gregoryjenks

Tag: Good Friday

  • Making meaning out of the cross

    Making meaning out of the cross

    My 2018 Good Friday sermon seems to have attracted rather more attention, and to have triggered much more conversation, than any other recent sermon. The overwhelming tone of the communications that I have received have been appreciative, positive and supportive. However, I also know that in certain theological corners my views have caused dismay and shock.

    The fact that my sermon could have triggered such a disparity of responses, suggests that some of the response are actually driven by pre-existing attitudes towards me and my work, whether positive or negative. That is natural and of no concern to me, whether those people are friends or critics. C’est la vie.

    The fact that so many of my critics—even those with a theological qualification—are shocked and dismayed by what I said, is a sad reflection on the narrowness of their own theological formation and their blissful blindness to the rich diversity that exists in Christian theology.

    My Good Friday sermon focused on some of the historical aspects of the crucifixion, and I suggested my audience put aside three common but faulty (‘bad’) ideas about the cross, while also suggesting one other way to think about the cross which they might have found helpful to consider.

    In brief, the three common but faulty ideas were:

    1. The cross as an act of divine wrath or sacred violence;
    2. The suffering experienced by Jesus as the reason that the cross matters; and
    3. Our personal sins as the cause of Jesus being crucified.

    The suggested alternative way to think about the death of Jesus that I offered was to think of it as an act of faithfulness by Jesus, who was willing to go anywhere and suffer anything for the sake of the reign of God, an idea that lay at the heart of his own mission and ministry. I grounded that suggestion—that it is the faithfulness of Jesus (η πιστις του Ιησου) that should be central to our thinking about the cross—in the teachings of St Paul in Romans 4.

    Despite this careful work of deconstruction and reconstruction, which was actually well received by the congregation for whom it was prepared and to whom it was delivered, my sermon has been misunderstood—and in some cases, I suggest, deliberately misrepresented—as an attack on and a denial of particular beliefs about the atonement which some people at least consider to be the very core of Christian faith.

    That assessment is doubly misguided and in its own way rather sad. I neither denied such beliefs nor are they central to the Gospel, even if they are so viewed by some people with a very particular and extremely narrow view of theology.

    In offering—in this essay—a more extended discussion of the theological meaning of the death of Jesus than was possible in the context of a sermon, let me make some initial observations before moving to more specific comments.

    First of all, as the title of this essay suggests, any Christian reflection on the cross is a recovery project. We are seeking to salvage something good out of a tragedy. We are seeking to make meaning out of a mistake. The execution of Jesus by the Roman administration in Judaea and Samaria was a miscarriage of justice, but hardly a unique event in that respect; either in those days or our own. It was also a mistake in a more ironic sense, in that if the execution was intended to put a stop to the revolutionary God-talk promoted by Jesus then it demonstrably failed and within 300 years the Emperor of Rome would not only have become a devotee of Jesus but would also chair the Council of Nicaea. In purely historical terms, the cross was a major mistake by the powers that were.

    Secondly, in seeking to fashion a wholesome meaning (and that adjective is deliberate as I do believe that most Christian theological interpretation of the cross has not been wholesome) from the execution of Jesus, we need to be as ‘wise as serpents and as gentle as doves’, as Jesus once said. In other words, this is complicated and requires sophisticated thinking and the cognitive capacity to practice nuance in our project. Those skills seem demonstrably lacking in most of the negative responses to my Good Friday sermon as well as in some of the positive responses. In popular terms, we need to avoid throwing out the baby when emptying the bath water.

    In this case, we need to be able to distinguish between intention and effect. Were I to be on trial for causing the death of another person, a critical matter to be determined by the judge or jury—apart from the historicity of the core events—would be my intention at the time that I caused the death of the other party. The result of my actions would not be in doubt, but the nature of what happened would depend very much on what my intention was thought to have been.

    For the biblical authors—all of them Jewish and all them people whose mental and verbal discourse was framed within an Aramaic context, which itself had affinities with Biblical Hebrew—it was difficult to distinguish between intent and consequence. We see this very clearly in the gospels where some ancient words from Isaiah are quoted approvingly:

    And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’” [Mark 4:11-12]

    No competent biblical scholar would interpret those words to mean that Jesus used parables, or that Isaiah fashioned his prophetic oracles, in order to confuse people and avoid them ever comprehending the message. Rather, we observe that these verses speak about the outcome of the parables (lack of insight) rather than the intention of the prophet. Within the Hebrew and Aramaic linguistic worlds it was very difficult to distinguish clearly intention from effect.

    Similarly, when seeking to make meaning out of the cross, we need first of all to distinguish between the effect of Jesus’ death and the historical causes of his execution, and then we need also to avoid retrospectively converting our (later) understanding of the ‘benefits of the passion’ into a statement of the reasons why Jesus died.

    That is indeed a narrow path, but it is the path that leads to wisdom even if many people of simple faith are not able to walk such a fine line.

    The third preliminary observation I need to make concerns my reliance on Paul’s letter to the Romans rather than a mishmash of Pauline ideas aggregated from across the seven (probably) authentic letters of Paul, or even the canonical collection of 13 ‘pauline’ letters. This is really quite a simple point, even though it has clearly gone unnoticed by some of my informed but narrow-minded critics.

