as I’ve said before, the “wrath of God” can simply be seen as what happens to people who pursue the violent exploitation of others; actions have consequences. Belief in the judgement of the wicked is a way for those who suffer to believe that God will bring those consequences to bear after death, if not in life, just as resurrection to life is a belief that God will redress the suffering with glory and feasting after death, if not in life. How that belief actually is actually fulfilled by the divine is something that can probably not be put into anything other than metaphors and images. In this case, faith is not only hope in things unseen, but in things unutterable, ineffable, and unseeable.

The divine is shown less in “wrath” and more in the solidarity of Christ in suffering with humanity. Christ emptying himself out as a servant, obedient even unto death on a cross, poses a question to us: what kind of a servant are we? What are we willing to let go of in service to our neighbour? What are we stumbling over?

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Lenten Readings: Day 28

Posted on April 2, 2017 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

Is God Just?

justice-definition

So apparently I cannot count. I wrote two blog posts labelled “Day 22” and somehow did not notice. Anyway, today is Day 28! Paul returns to consider his people, and the justice of God.

Rom 9.1–18
I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit— I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel, and not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants; but ‘It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named after you.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants. For this is what the promise said, ‘About this time I will return and Sarah shall have a son.’ Nor is that all; something similar happened to Rebecca when she had conceived children by one husband, our ancestor Isaac. Even before they had been born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose of election might continue, not by works but by his call) she was told, ‘The elder shall serve the younger.’ As it is written,
‘I have loved Jacob,
but I have hated Esau.’

What then are we to say? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses,
‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’
So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.’ So then he has mercy on whomsoever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomsoever he chooses.

Paul sees the Jewish people as blessed by God by having received covenants through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David. They have the Torah given at Sinai, and the worship ordained by the Torah that now takes place in the Temple of Jerusalem. Through the prophets they have heard of God’s promises of restoration,  and they await their fulfillment, including the coming of the Messiah.

But Paul also sees his people as having become incapable of seeing the Messiah, just as he did not recognise Jesus as the Christ. He knows that the leadership of the Jews in Jerusalem is hopelessly compromised by collaboration with the Romans, whether by the leadership of the Sadducees in the Temple or by the leaders of the Pharisees teaching the oral torah throughout Judea and Galilee and beyond into the Diaspora. Their hearts have been hardened. Paul uses the term “election” as another way of saying that God calls people to know Jesus as the Messiah, as he was called. Why him and not some other Pharisee? He cannot say, only that God as the creator has the right to choose whomever he wishes.

Paul uses the story of Jacob and Esau as an example of this type of choosing. Why did God decide that the promises would come to the descendants of Jacob and not Esau? It is simply an choice that God made. Why are some Israelites not living according to the instruction given them? It is not clear why their hearts have hardened, why they have become collaborators in the oppression of their own people, or why they say one thing and do another. But it is clear that they are no longer living by faith, but by mere perfunctory observance. That’s why Paul states his hyperbolic wish that he could be cut off for the sake of his own people, so that they may learn to live by faith.

As modern people we have a concept of justice that is separate from the idea of the divine. The idea that “God wants this, so it must be just” does not cut it anymore. This creates issues with the concept of election and predestination, not to mention double predestination. So what do we do with this problem?

My own opinion is that we are not bound by Paul’s thoughts here, as he is really just laying out the issues and proposing some solutions. The insights are not commensurable. We would not use scripture in Midrash the way that he does in this reading. What we can do is affirm with him that God is just. We then have to ask ourselves what “foreknowledge”, “will”, “predestine”, and “choose” mean in the context of God in history. Do we imagine the divine as simply having a bigger mind that we do, or is God wholly other, so that all of the words that we use to describe the Holy One are just metaphors that carry us so far and then break down?

