Texts: Ezekiel 7:10-27; Psalm 90:1-8,12; Matthew 12:43-45
The end of Ezekiel's chilling text ends with, "And they shall know I am the LORD." The calamity that is described before, leading to the people seeking peace, receives no recognition from the LORD, according to Ezekiel. I have spoken before of Marcion, who believed the Old Testament and New Testament Gods to be separate beings, the Old Testament God being capricious and evil and the New Testament God loving and kind. After a few weeks of reading texts such as this, I am becoming more sympathetic toward him.
Reading a text like this, I think we are naturally programmed to question, "Whom is the object of this text?" The question is the same with the New Testament lesson for today: 43 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” The question however, is not which generation is wicked, but which generation has not been wicked? Which generation is exempt from sin? From selfishness? From being human? Which generation has not created its own false gods? The question, then, is not "To whom does this passage refer?" but, rather, "Is there anything that can be done in the face of such calamity?"
I cannot help but notice Christ, his person, and his actions have not made it into the readings as of late. Full of caution, exhortation, and the demise of humanity, we are driven to the point of saying, "Give me Christ, or simply let me have what I have coming to me and get it over with!" It is to this exact point that Luther believed the Law (understood properly as anything other than Christ) drives us (despite the Law's original intent to be an expression of joy, of freedom, and of the world behaving the way in which God intended it to behave). In any case, we arrive at the point of desperation, without an alibi, waking from the nightmare that is better known as reality in a cold sweat, reminding us that not only do we want a savior, we need one. We desire to save ourselves, but we cannot. We desire to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, but we are barefoot.
Left with no other options, we turn around and experience the metanoia, the turning of our whole selves: mind, heart, ideas, excuses, and all, and find Christ there, in the midst of our nightmare. The promises of Christ, then, of grace, of reconciliation, of redemption, of salvation, are all the more sweet, all the more joyous, and all the more perceptible as we realize we do not sit in the witness stand before a jury; rather, we stand in the jury as witnesses to the immeasurable grace of God, manifested in Christ.
In other news, there is snow in Spokane (for those of you who don't know me, I love snow and winter... and there is no psychological diagnosis for people who like cool weather and snow).
4 comments:
"Give me Christ, or simply let me have what I have coming to me and get it over with!"
What would be so bad about getting what you deserve? I know Christian theologians claim EVERYONE deserves ETERNITY in burning fiery torment. But come on, that's not realistic.
The idea is that if you break one minor point of the law you are as guilty as if you broke it all.
We wouldn't accept this in civil affairs. "We caught you jaywalking--therefore you are guilty or murder, rape, sedition, treason, and every other crime: off with your head!" We would not accept that. But when a theologian says that God acts in this irrational way, we not only accept it, but praise it as a "great mystery." The mystery is that we would be stupid enough to buy it.
In Galatians 3 Paul makes an argument that everyone who doesn't keep the whole law perfectly is under a curse because the law says "cursed is the man who does not confirm the words of this law to do them" (he paraphrased this last verse of Deut 27 a little different). In any case, Paul shows that the law curses the man who doesn't keep it--but what is the curse? I read nothing of eternal torment in the law--I read in Deut 28 of economic hardship, of disease, and of political unrest--but not of hell fire and brimstone and eternal conscious torment.
So, what is the true curse of the law? Is it temporal or eternal? Rather than take the word of a Christian theologian who is just making things up, if we want to know the true nature of the curse of the law, should we not turn to the pages of the law itself? And there we will find that we can bear our just deserts and need no godman sacrifice to save us from a fictional eternal curse that doesn't exist.
To respond to your now deleted repsonses to my comment, I was responding only to this statement:
"'Give me Christ, or simply let me have what I have coming to me and get it over with!' It is to this exact point that Luther believed the Law (understood properly as anything other than Christ) drives us (despite the Law's original intent to be an expression of joy, of freedom, and of the world behaving the way in which God intended it to behave)."
You seem to agree with Luther here, that the Law drives us to say 'Give me Christ, or simply let me have what I have coming to me and get it over with!' -- I don't agree, but if I did agree that the Law truly drives anyone who properly understands it to this point. But even if it did, my point is that what we deserve--according to the Law--is not the eternity in hell that Christian theologians like to make it out to be. As the author of the letter to the Hebrews says, "he who despised Moses' Law was put to death at the hands of two or three witnesses without mercy, but how much worse punishment do you suppose him worthy of [who despises Christianity]." (Hebrews 10:28-29) In other words, the punishment for not getting Christianity exactly right is much worse than the curse of the Law. This being the case, it is hard to accept the judgment that the New Covenant is a better covenant build on better promises (Hebrews 8:6) because although the positive promises are better (Heaven instead of a strip of petrol-less land) the negative promises are worse (eternity in hell versus physical death). The curse of Pauline Christianity is worse than the curse of the Law ever was...leading me to say 'Give me the Law, or simply let me have what I have coming to me and get it over with!'
As for your fear that I will become a regular commenter, don' worry about it. I can tell I'm not welcome. And my point even in this comment is not to persuade you of anything nor to attack your faith, but simply to point out that your most basis premise is questionable. Paul's argument that the Law is unbearable is flawed--if it weren't more Jews would be leaving Judaism by the droves. Instead, they seem rather hard to convert to Christianity. On the other hand, a lot of Christians leave Christianity precisely because they realize over time that Paul's arguments against the Law are contradictory and that they are based on a horrible misreading of the Old Testament.
One last point, since you seem deeply offended by the statement that we "need no godman sacrifice to save us from a fictional eternal curse that doesn't exist,"--I assume a knowledge of Micah 6 here.
Micah 6:6-8 "With what shall I come before the LORD, And bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, With calves a year old? (7) Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, Ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? (8) He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?"
Where some questioner asks the prophet what sort of sacrifice God requires--rams, humans, my very firstborn--Christian theologians would expect Micah to say "no need to offer your firstborn, since God will offer his firstborn for you someday." Instead, however, he simply says no sacrifice needed--all God wants is for you to do justice, love mercy/kindness, and walk humbly with God. In other words, live a good moral life and don't worry about sacrifices--we don't need sacrifices of goats, of our firstborn, nor even of God's firstborn--just live right to the best of your ability.
Hello Beowulf. I deleted my original responses to you because, given the background of you knowing nothing of my theology and me knowing nothing of yours, I find it impossible to have an intelligent conversation; it seems to foster, instead, debates that do not deepen one's faith journey and conversations that do not foster relationship. I did not want to leave your posts undignified with a response, but I have the impression that a response - perhaps even this one - will only serve to supportl a self-fulfilling prophecy, based upon an impression from one blog entry, which I find deeply unfortunate.
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