Hauerwas on Evangelism

A few weeks back I mentioned Stanley Hauerwas’ new commentary on Matthew. I’ve been reading it along with the gospel of Matthew and it has been a wonderfully enriching experience. Toward the end of his comments on Chapter 9, he writes about Jesus’ tendency to stay on the move,

Jesus never tarries. Like foxes and birds, he is always on the move. The kingdom is a movement that requires him to go to those to whom he has been sent. That he must go to those in need indicates that the gospel is not and cannot be a set of beliefs. The gospel is this man, and this man must encounter actual men and women in order to call them into the community of the new age. Evangelism is people meeting and coming to know people. As we shall soon see, the disciples will be sent out to the people of Israel. There can be no substitute for the sending of people. A church that is not a missionary church is not a church.

Amen and amen. A church that is not a missionary church is not a church. As pastors we need to meet people as well. This makes me wonder, is a pastor who isn’t a missionary pastor really a pastor?

Did Jesus Want to be Liked?

A friend and I have been carrying on an interesting conversation about whether or not Jesus wanted to be liked. So, with his permission and a few slight edits, here is some of that email exchange.

Friend: “So today while I was visiting my counselor, who also happens to be a Christian, he asked me a philosophical question and I’ll pass it along to you for your response. He asked, “Do you think Jesus wanted to be liked?” I answered no, that while it would be nice for Him to be liked, He was more interested in telling the truth which He knew would be counter-cultural and eventually lead to His death. He didn’t court favor with people…He simply told the first disciples to follow him…there was no wooing of them to His service outside His divine nature. And I also pointed out the many who supported Him while He was meeting their needs and then turned their back on Him afterwards. Then there were the crowds who were fickle calling Him king and Messiah on the way into Jerusalem and Crucify Him a week later. Was Jesus seeking popularity? No. I think He was seeking to reveal the truth about man’s need for a relationship with God and knew what His eventual fate would be. He appreciated those close to Him, but that wasn’t a “need”. The counselor was surprised by my answer. Do you think it’s not orthodox or am I just totally off the wall here?”

Me: “Let me think about this some more, but my first response would be that the gospels are primarily written to suggest that Jesus is the Risen Messiah of God rather than any kind of expose as we find in modern psychological biography.

I do think we have clues that point to Jesus’ needs (which I do believe is a very orthodox position, since we consider him fully human as well as fully divine – to take away his human needs would either be docetic and deny his humanity or gnostic and hate his humanity: remember human comes from humus or earthiness). John 21 suggests Jesus wants Peter to love him, John 11:35-36 seems to suggest a deep friendship with Lazarus. We make a fine point between being liked and loved, but I believe Jesus did want to be loved. Presumably we like those we love.

Let me think some more, and I’ll get back to you. However, feel free to press back on any of these points! God bless!”

Friend: “There is a basic human need to be loved. Evidence the scientific experiments where apes were raised with wireframe and cloth mothers as opposed to an actual ape female mother. When the love wasn’t able to be returned, the apes exposed to the non-ape mothers became anti-social and withdrawn. So given that Jesus was fully human, you almost have to assume that he too wished to be loved. However would the close relationship with his Father account for the love that he needed so therefore he didn’t seek the human companionship enough. He is described as a friend of tax collectors and sinners in Matthew 11:19, but he also referred to the guard who came to seize him in the garden as friend. So it could be describing a relationship or simply an acquaintance. I’ll let you handle the Greek exegesis on that. As for liking those you love, there are times when the people you love are very unlikable. Take for example when your kids are driving you nuts. You still love them, but you don’t necessarily like them at all times. Or when dealing with the poor or sinners, you love because you are commanded to love, but they can be quite unlikable at times.

I think ultimately, to take away the docetic or Gnostic aspects that would be implied, there probably is a need to be liked, but solitary monastics could live without the company and be quite content, so why not Christ?”

Me: “OK, maybe God’s love is “enough,” but then why would the great commandment be the twofold love of God and neighbor? God’s inner-triune love is complete, yes. However, it is an effusive love that spills over and receives loving worship from humanity too.

I don’t know that solitary monastics are the best example either. Monasticism at its finest is a hospitable community of love, rather than a bunch of ascetic “navel gazers.” Christians haven’t always been exempt from gnostic and docetic tendencies, monastics included.”

Friend: Is the love of neighbor as yourself an agape love or a phileo love and can you have that kind of phileo love without liking someone?

Me: I think we make far too fine distinctions between the two. Semantically, especially in John 21, they are more similar than many amateur exegetes have suggested over the years. Check out this link for a discussion of that.

