Aphorism of the Day, August 31, 2017
The profile of Jesus as a suffering servant Messiah rather than a triumphant conquering kingly Messiah is the anchor for the theology of the cross. This is important because human suffering comprises a significant portion of actual human experience. The theology of the cross is the divine identity with suffering as a realistic acceptance of the freedom in the world and the resurrection triumph is the anchor for the reality of freedom which also promotes redemption, health, salvation and abundant life as an equally valid human experience. At the end of the Flood, there is a rainbow of promise of rebuilding and in faith we believe that Hope will eventually have the last word.
Aphorism of the Day, August 30, 2017
What happens to people like Peter when there is a paucity of actual information about him. If what we know about Peter come from 20 or so accounts about him, he has become in Gospels and other writings, a figurehead for teaching purposes. The main witness of Peter is about what he became after the resurrection. All of his faults and foibles become contrasts with the transformation of his life to attain an identity with the suffering servant Christ. Peter is presented as an example of "spiritual" progress and transformation and is given as an example of how past unfaithfulness and ignorance can be redeemed by future faith and wisdom.
Aphorism of the Day, August 29, 2017
In but a paragraph, Peter goes from one who makes a privileged confession of Jesus and is conferred as the rock on which Jesus will build the church to one who rebukes Jesus for Jesus not understanding the role of the Messiah to being rebuked by Jesus for "channeling Satan." This is a highly specific teaching vignette of the Matthean community regarding the profile of the Messiah. If Peter could confess the Messiah and misunderstand the Messiah and come to know Jesus as the suffering servant Messiah, then so can the readers and listeners.
Aphorism of the Day, August 28, 2017
St. Peter confessed Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And when Jesus said what being the Messiah meant, it contradicted the existing notions of a triumphant powerful and intervening authority that prevailed in Peter's thinking. Peter's notion of the Messiah did not allow for Jesus to suffer. Jesus rebuked Peter, saying, "Get behind me Satan!" This is an obvious teaching moment in the Matthean church. The church was built upon the notion of a "suffering Messiah" whose triumph was evident in the post-resurrection appearance and the promise of a still future Messianic return. The split of churches from the synagogues happened because Jewish ritual rules were lifted for Gentile followers of Jesus and because there was a major disagreement about how the Messiah would be manifested. Members of the synagogue could not see Jesus as instantiating their notion of the Messiah. The dialogue between Jesus and Peter highlighted this disagreement.
Aphorism of the Day, August 27, 2017
The "Messianic Secret" was the injunction of Jesus not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah or that he was doing "messianic" works. Why? The open knowledge of Jesus being a "rival" king would hasten his capture by the Romans before his appointed time. In the Gospel drama, it is Judas Iscariot who tells the secret of the identity of Jesus to the opponents of Jesus, as it was understood by the inner circle of Jesus. Once the secret was known, Jesus could be openly charged as a kingly pretender, one who was a threat to the hegemony of the Emperor. The "secret" was exposed and used as an accusation in the trial against Jesus.
Aphorism of the Day, August 26, 2017
In biblical geological metaphors "rock" is used to refer to Jesus and Peter. Peter's name literally means "rock." St. Paul wrote that Christ was the rock from which the Israelite drank the gifted waters from God in their wilderness journey. Jesus is also called the "cornerstone" on which the church is built. So, is Jesus the Rock or is Peter? Or both? Biblical writers are like us in that we can deploy metaphors in ways that may seem contradictory even while we know that contextual use is what creates the seeming contradictions. Different use in different context creates the appearance of contradiction. We need to "allow" (as if it is our call) biblical writers to speak with the same "forked tongues" that all of us use when we deploy metaphors.
Aphorism of the Day, August 25, 2017
Why in one Gospel saying does Peter get rebuked by Jesus for confessing him to be the Messiah and in another Gospel saying he is told that he is the Rock on which the church shall be built? Quite a difference to say, "get thee behind me Satan" or "On this rock I will build my church." It begs for us to look at the writing goals of the various Gospel narrators/editors. The Matthean Gospel editor is perhaps trying to "rehabilitate" the image of Peter and promote a legitimization of the "Petrine line of teaching authority" in the Christian Movement that had already become rife with competitive teachings. If one looks at the actual writings of the New Testament, one would have to conclude that the church as we have come to know it has been built more on the life and teachings of St. Paul, rather than St. Peter.
