Hebrews: Claiming the Whole Tradition

49th Day of Easter,
Saturday, May 10

Hebrews:
Claiming the whole tradition

Hebrews is a hinge book, that doesn’t fit the pattern of either a gospel or an epistle or letter. Like Romans that you browsed on Monday to begin this week, Hebrews is a summary treatise, selling a version or spin on the Christian faith. Hebrews assumes that the reader knows the traditions and writings of Judaism, at least in the ‘diaspora’ context of synagogues far from Jerusalem. Models of how to do faithfulness right, or how to get it wrong, abound.

Jesus in Hebrews is priest and mediator, the pioneer and perfecter of our faithfulness, sacrificing for us, not above it all like in Ephesians or Colossians. We in our turn are ‘priests after the order of Melchizidek’, echoing Torah and Psalms. We have a particular affection for chapter 11, with its summary of the stories of those who lived by faith or faithfulness, sojourners in this world, seeking a better one to be made or found or received.

The presentation of one covenant as succeeding another is a risky one for us to adopt, given 20th century progressive assumptions, and anti-Semitic genocide that they justified. However, Hebrews can also be read as a fraternal document by one of the two siblings birthed from the end of Temple Judaism into early synagogue Judaism and early Christianity.

Perhaps this deserves our attention in our generation too, if we reclaim a whole bible, not just the ‘words of Jesus in red’. Let’s see… are we all done, or just begun?

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James: Walking the Walk

48th Day of Easter,
Friday, May 9

James:
Walking the walk

Today and tomorrow we back up a bit, first into James. James is sort of the ‘anti-Paul’, perhaps another trajectory associated with what Peter’s Jewish Christian church might have looked like in another generation, without the trauma of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70CE. If Paul was claiming grace and freedom for Gentiles outside of ritual and moral righteousness, then James is challenging the risks of such talk in the mouths of people like us.

Faith without works is dead. Paul’s religion can become a gospel of ‘cheap grace’ – sin the more, then get forgiven the more. James demands action, that we ‘walk the walk’. James is much tougher on the rich, in our snobbery, than is Luke. James threatens us with consequences for our dismissal of those who have less in this life.

Imagine what kind of church would evoke writing like this form a leader trying to correct our vices. James assumes that the reader knows Torah, prophets, and writings, but in the synagogue version after the temple is lost, out in the scattered diaspora of god-fearing people. Somebody must be living well, dismissive of poor folks, and complacent about their salvation by grace – which just cranks up James’ opposition.

There is a time for everything. Luther called James an ‘epistle of straw’. Luther was mad at people selling indulgences and loading guilty burdens on people to get them to serve the business of the organization. If we rebelled in the 20th century against moralism and abuse of power by Christianity running on guilt to serve the organization, then we’re with Luther.

I think it may be time for a bit more attention to James among and around us. Can you see why? Do you agree?

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General Epistles: The boys take charge

47th Day of Easter,
Thursday, May 8

General Epistles
The boys take charge

The general epistles are also known as the Catholic epistles. They assume and reflect a time in the movement when the boys and the book have gained authority, and are encouraging one another in a range of communication between bishops and ‘presbyters’ in ordered ministry serving the organization which in turn served God.

Browse 1 Peter and 2 Peter, and don’t assume that the author is the disciple or apostle Peter. You might notice the moral choice emphasis in these letters, though – this is what people expect to find all the way through the bible you’ve been browsing for 7 weeks!

Browse 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John, (and Jude), and don’t assume that they are written by the same guy who wrote a gospel and had a revelation on Patmos. However, you can’t help recognizing that the terminology and style come from the same stream within the movement. Light and dark, truth and love – this skirts close to Gnosticism, but keeps anchored in flesh.

These guys aren’t my favorites, but they have nuggets that we love to use in worship services – see if you can recognize some phrases!

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Not So Paul: Claiming the Name, Changing the Voice

46th Day of Easter,
Wednesday, May 7

Not So Paul:
Claiming the Name,
Changing the Voice

Today, you’re browsing another half dozen letters that claim to be written by Paul. I’m inviting you to consider the widespread consensus of the modern age that different writers used the name, in homage or affiliation, but with varying accents and emphases.

