A river that could not be passed over...

... everything will live where ever the river goes

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This article by JKA Smith beautifully seams together creation and redemption. 

Too often talk of redemption moves towards a pursuit of souls from an other-worldly after-life, or it speaks of the cancelling of theoretical debts, or it reduces works of redemption to only a few tasks. Either way, it stifles healthy imagination and deadens genuinely and redemptive God-given vocational callings. 

“The Word became flesh not to save our souls from this fallen world, but in order to restore us as lovers of this world—to (re)enable us to carry out that creative commission. Indeed, God saves us so that—once again, in a kind of divine madness—we, as an empowered, Spirit-filled people, can save the world, can (re)make the world aright. And God’s redemptive love spills over in its cosmic effects, giving hope to this groaning creation.

So our redemption is not some supplement to being human; it’s what makes it possible to be really human, to take up the mission that marks us as God’s image bearers.”

Excerpt From: https://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/2024/redemption/.

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Pervading Joy

I’m getting to the end of Hauerwas’ The Peaceable Kingdom. 

After discussing the necessary instability that living Christianly creates in the world (the ‘tragedy’ that occurs when violence meets peaceableness) and the corollary of hospitality as essential to holiness, Hauerwas moves on to joy. It’s a short section, and worth a read!

Joy is not a momentary response to something unexpected with little staying power, as it is sometimes believed. But joy is something that remains, as a result of finding our true home in God and his peace. Thus, life is pervaded by this sense of gifted-ness as we learn to see the simple and most common aspects of our existence (friends, spouses, children, etc) ‘as sheer gifts to which we have no right but who are nonetheless present’. 

This joy beyond tragedy is born from the cross and resurrection. Quoting Reinhold Niebuhr: 

“The cross does not reveal life at cross purposes with itself. On the contrary, it declares that what seems to be an inherent defect in life itself is really a contingent defect in the soul of each man, the defect of the sin which he commits in his freedom. If he can realise that fact, if he can weep for himself, if he can repent, he can also be saved. He can be saved by hope and faith...

Repentance does not accuse life or God but accuses self. In that self-accusation lies the beginning of hope and salvation. If the defect lies in us and not in the character of life, life is not hopeless.” 1

Hauerwas concludes:

“Joy thus becomes the disposition born of a hope based on our sense that it cannot be our task to transform the violence of this world into God’s peace, for in fact that has been done through the cross and resurrection of Jesus. Our joy is the simple willingness to live with the assurance of God’s redemption.” 2

***

1. Reinhold Niebuhr, Beyond Tragedy (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1937), p. 169.

2. Excerpt From: Stanley Hauerwas. “The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics.” iBooks, p 147. 

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It is thus in the cross that Christians see the climax of God’s way with the world. In his cross we see decisively the one who, being all-powerful, becomes vulnerable even to being a victim of our refusal to accept his Lordship. Through that cross God renews his covenant with Israel; only now the covenant is with the “many.” All are called to be his disciples through this one man’s life, death and resurrection, for in this cross we find the very passion of God. We are therefore invited to drink this drink, and to be baptized with this baptism (Mark 10:39), and in doing so we believe that we become participants in God’s very life. In short, we begin to know what it means to imitate God.

Excerpt From: Stanley Hauerwas. “The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics.” iBooks.

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In the death of Jesus, flesh stands condemned because flesh—fear of death, fear of loss, desire for glory—inspires the human race to kill the Creator of flesh, the one irrefutably righteous man, the One man who lived in flesh but not according to flesh, the Man who lived in the flesh by the Spirit. Now is the judgment of this world—the world of old, the world of flesh, the world of the First Adam under the reign of sin and death. In the cross, sin does its worst and is exposed for what it is: anti-good, anti-life, anti-God.

Excerpt From: Peter J. Leithart. “Delivered from the Elements of the World: Atonement, Justification, Mission.” iBooks.

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It cannot be the case that the gentle Son propitiates his angry Father, because the Son is on the cross only because “God so loved the world that he sent” him. If Jesus’ Father is angry with sin, he is angry with the same passionate Spirit that breathes the Word. If the Father speaks a No of condemnation against flesh, the eternal Word pronounces that No. The cross is designed and worked out by the tripersonal God. Barth is at his paradoxical best in claiming that God plunges into his own wrath on the cross in order to dissipate it, and this is possible because of God’s self-differentiation as Trinity.

Excerpt From: Peter J. Leithart. “Delivered from the Elements of the World: Atonement, Justification, Mission.” iBooks.

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Our act of protest

We can provide no theoretical answer to the question of suffering and evil. In the face of this question, silence is most appropriate. 

But our response doesn’t stop there. We lament. The Christian responds to evil in the world by bringing the pain before the Father; bringing it to expression and with emotion. He is our only hope; the power remains in His hands and He is good through and through. So we rightly cry, ‘WHY?’