Aphorism of the Day, August 24, 2017
Jesus said that the gates of "Hades" would not prevail against the church, begging the inquiry about the names for the place of death. Hades is the Greek place of the afterlife as well as Tartarus, both used in the New Testament. The Hebrew word for the afterlife is "Sheol." The other word of the afterlife is "hell" or the Hebrew derived word "Gehenna," which refers to a geographical location near Jerusalem, the Valley of Hinnom. It was a place for rendering the bodies of dead animals and so was a place of ritual defilement. Hades was the Greek word to translate the Hebrew word "Sheol," in the Septuagint (the well known and used Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures). Biblical interpreters often designated as "fundamentalists" tends to import the empirical verification practice of scientific method to imply that specific afterlife situation will be exactly how it is characterized in the imaginations of biblical writers. This limitation denies the power of poetry to be rather ambiguous in presenting readers with the mood of how the afterlife images function for readers, especially suffering readers, who are denied justice in this world and need to cling to the hope of ultimate justice and the hope of eternal reparations.
Aphorism of the Day, August 23, 2017
The Greek word for church, "ekklesia," occurs only twice in the Gospel of Matthew. It does not occur in Mark, Luke or John and yet we know that the churches were responsible for the writing of the Gospels. It occurs in the writings of St. Paul, who wrote before the Gospels came to their textual form. So the Matthean oracle of Christ within the church that composed the Gospel of Matthew believed that the origin of the Christian "gathered" movement could be found in the words of Jesus. What would be more logical in an actual "Jesus setting" would be for him to say, "I will build my synagogue...." or "I will build my rabbinical school of thought.." It does not help to look for the Aramaic equivalent word for "ekklesia" since Aramaic translations derive from translating the Greek word "ekklesia" and this Greek word was a later word which derived from St. Paul and other early Christian leaders.
Aphorism of the Day, August 22, 207
Petrine Primacy is the belief that Peter held preeminence among the 12 disciples deriving from the Gospel story of Jesus telling him, "You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church." Rock is a "pun" on Peter's name which means "rock." Those who discount Petrine Primacy for establishing Papal Primacy interpret "rock" to refer to the confession that Peter had just made about Jesus being the Messiah but that diminishes the connotation of the "pun" on Peter's name. Is the church built upon Peter or the confession of Jesus being the Messiah? Or both? The fact that the church did not exist in the actual time of Jesus makes the interchange historically problematic. Injecting the existence of "my church" into a purported account of the "historical Jesus" was perhaps a device of the early church trying to establish lines of authority in a movement that grown diverse enough to have lots of in fighting and so the Gospel of Matthew was an effort in writing to establish a privileged line of authority for what would later become known as "orthodox" or right thinking/belief. The later words of the Risen Christ speaking as an oracle through later church leaders are inserted into a Gospel story of Jesus to give Petrine tradition validation and authority. Institutionalization happens in successful movement and so the "truths" become administrative truths for the organization of a community.
Aphorism of the Day, August 21, 2017
How does one solves issues of anachronism in the Gospel? Like when Jesus said to Peter, "I will build my church..." when there was no church in his time since it was a word that came from Greek referring also to a local political ward? Does one look for a potential translation of the word church in Aramaic, the language which Jesus spoke? Or does one understand that the rather late date of the Gospel writings represent a mixing of the stories of Jesus with the realities of the nascent Christ communities coming to formation? Speaking in Jesus' Name and "having the mind of Christ" meant that early Christian leaders really believed that Christ was a live and speaking oracle through the "Christ-possessed" within the churches even after his Ascension, meaning that the oracle words of the Risen Christ got mingled with the narrative of Jesus. The Gospels are teachings to people who lived contemporary with the growing church, not really about those who were contemporary with the actual life of Jesus.
Aphorism of the Day, August 20, 2017
A good parent tries to make each child feels as though they are favored and special. Children may act as though they are competing for the "most favored status" with their parents. Members of religious and faith community may proclaim themselves through their words and actions to be rather chauvinistically, God's favorite. The confession of Jesus as God's Beloved Son means that all "in Christ" have attained a favored status with God. Let us not be disappointed that God makes everyone a favorite in the experience of knowing special personal esteem which comes from the Holy Spirit being known as the image of God experienced in any willing heart.
Aphorism of the Day, August 19, 2017
The famous cartoon puppet of Charles Schultz, Charlie Brown declared, "I love mankind; it's people I can't stand." This expresses the dilemma of applying a universal truth in the "devil" of the details. We can embrace the universal love of God for everyone while secretly holding that I and those of "my ilk" are God's favorite children. But if everyone is thinking that one is God's favorite child, rather than acknowledge the potential for divinely inspired personal esteem to be everyone's experience, we labor to reconcile one's own sense of being highly favored with everyone else's sense of being highly favored. In this dynamic one encounters the dilemma of Charlie Brown to instantiate the general favor of love that God has for all, with one who expresses their divine favor in ways irks us, even into some bad behaviors.
