SEX, Fried Chicken, and Freedom

The first Country Music band that ever got my attention was the Zac Brown Band.  It was the Summer of 2007.  My wife (who was not my wife yet) and I were spending the summer apart.  As I drove down the ol’ country roads where I was living, I would roll the windows down, turn the Country station up, and take in the wind.  The rock and the twain reminded me of holding my baby’s hand at the county fair.  Ok there was no county fair.  But I do remember hearing ZBB’s song, “Chicken Fried.”  Truth be told I liked “Whatever it is” better, but that song doesn’t lead into the theme of this post.  In case you don’t know “Chicken Fried”, turn it up!

I wanted to look at the bridge.  If it helps you to imagine listening to this during the Fourth of July fireworks, go ahead:

“I thank God for my life

                For the Stars and Stripes,

                May freedom forever fly, let it reign.

Salute the ones who died

                The ones who gave their lives

                So we don’t have to sacrifice

                All things we love

                Like….

Our chicken fried. A cold beer on a Friday night. A pair of jeans that fits just right. And the radio on.”

This part of the song is very patriotic wouldn’t you say?  What does it say about freedom?  Freedom is something that is part of the USA.  People have died and continue to die for this freedom.  The freedom enables us to enjoy the things we love.  For example?  Fried Chicken, beer, jeans, and radio.  Ignore for a moment that other countries also have beer.  If we could give a working definition of Zac’s freedom it would be something like, “The ability to choose and enjoy what you want among a multitude of options without external restrictions.”  That is a very popular way of talking about freedom isn’t it?  I’m free as long as I can do what I want, when I want, and with whom I want.  Nearly any choice that we make is “good” or “moral” or “ethical” as long as we are unrestricted in choosing it, and it doesn’t hurt anyone else.  Since everyone is obsessed with sex, I’ll use it as an attention grabber.  Any choice I make about sex is good or moral as long as it’s consensual.  Fair enough.

Christians however have this nagging tendency to insist that there actually IS a law that is outside of the individual, and the laws of the nation.  This law is given to humanity by God, and it not only tells us what we should do with our bodies, but how we should live in all areas of our life.  A choice is good as long as it is in agreement with the laws of God.  According to Christians, even an action that I choose among many other options that only affects me can be considered morally good or evil.

We’ve just entered into my second class of my MA program, “Theological Ethics.”  Welcome to the world of morality.  Buckle your seatbelts because people tend to get pretty fired up about morality.

Freedom is a significant theme for Christian theology as we insist that God created humanity with freedom.  How that freedom is understood is rather significant. Take William of Ockham for example:

Ockham was a Franciscan Friar in the 12^th century.   Freedom for Ockham was similar to ZBB, being able to choose your actions.  Some people call this “freedom of indifference.”  Faced with two options freedom of indifference is used well as long as there is nothing hindering a person’s choice.  Simple enough.  A person is neither good nor bad and an action is neither good nor bad.  What determines the “moral quality” of a person or her actions is how closely they conform to the law of God.  Ready for an example?

Sally lies to Freddy.  Is her choice morally good or evil?  I hope you chose evil.  Why is her choice to lie evil?  Because God commanded that we should speak the truth. 

What if God commanded the opposite?  What if God’s law was to be dishonest with your friends?  Would Sally’s choice be morally good or evil?  According to Ockham’s view, her choice would be morally good.  “Now now” you may say, “God would never have allowed dishonesty to be part of God’s law.”  Maybe not, but how do you know?  Do you possess the mind of God?

This view is still with us today.  Don’t believe me? Ok, back to sex.  1.  Is a woman using her freedom when she chooses to have sex with a man who isn’t her husband? 2.  Is a woman’s choice to have sex with a man who isn’t her husband morally evil?  3. How do you know?

If you answered “yes” to 1 and 2 you’ve inherited the “freedom of indifference” tradition!  You’ve really inherited it if you answered 3 by mentally scanning passages from Leviticus to see if adultery is forbidden by God’s law.  This moral system has been called a “morality of obligation” because one’s actions must align with an external law of God.

There is another way; a beautiful way; an excellent way; a way that leads to freedom!

Thomas Aquinas wrote about freedom not simply as the ability to arbitrarily choose between two options.  For Aquinas freedom is the ability to choose excellent actions inspired by the human inclination toward truth, goodness, and happiness.  Some people call this “freedom for excellence.”  A person is free when the person has the ability to choose that which is good.

