tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29084782198798171192024-03-25T21:25:42.573-07:00Crying in the Wilderness of MammonRev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.comBlogger98125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-42783259985743818242024-03-14T13:06:00.000-07:002024-03-18T21:01:51.553-07:00<p style="text-align: center;"> <i><b><span style="font-size: large;">Short Note on the Theoretical Physics of Grace</span></b></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">(with an application to politics)</span></b></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Rev. Douglas Olds</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">March 14, 2024</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Second Law of Themodynamics informs us that entropy degrades every closed system, so that only the constancy of renewal—the earth’s essence—from the open system of sun, spirit, rain, new generations of vitality and genius of language and art can keep the church from becoming first chaotic, then tepid, then saltless and insipid. What the <i>Shema</i> calls us earth imagers (Trustees) of the divine to: the endless expansion of purpose, empathy, intelligence/logos, and kinesthetic schema (soul). And teleology emerges from the renewing earth and is recognized as its essence that becomes part of the human essence of repair. In this, teleology is attended as a Trinitarian feature, a union of the human trustee and the earth divine imager of grace's heart. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Teleology can either be denied—and resisted as a force instead to wallow in walled-off, separate, static definitions of “nature" [1]--</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">cast in secular terms in neoliberalism’s updating of mammon: the moral horror of consequentialist “thinking,” (non-empathetic and inconsiderate of moral claims and duties—the disparagement of “moralism”,) aligned with the warrant of ignorance by bourgeois anonymity, crowd mirroring, celebrity-careerist vapidity, “bro-sports speak” and “I think you’re pretty, do you think I am?” that never goes anywhere but to serve appetites for security-- </span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">or it can become part of an awareness, an alignment, a caring attendance. This is the crux and touchstone of humanities portraying character development by the Golden Rule. Grace is the eternal and infinite reaching into and leavening closed systems (institutions) to reform them and so to sustain and heal neighbor. Grace Reforms and Always Reforming. By this the earth is repaired, humanity is redeemed, and through which eternity is launched, peopled, mirrored, and won.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">APPLICATION:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">To enclose and sustain power, inner circle culture is an entropy-spreading system that climbs mountains on the backs of subordinates and is thus the palette of the prophetically<a href="https://shorturl.at/anpV4" target="_blank"> goat-doomed</a>.</span> As David French notes (NYT 12/7/23), its religious forms are marked by certainty, ad hominem “ferocity, and solidarity (loyalty + confidentiality)” to maintain an elite’s control of narratives, especially those that privilege their “power” at the expense of enemy outsiders, esp. traitors to this culture.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Instead we come to recognize, by the Spirit of Pentecost, that an ethnos/nation is a language group (Acts 2:1-12), we discern political lies & propaganda function as ethnic “treason.” Beware the ad hominem sleight, redirecting questions of intent (logos) into disputes about “numbers.” And the “spirit of perpetual, unrepentant, anger-filled derision towards dissent:” revilement of the Kingdom of God, to be avoided. (1 Cor 5:11, 6:10). Concocting enemies is the Machiavellian proclivity, mode, and ploy of [Schmittian] religious politics to justify strong man saviors and warrant their violence.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Note:</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">[1] the error of organicism applied to theology and self- focusing or group-sustaining systems.</span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-55114412993758116262024-03-11T14:19:00.000-07:002024-03-11T14:21:45.350-07:00<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>A Sensorium
of Brokenness and Delight: </i></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">An Anthology of Metaphysical Poetry</span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">(Douglas
Olds, February 2024 <i>In process)<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: x-large;">Linked <a href="https://shorturl.at/ekoJ0" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">here</span></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br /></p>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-84927851414822900362024-03-09T10:34:00.000-08:002024-03-12T09:24:59.723-07:00<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: large;">SERMON "The
Lenten Walk with The Condemning"</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">March 10, 2024</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Point Reyes (CA) Community Presbyterian Church</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Rev. Douglas Olds</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><span style="color: red;">The AUDIO </span>of this sermon (which departs from the following text at places) is linked<span style="color: red;"> <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yiUONmCwr-_CXnpvhA2yU4l6vl7IBmGu/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">HERE</a> </span><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span><span>[n.b. correction: for the use of the word "<i><b>trumpet</b></i>" in the audio, replace with "<b>festal shout.</b>"]</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Aptos, sans-serif" style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Aptos, sans-serif" style="text-align: left;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="font-family: georgia;">First
Reading Numbers 21:4-9<o:p></o:p></span></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">4From Mount Hor
they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the
people became impatient on the way. 5The people spoke against God and against
Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For
there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” 6Then the
LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that
many Israelites died. 7The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by
speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the
serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8And the LORD said to Moses,
“Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten
shall look at it and live.” 9So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon
a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the
serpent of bronze and live.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u>NT Reading: Gospel of John 3:</u><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">13</span></u><u>-21</u><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who
descended from heaven, the Son of Man</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.14“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">16“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so
that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">17“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to
condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are
condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son
of God. 19And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and
people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20For
all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their
deeds may not be exposed. 21But those who do what is true come to the light, so
that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Our readings
this morning explore how the spirit of condemnation, lifted in the hand’s of
God’s OT people, works in God’s creation by grace, lifted up in the NT Christ.
These stories tell us what God is not and what God is. The OT story of the serpent
lifted up is what God is not and what is defeated, and the Christ lifted up is what God is and how God is victorious. The
supposed divine condemnation versus the God of sacrificial love who pulls out
every stop to keep God’s creation alive.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Book of Numbers, the Israelites are
wandering in the desert after they have been liberated by the miracle working
of Moses, but they quickly fall away with very tragic results by building the
Golden Calf while Moses is up on the mountain of Sinai receiving the
commandments of God.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">This is a
most serious transgression—these idolators have turned away from their relationship
with Moses’ God who liberated them from the Egyptian system and return to that
system seeking security in an idea of a god who is fashioned of gold as if it
will, by being worshipped with gold annealed to its body, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>dispense gold back! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the false transactional theology that “feeds”
a deity. Transactional theology is the epitome of idolatry. Idolotries of transactional
relationships with God and neighbor are everywhere today, monetized. It comes forth
in every generation, even in Christianity if not especially.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">This offense
of the Golden Calf leads to what the Torah presents as a 40 year period of
wandering and testing in the desert. Only after the entire Golden Calf
generation has died—Moses too--are their children and grandchildren allowed to
cross the Jordan River into the promised land under Moses’ lieutenant, Joshua.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">During these
wanderings, the Israelites reveal themselves to be “stiff-necked,”
recalcitrant, grumbling, back-biting, gossipy. This is not an inherent character,
what Darwinians might call “genetic” (with all the tragic results of reducing a
people into their DNA), but the wandering people who had been slaves (and which
included non-descendants of Jacob) were people who shared a historical language,
now a language being shaped by liberation and their realization that they were
living with and in and by God—the God of Abraham and Jacob. This is important:
“ethnos”--nation--in the Bible is a language grous, not kinship structures, and
certainly not an administrative unit organized by politics. Think of this
whenever you hear the word “ethnic.” Do they mean it as a DNA lineage, or in
the Biblical sense of language group?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">It is thus ever
important to parse the speech acts in the Bible. And in this reading from the
Book of Numbers, we have no quotes, but we have an implied culture and
expression of gossip and grumbling. And the symbolic dimensions of lifting up
the serpent <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>symbol after the grumblers
were bitten indicate three important theological points:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">1)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Grumbling, gossip, scoffing, innuendo,
sneering, snark, slander, and haughty poses of bemused detachment valorized as ironical but withdraw from fellowship reveal a spirit of
condemnation in their practitioners. What is condemning will be mirrored. What
is healing will be mirrored. This derives from the metaphysics of the heart.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">2)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Mirroring is the operation of
“accountability,” and the virtue of accountability is to recognize and accept
that mirroring, as the course of God’s justice. The wandering Israelites, in
their verbal doggerels of condemnation, reveal their spiritual participation in
the serpent’s spirit transmitted to humanity by the disobedience of Adam. We
are, as Luther says, enslaved by that spirit which acts out in all forms of
condemnation, violence, backbiting, conspiratorial thinking, plotting, revenge.