Aphorism of the Day, August 18, 2017
Jesus said to the Canaanite woman, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” These words of Jesus present an ironic twist upon the situation of antipathy of the strained relationship between the Jews and the Gentiles. They seem rather harsh even as in the dialogue they are presented as the goad for the Canaanite woman to assert her desire for God's blessing. The punchline of the Gospel teaching is that Canaanites could have the kind of faith which indicated their favor with God. This story is an "origin story in the life of Jesus" for the Gentile Christianity which is written about in St. Paul's letter to the Roman church. The Gospels instantiate in stories of Jesus the Gospel results in the Gentile populace and the Gospel writers try to avoid "blatant" anachronism even while the readers already know the reality of what had happened in Gentile Christianity.
Aphorism of the Day, August 17, 2017
Can following a prescribed religious diet and religious rules of hygiene make one clean and holy inside? Not according to Jesus. Sometimes we misunderstand religious piety and rules of life; we practice piety and rules of life not to make us holy but rather because we have discovered the grace which enables us to live holy lives. The discovery of grace is to find the replacement possibility of our rather perverse "insides" with God's Holy Spirit as the origin of our piety and our living.
Aphorism of the Day, August 16, 2017
The New Testament books are essentially writings about how Gentile Christianity was born and transitioned out of Judaism. The origin of the Gentile mission is presented within stories of Jesus interacting with non-Jews who showed themselves to have faith and therefore worthy of the blessing of Christ. St. Paul wrote the "theological apology" for the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity. The Gospels take this theology and instantiate it through presentations of Jesus interacting with people other than ritually observant Jews.
Aphorism of the Day, August 15, 2017
The words of Jesus criticized those who had made "ritual compulsive handwashing" into something like a "cleanliness is next to godliness" absolute. Jesus, long before Freud said the unconscious is polymorphorously perverse" like the prophets and the psalmist of old knew that outward cleanliness was no guarantee of having a clean heart and right spirit. The reason that Jesus is associated with Baptism of the Holy Spirit because he knew that inward cleanliness had to do with an inside job. The water of Baptism is the outward sign of the grace of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as the only way to attain a clean heart, i.e., by letting the Holy Spirit be the Clean Heart within us. Wash your hands and practice good hygiene, by all means, when possible but don't make a religion or a fetish about how one does it.
Aphorism of the Day, August 14, 2017
The Canaanite woman to Jesus: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” The Prayer of Humble Access in the Rite One Eucharist: "We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table." The agenda of the New Testament writers was to show that all people are "unworthy" for fellowship with God. But realizing universal "unworthiness" really is the set up for "universal" mercy for all people and for the New Testament writers, this meant the inclusion of the Gentiles at the Lord's table in a communion which welcomes all. It is interesting to note that once we form Communions and denominations, we can openly or subtly treat people outside our group as "unworthy" thus compromising the largesse of an all merciful God.
Aphorism of the Day, August 13, 2017
"Act of God" has come to designate events of Nature which result in harm to people or property. Why should God get credit for the harmful events and not the good events? Or should not God be regarded as Creative Freedom for everything that happens? The main Act of God is Creative Freedom and this creative freedom is shared proportionately with the level of sentient existence of any entity. Humans as high on the sentient chain have greater volitional capacity and greater culpability than is known in the creatures and the material creation. God as Creative Freedom means that the buck does stop at God without minimizing the full proportional moral culpability of human freedom.
Aphorism of the Day, August 12, 2017
A way of characterizing Nature is to say that Nature is the freedom of anything to happen within the limits of freedom of any particular entity in interaction with everything else within the total environment. So Nature includes the possibility for boatmen at night on a lake to encounter a storm. The Gospels present Jesus as the spiritual possibility of being one who is present with us within all of the possible things that can occur in Nature. Faith is the ability to find the parallel spiritual presence of Christ within all of the conditions of freedom in Nature.
Aphorism of the Day, August 11, 2017
Acts of Nature in actuarial insurance parlance are sometimes referred to as "acts of God." So the "act of God" in the storm on the Galilean Sea resulted in the Son of God, counter acting such an Act with his whispering of Nature. Or the essence of Nature might be expressed as the freedom for what might happen. Faith is learning how to maintain hopeful future thinking in learning how to deal with everything that might happen (in Nature). The Gospels present Jesus as a storm Whisperer which means discovering the Nature of Christ within us in Nature within all natural happenings.
