Aphorism of the Day, August 31, 2020
The Gospel of Matthew channels the Risen Christ giving advice about church disputes with the affirmation of a corporate presence of Christ even when Jesus is physically absent. Such is the "democratic" presence of Christ where members vote on actions and disciple. Remember that the presence of Christ in each person does not guarantee that all member will agree on everything. The presence of Christ in the gathering is an affirmation of conciliar and democratic practice and democratic practice tolerates loyal minorities.
Aphorism of the Day, August 30, 2020
One of the difficulty for American Christians to claim authentic identity with New Testament Christian, is due to the fact that we have lived in the aftermath of Empire Christianity. Jesus and the Jesus Movement were on the losing side in terms of earthly power and privilege. American Christianity has had a hard time of identifying with the various "losers" of power and privilege in the realm of Empire Christianity. We need a good dose of liberation theology: A discourse and practice on behalf of the poor and marginalized.
Aphorism of the Day, August 29, 2020
Peter was not so sure that he wanted a suffering servant Messiah. Most of the churches who were "beneficiaries" of the favored status of being the "Empire" religion prefer a Caesar Messiah who gives us "the majority" religious group special favors. We have forgotten that the Jesus Movement derived from the suffering servant. It makes the crucible which generated liberation theology even more authentic in being connected with our Suffering Servant Messiah.
Aphorism of the Day, August 28, 2020
The confession of Peter, followed by Jesus' explanation about being a suffering servant, followed by Peter's correction of the Messiah about the meaning of the Messiah, followed by the rebuke of Jesus about Peter being on the side of Satan, IS a continuing dynamic within the history of the church. Some desire a Caesar Messiah, a Christendom where the church is wedded to the wealth and power of a society. Not many really want a suffering servant Messiah of public suffering and having to settle for interior triumph of Holy Spirit enduring power to suffering and relieve the sufferings of others whenever one can.
Aphorism of the Day, August 27, 2020
Son of Man? Used a lot in the words of Jesus in the Gospel. The title has only slight precedent in "canonical" texts, namely, the Book of Daniel. The more expansive precedent is in the non-canonical book of Enoch. How can the title have such significance and not derive from a "canonical" book? It certainly means one must consider the "apocalyptic" context which defines the crucible of Jesus and the forming Jesus Movement.
Aphorism of the Day, August 26, 2020
Losing one's life to save it was the method of Christian education also known as repentance, metanoia, the "after mind, the new mind," or as St. Paul called it the renewal of one's mind. So one dies to one's former "soul-life" or pseuche in order to take on an new state of "soul-life" in the renewal outcome. This is spiritual process of transformation that has common meaning in the words of Jesus about taking of one's cross and in the words of Paul about being "crucified and risen" with Christ.
Aphorism of the Day, August 25, 2020
One might assume that "take up one's cross" became a short hand phrase for the attending metaphors of identity with the death of Christ as a spiritual method of checking one's ego at the door and allowing God's Spirit to over come evil with good.
Aphorism of the Day, August 24, 2020
A disciple like Peter allowed himself to be presented or was presented as one who had been inspired to confess Jesus as the Messiah, but then was immediately rebuked as a voice of Satan when he would not let a suffering Jesus be the Messiah that he envisioned. One has to appreciate the division over how the life of the Messiah would be instantiated to understand the breakdown of the Jesus Movement and the synagogue. Matthew's Gospel presents the dialogue of Jesus and Peter to exemplify this roots of this division. Even Peter, himself who confessed Jesus as the Messiah, did not understand how he would be the Messiah, viz., the route of the Suffering Servant.
Aphorism of the Day, August 23, 2020
Having Word, we come into understanding of the vast order of differences and some word discourses cannot tolerate contradictions due to difference, even while Word is the condition of tolerating everything that can come to language.
Aphorism of the Day, August 22, 2020
It is important to understand that the Gospels are translations of oral traditions to people who are separated in time, culture, and language from the Jesus situation. How does one communicate a "Jesus sayings" into a situation outside of Jerusalem in a time when the Jesus Movement had spread and grown and the writing of Gospel was proof of the institutional success that saw the Jesus Movement morph into the "church," ekklesia, meaning called out of or in secular use referred to a geographical ward? Such a concept is somewhat seen in the notion of a parish as the identity of a gathered people in a certain geographical location. The time of Jesus had no ekklesia but the time of writer of the Gospel of Matthew had a developing institution that was being called, ekklesia, church. When Jesus says to Peter, "I will build my church," one can see the obvious anachronism that occurs in the translation. Why? The Matthean audience understood "church," and they had become separated from the synagogue so Jesus could not be translated to have said, "I will build my synagogue," because that would have been tinged with counter meanings for the readers.
