Aphorism of the Day, February 28, 2017
The function of Lucifer, the serpent, the devil and Satan in biblical tradition is varied. The serpent appears as a talking snake who is smarter than the naïve Adam and Eve. The serpent tricks the innocent into knowing moral distinction. Eating fruit from a tree is not bad unless your maker has told you not to. Mom tells us not to take cookies from the cookie jar and we do and so we put into question mom's authority in our lives by not submitting to mom's schedule of when she intends us to have cookies. The Garden of Eden story presents insights into the moral situation of humanity; it is presented essentially as people being trick to distrust their relationship with God and thus get thrown off in their timing for enjoyment of the things of their life. The temptation of Jesus returns us to Eden overgrown into a wilderness and the showdown with the accuser who tries to trick Jesus in his timing about food, fame and his end of life.
Aphorism of the Day, February 27, 2017
The main issue of what is called temptation is "timing." Temptation is the tease to lure us to do both wrong things and good things at the wrong time. Striking someone is the wrong thing to do unless it is time with a justified act of defense for an otherwise helpless person. Temptation is to be drawn into "mistimed" living and is characterized by first denying wise probability practices.
Aphorism of the Day, February 26, 2017
Sometimes in the attempt to declare such a high Christology of Jesus as God's unique Son, which we was, we forget that Jesus was not really interested in being an "only" son; rather he wanted to repair in the minds of the children of Adam the forgotten notion that they have always already been children of God.
Aphorism of the Day, February 25, 2017
Why do Elijah and Moses appear on the Mount of the Transfiguration, and not David who is the "model" for the Messiah? It probably has to do with the currency of Elijah and Moses in apocalyptic predictions of the time and has to do with their mysterious deaths/transitions/assumptions to the afterlife. As liminal as their transitions were, they perhaps had the ability to be inner spatial travelers and thus capable of "reappearance" to affirm Jesus as the valid successor of Judaic traditions.
Aphorism of the Day, February 24, 2017
I suspect that most Christians read the Bible "selfishly" putting oneself in the place of the chosen at a perceptual center of the universe. After all, from whose point of view can I truly honestly see or interpret anything? How convenient it is to place oneself into the place of God's favor and to assume that my enemies are God's enemy, even those enemies who are reading themselves as being God's favored ones too. Is this hermeneutical madness and a cacophony of interpretive chaos? The hermeneutical circle is like a personal paradigm in which one's subjectivity is constituted and one's friends and enemies are defined by how one embraces those who are regarded as being close and far away from one's "revealed" opinion. Even to have a pope to declare infallible meaning and interpretation does not free such declaration as free of fallible interpretations of fallible people who presume to follow declared "infallible" meanings. American Christians who think they share a sameness of belief often are in reality living in a cacophony of perpetual hermeneutical excommunication of the other. This has only been further exacerbated by the polarized political context in America. Americans are living in the state of mutual excommunication of each other. We do need translators of Peace.
Aphorism of the Day, February 23, 2017
"This is my son the beloved. With him I have well pleased." This is attributed at the baptism of Jesus and at the Transfiguration to a heavenly voice, presumably the voice of God the Father. It is re-echoing of the Royal Psalm, "The Lord said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you." Within the Roman Empire, "son of a god" was familiar in the Emperor cult. The early Christians were looking for ways to declare the uniqueness to Jesus vis a vis models from both the Judaic roots and the Roman contexts. Using familiar words did not detract from the kind of uniqueness that Christians were claiming for Jesus.
Aphorism of the Day, February 22, 2017
The account of the Transfiguration is a third person narration which might be an indication that it was a tradition of the visionary experiences of the prominent disciples of Jesus. It was a tradition which used the Sinai event as a parallel teaching template for the audience to understand the difference between the Beloved written Law and the Beloved Son of God. Obey the written law; listen to the Beloved Son. The Transfiguration is a vision of Jesus as Light and his followers are called to be lights of the world, a "lamp" who shining wick is fueled by the inner rising chrismatic Oil of the Holy Spirit.
Aphorism of the Day, February 21, 2017
If one were to contrast the events of Sinai and Tabor, at Sinai Moses took the tablets of the Law to the people and said, "This is God's Law; listen and obey It." On Tabor, the voice of God said about Jesus, "This is my beloved Son, listen to him." The divine law has become a precedence for a divine family member who is to mediate the life of God to people beyond the boundaries of people separated and made distinct by their ritual purity rules.