Back to Sally who lied to Freddy.  Is Sally free in choosing to be dishonest?  Yes and no, right?  She was “free” insofar as she could have chosen not to. But decisions are rarely that simple are they?  Often there are pressures, circumstances, and other obstacles that stand in the way of a morally good decision.  Insert any number of very difficult situations where in the face of a potential dishonesty, other goods are obtainable.  For example, Freddy may be a young camper who is stranded up in a high tree. As Sally is coaxing him down the tree from the ground, Freddy asks, “You’ve climbed this tree before right Sally?”  Knowing that his confidence in her guidance is the only thing that will bring him safely down the tree, Sally lies and says she has climbed the tree before.  She lied, but also gained a potentially life saving good, Freddy’s confidence.   So we see that often circumstances are so complex that we may not be as “free” as we think.  We could refer to addictions, temperaments, habits, dangers, and any multitude of pressures that limit our freedom to really choose.  One of the results of sin, according to the Catholic tradition, is the darkening of the intellect and weakening of the will.  St. Paul saw a war within himself, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” Romans 7:19. 

True freedom, according to Thomas Aquinas is to be able to do the good, even in the face of the adversities mentioned above.  “But that is sometimes incredibly arduous to accomplish!”  Exactly.  This is why he insists that it can only be accomplished through training in the virtues.  At the beginning of the moral life, the student in the school of virtues must learn the law of God, and be guided by that law.  But something more is required than simple adherence to a law.  As the student matures, she becomes guided by the desire for truth and goodness that are not only spelled out by the law of God, but imbedded in her very nature.  Through practice, prayer, and the grace of God, she internalizes virtues so that there becomes joy in doing the good and the beautiful.

This virtue driven ethics depends on an internal transformation so that there grows an abiding joy in doing the difficult good.  This entire systems assumes two things. 1. That the law of God is not arbitrary.  It assumes that what God outlines for right moral living is a picture of the human fully alive—the human fully happy.  “Blessed (or deeply happy) are the merciful...”  2.  That despite the darkening of the intellect and the weakening of the will that was caused by sin, humans still long for the true, good, and beautiful.  That longing will only be fulfilled through finding the true, good, and beautiful.

I’m sorry Zac Brown, as much as I like your music, I’m not content with the simple ability to choose between options.  What I want is freedom to be fully alive.  I want freedom for excellence.

5 Steps to Bearing the Presence of God...not really

In a class at Houghton called “Worship in the Church,” Dr. Michael Walters once said, “If we took the worship of God seriously, as people walked into church we would hand out helmets instead of bulletins.”  That idea has always stuck with me.  Sometimes we get so used to the Church’s encounter with God, that we stroll in expecting the experience to be fun, entertaining, instructional, emotional, or “meaningful.”  What we don’t expect is that an encounter with God might be DANGEROUS!

The Israelites knew this.  Remember on Sinai, when the thunderstorm kicked up, the people didn’t dance around for joy.  They were afraid!  God’s presence was too much.  What about the men of the tribe of Levi?  They were the brave souls who drew near to God on behalf of the people.  What was their deal?

It’s important that we first realize that all of Israel was considered to be priests. "You will be for me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation."(Ex 19:6) God's people were to function sacramentally in the world, bearing God before the nations and bringing the nations into covenant with God. Pretty cool huh?  Still within this kingdom of priests were a group of people who fulfilled a special role.  The tribe of Levi would be the priests among the priests.

Would you indulge me if I said that humans were created for union with God?  That union is the fulfillment of all our desires.  Of course we know that there appears a rupture between our ultimate end and how our lives play out. I am made for God, but I search for my end other places. Just when I think I have quenched my desires I realize I am all the more thirsty for something more.  This is what is called the effects of sin.  The story of the Old Testament is the story of God bridging the rupture between humanity and the divine. Thus He covenants with a people to unite Himself to humanity. The limitation is that we are no longer ready for that union. This is why when God meets with people they have to purify themselves.  Get ready!

We had mentioned earlier that the Tent of Meeting was the meeting place between heaven and earth. When a priest stood in the Tent he was also standing in the heavenly Temple.  The question is: if you were to stand before God in the heavenly temple, would you be ready? Isaiah wasn't ready. That's why when he found himself so close to God he said, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”  (Isaiah 6:5) How then are priests expected to come so near to the Divine and bear the overwhelming presence?

Well the answer apparently has something to do with a priest’s ordination.  From any other perspective, there was no difference between a man from the Tribe of Levi and a man from the Tribe of Benjamin.  Both suffered from the same distance from God, and both were sinners who would be fearful of beholding the Glory of the LORD.  The only real difference is that God chose to ordain men from the Tribe of Levi by pouring oil on their heads.   Before his ordination a man may have beheld the Glory of the LORD, and been overwhelmed by the vision, and maybe even died!  After some oil is poured on his head (oh yeah don’t be stingy with that sacred oil (Ex 29:7)) he can stand before God on behalf of the people.  The ordination of a priest made all the difference.

