Category: Theological Rant
Parables Can Connect Us . . .
I serve in Christian ministry. Many that read this blog know that. This post is specifically for people that claim Christian faith, but I think it is applicable to all humans no matter one’s religious faith or no faith. Given the new overt nationalism that is sweeping across Europe, and now in the United States, it seems to me more important than ever that people of good will find connections at a root level so that early 20th century history doesn’t repeat itself. Nuclear weapons exist now. Those seeking the rapture, no matter the term for the apocalypse in their religion, are embedded in government institutions in our Republic, in Western liberal democracies, and in secular governments that tolerate the practice of religion inside their borders. Apocalyptic nihilism, and those that would profit from it, is alive and well no matter your class, caste, religion, or race. Buyer beware.
This year we meet Jesus through the experiences of Matthew. He probably used a few of the letters of Paul and the Gospel of Mark as his source material filling in the details that Mark leaves out. Yes, the author of Matthew may have embellished a bit based on his experiences and the time he lived. All the gospels and epistles do it. You may think that n
ever happens today, but well, you know different. A couple of weeks ago we met the first disciples (Matthew 4:18-23) that Jesus called: Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John. It was the beginning of their disciple story. Have you ever thought about how your disciple story begins?
Did it begin with a parable? Try this to begin remembering. “Look in a mirror and see if you can see yourself without seeing your eyes seeing yourself.”(1)
The parables that Jesus told flip our thinking and our vision. New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan notes, “First, parable is story, that is, a tensive sequence of beginning, middle, and end in a narrative that lures you into its plotted micro world to participate as an outsider-insider in its ongoing adventure.”(2) The parables describe the world, relationships, and community as the way it could be, should be, would be, might be were those that believe in the God that Jesus proclaimed experiencing good news; and being living good news. Often, it takes walking around in another person’s shoes to see the world through another lens. Yes, that takes a lot of work. My guess is your disciple story begins with you seeing or experiencing God differently, and that there is something more to your story than accepting Christ as your savior and being baptized.
Maybe one or two of the parables can connect us as followers of Jesus. Which one or two of the parables best frame the good news of God or describe the kindom of God? Which parable provides connections to community and to practicing the way of Jesus which, in our current context, might be different than what is called Christianity.
I think the parables have the power to connect us, we disciples of Jesus, because they work on us and help us be better people. Many of the people I know, non-Christian and Christian alike, work a parable or two every day. Most often without any thought. So, I’ll be thinking about the parables this spring, with a few colleagues and friends, trying to choose one or two that connect us and our discipleship following Jesus, whom we call Christ. I look forward to the journey. Join us. I’ll be posting the conversations here.
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Note
1. John Dominic Crossan, The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction About Jesus (New York: HarperOne, 2012), 243.
2. Crossan, The Power of Parable, 243.
Reformation of Liberal Christian Theology
In a recent sermon I wondered(1) out loud if the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation(2) might be a time for Christendom to ask, again, “In a time such as this would Christianity be a better arbiter of good news by living in the parables that Jesus told rather than focused on what is believed about the motivations of God in a risen Christ?” In a previous post I offered a sermon snippet that was a synopsis of that thought. This is how it fleshed out and was offered from a pulpit. The scripture text for that sermon is Ephesians 3:1-12.
What is the mystery of gospel? All Christians have a response to the question. The answer is often based in a theology that centers on a cross and a risen Christ. It is an orthodoxy that has the kingdom of God heaven based. But, Jesus of Nazareth, whom we claim as Christ, preached that the kingdom of God was at hand. We Disciples of Christ like to say that the kindom of God is already here, but not yet fully realized or lived in.
This year, Catholic and Protestant Christians will celebrate the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation. Maybe this year the reformation anniversary can invite Christians to work the parables that Jesus told and apply what we learn to our time in history. Maybe that is an answer to the mystery of gospel for a time such as this.
Like Paul, we are all working out of our own personal epiphanies of Christ. Maybe we need to seek the epiphanies that come from right action instead of right belief.
Jesus, we are not afraid to listen, reason, and follow: “when you have done this for the least among you, for any among you, . . . you have done it to me.”
Maybe it is a good idea in a time such as this, to seek that epiphany in the simple and commonplace experiences of life.
What could be a lens for the reformation of liberal Christianity? Pardon the aside for definition, but it is an important reference point. Some people would prefer the adjective form of “progressive” instead of “liberal,” but I did not attend a progressive arts university. Merriam-Webster helps with definitions.