Aphorism of the Day, February 20, 2017
Elevation, clouds, light, apparitions, hearing the audible voice of God, experience of awe. These are the vocabulary of theophany to relay the event of superlative values within the early church. All of these features are present in the account of the Transfiguration. Theophanies reveal the liminal state of betwixt and between of the natural and spiritual. The event is natural enough to be recounted; it is mysterious enough to provoke awe and mystery. But frankly, both natural and spiritual have recognition simply because they come into Language. If we did not have language there would be no coming to language of existence or the existence of language.
Aphorism of the Day, February 19, 2017
Try to embrace the Sermon on the Mount as a profound teaching on Christian martial arts. It is the wise art of transmuting all life situations into the experience of blessedness. It is discovery of life force "Holy chi Spirit" as a force for such self control that self defense becomes a positive offense. It is living evangelistically, leading with one's winsome good news. One walks the extra mile as the occasion to share good news with another. Finally, Christian martial arts of the Sermon on the Mount is to focus on God's perfection and God is love and to love is to participate in God's perfection.
Aphorism of the Day, February 18, 2017
The prophets believed that the fulfilled of the law would happen when the laws of God were written upon the hearts of people. They prayed for an evolution of general moral, ethical and spiritual awareness in the populace such that they external enforcement of the law through juridical procedures would be unnecessary. Religious institutions are in trouble when they rely more on legalism for their identity rather than upon inner charism of their membership to be governed by a Spirit of Love which according to Jesus and Paul, is the fulfillment of the Law.
Aphorism of the Day, February 17, 2017
Beatitude living could be seen as unwitting Christian strategy to "conquer" the Empire. In contrast to Zealot movements in Judaism seeking armed resistance to the Empire and in contrast to ritually pure Judaism which maintain visual and community separation within the Roman Empire, Christian compromise of the ritual purity aspects of Judaism allowed Christians to look enough like other Roman citizens to be able to blend with them and provide the favorable conditions for conversion to happen. By dropping the ritual purity standards of Judaism, Christianity was better equipped to present the Gospel in winsome ways to the peoples who lived in the cities of the Roman Empire. Christianity won the Empire from within the hearts of people.
Aphorism of the Day, February 16, 2017
The Father makes the sun to rise on the good and the evil. Sunshine is available to everyone and so is the love of God. Perhaps the most awesome frightening thing about the perfect Father is an incredible permissive freedom. The sun continues to shine no matter what we do as a metaphor for the light and warmth of God's provision of love which beckons us to leave evil, embrace good and then beckon others to the warmth and light of love.
Aphorism of the Day, February 15, 2017
Does "turn the other cheek" imply not exercising self-defense? Probably not. In the context it seems to mean a self-control exercised to avoid aggressive revenge. The anger which comes to an aggressive act is not really defeated by mimicking the aggression through an act of revenge. Responding to an aggressive act with an act of revenge means that one actually has been converted by the original aggressor. Revenge cannot model enlightened control, even though self defense can be employed without being revenge.
Aphorism of the Day, February 14, 2017
One might look at the Beatitudes as a manifestation of the Risen Christ instantiated in the behaviors of the churches where the former ethnic enemies Jews and Gentiles lived in love together even while they adopted "peaceful" compliance to the Roman authorities for the purposes of maintaining themselves as minorities within the Empire. The parallel and inward kingdom of God through the Spirit allowed them a guerilla warfare; they were more convinced of the inner strength of the Spirit than the outer resistance of open armed rebellion. Beatitude living conquered the Roman Empire by striking the insides of people with a winsomeness of good news. Eventually the Caesar Constantine could not resist the collateral effects of those who had embraced the good news. In short, good news proved to be a better way of living together.
Aphorism of the Day, February 13, 2017
Some of the contexts and legal prescriptions found in the Book of Leviticus seem to base upon an inadequate cultural appreciation of whom God love, care and justice might extend to, but the book of Leviticus prescribes care and protection for the impaired, the blind and the deaf. The phrase in the summary of the law does not derive from Jesus, it comes from quoting Leviticus where it is written: You shall love your neighbor as your self. The major twist on this phrase comes in the parable of Jesus about the Good Samaritan by conceiving of reciprocity in neighboring. A neighbor is the one who loves and a neighbor is the one who receives love. Depending upon the need of a person and the ability to give, a neighbor is/can be both an active agent of neighboring and the passive recipient of receiving the benefits of another neighbor. Perfect community is reciprocal neighboring.