Aphorism of the Day, August 10, 2017
Consistency regarding miracles means that we do not usually think about the "prior" miracle which did not happen. What is the prior miracle? The miracle of not getting deathly sick before it happens. The miracle of not being on the lake when the tornado hit. The use of miracle in our vocabulary assumes that we are subject to the conditions of freedom and we don't focus upon all of the "prior miracles" of all of the good things that are happening to us because "normal" goodness does not stand out. Normal goodness does not stand out until it is challenged by an event of threat, evil, badness, natural disaster et al. If every situation of threat or evil got resolved through some miracle, miracle would disappear since miracle would be so normal as to be unnoticed. A miracle assumes that most situations of threat and evil do not get resolved to the benefit of the people involved and when the exception occurs it is proclaimed a miracle or an uncanny event where the logic of consequences gets thwarted. When one reads the Gospels, because of the time-lapsing of story and the actual paucity of events that are recounted, one can get the impression that it is to be normal for people of faith to expect the exceptional miracle to happen. Or, the miracle can be a story trope to proclaim that the miracle is knowing the presence of Christ in the midst of the free conditions of what might happen to anyone.
Aphorism of the Day, August 9, 2017
From the prophet Elijah, we could derive a "Pouting Prophet Syndrome." Elijah fled his dire situation and complained about being the only one left to stand for the true devotion to God. The all-seeing God informed him that his experience could not be generalized to all Israel because there were many others who remained devoted. We sometimes hold "triumphalist" desire to be those whose views have hegemonic status in our times and places. We can become "pouty prophets" when the effects of our ministry does not seem to be shared with enough people to be called "successful." The answer to the "Pouting Prophet Syndrome" is simply to continue to be faithful where we are.
Aphorism of the Day, August 8, 2017
The irony of the presentation of miracles is dealing with the obvious question of why the miracle was needed in the first place. Why did not God miraculously intervened without us knowing by not allowing the condition which needed the miracle in the first place? The miracle stories are about how Christ is present within the freedom of bad things happening, inconvenient things happening to confound our proposed "schedules" in life. Can we find Christ walking on the waves of the storms of life? Wouldn't we rather that Christ to have been known in shielding us from ever having to face the threat of a storm? We should not treat biblical writers as "literary" idiots, "one-trick" metaphor makers, who did not understand or appreciate a whole range of rhetorical devices used to persuade and teach what faith in God means. Interpreters who limit the Bible to a "plain reading or fundamental literalism" deny the inspired finesse of the biblical writers in their persuasive techniques. When Jesus ask for his listeners to have "ears" to hear, he was speaking about their lives being in the place to have interpretive acuity to pierce beyond the "plain" meaning.
Aphorism of the Day, August 7, 2017
From the Psalms: "He reached down from on high, he took me; he drew me out of mighty waters." This Psalm is reiterated in the walking on water story of the Gospels. Peter tried to walk on the water, doubted and sunk and Jesus lifted him up. The Gospel writers presented Jesus as instantiating the poetic heroic qualities of the Lord found in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Aphorism of the Day, August 6, 2017
In the Transfiguration Collect we ask that we might be changed into the likeness of the Transfigured Christ. In so doing we embrace Metamorphosis as the interpretation of the spiritual learning cycles of life. No phase is final; it too will pass but also return in a future and different setting. By faith, we accept metamorphosis as more profound than the specifics of the afflictions of in the "Dark Night of the Soul." Let us have the faith to know that there are always future phases of "butterfly" hatching to occur.
Aphorism of the Day, August 5, 2017
The Transfiguration of Jesus for the disciples was like the proverbial caterpillar who saw a butterfly and thought, "Some day I will be like you!" On the Mount of the Transfiguration, Jesus gave the disciples a pre-death and burial vision of resurrection life. Resurrection life is the Metamorphosis Process which is greater than any manifestation of life in any specific phase.
Aphorism of the Day, August 4, 2017
Cosmetic enhancement? As Jesus prayed, his face changed..... Can prayer alter our appearance? Indeed prayer can effect an entire cosmetic makeover and prove that the activation of one's inner charisma is what creates the actual beauty of our lives.
Aphorism of the Day, August 3, 2017
Moses and Elijah, representing the formative period of Israel under the law and the prophetic era, were in the vision of the Transfiguration. Their appearance functioned to show readers the continuity of Christ with their mission. Who was absent? Why wasn't King David on the Mount of Transfiguration? Wasn't he the proto-type for the messiah? It could be that the heavenly voice declaring, "You are my Son the Beloved," is an echo of the messianic Psalm, "You are my son, today I have begotten you."
Aphorism of the Day, August 2, 2017
In the event of the Transfiguration, elevation, clouds and light are the metaphorical settings for the visionary Epiphany of Jesus Christ. The spiritual journey is a journey upward to superlative values, through the clouds of unknowing as the spiritual eyes adjust to mystery in preparation for new events of light or seeing.
Aphorism of the Day, August 1, 2017
The Transfiguration event could be called an Epiphany and a Theophany. A "revealing" event and a "showing of God" event. What is revealed and shown in the event of the Transfiguration? Jesus Christ as the superlatively valued Person to be the prime exemplar to inform humanity about the direction of moral and spiritual advance.