    The letter to the Romans was probably the last of Paul’s authentic letters. Unlike most of his earlier letters, it was crafted as an intentional statement of his core theological ideas rather than fashioned in response to a pastoral crisis in a particular congregation. It does have many similarities with Galatians, and there too we find Paul speaking about the ‘faithfulness of Jesus’, but Romans is an expanded and revised form of Paul’s earlier ideas and so far as we can tell it was his final theological testament. (I acknowledge that many of my critics want to claim all 13 letters as authentic, but they are whistling in the dark so far as mainstream critical NT scholarship is concerned.)

    For these reasons, I am happy to take the theology of the cross in Romans as the most developed and final version of Paul’s thinking on the topic, and I do not accept suggestions that our interpretation of Romans should be held hostage to Paul’s earlier pastoral correspondence. We can certainly learn something about the development of Paul’s ideas when we study all of his writings, but I am interested in his mature thoughts rather than his earlier thinking.

    Finally, by way of preliminary observations, let me note that the gospels themselves do not provide us with a transcript of what Jesus said, but with various inter-dependent theological presentations about Jesus. While the Gospel of Mark may have been written in the late 80s or early 90s of the first century, its revised and enlarged edition—known to us as the Gospel of Matthew—most probably dates from around 110 C.E. The Gospel of John was probably composed around 100 C.E., while the Gospel of Luke may not have been written until around 125 C.E. Each of the gospels has roots going back into the oral and literary traditions of earliest Christianity, but none of them is an eyewitness account and all of them are highly constructed theological documents.

    This is familiar information to anyone with a basic degree in Theology, even though there may be some room to quibble over the dates that I propose; but is resisted and denied by more recalcitrant conservative souls. It does mean that we must read these documents theologically and not mistake them as verbatim accounts of what Jesus may once have said. Again, nuance is a key element of biblical literacy and spiritual wisdom.

    It will be no surprise that the New Testament offers us multiple, contradictory and overlapping ways of making meaning out of the death of Jesus. Without seeking to be comprehensive, these include at least the following theological interpretations of the cross:

    • Jesus as the lamb of God
    • Jesus dying as a ransom for others
    • Jesus as the suffering servant
    • Jesus’ death as being ‘according to the scriptures’
    • Jesus as the innocent victim, or suffering righteous one
    • Jesus as our Passover lamb
    • Jesus as a sin offering
    • Jesus as the divine Lord emptying himself even to death on a cross
    • Jesus as ‘God in Christ reconciling the world …’
    • Jesus as the Second Adam whose death brings life for all
    • Jesus’ death as a propitiatory sacrifice
    • Jesus as the truly faithful person parallel to Abraham
    • Jesus as a second Isaac, the only beloved son offered by the father
    • Jesus as an eternal High Priest offering the once-only sacrifice of his own life/blood
    • Jesus as the lamb slain from before the foundation of the world
    • Jesus as the eternal Son willingly laying down and taking up again his own life
    • Jesus as the one raised up like the serpent in the wilderness and drawing all to himself
    • Jesus as the grain of wheat that falls into the ground

    It is already clear from this preliminary inventory of NT interpretations of the cross that there is no single big idea that dominates the early Christian responses to the cross, and also that these ideas, for the most part, deploy metaphor rather than literal language.

    In my Good Friday sermon this year, I was clearly suggesting that people engage with the developed Pauline concept of Jesus as a ‘second Abraham’, whose faithfulness to God on the cross was a greater parallel to Abraham’s faithfulness (possibly at the offering of Isaac in Genesis 22?) and with wider benefits, since all humanity is blessed because of the faithfulness of Jesus whereas only ‘Israel’ was blessed because of the faithfulness of Abraham.

    Interestingly, the ecumenical councils that have authority in the broad catholic church have never attempted to define one single doctrine of the atonement. This is surprising on at least two counts. First, because this would seem to be such a central theological issue for Christians, although its significance for those faith communities that formed at the time of the European Reformation may not reflect the importance of this belief in the Patristic and Medieval periods. Secondly, given that so much else is defined in the creeds, it is odd that this key area of Christian faith has never been defined in a singular form that requires our assent.

    Within the life of the Anglican Communion, there are two ways that Anglicans affirm one or more of these biblical metaphors: in our authorised liturgies, and in the so-called Thirty-Nine Articles.

    Anglican theology is fashioned, communicated and reinforced especially through our liturgies, including our hymnody. In the case of our theology of the cross, this is especially expressed in the various approved prayers for the Great Thanksgiving at the Eucharist. These prayers clearly focus on just a small subset of the metaphors provided for us in the New Testament, and it might be desirable if the set of authorised eucharistic prayers offered a wider range of biblical metaphors for the cross. At this stage, they do not, and in that sense our common worship still reflects—and largely stays within—the medieval theological mindset of the pre-Reformation western church. There is yet more truth to break forth from God’s word, but our agreed liturgical texts will take a long time to reflect those new insights.

    In the case of the Thirty-Nine Articles, I would offer two observations.

    First of all—and most significantly, I suggest—the doctrine of the atonement was not an issue of such controversy or prominence in the minds of those who drafted successive versions of the Articles of Religion to be addressed specifically. The only time we find an explicit reference to the atonement is at Article 31.

    XXXI. OF THE ONE OBLATION OF CHRIST FINISHED UPON THE CROSS

    THE Offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin, but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said, that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits.

    Secondly, when the Articles do make specific reference to one interpretation of the death of Jesus it is in passing, and actually comes in an article that is addressing another matter. Article 31 is addressing—and condemning—an understanding of the Eucharist as a repeated offering of the sacrifice of Jesus. The argument against that traditional Roman understanding of the cross is that Jesus died ‘once for all’ and his sacrifice is not something that can be repeated.