Aphorism of the Day, February 12, 2017
What is the purpose of the law? To show everyone how good I am when I perform a statue? To show others that I am holier than thou? To train human instincts to keep us from harming self and others? To expose the mystery of the uncontrollable inner self of desires that often want to do things not socially acceptable? To reveal the mystery of inner froward desires to convince me that I need the inside job done on me by the Holy Spirit?
Aphorism of the Day, February 11, 2017
Keeping the law is important but Jesus noted in the Beatitude that there is a parallel inner law of the Spirit that needs to go with the actual body language performance of the law. The law of the spirit is expressed in the fruits of the Spirit and this helps us complete our efforts to perform and practice moral, ethical and just behaviors. We can do the right things for the wrong reasons and dealing with our internal motives is what throws us upon needing God's grace and needing to defer to God's Spirit within. "God, I don't always do things, even good things for the right reason; but do not let me further sin by coupling my wrong motive with harsh judgments upon others who are not keeping the rules that I want them to." There is an external juridical sense of the necessity of keeping and enforcing the practice of the good law; the interior law of love to accompany the practice of the law is expressive of our continual need for a clean heart and a renewed right spirit within. We don't have time to judge others if we are all crying together, "Create in me a clean heart, O God."
Aphorism of the Day, February 10, 2017
Swearing or trying to underline that one has the character of truth in what one says or in making a promise seems to be a theatrical act in face of people who might not trust one's character. Jesus said, "Let your yes be yes and your no be no." We come to know the character of people in their daily ability to honor their verbal contracts. People who need to make dramatic theatrical gestures in swearing by God or by their mothers that they "really" mean what they say may be an indication that there is not enough evidence regarding their regular and normal truthful character. In court people swear to tell the "whole" truth with their hand on the Bible, a book that symbolizes a judgment against them should they not tell the truth. Such public vows are a display, perhaps because the jury and judge to testimony are not privileged to see the day by day truthfulness of the one testifying in court. Jesus implied that the grand gestures of swearing might be "using the holy in vain," if one does not have the normal practice of honoring one's verbal contracts.
Aphorism of the Day, February 9, 2017
The beatitudes indicate that Jesus believed that the morality of the law included both moral absolutes and a relative continuum. Thou shalt not murder is the moral absolute but it is related to a moral continuum referring to one of the prime motivations which leads to murder, namely, anger. Can one who is proud never to have committed murder also be one who never had anger in one's heart. The moral continuum of Jesus was anchored upon an impossible standard, "Be perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect." How does one "exceed" the righteous of those who seem to be keeping the law? By looking inward at the motivations of the heart, even to discover that we often do the right thing for the wrong reasons. In being honest about the condition of our hearts we are brought to beg for the renewal of a "right spirit" within us, which in fact must be God's Holy Spirit from whom we borrow justification with God and the grace to tolerate our own imperfections accepting forgiveness as we forgive others.
Aphorism of the Day, February 8, 2017
In the hyperbole of Jesus, he seems to equate anger in one's heart toward someone to be the moral equivalence of murder. The exaggerated of language of Jesus was given to shock the tendency towards moral pride. Legalists might be those who use the law as a personal check list of "my achievement." Jesus was more interest in future moral achievement than past achievement because if our moral direction is fixed upon being perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect, we do not commit the pride of achievement of thinking ourselves better than others. With hyperbolic language Jesus is not against moral achievements like "not murdering" people; he is more concerned about us having the moral attitude of focusing on what we have not yet become on the path of perfectability. What we have not yet become makes humility very natural.
Aphorism of the Day, February 7, 2017
The Sermon on the Mount is a proclamation that the fulfillment of the Law is an answer to the Psalmist's prayer, "Create in me a clean heart O, God and renew a right spirit within me." Apparent outward right "doing" is not enough; one must also be possessed with the inner motives of what might be called right "being." One's righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees or restated "one's righteousness must exceed the professional persona of the clergy who get paid to appear to be doing all of the legally right things." The Sermon of the Mount can bring the despair of the injunction, "Be perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect," since the standard of right inner being is impossible and out of our control. The uncontrolled unconscious like Freud said is polymorphorously perverse and the Sermon of Mount invites us to allow the Holy Spirit to be the right Spirit within us as we identify with a perfection not our own for justification in God's sight and tolerance of our own imperfection. We are put on the path of taming perverse "energies" for other righteous purposes even knowing that perfection leaves us continuous room for growth while accepting the continuous perfect forgiveness of God. We work at reparation while accepting forgiveness.
