Atonement/Christianity/Peace/Religion

Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World

Posted on by stephen t berg / 1 Comment

I think it’s true that an understanding of God’s complete gratuity, complete non-involvement in violence is only understood in and through some kind of existential moment, or experience.

This doesn’t need to be anything over the top. It could be as simple as a sister-in-law remarking one day, “I don’t know if I can any longer believe in a God who would sacrifice his son.” It could be as simple as a friend asking, “How is it possible to be saved by God’s putting Jesus to death? Was that the only option?” Or as simple albeit intriguing as following a thought about desire through a couple writers and finally picking up a book by James Alison, called Faith Beyond Resentment.

These experiences, along with a couple similar ones, have marked my memory because they are so, well, unremarkable. And yet these occasions have shifted my thinking and have taken me on an exploratory journey that continually confirms itself.

All this obviously lacks any sort of theological sophistication. Admittedly, my coming to this understanding, which has now driven itself deep into me, was hardly “rational” or academic. It was existential, meaning: having been presented with something like a new suit, it was tried on, and found to fit. It was time to throw out the old wardrobe.

Of course, in this, I can be accused of taking refuge from cross-examination. It’s hard to argue against an experience turned embedded belief.

At the same time, “embedded” belief doesn’t last without at least occasional verification. In the face of centuries of sacrificial understanding, I’m quite sure my non-sacrificial perception would buckle under the weight.

But, amazingly, wonderfully, the ring of truth concerning God’s non-involvement in any kind of sacrifice or scapegoating violence grows louder. The idea, still embryonic, is gaining literary and theological backing. Rene Girard and theologians like James Alison who follow Girard’s thought are certainly responsible for this growth. But the idea is not Girard’s, it is the Bible’s, as Girard expertly documents.

For an experience, intellectual but beyong intellectual, possibly life-altering, try on Girard’s, Things Hidden from the Foundation of the World.

Tags: , ,

Christianity/Spirituality

Consider the Lilies and Everyday Epiphanies

Posted on by stephen t berg / 1 Comment

After Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden. (John 18)

Flowers-at-Office

(Flowers outside our office…care of Hope Mission's Women's Centre)

Perhaps you've heard me quote this line from Emily Dickinson before, if so, forgive me. But it's a favorite. She said that the only commandment she was ever able to keep was, "Consider the lilies…".

Now you might think that lily-consideration is child's play and you would be correct. That, I think, is the point. I love that Emily was able to remain child-like. And you know how Jesus felt about children.

Quite possibly, in the particularity and in the essence of this "consider the lilies" commandment, are kept all the others.

In her book, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, Joan Chittister relays this story:

"There are three stages of spiritual development," a teacher taught. "the carnal, the spiritual, and the divine.

"What is the carnal stage?" the disciple asked.

"That's the stage," the teacher said, "when trees are seen as trees and mountains are seen as mountains."

"And the spiritual?" the disciple asked eagerly.

"That's when we look more deeply into things. Then trees are no longer trees and mountains are no longer mountains," the teacher answered.

"And the Divine?" the disciple asked breathlessly. "Ah," the teacher said with a smile. "That's enlightenment–when the trees become trees again and the mountains become mountains."

The story shows the movement of self from self-consciousness, through a tearing away from the self-as-object, to a true consciousness. That is, it's a movement toward innocence. It's a movement away from the division of sacred and profane. In this "movement" epiphanies are possible every day.

Our temptation will always be to look for and to expect the Divine in the grand things of life, the visually and audibly impressive, the things that bring us to our feet emotionally. But when we follow the movements of Jesus, his welcome of women and children in a culture where only men counted, his days in the desert, his long silent years in Nazareth, we are taught, once again, to invert our deeply held assumptions of worth and value, station and position.

Perhaps our spiritual health is finally dependent on our not forgetting that God is present in the seemingly insignificant, that he hides in the defenseless and in the ordinary. Jesus habitually reminds us that God’s Kingdom is an upside down one.