The list is long. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the extent that the
Israelites can come to appreciate that their spirit of condemnation—which we
might call the demonic—is of the serpent and that the serpent comes against
them as a warning and mirror, they can learn accountability to a different
spirit. It takes 13 centuries to get the Egypt of the Golden Calf out <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of them and get them to the place of the Golden
Rule of the pure living lamb. 13 Centuries of mirroring—doubling back in the
desert of generations to learn accountability. This wandering and mirroring and
warning repeats over and over again in the histories, wisdom, and prophetic
books in the OT. Look for it. It's why many think history repeats, but indeed
it is our shared experience of doubling back in the wilderness, our conduct
being mirrored until we learn accountability and are released into the sunshine
of grace, learning grace, attending to grace, walking in the way of Jesus.
History does not repeat, but generations have to learn the lessons of accountability
ever anew.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">3)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>God, with God’s primary attribute of
grace, heals the injustices of the serpent spirit by sending a program that
awakens the awareness of the Israelites beset by snakebites. God initiates
repair by sending a symbol for recognizing our condemning nature and overcoming
our false sense of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>justice that mirrors
the condemning demon—which all human culture shares in biases and prejudices
and preferring its privileged ideas of favored social orders and kinship. The serpent
of condemnation is overcome in this story by an act of grace in a visual (and
certainly deliberated) symbol: the lifting up of the serpent as the vanguard of
the advancing people who are trusting God’s promised victory over the serpent.
They are receiving God’s assurance that the serpent demon always condemining is
conquered, and that those who encounter from the outside this vanguard and
symbol may come to deliberate its meaning. We are those outside that vanguard,
reading of this imaging of grace and accountability and deliberating of the
virtues and the theology nested in this story.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Application:
new demons of condemnation have morphed in modernity—changed their tune: We see
it boredom and the affects of irony (acedia) which may not condemn, but it
resists accountability to participate in progress and healing. Acedia has
societal implications that posits a virtue in withdrawal from a culture it
doesn’t understand. Withdrawal in chronic melancholy has a foundation in condemning,
of finding fault with the world, rejecting the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Acedia, a
blend of bored withdrawal and ironic detachment from things that ever go wrong.
This is a religiosity of fatalism: that things never go our way as we’ve planned
them. Because, don’t’ you know, <i>they </i>are bringing God’s judgment on us.<i>
Their</i> Beliefs are flawed; their love is flawed. Yours and mine, gossipers
agree, are the preferred ends because they are God’s ends. Our forms are God’s
forms. Our social orders are God’s social orders. Religious </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">a</span><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0f1419; white-space-collapse: preserve;">uthoritarians see themselves and their preferences guarding "God's order" against the excesses of mob democratic rule.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">This bias is the danger of
Platonic thinking which underlies all condemnation of otherness. Platonist
reactionaries going by his name of "republicans" take confidence in the continuation of forms and institutions, so
when these fall or are replaced or reformed, the condemning spirit can their sensibilities
and comforts that are hurt by change brought by the new. Evil, then, is seen all around encroaching in these new neighbors flooding in. We see it in the over the top alarm
about immigrants and open borders these days.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Condemnation
and conspiratorial innuendo is "acedia's sin," indicative of love
grown cold within a Christian community. Its cult of fatalism is fostered by obfuscation and obscurantism to inhibit original thinking that only derived from a supposedly evil, surrounding culture. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">The tongue's
gossip likened to a "chilling rattle," referencing James's depiction
of the tongue as a destructive force. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Things <i>seemingly</i>
ever go wrong because our ethics are misplaced: we think we have the knowledge
of God to bring about God’s will in terms of forms and orders. But we image God
not by our foresight of consequence—our knowledge of what the future holds in
terms of forms and orders. Instead, we are to image God by our virtues that
heal and reconcile the local by the Golden Rule in the moment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wrote a book on this Pastoral Christology centered in virtues to
guide Christians away from strategic thinking that ever tempts to become the
authoritarian, top-down and coercive serpent of hegemony. Yes, this demon in us
will be mirrored to us until we come to feel the power and sublimity of God’s
love “lifted up” on the Cross. And then we will lay down our strategic plans
that, because it is based on our ego preferences on not on the common good of others.
We will move on from anxiety and the consternation we feel at unintended
consequences because by virtue we align with God. Our accountability to this God’s
justice proceeds by seeing how the blowback of consequences is earned, and is intended
to awaken us from false consciousness of beliefs that our intended consequences
are not God’s.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">When love
grows cold within the Christian community, it withdraws into expecting the worst.
Love grown cold acts outs in gossip that mirrors the inner condition of its
speaker. Love grown cold acts out fatalistically by sitting static and secreted
in front of a screen, interjecting condemning<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>and malicious comments about secret evils lurking in conspiracies in
neighbors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Social media’s "anger-tainment"
and performative malice perpetuate a cycle of cynicism and judgment. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">The
"chilling rattle," a snake, a destructive spark, takes hold, spreading
into conflagrations of conspiratorial thinking and accusation. The coldness of
the rattle mirrors the coldness of heart. When you hear its rattle, you are in
the presence of the condemning, who project their own suspicion into the hearts
of others. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">There is a
Christian Ethic Against Conspiratorial Thinking:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">The cultural
endorsements of violence and hegemony are grounded in conspiratorial projection
about “enemies” plans for another social reality. The Christian ethic of love
your neighbors is the foundation of anti-conspiratorial gossip and strategic
planning. God says, do not repay evil for evil. I will repay. God’s got this.