Ephesians is a grand vision of Christ’s place in the grand scheme of things. Notice how Christ is the head and the church is the body – not like in 1 Corinthians, where the whole body was Christ. Where are the familiar bits of Paul’s personal chattiness? Is this the same cosmology? Ephesians feels less grounded, and more elevated than yesterday’s letters, to me.

Colossians is another grand plan treatise, with a cosmic Christ pre-existent before history, and emerging or appearing in the life of Jesus incidentally. This is more like John’s gospel – but I feel like Paul would have been happier with Mark or the other two evangelists. There’s a lot of appeal to obedience and hierarchy in Colossians, hardly the freedom of Galatians. Colossians also assumes a movement with many churches and a junior generation of leaders - already.

Philemon is a short, apparently personal, appeal on behalf of a runaway slave, Onesimus, asking his master to take him back. How does it square with Galatians’ ‘neither slave nor free’, and how is this Paul exercising authority differently than the scrapper in Corinth?

The next 3 are called the ‘Pastoral Epistles’: I Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. Sure, they all say Paul wrote them to younger leaders as patriarchal advice. Opponents are dismissed as ‘false teachers’, generalized from earlier factions in Corinth. The movement has become a religion with rules, and themes of persevering as soldiers and workers of Christ, settling in for a long haul, rather than expecting an imminent end, as in Thessalonika.

Sure a guy can learn and change. But so can a succeeding generation appropriate a founder’s voice, and interpret and develop it. Either way, we don’t need to reconcile these voices of ‘Paul’ as much as welcome their diversity to learn to hear each other better, and express our own perspectives better.

Does it matter to you if you are hearing an original artist singing his own lyrics or to her own original music and arrangement, or a cover by a performer interpreting the art anew? Which Oscars matter most to you: writer, producer, director, stars, or editing?

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Paul's Autograph Set: Appealing or Appalling?

45th Day of Easter,
Tuesday, May 6

Paul’s Autograph set:
Appealing or Appalling?


Yesterday you browsed late Paul, his summation on the way to Rome. Today, you’re browsing half a dozen letters which are more specific to their parochial audiences, generally recognized by scholars as autograph original letters of Paul, in his earlier and often tempestuous relationships with communities where he has preached and taught – and left. What kind of a traveling evangelist can you imagine as you read these letters?

First and Second Corinthians are presented as letters by Paul to the church in Corinth. We are listening in on one end of a conversation. We don’t know what letters were sent by whom to Paul, or what messengers carried messages back and forth. When you read closely, you begin to imagine more voices and lines of alliance and conflict, based on your own experience of human nature and religious community. Be careful when you are hearing Paul, and when you are hearing yourself, or some religious elder from your past!

What factions and fights do your recognize in the Corinthian letters? Look for proper names of the competing leaders. What are the topics about which they fight?

Galatians is the gem of an early Paul letter. It develops some familiar lines of thought, and elaborates some tales of his life and work. It does not agree with Acts’ account of Saul’s conversion on the Damascus road, followed by tutelage in the faith. Paul’s version claims autonomy, and less discontinuity between his orthodox past and Gentile mission. Most of us love the radically inclusive Paul here, claiming freedom, and breaking boundaries between ethnic groups, genders, and religious movements. But remember his Corinthians resistance to wide open licentiousness masquerading as freedom!

Philippians reads like a personal letter from Paul. Do you recognize 2:5-11 as a hymn that we still sing? For those of us trying to name goals and directions for our religious organizations, this one cam be helpful or dangerous, as Paul affirms people and intentions, while warning of tendencies and consequences.

First and Second Thessalonians are presented as letters to a community in Thessalonika. They are arguably among the earliest of Paul’s writings, tucked later in our bibles because they are shorter, or because they lean toward some apocalyptic themes shared with the last book in our bible. What if we face trouble – even death? Here are some reflections.


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Romans: Gospel According to Paul

44th Day of Easter,
Monday, May 5

Romans:
Gospel According to Paul

Probably the oldest writings in the Christian scriptures are the letters that Paul wrote to church communities. The earliest were to people he clearly knew, and arose from real conflicts and friendships with specific individuals and groups. We get to those tomorrow. Romans is a more general letter, more of an open letter of introduction to people he hadn’t met yet.