The profile of Jesus as a suffering servant Messiah rather than a triumphant conquering kingly Messiah is the anchor for the theology of the cross. This is important because human suffering comprises a significant portion of actual human experience. The theology of the cross is the divine identity with suffering as a realistic acceptance of the freedom in the world and the resurrection triumph is the anchor for the reality of freedom which also promotes redemption, health, salvation and abundant life as an equally valid human experience. At the end of the Flood, there is a rainbow of promise of rebuilding and in faith we believe that Hope will eventually have the last word.
Aphorism of the Day, August 30, 2017
What happens to people like Peter when there is a paucity of actual information about him. If what we know about Peter come from 20 or so accounts about him, he has become in Gospels and other writings, a figurehead for teaching purposes. The main witness of Peter is about what he became after the resurrection. All of his faults and foibles become contrasts with the transformation of his life to attain an identity with the suffering servant Christ. Peter is presented as an example of "spiritual" progress and transformation and is given as an example of how past unfaithfulness and ignorance can be redeemed by future faith and wisdom.
Aphorism of the Day, August 29, 2017
In but a paragraph, Peter goes from one who makes a privileged confession of Jesus and is conferred as the rock on which Jesus will build the church to one who rebukes Jesus for Jesus not understanding the role of the Messiah to being rebuked by Jesus for "channeling Satan." This is a highly specific teaching vignette of the Matthean community regarding the profile of the Messiah. If Peter could confess the Messiah and misunderstand the Messiah and come to know Jesus as the suffering servant Messiah, then so can the readers and listeners.
Aphorism of the Day, August 28, 2017
St. Peter confessed Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And when Jesus said what being the Messiah meant, it contradicted the existing notions of a triumphant powerful and intervening authority that prevailed in Peter's thinking. Peter's notion of the Messiah did not allow for Jesus to suffer. Jesus rebuked Peter, saying, "Get behind me Satan!" This is an obvious teaching moment in the Matthean church. The church was built upon the notion of a "suffering Messiah" whose triumph was evident in the post-resurrection appearance and the promise of a still future Messianic return. The split of churches from the synagogues happened because Jewish ritual rules were lifted for Gentile followers of Jesus and because there was a major disagreement about how the Messiah would be manifested. Members of the synagogue could not see Jesus as instantiating their notion of the Messiah. The dialogue between Jesus and Peter highlighted this disagreement.
Aphorism of the Day, August 27, 2017
The "Messianic Secret" was the injunction of Jesus not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah or that he was doing "messianic" works. Why? The open knowledge of Jesus being a "rival" king would hasten his capture by the Romans before his appointed time. In the Gospel drama, it is Judas Iscariot who tells the secret of the identity of Jesus to the opponents of Jesus, as it was understood by the inner circle of Jesus. Once the secret was known, Jesus could be openly charged as a kingly pretender, one who was a threat to the hegemony of the Emperor. The "secret" was exposed and used as an accusation in the trial against Jesus.
Aphorism of the Day, August 26, 2017
In biblical geological metaphors "rock" is used to refer to Jesus and Peter. Peter's name literally means "rock." St. Paul wrote that Christ was the rock from which the Israelite drank the gifted waters from God in their wilderness journey. Jesus is also called the "cornerstone" on which the church is built. So, is Jesus the Rock or is Peter? Or both? Biblical writers are like us in that we can deploy metaphors in ways that may seem contradictory even while we know that contextual use is what creates the seeming contradictions. Different use in different context creates the appearance of contradiction. We need to "allow" (as if it is our call) biblical writers to speak with the same "forked tongues" that all of us use when we deploy metaphors.
Aphorism of the Day, August 25, 2017
Why in one Gospel saying does Peter get rebuked by Jesus for confessing him to be the Messiah and in another Gospel saying he is told that he is the Rock on which the church shall be built? Quite a difference to say, "get thee behind me Satan" or "On this rock I will build my church." It begs for us to look at the writing goals of the various Gospel narrators/editors. The Matthean Gospel editor is perhaps trying to "rehabilitate" the image of Peter and promote a legitimization of the "Petrine line of teaching authority" in the Christian Movement that had already become rife with competitive teachings. If one looks at the actual writings of the New Testament, one would have to conclude that the church as we have come to know it has been built more on the life and teachings of St. Paul, rather than St. Peter.