The strategic outworking of God’s world is in love. Love will conquer the serpent
in every generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As my friend John
Anderson says, “the victory is in the bag.” The Kingdom of God is here
in love, and it will NOT be extinguished. Not possible. Though every new
generation needs to learn accountability to God’s justice before receiving the
magnificent pardon of God’s grace: what John said in our second reading:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>14“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in
him may have eternal life.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">What the
Cross washes out in this love grown cold in fatalistic withdrawal and postures
of innuendo is the tendency to scorn others. What washes out is the possibility
of reconciliation with human others who differ from ourselves or our
expectations. What is washed by the Cross is the disheartening fear that God is
the supreme condemnation, that we under wrath, and this false picture creates
so much dysfunction.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">The Psalmist
has learned to appreciate this message of the desert wanderings and mirroring switchbacks
that builds accountability of awareness:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Psalm 107:
17-22<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">17<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some were sick through their sinful ways,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and because of their iniquities
endured affliction;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">18<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they loathed any kind of food,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and they drew near to the gates of
death.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">19<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and he saved them from their
distress;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">20<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>he sent out his word and healed them,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and delivered them from destruction.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">21<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast
love,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for his wonderful works to humankind.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">22<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and tell of his deeds with songs of
joy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">And the
apostle Paul says this to his church in Ephesus: (Ephesians 2:1-6):<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">1You were
dead through the trespasses and sins 2in which you once lived, following the
course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit
that is now at work among those who are disobedient. 3All of us once lived
among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and
senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. 4But God,
who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5even when
we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by
grace you have been saved — 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him
in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">My
conclusion this morning is ever to embrace the sacrificing goodness and
provision of God who will get us out of every abyss into which we fall. But
along the way, we come to embrace the Virtue of Accountability as our Lenten
Walk in a condemning culture.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Purple is
the liturgical color of Lent, a color of swollen wounds that signify penitence
but otherwise traditionally associated with royalty. Like I’ve preached before,
semiotic (symbolic) meanings are inverted by the NT. Lent is a training of kings—My King is
righteousness, Melchizedek lives in <i>shalom</i>-- by defeating the angry, condemning and violent schema
(1 Cor 7) of contemporary dynasts and those souls which aspire to such. This
purple is the liturgical color of swollen and wounded royalty, which our Lord
brings us forth into share his realm. We are battered, and we reach out to the
battered, and sustain them as our subjects from our placement as their servants:
in Jesus Christ we are responsible for the oppressed, for the battered, and for
the enslaved, because God’s creation is entirely intended by God to come in to
this world of mutual service, grace, and provision. We align against that
messianic vision of a universal course for creation at the risk that we are
excluded when we follow an unaccountable path that condemns others’ ends as
less valid than our own. Our own gifts, our own children, our own backgrounds,
our own monumental forms and institutions, our privileging of our own stories. We have been
bitten by snakes of accountability that come from God. Let us recognize how we’ve
been left to live for the other story—the righteous, true and beautiful story,
of Christ lifted up for our sakes. And may we lift him and up that we may be
lifted up ourselves in our service to God and neighbor that sustains and
liberates and flourishes all creation. May it be so for you and me, AMEN.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-43049951133630789072024-02-20T09:43:00.000-08:002024-02-23T11:30:09.074-08:00<p> </p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b> <i>An Autopsy's Durruti</i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;">(Douglas Olds, August 2023, posted on the occasion of the death in prison of Navalny. A politics of the tangible puts Putin on the table)</p><p><br /></p><p>Who gallops with Valkyries, </p><p>Done in by mistaken kinship, its vengeful spear, the stepfathering maw of reason that seeks its forms, </p><p><br /></p><p>I sing of the bullet that felled Siegfried castellano </p><p>His measure hijacked by triremes ever re-ballasted </p><p>Aimed to ram into shadows heaven’s gate,</p><p>with cyclamates to salt sleeping spring:</p><p><br /></p><p>Not by talc and brain grease this destiny by rationality’s gritty kiss so</p><p><br /></p><p>by autopsy as incantation refined and whip assigned:</p><p>This Bullet’s Durruti</p><p>Climbs the guard of flaming angels over</p><p>These walks in a telluric cauldron,</p><p>that bullet lands a bane walk, scopes it though we Durruti’s funeral cloak array, </p><p>a cleric’s disguise wagered.</p><p><br /></p><p>To feed the bullet song of</p><p><br /></p><p>such hero’s procession-- </p><p>How triumvirs grasped your cold and unmasked hand!</p><p>Anarch redivivus by these shapeshifting reports </p><p><br /></p><p>Do bullets that cover priests in peasant backs land?</p><p>It can only be so! Testify angels of ballistic resonance </p><p>Who ascend to refine the guided autopsies of birthing heroes, their vaporous allegation</p><p> good guns to gin the raven skin, those</p><p>a family tombed plots to the future circumcise </p><p>As we autopsy our interpreted evil’s author and knight it</p><p>over and over, this redacted Autopsy until lands scripture--</p><p>to repowder Durutti into fork’s Intent, to plant its seed in backs ever more</p>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-54971316637395866912024-02-10T13:33:00.000-08:002024-02-15T14:06:42.198-08:00<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">“Why Not Joseph and David?”<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">A Sermon by Rev.
Douglas Olds<o:p></o:p></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">Transfiguration
Sunday February 11, 2024<o:p></o:p></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">Tomales (CA)
Presbyterian Church<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>Bulletin Quote:</o:p></p><p class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A form without form, you say: silence, and yet a voice—a powerful effect from a formless figure, and so it must be. . .The more closely defined its features, the feebler would their effect become. Form and definiteness are incompatible with our notions of Spirit. it is the offspring of the wind that preserves the character of its origin.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> --J.G. Herder</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b style="font-style: italic;">The </b><span style="color: red; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">audio</span><b style="font-style: italic;"> of this sermon </b><span>(</span><span>a condensation of this prepared transcript) is linked</span><b style="font-style: italic;"> </b><span style="color: red; font-size: large; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KCDUOGKmV_mSE5xRmh9kGdVSvtZ4MAOV/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a></span></span></o:p></p></blockquote><p> </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[n.b. </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">error</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> in the audio: David is anointed king by the prophet</span><b style="font-family: georgia;"> Samuel</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">; it is David's son Solomon who is anointed by the prophet Nathan.]</span></p></blockquote></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">OT Reading 1 Ki 19:1-13<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">19 Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he
had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 Then Jezebel sent a
messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do
not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”
3 Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to
Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the
wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he
might die: “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better
than my ancestors.” 5 Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell
asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.”
6 He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a
jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. 7 The angel of the
LORD came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the
journey will be too much for you.” 8 He got up, and ate and drank; then he
went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the
mount of God. 9 At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night
there. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, “What are you
doing here, Elijah?” 10 He answered, “I have been very zealous for the
LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown
down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and
they are seeking my life, to take it away.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">11 He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before
the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so
strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the
LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but
the LORD was not in the earthquake; 12 and after the earthquake a fire,
but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.
13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and
stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said,
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">NT Reading: Mark 9: 2-9<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and
John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was
transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as
no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah
with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5 Then Peter said to Jesus,
“Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you,
one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 6 He did not know what to say, for
they were terrified. 7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud
there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”
8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more,
but only Jesus. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered
them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had
risen from the dead.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">“Why Not Joseph and David?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">[Importance
in Mark's Gospel]<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">a.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Mark’s is the first gospel, and scholars believe
that Peter was Mark’s main source of these stories. This fits especially well
with his perspective and role in this story. Simon who Jesus calls Peter, the
Rock, and Paul calls Cephus in Aramaic<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">b.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Is no doubt hugging the stones as he falls
down in amazement at this dazzling revelation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Peter's role
and his proposal to memorialize the transfigured/transfigurers in tents<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">a.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">The English translation of “dwellings” is unfortunate.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Better would have been “booths,” as in the Festival
celebrated then and is condensed in Holy Week that we will celebrate at the end
of Lent that Starts this Ash Wednesday. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">But the word <i>skene </i>here is what John introduces the
incarnation of the logos, and sets up a tent of meeting in the heavenly temple in <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John’s theology frames Jesus "the word of God as tented among us.” (GJ 1:14) And he is in the heavenly place
now, a new kind of temple, in a tent of meeting. <o:p></o:p></span>Revelation 15:5.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">So the Markan theme
of Peter’s messianic recognition is that the transfigured personalities are tented in an
indwelling relationship with God that emerges, dazzling in the flesh. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">In addition to Peter, other disciples are present, an inner circle that includes John, important to understand John's key to the theology of the messianic appearance to Israel and the world. These thereby make even more profound the one who speaks. In this, Peter is central. Readers
are meant to identify with his report. We may take it as symbolic, metaphoric,
or historical in a journalistic sense.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The other historical personages do not speak. Instead they communicate toward the messiah's “dazzling” appearance. They are historical figures, but they manifest an eternal and
eternalizing contribution. We are meant to ponder who they are, what their role is
in the historical people chosen by God to reveal what relationship with God
entails. Peter understands it is to “tent” with the presence of God in this
life. Not awaiting some rebuilt temple, or some realization “in heaven, the
sweet bye and bye” someday. God says over and over to the patriarchs and to
Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,” and Jesus tells his
followers that this was a living relationship that continues. The
transfiguration makes clear that God is the God of Moses and Elijah, and as such remains after they fade from view, a special relationship with Jesus that
incorporates the Mission of Moses and Elijah but extends them into something
much more. Far more ranging in scale and scope. A cosmic shining forth of
eternity in Jesus’ transfiguring work.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"></span></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The figures who to me are tellingly absent include Joseph, a
hero to the tribal confederations of Israel that predated the monarchy, and the
founding of God’s promised monarchical house, David. They are missing on that
tent-revealing mountain. Their absence tells of a tension of the solitary institutional
reformers transfiguring here and the institutionalizers of systematized faith:
Joseph as an ascendant functionary in the Pharaonic world system and its
pyramids of power, and David who receives God’s promise of an eternal house and
who then, on his own initiative, vows to mirror that promise by building a
house, in the only way he knows from his context—a stone ziggurat--for God to
dwell.</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">So to make theological sense of these three historical
figures, let us summarize the germane themes of their mission up to what
Peter takes forth into the church age in this story.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Moses, the liberator of the enslaved Israelites from pharaoh,
was born to rule this<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pyramid of Power
world system hegemony signaled by grandiose temples that enslaves. Instead he
is called by God to lead the people out. He goes up to meet God on Mount Sinai,
and as his meeting is prolonged, the people down below decide to construct the
only god they had known, the idol of new birth by gold, a calf, a financial
system in which to revel.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">To repair this breach in relationship with God, Moses is
instructed to meet with God in a tent, an <i>ohel moed</i>, where a covenant altar was
placed. Services were specified for this altar, and then the tent of meeting
became more formally designed by explicit instructions from God to make it into
a traveling tabernacle, a <i>mishkan</i>, to accompany the people toward the promised
land. The tabernacle is to be a place where the people are served and tested by
their performances of service and obedience to this indwelling God. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">So we see a process personified in Moses, from an unmediated
relationship with God to a tented-off meeting, to a furnishing an itinerant
set of ordained services in the desert. This process is not a<span style="background-color: white;"> progress </span>of
architecture, for which I make the case is actually regress, but in the progress
of spiritual repair. </span></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">These deinstitutionalizing reformers are thus agents of
historical progress. They are the focus, not the structures. Do not be misled: Eccl. 7:10!</span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What later prophets call turning the heart from its focus
on Egypt in all its idolatries to a focus—really a concern with the living
flesh of others.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">After 40 years in the desert, the people cross the Jordan,
and after several hundred more years of new generational testing, God gives into their demand
for a king. Saul fails, and David is ordained by the prophet Samuel and his son Solomon by Nathan so that the kings that follow in Israel have to meet with validation by the prophets.