Romans is like a curriculum vitae or resume, or a manifesto, or advance publicity introducing Paul to god-fearing folks in Rome. Paul says he is planning to go to Rome, the center of the empire, on his way to Spain. He says this is what they can expect to hear from him, regardless of what others say he will say. He asks for a hearing.


Certainly Romans was a late writing by Paul, and probably it was polished and rewritten by him, and perhaps in turn by followers later. Preachers and teachers recycle their material, hone and develop it over time. Think of this as the curriculum with latitude left for lesson plans.

You may recognize various nuggets in Romans – try chapter 8, for instance often repeated in funerals. Depending on the translation you read, you will see terms like grace and faith and law and Jews. Please don’t assume that we know what Paul meant by them. I believe Paul affirmed Judaism and the law, and understood his good news to be an invitation to an additional Gentile way of faithfulness. I also read ‘faith’ not as cognitive assent to propositions (I believe) but faithfulness in relationship (including I believe, I belong, I behave).

Was Paul a liberal, radical, or conservative? Crossan argues that Paul changes from early days in Corinth and Galatia, to his later positions on his way to Rome. Is Paul appealing or appalling, homophobic, misogynist, anti-Semitic? Certainly people who have read him and claimed to interpret him have been all those things. What do you make of Paul’s gospel for the Romans?

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Church Stories: Introduction to Week 7

43rd Day of Easter,
Sunday, May 4

Church Stories:
Following Jesus,
now what?

Many of the shortest books of the bible are near the back, after the gospels and Acts, and before Revelation. Flip through a few of them today, to get a feel for the rhythm of starting with longer letters, and getting shorter – can you find the exception?

Some of these bits are older than the gospels, and some are younger. People didn’t just tell Jesus stories after he died. They gathered in communities, and these writings let us listen in to the conversations in those synagogues, house-churches, and other meetings, the forerunners of our own. Often the names of the books tell you where the community was, all around the eastern Mediterranean – take another look at your maps!


Many of these books begin by asserting by whom they were written, and to whom. Don’t assume that every letter that says it is from Paul is from the same writer, or from the same John who wrote a gospel and had the revelation on Patmos, or from James the brother of Jesus, or that the names and stories will match Acts’ version of the history and geography of the movement.

Why would the bible lie? Just as Torah was credited to Moses, and the Psalms to David, these claims are not following our rules of copyright or plagiarism or identity theft. The names claim a voice and association, in the midst of competing religious factions and movements, perhaps closer to our denominationalism than to artistic authorship.

Imagine with me who would write such things, in what circumstances, to what readers, to be read in what context. Imagine the faith with lots of such writings, but not yet with four gospels, rather with many versions, as we recognized last Sunday. Are these private letters, or open letters, or sermons or essays, or collections of fragments themselves?

In the 2nd century in particular (the 100’s), the collection of writings was not set. Marcion wanted to keep the list much shorter (and to ditch the Hebrew scriptures). Right through the Reformation of the 16th century (the 600’s), people like Luther and Calvin differed on the weight to be given books like James, and to a variety of other writings of the ‘early church fathers’. Which of these books would you be willing to dump? Which would you defend if you could only save a couple of them?

These are tales and good advice, high theology, deep thoughts, trivial details of people and personalities in conflict. These ideas cannot be reconciled to all agree all the time. Does this sound like any religion you know? Enjoy!
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Week 7: Church Stories Outline

Heretics Browsing Bibles -
Easter Week 7:
May 4 to May 11

Church Stories:
Following Jesus,
now what?

What’s left in your bible unbrowsed? These are the smallish books at the back of your bible, once you’ve read last week’s gospels, apostles and apocalypses.



Letters and treatises, these are the records of some voices in the earliest church communities, in conflict and development – see what you recognize!


43rd Day of Easter, Sunday, May 4
Church Stories:
Following Jesus, now what?

44th Day of Easter, Monday, May 5
Romans:
Gospel According to Paul

45th Day of Easter, Tuesday, May 6
Paul’s Autograph set:
Appealing or Appalling?