The idea of God in weak things, in simple things, in waste places, is, well, ignoble. But we know that the real turning point in history, as Fredrick Buechner has said, "wasn't the day the wheel was invented or Rome fell, but the day a boy was born to a couple of Jews."

Tags: Meditation, Spirituality

Christianity

Starbucks Log – Panhandler

Posted on by stephen t berg / 0 Comment

Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5)

There’s a panhandler outside of Starbucks. (note to self…find origin of the word panhandler) He’s sitting swami-style, with his back against the wall, just beside the red Sun newspaper dispenser. From my table I can’t see his face, only his body and his stained hands as they intermittently appear holding out a grey cap.

He’s not doing well…it seems. No one has change…they say. I wonder about his situation, wonder if I should take a coffee out to him. I do an inventory. Check my memory for action categories. And then I check my backpack for change. I have some and decide I’ll donate on my way out, when it’s time to head for work.

I’ll do my Hope Mission query with him, of which I have several versions depending on the encounter. They vary from probing and skinflintish, to, “No problem–and make sure you don’t spend this on food.”

The first time I used this later one, the guy dropped his hand and burst out laughing. I honestly can’t remember if I gave him any money. We had a good visit though. I used it too often after that, with varying responses. I don’t use it much anymore. But in the right context, with the right person, it’s a sure opening as it releases the little knot of tension inherent in that situation. And it’s certainly more engaging than proffering conditions that won’t be followed in any case.

A young lady just bought the panhandler a piece of coffee cake. He leans forward to thank her and I see that he is young with fine straight features.

Another lady comes in and reports him to the Starbucks staff. She seems satisfied, her humanitarian deed completed for the day.

Everyone gets tired of beggars. Do beggars get tired of begging?

I gather myself up to go and fish the loonie out of my pack. When I get outside there are two women talking to the young man. They’ve each given him money and a third woman is lined up behind them with a handful of change.

I decide against joining the que and pocket my pittance. I walk away with the unsteady thought that at this rate he’ll make more money than me today.

Tags: ,

Atonement/Christianity/Peace

God’s Non-violence

Posted on by stephen t berg / 2 Comments

I have appreciated the comments and questions from Len in a few of my "atonement" posts. I'll attempt to respond to some of his questions over the next number of posts.

There is however a question about God's nature that touches every question about Christ's death, any question about atonement. It is this: Is there violence in God? Did God command the wholesale slaughter of nations, the wiping out of false prophets, the killing of first born, and so on?

If yes, then God's supposed institution of rites and ritual sacrifice, both to recall some of these events and for obtaining virtual purification makes sense. As well, with respect to purification, the recognition that sacrificing bulls and goats is a temporary solution until the ultimate (human/god) sacrifice could be enacted, also makes sense.

In this case God is a good God but with a violent and sacrificial side. A god, in other words, that is not unlike the pagan gods, except, perhaps, much stronger. To equate God's violent side with God's acts of justice, as is sometimes done, seems to me, only adds to the confusion.

If however, Jesus is the perfect ontological reflection of God, or as the New Testament has it, "the exact imprint of God's very being", then the sacrificial mechanism, that is, the mechanism of doing away with others to preserve and solidify the group or nation, needs to be exposed and undone. And the Hebrew sacrificial system of formal rites and rituals, needs to be re-storied.

If Jesus, who prayed for and loved his enemies, is "the image of the invisible God", then there is no violence, retribution, or vengeance with God. Jesus in fact is God moving toward us, standing in as ultimate victim, not as payment, but as self-gift. As such the substitutional atonement which is violent at its core, asks to be reinterpreted in light of God's having-nothing-to-do-with-sacrificial violence.

To call Jesus' self-gift as the "ultimate sacrifice" is of course legitimate as long as sacrifice is understood rhetorically and not as sacrifice as payment or appeasement.