Liberal [noun]: one who is open-minded or not strict in the observance of orthodox, traditional, or established forms or ways.(3)
Progressive [noun]: one believing in moderate political change and especially social improvement by governmental action.(4)
Conservative [noun]: one who adheres to traditional methods or views.(5)
Our culture, political parties, and the media most often use the words conservative, progressive, and liberal as adjectives rather than nouns. There are no verb forms. Moreover, the words are used based on their simple definitions for kids, rather than for thinking adults. Visit Merriam-Webster.com and look the words up for yourself. You will find adjectives listed first.
People that consider themselves liberal or liberal Christians are thought of or portrayed as licentious. Sometimes we might deserve that label. Depending on your listening habits or political leanings you will hear liberal, progressive, and conservative used as insults, or a way to demean, or a reason to quit listening. Partisan-ism for profit relies on it. I’m guilty. You? This part of our culture has seeped into congregational life and into Christianity at large. It has made congregational life more tribal, gated, and confrontational. I’m a liberal. I have a moral center and know self restraint. I know conservative and progressive persons, religious, nones, and atheists, that can make the same claim. I’ve witnessed it in their living. For me, that is an important exegetical key for relationship as well as the study of scripture.
If you have three plus hours one day that you can spend with a movie, I suggest watching Kingdom of Heaven. The film will provide some insight for what a worldview based in nationalistic, conservative religion can do to culture and those that represent religion and governing. That same day or the next, also watch, The Sum of All Fears which I think puts into perspective the current alt-right nationalism rising across Europe and America. Both will dramatize what persons of good will can do to stop extremists as well as the cost of doing so.
Reflecting on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the movement he helped lead, it seems to me that the civil rights era applied the parables of Jesus to the civic contract that binds Americans together. The movement didn’t require non-Christians, creedal Christians, Protestant Christians, or Evangelical Christians to believe a specific claim about the risen Christ to participate in working out the meaning of “love your neighbor as yourself” in our civic contract. The movement applied the lesson, “when you have done it for the least among you, you have done it to me” to persons of all colors within the framework of secular life. I don’t think King desired to describe America, or make America, a Christian Nation juxtaposed to a Jewish Nation or a Muslim Nation or a Communists Nation. The great experiment that is America is secular. It treats all breathing citizens, and non-citizens in our land, with a basic equality and expects government at all levels to a set rules and referee the rules that apply to everyone no matter what religion or no religion one may claim, or into what capitalist caste one may be born. I think that is the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. That is the riddle many citizens, and even those elected to govern, don’t get about these United States that makes it exceptional most of the time.
The reformation of a liberal Christian theology is essential for a time such as this. A Christian theology based in the parables that Jesus told would serve to balance orthodoxy, and it could be a bridge to conversation with those practicing a Christian salvation rooted in, “what Jesus can do for you.” Though Pope Francis has not altered much of Catholic teaching and doctrine, some of his statements can be understood as a bridge to conversation about what Christians, his specific brand of Christians, can be doing in public life that embraces a kinship of humanity rather than proclaiming a kingdom that must expanded, defended, and have ownership of all human souls. Believe what you wish about the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth and what roots your experience of him as Christ. When one work’s the parables one gets an idea of what the kindom of God is like already: and not yet. For me, it is the parables that help a person find and follow the internal moral compass that points the way to being good news for stranger, kin, and in one’s own life.
What parable that Jesus told, or attributed to Jesus in the New Testament, grounds the way you practice Christianity in public? What fruit would an individual Christian or church or denomination that is rooted in the parables of Jesus bare in a time such as this? My guess is that kind of Christian theology and practice would be dangerous for the Christianity that bargained with the Empire for at the feast of power and control.
That kind of Christian theology is liberal and would benefit a time such as this. It might be a kind of religion, the kind Christianity, some Boomers, Gen X’ers, Millennials, De-Churched, None’s, and Un-Churched are seeking.
Notes
- Subtle plug for Worship and Wonder program for children. http://www.docfamiliesandchildren.org/cww
- Learn more about the Reformation by reading the Westar Institute’s brief overview of the Reformation. https://www.westarinstitute.org/blog/500th-anniversary-reformation-david-galston/
- “Liberal.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 16 Jan. 2017.
- “Progressive.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 16 Jan. 2017.
- “Conservative.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 16 Jan. 2017.