Here’s what I’m suggesting:  The oil actually had an effect on the priest.  Somehow the oil mediated the presence of God in such a way that the priest was changed and infused with supernatural grace to be able to minister before God.  Before, because of sin, the presence of God was too much.  After ordination he could bear it.  And not only bear it, but like Moses, he could communicate the Glory of God to the people. 

What conclusions can we draw from this brief look at priestly ordination?  I task you with this challenge.  But let me offer some reflections.

1.   Through the incarnation, the Glory of the LORD has been revealed to humanity, and is beheld by the Church.  “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)  The Glory, the overwhelming presence of God came among humanity, and Christians witnessed it (and didn’t die from the vision) in the person of Christ.  Christ is not only the Divine that is beheld, He is also the mediator of that presence between God and humanity.  The letter to the Hebrews is clear that Jesus is the high priest on behalf of humanity.

2.   The entire Church is priestly.   “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” (1Peter 2:9)  Just like Israel, the Church acts as a priestly people who reveals God to the world.  Through our baptism (which includes anointing with sacred chrism) we are anointed as priests who can bear the presence of Christ.  Through baptism we are readied to behold this glory and be glory bearers. (more to come on this theme later with my sacraments class).

3.  What about Christian Ordination?  Because the entire Church is priestly does not mean that there are not priests among the priests who have a particular role.   To quote the CCC: 

“The ministerial or hierarchical priesthood of bishops and priests, and the common priesthood of all the faithful participate, "each in its own proper way, in the one priesthood of Christ." While being "ordered one to another," they differ essentially.²² In what sense? While the common priesthood of the faithful is exercised by the unfolding of baptismal grace --a life of faith, hope, and charity, a life according to the Spirit--, the ministerial priesthood is at the service of the common priesthood. It is directed at the unfolding of the baptismal grace of all Christians. The ministerial priesthood is a means by which Christ unceasingly builds up and leads his Church. For this reason it is transmitted by its own sacrament, the sacrament of Holy Orders.”  (CCC 1547). 

Many Christian traditions maintain some type of ordination.  So how does ordination in your tradition resonate or not resonate with a theology of the Levitial Priesthood and a Christian response suggested above?

I think this will be my final post pertaining to my first course, Introduction to the Old Testament.  If there is any area you’d like me to pursue further, let me know!

How to become a Theologian

My classmate and friend sent me this quote that describes well the route to becoming a real theologian.  It's like I always say (ok I just started saying this now) "Contemplatives know best!"

"The Lord's breast: the knowledge of God. Whoever rests on it will be a theologian." -Evagrius

Is Abraham more merciful than God?

We were just cruising through Genesis when my professor gave us an assignment: “Read Genesis 18 and give a written response.  Please explain why Abraham is more merciful than God.”  So go ahead, you do the assignment and I’ll do the assignment and we’ll compare notes.

The Bible is sometimes called “The Good Book.” I think that’s because it talks about God’s love for the world, and tells us that we should be nice to each other, and if we are faithful to God life will be all butterflies, rainbows, and puppies.  Right?  I hope there’s more to it than that.  In fact, if we do take the Bible seriously, I think we have to deal with the sometimes dark side of Scripture.  While there exist stories and passages that are so beautiful and true to life, it’s hard not to be moved by the words, there also exist stories and passages that reveal the darkest capacities of the human person and human societies.  If we aren’t careful, we may even see a God that is angry and outright maniacal.   It is our responsibility to understand why these stories exist at all, and how they should form us. 

Genesis 18 may not be the darkest example from Scripture, but if you did the assignment (you will send it to me right?) you will see that it’s hard to understand why Abraham has to try so hard to change God’s mind about destroying two cities.  God is supposed to be the all loving, most merciful Father right?  Why is Abraham the hero trying to stop the wrath of God?  Shouldn’t it be the other way around?  Well here was my best shot at the assignment:

The final portion of Genesis 18 tells the story of God’s intention to judge Sodom and Gomorrah.   A cursory reading makes it seem like God intended to completely destroy both cities, and if it were not for the intervention of Abraham, the just would perish with the unjust.   Rightly were the questions raised at the end of class:  Why is Abraham more merciful than God?  Why is Abraham so courageous in approaching God, when in the past he was content to listen and obey?  How does he get the idea to intervene?

