Aphorism of the June 30, 2018
The religious classification of sin, sickness and death in the time of Jesus, left too many people isolated from access to a sense of health and salvation in light of the reality of sin, sickness and death. Jesus instituted new meanings about sin, sickness and death, thereby integrating them into a new program of salvation or PROFOUND HEALTH that one could anchor faith on and so let health rather than illness, salvation rather than sin define the normalcy of one's life.
Aphorism of the June 29, 2018
Sin is the state of not fully keeping the laws and so represent a sickness of human behaviors and so in part is a sickness of the volitional organ. Sickness is experience of mental and body disease and distress defined by one's society and one's own sense of what one believes pain to be. Death is at least viewed as personal bodily finality in the current life. Sin, sickness and death have come to languages of meaning in all cultures and all people with language use have tried to find ways to integrate the three into a coherence which allows for the maintenance of life, given the reality of sin, sickness and death.
Aphorism of the Day, June 28, 2018
Sin, sickness and death have come to prominently define human experience. The witness of the life of Jesus is not so much to deny the three but to redefine the relative significance of the three based upon the promotion of an indeterminate Future whereby everything gets eschatologically verified as a script by a Writer who with dynamic futurism writes that everything had to happen in the way that it did, not to cause it to have been so in the past, but to assert the power and creativity of the Future. What will the Future make of our Today? And who is doing the Future rewrite of the meaning of everything and who will be around to access the meanings of everything?
Aphorism of the Day, June 27, 2018
There is a utopian assumption that hangs over the Hebrews Scriptures that change as expressed in the passage of time could be expressed without any negative occasions in human experience of time. Aging, sickness, death and the misbehaviors called sin all seem to dominate a system in flux with competing and conflicting encounters between all entities in flux. There is a dream that wishes for the perfect timing of everything altogether, but it is the human dilemma to be perpetually caught in the mistimings of life. Salvation history in written forms of the writers does not so much solve the dilemma as to dance with it.
It seems as the Hebrew Scriptures are writings which arose to deal with the negative events of change, namely, sin, death and sickness. In the classification system of clean and unclean, these three were labeled as "unclean" and "unintended" by a "holy=most clean" God. Apparently the intention of God was to train the naïve Adam and Eve away from their innocence so that they could partake of the Tree of Life in the middle of the Garden. The implication of this utopian idealism is that one could go from innocence to holiness and eternal life without the detour of sin which meant knowing good and evil in the wrong way.
Aphorism of the Day, June 25, 2018
A specific biblical trope for retroactively proclaiming Providence of the past is the wonderful, miraculous and marvelous birth stories. In the aftermath of the fame of the hero, it was a common rhetoric to show how the greatness must have been present from the very beginning of the life of the hero; hence the wonderful birth stories.
Aphorism of the Day, June 24, 2018
The great law and all laws if they are good are based upon wisdom insights gained from probability of occurrences of certain events. Laws and the practice of lawful behaviors confront the reality of the freedom of what might happen to anyone. Faith is the ability to live with actuarial wisdom knowing fully that probable occurrence does not guarantee actual occurrences. Faith is the ability to live with actual occurrences. Perhaps the secret of having faith is that it can be fully informed by the powerful phenomenon of Hope, the sense of having a future, even when my future apparently ends at my death. Hope provides the apparent impulse that one does not cease to be or to have been at one's death.
Aphorism of the Day, June 23, 2018
"Are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" The transformation of the energy of fear to the energy of faith is a major task of life.
Aphorism of the Day, June 22, 2018
The Book of Job is a wisdom story written against those who pretended to know the precise cause and effect relationship about why things happen to people in life. Lots of people promote their formula for blessing, even sell or preach their prosperity "Gospel." It you do this, then God will bless you in this specific way $$$$. If things are going wrong, then you didn't do this in the right way. There is nothing wrong with wisdom formulas based upon good actuarial wisdom in acting and planning according to probability theory, but the Plenitude includes a infinite number of things in causal relationships (because all things exist in relationship) with an infinite number of things so no one can presume to have a "final" and perfect formula for good or bad things happening to this or that person. Bad things happen to faithful people: see Job, Jesus and Paul. Good people learn to live with faith when things appear to go well or appear to go badly, because they believe in a Plenitude of a future eschatological verification for having faith in good times and bad times.