Aphorism of the Day, February 6, 2017
Perhaps one of the purposes of the Sermon on the Mount is frustrate any sense of "self righteousness" by setting a standard of perfection beyond what one does. One can be completely "domesticated" to follow all of the rules even while one harbors all sorts of thoughts and feelings and dreams and lusts and anger within. The Sermon on the Mount drives one to express, "Create in me a create heart and renew a right spirit within me." And of course, the clean heart one receives is the Holy=Clean Spirit who is clean on our behalf but whose presence places us on the path of probable moral progression unique to one's individual experience and not permitting us to be in the judgment seat on other people's unique moral probable progression.
Aphorism of the Day, February 5, 2017
In the Sermon on the Mount, the words of Jesus promise the fulfillment of all the law even while his words rail against the elevation of legal minutiae to seeming great principle. How was the law fulfilled? In jurisprudence, ignorance of the law is no excuse but also if a law is not promulgated then a law is not valid and offenders are not culpable. A law has to be officially published. The Gospels fulfilled the law of God by offering it to everyone. This accessibility to the news of God's love is what fulfilled and made valid the message. God's law is not fulfilled if it is treated as being only intended for people who keep it locked up in a segregated community.
Aphorism of the Day, February 4, 2017
Sometimes when people prefer reading only in the mode of the "primary naiveté," (see/google Paul Ricoeur) they read the Gospel as being the direct application of the ministry of Jesus to the people of his own setting. While there are traces of the original "Jesus settings" in the Gospels, they are interwoven with the continuing oracle of the Risen Christ in the varied and uneven settings and conditions of the people who were being formed into what has become to be called "churches." The "perceived" inconsistencies of the words of Jesus regarding things like realize kingdom of God or future kingdom of God are not so much the inconsistencies of Jesus but rather the uneven experiences in the various conditions of the followers of Christ in the cities of the Roman Empire until about the year 120.
Aphorism of the Day, February 3, 2017
The Gospel writings should be viewed more as contemporary with the Jesus Movement communities in the years 70-120 in their theology than referring to events contemporary with Jesus of Nazareth. How was one to live from an interior and parallel kingdom of God/heaven even while one's body was situated in the kingdom of the Caesars. Living from "within" in honoring "King Jesus" when the outside world yelled "There is no king but Caesar" colors the spiritual advice for living which characterizes the presentation of the Sermon on the Mount. It is ironic that Jesus was saying that not one jot or tittle of the law would be abrogated even while Gentile Christians were not required to adhere to the jot and tittles of the ritual purity laws. One can only assume that there was a major reinterpretation of what was regarded to be the true "spirit" of the law. The laws of ritual purity were meant to segregate those who adhered from those who did not observe ritual purity. Gentile Christians in being freed from ritual purity segregation could more easily camouflage themselves in the Roman cities situations and walk on that sensitive line of "being in the world but not of the world."
Aphorism of the Day, February 2, 2017
The notion of Big Laws and little laws came to be articulated in the post-resurrection communities of Christ. Little laws were the ceremonies and rites which marked the segregatory distinctness of Jews from non-Jews. These distinguishing rules became optional in the Christ communities even while adherence to the Big Laws, the laws of creation regarding the true nature of all things, were expounded by the oracles of Jesus which are recorded by the churches in the Gospels as the church presented the relevance of the life of Jesus in a new age while awkwardly being anachronistic in the presentation of Jesus being a retroactive endorser the Gentile mission.
Aphorism of the Day, February 1, 2017
"You are the light of the world." Light is the necessary condition for seeing well. Light is a metaphor for wisdom and the charisma of living which enables others to see the value of their lives more clearly. Lots of people are members of the bushel basket lighting company, being quite brilliant in the closet of shining for me, myself and I. God's light is the animated wisdom in a person that is meant to be shared and when one is willing to share the light of one's life can become serendipitously winsome to those for whom it has eventuality.