A more careful reading of verse 21 would show that God’s intention was to assess the situation, not necessarily to destroy the cities.  “Therefore, I will go down now and see whether or not they are carrying out the outcry coming to Me concerning them.”  It is the reader’s assumption that God would destroy everyone if He concluded that the cities would be destroyed.  We do not know what God would have done about the presence of the righteous.  Abraham slowly worked God down to spare the city if only 10 righteous were found.  Considering the violent culture of the patriarchs and monarchs, it is unlikely that Abraham was concerned for the lives of the unrighteous.  Rather, he was most likely solely concerned for the survival of his nephew Lot.  Lot was found to be one righteous person in the city.  While this does not meet the agreed number of ten to spare the city, God does not wipe out the righteous with the unrighteous.  Lot and his family are spared.  Even further, on account of Lot’s plea, God spares the city of Zoar.  The text suggests that God’s intention from the beginning of the episode was not to destroy all.  Instead God meant to save the righteous from the hands of the unrighteous people of the city of Sodom (Genesis 19:11-16).

Still, we are left with this interesting encounter between God and Abraham in chapter 18.  Abraham is acting as a model of intercession and participation in the mission of God.   First we see in Abraham a genuine concern for those he intercedes for.  It is this concern that gives him the boldness to approach God. 

We see Abraham’s humility.  “Indeed now, I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord” (v 27).  He does not presume to know better than God.

Abraham acknowledges that God is indeed just (v 25).  While we might be inclined to use accolades to butter someone up so that she would hear us, Abraham is exemplifying prayer, not coercion.

Finally Abraham acts in a way that resonates with our own experience. When we see a situation that seems unjust, we want to effect change.  God is willing to listen to Abraham’s prayer, and in doing so allows Abraham to participate in His mission to save the righteous of the city.

In class, my professor offered a different view.  I’m not saying his is better…yes I am.  Take a look at it, and let me know what you think.

A common perception of God and God’s decision making process, was that He was like a king (not an unfamiliar image) who consulted with an advisory council.  As a heavenly king, God consulted a council of angels.  The best example that comes to mind from class was back in Genesis 1:26 when God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.”  Have you ever wondered who God was talking to?  Some folks insist that the “our” refers to the members of the Trinity.  That would be a convenient route to go if the Trinity was already revealed.  However, our Jewish brothers and sisters read this text without any notion of the Trinity.   My professor suggested that here was evidence of the heavenly, angelic council being consulted.  Back to Abraham.  God had already made a covenant with Abraham, and brought him into His inner circle.  It was after considering that Abraham will one day be a great nation through whom all the nations will be blessed that God decided to consult with Abraham (vv. 17-19). He was being brought into the heavenly court for consultation.

When was the last time God asked you for consultation?  I have a sense that if God were to consult me about something, how I respond may say more about me than it would about what is the best course of action.  Abraham had encountered God, and entered into covenant with Him, and now we get to see if anything changed for Abraham.  How had the covenant changed him? 

The text says that “Abraham remained before the Lord.” (v. 22).  How would you proceed if you stood before God as an advisor?  “Destroy the sinners?”  “Make them pay for their crimes?”  “You can kill all the unrighteous, but just save my nephew?”  Or perhaps you would feel ill-equipped (like me) and just go along with whatever God says.  Not Abraham.  Abraham allowed his covenantal relationship to inform his “advice.”  He stood before the Lord, a phrase that is very priestly, to intercede not just for his nephew, but for the cities.   His relationship to humanity was different because of the covenant.  And rightly so.  If all of the nations of the world would be blessed through him, he needed to start showing compassion toward all the nations.

We the readers are covenanted with God.  How merciful will we be?  The text challenges us to be like Abraham.  How merciful was he? With a literary device we learn that Abraham was more merciful than even God. That is what the covenant requires of us.

Face Melting and the Garden of Eden

Because this blog comes after one year of MA studies, we need to do a little catch up work. 

I walked into my first class with an air of confidence. Introduction to the Old Testament.  I had a minor in Bible from Houghton College, and most of my Bible courses were in the Old Testament. Intro to OT? No problem.   Dusting off my Hebrew Old Testament, and finding any notes I could recover from classes with Dr. Carl Schultz, I was ready to shine.

The first thing to go was my Hebrew Old Testament followed by my confidence.  My professor’s main interest was in Reception History.  He was interested especially in how early Christian’s received and interpreted the Old Testament.   Thanks to Alexander the Great, by the time of Jesus the widely used Scripture in Jerusalem was the Greek translation—the Septuagint.  The Septuagint was the Scripture of the early Church. Have you ever noticed when reading in the NAB, NRSV, NIV, etc., that when the NT writers quote the Old Testament it’s a little different than if you turn to the actual passage? For example, Matthew quotes from Isaiah about John the Baptist:

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
   make his paths straight.’” (Mt 3:3) (Based on the Septuagint)

He is quoting from Isaiah 40:3 which in the NRSV reads,

“A voice cries out:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
   make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” (Based on Hebrew Texts)

The idea is the same, but there is a difference.  Translators of many contemporary English translations of the Old Testament are interested in Hebrew Texts.  The early Church not only did not have access to these Hebrew Texts, but the Septuagint is usually more ancient.  My professor was interested in the Christian reception of the OT, so he required that we have an English translation of the Septuagint. 