The way this plays out in the imperial period is known by scholars as the Deuteronomist
history of the Bible.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><o:p> </o:p></span>So now we may understand how Elijah fits with the transfigured
transfigurer, a prophetic reformer. Moses has reformed the people’s living conditions and idea of leadership by
liberation and begins the reform of their understanding of the living will
of God. By the time of the kings of Israel, 300 years later, David received God’s promise of an eternal "house,” a <i>beit,</i> an eternal lineage of rule. David intends
to mirror this promise by building God a <i>house</i>, which becomes his son Solomon’s
project of a temple. While service elements are taken from the tent and
tabernacle stages of the people’s history with God, the temple is something
else, </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">and it’s not simply a progress of grandeur or exaltation of relationship with the divine, </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">it is in an unexpected way, part of the process of reform & repair, an instruction in how to dwell with God mediated by a king. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> Solomon’s temple is modeled on what a new monarchy knows of
such temples from pagan neighbors. It is modeled on the stone ziggurat: as a path to heaven. Perhaps not its Davidic idea, but becomes the basis of the tragedies of transactional theologies of God. Its service, performance, and reform fills multiple strands of the OT's commentary on the imperialistic aspirations and impulses of the collective <i>ethnos </i>(a linguistic group and archive, not a kinship structure as the Day of Pentecost reveals in the Book of Acts).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As later kings sin and point to the continuance of the
temple, they and the people ruled take confidence that God’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“house” with them stands. <o:p></o:p></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">C<i>ontinuation of form theology is behind </i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><i>institutionalization.</i></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 150%;"><i>Until the
temple doesn’t stand. Twice.</i></span><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Into this architectural/imperial narrative strand, Elijah comes to present his reform of the prophetic role that Samuel and Nathan had begun by validating the Davidids as
king. Elijah now comes to prophetically denounce injustice in the king and by
his temple administration and call them to repentance. In the northern kingdom, Solomon’s temple had a breakaway counterpart at
Shechem that became associated with the Omrid dynasty. At the
time, Ahab and his consort Jezebel were ruling hegemonically and unjustly, zeroing out the prospects of many of the collective people. Elijah prophesized their doom, and Ahab and Jezebel in turn called forth his doom by sending daggers his way. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Their mirror to prophecy is the dagger and the spear, mirrors destined ever to be shattered.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">In the stormy chase and challenges that follow in the Book of Kings, Elijah
is reduced to terrified “petrifaction.” His mission to reform the monarchy
freezes him in fear. Fear “stones” him, if you will.<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3; color: #4d5156;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He sits down and prays to God for death. </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">God passes by to rouse
him. Our first reading this morning notes how Elijah revives with a favored though oblique “appearance.”
And a summons expressed in the most gentling and reformative way, that is to
become the manner of all prophets hence:</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">“The word of God said, “Go out and stand on the mountain
before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind,
so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before
the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake,
but the LORD was not in the earthquake; 12 and after the earthquake a fire, but
the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">The translation “sheer silence” of the Hebrew<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="line-height: 150%;">דְּמָמָ֥ה דַקָּֽה</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> is to me better understood as
a “slenderest calm,” picking up on the imagery of the opening of the Book of
Genesis where the Spirit hovers over the deep. Elijah has been put into a deep
sleep by terror, chased by storms of raging malice, and God here reveals that those storms and
earthquakes are not God, but the sliver of light emerging from the terror is
the briefest breath, a whisper really, a shadow of a whisper, a soothing
stillness that revivifies and reforms the prophet and the prophecy. It is by this prophetic gift of voice Elijah
now experiences that will set him to reform the rage of institutionalized
power establishments whose exclusionary impulses turn murderous when
challenged.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">God’s voice originates in our nothingness. A shadowing whisper
is our savior. Silence stills our inner turmoil and prepares us for mission. We
are not commanded by thunder to go forth to reform institutions frozen in place,
but with a slightest sense of call that centers and brings forth our own gifts
and wisdom, our own commitment to experience and study. We both then recognize
and counter the demon rage of false institutions. Their call for spiritual war,
their calls to demonize empathy and the advancing civilization of care as the enemy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><o:p> </o:p>When we move forth from this merest breath of summons we
embark on a path to luminous transfiguration that mirrors the divine centering
of and in uncreated light. The transfiguration is not portrayed in any physical
dimensions; it lights the mountain on which these personalities meet in a quite different way. As I try to envision the Transfiguration I struggle to comprehend and sense something of the essence of the innermost altar, the uncreated light from which the earliest creation and now shines through history from Moses to Elijah into the world to accompany God’s
creation-correcting reform. The unchanging, unchangeable light. The eternally enduring figure of which is culminated in the institution negating, creation-reforming, saving Messiah. That I cannot envision the unchangeable, I am emplaced on earth to participate in a generation's reform, not institutionalizing my guesses about eternal form. My participation in the historical and thus ever provisional that carries to new generations by the Spirit that leads humanity forward.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">God’s voice originates in our brokenness to reform and
reshape us. The prophet’s voice will be sent to the nothing-making of stones—to
the hardened servants of temples that have taken hold of the dead hearts of
people fallen from the Torah reforms begun in a tent with Moses. Elijah is
revealed as the forerunner to the transfigured transfigurer who takes the next stage of reform to
call the institutionalizers and the elites to the necessity to care for all the
people, to exclude none.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">And now let’s return to Peter as he’s making sense of Moses
and Elijah appearing as they meet in conversation with Jesus in this dazzling moment. "Six days" before, Mark situates Peter on another mountain, likely Hermon, in ch. 8:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">8: 27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of
Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say
that I am?” 28 And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah;
and still others, one of the prophets.” 29 He asked them, “But who do you say
that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This region was replete with a variety of pagan temples, and
contemporary Palestine was replete with pretender messiahs, so that alternative
visions of the divine messenger were readily at hand. As Peter and the
disciples followed the country-side preaching of Jesus encountering real world struggles of the peasantry and other excluded Israelites, only Jesus
among the presumptive messiahs and idols promised a program of peace, one that included the reforming impulse that sanctifies outside of institutionalized stones,
transforming them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">So next in the narrative sequence in Mark of Jesus’ life is
Peter’s identification of a dazzling lighted path unified by his tent-memorializing neighborhood of historical progression from Moses the liberator
and reconstitutionalizer of the people, Elijah the prophetic reformer archetype who
calls the selfish, unjust, and hegemonic monarch to account, and now Jesus
who remains alone shining after being connected in glory on this transfiguring
mountain. Standing now alone, Jesus has an integrity of person and role
separate from Moses and Elijah and other prophets but as Messiah, he
incorporates them all. All their gifts, all their assignments and missions.