Aphorism of the Day, August 21, 2020
Why could St. Paul glory in the death of Christ? Because he experienced in the wake of the death and resurrection of Jesus a seeming inadvertent intervention in his life. The wake of life events of Jesus had a transhistorical energy of conversion and transformation and Paul incorporated the metaphors of the death and resurrection of Jesus tinged with energy into a spiritual program of transformation. This mystical program was reified in the narrative presentations of the life of Jesus in the communities which generated Matthew, Mark, Luyke and John, because the churches had so progressed in institutionalization process that their mystical catechesis was "hidden" in the Christ narratives as each "initiate" projected oneself upon the Gospel "disciples" in training, as the Risen Christ, through the Holy Spirit made groove in the soul-life of each initiate.
Aphorism of the Day, August 20, 2020
One sees in the Gospel the writers using existing language to present Jesus. Son of Man was a figure presented in apocalyptic literature, both canonical and extra-canonical writings. The Messiah was a figure who was selected by God and "anointed" for a specific mission, about which parties disagreed. Some thought the Messiah would be kingly, military figure to intervene on behalf of the people who were looking for a Messiah. Others thought that the Messiah, was anointed for special suffering, even death, from which he would triumph. And Son of God was another title for Jesus, as found in a royal Psalm, "The Lord said to my Lord, you are my son, today I have begotten you." We should not absolutize Christological titles; we should understand that language available for people under the spell of Jesus and the Risen Chris, was the obvious poetic way of people of time to speak of his excellent greatness.
Aphorism of the Day, August 19, 2020
The most "catholic" thing about humanity, about which no one can disagree, is that humanity has word and word has humanity. Word is the "arche" or first principle of humanity. Everything presumes Word, if it can be known or come to conscious. Word is infinitely reflexive and circular, in that everything in the Worded universe is but the reciprocal interaction of word products, also know as signifiers. Theologian often have devised cataphatic and apophatic theologies and forgotten that they are using words to do so. Eastern monks can pretend to leave the worded universe in some profound silence all the while their very posture is thoroughly coded by having language. Word is the big elephant in the room, always reminding us that we cannot forget the profound constitution of all life by Word, by language.
Aphorism of the Day, August 18, 2020
The traditional Anglican appeal to the sources of authority, Scripture, Tradition and Reason, are really only arbitrary cuts in the pie of Word or Language, in that they are all unified by being Language Products or Outcomes. To deny that the word of Scriptures did not occur within the traditions of receiving agents who rendered them in text would be silly. And to deny that Reason as language interpretation involved always and everywhere would be silly. When Jesus is quoted as saying, "On this rock, I will build my church," one can appreciate the anachronistic oracular Risen Christ channeled by the preacher in the Matthean community interpreting a Christ-designated line of apostolic authority in the becoming institutionalized Jesus Movement to center upon Peter and his witness. And much later the Risen Christ would be channeled through the "Selectors" of what would be regarded as "Scripture" for the churches. So one cannot divide Scripture, Tradition or Reason except for teaching specificity. Teaching specificity pretends to remove an element of synchronicity when in fact synchronicity cannot be violated. If I try to remove Scripture as independent of Tradition or Reason, the removal for study sake still remains a function of reason in synchronicity with the other two.
Aphorism of the Day, August 17, 2020
Peter was shown to confess Jesus as the Messiah and then rebuked by the Messiah for not understanding what he actually confessed. Life involves confessing lots of things that we don't fully understand, like confessing a belief in the "internet" and "atoms" yet lack precise and adequate knowledge about either. Not understanding is the condition of the student or the disciple and it really is the perpetual state of anyone who wants to continually learn. We confess that in America everyone "should have equal justice" even as we understand that not everyone does yet.
Aphorism of the Day, August 16, 2020
How could the Temple in Jerusalem be a House of Prayer for all people? Only if it is a metaphor for everyone person being a living and moving temple dwelling place for the image of God on a person rising to be apparent divine presence.
Aphorism of the Day, August 15, 2020
Exceptionalism can be standing out uniquely in excellence in comparison with others. Too many people want to be exceptional people of faith in comparison with other people when exceptional faith should be done in a harmonious faith choir where everyone is exceptional in harmony and each has opportunity for solos only to step back into the choir. Being exceptional is the balance between solo and harmony, and we are called to both. One should not over-value one's solo, since it exists to complement the harmony.