46th Day of Easter, Wednesday, May 7
Not So Paul:
Claiming the Name, Changing the Voice

47th Day of Easter, Thursday, May 8
General Epistles
The boys take charge

48th Day of Easter, Friday, May 9
James:
Walking the walk

49th Day of Easter, Saturday, May 10
Hebrews:
Claiming the whole tradition

50th Day of Easter: Sunday May 11
Pentecost
One word, in many voices…


By the end of this week, we’ve done it –
browsed a whole bible, heard a range of many voices,
in harmony and counter harmony,
in the great celestial chorus of response to God.

I’m out of words now… and close as I do many Sundays:
‘what word to you have for our hearts, o God, give us ears to hear.’ Amen.
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Revelation: Peling the Onion

42nd Day of Easter,
Saturday, May 3

Revelation:
Peeling the Onion

I have studied this book a couple of times in recent years with regular United Church folks who are not expecting Jesus to return next Thursday, or waiting for the rapture, or reading Tim LeHaye’s Left Behind series, but live in a culture where people do, and/or think that we do. Try browsing this book the way you peel an onion, working from the outside in, a layer at a time, even if it smells funny to you, or makes you cry at first:


Browse 1:1-18 and 22:10-21 first. Revelation opens and closes cleanly, telling what it will tell you, then telling you that it has told you. It’s like the opening and closing credits or trailers for a movie, the overture of a symphony or a show – signals of what’s inside.




Browse 1:9 to 3:22, then 19:11 to 22:9. First, you find letters to 7 churches, each associated with an angel or lamp, but with characteristic strengths and flaws. Last, you’ll find a vision of a final or ultimate city and garden. We start with our situation in this world, and we end with our vision of hope in the next world. Gadamer called us to ‘re-enchantment of the universe’ – and here are the transpersonal forces of community and cosmos, in imagery.

Peeling back another layer, browse 4:1 to 9:21, then 15:1 to 19:10. The first is a vision of a heavenly court, and 7 seals and 7 trumpets breaking open the core message. The second has visions of Babylon/Rome, and 7 bowls of wrath poured out on the world. Now your heavens are fuly populated with creatures of all types, good and bad.

Browsing into the core of Revelation, skim John;s job description in 10:1 to 11:13, facing the enemies’ roles in 12:1 to 14:5, and the angels’ in 14:6-20 and 15:2-4. The forces na polarities of good versus evil meet, and the story plays out in imagery of conflict and resolution.

Revelation is not a descriptive predictive prophecy of end times next week. Some read it, then tell the rest of us that they’re going to miss us when they go to heaven and we burn – or perhaps worse, try to convert us and save us from the wrath to come. A few read, then tell us all that they’re going to join the fight against cosmic evil by moving to a jungle commune, or blowing up a federal building in Oklahoma or Waco. Our own reading has traditionally been neither pre-millenial nor post-millenial, but a-millenial.
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John: Word & Flesh

41st Day of Easter,
Friday, May 2

John:
Word & Flesh

John starts differently than the other evangelists, with a cosmic echo of Genesis, ‘in the beginning was the Word’. John ends with more resurrection appearances, from Mary Magdalene to all the disciples and ‘doubting Thomas, a miraculous fish catch, and rehabilitation of Peter with 3 affirmations to match his 3 denials.

Some see John’s gospel as organized around a ‘book of signs’. Others structure their reading on the set of Jewish festivals and related stories, each trumped by claims about Jesus. The plot and itinerary are sure different than in the first 3 gospels!

Starting with ‘water into wine at a wedding’ in 2, cleansing the temple and meeting Nicodemus at night in 3 with born again talk, John’s gospel sends Jesus out to Samaritans, Galileans, and all of us in 4, completing a distinctive ‘coming out’ story.

John’s Jesus has a public ministry building from 5 to 12: curing (5), feeding (6), fighting (7), haggling (8), healing (9), caring (10:1-18), fighting again (10:19ff),resurrecting Lazarus (11), and closing out that triumphal tour (12). The symbols and language are loaded, with water, bread, light, vine, shepherd, and other imagery claimed by the great ‘I am’ statements attributed to John’s Jesus. There are lots of polarized contrasts of light and dark, flesh and spirit, John’s movement and one he calls ‘Jews’.