    Article 31 presumes an understanding of the death of Jesus as—in some unspecified sense—providing a ‘perfect redemption, propitiation and satisfaction for all the sins of the world …’ Just how the death of Jesus does that is not explained or further elaborated. While not a formal teaching statement by the Anglican Church, and indeed a statement that has no standing at all in some provinces of the Anglican Communion (where the Articles of Religion from the Church of England have no jurisdiction), Article 31 is indicative of one of the ways in which faithful Anglicans might understand the meaning of the death of Jesus.

    While considering what the Articles might have to say about the death of Jesus, we should perhaps also note Article 15:

    XV. OF CHRIST ALONE WITHOUT SIN

    CHRIST in the truth of our nature was made like unto us in all things, sin only except, from which he was clearly void, both in his flesh, and in his spirit. He came to be the Lamb without spot, who, by sacrifice of himself once made, should take away the sins of the world, and sin, as Saint John saith, was not in him. But all we the rest, although baptized, and born again in Christ, yet offend in many things; and if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us

    Again, while this article references the death of Jesus, and particularly his sinlessness, it does not provide a specific interpretation of the death of Jesus or explain how his death on the cross has the effect of “taking away the sins of the world”. Once again we have an oblique reference to the cross which is indicative of ways in which faithful Anglicans might understand the meaning of the death of Jesus.

    Within the general theological framework—provided by Scripture, the ecumenical creeds, our authorised prayer books across the whole life of the Anglican Communion, and as reflected in the Articles of Religion of 1562—I seek to form an understanding of the death of Jesus as a critical moment in the economy of salvation.

    While being careful not to confuse historical causes with subsequent theological interpretations, I find some of the biblical metaphors more persuasive than others.

    As I have indicated on other occasions and in various publications, I am especially attracted to the life-affirming interpretation of the cross which is offered by the contemporary Roman Catholic theologian, Elizabeth A. Johnson, CSC in her essay, “The Word was Made Flesh and Dwelt Among Us. Jesus Research and Christian Faith.” in Doris Donnelly (ed), Jesus. A Colloquium in the Holy Land. New York: Continuum, 2001. Pages 146-166.

    I summarise and cite some of her key ideas here.

    The [biblical] metaphor’s narrative focus on the cross, moreover, leads to the idea that death was the very purpose of Jesus’ life. He came to die; the script was already written before he stepped onto the world stage. This not only robs Jesus of his human freedom, but it sacralizes suffering more than joy as an avenue to God. It tends to glorify violent death as somehow of value. (page 156)

    Johnson argues that contemporary Jesus research contributes to redressing that imbalance in Western theology because it “assigns value to the whole of Jesus’ life and ministry, not just his final hours; and it identifies the resurrection as the definitive action of God” in not allowing death to have the last word.

    Herein lies the saving power of this event: death does not have the last word. The crucified one is not annihilated but brought to new life in the embrace of God, who remains faithful in surprising ways. (page 157)

    Johnson describes Jesus’ death as what happened to the prophet sent by God when historical human actors make free decisions in particular contingent circumstances:

    To put it simply, Jesus, far from being a masochist, came not to die but to live and to help others live in the joy of the divine love. To put it boldly, God the Creator and Lover of the human race did not need Jesus’ death as an act of atonement but wanted him to flourish in his ministry of the coming reign of God. Human sin thwarted this divine desire yet did not defeat it. (page 158)

    As Johnson expresses it, our view of salvation then moves its focus on to God rather than Jesus:

    … the view of salvation fed by Jesus research shifts theological emphasis from a sole, violent act of atonement for sin before an offended God to an act of suffering solidarity that brings the compassionate presence of God into intimate contact with human misery, pain, and hopelessness. (page 158)

    Johnson continues:

    Part of the difficulty with the atonement/satisfaction metaphor, especially as it has played out in a juridical context, lies in the way it valorized suffering. Rather than being something to be resisted or remedied in light of God’s will for human well-being, suffering is seen as a good in itself or even an end necessary for God’s honor. Not only has this led to masochistic tendencies in piety … but … it has promoted acceptance of suffering resulting from injustice rather than energizing resistance. (page 159)

    For Elizabeth Johnson we now have a richer vocabulary of salvation:

    … rather than being an act willed by a loving God, [the cross] is a strikingly clear index of sin in the world, a wrongful act committed by human beings. What may be considered salvific in such a situation is not the suffering endured but only the love poured out. The saving kernel in the midst of such negativity is not the pain and death as such but the mutually faithful love of Jesus Jesus and his God, not immediately evident. (page 159)

    Finally, the view of salvation fed by Jesus research allows the rich tapestry of metaphors found throughout the New Testament to be brought back into play. No one image and its accompanying theology can exhaust the experience and meaning of salvation through Christ. Taken together these metaphors correct distortions that rise when one alone is over emphasized … (page 160)

     

    As already indicated, I find these suggestions by Elizabeth Johnson to be evocative of a new and better way of understanding the significance of the death of Jesus. Without denying or repudiating traditional but non-binding formulations of the atonement, I find this a positive and life-giving way of making meaning out of the death of Jesus on the cross.

    © 2018 Gregory C. Jenks

     

     

     

     

     

  • A letter to my critics

    It seems that my 2018 Good Friday sermon has attracted more interest among a wider circle of people than I mostly manage to achieve. This includes negative reactions—some of them quite exaggerated—among conservative Evangelicals for whom there is only one way to understand the theological significance of the cross.