Aphorism of the Day, August 14, 2020
Holy books which are available to certain people can make them feel very chosen and exclusive and be used mainly to build an identity of separation of "us" from the "them." And if one knows dogs to be the angry wild scavengers who come into the city by night, then the title "dog" can come to be a designation for the foreign "them." The problem with the belief in exceptionalism, is that it can create the practice that many other people are thereby "unexceptional." Exceptionalism and "chosenness" can really be used as a "divine right of arrogant" pride. When we want to claim exceptionalism, let it be in the actual practice of justice, mercy and the offering of God's salvation to everyone. Patriotism and nationalism can sometimes become the practice of the worst kind of exceptionalism which it does not manifest the practice of letting everyone know that they are exceptional too.
Aphorism of the Day, August 13, 2020
Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, "Salvation is from the Jews....." The Jesus Movement theologian Paul wrote, "in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek...." The Canaanite woman said, "even the dogs(the outsider) eat crumbs from the master's table." The crumb she wanted was health for her daughter and she was willing to cross dividing boundaries to seek it. And Jesus said it was her faith that made it happen. Faith is something that everyone who is made in the image of God can have and one must exercise it within the context of one's life where one is even if it means crossing artificial boundaries created by the habits of people not getting along with each other.
Aphorism of the Day, August 12, 2020
Psalm 22: "Dogs are all around me, a company of evil doers encircle me." Wild scavenger dogs helped to form the negative metaphorical use of "dog." That a dog could even get close to the master's table for a crumb would indicate a semi-domesticated tolerated status for a dog. The Canaanite woman who was willing to embrace "dog/outsider" status for but the "crumb" from Master Jesus' table was a faith marker. She implied the greatness of Jesus was so great, that a mere crumb from his table could heal her daughter. And as Jesus often said, "faith makes you well." The Jesus Movement was about Gentiles receiving the crumbs from the table of those who had been given the law as a sort of prelude to be invited as full members of the feast with a seat at the table. The history of the arc of justice has been the conversion of societies to remove the "dog/outsider" status from people and make them to be received as equal faith partners at the table of the faithful.
Aphorism of the Day, August 11, 2020
"It's not fair to take food from the children's table and throw it to the dogs." In this wisdom dialogue of Jesus, the Canaanite woman was willing to take upon herself the dog identity as the outsider when she replies, "even dogs eat crumbs from the table." This kind of understanding resides within Pauline thinking of the main calling was to Israel and in the failure of their stewardship with this calling, the crumbs fell from the table for the Canaanites and other Gentiles. This is indicative of how "Judaeo-centric" God is regarded in the New Testament. The New Testament writers were trying to understand and explain the genealogy of the grafting of the Gentiles into the accessibility to God.
"It's not fair to take food from the children's table and throw it to the dogs." Such a phrase is an invitation to a canine social theology. We have used human language to deprecate both humans and animals. When a certain animal like a dog was "ritually" impure and unclean because of its familiar role as a wild scavengers, then to use this "wild scavenger" metaphor to designate unfavorable people in human eyes and God's eyes, creates a canine social theology. One feels compelled to rehabilitate a presentation of any persons as being "sub-human" as well as presenting a dog as somehow only being defined according to how a dog interacts with human society. Because we use words, we use words in anthropocentric ways, human-centered ways; that is our prison. One might note the higher regard animals attain in Hindu views where the creatures of "sentient" existence have the dignity of not being designated as unclean, but also the life dignity of being "uneaten" by humans.
Aphorism of the Day, August 9, 2020
How can things like "walking on water" be literally true? When they come to language from persons of undifferentiated consciousness where inner dreamscape co-mingles with conscious life and creates the language of what seems to have occurred. And it did occur in a certain way. Modern science has riven the inner and outer consciousness and colonized both, segregating discourse as appropriate to each but not mixed except in the artistic presentation which involves attempts to evoke the sublime, because to initiate an experience of the sublime is seen to be another order of truth which can exist alongside of scientific truths. If we read the Bible from the position of riven consciousness of scientific discourse, and force biblical discourse to follow the truth standards of science, then we will mock the Bible. What many biblical skeptics are doing is mocking the wrong presentations of the Bible by many fundamentalists interpreters who are "blessed" to have sublime experiences which inspire them to behave better except in their interpretative thinking. They end up painting the sublime with the wrong paint of presentation. And so their sublime is mocked as being "crazy." What it is, is a language disorder.
Aphorism of the Day, August 8, 2020
"You of little faith, why did you doubt?" Faith is about being persuaded about someone after adequate experiences of never been failed by the one who asks you to have faith. The Risen Christ can seem to be a "ghost" and the logic of what is happening in the moment may make one doubt the ability of such a "ghost" to be evidence for having faith, believing, or being persuaded about. Certainly we may doubt that the chief values of love and justice will always be prevailing in time, even while we must continue to believe that those values co-exist with their non-success in certain moments of time. Just as we can learn to believe in another kind of safety, ultimate safety, aka Salvation safety, even when we may seem to be in direct harm's way. Why, because Salvation is Ultimate Normalcy.