And we also protest. Any act of love, any act of compassion and kindness in the face of death or pain or injustice might make next to zero difference to the situation, but it is an act of protest against the current reign of darkness; against the present evil age. It is the social action of those whose hearts and minds are set on the coming kingdom of light; whose longing and destiny is ‘for a better country- a heavenly one’ (Heb. 11:16). It is a witness - in word and deed - to a different social order, signified by ‘the Kingdom of God’, whose King is Jesus, and whose desire is to see the world healed and brought to new life. 

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Ethics, ‘a matter of earth and blood’

Bonhoeffer hates Kantian timeless and universal perceptions of good and evil. Instead, he seeks an ethic that never moves away from the concrete and the historical. 

In his 1929 Barcelona lecture, he describes ethics as ‘a matter of earth and blood’, found only ‘within the bounds of history’. 

He goes on: those who ‘abandon the earth’ will similarly lose their strength and their connection to God, for ‘[t]he earth remains our mother just as God remains our father, and only those who remain true to the mother are placed by her into the father’s arms.’

For Bonhoeffer, being Christian means engaging with and in the world. In his manuscripts written from prison, he writes, ‘What matters is not the beyond but this world, how it is created and preserved, is given laws, reconciled, and renewed.’ In other words, the Christian life becomes an exercise of ‘living fully in the midst of life’s tasks, questions, successes and failures, experiences, and perplexities.’ 

Only by wholly belonging to the (’penultimate’) world - whilst also being wholly united to Christ’s ‘ultimate’ reality - can a person truly be conformed to the humanity of Jesus, sharing in his sufferings, and by extension, the sufferings of the world. 

This is what being human and truly good is all about. 

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Active Engagement

As per my previous post, Bonhoeffer’s ethic arises from a deeply relational co-inherence with God. Knowing how to act ‘simply and wisely’ depends on Christ forming Himself in the believer, which leads him to argue that spiritual disciplines are vital for placing the believer in such a space where Christ’s form can act upon him/her. 

And whereas some might assume spiritual disciplines allow for a flight from reality, Bonhoeffer believes the opposite: 

“Moreover, we will see at this point whether Christians’ time of meditation has led them into an unreal world from which they awaken with a fright when they step out into the workaday world, or whether it has led them into the real world of God from which they enter into the day’s activities strengthened and purified. Has it transported them for a few short moments into a spiritual ecstasy that vanishes when everyday life returns, or has it planted the Word of God so soberly and so deeply in their heart that it holds and strengthens them all day long, leading them to active love, to obedience, to good works? Only the day can decide.”

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, 5:92.

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Encountering Christ

I’m having a whole lot of fun researching for a paper on Bonhoeffer’s theological (Christological) ethic. So far, I’m coming to see how intensely relational his ethic is: living Christianly is all about an encounter with God in Christ. It’s all about hearing and obeying; it’s all about participating in the relation between Father and Son by the Spirit, so that Jesus’ simple obedience in a complex (’penultimate’ world) becomes ours. And this involves the formation of Christ in us, just as we are in Him. 

“A prophet and teacher would not need followers, but only students and listeners. But the incarnate Son of God who took on human flesh does need a community of followers who not only participate in his teaching but also in his body.” [DBW 4:215]. Through participation in Christ one occupies a space where the process of conformation can occur. It is not that Christians conform themselves by listening to a sermon or partaking of the sacrament, but they put themselves in a position to encounter Christ and allow his form to take shape within their lives...

‘The transformation into the divine image will become ever more profound, and the image of Christ in us will continue to increase in clarity. This is a progression in us from one level of understanding to another and from one degree of clarity to another, toward an ever-increasing perfection in the form of likeness to the image of the Son of God.’ [DBWE 4:286]’.

Excerpt From: Joshua A. Kaiser. “Becoming Simple and Wise: Moral Discernment in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Vision of Christian Ethics.” iBooks.

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Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. Let us become divine for his sake, since he for ours became man. He assumed the worst that he might give us the better; he became poor that we through his poverty might be rich; he took upon himself the form of a servant that we might receive back our liberty; he came down that we might be exalted; he was tempted that we might conquer; he was dishonoured that he might glorify us; he ascended that he might draw us to himself, who were lying low in the fall of sin. Let us give all, offer all, to him who gave himself a ransom and reconciliation for us. who were lying low in the fall of sin. Let us give all, offer all, to Him who gave himself a ransom and reconciliation for us.

Gregory Naz., Or., 1.5.

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Overflowing provision

I’m preparing a study in Hosea 4 for a small group tonight, and so I’m reading a commentary to get up to speed with Hosea’s prophecy. In chapter 2 Hosea looks ahead to the day when YHWH will betroth Himself to His people. Back in the day, a betrothal involved the groom to pay the bride’s father approximately 50 shekels of silver. But YHWH, instead, promised to pay in righteousness, justice, mercy, faithfulness and steadfast love (v19-20). 