    During the past week or so I have been misrepresented and potentially slandered online. I have been besieged with extremely rude messages on my YouTube channel. Formal complaints seeking my discipline and/or dismissal have been sent to the Diocesan Administrator. There have been threats of intervention from ‘higher authorities’. Now the emails are starting to arrive. Perhaps soon the letters will come in the post.

    I have been described as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and an “enemy of Christianity”. I have been handed over to Satan. And more of the same.

    What follows below is the text of a response I have sent this morning to one person who contacted me overnight by email to take me to task for my sermon. Anything which might identify my correspondent has been deleted from the text.

    Thank you for taking the time to contact me with your concerns about my recent Good Friday sermon.
    I am pleased that you took the time to read my sermon rather than simply react to the exaggerated descriptions that have been circulating in particular circles in the past week or so.
    Naturally I do not accept your evaluation of my sermon, as I would not have preached it had I thought any of those criticisms were true. All the same, I do appreciate the underlying irenical tone of your letter and hope that we might some day have a grace-filled discussion of our different approaches to faith, including the role of Scripture and critical thinking.
    In case it helps you to appreciate where I was coming from in delivering that sermon, let me observe that my overall goal was to promote a deep appreciation of the death of Jesus as the critical element in our reconciliation with God. However, in making my way towards that goal I also identified and dismissed three common misconceptions about the death of Jesus. It is the third of those misconceptions that seems to have caused concern to you and, from what I hear indirectly via the grapevine, to some other Evangelical clergy in the Diocese of Grafton.
    Let me simply make the point that I was addressing the historical circumstances around the crucifixion of Jesus. I was not seeking to promote or critique any particular doctrine of the atonement. My sermon was designed more as a reflection on the death of Jesus on that most solemn of holy days, Good Friday. I chose to focus on the faith/faithfulness (pistis) of Jesus, as Paul does in Romans 4.
    I stand by every comment made in that sermon and do not resile from anything I said.
    As I mentioned more than once when delivering that sermon, it canvassed a number of substantial theological issues that I anticipate we might explore in more detail in future sessions of the Dean’s Forum.
    As for people finding spiritual nourishment in that sermon, you will be delighted to know that people far and wide have expressed their appreciation for the sermon and testified to the spiritual blessings they received through it.
    May God bless you richly today and always.

  • Rethinking the cross of Jesus

    Good Friday
    Christ Church Cathedral
    30 March 2018

    [video | Letter to my critics | Making meaning out of the cross]

    This morning I want to speak briefly about the death of Jesus, about the cross.

    It is a most familiar topic, as our churches are littered with crosses. From the roof top to the decorations carved into our woodwork, we have crosses everywhere. We wear them around our neck, put them on the wall above our bed, and we make the sign of a cross at sacred moments.

    The cross is everywhere.

    But most of what people will be told about the cross today in churches around the world and across our Diocese and around this city is nonsense at best, and truly bad theology at worst.

    So today I want to talk briefly concerning three really bad ideas that people have about the crucifixion, and I want to suggest one really good way to understand what the cross was all about.

     

    As the ideas were taking shape in my mind, I went back to read again what I said on Good Friday at Byron Bay last April. I did that for a few different reasons.

    First of all, because it helps me to clarify my thoughts now if I review what I have said about the same topic at an earlier time.

    I also wanted to make sure that I was not just going to repeat unwittingly material from last year.

    And I needed to check if I had anything new to say today. And I think I do!

    Generally speaking I do not like to read what I said in a sermon a year or more ago. I rarely agree with myself!

    As I have reflected on that I realise that this may because I am no longer the same person who gave that sermon. At the time it may have been the right thing for the person I was then to say in that context. But time has passed. Other stuff has happened in my life and yours since this time last year. I am a different person, and I am speaking to a different community of faith. Even if I was still in Byron Bay, we would all have moved on—I hope—in the meantime, and each of us will be at least a little bit different than we were twelve months ago.

    It makes me wonder what we shall all be like in twelve months’ time from now!

    What will God have been doing in and through us during the year ahead, and how shall we have changed —individually and collectively — in that time?

    So back to the task before us here this morning …

     

    Bad Idea #1

    Crucifixion was a violent and cruel way to kill someone.

    The story of the cross is a story of extreme violence.

    Worse still, it is a story of sacred violence and it reinforces all those times when we have experienced or observed violence and hatred being inflicted on others in the name of religion.

    This is a dark thread that runs through the Bible and through the wider spiritual tradition of Christians, Jews and Muslims.

    Instead of our faith giving us the wisdom and courage to address religious violence, sacred violence has repeatedly been excused, validated and justified by religion.

    Some parts of the Bible are frankly unable to be used in public worship or in a religious education curriculum at our local Anglican school because of the violence and hatred that those texts celebrate and reinforce.

    We may make this issue a topic for as Dean’s Forum in the next few months, as it is a very nasty element of our faith which we rarely address and which we rarely admit.

    It is therefore very important—despite all the sermons and all the Sunday School lessons you may have heard to the contrary—that we reject any notion that God wanted Jesus to die as a human sacrifice.

    The cross is not about divine wrath or sacred violence.

    It was violent, but God was the victim of the violence and not the perpetrator.

    How could we ever have gotten that so wrong?

    This is a really bad idea, and I hope you never again allow a priest or any other person tell you that God approves of violence for the sake of dealing with evil or sin.

    That is simply not true.

    Worse still, it is a tragic betrayal of the true nature of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.