Aphorism of the Day, August 7, 2020
What is walking on water about? It is about knowing that nature and its competitive manifestation with human duration of life, must also surrender to the passing of time. Time and freedom mean that good and evil are defined relative to the specific contextual effects and in saying of the same it proves that Word comprehends and outlives all which occurs within the field of freedom. So, accept one's constitution by Word as being hitched to what will survive as long as there are language users, on the field of the Big Language User.
Aphorism of the Day, August 6, 2020
In the Christology of John's Gospel, Jesus says that before Abraham, "I am," which means that he is taking identity with the ancient tetragrammaton, the unpronounceable holy name of God. This is consistent with the poetry of Christ being Word as God from the beginning, whose word is "Spirit," and so such words can move over the face of the deep and calm a chaotic storm on a big lake and who can make every appearance seem to the observer as actual physical encounter. If CHRIST-WORD-GOD is, then everything that can come to language is "possible" and in unique time-based situations can be made to seem and thus be reported as "actual." This discourse of seeming, actualized poetry is a different kind of discourse than what scientists use for empirical observation, reporting and codification of theories and laws. What is actual for scientists is different that what is actual in the poetry of faith. Let's not confuse the two.
Aphorism of the Day, August 5, 2020
Having faith involves not generalizing the current crisis in one's life as being definitive of everything else in one's life or in the lives of other people in the world. A storm on the lake of life co-exists with the knowledge that that storm isn't happening everywhere and isn't continuous in one's life. Faith in Christ involves living with hope in time as the way to endure duration.
Aphorism of the Day, August 4, 2020
What happens when mystical entertainment of holy books, which comprise faith communities becomes discounted by persons of science who still believe in mystery by virtue of not being able to know everything and who project their fantasy aspect of personality on cinematic productions? Religious people have felt forced by scientists into defending all biblical stuff as scientifically true and scientific people are excommunicated from faith communities to honor mystery in the Negligible, which they can't quantify, and further know the sublime in the discourses of the aesthetic which discursively are removed as qualifying as authentic faith experiences by the practitioners of orthodoxies.
Aphorism of the Day, August 3, 2020
When one considers miracles and the conditions of freedom, one always prefer the "prior" miracle. What is the prior miracle? The prior miracle would be always being exempt from anything bad happening to us. Which is preferably, getting healed from sickness or never having been sick in the first place? Unless one is willing to say that one does not have faith unless one can prevail on God to always have miraculous outcomes, one should not meddle with the actuarial probability which governs what may happen within the occasion of human experience. To have a hero who can guarantee miraculous outcomes is the teaching of an illogical aspect in order to promote the utopian direction of faith in affirming the normalcy of goodness and health. The rhetoric of the miracle has moved into the imagination of literature and the cinema in our modern era. We don't decry it there and neither should we decry it in the art of biblical literature. It functions quite nicely.
Aphorism of the Day, August 2, 2020
In the story of Israel, Jacob is the last Patriarch. He becomes the corporate person when his name is changed to Israel. How did he become a corporate person? With his spouses, he had children (grandchildren of Joseph) who became the titular heads of the tribes of Israel. The name changing event becomes the story of the sociological origin of a federation of people. As any nation looks to history to cite events of origin in attaining identity, Jacob as the wrestler with the angel getting his name changed to Israel is the divine legitimization of receiving a "name" from God for the identity of one's federation of tribes. Telling the story of national "name" origin was part of the "patriotic" inculcation of federation identity. The mysticism of group identity, "esprit de corps" occurs with the ideology of origin stories.
Aphorism of the Day, August 1, 2020
One might say that "permissive" evangelism accounts for the separation of the Jesus Movement from the synagogue. What is one willing to sacrifice in practices of piety to invite outsiders into one's faith community? What manifestations in the lives of outsiders would count as "valid" experiences of faith? Paul and Peter were willing to drop the requirements of ritual purity as crucial to faith identity and see the presence of "Spirit manifestation" in the lives of Gentiles as valid faith deserving the fellowship of the communities of the Jesus Movements. Proselyte baptism and embracing ritual purity was the standard way of incorporating non-Jews into the synagogue communities. Members of the synagogue believed that dropping the ritual purity requirement would dispense with being "separate" from the world. Ironically, the words of preacher Jesus relayed in the Gospel were to "be in the world and not of the world." The marker for not being of the world changed in the Jesus Movement for their Gentile membership; they could be uncircumcised and not keep the dietary rules of Judaism and still not be regarded to be "of the world."
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