Friend: What about a serial killer….could you love Charles Manson? Moving beyond disapproving of what he’s done and really liking him? I realize the extreme nature of this example, but could if someone hurt your daughter and you found it in your heart to forgive as we are commanded and even to love him or her because they are created in the image of God, could you ever “like” them? I don’t think it’s amateur exegetes who make a fine distinction…the Greeks did…which is why there are three words to identify different kinds of love. You also might want to follow this link to read C.S. Lewis’ thoughts on this topic from Mere Christianity.

Me: I think we’re talking about a different question now than whether Jesus wanted people to like him. But who’s counting?!

We’ll see where this goes from here…any thoughts out there in the blogosphere?

What is Truth?

“…I was talking to a 17 or 18-year-old young man two or three years ago, and he said to me “I don’t understand all that controversy about the Virgin birth.” Keep in mind; this is a devout Christian kid. When I asked what he meant, he exclaimed, “Well of course I believe in it; it’s so absolutely beautiful, it has to be true whether it happened or not.”

I heard this quote the other day and tracked it back to Phyllis Tickle via the Christianity Today website and her interview “Blowing Holes in Spiritual Formation.” I’ve been thinking about that quite a bit ever since.

In connection with that, I read this piece on creationism and science on Peter Rollins blog. He talks about the way fundamentalists and classical scientific method folks are basically two sides of the same epistemological coin. I’ll allow Rollins to explain with his usual eloquence,

This means that beliefs such as a six-day creation, a fruit tree with the power to bestow knowledge of Good and Evil upon eating from it, a snake with the ability to talk, the transfiguration and the new Jerusalem descending from heaven all exist on the same mundane natural level as a phenomena such as snow falling on a winters evening and are, in principle, able to be proved true (or false) on scientific grounds (truth here being defined as ‘actual material occurrence’, i.e. if a video camera existed at the beginning we could have recorded the snake talking to Eve).

He then goes on to point out the similarities between two camps that are typcially seen as polar opposites,

Instead then of saying that evolutionism (by employing the ‘ism’ here I am referring to those who embrace a metaphysical naturalism which claims evolution as a fact) and creationism are opposed to one another, one can say that evolutionism and creationism are intimately joined together by their belief that reality is empirical and thus in the view that the only good beliefs are those which are factual. In a sense people like Dawkins and Harris are thus profoundly religious in the fundamentalist sense and thus closer to their supposed enemies than they think.

So, back to the original quote from Phyllis Tickle. I guess I’ve still got the old scientist’s thoughts imbedded somewhere. I agree that beauty is importantly connected to truth, but I’m not sure I can agree that what is beautiful is necessarily true. I realize here, that “true” is the point of question here. Is truth necessarily corrospondence to empirical reality?

Well, I’m not sure I’d want a doctor operating on me having the view of truth expressed by that teenager! Doctor, that suture isn’t in the right place! But nurse, it’s so beautiful, it has to be true. Oh yes, I see what you mean – fine stiching Fred. OK, OK…I know that some will suggest that we’re talking about two different fields: Theology and Science. But, I don’t think we should make the mistake of segregating the world into distinct spheres. What do you think? I’m open to conversation on this point.

What Kind of Tree Are You?

Barbara Walters is infamous for asking Katherine Hepburn, “What kind of tree are you?” Of course, Hepburn actually said she was a tree before Walters followed with this question, but the strangeness of the question carried the day. There have been quite a few laughs at her expense because of this question over the years. Even though this wasn’t her actual question, maybe it wasn’t so bad to begin with. After all, the prophet Jeremiah was asking this same question some 2,600 years ago!

In Jeremiah 17:5-10, the prophet asks, “What kind of tree are you?” Yet, he suggests there are really only two kinds of trees: shrubs in the desert and trees planted by water. Are you the kind of tree that is only a shrub in the desert, the kind that barely survives in dry wastelands or withers in Tel-Malah, the uninhabitible salt lands? You are if you place your trust in your own strength, Jeremiah says. On their other hand, perhaps you are a tree planted by water. If you trust in the Lord, the you are blessed. It is as if you send out roots to a never-ending stream. You’ll not have to fear the heat or drought, because your source of growth, comfort, and stability comes from the very source of all creation.

Far too often, I’m a shrub in the desert. I rely on my own strength, energy, and perseverance. Instead of sending out roots to the unimaginable source of all strength, I think I can tough things out. Instead of prayerful renewal, I rely on self-sufficient insufficiency. Yet the prophets get it right. Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. May God grant me the courage and wisdom to turn from self-sufficiency to God-sufficiency every day of my life.