The function of Lucifer, the serpent, the devil and Satan in biblical tradition is varied. The serpent appears as a talking snake who is smarter than the naïve Adam and Eve. The serpent tricks the innocent into knowing moral distinction. Eating fruit from a tree is not bad unless your maker has told you not to. Mom tells us not to take cookies from the cookie jar and we do and so we put into question mom's authority in our lives by not submitting to mom's schedule of when she intends us to have cookies. The Garden of Eden story presents insights into the moral situation of humanity; it is presented essentially as people being trick to distrust their relationship with God and thus get thrown off in their timing for enjoyment of the things of their life. The temptation of Jesus returns us to Eden overgrown into a wilderness and the showdown with the accuser who tries to trick Jesus in his timing about food, fame and his end of life.
Aphorism of the Day, February 27, 2017
The main issue of what is called temptation is "timing." Temptation is the tease to lure us to do both wrong things and good things at the wrong time. Striking someone is the wrong thing to do unless it is time with a justified act of defense for an otherwise helpless person. Temptation is to be drawn into "mistimed" living and is characterized by first denying wise probability practices.
Aphorism of the Day, February 26, 2017
Sometimes in the attempt to declare such a high Christology of Jesus as God's unique Son, which we was, we forget that Jesus was not really interested in being an "only" son; rather he wanted to repair in the minds of the children of Adam the forgotten notion that they have always already been children of God.
Aphorism of the Day, February 25, 2017
Why do Elijah and Moses appear on the Mount of the Transfiguration, and not David who is the "model" for the Messiah? It probably has to do with the currency of Elijah and Moses in apocalyptic predictions of the time and has to do with their mysterious deaths/transitions/assumptions to the afterlife. As liminal as their transitions were, they perhaps had the ability to be inner spatial travelers and thus capable of "reappearance" to affirm Jesus as the valid successor of Judaic traditions.
Aphorism of the Day, February 24, 2017
I suspect that most Christians read the Bible "selfishly" putting oneself in the place of the chosen at a perceptual center of the universe. After all, from whose point of view can I truly honestly see or interpret anything? How convenient it is to place oneself into the place of God's favor and to assume that my enemies are God's enemy, even those enemies who are reading themselves as being God's favored ones too. Is this hermeneutical madness and a cacophony of interpretive chaos? The hermeneutical circle is like a personal paradigm in which one's subjectivity is constituted and one's friends and enemies are defined by how one embraces those who are regarded as being close and far away from one's "revealed" opinion. Even to have a pope to declare infallible meaning and interpretation does not free such declaration as free of fallible interpretations of fallible people who presume to follow declared "infallible" meanings. American Christians who think they share a sameness of belief often are in reality living in a cacophony of perpetual hermeneutical excommunication of the other. This has only been further exacerbated by the polarized political context in America. Americans are living in the state of mutual excommunication of each other. We do need translators of Peace.
Aphorism of the Day, February 23, 2017
"This is my son the beloved. With him I have well pleased." This is attributed at the baptism of Jesus and at the Transfiguration to a heavenly voice, presumably the voice of God the Father. It is re-echoing of the Royal Psalm, "The Lord said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you." Within the Roman Empire, "son of a god" was familiar in the Emperor cult. The early Christians were looking for ways to declare the uniqueness to Jesus vis a vis models from both the Judaic roots and the Roman contexts. Using familiar words did not detract from the kind of uniqueness that Christians were claiming for Jesus.
Aphorism of the Day, February 22, 2017
The account of the Transfiguration is a third person narration which might be an indication that it was a tradition of the visionary experiences of the prominent disciples of Jesus. It was a tradition which used the Sinai event as a parallel teaching template for the audience to understand the difference between the Beloved written Law and the Beloved Son of God. Obey the written law; listen to the Beloved Son. The Transfiguration is a vision of Jesus as Light and his followers are called to be lights of the world, a "lamp" who shining wick is fueled by the inner rising chrismatic Oil of the Holy Spirit.
Aphorism of the Day, February 21, 2017
If one were to contrast the events of Sinai and Tabor, at Sinai Moses took the tablets of the Law to the people and said, "This is God's Law; listen and obey It." On Tabor, the voice of God said about Jesus, "This is my beloved Son, listen to him." The divine law has become a precedence for a divine family member who is to mediate the life of God to people beyond the boundaries of people separated and made distinct by their ritual purity rules.