Aphorism of the Day, June 21, 2018
The "Jesus sleeping in the boat" periscope is teaching story for disciples of Jesus. The disciples wanted the best positions in the kingdom of heaven and they apparently thought that having Jesus as their friend meant they were suddenly exempt from the normal clashes of nature's systems and human program; they thought they should not be exempt from a wind storm on the lake even when as fishermen they probably had never expected that exemption. In the story Jesus rises to calm the sea and make a point about faith being the condition of being persuaded by God on the entire continuum of human experience from birth even to beyond the grave. If you think that there is a chance you might perish in the storm, then alas, you will be forced to play that winning card, the resurrection. In meantime, always already, be faithful, persuaded that the Plenitude already includes everything that you can experience.
Aphorism of the Day, June 20, 2018
The preachers of prosperity who believe that wealth and having planes is verification that God has blessed them might consider what St. Paul endured: "afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger;...." Apparently Jesus was "sleeping in the boat" of his life storms without being a snap-snap personal interventionists on his behalf whenever he wanted it. There is a symbiotic relationship between the wealthy whom Jesus said could not easily inherit the kingdom of God and the preachers who fleece them and also the not so wealthy poor who want to be wealthy to prove that God loves and blesses them. The preachers say wealth is God's blessing and the wealthy say, "Amen, my wealth is justified and I must feed the ideological voice of the one who confers God's blessing on my wealth." Having faith in the midst of having no privileged exemptions from the weal or woe that can come to anyone means living like Paul did when he said essentially that he had learned to be content in any circumstances. The lifestyles of Jesus, Paul and St. Francis represent a different counter-prosperity to the "Fly High Church" preachers who want millions to fly high in their expensive planes.
Aphorism of the Day, June 19, 2018
One needs to be careful not to confuse the discourse of the miraculous with the discourse of science when reading the Scriptures. The miracles or signs are discursive ways of dealing with the conditions of freedom. If one relies upon an interventionist mentality about "miracles" one usually forgets about the antecedent miracle that everyone wants in first place, namely, don't let anything bad happen to me in the first place. Don't let anything bad happen to me is /would be the miracle to end all miracles. Freedom does not work that way and so we must learn how to have faith, that is, live with hope in the midst of accepting that outcomes are "open."
Aphorism of the Day, June 18, 2018
The pericope of Jesus walking on the water and calming the storm provides some insights. Why doesn't our "favor" with God mean that we are exempt from the threat and danger of wind storms, floods, hurricanes, volcanoes, fires and all manner of ill-timed encounter with the harmful effects of nature when we are in the wrong place at the wrong time? It seems as though faith means learning to live with the conditions of freedom in our world rather can being granted special exemption. The walking on the water by Jesus symbolizes the "surfing" on the conditions of freedom and "staying" on our boards until we arrive ashore.
Aphorism of the Day, June 17, 2018
For Jesus and for Paul, the kingdom which was most visible to the eyes was the Roman Empire. What inner constitution did they need in order to see God's kingdom as the telling order of life while the Caesar pranced on the public stage of the visible? Paul called it faith; Jesus told Nicodemus that he could not see beyond the obvious if he did not have another birth into another realm as its citizen.
Aphorism of the Day, June 16, 2018
St. Paul's notion of faith was an understanding of having an inner constitution of persuasion such that one did not see things in a "human" way any longer. Faith was the quality of having an "infused" sight that was perceptive beyond the sense of mere physical sight. Such a view is instantiated in the Jesus discourse with Nicodemus as being born of the Spirit and being born again or from above and having such a "new birth" experience one understood the inner significance of things. The parables of Jesus are presented as koan-like stories which trick the quotidian habits of seeing and require a seeing that is imbued with the eyes of another kind of wisdom.
Aphorism of the Day, June 15, 2018
St. Paul, "We walk by faith and not by sight." What does that mean? We pretend we are blind and like the proverbial "blind ninjas" we negotiate our existence? The New Testament word for faith is "pistos" and this word is also used for belief. I think that resorting to the more classical Greek usage of the word "pistos" adds fullness to the words faith and belief. These words have almost become "boiler plate" words and in redundancy of use have lost their signifying power. In classical Greek rhetoric, the goal was "pistos" or persuasion. Belief or faith essentially are the actions and attitudes of life which manifest what one is persuaded about. St. Paul states a truth; we are persuaded about and act upon things that we don't see. We can be persuaded and act by "love" which we cannot see and yet know that it is a true and worthy motivation in our lives. Everyone, always, already walks by the unseen production of our lives through the hidden words inside of us which both create for us what we are seeing and define and articulate our behaviors within what we think we are seeing. The articulation of our worded products in seeing, acting, speaking, and writing express our faith or that about which we are persuaded. We cannot help but live lives which manifest signs of what we are persuaded about.