Peter, the rock, likely prostrate and hugging the ground at the vision, comes to know.
Peter is us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Jesus’ transfiguration is revealed as he approaches the (second) Lenten phase of his ministry that begins for us this Ash Wednesday. That part of the transfiguring messianic story becomes the next 6 Sundays’
preaching.</span></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">To summarize the institutionalization dimension of that story: Jesus goes forth to
witness to the temple establishment in Jerusalem and is met with hope by the
people excluded by the corrupt authorities. He foretells the temple’s
destruction and he acts out [cf. Zech. 14] a condemnation of the false representation of God
in the outer temple courtyards where money changing and transactional
portrayals of God’s service represent the failures of the temple service and its
institutionalizing of finance as witness to the living God. Which devours the houses
of widows [Mark 12:40-44] and keeps women outside the inner proximity, and thus distanced from
God. Insitutionalization represented and actualized in the temple is not just
to be reformed, but destroyed. And the people’s restorative relationship to a tent of
meeting with God will bring the Bedouin character and way of life of Abraham to
its spiritual fulfillment in Jesus by his atonement on the Cross. The narrative of the crucifixion exposes that he was killed by the corruption of justice in an unholy
enmeshment of temple authorities and the most brutal regime ever constructed
by humanity. The ungodlike substitutionary ethics of Caiaphas (“better one man
to die than the whole nation” John 11:50) and the most craven politician, Pilate, who
asks, “what is truth?” (John 18:38) </span>as he washes his hands and sends Jesus to that death
meant to warn other reformers.</span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> This injustice is transfigured by the supplicating merits that reveal the good news of God's character: God is ever given to mercy, and such "justice" performed on the Cross is not God's, and to the extent that God allows such, it is revealed as subsidiary to the operation of grace. In Christ's supplicating prayer and the blood that covenants it, God's judgment of Christ's followers is expiated on the Cross, dissolved by both blood and word and confirmed by the resurrection. <i>That is the Gospel.</i><i> </i></span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I’ve tried up to now to portray the historical theology being
revealed to Peter, who represents us, on the Mount of Transfiguration. These reformers who were sent to the
death-dealing and stone-age making institutions of their day. They were beset
with crippling fear and revived by the gentle and gentling voice of the Spirit.
In the case of Moses, his heart set on the stone pyramid system of world
hegemony became a heart of flesh. In Elijah, his reform of the prophetic call
was preparatory to his calling hegemons in Israel to account for injustice. To
me, this inner light, this slim still voice starts in the heart and pushes
through to the appearance. These reformers manifest to Peter on
the Mount their participation in the messiah's star-skin, the dazzling light of that most inner uncreated
light with God. Psalm 104 (cf. Hab. 3:3-4) says of God,<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">1b<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are clothed
with honor and majesty,<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">2a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>wrapped in
light as with a garment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Theirs is a different kind of royal clothing, a garment of a
new kind of flesh that testifies to their de-petrified heart--an intention set on stone advertisements. The image of the
transfiguration is not distorted by the garish and cartoonish images of
superheroes implanted by too much CGI videogames-- the visuals of strategic
compulsion: no shoot-em-up lightning bolts, no flames erupting from crowns, nor
some strobing, stop action sound-track accompanying the axe-throwing 6-million
dollar arm of Thor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I will conclude with three applications of what I’ve
presented of historical and spiritual theology of the transfiguration:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">First, the religion of the messiah is reformed, always
reforming. Our institutionalization of the church—the way denominations send down
instructions about practice and about doctrine—is always provisional. We open
the temple walls of religion to the excluded by age, background, gender and scrupling. We are
mindful to reform where those walls have been tragically erected. This reform
impulse of the medieval church got a lot of people killed before Luther barely
escaped to set the modern Protestant reformation program in motion. And very quickly Calvin
came to institutionalize it in civil governance, and at least in one case
participated in an unjust killing of a political opponent. And yet it’s
Calvin’s so-called magisterial, institutionalized reformation that we honor most today.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">rather than the excommunicated John Wycliffe or the martyr Jan Hus. And the many others before and as the Protestant Reformation took hold in Europe.</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><o:p> </o:p></span>Second and flowing from the first, the greatest reforming
theologian this country has produced, no doubt in my mind, is MLK. I know this
is controversial for some. And—that the most tragic are those theologians in
the south and at places like "Old Princeton" whose names are on their buildings and
libraries--who died never having released their slaves or released their tacit endorsement of slavery as "adiaphora to the Gospel." They prayed the Lord’s
Prayer, which calls for Jubilee, and either were too ignorant to make the
connection—they did not tent with God-- or were too hypocritical to care. The
institutionalizing impulse leads ever to injustice that transmits
intergenerational traumas that we are still dealing with. It is up to us as
reformers to transfigure the deadening legacies of the institutionalizing
impulse. MLK was itinerant and polarizing while blessing, reviled by the
entempling elites who construct gated plantations and pleasure palaces to
feed and celebrate themselves.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And that was their last will and testament, their binding their slaves to their pyramid like Pharaoh, </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">but our transfiguring witness transfigures
the meaning of the old institutional and binding impulses propagandized as “solutions”
that instead sire stigma based on social comforts and so sire crisis after
crisis. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The metacrisis today is the institutionalization of the closed
off head and the subordination if not exclusion of the open heart, a strategizing
logical structure to get ahead in the world of strivers, to get yours before
others take your share of a fixed pie. However, it is not some transcendent light
in our mind that breaks through to dazzle our skin’s appearance, but transcendent
light of the heart that makes others the destination of the pie—the sharing Golden
Imperative of neighbor love, concern, and the civilization of care. We are
transfigured by our heart never solely by our head, which follows the heart's progress. The ongoing Reformation of the Church
is deinstitutionalizing what I call, “the Church of the Discourse over Belief.” "Beliefers" who set up norms of no import, no ethics. Instead the Reforming Church is becoming recognized
in the individual practice of pastoral virtues that redeem the present moment
encountered in our awareness as we sojourn through the streets and wildlands of
daily existence, recognizing the divinely created emplacement of those, of
every encounter intended by God to reform our heart from stone to living,
shining flesh in small-scale moments, tented meetings with neighbor and God-in-Christ at the table.</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">In the end, MLK recognized that the contemporary temple is
the military- industrial, predatory capitalist impulse. As every generation gets
stuck in stationary darkness, feeling inexorably pulled into the suck of the
world’s so-called “realists” ever sending them to war. Reformers who tent with
God know the metaphysics behind the Book of Proverbs and the Sermon on the
Mount: it is impossible to bring peace through war. Impossible. When MLK moved
from civic development to protest class exploitation and the Vietnam War, he was
assassinated. Can we recognize that as a “transfiguration?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes: it’s reform vs. institutionalization. It has ever been
for the church.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Finally, it's important to note that the most effective
reformers, the transfigured transfigurers, are seen as polarizing. They invade
our comfortable places and get thrown into prisons like Paul and down wells
like Jeremiah, and yes, are put to death as the Bible notes of so many holy men
and history of so many holy women. Reformers and their missions are misunderstood
because God and Jesus’ mission are misunderstood.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Their mission and their reforming personalities made them
itinerant prophets and preachers. They lived out contemporary, Abrahamic
expression of living in the tent of meeting.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Transfiguring reformers, on the other hand traveled like
Abraham in a kind of spiritually Bedouin existence through hostile deserts with
God their oasis. The interiority of such a life is manifest in the earliest
Hebrew poetry, and in the Psalms. It is later the vision by the prophet Ezekiel
[40—48] of the heavenly dwelling—a tent of meeting in Rev. 15 inside the vision of temple
centered by a Palm tree, its deep roots symbolizing the processing holy water found in the driest
places. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">These itinerant reformers attend to God’s gracious will both within and without as they find provision. The