The Christian faith asserts that in the person of Jesus  of Nazareth we have a unique revelation of the divine in human form. When we see Jesus, we see God. Paul experienced the transforming power of God in Christ – he was called, he was sent, and the way he looked at things was tuned upside down. The one he thought was a heretic and whose followers needed to be persecuted really was the Messiah. God was just, and forgave him for his error, and Paul experienced the death of Jesus as a sacrificial offering on behalf of him. All of this came in a blinding flash of a resurrection appearance. This experience, common amongst early Christians, became determinative for how they proclaimed the gospel. Peter denied Jesus, but was forgiven and empowered by Jesus.  Thomas doubted, but Jesus did as he asked and Thomas was humbled and believed. The disciples scattered at Jesus’s arrest, but they became the nucleus of the church. In all of this they experienced God as just and merciful.

 

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Lenten Readings: Day 26

Posted on March 31, 2017 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

Predestination and the Power of Love

Foxtrot_Go_Deep

Today’s second reading from the Daily Office Lectionary echoes down twenty cenuries and has been deeply influential.

Rom 8.28–39
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.

In verse 28 Paul is not saying that Christians will not suffer, but rather that in the long run God will vindicate them. This is the polar opposite of the so-called “Prosperity Gospel” which is a rather scary perversion of the actual good news of Jesus Christ. The Prosperity Gospel is an off-shoot of certain more shallow type of Pentecostalism that so believes in the power of prayer that it becomes a kind of contract they have with God – we’ll believe, and tithe and sing your glory, and you, God, will bless us with material things. It focuses on a few Bible verses and hopes no one actually reads the Scriptures. It is remarkably congenial to self-righteous capitalists. As the verses that follow below demonstrate, in this world the followers of Christ can expect all kinds of persecution and suffering.

The next few verses in the passage above have been deeply influential in the theology of Augustine and Calvin, for they seem to require a doctrine of predestination. The passage from the Wikipedia article shows the variety of contemporary views:

Biblical scholars have interpreted this passage in several ways. Many say this only has to do with service, those he chose of service and is not about salvation. Catholic biblical commentator Brendan Byrne wrote that the predestination mentioned in this passage should be interpreted as applied to the Christian community corporately rather than individuals.[6] Another Catholic commentator, Joseph Fitzmyer, wrote that this passage teaches that God has predestined the salvation of all humans.[7] Douglas Moo, a Protestant biblical interpreter, reads the passage as teaching that God has predestined a certain set of people to salvation.[8] Similarly, N. T. Wright’s interpretation is that in this passage Paul teaches that God will save those whom he has chosen, but Wright also emphasizes that Paul does not intend to suggest that God has eliminated human free will or responsibility. Instead, Wright asserts that God’s will works through that of humans to accomplish salvation.[9]

Augustine in his theological battles with Pelagius argued that God always took the initiative in salvation, and that in the divine foreknowledge knew who would respond to it; in that sense he thus pre-destined people to everlasting life. However, he also argued strongly for human free will, essentially arguing that if we are saved it is due to God, but if we are damned it’s all our own fault. This seems to be paradoxical, because we are free to earn damnation while not free to will our own salvation. Nevertheless, it undercut Pelagius, who wanted to suggest that we played a part in reconciliation with God. Jean Calvin, the French reformer par excellence read Augustine as arguing that God wills some to salvation and some to damnation, and this became the classic Calvinist doctrine of double predestination.

My own thought is that Paul was far away from this kind of thinking, and again had a series of insights that are both true and incoherent. Yes, God is in charge of the world, and yes, we have free will. Yes, God has predestined us (probably corporately, not as individuals) to glory, but Paul feels bound to proclaim the good news to as many people as possible so that “by all means he might save some.”

The fundamental problem is that we are anthropomorphizing God. We assume that God has a mind like us, and so is capable of knowledge of the future, and can will things to happen. We assume we can understand a “God’s Eye Perspective” on these matters when we cannot. Determinism only works if one assumes that there is an objective world out there that is comprehensible to the human mind; while we can certainly know a lot about the world, far more than we were evolved to know, there are limits. My own belief is that free will/determinism is a philosophical puzzle that is undecidable by human reason, a use of ordinary language turned into abstract principles. What Paul is doing here is making a rhetorical point; the strength of his remarks depend on how they resonate with the Spirit-led life of the believer, not on reason.