God is Not a Cosmic Killjoy

10 Commandments Chuck Gutenson of Imitatio Christi has a great post on the Ten Commandments. While discussing his discomfort with recent arguments for displaying the Ten Commandments, he argues that the commandments lose any grounded meaning when they are taken out of the larger overarching context of scripture in which they are found. He writes that God is not a cosmic killjoy and instead,

God is more analogous to the parent whose love for his child leads him/her to give instructions that will prevent them from being hurt. God, knowing all the details of our having been created, gives instructions aimed to maximize, not minimize, our longer term well-being.”

Some folks who come from strongly fundamentalist backgrounds tend to undertsand GOd’s commands in a far different way. It seems to me they understand the commandments more as tests of our obedience rather than as life-giving instructions designed to teach us how to be truly human. I hope that we can extend the teachings of scripture as grace-giving and life-filled instead of merely casuistic guidelines meant to test our ability to obey God.

Did Jesus Know He Was God?

N.T. Wright One of the big questions many folks wrestled with at the seminary I attended was the question of Jesus’ self-understanding. If Jesus was fully-human and fully-God as we confess, then did Jesus know he was God? One of my professors, Dr. Chuck Gutenson, posed this question to the subject of his dissertation, Dr. Wolfhart Pannenberg, who quickly reminded him that our very definition of “know” is wrapped up in a certain Greek understandings of epistemic certainty that muddy the waters significantly. Of course, one can point to a bible verse here and there that “prove” Jesus knew he was God, most notably the “I Am” passages within John. However, the question seems to be deeper than mere proof-texting can handle.

Fortunately, we have wise and prayerful guides like Dr. N.T. Wright who have addressed this question. Here are some of Wright’s thoughts in an article on Jesus’ self-understanding
that pushes some boundaries but seems to still be faithful to the deep confessions of Christian believers.

In modern Jesus studies Wright believes,

We still live in a climate of thought in which two propositions are assumed as axiomatic: (a) no first-century Jew could think of incarnation, let alone believe it, let alone believe it of himself; (b) no sane people (and we hope Jesus was sane, though even his family said he was mad!) could think of themselves as the incarnate Sons of God.

Wright’s own argument is that Jesus’ self-understanding are only understood in temrs of the return from exile and the return of YHWH to Israel. These two events were wrapped up in a personal appearance of God rather than some idealized figure, and Jesus, according to Wright, understood himself to be fulfilling the very actions of YHWH himself when he entered Jerusalem and was eventually killed. In other words, Jesus’ self-understanding was intimately tied to his vocation as the one who would enact YHWH’s return and Israel’s restoration.

Wright summarizes,

My case has been, and remains, that Jesus believed himself called to do and be things which, in the traditions to which he fell heir, only Israel’s God, YHWH, was to do and be. I think he held this belief both with passionate and firm conviction and with the knowledge that he could be making a terrible, lunatic mistake. I do not think this in any way downplays the signals of transcendence within the Gospel narratives. It is, I believe, consonant both with a full and high Christology and with the recognition that Jesus was a human figure who can be studied historically in the same way that any other human figure can be.

So, for Wright, Jesus’ understanding of himself was wrapped up in a complicated understanding of his vocation to act in ways that were only appropriate of God, but still had some room for doubt. If this is true, it should give us signficant hope for our own vocational struggles. What are some problems you see with this proposal?

Jenson: Body of Christ

OK, so the question is: Was the tomb empty? Robert W. Jenson finally answers this at the end of the 12th chapter. He writes,

The organism that was Jesus’ availability – that was his body – until he was killed would have as a corpse continued to be an availability of this person, of the kind that tombs and bodies of the dead always are. It would have been precisely a relic, such as the saints of all religions have. Something other than sacrament and church would have located the Lord for us, would have provided a direction for devotion; and that devotion would have been to a saint, and so would have been something other than faith and obedience to a living Lord.”

This is a complicated position, even though it may not seem so at first glance. Jenson follows 16th century “Swabians,” such as Johannes Brenz, and redefines body in a more rigorous Pauline sense. He eventually presses to the point that sacrament and church are truly Christ’s body for us. It appears that Jenson intends for this to be an ontological equality. This is definitely something to think of, and if it is true would require an extremely high ecclesiology and sacramental theology.

