Another dimension of the Eucharist is what it says about time. After serving the bread Jesus said, “…do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). Remembrance is something that takes place not in our minds, as we usually understand it, it is not something I can quite do still and in solitude. This kind of remembrance happens with our hands and with our bodies. It happens in us as the very real bread and the very real drink happen in our very real bodies, brought together as a body. Remembrance happens in your stomach, in your gut, not in your head. We are not just recalling the suffering of Christ but we are calling it out of the past and into the present. We remember as a way of saying, together with those who need bread regardless of who they are, together with the poor and the oppressed, in solidarity with beaten and crucified people, “what has happened to Christ is happening to us.” Just as Israel took the passover meal as a way of entering into solidarity with the liberated slaves of Egypt, the church which is the new Israel takes Christ’s body and blood, consuming and being consumed, as a way of entering into solidarity with the crucified Christ who shared and shares his identity with the “least of these.”

At the same time that we are calling the past out and into the present we also call the future into the present. After serving the cup Jesus said, “I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” As we eat and drink in solidarity with the crucified Christ saying, “what has happened to Christ is happening to us,” we are not only calling the past into the present but we are calling the future into the present–anticipating the day, as though it were now, that Christ drinks with us. We are calling the future into the present, insisting on a future when all will eat, drink, and live while denying a future–the Empire’s future–where death and decay are the inevitable and unavoidable end. We call Christ’s future into our present, with feet grounded in the suffering of Christ, proclaiming and anticipating with our hands the day when Christ will drink again from the fruit of the vine in his father’s kingdom, when “new wine will drip from the mountains” (Amos 9), when all will eat and bread will not be withheld. We become, in our freedom and in our openness in the body of Christ, the future here and now. We become the foretaste of God’s kingdom. in the Eucharist, we are now what we imagine the world can be.

The great and profound claim about time, which the Eucharist makes yet which so many Christian traditions miss, is that waiting is not on the agenda. Time is not governed by what must be but in the Eucharist it is governed by what can be. We do not have to wait for eternal life to happen in the future, giving in to cynicism and despair in our waiting. Instead we can call both future and past into the present, making this place the thin space in which heaven meets earth.

And that’s when I got to thinking…

Why do people believe in the literal “mark of the beast,” not to mention all the other problematic images in Revelation? Is it really because they read scripture and that was the most obvious interpretation (I’ll save questioning their hermeneutics for later)? Is it really only because that’s what’s been passed down to them (I’m sure this is often it!)? Or is it because it makes for very effective scare tactics?

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that dispensationalist literalism makes for very powerful conservative propaganda. I believe that this is part of the reason it is so alive and well in our world. While George W. Bush was in office, dispensationalism was used as propaganda for people to support war in Iraq and to give up on peace making in the middle east. Now that we have Barack Obama in office, it’s the mark of the beast language that scares people into looking negatively upon anything the president does or says. Whatever the situation, dispensationalism is good at twisting current events, no matter how horrific they are or how really good they really may be, and adapting itself so that everything is secret knowledge for the conservative dispensationalist. So the question is, do dispensationalists believe their outlandish interpretations because they’re being honest with the text or is it because it conveniently fits into their conservative bias and fear mongering? Is the literal and future mark of the beast expectation a reasonable interpretation or is it just a convenient scare tactic?

For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s^* will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled^* you^* to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins¹⁴. -Colossians 1:9-12¹⁰¹¹¹²

1. Prayer: Paul begins by praying for the Colossian church “without ceasing.”
2. Filling: The church should be filled with those people who understand “God’s will,” with the motive clause so that we can live lives “worthy of the Lord.” Notice the connection between knowledge and action.  The primary reason for knowing is to act out on that knowledge in the very sphere of our lives.  The filling should lead to doing.
3. Strength: After the filling should come strength which we receive from the Lord, but notice again the motive clause: so that we may endure.

Notes on God’s Will
Readers of the text may need to move away from the idea that knowing God’s will means knowing all the right answers or having all the right “stuff” as a Christian. Wes wrote yesterday on the dangers of trying to act like we know everything. Understanding the will of God is rather like a child bowling. His form will be imperfect, he will throw a lot of gutterballs, and he will improve with time. Learning the techniques needed will take years for a child simply because they grow in strength as they grow in age and they grow in skill as their motor skills improve.

There are so many books out there on deciphering God’s will that it almost makes it seem like a formula, but there is no formula because God is not a Coke machine where you put in the right stuff and a coke comes down the tubes for us to drink. It is something that really only comes with age and experience. This is the importance of an inter-generational church and having contact outside of age-specific church events.

The Hebrew Conception of Knowledge
I wrote quite an extensive paper for my undergrad Senior Seminar paper on the connection between knowledge and action (and how this is often absent in the educational sphere).  It is difficult in a western context to understand the importance of “living out” our knowledge.  We tend to hide in ivory towers, but the call to serve the poor is not something to just be opined on Sunday mornings, it is something that takes place within the context of the least of these (where we join in and find our identity with them).