Paul then continues,

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God the Father is on our side, and Jesus Christ is on our side. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. This, I think, is what Paul experienced in his call to be an apostle to the Gentiles – the sense of the love of God in Christ pouring through him. He put it more strongly in 1 Corinthians 13:

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. . . Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

This description of love is not that of a married couple, or of a single individual – it is the love of God that first knows the human and to which is responded by the human with love.

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Lenten Readings: Day 25

Posted on March 30, 2017 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

Creation Groaning in Labour Pains

130103_PlanetBirthPhoto-1020a.files_.grid-7x2

An artist’s impression of the birth of planets. The picture shows the disk of gas and cosmic dust around the young star HD 142527. Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope have seen vast streams of gas flowing across the gap in the disc. These are the first direct observations of these streams.

Paul in today’s second reading from the Daily Office Lectionary is encouraging the readers/hearers of his Letter to the Romans to live by the Spirit, as he himself does. The benefits are significant, in his mind: one escapes the consequences of living the depraved life of the body, namely death. God  adopts you as a child of the divine, through participation in Christ.

Rom 8.12–27
So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

However, the forces that rule this fallen, broken world are not pleased with God’s redeeming work in Christ. The powers and dominions that rule are callously indifferent to the harm they cause humanity and creation. The idols worshipped by them are manifestations of power, wealth, and dignitas, and so they have little concern with slaves, orphans and widow, conquered people, and the poor. And so they persecute God’s children.

The Roman historian Suetonius (69-122 AD) wrote in his biography of the Emperor Claudius: Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantis Roma expulit which may be translated He expelled from Rome the Jews constantly making disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus. While scholars are divided on whether this is a reference to Jewish Christians, it sounds probable to me especially when one considers the report in Acts 18.2 that Paul found in Corinth a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. They are mentioned in the greetings of chapter 16.3-4, so obviously they moved back to Rome: Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus, and who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles.

Paul mentions sufferings in his letters, and a generation later The Acts of the Apostles describes the persecution suffered by Peter, Stephen, James, and Paul. He probably knows of painful events in Roman which he does not need to elaborate to his recipients. To be a follower of Jesus Christ was a risky business. People saw it as a dangerous cult, a perversion of the usually peaceful region of the Jews. The same Empire that crucified Jesus also persecuted his followers. So why would one be a Christian? Paul writes:

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

There’s the payoff. Glory is about to be revealed and the children of God will be part of it. Paul, like most Jews of his time, expected an apocalyptic breaking in of God into history. It was predicted in the last few chapters of Isaiah, the Book of Daniel, and the last few chapters of Zechariah; there was also a slew of non-canonical Jewish texts written closer to the time of Jesus which described the coming Day of the Lord. The common themes involved the return of the Messiah and a divine figure “like a son of man” who would come and destroy all the evil in the world. These themes of things being made right – the humble and meek lifted up and the rich and well-fed being pulled down from their thrones – carries right on through the gospels (especially the synoptics), the letters, Acts, and especially the Book of Revelation. Paul bleived that in the Resurrection of Jesus we see that breaking in, and he is revealed as both Messiah and the Son of Man, as well as being the Son of God. Now, the Day is delayed while Paul and others preach the gospel to the ends of the earth (hence his desire to go to Spain, which for him was the end of the world), so that the Gentiles might also have a part of the kingdom. Meanwhile, the powers of futile depravity continue to reign.

Who subjected creation to futility? Paul seems to be alluding to Adam again, which means the sentence then makes logical sense. Jewett points out that creation under the pagan rulers tended to result in environmental degradation. Cities were massacred and forests cut down. The log term result in this pre-industrial society is that soil often became exhaused and infertile; only Egypt was a reliable producer of wheat and other grains because its soil was replenished by the flooding of the Nile. Much of the previously rich countryside of Italy became a wasteland. Topsoils were washed away, creating malarial swamps on the coasts and silting up ports. Paul is seemingly aware of this decay, and ties it to the cosmic fall in Adam and the ongoing perversity of his pagan descendants. So he writes, using the metaphor of childbirth:

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Paul links the groaning of creation – the true Spirit of the World? – with the Spirit groaning within the believer in the speaking in tongues. the persecution that believers are experiencing is paralleled by what is happening to the environment.