     

    Bad Idea #2

    The second bad idea that you will find lots of Christian people spruiking, and especially their pastors, is that the suffering of Jesus was so deep that it is without parallel in human history.

    This is a variant of the God likes violence theme, but sounds more like: God can be moved to action if the suffering is especially intense.

    Fortunately this second bad idea can be disposed of very easily.

    The simple fact is that the suffering experienced by Jesus was neither remarkable nor unique.

    Many people have suffered as badly as Jesus did, including the several thousand Jewish rebels crucified by Roman forces during the siege of Jerusalem about 40 years after Easter.

    Countless human beings have experienced torture and cruel deaths with levels of suffering much worse than Jesus would have experienced.

    Christian women living with violent husbands who abuse their spouses and claim it is their prerogative as the spiritual head of the woman are probably suffering worse than Jesus did, because their suffering goes on week after week with no sign of ending.

    Assylum seekers consigned to cruel and inhumane conditions by our own Government are probably suffering more than Jesus ever did.

    I could go on, but all such calculations miss the point.

    It is not how much Jesus suffered that matters, but who he was and how he acted. More on that shortly when we get to a good idea for thinking about the cross.

     

    Bad idea #3

    The last of these really bad ideas about the Cross that I want to mention is one that is especially popular among people planning—or attending—Good Friday services.

    This is the idea that my sins—or yours, or both yours and mine together—are what caused Jesus to die.

    This is an idea that is especially common in Christian hymns.

    It is nonsense.

    We know what caused Jesus to be crucified, and it was not your sins or my sins, or the sins of anyone else we know.

    All such twisted theology does is generate guilt. It makes us feel bad, and encourages us to be compliant participants in a church forgiveness racket. It is misdirected.

    Jesus was killed because the powerful elites of his day wanted to eliminate him since he was a serious threat to their power and their privilege.

    And they were right.

    They were not right to kill Jesus, but they were right to discern that if his way of thinking about God took hold in the minds of the people over whom they ruled, the people they exploited, then their own days were numbered.

    This is not about my sins or your sins.

    It is about a clash between Jesus the prophet of the empire of God, and the elites in Jerusalem who prospered under the empire of Caesar and could not tolerate someone like Jesus.

    They knew that when he said, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God”, Jesus was not describing an even split of our loyalties. Rather, Jesus was inviting people to give Caesar what he deserves (nothing) and to give God what God deserves (our all).

    People who talk like that, who act like that, and who encourage other people to think like that will always be taken out by the powers that be.

     

    A better idea

    As I have already hinted, what matters about the crucifixion is not that it was a violent death or that Jesus himself suffered great distress, shame and pain. For sure it was violent, and involved suffering of many different kinds for Jesus.

    But that is not why his death matters to God or to us.

    Nor did his death have anything to do with us or our sins. It was all about the power games of the rich and powerful in first-century Jerusalem.

    Instead of thinking about what happened to Jesus, how bad it was, and who is to blame; we can approach this from another direction.

    We can focus on Jesus himself.

    The redemptive element of the crucifixion is the faithfulness of Jesus himself, who never let go of his vision of God as the only power deserving of his loyalty.

    Jesus was a martyr, not a sacrifice.

    Paul teases this out in the early chapters of Romans when he compares the faithfulness of Abraham—who trusted God even when asked (in the story if not in real life) to sacrifice his only son—with the faithfulness of Jesus, who was willing to put his own life on the line because of his deep trust in God.

    This is what the early church meant when it spoke of being saved by the faith of Jesus: not that we have faith in Jesus, but that Jesus was faithful to God, even to the point of death.

    The faithfulness Jesus by which lived and died is the basis for our reconciliation with God.

    Our sins did not cause the death of Jesus, but his faithfulness to God eliminates the impact of our sins on our own relationship with God.

    Again this is something we may want to tease out in a Dean’s Forum some day. It is too big an idea to unpack in a single sermon on Good Friday, but it is essentially a simple idea:

    What matters about the cross is that Jesus trusted God.

    What matters about the cross is that Jesus was faithful to God.

    What matters about the cross is that God honoured the faith of Jesus, and God did not allow violent political forces to stamp out his life even though they had killed him.

    More on that when we get to Easter Day!

     

    What we celebrate today, and in every Eucharist, is the offer of life, eternal life:

    Our liturgy today is not excusing violence, or valorising suffering.

    Our liturgy today is not asking us to accept the blame for Jesus having to die.

    Our liturgy today is celebrating the faithfulness of Jesus, even to death, death on a cross.

    Our liturgy today is inviting us to embrace that same faithfulness to God.

    Our liturgy today is offering us the grace we need to be faithful people, just like Jesus.

  • Christ has died

    Good Friday
    14 April 2017
    Byron Bay

     

    Today we gather to commemorate the death of Jesus: most likely on Friday, 7 April 0030.

    We are not re-enacting the crucifixion, but we are remembering that tragic event and reflecting on its significance.

     

    Christ has died

    We are familiar with this affirmation that occurs in almost every Eucharist.

    Christ has died.

    This is one of the few ‘brute facts’ about Jesus where most people agree.

    Jesus was killed in Jerusalem on April 7 in the year 30 CE. Although we call this day ‘Good Friday’, the death of Jesus was a tragedy. Not a unique tragedy. He was neither the first nor the last to be killed by empire. His death was not more painful than some others have experienced. But it was a tragedy for him, for his family, and for his followers.

    The fact that this tragedy on Easter morning was reversed does not detract from its tragic character.