After that public 5 to 12, Jesus goes private and goes home in 13 to 18. I call this the ’longest after dinner speech in the bible’, from foot washing and dipping at this version of the last supper through long circular and repetitive discourses. John’s Jesus utters distinctive soliloquies from Gethsemane to Calvary in 18 and 19. Overall this is a very different Jesus than in the other gospels, speaking in convoluted argument instead of pithy parables, and saying ‘I am’ instead of ‘the kingdom of heaven will be’.

Some find John’s Jesus to be self-assured, arrogant, condescending, self-important, and long-winded. Others find this version of Jesus to be person or intimate in close relations with a disciple he loved, the family of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, in moments of weeping, or writing with a finger in the dirt. Who is this version of Jesus for you, as you browse with new eyes?

Some find John’s Jesus to be anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish, in its polarities of a world of us and them, dark and light. That kind of language sounds better in the mouths of a persecuted minority Christian sect being shut out in the cold by a larger more privileged sect enjoying Roman privileges. However, it has been a long time since we were that, or Judaism was that, and much blood has been shed in our failure to read our world, and in our abuse of power.

Some find John’s language poetic, spiritual, grand, a ‘song-writer’s gospel’ with great images and one-liners often set to music for worship. The language is pretty close to the Gnostic diction of secrets, but salvaged by its insistence on flesh and blood. How is John’s Spirit, the Paraclete, Advocate, or Teacher, different from Luke’s? This wing of the earliest movement finds voice tomorrow in Revelation, and next week in the letters called ‘John’.
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Acts: Vol 2 or Sequel

40th Day of Easter,
Thursday, May 1
Acts of the Apostles:
Volume 2 or Sequel

You can tell this book is claiming to be volume 2 of Luke’s gospel by reading the opening verses of each one: ‘dear Theophilus’. These 2 books are ¼ of the total Christian scriptures, with lots of unifying language and themes. Barrie Wilson’s recent book How Jesus Became a Christian credits this book with inventing a totally new religion barely related to the Jesus of history or his message. ‘Theo-philus’ means ‘God-lover’ or ‘loved by God’. This may not be a real person, but a literary conceit to pitch the new faith to ‘God-fearing’ Greek-speaking folks hanging around synagogues but shying away from circumcision.

This is a story of the birth of the church, starting in Jerusalem, and proclaiming the good news to Judea, Samaria, Galilee, and in turn to the whole world. Just as the story imploded into Jerusalem in volume 1, till the nuclear reaction image turned to ascend in mushroom clouds of chain reactions, this continues the explosive trajectory. Jesus ascends, the spirit descends, and the church expands exponentially.

The first half of Acts, from the ascension and Pentecost to the first Jerusalem conference account in chapter 15, is the tale of the Jerusalem church and Peter, according to ‘Luke’. Skip the long sermonizing speeches to keep browsing, and watch the patterns of stories of individuals discovering and choosing the faith, and the community choosing its leaders, pooling its resources, and organizing itself.

What do you make of the stories of Stephen, the Ethiopian eunuch, and of course Saul struck down on the road to Damascus? How many new names and stories can you find in these early chapters that you didn’t know? You won’t get it in one day of browsing, just the shape of it. Peter’s dream breaching kosher dietary laws opens up the movement, and the Spirit gets to folks before the missionaries do.

The second half of Acts is organized as tales of Paul’s missionary journeys. There are 3 loops, according to most readers, with Barnabas and/or Timothy tagging along. Here is a narrative of the church reaching out beyond its original base as a Jewish movement. Not only geography, but loosened dietary and ritual requirements define the expansion among the Gentiles. Still, Peter’s Jerusalem movement and Paul’s Gentile diaspora keep negotiating terms and truces.

Some of the last half of Acts is written in the first person ‘we’, suggesting a voice of a source or editor – but the perspective is one of retelling a story of rival factions into one of unity. The story ends with a bit of a whimper, for me, after so many miracles and crowds. Paul is in a wee cottage near Rome, carrying on a sort of consulting practice.

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