Strength of the Lord
At the time a book like Colossians was written it is important to understand the idea of “strength” as a kind of strength in opposition to empire (specifically in this sense the Roman Empire). The kind of strength he is talking about is an enduring strength in order to “endure with patience” until Jesus brings the end of oppressive empire.  The strength we find in Colossians then is a kind of paradoxically strength that actually pulls against the strength of Empire.  Christians are called to reject, in every sense, the Empire and its pull towards worship of making the Empire bigger and stronger.  It is not an easy battle.

Thus, in coordination with this strength, which will surely take up all our energies, we are called to the joy of the Lord.  The joy which comes from the transference from a kingdom of darkness and oppression, to one of light and freedom.  No longer do we have to worry about making sure we are in all the “right” social circles, but we are called to be free among the least of these (indeed, it is nothing less than becoming the least of these, as the rich young ruler refused to do).  It is in this new kingdom, when we have bodily died as Jesus died, and we are raised again into a new life with a new lifeforce of the spirit, that we are truly “redeemed” and forgiven.  For the old has past away, all things have become new.

This past Sunday morning our little community of Christ followers prayed that prayer. In some profound way, as I prayed, I felt that I was praying something deeply controversial and subtly subversive of the kind of Christianity we’re often sold in American culture… “Do you know where you’re going when you die? If you were to die today do you know for certain where you would spend eternity?” is their sales pitch and these questions seem to be the mantra of American evangelicalism. Although these questions are almost incoherent to the ears of emerging culture, they are still alive and well in Christianity today because the idea that Christianity is primarily about “where you are going”, about certainty thereof, and about what happens to you when you die, is still alive and well in Christianity today. The shadow of a doubt pertaining to the destination is seen as heresy and a lack of faith. But this is not the attitude of faith, this is the attitude of spiritual arrogance with a hint of ignorance.

In response to a question about destination, a question about entering God’s kingdom, Jesus said, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). There is a beautiful uncertainty about true faith and following Jesus. Christ called his disciples to follow him without revealing any sort of destination but only by promising a sort of becoming, by inviting them on a kind of journey, “Come follow me… I will make you fishers of men” (Mark 1:17). He called them to “ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden and through perils unknown” and spoke much more of the following itself than he ever did about any kind of destination, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Never did he talk of being certain of the destination and yet that has become the center-piece of American Christianity, even to the point where Christians often overlook actually following Jesus and taking up their cross because they’ve come to see everything on Earth as secondary to their heavenly destination. For Christ, the world and the here and now were primary, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son” NOT “for God so loved heaven that made sure that people could know they were going there.”

God calls us to follow him because of what we might become NOT because of where we are headed. The destination may indeed be uncertain, the path may well be “untrodden,” but we go with faith because the way of the cross is ironically the best possible way to live. In this uncertain path we may find life that is truly life. In these “ventures of which we cannot see the ending” where we are called to see all we have and give it to the poor we will discover “in this present age homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions” (Mark 10:30). May we live in uncertainty so that when the path takes the unexpected turn toward the cross of Christ we will not abandon him for another destination but faithfully take up our cross and follow the crucified Jesus to become resurrected people.

As I prayed that prayer I felt indescribably free and I felt a sense of new life, empowered to live today in the uncertainty of tomorrow guiltless and with the hope of God’s leading love here with me now.

Let our faith not be defined by where we are going but let it be defined by the one who is taking us there, that our destination will not become our god but that the tortured and crucified Son of God would be the One God of our wandering hearts. May God lead us on paths of justice and mercy here, now, and always.

Wesley Ellis
from Living in the Kingdom

Halden seems to be saying that it’s not necessarily a bad thing for there to be a disparity between theologians and their theology because we need to be able to write about what is possible, and not just about what is.  I would agree with this in the sense that a major job of a theologians is to try and show the church not only what is possible, but how to get there theologically.  I worry, however, that this makes theology something that lives in the “fantasy world” of the theologian.  Theology cannot be separated from the theologian, in only because their moral, social, spiritual, and physical realities are defined by their surroundings and their cultural constructs.

Adam’s counter post seems to be saying that the job of a theologian is twofold: (1) Exemplary reflection on the gospel, and (2) Exemplary criticism of the church.  Adam also says that the theologian should not set their judgments before church authority.  This gives the theologian a certain amount of freedom, but it also seems to make their endeavor seem extremely individualistic.  Perhaps that is not what Adam intended by his post, or perhaps they can find solace and community within the University and other theologically minded thinkers.  I do, in a certain sense, know the isolating nature of the thinking theologically.  Most people just don’t do it, or they have never been taught how.

I would argue that the main issue at hand is the disparity between word and deed.  It is something central to the Biblical narrative, and a central theme in Christianity today.  How do we live out what we believe in our contexts?  Our contexts are often in conflict with everything we believe.  I have read numerous posts on capitalism (including this good post at NextReformation), and I feel inescapably linked to the system (especially with so much school debt, which, in a capitalist system, is used a kind of intellectual capital that will “pay off” more in the end).  The conondrum, however, is that I would have never been exposed to my distaste for capitalism and other seemingly “anti-Christian” ideologies (or at least in their extremes anti-Christian) without going to school and accruing all that debt.