    We may be tempted to focus on the second and third lines of the Eucharistic affirmation:

    Christ is risen
    Christ will come again

    But first we need to confront the reality of the first line: Christ has died.

    The stark reality of that statement is something we need to acknowledge and embrace.

    We cannot get to the resurrection without first facing the fact that Jesus died. He was killed.

    This is not just a question of temporal sequence. While it is logically correct that there could be no Easter without Good Friday, that is not the point. Something deeper is happening here.

    We catch a glimpse of what is at stake if we try some alternative scenarios.

    “Jesus almost died in Jerusalem” does not work in the same way as “Christ has died”. “That visit to Jerusalem for Passover almost cost Jesus his own life,” simply does not do it.

    “Christ has died” is a stark statement of the brute fact at the heart of our faith.

    God let Jesus die.

    There was no divine rescue squad. No legions of angels intervened to prevent this tragic turn of events. There was no last minute reprieve no ram in the bush.

    Jesus is not James Bond achieving a remarkable turn around just before the movie ends. This was not a movie. It was real life. He died. God was silent, if not absent.

    Just as often happens in our world, Jesus died and there was no miracle to stop it from happening.

    Just as was the case for the 44 Christians killed in Egypt last Sunday.

    Just as was the case for the children gassed in Syria few days earlier.

    Just as remains the case for the children of Gaza under Israeli siege.

    Like Jesus we cry out, Where are you, God?

    That was the lived reality for Jesus.

    That is the lived reality for us.

    That is the lived reality for most people most of the time.

     

    Christ crucified

    Jesus died a particular kind of death: crucifixion.

    Imperial punishment – by Rome but only for non-Romans

    Political victim – reserved for bandits, outlaws and rebels

    Cruel and inhumane – a slow and painful death

    Shameful death – victim stripped of dignity and honour

    Social outcast – victim isolated from family and community

    Religious penalty – OT says anyone hung on a tree is cursed

     

    Don’t blame the Jews!

    This seems obvious, since only Rome could order a crucifixion. But for most of the last 2000 years Christians have blamed the Jews for the death of Jesus, and played down the responsibility of the Roman imperial authorities for the execution of Jesus.

    What happened to Jesus is an example of empire doing what empire does. Empire treats people as disposable assets. Empire crushes any resistance. Empire cannot imagine a world shaped by love rather than fear. Empire eliminates emerging leaders of dissent.

     

    God was in Christ

    The remarkable thing is not that the Roman empire took Jesus out, but that his followers came to see his crucifixion as the decisive moment of his life.

    Listen to these amazing words penned by Paul, a Roman citizen, about 25 years after Easter:

    From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. [2 Corinthians 5:16–21 NRSV]

    In the totally bleak and hostile event they discerned the presence of God, quietly working for the reconciliation of the whole world.

    God was in Christ …

    • not just in his incarnation
    • not just in his wisdom
    • not just in his healings
    • not just in his compassionate welcome of outsiders

    … but in his cruel and lonely death by crucifixion.

    Even there God was present. Even on the cross we discover IMMANUEL, God with us.

    So we dare to believe that God is in our darkest moments. Not preventing them, but sharing them. Not turning the darkness into sunlight, but absorbing the darkness, the despair and the fear.

    Good Friday proclaims not a prosperity gospel, but a gospel of divine presence.

    The Romans thought they had crucified Jesus, but God was in Christ … so everything is different.

  • Holy Week and Easter 2014

    Introduction

    The traditions associated with Holy Week and Easter lie at the heart of the Christian faith dealing, as they do, with the character of Jesus, the circumstances of his death and the affirmation that not even death could prevent the successful outcome of the divine program (the good news of God’s alternative empire) which Christians believe to have been expressed (indeed, embodied) in and through his words and actions.

    There are doubtless historical elements in all this, however inaccessible to us after two thousand years, and no matter how variously weighted by those studying them. There is also a powerful mythology at work here, as the imagination of faith sees through and beyond the historical details to catch a glimpse of a transforming reality; a faith to live by.

    Our primary access to both the history of Jesus and the myth of Jesus is through story, and it is that story which Christian communities around the world will recount all over this week, this ‘Holy Week’. Like the Native American storyteller quoted in Marcus Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time (p. 50) we may find ourselves saying:

    Now I don’t know if it happened this way or not,
    but I know this story is true.

    For many people, their personal and communal preparations for Easter are deeply impacted by the publication of some new discovery, or a controversial new theory, relating to Christian origins. It is, I suppose, a perverse kind of compliment to the enduring influence of Christianity even in our largely secular societies that the media sees an opportunity to make an impact (increase viewers, and multiply advertising revenues) by such tactics. In 2006 it was the Gospel of Judas story, in 2007 the so-called Jesus Tomb story, and in 2011 the anticipated Paschal media beat up was a claim to have two of the nails used to crucify Jesus. In 2013 the election of a new pope seem to exhaust the media interest in religion for a while, but this year we have the Noah film.

    These regular media events timed for release around Easter reinforce the wisdom of the native story tellers who know the truth power of a story lies in its capacity to speak the truth to the present, not the accuracy of its description of the past or its projection of the future.

    At the very least, we know that the earliest Christians found story telling a powerful way to develop and test their theology. The different stories created by those ancient Christian faith communities both encapsulated what they were thinking and also extended their thoughts in new directions. The contest of sacred stories reflects a contest of theologies.

    Our modern question (But did it happen that way?) is ultimately not as urgent, nor its answer so satisfying, as the ancient question: What truth is in this story?