Aphorism of the Day, February 20, 2017
Elevation, clouds, light, apparitions, hearing the audible voice of God, experience of awe. These are the vocabulary of theophany to relay the event of superlative values within the early church. All of these features are present in the account of the Transfiguration. Theophanies reveal the liminal state of betwixt and between of the natural and spiritual. The event is natural enough to be recounted; it is mysterious enough to provoke awe and mystery. But frankly, both natural and spiritual have recognition simply because they come into Language. If we did not have language there would be no coming to language of existence or the existence of language.
Aphorism of the Day, February 19, 2017
Try to embrace the Sermon on the Mount as a profound teaching on Christian martial arts. It is the wise art of transmuting all life situations into the experience of blessedness. It is discovery of life force "Holy chi Spirit" as a force for such self control that self defense becomes a positive offense. It is living evangelistically, leading with one's winsome good news. One walks the extra mile as the occasion to share good news with another. Finally, Christian martial arts of the Sermon on the Mount is to focus on God's perfection and God is love and to love is to participate in God's perfection.
Aphorism of the Day, February 18, 2017
The prophets believed that the fulfilled of the law would happen when the laws of God were written upon the hearts of people. They prayed for an evolution of general moral, ethical and spiritual awareness in the populace such that they external enforcement of the law through juridical procedures would be unnecessary. Religious institutions are in trouble when they rely more on legalism for their identity rather than upon inner charism of their membership to be governed by a Spirit of Love which according to Jesus and Paul, is the fulfillment of the Law.
Aphorism of the Day, February 17, 2017
Beatitude living could be seen as unwitting Christian strategy to "conquer" the Empire. In contrast to Zealot movements in Judaism seeking armed resistance to the Empire and in contrast to ritually pure Judaism which maintain visual and community separation within the Roman Empire, Christian compromise of the ritual purity aspects of Judaism allowed Christians to look enough like other Roman citizens to be able to blend with them and provide the favorable conditions for conversion to happen. By dropping the ritual purity standards of Judaism, Christianity was better equipped to present the Gospel in winsome ways to the peoples who lived in the cities of the Roman Empire. Christianity won the Empire from within the hearts of people.
Aphorism of the Day, February 16, 2017
The Father makes the sun to rise on the good and the evil. Sunshine is available to everyone and so is the love of God. Perhaps the most awesome frightening thing about the perfect Father is an incredible permissive freedom. The sun continues to shine no matter what we do as a metaphor for the light and warmth of God's provision of love which beckons us to leave evil, embrace good and then beckon others to the warmth and light of love.
Aphorism of the Day, February 15, 2017
Does "turn the other cheek" imply not exercising self-defense? Probably not. In the context it seems to mean a self-control exercised to avoid aggressive revenge. The anger which comes to an aggressive act is not really defeated by mimicking the aggression through an act of revenge. Responding to an aggressive act with an act of revenge means that one actually has been converted by the original aggressor. Revenge cannot model enlightened control, even though self defense can be employed without being revenge.
Aphorism of the Day, February 14, 2017
One might look at the Beatitudes as a manifestation of the Risen Christ instantiated in the behaviors of the churches where the former ethnic enemies Jews and Gentiles lived in love together even while they adopted "peaceful" compliance to the Roman authorities for the purposes of maintaining themselves as minorities within the Empire. The parallel and inward kingdom of God through the Spirit allowed them a guerilla warfare; they were more convinced of the inner strength of the Spirit than the outer resistance of open armed rebellion. Beatitude living conquered the Roman Empire by striking the insides of people with a winsomeness of good news. Eventually the Caesar Constantine could not resist the collateral effects of those who had embraced the good news. In short, good news proved to be a better way of living together.
Aphorism of the Day, February 13, 2017
Some of the contexts and legal prescriptions found in the Book of Leviticus seem to base upon an inadequate cultural appreciation of whom God love, care and justice might extend to, but the book of Leviticus prescribes care and protection for the impaired, the blind and the deaf. The phrase in the summary of the law does not derive from Jesus, it comes from quoting Leviticus where it is written: You shall love your neighbor as your self. The major twist on this phrase comes in the parable of Jesus about the Good Samaritan by conceiving of reciprocity in neighboring. A neighbor is the one who loves and a neighbor is the one who receives love. Depending upon the need of a person and the ability to give, a neighbor is/can be both an active agent of neighboring and the passive recipient of receiving the benefits of another neighbor. Perfect community is reciprocal neighboring.