The second curve ball was that my professor was an Orthodox Priest.  How this affected his approach to Scripture became apparent as we discussed the Holy Spirit and Ordination, the Levitical priesthood, Sacrifice, Theophany, Covenant.  Come to think of it, his was a nuanced view on nearly all OT theology. We barely spoke about historical criticism (he was not uninformed of the methodology), but we referred to the patristics every week.  And what a view this was!  Let’s look at one interesting example.

The Tabernacle was the portable Tent of Meeting between God and His people during the desert wanderings.  It was the place where heaven and earth meet.  Because it was such a sacred place there was a sacred ordering to the construction and use of the Tabernacle.   Furniture was situated in just the right place, incense was burned, and men from the Tribe of Levi offered sacrifices to God on behalf of the people.  The Tabernacle was where Moses would meet with God. Much more could be said about the purpose and theology of the tabernacle, but are you okay if we move on?  Good.

A look at the structure shows that closeness to the Divine increases the further you move into the Tent.  The people bring sacrifices to the door. Priests stand within the enclosure to offer some sacrifices.  Perpetual incense is burned before God in the Holy Place.  Lastly the High Priest walked through the veil to encounter God in the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant or the throne of God sat.

Another escalating encounter with God also happened on Mount Sinai (this was before the wandering in the wilderness).  The experience of God was different at various parts of the mountain.  For those at the base of the mountain, they were instructed to sanctify themselves through washing and sexual abstinence (Ex 19:10, 15).  As God came upon the mountain they saw a dense cloud (Ex 19:9), thunder and lightning and a trumpet blast (Ex 19:16), and smoke and fire (Ex 19:18).  Moses later brings Aaron and seventy elders up the mountain with him.  As they ascended the mountain, they beheld a more anthropomorphic vision of God.  They saw God’s feet as if resting on a footstool (Ex 24:9-10).  Moses left the seventy elders to ascend even further.  Visual elements all but faded away as he experienced only a thick cloud (Ex 24:15). 

Closeness to the Divine increases as one ascends the mountain.  At the very top, Moses represented the people before God, and experienced intimacy with God.  It would appear from this schematic that the Tabernacle, and later the Temple, were created as portable Sinai’s—a way to continue to experience the life giving presence of God.

This was all very interesting to me already.  But watch what my professor did next!  Let's look at a schematic of the Garden of Eden.  Humans are made from the dust of the earth, and then brought into the garden where they walked with God.  In the garden were the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If we consult our handy-dandy diagram:

It would appear that the Garden has a similar set-up.  So which came first?  Sinai, which was mirrored in the Tabernacle and then the Garden was interpreted likewise?  Or was the Tabernacle first which then re-interpreted the Sinai Event and the Garden?  I have no idea.   Let me know if you figure it out.

We may spend our time more wisely by looking at what these themes teach us.  Let’s take another look at the Garden as a Tabernacle.  The Tree of life stood as the goal that was sadly missed.  It was missed because humanity rushed for the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (don't worry the Tree of Life reappears in Rev. 22:2).  My professor suggested that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is not a tree about morality.  “From good to evil” is an idiom that represents everything from good to evil.   We can assume that since Eden is a garden there are more than just two trees.  Perhaps there were trees for virtues; A Tree of Humility, a Tree of Prudence, a Tree of Love, a Tree of Self-Sacrifice.  Humans were meant to taste of all the other trees to make their way to the Tree of Life.  Adam and Eve should have arrived at the Tree of Life through the Veil of the Tree of Knowledge, but only after having readied themselves like priests. To try to rush through the Tree of Knowledge to prematurely grasp at the Tree of Life would be like running into the Tabernacle and lifting up the lid to the Ark of the Covenant. Bad things happen.  Humanity was called like Moses to represent creation before God, and thus had to be prepared as priests.  The story is a story of the spiritual life; of the progression toward God.  The readers or hearers of the story should be formed to taste the fruit of the trees.

All three “theophanies” (appearances of God) are retold as a model for us to follow.  They are the stories of God trying to reconnect and restore what was broken. They are stories of God's initiative to bring humanity into an encounter with God.