bread of life they prayed for daily. They were in terms of their tented
existence with God both itinerant and polarizing, blessed by and for the regular people for their sacrificial shepherding of them, and reviled by the elites who
wanted their temples and pleasure palaces to feed and celebrate themselves.</span></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Instead of interpreting
history’s heroes beckoning backward calls of institutional return [as if we were to put David and Jacob's son Joseph in a constructed pantheon of transfigured history], we become
aware of the inexorable appearance of the anointed reformers in every generation
stuck in stationary darkness. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">So now we arrive at this moment in your congregation. A new
itinerant tent maker is coming to this building. Your new Pastor Lisa, who will
bring change. New pastors always do, and some try to hold to the comfortable
way things have always been done. Your committees can try to interview for it—I
confess my anti-institutionalizing personality has failed many interviews. So now,
how are you going to welcome this itinerant into your tents?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Lisa is a friend of mine: our sons attended pre-school
together back at seminary and are joined 15 years later in exploring college
options. They are in a place of transitioning into adulthood. They are joining
the increasingly itinerant adult generations seeking their place in the world that they
will come to know as broken. Lisa too is in a place of itinerant transition,
and I imagine some prophetic anxiousness on her part. What I want to suggest is
that a pastor has different roles. Like Moses, she has trained to seek
liberation of those in bondage to sin, to trauma, to ignorance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moses’ followers repeatedly gossiped—the
Biblical word was “grumbled”—about how they wouldn’t do it this way, a culture
that repeatedly manifested itself in the Exodus generation from Egyptian
slavery calling Moses to bring them back to the comforts of Egypt. To the
institutions that enslaved them but fed them for their labor but denied them wine. These disgruntled
followers of Moses in the desert, on their way to their promise, repeatedly
felt the nostalgic call of a golden period when their ancestor Joseph was in
charge there. These are the dynamics of the tented meeting place with God of
Mosaic, liberating leadership. Please contain grumbling and comparing the way
things were done in the past. These transfigurers are not servants of the way
things always have been done. She may speak as a community servant to a
different space or as a prophet like Elijah as wise to the destinies of the
unjust. Lisa will have different audiences in mind as she learns to address you
inside the chaos of a world in metacrisis, so that if she speaks on something
that isn’t your concern that Sunday, please don’t tell her, “I didn’t feel
fed.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Feed her instead with your joy. Because Joy cycles.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In addition to a reconstitution of a witnessing and mission
sent collective like the transfigured role of Moses, all new pastors are
trained and gifted to act as prophet—a role for Elijah, by which I mean not
that she is subject to direct visions of the future, but that she has a
prophetic wisdom of how the world has been constructed to call for the practice
of the Golden Rule and to predict that the violations of unjust leaders and
rulers to zero out the marginalized will meet with doom. A prophetic pastor
knows that if one zeroes out others, that one will become beset with a
crippling and fulfilled anxiety that others will see that and mirror the same,
first to others of their followers, and then to the unjust leader himself. Their
suspicions become a mirror of the leader's own fallen intentions, and these will
swallow all up in nihilism—the idea there is nothing to the world other than
their own will and self-created methods of achieving power. The Elijah role,
the John the Baptist role, is to prophetically call these persons and cultural
forms to repentance. This the lonely and polarizing and misunderstood life of a
prophetic pastor. Because God is misunderstood, the reformer is misunderstood
esp. by those who think they already know God. This is what Jesus means when he
says, “'A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own
household.” This is a role too for pastors. Please pray for us. esp. when you
are frustrated by us. By this, you pray for yourself as well, a prayer I
believe will be approved.<span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I have attempted to present a critical reading of a traditional,
historical text to de-institutionalize God’s word from inside a temple to an
outdoors and peripatetic, tent-seeking of meetings. The Transfiguration
symbolizes the glory of reformers, and appropriately, it starts the season of Lent when our personal journeys into reform begin by following Jesus into the
wilderness. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This year, the fast of Ash Wednesday and the feast of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>St Valentine’s Day coincide. The reformed
paths of always reforming involves both. A feast of the inward place of
meeting with others as joy, and a fast of struggle against the civilizations of stones </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">thrown at others (they will be returned!) </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">rather than
bread shared with others.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The radical distance of God becomes human and beautiful in
God’s imprint-- the energy, the strain, the joy, the polarizing lack of ready
smiles, the grief, the triumph, and the failure of the ministry of Jesus. All
of these you will see in your pastors. All these you will see in your
neighbors. Transfigure them by your love. Transfigure yourself by your love.
Put away the stones of your cultures. Invite others into your tents and serve
them, extending them the Golden Rule. Enemies too. Enemies foremost. Because in their own reform
is God’s glory met. Shine a light. Share what is transfigured and
transfiguring. May it be so for you and for me, Amen.</span><span style="font-size: 15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-42875487473812386802024-02-09T11:15:00.000-08:002024-02-12T18:19:57.568-08:00<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Upon Loosing a Tooth: A First Poem for 2024 </b></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Douglas Olds</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> Routines of an igneous beast enslabs, consigning,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> pulverizing, uplifting from spine burdened, so</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">To swaddle gibbeting cradles</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">swaying pendulous ‘neath the nearwolves’</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">jutting cloud of teats</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span>driving a</span><span>butment of templed wind rousing the reshoring plow </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">two-edged masteries such curtains, throats exposed by tides,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">its moment in envy's destine:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">as mercy massages their Jerusalem-slouching journey.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> As so they wander to mistaken rebirth by the mirror of history’s steel</span></p><p><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">And as they do, they but mistake the meaning for the slough and slink of lies’ cruel amber.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p><br /></p>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-64054256914168882872024-02-08T14:32:00.000-08:002024-03-16T07:24:48.680-07:00<p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> <u>Book Review and Repair:</u></span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-indent: -2em;">Anderson, Gary A. </span><i style="text-indent: -2em;">That I May Dwell Among Them</i><span style="text-indent: -2em;">: </span></span></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><i style="text-indent: -2em;">Incarnation and Atonement in the Tabernacle Narrative</i><span style="text-indent: -2em;">. </span></b><b><span><span style="text-indent: -2em;"> Eerdmans, 2023.</span></span></b></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-family: times; text-indent: -2em;">Rev. Dr. Douglas B. Olds, </span></span><span style="font-family: times; text-indent: -36px;">February 2024 </span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; text-indent: -36px;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; text-indent: -36px;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; text-indent: -36px;"></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><i><b> </b>“I am a cage, in search of a bird.” </i></span></span></p></blockquote><p> <i><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> <span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"Religions get lost as people do."</span></span></i></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">~Kafka</span></span></p></blockquote><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></p><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I. Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This book lays forth an idiosyncratic, constricting, if not
incoherent, view of the theological and historical significance of temple
architecture and sacrifice for Christian understanding of the incarnation and
atonement of Christ. It extrapolates connections of the Priestly Theologian’s
Tabernacle Narrative to fit Jesus’ ministry as it fuses links from non-Priestly
sources of theology without submitting these to New Testament validation. To
accomplish imaginative reworking of sources, this book employs faulty
methodology it terms “canonical” but in practice cuts up and rearranges the
canonical Hebrew Bible from an unjustified exegesis that temporally and
spatially links the holy ground on Sinai with the interior of the desert tabernacle.