Aphorism of the Day, August 24, 2017
Jesus said that the gates of "Hades" would not prevail against the church, begging the inquiry about the names for the place of death. Hades is the Greek place of the afterlife as well as Tartarus, both used in the New Testament. The Hebrew word for the afterlife is "Sheol." The other word of the afterlife is "hell" or the Hebrew derived word "Gehenna," which refers to a geographical location near Jerusalem, the Valley of Hinnom. It was a place for rendering the bodies of dead animals and so was a place of ritual defilement. Hades was the Greek word to translate the Hebrew word "Sheol," in the Septuagint (the well known and used Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures). Biblical interpreters often designated as "fundamentalists" tends to import the empirical verification practice of scientific method to imply that specific afterlife situation will be exactly how it is characterized in the imaginations of biblical writers. This limitation denies the power of poetry to be rather ambiguous in presenting readers with the mood of how the afterlife images function for readers, especially suffering readers, who are denied justice in this world and need to cling to the hope of ultimate justice and the hope of eternal reparations.
Aphorism of the Day, August 23, 2017
The Greek word for church, "ekklesia," occurs only twice in the Gospel of Matthew. It does not occur in Mark, Luke or John and yet we know that the churches were responsible for the writing of the Gospels. It occurs in the writings of St. Paul, who wrote before the Gospels came to their textual form. So the Matthean oracle of Christ within the church that composed the Gospel of Matthew believed that the origin of the Christian "gathered" movement could be found in the words of Jesus. What would be more logical in an actual "Jesus setting" would be for him to say, "I will build my synagogue...." or "I will build my rabbinical school of thought.." It does not help to look for the Aramaic equivalent word for "ekklesia" since Aramaic translations derive from translating the Greek word "ekklesia" and this Greek word was a later word which derived from St. Paul and other early Christian leaders.
Aphorism of the Day, August 22, 207
Petrine Primacy is the belief that Peter held preeminence among the 12 disciples deriving from the Gospel story of Jesus telling him, "You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church." Rock is a "pun" on Peter's name which means "rock." Those who discount Petrine Primacy for establishing Papal Primacy interpret "rock" to refer to the confession that Peter had just made about Jesus being the Messiah but that diminishes the connotation of the "pun" on Peter's name. Is the church built upon Peter or the confession of Jesus being the Messiah? Or both? The fact that the church did not exist in the actual time of Jesus makes the interchange historically problematic. Injecting the existence of "my church" into a purported account of the "historical Jesus" was perhaps a device of the early church trying to establish lines of authority in a movement that grown diverse enough to have lots of in fighting and so the Gospel of Matthew was an effort in writing to establish a privileged line of authority for what would later become known as "orthodox" or right thinking/belief. The later words of the Risen Christ speaking as an oracle through later church leaders are inserted into a Gospel story of Jesus to give Petrine tradition validation and authority. Institutionalization happens in successful movement and so the "truths" become administrative truths for the organization of a community.
Aphorism of the Day, August 21, 2017
How does one solves issues of anachronism in the Gospel? Like when Jesus said to Peter, "I will build my church..." when there was no church in his time since it was a word that came from Greek referring also to a local political ward? Does one look for a potential translation of the word church in Aramaic, the language which Jesus spoke? Or does one understand that the rather late date of the Gospel writings represent a mixing of the stories of Jesus with the realities of the nascent Christ communities coming to formation? Speaking in Jesus' Name and "having the mind of Christ" meant that early Christian leaders really believed that Christ was a live and speaking oracle through the "Christ-possessed" within the churches even after his Ascension, meaning that the oracle words of the Risen Christ got mingled with the narrative of Jesus. The Gospels are teachings to people who lived contemporary with the growing church, not really about those who were contemporary with the actual life of Jesus.
Aphorism of the Day, August 20, 2017
A good parent tries to make each child feels as though they are favored and special. Children may act as though they are competing for the "most favored status" with their parents. Members of religious and faith community may proclaim themselves through their words and actions to be rather chauvinistically, God's favorite. The confession of Jesus as God's Beloved Son means that all "in Christ" have attained a favored status with God. Let us not be disappointed that God makes everyone a favorite in the experience of knowing special personal esteem which comes from the Holy Spirit being known as the image of God experienced in any willing heart.
Aphorism of the Day, August 19, 2017
The famous cartoon puppet of Charles Schultz, Charlie Brown declared, "I love mankind; it's people I can't stand." This expresses the dilemma of applying a universal truth in the "devil" of the details. We can embrace the universal love of God for everyone while secretly holding that I and those of "my ilk" are God's favorite children. But if everyone is thinking that one is God's favorite child, rather than acknowledge the potential for divinely inspired personal esteem to be everyone's experience, we labor to reconcile one's own sense of being highly favored with everyone else's sense of being highly favored. In this dynamic one encounters the dilemma of Charlie Brown to instantiate the general favor of love that God has for all, with one who expresses their divine favor in ways irks us, even into some bad behaviors.