Who gets these attributes? The father of the bride? (who’s that?!)

The people get them, so that they can properly engage in the intimate relation God so desires. 

God’s people will be gifted by God the ability to be seeking the good of those who are dependent (mercy); they will act appropriately to the multitude of relations they find themselves involved (justice); they will be unswerving in their commitment in their devotion to YHWH (righteousness and faithfulness).

In her commentary, Elizabeth Achtemeier expresses it:

“Thus, these are the qualities that Yahweh gives, not to the father of the bride, but to the bride herself, so that henceforth the relation between God and his people Israel will be characterized by mutual righteousness, justice, devotion, mercy, and faithfulness. Here is the promise that the Israelites will be transformed in their inner selves to live with their God in that relation of intimate love and faithfulness for which God so yearns... By transforming the people from the inside out, and by altering their circumstances in the world, God will usher in a new age of righteousness and justice, covenant love and mercy, in which Israel will be forever faithful to the God who has been everlastingly faithful to her.”

God’s gifts don’t stop with His people but overflow into all creation, gifting the lands with rain from the heavens. This sets off a mutual giving and receiving between the heavens and earth, the earth and grain and grain and oil- each one calling for the other to share the plentitude. This is a picture of creation flourishing in its interconnectivity, and so comes creation’s response to God’s provision- “the exultant cry of nature, celebrating the God who fructifies it”- ‘Jezreel’, meaning ‘God will sow’. 

Let’s follow the lead of the earth and heavens in our response to God’s gift.

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Father, Son and Holy Spirit

I’m currently reading Robert Jenson’s ‘Theology in Outline: Can These Bones Live?’, and so far, it’s a great read! The book is, pretty much, a transcript of lectures he gave to undergraduates at Princeton on an intro to Christian Theology. The lectures have a casual feel about them, as if he’s reclining back to tell the story of Christian theology through history, as we enjoy our cup of tea, engrossed by the story of God with his people. 

Here’s a short quote, describing the end result of centuries of cognitive dissonance between Aristotle’s deified ‘it’, unaffected by anything, and the God of Israel and the risen Lord Jesus. Thank God for Athanasius and the Cappadocians, for now we can answer the question:

“Who is this God? Well, he is God the author of the story with his people. Who is this God? He is God settled into that story and an actor in it. Who is God? He is the wind of God that moves history. Or in the language that came to be standard, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And any one of them is a perfect and complete identification of the one God”

Excerpt From: Robert W. Jenson. “A Theology in Outline: Can These Bones Live?.” iBooks.

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Pneumatology and eschatology belong together because the es- chatological consummation itself is ascribed to the Spirit, who as an end-time gift already governs the historical present of believers. Con- versely, then, eschatology does not merely have to do with the future of consummation that is still ahead; it is also at work in our present by the Spirit. Hence the presence of the Spirit also means already the overcoming of sin and death. If sin and death are to be finally overcome only in the eschatological consummation, victory over them is already in process in the present work of the Spirit, and above all in his presence as a gift in believers. Thus we are to view the presence of the eschatological future by the Spirit as an inner element of the eschatological consummation itself, namely, as a proleptic manifestation of the Spirit who in the eschatological future will transform believers, and with them all creation, for participa- tion in the glory of God.

W. Pannenberg. Systematic Theology, Vol.3

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On Good Friday, these words take on greater depth.

“Jesus’s command to follow him is a command to align our loves and longings with his—to want what God wants, to desire what God desires, to hunger and thirst after God and crave a world where he is all in all—a vision encapsulated by the shorthand “the kingdom of God”...

...To follow Jesus is to become a student of the Rabbi who teaches us how to love; to be a disciple of Jesus is to enroll in the school of charity.”

Excerpt From: James K. A. Smith. “You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit.” iBooks.

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What makes death the Lord’s enemy, and fearful for us, is that it separates lovers. Were my death simply my affair, the old maxim might hold, that since my death will never be part of my experience I have no need to fear it. But death will take my loves from me and me from them, and that is the final quite objective horror, for it decrees the present emptiness of all human worth, constituted as it is by love. Having no more being would be no evil were being not mutual.

R. Jenson. Systematic Theo., Vol.2 (ebook), 461.

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Everything [Christ] is and does is present in us and there works with power, so that we are utterly deified, so that we do not have some piece or aspect only of God, but his entire fullness.

Martin Luther, Predigt (1525), WA 17/1:438.

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My first attempt at a haiku, from this morning’s chapel sermon.

    Cain's mind isn't right      A heart fallen from its shell     Blood cries out: shalom