Hard Questions About Resurrection

Yes, yes, I know it’s Advent and all of our questions should focus on the coming of Jesus. Oh well. While in seminary, I had a conversation with one of my favorite professors. We were discussing the resurrection, and in response to one of my questions he asked, “If a video camera had been in Jesus’ tomb, what would you have seen?” Of course, I had no answer and neither did he. It simply raised the point that saying, “Christ is Risen” isn’t nearly so neat and packaged as many conservative/evangelical/fundamentalists (take your pick) often assume. For instance, one of my philosophy professors liked to ask the question, “If you had indisputable proof that someone had found the bones of Jesus, what would you do?” My understanding of the ‘right’ answer, according to this professor, was to give up belief in the resurrection. However, if resurrection is life after “life after death” as N.T. Wright likes to say, is this necessarily true?

Fast forward to yesterday. I found while reading Robert Jensons’ Systematic Theology, that he was asking and wrestling with the same questions. “No canonical writing suggests that anyone saw or could have seen the Resurrection itself happen.” He then quotes Thomas Aquinas from the Summa theologiae, “Christ in rising does not return to the life commonly known to all but to an immortal life conformed to God…Therefore Christ’s resurrection itself could not directly be seen by humans.” Jenson continues:

The assertion that the tomb was empty could be true while Jesus nevertheless remained dead. But if the claim was true that some saw Jesus alive after his death, then Jesus had indeed been raised. Therefore, whether or not the tomb was found empty, only the appearances could be the actual occasion of the Easter-faith (p. 195).”

Jenson then launches into a discussion of what it meant to see Jesus and makes a careful clarification based on Jesus’ appearance to Paul, “This does not, of course, mean that the Risen One was visible only to the ‘eye of faith’ or something of the sort; Paul was decidedly an unbeliever when the Lord appeared (p. 197).”

This is a tricky question, but I think that we have to wrestle with these kinds of issues or our faith remains remedial. Let’s keep pressing on.

Jenson: Christ’s Preexistence

Today my wife and kids are out of town for a birthday party, so I had to opportunity to read Jenson’s chapter, The Christological Problem, after finishing both worship services. In this chapter, Jenson thinks critically about the Antiochene/Alexandrian christological controversy and begins to offer a constructive alternative. Citing Maximus Confessor and following his Christology to an extent Maximus did not, Jenson writes, “If we adhere to this and follow Maximus’ arguments to their end, we will say: the second identity of God is directly the human person of the Gospels, in that he is the one who stands to the Father in the relation of being eternally begotten by him (p. 137).” In the footnote, Jenson argues that sufficiently drastic NT scholarship should reach this same point.

One of the questions that arises from his discussion concerns the preexistence of Christ and is especially relevant as we contemplate Christmas. Where was Jesus before his birth and incarnation in Bethlehem? Jenson responds:

“…in the full narrative of Scripture, we see how the Son indeed precedes his human birth without being simply unincarnate: the Son appears as a narrative pattern of Israel’s created human story before he can appear as an individual Israelite within that story.”

“In the triune life, what ontologically precedes the birth to Mary of Jesus who is God the Son, the birth, that is to say, of the sole actual second identity of that life, is the narrative pattern of being going to be born to Mary. What in eternity precedes the Son’s birth to Mary is not an unicarnate state of the Son, but a pattern of movement within the event of the Incarnation, the movement to incarnation, as itself a pattern of God’s triune life (p. 141).”

Admittedly, this presses the boundaries of the ability we have to even speak and understand. However, I think it is important to consider these difficult questions – ironically the kinds of questions that children love to ask! Somehow we have to craft an answer from this deep theological reflection. Where was Jesus before he was born? He was somehow eternally moving toward incarnation within the life of the Trinity. Would that satisfy your 4 year old? It wouldn’t mine. I think we can safely answer this for a pre-schooler (and have any of us really developed much theologically beyond pre-school?) by saying before being born to Mary, Jesus was God and was with God. Clear? 🙂

Jenson: Christ’s Preexistence

“…in the full narrative of Scripture, we see how the Son indeed precedes his human birth without being simply unincarnate: the Son appears as a narrative pattern of Israel’s created human story before he can appear as an individual Israelite within that story.”

“In the triune life, what ontologically precedes the birth to Mary of Jesus who is God the Son, the birth, that is to say, of the sole actual second identity of that life, is the narrative pattern of being going to be born to Mary. What in eternity precedes the Son’s birth to Mary is not an unicarnate state of the Son, but a pattern of movement within the event of the Incarnation, the movement to incarnation, as itself a pattern of God’s triune life (p. 141).”