Religion & Theology

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.  But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”  Matthew 24:35-36

I’m not sure which is more troubling: that Harold Camping predicted the end of the world, was wrong, and has now predicted an alternate date, or the fascination everyone has with this ridiculous non-story.  The Bible tells us that the end will come “like a thief in the night.”  What Godly person would claim to know more than Jesus himself?  Kind of makes me wonder which team he’s playing for.

This brilliant essay on Amos was brought to my attention by (of all people) the generally-secular Bob at Polizeros.  Thanks, Bob!

In the past ten days, my wife and I have helped bring six baby goats into the world.  Most came easily, one had its leg folded under and I had to reposition it so it could be born. All the moms and babies are healthy and happy.

There is something special about assisting the birth process.  It’s not just witnessing the miracle of life, though that is something worthwhile in itself.  It’s more about participating in the miracle.   I did not create the life, nor did I bring it into the world, I was merely a helper and a witness, a vehicle, a conduit.  The real work was done by something far greater than I.  Call it God, or pratitya samutpada, or Indra’s Net, or any other word or name you choose, it is That Which Creates, that which breathes life, that which gives to us all we have.

In that sense, I find birthing analogous to my life: I am a participant, a vehicle, a conduit.  But the real work is done by something far greater than I.  I see this in moments of miraculous events.  Sometimes in my volunteer work I sit across the table from an inmate at the jail and I see a man’s eyes light up as he realizes there is hope.  Some of my good friends today were when I met them on a seemingly inevitable path to destruction and death, yet today you would never know that.  In 2002 I got word that my work in Sri Lanka had helped to bring about a cease fire. These are life saving events that I have been privileged to be part of.

Yet I see it also when a cheese comes out well.  A good cheese is a living, breathing organism that is not so much manufactured as nourished.  Likewise the plants in my garden give me joy.  I did not create them, I am merely the conduit, the vehicle; I provide water and care, but the real work is done by something far greater.

Why can’t I see this in every aspect of my life?  I have two successful businesses, an impossible feat for a person with my background.  I am awed by the partnership that is my marriage.  The problems I have today are problems of abundance.  The grace that has been granted me in my life is beyond comprehension.

Yet most days I bog down in the details, the critical issues of each day that are not really that critical.  Payments to the hospital for last year’s care, payment to the vet for her ongoing services, not enough time and energy to do the things that I need and want to do.  A bit of objectivity would make me laugh: my life has become so abundant that I can’t do it all!  That’s not a problem, it’s a gift!

It takes something magnificent like a birthing, or a sunset, or a miracle in someone else’s life for me to regain that objectivity.  It takes something so astounding that I can no longer pretend that I am the source.  And with that awareness, I can contemplate the real Source – and for that moment, I have an opportunity to find peace.

“The Manger’s purpose was the Cross.” –Seen on a marquis at a Baptist Church in Cedar City, Utah.

One of the most striking things to me about Eliot’s poem, “Journey of the Magi” is that although it clearly centers around the birth of the Christ child, not once is Jesus mentioned.  Rather, it is the experience of the maggus himself that is explored: a rebirth that the speaker calls “hard and bitter agony,” comparable to his own death.  The conversion experience Eliot portrays is not warm, summery elation, but rather a hard road leading to discomfort with the world around.  This is an experience of Christ that challenges, that calls one to change.

There are two major schools of thought in Christianity with respect to Christ.  One believes that Jesus was the Son of God sent to die for our sins so that we may be saved.  This view is familiar from the opening words of John’s Gospel:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God… And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son…” (John 1:1-2 & 1:14)

And again in the First Letter of John:

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God…  We know that those who are born of God do not sin, but the one who was born of God protects them, and the evil one does not touch them.”  (1John 1:1 & 1:18)

The other school of thought suggests that Jesus came to us not to save us through faith, but to teach us through actions.  This considers Jesus’s frequent command to “Pick up your cross and follow me.”  It may also be seen in the Letter of James:

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?  If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?  So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” (James 2:14-17)

These are sometimes distinguished as High Christology and Low Christology– was it Jesus’s godliness or humanity that should be emphasized more?  I have also heard them distinguished as “summer” and “winter” Christianity, as the latter tends to lead to a more solitary and difficult path.

To me, the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross means nothing unless Jesus was human.  It is his humanity that makes His actions important.  He chose to die for what He believed to be right.  He suffered as only a mortal being can suffer, He died, and He rose again– despite His mortality, death could not claim Him.  And He called us to follow in His footsteps.  Surely He was “of God” in a way that I am not.  But He called each of us to become more than we are.

The celebration of Jesus’ birth emphasizes the deity of Jesus– it suggests (as the Baptist marquis above confirms) that Jesus was born for the purpose of dying, that He is the sacrificial lamb given to us by God.  If that is the case, it relieves me of the responsibility to change.  All I need do is believe.

If on the other hand the humanity of Jesus is emphasized– the choice He made in sacrificing himself, and the example He called us to follow– then Christmas as we know it today is pretty irrelevant, at least from a religious standpoint.  Jesus’ humanity and actions are worthy of celebration.  His birth?  Not so much.  Christmas serves a valued cultural and economic purpose.  But in a religious sense, it seems to discourage us from following in Jesus’ footsteps– the very thing the Christ intended.

Given that “Follow me” is the most prevalent commandment in the New Testament, the celebration of Christmas seems to miss the point.

My one Christmas tradition is to read T. S. Eliot’s poem, “Journey of the Magi.”  It says for me much about what the birth of the Christ child really means– and why the holiday we now celebrate, supposedly in His honor, is neither relevant nor appropriate.

You can hear Eliot reading the poem here.

“Journey of the Magi”

by T. S. Eliot

‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

(Wiki photo: one of thousands of Sri Lankan families who lost their homes in the 2004 tsunami.)

What does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

This is one of my favorite Bible passages, and one that I have found guiding in my life.  It is one of the most concise summaries of how one ought to live that I have ever encountered.

Micah wrote in the 7th and 8th centuries BC, before the fall of Israel to the Assyrians. Micah prophesied the fall not only of Israel, but of Judah also, and claimed that this would be as a result of injustice by the two kingdoms’ rulers:

Alas for those who devise wickedness
and evil deeds on their beds!
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in their power.
They covet fields, and seize them;
houses, and take them away;
they oppress householder and house,
people and their inheritance. (Micah 2:1-2)

Micah 6:8 answers a question asked in 6:1: “With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high?”  The prophet then considers various kinds of sacrifice, and concludes that what is truly important is not ritual sacrifice, but how we live.

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