A Parable

Adapted from a tradition:

A man named Simeon lived upon a ten-inch by ten-inch piece of wood held up by the stump of a dead tree. On this tower he had only his garment, an animal hide turned inside-out so as to be uncomfortable, and a whip which he used to mortify his body.

As people would walk past and see him, they would be amazed. “Clearly, Simeon is devoted to God,” they would say.

The High Priests, who knew their authority was threatened by such an impressive display of piety, would regularly ask him to come down.

“Brother,” they would say “You have done more than enough, why don’t you come down so we may throw a feast in your honor?”

Each time the High Priests would ask, Simeon would refuse, and all who heard would be amazed by Simeon's humility.

One day, Jesus of Nazareth came upon Simeon’s tower. Recognizing Jesus as a holy man, Simeon nodded to him silently.

“What are you doing?” Jesus asked.

Simeon, who rarely spoke, was astonished by the question and felt moved to break his silence. “Brother, isn’t it obvious? I am serving God.”

Jesus asked “Who told you to do this?”

Simeon replied “I do this of my own will.”

Jesus asked “How do you eat?’

Simeon replied “Once a day, my brother brings me a jug of goat’s milk and a crust of bread.”

Seeing that Simeon’s brother was taking care of Simeon, Jesus replied “You are not serving God, your brother is.”

As quickly as he had arrived, Jesus was gone. “What a foolish man,” thought Simeon, as he continued to torture himself upon his piece of wood.

Epistle to Mammon

Happily Deconstructing

In What Would Jesus Deconstruct?, author John D. Caputo discusses a theme from Derrida’s The Post Card:

Even when it is not lost and even when it is understood, a text remains structurally and in principle capable of being understood differently–by different communities of readers at different times, in other times and other places—so that it is always happening but never arrives decisively at just one final destination that would be authorized to pronounce its meaning once and for all.

Caputo goes on to stress that the first Christians approached the Hebrew Scriptures with a "creative misreading" and that the Christian tradition is a history of "taking the story of Jesus differently, again and again, in the course of the ages, in changing times and circumstances." Many will buckle under this suggestion, and buckle to their pet Truth-claims, fortified against the dreaded Relativism or against a history of ecclesiastical misappropriations used to justify violence. These are fearful responses.

Caputo, as a deconstructionist, advises us to let the New Testament happen to us, as opposed to deriving instruction from the text. You might recall various ministers advising you to read under "the guidance of the Spirit."

And if the Spirit, having blessed you with a critical mind and a modern education asks you to demythologize, lifting the eternal truth from the temporal constructs that house it, what will you do? If this reading denies the historical claims of the Gospel story, and finds a different sort of meaning, will you accept it?

You might recall Origen’s belief that the letter of the text, the surface meaning, is not to be adopted when it would "entail anything impossible, absurd or unworthy of God." With an extra 2000 years of discovery, our ideas of what is and what is not absurd will inevitably differ from those of the writers of the New Testament, and those of Origen himself.

Armed with this knowledge, should we re-interpret the text, as Jesus re-interpreted the Hebrew Scriptures (Mark 2:22-28)? What authority do we have to do such a thing?

Maybe we have no authority, but to faithfully and continually reevaluate the text and read it in a new light, (that is, to make the text a meaningful part of our lives,) we must refrain from pronouncing any one reading as final and absolute. We must deny that we have any authority at all, and also question the authority of previous readers and commentators, while remaining open to their ideas and experiences. We must continually wrestle and fight with the text.

Peter Rollins, in The Fidelity of Betrayal, writes:

It is all too common for Christians to attempt to do justice to the scriptural narrative by listening to it, learning from it and attempting to extract a way of viewing the world from it. But the narrative itself is asking us to apprach it in a much more radical way. It is inviting us to wrestle with it, disagree with it, contend with it, and contest it--not as an end, but as a means of approching its life-transforming truth, a truth that dwells within our limits and yet beyond the words.

The conflicts that will arise from our divergent readings will frequently be tense and uncomfortable, but this will augment the tension and discomfort already within the text(s), an edifying characteristic of the multi-faceted New Testament. I am not suggesting we stretch the text to suit our agenda, I am suggesting we explore it free from our preconceived notions and assumptions about what we are supposed to find there, and I am suggesting that this act be an act of community.
 
It is important that we conduct our dialogue with a sincere love for each other. This will not be easy. We feel we have so much invested in the text that differences in understanding are threatening to us.

In a chapter called "Sentences" from New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton talks about "the men who run about the countryside painting signs that say 'Jesus saves' and 'Prepare to meet God'":

Strangely, their signs do not make me think of Jesus, but of them. Or perhaps it is "their Jesus" who gets in the way and makes all thought of Jesus impossible… In any case, their Jesus is quite different from mine. But because their concept is different, should I reject it in horror, with distaste? If I do, perhaps I reject something in my own self that I no longer recognize to be there… Let not their Jesus be a barrier between us, or they will be a barrier between us and Jesus.

Recriminations on Every Side

If you'd like to know what the "emergent church" is trying to emerge from, point your ear at some of that movement's harshest critics.

Ligonier Ministries has made this video available for your viewing pleasure. If you would like to hear the entire message, you may purchase it at their website. (Don't worry, gentle readers, content on the good ol' B&D will remain free of charge.)



In the video, after defining post-modernism as a rejection of truth ("all the rest of it is really decoration,") radio host Al Mohler says this: "Today’s liberals were evangelicals yesterday, and what we continually have are break-offs in which people who are the sons and daughters of the ones who rejected the liberalism, you know, bring it in in a different way and in a new form, and… just to be short, let me tell you that if you get the truth-question wrong, you’re going to be abhorrent in every dimension of the life of your church and in your personal understanding of Christianity."

I think Mr. Mohler is making a mistake if he is afraid of an abhorrent understanding of Christianity. What should terrify him is a comforting, rigid understanding rooted in the assumption that Truth is simple and well within our grasp.

In the New Testament, I see a Jesus who is radical, angry, contrarian, heretical and furious with the intellectual and moral pretension of the pious and powerful. I see a Jesus whose messy, confusing message is offensive and upsetting to almost everybody. It is abhorrent. Objectionable. Repugnant.

If you want someone who will tell you what you want to hear and confirm the rightness of your doctrine, Jesus is not your man. He is perfectly unacceptable. He is an utter scandal.

Despite the best efforts of the pious to sanitize and domesticate this scandal, there is a contagious fury burning in those red letters, a fury against everything we stand for and everything that comforts us.

If we follow someone so utterly obscene, our church will be abhorrent and we will remain always among the marginalized. Exactly where we should be.

On this virtual spot I am going to explore that abhorrent Christianity.

...but first, here's some Walt Whitman

To Him That Was Crucified
My spirit to yours dear brother,
Do not mind because many sounding your name do not understand you,
I do not sound your name, but I understand you,
I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, and to salute
those who are with you, before and since, and those to come also,
That we all labor together transmitting the same charge and succession,
We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times,
We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of all theologies,
Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,
We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the
disputers nor any thing that is asserted,
We hear the bawling and din, we are reach'd at by divisions,
jealousies, recriminations on every side,
They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade,
Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying up and
down till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time and the diverse
eras,
Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races,
ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers as we are.

(from Leaves of Grass)