The Paradoxical Meeting of Wisdom and Power

In an earlier posting, entitled "The Element of Surprise," I observed how the birth stories in the Gospel of Matthew begins in chapter one with a series of surprises including, for example, Mary's surprising pregnancy and Joseph's surprising willingness to stick with her in the face of the inevitable scandal.  By the opening of chapter two (verses 1-6), surprise has morphed into paradox.  These verses introduce, of course, the story of the wise men of Sunday school pageant fame.

What the pageants miss is the deeper drama of the wisdom of the East seeking the royal power of the Jews and finding that power in an infant, one born to an otherwise inconsequential couple who were not even legally married.  Wisdom found the king, but the king was a kid.  Now, there was no question that this infant was indeed the messiah, the savior king of the Jews.  The star confirmed it.  His residence in Bethlehem just as "it has been written by the prophet" also confirmed it.  And in wisdom's discovery of power in an infant lies the central theological paradox and insight of the Christian faith, which is that God does not come to us in a Solomon, a figure of obvious power and supposed wisdom, but in a child of no particular significance otherwise.

Now, in a formal theological sense, we already know all of this, but there is always a tendency among Christians to forget the scandal and the paradox involved.  We have traditionally tended to prefer the "birth narrative" of John 1:1-18, which clothes Jesus, the Word (often seen as a veiled reference to Sophia, wisdom), in the majesty of creation.  And the story of wisdom seeking power in an infant has been consigned to a more sentimental, Christmas-y purpose, one that carefully never reads on as far is the massacre of the children in Matthew 2:16-18.  The paradox of the baby messiah, however, looms over the whole of the Gospel of Matthew, and in that paradox we see the shadow of the cross and the promise of resurrection.

On Jesus' Trajectory

In the opening verses of John chapter 9, Jesus and his disciples encounter a blind man, and the disciples ask him whose fault it was that the man was born blind.  They assumed that sin was the root cause and wondered who it was that sinned.  Jesus answered them, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him." (9:3 NRSV)  In other words, it was the will of God that this man be blind until such time as Jesus came along and healed him and demonstrated the healing power of God in Christ.

In 2012, that feels ugly and unworthy of God.  It is reasonable to argue that God being God could figure out some other way to reveal divine power without forcing this man into blindness for all of his life up to the point of healing.  The counter-argument would be that God actually doubly blessed him because he unexpectedly gained his sight, something that had to cause him great joy.  If, however, any human authority consciously blinded someone under its authority so that it could later prove a point we would rightly condemn the inhumanity of that authority.  We thus can't give God a pass.

There is another way to look at the story, however, one that puts this event in its historical context and sees where Jesus was headed in his teachings.  At the heart of it, Jesus freed the man's condition from sin.  He removed the religiously based social stigma and prejudice attached to blindness and other physical maladies.  For his own time, this was liberating and in and of itself healing.  Even more revolutionary was his insistence that this blind man had a positive role to play in the plans of God.  God did not condemn him with blindness but favored him with it.  His condition was a holy one.

In 21st century terms, we may still not be satisfied with the "fact" that God caused the man's blindness in order to fulfill some divine plan. In first century terms, however, we see Jesus redefining blindness in a liberating way—but doing so within the framework of the first century.  He accepted the fundamental idea that God caused blindness because that was only common sense.   What else could cause blindness but God?  He then reshaped common sense in ways that were more humane, affirming, and caring.  He thus set us on a trajectory away from prejudice, stereotyping, and disdain and toward compassion.  To be faithful to Christ in 2012, we need but follow the trajectory while rejecting out of hand the idea that God causes blindness and other forms of human suffering.  God works for healing, not hurt.

Biblical Birtherism

Birtherism is built on a falsehood so patently false that it betrays its own source: fear of the Other who is not us.  There is a racialist factor involved.  The President of the United States is a "person of color," and for a certain segment of the American public that fact is unsettling.  It demands a reaction, and for these folks that reaction is to deny that Barack Obama was born in the United States and has the legal right to hold the office of president.  They deny his right to be the president.

Would you believe there is biblical precedent?  In the Gospel of John, Jesus finds himself repeatedly in conflict with "the Jews," that is the educated, powerful ruling elite of his day.  For them, his message is outrageous, impious, and dangerous.  John records numerous confrontations between Jesus and these leaders.  In the heat of one of them, "the Jews" say to Jesus,"Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?" (John 8:48, NRSV)

For these wealthy establishment types, Jesus was the Other—a lower-class, uneducated Galilean who challenged their power and their way of looking at the world.  They responded to him in a number of ways including the charge that he was not "really" Jewish.  He was not "really" one of them.  As a despised Samaritan, he was their enemy and a faithless heretic.  In this way, they could dismiss him and justify their disdain for him.  It is interesting that they chose a racialist approach, one that removed Jesus from the race of God's people, the Jews, and reassigned him a place in the devil's race, the Samaritans.

Birtherism, in sum, is the reinvention of a very old wheel.