Aphorism of the Day, February 12, 2017
What is the purpose of the law? To show everyone how good I am when I perform a statue? To show others that I am holier than thou? To train human instincts to keep us from harming self and others? To expose the mystery of the uncontrollable inner self of desires that often want to do things not socially acceptable? To reveal the mystery of inner froward desires to convince me that I need the inside job done on me by the Holy Spirit?
Aphorism of the Day, February 11, 2017
Keeping the law is important but Jesus noted in the Beatitude that there is a parallel inner law of the Spirit that needs to go with the actual body language performance of the law. The law of the spirit is expressed in the fruits of the Spirit and this helps us complete our efforts to perform and practice moral, ethical and just behaviors. We can do the right things for the wrong reasons and dealing with our internal motives is what throws us upon needing God's grace and needing to defer to God's Spirit within. "God, I don't always do things, even good things for the right reason; but do not let me further sin by coupling my wrong motive with harsh judgments upon others who are not keeping the rules that I want them to." There is an external juridical sense of the necessity of keeping and enforcing the practice of the good law; the interior law of love to accompany the practice of the law is expressive of our continual need for a clean heart and a renewed right spirit within. We don't have time to judge others if we are all crying together, "Create in me a clean heart, O God."
Aphorism of the Day, February 10, 2017
Swearing or trying to underline that one has the character of truth in what one says or in making a promise seems to be a theatrical act in face of people who might not trust one's character. Jesus said, "Let your yes be yes and your no be no." We come to know the character of people in their daily ability to honor their verbal contracts. People who need to make dramatic theatrical gestures in swearing by God or by their mothers that they "really" mean what they say may be an indication that there is not enough evidence regarding their regular and normal truthful character. In court people swear to tell the "whole" truth with their hand on the Bible, a book that symbolizes a judgment against them should they not tell the truth. Such public vows are a display, perhaps because the jury and judge to testimony are not privileged to see the day by day truthfulness of the one testifying in court. Jesus implied that the grand gestures of swearing might be "using the holy in vain," if one does not have the normal practice of honoring one's verbal contracts.
Aphorism of the Day, February 9, 2017
The beatitudes indicate that Jesus believed that the morality of the law included both moral absolutes and a relative continuum. Thou shalt not murder is the moral absolute but it is related to a moral continuum referring to one of the prime motivations which leads to murder, namely, anger. Can one who is proud never to have committed murder also be one who never had anger in one's heart. The moral continuum of Jesus was anchored upon an impossible standard, "Be perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect." How does one "exceed" the righteous of those who seem to be keeping the law? By looking inward at the motivations of the heart, even to discover that we often do the right thing for the wrong reasons. In being honest about the condition of our hearts we are brought to beg for the renewal of a "right spirit" within us, which in fact must be God's Holy Spirit from whom we borrow justification with God and the grace to tolerate our own imperfections accepting forgiveness as we forgive others.
Aphorism of the Day, February 8, 2017
In the hyperbole of Jesus, he seems to equate anger in one's heart toward someone to be the moral equivalence of murder. The exaggerated of language of Jesus was given to shock the tendency towards moral pride. Legalists might be those who use the law as a personal check list of "my achievement." Jesus was more interest in future moral achievement than past achievement because if our moral direction is fixed upon being perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect, we do not commit the pride of achievement of thinking ourselves better than others. With hyperbolic language Jesus is not against moral achievements like "not murdering" people; he is more concerned about us having the moral attitude of focusing on what we have not yet become on the path of perfectability. What we have not yet become makes humility very natural.
Aphorism of the Day, February 7, 2017
The Sermon on the Mount is a proclamation that the fulfillment of the Law is an answer to the Psalmist's prayer, "Create in me a clean heart O, God and renew a right spirit within me." Apparent outward right "doing" is not enough; one must also be possessed with the inner motives of what might be called right "being." One's righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees or restated "one's righteousness must exceed the professional persona of the clergy who get paid to appear to be doing all of the legally right things." The Sermon of the Mount can bring the despair of the injunction, "Be perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect," since the standard of right inner being is impossible and out of our control. The uncontrolled unconscious like Freud said is polymorphorously perverse and the Sermon of Mount invites us to allow the Holy Spirit to be the right Spirit within us as we identify with a perfection not our own for justification in God's sight and tolerance of our own imperfection. We are put on the path of taming perverse "energies" for other righteous purposes even knowing that perfection leaves us continuous room for growth while accepting the continuous perfect forgiveness of God. We work at reparation while accepting forgiveness.