Aphorism of the Day, August 18, 2017
Jesus said to the Canaanite woman, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” These words of Jesus present an ironic twist upon the situation of antipathy of the strained relationship between the Jews and the Gentiles. They seem rather harsh even as in the dialogue they are presented as the goad for the Canaanite woman to assert her desire for God's blessing. The punchline of the Gospel teaching is that Canaanites could have the kind of faith which indicated their favor with God. This story is an "origin story in the life of Jesus" for the Gentile Christianity which is written about in St. Paul's letter to the Roman church. The Gospels instantiate in stories of Jesus the Gospel results in the Gentile populace and the Gospel writers try to avoid "blatant" anachronism even while the readers already know the reality of what had happened in Gentile Christianity.
Aphorism of the Day, August 17, 2017
Can following a prescribed religious diet and religious rules of hygiene make one clean and holy inside? Not according to Jesus. Sometimes we misunderstand religious piety and rules of life; we practice piety and rules of life not to make us holy but rather because we have discovered the grace which enables us to live holy lives. The discovery of grace is to find the replacement possibility of our rather perverse "insides" with God's Holy Spirit as the origin of our piety and our living.
Aphorism of the Day, August 16, 2017
The New Testament books are essentially writings about how Gentile Christianity was born and transitioned out of Judaism. The origin of the Gentile mission is presented within stories of Jesus interacting with non-Jews who showed themselves to have faith and therefore worthy of the blessing of Christ. St. Paul wrote the "theological apology" for the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity. The Gospels take this theology and instantiate it through presentations of Jesus interacting with people other than ritually observant Jews.
Aphorism of the Day, August 15, 2017
The words of Jesus criticized those who had made "ritual compulsive handwashing" into something like a "cleanliness is next to godliness" absolute. Jesus, long before Freud said the unconscious is polymorphorously perverse" like the prophets and the psalmist of old knew that outward cleanliness was no guarantee of having a clean heart and right spirit. The reason that Jesus is associated with Baptism of the Holy Spirit because he knew that inward cleanliness had to do with an inside job. The water of Baptism is the outward sign of the grace of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as the only way to attain a clean heart, i.e., by letting the Holy Spirit be the Clean Heart within us. Wash your hands and practice good hygiene, by all means, when possible but don't make a religion or a fetish about how one does it.
Aphorism of the Day, August 14, 2017
The Canaanite woman to Jesus: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” The Prayer of Humble Access in the Rite One Eucharist: "We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table." The agenda of the New Testament writers was to show that all people are "unworthy" for fellowship with God. But realizing universal "unworthiness" really is the set up for "universal" mercy for all people and for the New Testament writers, this meant the inclusion of the Gentiles at the Lord's table in a communion which welcomes all. It is interesting to note that once we form Communions and denominations, we can openly or subtly treat people outside our group as "unworthy" thus compromising the largesse of an all merciful God.
Aphorism of the Day, August 13, 2017
"Act of God" has come to designate events of Nature which result in harm to people or property. Why should God get credit for the harmful events and not the good events? Or should not God be regarded as Creative Freedom for everything that happens? The main Act of God is Creative Freedom and this creative freedom is shared proportionately with the level of sentient existence of any entity. Humans as high on the sentient chain have greater volitional capacity and greater culpability than is known in the creatures and the material creation. God as Creative Freedom means that the buck does stop at God without minimizing the full proportional moral culpability of human freedom.
Aphorism of the Day, August 12, 2017
A way of characterizing Nature is to say that Nature is the freedom of anything to happen within the limits of freedom of any particular entity in interaction with everything else within the total environment. So Nature includes the possibility for boatmen at night on a lake to encounter a storm. The Gospels present Jesus as the spiritual possibility of being one who is present with us within all of the possible things that can occur in Nature. Faith is the ability to find the parallel spiritual presence of Christ within all of the conditions of freedom in Nature.
Aphorism of the Day, August 11, 2017
Acts of Nature in actuarial insurance parlance are sometimes referred to as "acts of God." So the "act of God" in the storm on the Galilean Sea resulted in the Son of God, counter acting such an Act with his whispering of Nature. Or the essence of Nature might be expressed as the freedom for what might happen. Faith is learning how to maintain hopeful future thinking in learning how to deal with everything that might happen (in Nature). The Gospels present Jesus as a storm Whisperer which means discovering the Nature of Christ within us in Nature within all natural happenings.