Once this exegetical move is made, the institutional spaces on the way to and
within the Promised Land “leak” ontology into external purviews, and the
historicity of religious events is conflated by the hermeneutics of
institutional continuance to resequencing by midrash. The result of lurching
eclectically through the events and places of the canonical narratives is a
move that unbridles the immanent with speculative transcendentalizing, removing
the warrant of the Old Testament’s witness of an historical religion to a people
in a covenanted territory instead to make the temple spaces of Jerusalem a
thematic absolute while making the incarnation and processive economy of
Christ’s essence—its messianic teleology of repair--contingent to serving
institutionalizing logic. The attribution of contingency to an enabled
relationship with God is baked into the very title of this book: “That [God]
may dwell among them.” Yet God is always with us, but not always apparently,
which we misinterpret as absence that requires human initiative to clarify. The
relationship of re’iyyah</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">(appearance) to dwelling is recurrently germane to the texts addressed but not rendered explicit by this book’s attempt to systematically relate architectural and
institutionalized mediations of the human-divine relationship: Where human
performance of sacrifice in a precise architectural and ritual construction is
Anderson’s proposed explanation of “means,” “effective” in making ontology
“leak” (viii; see footnote 9, below) into our awareness, thereby “instantiating”
a relationship with God.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">Anderson’s rescoping of time and
space flattens how the elements of tent, tabernacle, and temple change as
revelatory media in the OT. A loose-ended reconstruction of these into a
unified narrative of continuance culminates with the messiah’s incarnation and
atonement with a kenotic application. The book’s repeated references to John’s
Prologue mistranslates the verbal form of skēnē of John 1:14 as “tabernacle”
with its implication of a fixed and determinate sanctuary rather than “tent”
open to the environment. By this translation, the book thereby imports
representational homologies of continued form where distinctions of the
imprinted kinematics of Abraham’s faith are intended both protologically and
eschatologically in John’s theology. [Ps. 27: 4-6 distinguishes these
structures. The temple is a place of “looking” for God, while the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʾ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ō</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">hel appears nested inside it,
associated with rock/stone as a protected outcropping where the penitent is now
the one outlooking. V. 11 situates this nested structure as part of a tutelege
function and program. The same word in 2 Samuel 22:3, v. 11 associates the rock
of God with the tent that “leads me” to salvation. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ps 19:4 reveals an ontology a tent
of enduring righteousness--<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"> [τ</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ὸ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"> σκήνωμα
is the LXX rendering of </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʾ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ō</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">hel, the
same word applied when the Israelites end their desert wandering phase, as
beginning in Deut 33: 18 and tied to right sacrifices in v. 19] <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>--t</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">ying the mobility of the sun’s radiance. The suns radiance situates
the Transfiguration’s radiance in a simple structure, which Peter identifies
with his proposal to build Moses, Elijah, and the shining Jesus each a </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">skēnē</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">.
This proposal cannot refer to plural tabernacles but aligns Peter’s imaging of
sukkoth from the Festival of Booths. This word has implications for
understanding John’s use of </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">skēnē</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> noted below, as Mark has John
accompanying Peter’s diffident and ignored proposal at the Transfiguration. Moreover, the
condensation of the Festival of Booths imagery with Passover during Jesus’
entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday is implicitly tied by John’s Gospel to the
palm imagery of Ezekiel’s temple and which immediately precedes Jesus’s “cleansing”
of the outer courtyard of Herod’s temple, fulfilling the details of Zechariah
14 (Olds in prep).</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From this intertextual reading, it is clear that “tent” and
tabernacle, while at times contextually nested in larger realities, are not
synonyms. The Torah’s miškān is intermediate and tutelary in scope, while the
tent is the transfiguring witness, by both Peter and John tied to something
reforming, a new type of structure. The miškān operates between the Golden Calf
episode and a less centralizing material context in the historical runup to
temple making. The LXX begins to use σκήνωμα as the Golden Calf generation of
Israelites have given way to those preparing to cross the Jordan into the
promised land for illuminating witness. The tabernacle may not be read into the
NT history except in error, as a category mistake.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">It is the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʾ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ō</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">hel m</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ô</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʿ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ē</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">d (tent of meeting/testimony,
whereby John 1:14’s skēnē is in a construct situated with v. 19’s <i>martyria</i>) and not
the miškān (a precisely determinate mobile sanctuary) that frames John’s
theology. First, in his gospel prologue and culminating with the heavenly
Jerusalem introduced in Rev. 15:5, the heavenly temple (Jerusalem) is predicated
with a tent of meeting with God in testimonial witness, not a sanctuary
soliciting a recondite divinity. The latter is ever given to institutionalizing
ritual focus that tames this meeting with ideas of transactional contingencies
and appeasements. John’s rendering of temple overlays a tent of
meeting/testimony in concord with Ezekiel’s (40-44) vision. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Anderson’s hodgepodge rereading
of the temple and its sacrificial function “fits” with institutionalizing
religion and sanctuaries. Spectacularly, his misreading of the continuation of
forms comes to situate Mary at the center of the eschatological place (pp.
200-209), applying a medieval Roman Catholic liturgical text as a fulfillment
of architectural systematics. At no point in this book does Anderson suggest an
awareness of his heavenly personalities in narrative apposition to Ezekiel’s
vision of a Palm-centered, new tented temple manifest in Peter’s understanding
of the Transfiguration and in the condensation of symbols of Holy Week and Palm
Sunday in the Gospel of John as guides of earth-bound historical courses. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Anderson’s institutionalization
of eclectic vectors of time and space without a responsible consideration of
the NT results in such a confused systematics of continuation--of stone
architecture and ritual, subordinating the atonement as an existential hiatus
of self-emptying and locked to it. While kenosis is a waypoint of atonement, it
is not its fulfillment. Atonement participates in the reparative teleology of
heart by meritorious expiation of judgment—the atropaic dissolution of sin by
supplication and blood--heart repair in the witness of aligning and committed faith
rather than simply trusting acceptance of the heart’s stoppage. The essence of
the incarnation and atonement “instantiates” this new covenant of the
enlivening heart. A sanctifying covenant de-petrifies the temple and
miraculously transforms it into the metaphysical flesh of, by, and for
intentional grace.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In contrast with Anderson’s
method of finding eternity resonating in the stones (see footnote 9, below), a
more comprehensive than tabernacled understanding of the OT sacrificial theme
in time and space would begin with Jesus’ role and orientations in traveling in
these spaces in a later historical context, reforming the physical
representation of sacrifice and reorienting ritual outward into spiritual
worship and understanding the imprint of sacrifice in prepared witness. Such
reorienting recognition means working backward from NT sources to characterize
how Jesus explicitly recognizes, manifests, and re-presents Old Testament
symbols, figures, and practices, updating their understanding in a way that
seemed to religious institutionalizers a radical, “totally new” (p. 4)
reworking of Israelite righteousness now revealed as destined for all people on
the ground.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Anderson presents a book on the
narrative role of temple sacrifice without sufficient engagement with NT
sources and portrayals of Jesus’ redirection of forms and modes of
meaning-making and relationship with the Trinitarian essence (which is conative
grace! [Olds 2023a]). Anderson’s methodological flaws limit the necessary
broader interpretation of sacrificial worship and neglect how Jesus condenses
Old Testament prophecies and symbols in and by his person into a new fusion of Israel’s
religion as serving God in and by neighbor love. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To the extent that religion is
reduced to an institutionalization in stone, the incarnation is revealed as nonsense
and the atonement as failure. And those revelations may be the negative value
of such a book as this, in my view otherwise destined to become, at best, a
curio in Christian theology subordinated to a history of religion’s approach. While I am hard pressed to find any positive contributions to Christian theology in this work, it did lead me to a deeper exploration of Anderson's cited Biblical sources and to reveal how a history of religion hermeneutic underlying their consideration leads to the institutionalization of boundary keeping.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">II. Major Exegetical Faultlines</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The procedure in Anderson’s chart and text on p. 154
exemplifies his problems of focus, the seed of his errant report. His chart
incomprehensibly portrays, by lurches in time and space, the rearranging of the
canonical sequence of verses in order to claim parallels between the appearance
at Sinai and the accompaniment of the cloud in the desert trials of the Exodus
generation. Anderson claims that the left and right columns of “the following
chart make clear…reveal[ing]… the tabernacle [In Exod. 40:34-Lev. 1:1]
functions as a moveable Mount Sinai…a traveling Mount Sinai…the portable nature
of this shrine.” His three-fold assertion conditions his presentation of the
centralizing, institutionalizing nature of the miškān where God dwells. The chart
presents *faulty narrative exegesis: the verses are misreported in disrupted
sequence, and the supposed parallel on the charts between Exod. 24: 18 and
Exod. The negation in the latter belies 40:35 in contradistinction with the
former! In the former, Moses was able to enter the cloud on Sinai, while in the
latter, “he is NOT able to enter the tent of the meeting.” The <a name="_Hlk160180736">miškān</a>, rather is revealed to function as mobile
testing and tutelary of the people’s witness, the preparation for living
testimony and service and not a Sinaitic dwelling for the people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Anderson’s reconstruction of the
textual sequence manifests three signature problems with Anderson’s book.