Aphorism of the Day, June 14, 2018
The Gospels may have been initially private to their communities and not generally available. They were written with "cryptic" messages which initiates could understand when instructed in "private." The presentation of the parables instantiate the "privacy" of understanding the kingdom or realm of God. Caesar pranced on the public stage of his kingdom; the realm of God had to be perceived in a completely different way in the midst of such an ostentatious public show of "being king." How could the realm of kingdom of God be presented "underground" as the mystagogy of these growing private gatherings of Christian mystics?
Aphorism of the Day, June 13, 2018
Paul wrote, "We once knew Christ from a human point of view..." From his conversion he believed that he came to know Christ from a spiritual or divine point of view. Paul did not cease to be human after his conversion; he believed that he had an "enhanced" insight regarding the meaning of Christ. And Christ became for Paul quite an expansive metaphor. He could be "in Christ," and he could be crucified with Christ and he could lose sight of whether he acted from his own ego state or whether Christ lived within him. He could write that Christ is all and in all. What is all and in all? Word. For Paul, the historical Jesus had returned to be the eternal Word which was from the beginning, was God and is what created/creates/ is creating/ will be creating everything as human can known things to be.
Aphorism of the Day, June 12, 2018
Jesus said the realm of God was just like grain that grows. The realm of God is inclusive of the entire cycle of life. We may prefer perpetual harvest but every cycle is equally necessary and so one should exercise faith to perceive the divine within the particular phase that one is in.
Aphorism of the Day, June 11, 2018
Mustard seed faith is perhaps a metaphor for the unnoticed prominence of the background. All of the attention is given to the "foreground" even while unnoticed background redundant and repetitive acts of faith and kindness keep the foreground from collapsing in its own "narcissism" of self important. The foreground says, "I am important because everyone is recognizing me," whilst standing on the scaffold of the unnoticed foundation for the braggart even to speak.
Aphorism of the Day, June 10, 2018
In the effort to change the narrative words of Jesus into "official" doctrine and practice the church derived to classify certain sins as "eternal" or unforgivable. Jesus did say if one called one's brother a fool, one could be guilty of the fires of Hell (Gehenna=garbage dump in the Valley of Hinnom). Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit was another unforgivable sin. When has the church chosen to be canonical and juridical about words of pronouncements of Jesus and brought them to doctrine and when have they let the words of Jesus remain as hyperbolic and figurative? The church has never had the "official" doctrine or canon law to pluck out eyes and cut off hands for people who used them in "offending" ways. Interpreters of the Bible have often been inconsistent in how they have brought the words of Jesus to actual pragmatic practices within the church. Snake handling is not at universal practice in churches, but some find biblical basis for its practice. Making everything in the Bible universally applicable for everyone all of the time is surely a very fallible way of interpreting and regarding the Bible.
Aphorism of the Day, June 9, 2018
The term "unforgivable" is often used to designate an act which is truly offensive and repugnant. Jesus used it to designate the calling of his exorcisms as being in league with the devil. The Gospel present the opponents of Jesus as saying that he was mad, a drunkard, and that he had made a pact with the devil. His opponents demonized his healing act of exorcism. Jesus stood up for his deep personal motive, namely, the Holy Spirit as being the One who would cast out impure spirits and create a clean heart. He said it was unforgivable to call a good act, evil. When discernment is so distorted by the need to bring down an opponent, one truly commits unforgivable acts. Finding grace in life is about learning how to discern good as good and evil as evil and knowing that one needs the Higher Power of the Holy Spirit to keep one in the "state of forgiveness."