Re-Reading

According to John 6:3-15, in the course of his ministry Jesus went off to the mountains with his disciples and a large crowd followed them.  Beyond all expectation, Jesus saw to the feeding of this crowd, which numbered five thousand men and an undetermined number of women and children.  He started with five loaves and two fishes, and ended up with a feast so sumptuous that twelve baskets of bread pieces were left over afterward.  The story closes with two comments.  The crowd was impressed and concluded that Jesus really was the messiah.  But, Jesus went further up the mountain to avoid being abducted by them and forced to become king.

The question before us is not, "Did this really happen?"  Rather, the question we need to ask esp. in our mainline churches is, "Is this happening?"  When will it happen?  How does it happen?  In ancient times, Christian biblical commentators frequently treated the stories of scripture allegorically.  The stories have layers of meaning, and the trick is to get to the deeper, non-literal meanings.  In modern times, we have gotten so wrapped up in the debate over the literal, historical meaning of the Bible that we've lost our playful, spiritual ability to discover for ourselves those layers of meaning.

This story's allegorical meaning seems obvious.  Jesus feeds those who come to him seeking spiritual sustenance.  In his grace and compassion, he more than meets the needs of those who seek him out.  But, there is a surprising element to Christ.  His disciples did not expect that he would feed the people this way.  They thought the situation was impossible.  There is even a warning about believing in Jesus at the end of the story.  Once the crowd believed in Jesus, he had to flee them!  He feared that they would seize him and force him to become their kind of a king.

This story, in sum, can be seen to teach us that Christ can provide deep spiritual meaning and life for those who seek it from him, in ways beyond the expectations of his "official" disciples (read, clergy and lay leaders in our mainline churches today).  But, faith in Christ does not guarantee that one understands God's will or the person of Christ.  In our enthusiasm for the faith, we can actually become a danger to Christ.

Born Again: A Different Take

Jesus & Nicodemus

Things aren't necessarily what they seem to be or what most people (or tradition) say they are.  Take, for example, our understanding of the term, "born again."

In his famous discussion with the Pharisee, Nicodemus, which is recorded in John 3:1-21, Jesus insisted repeatedly that in order to have a full life with God Nicodemus had to be "born again."  At least, that is how the King James Version translation of John 3:1-21 puts it in verses 3 and 7.  According to the KJV, in verse 3 Jesus says, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." In verse 6-7, he says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again."  Interestingly, the American Standard Version (ASV)  and the Revised Standard Version (RSV) both translate "born again" as "born anew."  That change in translation evidently reflects the meaning of the original Greek as well as does "born again".  It is an important transition because both the ASV and the RSV are revisions of the KJV and stand in what we might term "direct lineal descent" from the KJV.

The most recent descendent of the KJV, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) further revises "born anew" into "born from above," which Robert V. McCabe in an article entitled "The Meaning of 'Born of Water and the Spirit' in John 3:5" says is an equally valid translation of the Greek.  So, in the NRSV Jesus says in verse 3, ""Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." In verse 7, he says, "You must be born from above."  The Message (MSG) and Laughing Bird (LB) paraphrase versions of the passage also translate "born again" as "born from above."

The point is that there is an important difference in our understanding of what it means to be "born again" as opposed to "born from above."  If we are "born again," our original birth is superseded and, in a sense, rejected as being inadequate.  In recent centuries, this sense of what it means to be "born again," has led to the idea in many Christian circles that one must undergo a conversion experience, an experience that involves rejection of the past and embracing a "born again" life in Christ.  The meaning of the original Greek allows such an interpretation of the idea of being "born again."  It is not wrong to argue that Jesus was demanding a conversion experience of Nicodemus.

If, however, we translate the original as meaning "born from above," we can understand Jesus' meaning in another way.  Just as our physical bodies are born, so too must our spiritual nature go through a birth process.  The Laughing Bird paraphrase thus has Jesus saying, "“Listen again, for it is important that you get this. There is only one way into the full life of God, and it is through a birth of water and Spirit. A baby that emerges from a womb got its body from the bodies of its parents. But a growing person is not just a body, and the life-force within them emerges from the womb of the Spirit. So don’t be surprised that I said you have to be born from above." (verses 5-7)  We have a physical birth.  We experience a spiritual birth.  The experience of our first birth, thus, is the model for our second birth.  There is no rejection of our previous life involved.  Following Christ is more of a bringing to completion the birthing process.  This feels more like Genesis 1 where God created the physical universe and humanity and found these things, these physical things, "good" (meaning aesthetically pleasing, beautiful).

In Christian circles, we often talk about repentance as being taking a "U-turn" away from the way we were going and toward God's way.  But, maybe we can just as well look on repentance as a process of growth, coming to fruition, or maturing.  We don't do a "U-turn" so much as we follow the path upward.  When we graduate from college, we don't somehow reject or renounce our high school diploma.  In fact, we build on it.  As we seek to be "born from above," we build on the life given us through our first birth.  Obviously, some things are going to change.  But rather than reject our first birth, we embrace it and seek to be crafted into something still more aesthetically pleasing and beautiful through the work of the Spirit on us.

For some, the idea of being "born again" best describes their experience and journey.  For others, the life of faith is more like being "born from above."