Aphorism of the Day, February 6, 2017
Perhaps one of the purposes of the Sermon on the Mount is frustrate any sense of "self righteousness" by setting a standard of perfection beyond what one does. One can be completely "domesticated" to follow all of the rules even while one harbors all sorts of thoughts and feelings and dreams and lusts and anger within. The Sermon on the Mount drives one to express, "Create in me a create heart and renew a right spirit within me." And of course, the clean heart one receives is the Holy=Clean Spirit who is clean on our behalf but whose presence places us on the path of probable moral progression unique to one's individual experience and not permitting us to be in the judgment seat on other people's unique moral probable progression.
Aphorism of the Day, February 5, 2017
In the Sermon on the Mount, the words of Jesus promise the fulfillment of all the law even while his words rail against the elevation of legal minutiae to seeming great principle. How was the law fulfilled? In jurisprudence, ignorance of the law is no excuse but also if a law is not promulgated then a law is not valid and offenders are not culpable. A law has to be officially published. The Gospels fulfilled the law of God by offering it to everyone. This accessibility to the news of God's love is what fulfilled and made valid the message. God's law is not fulfilled if it is treated as being only intended for people who keep it locked up in a segregated community.
Aphorism of the Day, February 4, 2017
Sometimes when people prefer reading only in the mode of the "primary naiveté," (see/google Paul Ricoeur) they read the Gospel as being the direct application of the ministry of Jesus to the people of his own setting. While there are traces of the original "Jesus settings" in the Gospels, they are interwoven with the continuing oracle of the Risen Christ in the varied and uneven settings and conditions of the people who were being formed into what has become to be called "churches." The "perceived" inconsistencies of the words of Jesus regarding things like realize kingdom of God or future kingdom of God are not so much the inconsistencies of Jesus but rather the uneven experiences in the various conditions of the followers of Christ in the cities of the Roman Empire until about the year 120.
Aphorism of the Day, February 3, 2017
The Gospel writings should be viewed more as contemporary with the Jesus Movement communities in the years 70-120 in their theology than referring to events contemporary with Jesus of Nazareth. How was one to live from an interior and parallel kingdom of God/heaven even while one's body was situated in the kingdom of the Caesars. Living from "within" in honoring "King Jesus" when the outside world yelled "There is no king but Caesar" colors the spiritual advice for living which characterizes the presentation of the Sermon on the Mount. It is ironic that Jesus was saying that not one jot or tittle of the law would be abrogated even while Gentile Christians were not required to adhere to the jot and tittles of the ritual purity laws. One can only assume that there was a major reinterpretation of what was regarded to be the true "spirit" of the law. The laws of ritual purity were meant to segregate those who adhered from those who did not observe ritual purity. Gentile Christians in being freed from ritual purity segregation could more easily camouflage themselves in the Roman cities situations and walk on that sensitive line of "being in the world but not of the world."
Aphorism of the Day, February 2, 2017
The notion of Big Laws and little laws came to be articulated in the post-resurrection communities of Christ. Little laws were the ceremonies and rites which marked the segregatory distinctness of Jews from non-Jews. These distinguishing rules became optional in the Christ communities even while adherence to the Big Laws, the laws of creation regarding the true nature of all things, were expounded by the oracles of Jesus which are recorded by the churches in the Gospels as the church presented the relevance of the life of Jesus in a new age while awkwardly being anachronistic in the presentation of Jesus being a retroactive endorser the Gentile mission.
Aphorism of the Day, February 1, 2017
"You are the light of the world." Light is the necessary condition for seeing well. Light is a metaphor for wisdom and the charisma of living which enables others to see the value of their lives more clearly. Lots of people are members of the bushel basket lighting company, being quite brilliant in the closet of shining for me, myself and I. God's light is the animated wisdom in a person that is meant to be shared and when one is willing to share the light of one's life can become serendipitously winsome to those for whom it has eventuality.