Aphorism of the Day, June 8, 2018
In one of the option from the Hebrew Scriptures for proper 5 of Year B in the lectionary cycle, the event of the "Fall" is coupled with the "unforgivable" sin against the Holy Spirit in the Gospel. So in one reading, Eve said to God, "the serpent/devil" made me do it. The religious leader said about the exorcisms of Jesus: "the devil made you do it." A title of a Rolling Stones song is "No Sympathy for the Devil." The powerful impairment of good in a free system has the devil as a higher power to impel and trick the "lower" agents, men and women. The ultimate impairment of good is when these lower agents of freedom confront the human embodiment of Good Freedom, Jesus, and they designate his act of creating a clean heart in someone by dispelling the inner agents of chaos, as powered by the evil one. Jesus, standing up for the Holy Spirit, who is Personified Pure Heart and who makes hearts pure, says it is unforgivable to call the Pure Holy Spirit, impure.
Aphorism of the Day, June 7, 2018
The story of the Fall provides an explanation for the human tendency to be in the state of selfishness, known as sin. Can selfish beings do nothing other than selfish acts? How can God love selfish beings, doing selfish acts? Can selfishness be converted to the "sense of oneself living in love with others?" The biblical key is to love that Worthy One first as the prelude to exploring the lovability of one's neighbors. If we begin with the demand that others be "worthy" of our love, we will end in disappointment because of their eventual failure to be "omni-competent" to our needs.
Aphorism of the Day, June 6, 2018
There is a confusing grammar found in the Bible and in our common speech about sin and forgiveness. We sometimes leave the direct object out of a sentence and it can seems as though the indirect object "stands in or takes the place of the direct object." God forgives sins seems to be an abbreviation of God forgives the sins of Phil. The sins of Phil actually are unforgivable; why should such imperfection and their outcomes ever be forgiven. But God does forgive the sinner. This entire grammatical dilemma is a word study in the dilemma between "becoming" as the prior reality before "being" is abstracted from the states of becoming.
Aphorism of the Day, June 5, 2018
Did one member of the Trinity ever stand up for the reputation of another member of the Trinity? When Jesus was accused of casting out demons by Beelzebul, the Lord of demons, he defended the Holy Spirit by saying such an accusation was an unforgivable sin. How could one designate such an event of personal deliverance as being performed by an "anti-Holy Spirit?" How could one call "good, evil?" People in opposing political and religious paradigms are often so "mean" to each other they often call another's good, evil because they cannot rise to a more encompassing common good.
Aphorism of the Day, June 4, 2018
In the classification of sins, from the words of Jesus, the sin against the Holy Spirit is the unforgivable sins. In the context, it would seem that such a sin involves the attribution of a work of the Spirit to the work of the devil and would indicate the condition of such distorted sense of discernment so as to call "white, black." Does unforgivable mean "eternally unforgiven?" Or would it imply that any sin is unforgiven until one is in the discerning state of mind to acknowledge one's fault and "ask" for forgiveness? That one might seem to be in the habit of perpetual sin would not foreclose the possibility of higher power interdiction of one idolatrous habit.
Aphorism of the Day, June 3, 2018
One can understand the apocalyptic fervor in the first century for Jews and Christians and any who suffered because of Roman domination. Roman domination was such an imposing reality that the end of it could only be conceived of with an impacting intervention of the divine. Irony of ironies; the apocalypse did not happen but what did happen was the apocalypse (the unveiling) of the persuasive love of Christ which eventually "took over" the Roman Empire.
Aphorism of the Day, June 2, 2018
The purpose of the Law or laws is to teach body language "correct" behaviors for the varying situations in life pertaining to the people and the Great Person with whom one must live. The purpose of the Law is not to focus upon the "dead letters of crass literalism" in legalism but to understand the living Spirit of the Law in the training to know and sense the appropriate thing to do and say in each context of one's life as behaviors are governed by love and justice.
Aphorism of the Day, June 1, 2018
The most general a law is stated without contextual details, the less likely it can be deconstructed by future contexts. For example, Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. This general law is hard to falsify within a context because it asks that love be the motive and the effort of one's life at all times. Some laws have too many contextual details which means they can promote ambiguity in their interpretive application. For example, Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy by performing no labor. Obviously, Christians do not observe a Jewish Sabbath and the labors of Sabbath are in question, like can one heal on the Sabbath or rescue one's farm animal in distress? A house rule might be for a child to clean one's room every Saturday morning but such could be overturned in case of fire, flood, emergency or absence from the residence. Legalists try to make detailed contextual rules universal general rules and they usually do it merely for the assertion of their own authority.