The only way out seems to be pulling an Into the Wild, but this would be breaking from the command honor my father and mother (as they would foot the bill in my absence).  Perhaps the trick is to teach my children the things I have learned and hope they fare better than I?  Perhaps it is, if I ever get a job teaching history in this horrible California job climate, to help students see beyond the capitalist infrastructure that so often entangles us?

Let me know your thoughts.  It appears that theology is not often so black and white.

Theologians Practicing what the Theologize?
We always talk about pastors practicing what they preach, but what about theologians? Halden has one point of view, and it seems that Adam had another (HT: Ben Myers).

The Search for God and Guinness
This book, reviewed by Jonathon, talks about the life of the Guinnesses and the good they did in Ireland for their community and for their workers.

Halloween: Yes or No?
One person argues that the Puritanical fear of the occult and the general evangelical hatred towards the Roman Catholic Church is what originally created the fear of Halloween. Perhaps, he argues, we have come to believe our own propaganda?

A Theology of the Land
tallskinnykiwi talks about and quotes Christian farmers who are doing what they can to bring justice and equality to what Paul called “the whole created order.”

Pray for Glenn Beck
He surely needs it.

New Smashing Pumpkins album to be Free
If you love Smashing Pumpkins, you’d better read this.

The Jesus we Never Knew
:

The Third Street Freedom Rally Parade happens today
Marching with rifles and pistols
Down along the way
Carrying the second amendment
With them to their graves
American flags wave like
beauty pageant stars

Oh, but down the way another rally meets
Yelling explevities and down with the state
Singing old Lennon songs,
just give peace a chance
Their so young and in love
With the sunset and the shades of the moon

Then the rallies met with cold words exchanged
Partisan politics always was the game
Stop yelling just listen to the river
Stop talking listen to the sound of it all

But me, I’m somewhere in the middle
But me, I just can’t understand
I’m just a poet with a heavy heart
I’m just a man, what can I do?
What can I do?

When everyone stopped yelling all around
I told in my dreams to, oh,
Just sit down
Maybe if you were just to listen
you’d be calm
Stop yelling, and looking for a way
to be right.

See that tear streaming down your cheek
Just keep crying
It’s probably what you need
Better look for roses on the
other side of spring
Scattered six feet above where you are.

But me, I’m can’t just the words
To say exactly how it hurts
The pain, another life that’s lost
The shame, but I still don’t know for
what it’s for
I don’t know what it’s for, for, for

The third street freedom rally
parade happens today
Marching with rifles and pistols
down along the way
Carrying the second amendment
like hawks to their graves
American flags burn
Like the setting of the sun
tonight.

New Music that I’ve been listening to:

The Tallest man in the World is a singer-songwriter from Sweden with a certain Dylanesque qualities.  His music hooked me instantly.  I love the lyrics particularly in this song (”The Gardener”):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYVnRyZWs70&hl=en&fs=1&]

Horse Feathers is another singer-songwriter that is worth listening to, check him out:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSDpSUB6YjA&hl=en&fs=1&]

Julie Clawson talks about confession as she heard it first hand at Mars Hill.  Rather than simply being about confessing your sins and feeling badly about it, she makes the point that:

“…for example, when we participate in systems that support injustices in the world we are disrupting Shalom. I would never go so far as to say that buying a banana grown by oppressed workers and with dangerous polluting pesticides is a sin in the traditional understanding of the word, but it is a failure to love and a disruption of the way things ought to be. So we can confess that we have participated in the wrong order of things, failed to support God’s Shalom, and then choose to return (repent) to the order of love and stewardship that God desires. It’s not about acts of individual sin, it’s about an orientation of love.”

I think this is important because repentance is about more than feeling about, it is a turn that we make in our lives.

Todd talks about being sub-contextual.

After recently reading Mark’s thoughts on Jesus Loves me and Wes’ thoughts on the Withering Fig Tree,  I decided I needed to write a theologically laden thought.

The thought begins on many long walks or in silent shadows when I think about the fairness of God.  I think of Saul stripped of his kingdom because he wouldn’t follow some very tall orders from Samuel.  Can Saul really be blamed that Samuel was late in getting to a meeting?  Can Saul really be blamed for the extreme pressure put on the leader of a country to make a decision in the heat of the moment?  I read the story which Wes so eloquently spoke on in his post:

“The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ And his disciples heard him say it… In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!’” Mark 11:12-14 & 20-21

I again come back to the basic question: Why would he expect a fig when it was not the season for figs?  Why does he expect the impossible?  Why does he utterly destroy it when what he wanted was a miracle?

Why does he expect so much out of season?

How can he?

Apparently Jesus doesn’t expect ordinary.

He expects a commitment of life in and out of season.

Apparently he really does take faith seriously

He expects a serious faith in all seasons of life.

This scares me sometimes.

Sometimes it brings me hope.