Aphorism of the Day, August 10, 2017
Consistency regarding miracles means that we do not usually think about the "prior" miracle which did not happen. What is the prior miracle? The miracle of not getting deathly sick before it happens. The miracle of not being on the lake when the tornado hit. The use of miracle in our vocabulary assumes that we are subject to the conditions of freedom and we don't focus upon all of the "prior miracles" of all of the good things that are happening to us because "normal" goodness does not stand out. Normal goodness does not stand out until it is challenged by an event of threat, evil, badness, natural disaster et al. If every situation of threat or evil got resolved through some miracle, miracle would disappear since miracle would be so normal as to be unnoticed. A miracle assumes that most situations of threat and evil do not get resolved to the benefit of the people involved and when the exception occurs it is proclaimed a miracle or an uncanny event where the logic of consequences gets thwarted. When one reads the Gospels, because of the time-lapsing of story and the actual paucity of events that are recounted, one can get the impression that it is to be normal for people of faith to expect the exceptional miracle to happen. Or, the miracle can be a story trope to proclaim that the miracle is knowing the presence of Christ in the midst of the free conditions of what might happen to anyone.
Aphorism of the Day, August 9, 2017
From the prophet Elijah, we could derive a "Pouting Prophet Syndrome." Elijah fled his dire situation and complained about being the only one left to stand for the true devotion to God. The all-seeing God informed him that his experience could not be generalized to all Israel because there were many others who remained devoted. We sometimes hold "triumphalist" desire to be those whose views have hegemonic status in our times and places. We can become "pouty prophets" when the effects of our ministry does not seem to be shared with enough people to be called "successful." The answer to the "Pouting Prophet Syndrome" is simply to continue to be faithful where we are.
Aphorism of the Day, August 8, 2017
The irony of the presentation of miracles is dealing with the obvious question of why the miracle was needed in the first place. Why did not God miraculously intervened without us knowing by not allowing the condition which needed the miracle in the first place? The miracle stories are about how Christ is present within the freedom of bad things happening, inconvenient things happening to confound our proposed "schedules" in life. Can we find Christ walking on the waves of the storms of life? Wouldn't we rather that Christ to have been known in shielding us from ever having to face the threat of a storm? We should not treat biblical writers as "literary" idiots, "one-trick" metaphor makers, who did not understand or appreciate a whole range of rhetorical devices used to persuade and teach what faith in God means. Interpreters who limit the Bible to a "plain reading or fundamental literalism" deny the inspired finesse of the biblical writers in their persuasive techniques. When Jesus ask for his listeners to have "ears" to hear, he was speaking about their lives being in the place to have interpretive acuity to pierce beyond the "plain" meaning.
Aphorism of the Day, August 7, 2017
From the Psalms: "He reached down from on high, he took me; he drew me out of mighty waters." This Psalm is reiterated in the walking on water story of the Gospels. Peter tried to walk on the water, doubted and sunk and Jesus lifted him up. The Gospel writers presented Jesus as instantiating the poetic heroic qualities of the Lord found in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Aphorism of the Day, August 6, 2017
In the Transfiguration Collect we ask that we might be changed into the likeness of the Transfigured Christ. In so doing we embrace Metamorphosis as the interpretation of the spiritual learning cycles of life. No phase is final; it too will pass but also return in a future and different setting. By faith, we accept metamorphosis as more profound than the specifics of the afflictions of in the "Dark Night of the Soul." Let us have the faith to know that there are always future phases of "butterfly" hatching to occur.
Aphorism of the Day, August 5, 2017
The Transfiguration of Jesus for the disciples was like the proverbial caterpillar who saw a butterfly and thought, "Some day I will be like you!" On the Mount of the Transfiguration, Jesus gave the disciples a pre-death and burial vision of resurrection life. Resurrection life is the Metamorphosis Process which is greater than any manifestation of life in any specific phase.
Aphorism of the Day, August 4, 2017
Cosmetic enhancement? As Jesus prayed, his face changed..... Can prayer alter our appearance? Indeed prayer can effect an entire cosmetic makeover and prove that the activation of one's inner charisma is what creates the actual beauty of our lives.
Aphorism of the Day, August 3, 2017
Moses and Elijah, representing the formative period of Israel under the law and the prophetic era, were in the vision of the Transfiguration. Their appearance functioned to show readers the continuity of Christ with their mission. Who was absent? Why wasn't King David on the Mount of Transfiguration? Wasn't he the proto-type for the messiah? It could be that the heavenly voice declaring, "You are my Son the Beloved," is an echo of the messianic Psalm, "You are my son, today I have begotten you."
Aphorism of the Day, August 2, 2017
In the event of the Transfiguration, elevation, clouds and light are the metaphorical settings for the visionary Epiphany of Jesus Christ. The spiritual journey is a journey upward to superlative values, through the clouds of unknowing as the spiritual eyes adjust to mystery in preparation for new events of light or seeing.
Aphorism of the Day, August 1, 2017
The Transfiguration event could be called an Epiphany and a Theophany. A "revealing" event and a "showing of God" event. What is revealed and shown in the event of the Transfiguration? Jesus Christ as the superlatively valued Person to be the prime exemplar to inform humanity about the direction of moral and spiritual advance.
No comments:
Post a Comment