     

    Palm Sunday

    Palm Sunday marks the transition from the observance of Lent to the beginning of Holy Week. Its themes are not restricted to those of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, but extend through to the trial and execution of Jesus. With the solemn reading of the Passion at the Gospel, there is a vast amount of biblical text to process. The passion narrative is the most history-like part of the Gospel tradition. In addition, here we seem to have a connected and coherent series of events from the Last Supper through to the arrest in the garden and then the trials and the execution itself.

    • See Passion Narrative for a list of the major episodes with links to texts and discussion.

    NT scholarship in the mid-20C was persuaded that the Passion Narrative was the first part of the Gospel tradition to take definite shape. The events were so central to the apostolic preaching (the “kerygma”) that some account of how Christians came to believe in a crucified Messiah would have had to be offered to Jews and Greeks alike.

    More recent scholarship has questioned this assumption. Even if the story of Jesus’ betrayal and death was fashioned in the 40s, as Crossan suggests, it is no longer seen as a simple historical narrative. In particular, the relationship between the OT prophecies and the Gospel narrative has been reconsidered. As a result, while the historicity of the core event (Jesus crucified) is affirmed, the political and theological agenda of the Gospel narratives has been increasingly recognized. Key themes running through the passion narrative include:

    • Jesus as an heroic figure familiar to a Greek world
    • Jesus as an innocent victim familiar from Jewish tradition
    • “according to the Scriptures” as a sign of divine providence
    • transfer of responsibility for Jesus’ death from Rome to the Jews
    • claims to apostolic authority by those who were witnesses to the resurrection

     

    Maundy Thursday

    The readings for Thursday in Holy Week focus on the character of the Lord’s Supper:

    • a Christian ritual with paschal overtones
    • a commemoration of the Last Supper
    • a sacrament that celebrates our calling as disciples of the Master

    First Reading: Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14

    The first reading draws on that portion of the exodus tradition that prescribes the rules for the future observance of Passover. While clearly a later projection back into the exodus narrative, the association of each and every Passover meal with the mythic events of great escape from Egypt is an essential element of the ritual. The participants think of themselves as having been present on the night of salvation, and as having been the direct recipients of divine grace.

    Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

    Paul’s account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11 is our earliest extant reference to the Eucharist. Having been composed by Paul in the mid-50s—and seemingly drawing on even older traditions—this version of the Last Supper story predates the Gospel accounts by at least two decades (in the case of Mark) and perhaps by 60 years or more (in the case of Luke-Acts).

    As we celebrate Eucharist in our contemporary Christian communities we are participating in a defining Christian ritual that can be traced back to within 20 years of Jesus’ death in 30 CE. In this ritual—which seems only to be known to the Pauline tradition within the New Testament writings—we can see the “Jesus movement” undergoing a profound transition to become the “Christ cult.”

    Within the emerging Christian communities associated with Paul, Jesus has already become a divine figure whose devotees gather as a distinctive community (a collegium, or voluntary religious association). The “supper of the Lord” was at the centre of their religious identity, and in those ancient meals we see the beginnings of the Christian Eucharist.

    Gospel: John 13:1-17, 31b-35

    The gospel portions have been carefully selected to focus on the theme of loving service to one another:

    • The initial set of verses presents the story of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet in an act of “servant leadership” intended to inspire a change within the group dynamics of Jesus’ followers. In a totally different cultural setting, where feet rarely get soiled, the practical relevance of this gesture passes us by. In our culture, we might imagine Jesus stacking the dishwasher at the end of a pleasant evening, or even washing the dishes by hand over the protests of his embarrassed hosts.
    • The second set of verses presents us with the “great commandment”—seemingly the signature of Christianity identity within the Johannine community, as it seems also to be attested in the Johannine letters.

     

    Good Friday

    The traditional phrase from the creed—crucified under Pontius Pilate—anchors the Jesus tradition in a specific event, involving at least some historical figures known to us (Pontius Pilate the Roman procurator of Judea, Caiaphas the Jewish high priest, Herod Antipas), from a particular place. This is ground zero for the Jesus tradition, and an event of even more certainty than the baptism of Jesus by John. Here we stand on solid ground. Here we stand on holy ground. Here we seek to understand the significance of Jesus for us today.

    These issues are explored in chapter 8 of Jesus Then and Jesus Now: Looking for Jesus, Finding Ourselves, and there is an earlier version of that material available online.