Given the current events in the United States, I think it is fair to say that Paul would not be pleased with the roll-back of environmental protection. He would be shocked at the number of Christians who have made idols of power, security, and wealth, and justifying their approach through his writings. All the more reason to bear down on biblical interpretation, and challenging the powers and dominions of our day, as he did in his.

 

 

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Lenten Readings: Day 24

Posted on March 29, 2017 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

Spirit

bryan-reyna-apokalupsis-eschaton

“Apokalupsis Eschaton” (2014) by Bryan Reyna

Today’s second reading from the Daily Office Lectionary continues with Paul’s Letter to the Romans. After the interpretive issues that bedevilled the readings of the past few days today’s reading is relatively clear. By now we are used to the ambiguous quality of Paul’s use of νόμος, nómos “law”, as it may refer to the law written on the hearts of all humanity, but especially apparent to Gentiles, or it may refer to the Torah revealed at Sinai, or perhaps earlier commandments given to Adam, Noah, and others. Paul also starts to see living by the Spirit as corresponding to law, much as earlier he saw it as a transfer from slavery to sin to slavery to God.  

Rom 8.1–11
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

Paul delights in setting up oppositions between things, particularly life before Christ and life afterwards. It’s one of the reasons that I think Luther saw everything as Law and Gospel, even though I don’t think Paul’s antitheses map the way Luther thinks they do.

The oppositions in today’s readings look like this:

Law of sin and death Law of the Spirit in Christ Jesus
Flesh – powerless before sin Christ condemns sin in the flesh
Set mind on flesh => death
=> does not submit to God’s law
=> hostile to God		 Set mind on the Spirit => life and peace
[=> submits to God’s law]
[=> pleasing to God]
[Unrighteous] Righteous
Body is dead because of sin Spirit gives life to mortal body.

Why is Paul writing about this? As will become clear in Chapters 14 and 15 (which we will not get to in Lent) Paul is aware that the Roman church (actually several congregations meeting in different homes across the Metropolis) is divided into two factions which he describes as “the weak” and “the strong”. Much ink has been spilled over the identity of these groups, but Robert Jewett suggests, and I think he is right, that “the strong” are Gentile believers and liberal-minded Jews like Paul who no longer feel constrained by Torah observance, whereas “the weak” are Torah observing Jewish Christians and probably some Gentiles who were close to the Jewish synagogue prior to receiving Christ.  In most of the letter Paul is addressing “the strong” and encouraging them to get along with “the weak”; he wants unity so that he will have a strong support as he passes through Rome on his way to Spain, and he does not want any whiff of division to cause a scandal for him as he preaches the good news there.

Going back to earlier chapters, Paul assumes it depends on faith, and that is true whether one observes aspects of Torah because one is a Jew or one is freed from those commandments through faith in Christ; there is nothing inherently wrong in a Jew observing the Torah, although Paul finds it bizarre and wrong for Gentiles who wish to follow Jesus to believe or be told that they really must become Jewish. That shifts salvation from the grace of God and faith to the adherence to the Torah, which can be emptied of faith.

As Jewett reminds us, the Spirit here is not some abstract concept that we might associate with certain philosophers. Rather, it is something experienced by the believers as something which takes over in them and lives in them, manifesting itself in spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, healing, prophetic utterances, miracles, as well as faith, wisdom, and knowledge (see 1 Corinthians 12). These all have the characteristic of love (1 Corinthians 13), and are a reflection of God’s activity within us. The Spirit is transformative of the whole person, and not just a matter of intellectual assent to propositions.

This is why Paul is so bothered when he encounters Christians arguing and behaving badly – it suggests that the Spirit is somehow impeded by them. It is parallel to the “already/not yet” nature of Christ’s coming – Jesus has inaugurated the kingdom with his itinerant ministry of preaching, healings, and exorcisms, and in his death and resurrection, but the fullness awaits the day of the Lord when he will come in glory as the Son of Man. Likewise, Christians are free from sin and alive in the Spirit, although their bodies look unchanged and awaits the power of the resurrection to be fully activated. So he exhorts them to live by the Spirit.

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