    The Death of Jesus in the Jesus Database

    • 005 Crucifixion of Jesus: (1) 1 Cor 15:3b; (2a) Gos. Pet. 4:10-5:16,18-20; 6:22; (2b) Mark 15:22-38 = Matt 27:33-51a = Luke 23:32-46; (2c) John 19:17b-25a,28-36; (3) Barn. 7:3-5; (4a) 1 Clem. 16:3-4 (=Isaiah 53:1-12); (4b) 1 Clem. 16.15-16 (=Psalm 22:6-8); (5a) Ign. Mag. 11; (5b) Ign. Trall. 9:1b; (5c) Ign. Smyrn. 1.2.
    • 180 Pilates Questions:(1a) Gos. Pet. pre-1:1 from later 3:6,9 (Son of God) & 3:7; 4:11 (King of Israel), (1b) Mark 15:1-5 = Matt 27:1-2,11-14 = Luke 23:1-5, (1c) John 18:28-38;19:4-16;
    • 181 The People Repent: (1a) Gos. Pet. 7:25(!); 8:28, 1b) Luke 23:48;
    • 182 Jesus Tomb Guarded: (1a) Gos. Pet. 8:29-33, (1b) Matt 27:62-66, (1c) Gos. Naz. 22;
    • 183 Crowds Visit Tomb: (1) Gos. Pet. 9:34;
    • 184 Transfiguration of Jesus: (1a) Gos. Pet. 9:35-10:40, (1b) Mark 9:2-10 = Matt 17:1-9 = Luke 9:28-36, (1c) 2 Pet 1:17-18;
    • 185 The Guards Report: (1) Gos. Pet. 11:45-49, (1b) Matt 28:11-15;
    • 186 Apostolic Grief: (1) Gos. Pet. 7:26-27; 14:58-59
    • 272 Release of Barabbas: (1a) Mark 15:6-15 = Matt 27:15-23,26 = Luke 23:18-25, (1b) John 18:39-40, (1c) Acts 3:13-14, (1d) Gos. Naz. 20;
    • 273 Simon of Cyrene: (1a) Mark 15:20b-21 = Matt 27:31b-32 = Luke 23:26, (1b!) John 19:17a;
    • 274 Women at the Crucifixion: (1a) Mark 15:40-41 = Matt 27:55-56 = Luke 23:49, (1b) John 19: 25b-27.

     

    Holy Saturday

    By definition, the traditions at the centre of Holy Saturday are not elements from the inventory of historical Jesus materials. However, the idea that Jesus in some sense raided Hell (the traditional “harrowing of Hades”) is perhaps an early Christian way of expressing the resurrection belief within classic Jewish terms.

    Crossan discusses the “Harrowing of Hell” briefly [Historical Jesus, 387-89] as part of his treatment of the death and burial traditions. He notes that the harrowing of Hades was a major theological issue in early Jewish Christianity since it was “in Sheol, Hades, or Hell, that the souls of holy and righteous, persecuted and martyred Jews awaited their final and promised deliverance.” In the account of Jesus’ suffering, his death was necessary both as an historical fact that could not be avoided and as a theological device to allow Jesus to enter the house of “those that slept,” the dead.

    While barely mentioned in the NT and soon marginalized as an embarrassment to developing classical theology, the harrowing of hell remains an important theme in Eastern iconography. It also survives as the brief statement within the Creed: “he descended into Hell.”

    Crossan suggests four reasons for this theological theme being pushed to boundaries of Christian belief:

    1. It was an intensely Jewish theme, and the Christians were increasingly non-Jewish in character.

    2. It was intensely mythological, and involved three related motifs: “a deception in which the demons were allowed to crucify Jesus not knowing who he was; a descent that was the actual reason for his death and burial; and a despoiling whereby Jesus, as Son of God broke open the prison of Hell and released both himself and all the righteous who had preceded him there.”

    3. It created many theological problems as Christianity developed: was repentance required of them? were they baptized? etc

    4. If Jesus was manifested to the dead and led them in triumph directly to heaven how was it possible for him also to be manifested to the apostles between resurrection and ascension? What of their mandate from the risen Jesus? Crossan notes how the tradition sought to resolve that dilemma in the Shepherd of Hermes, Similitude 9.

     

    Easter Day

    The following material is comprised of excerpts (from pp. 141–42) in chapter 10 (“Easter People” in Jesus Then & Jesus Now: Looking for Jesus, Finding Ourselves (Melbourne: Mosaic Press / Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014).

    One of the ways in which the resurrection of Jesus is both ‘good news’ and transformative is the value it assigns to life rather than to martyrdom. At a time when religious extremists have both the inclination and the capacity to destroy life for the sake of their beliefs, the resurrection offers an opposing paradigm of faithfulness: Choose life! God is not in the business of recruiting martyrs for the cause, but she is in the business of creating life, blessing life, sustaining life, and restoring life.

    How might the world be transformed if the followers of Jesus gained a reputation as a pro-life movement that would never use violence to achieve its goals, never cause harm to any of the ‘little ones’ in its care, never glorify suffering, never seek martyrdom, and would always ‘turn the other cheek’ when abused? If such a description of Christianity seems improbable, that is itself a sad index of how far Christianity has moved away from the legacy of Jesus.

    A reclaimed resurrection faith will focus on more than individual human destinies after death. An unsuspected mystery of the faith lurks like leaven in the eucharistic acclamations: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” That leaven has not yet risen to transform the whole loaf, but perhaps the time is coming. This acclamation proclaims the mystery of the faith, but its significance is for the most part missed. The Christ who has died, who is risen, and who will come again, is not simply Jesus of Nazareth, but the whole of God’s transformed creation.

    This resurrected and much beloved ‘Son’ is not simply Jesus, but all of us—together. Not just homo sapiens, let alone homo christiani—but all of creation. This is not simply a recurrence of universalism, but a reclaiming of Paul’s vision of cosmic salvation extending to the whole of creation.

    Understood this way, the resurrection of Jesus is not only the action of a generous and faithful God at the very heart of life, but also the charter for a Christian mission in the global village. The purpose of Christianity is not to gain adherents from other spiritual communities, but to pray and work for the coming of God’s kingdom, for the resurrection of all creation, for the day of cosmic liberation. This is a vision that can shape the way people of Christian faith understand God, the world, and ourselves. It is a broad and generous vision. It offers a basis for lives that are holy and authentic. It might even allow us to form and sustain communities of faith where the ‘dangerous’ memory of Jesus is kept alive, and where “the future of what Jesus started is being lived out.”

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