First, it demonstrates that his focus on the precision of God’s architectural
instruction to Moses in the Word is not mirrored or honored in Anderson’s
improvisational text criticism. As Anderson reports in his chapter 6,
improvisation in the tabernacle ritual gets Nadab and Abihu killed.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Second, the thrice-stated
conclusion he draws from his charted exegesis does not follow by reason of his
failure to conform to academic norms of demonstrating parallelism. Thus, the
Tabernacle Narrative Anderson presents proceeds from this radically flawed “ground.”
Third, the liberties Anderson takes with time and space in his featured texts
hermeneutically run afoul of the covenant of a promised place and the unfolding
historical sequencing (timing) of messianic expectation that originates in
Daniel 9 and is the context of the late “Second” Temple and its demise (see below),
bringing an end to an institutionalized vassal-monarch temple.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of the second problem of the
chart in question, Anderson’s reconstruction evades academic norms “by which
one can determine that a text is probably dependent upon another
text…[specifically] the criterion of ‘density: [that] the more parallels one
can posit between two texts, the stronger the case that they issue from a
literary connection…[as well as t]he criterion of order [that] examines the
relative sequencing of similarities in the two works. If parallels appear in
the same order, the case strengthens for a genetic connection.”<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Yet not only are the sequential
orders of narrative presentation of theological locations significantly
different in the texts rearranged by Anderson’s chart, the density of parallels
is vitiated by the negation in Exod. 40:35 lacking a parallel in Exod. 24:18.
The exegetical claim, thrice asserted, that the tabernacle is at the end of the
Book of Exodus functioning as a traveling Sinai where people live inside the same
place with God as Moses is thereby negated. It is concerning that the book’s
editors did not correct this distorting claim.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From this misguiding point,
Anderson launches through the Book of Leviticus and beyond, entirely ignoring
the scapegoat ritual of Lev. 16:20-26; 30 and its origin as an apotropaic
sacrifice for the sin of the people. Moreover, as I will develop below, this
ritual introduces a relevant figure of Christ’s atoning, outside-the-camp
expiation on the Cross. Instead, Anderson repeats his claims that OT sacrifices
were not structured to atone for sin. In this way, he continues building his
systematic theology of institutional architectures as instantiating a
relationship in which God dwells.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Other questionable exegetical
claims involve the Tamid service of the Tabernacle as conditional, “a means by
which God is to be encountered at the sanctuary” (p. 82). Anderson reports a
translation of the verbs of Exod. 25:8 as consecutives imparting a sense of
contingency (his translation of “so that,” pointing to the structure of Exod.
29: 42b-46 for support), making God’s dwelling contingent on the Israelites making
for God a sanctuary. However, this is problematic theology: Making relationship with God contingent on a
human act of building a structure. Such adopts ANE ziggurat theology of
the human-constructed staircase to
heaven, whereby human initiative merits relationship with the divine, rather
than one’s responsiveness to divine calling. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The verbs in these two passages
from Exodus do not support the necessity of reading them in a conditional
sequence, and indeed, the LXX (and NIV) of Exod. 25:8 dispenses with the implication of
contingency other than simply an accompaniment of actions. Indeed, the LXX of
Exod. 25: 8 contextualizes the second verb not as “dwelling” but as “appearing,”
which will have later import in the Tamid service of John the Baptist’s father
Zechariah (Luke 1: 8-9) that Christians should consider as its historical role
in the eponymous Prophet’s framing of the activities surrounding the temple on
Palm Sunday (below).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The verbs of Exod. 25:8 are
indicative, and though an imperatival force may carry over from the paragraph’s
opening (implied by the post-scroll imposition of verse numbering), the LXX’s
indicative syntax is a simple pairing of activities rather than cohortative or
conditional initiated by the first subject.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Indeed the LXX makes explicit, by its rendering of the verbs, the witnessing
function of these structures, not a coordination of agencies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The LXX renders this verbal
syntax by a correlate pair of inceptives: future imperfects with a connecting
conjunction which conveys an intended meaning as “sharing of expectation” or
volition manifested in aligning images—indeed imaging acts that manifest the
correlative processing of divine (viz. Trinitarian) conation. The identified
verbal sequence is not conditional but a mirror of relationship, a
phenomenology of witnessing where human piety of graciousness takes precedence
over structural grandiosity in imaging divine essence and its attendant
features of contingent warrant for sovereign mediation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On page 89, Anderson links the
Tamid service in a way that makes the latter part of a conditional as the
English translation reads the imperative in Exod. 29:46; same as he proposed on
p. 82. However, the infinitive of that verse, in both the MT and the LXX,
manifests no usual conditional construct in either original language. Alter (2008)
translates the latter Hebrew infinitive in construct with the preposition as
purposive--God’s initiative rather than any contingency applied to God’s will
from human initiative. As mentioned previously, the imperative fits better as
volitional, fitting in with the promise of the free grace of indwelling. As
presented below, grace becomes less blocked outside of the institutional stone
that radicalizes and stabilizes the closed-off dimension of the miškān, keeping
instead with the Abrahamic context of tenting open and hospitable to the environment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The Tamid “has nothing to do with atoning for
sins…[and] should be understood as part of the ‘care and feeding’ of the deity
who resides in the tabernacle… ‘feeding the gods’ to open a place for
Israelites to ‘position themselves’…in a subordinate, reverential posture
toward the deity…Sacrifice is effective… because it creates [a] relationship by
instantiating it.” (p. 100; contrast Ps. 50: 12-15; Heb. 9:10a). In this “feeding
of the divine” we return to Anderson’s sacrificial anthropomorphization, as of
Zeus Bomios noted in footnote 9. Again, Anderson locates a conditional
initiative with the sacrifice--the human agent’s piety--to “create
relationship.” Yet:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Psalm 50:7-15: God has no need
of food.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Jer. 7:22 notes that sacrifice
did not originate when Moses led the people out from Egypt. They had then been
directed to obey God’s voice (Exodus 20).
The tabernacle sacrificial system began with the directions to Moses after the
Golden Calf episode and the people’s rebellion. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Isaiah 1:11-17 notes that the theological
initiative of the Israelite lies in the
sacrificial posture and nature of justice (cf. Micah 6:6-8)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Anderson’s claim (p. 82) that
the “so that” of Exod. 25:8 and the infinitive of Exod. 29:46 conveys conditionality of means or
contingency of ends from the perspective of human initiative. Anderson’s
presentation had earlier introduced the concept of the means in the sacrificial
structure at Numbers 3 (p. 55), a discourse that led “some rabbinic texts [to]
understand viewing the furniture as a means of ‘seeing God’” (pp. 66; 75).
Anderson recognizes a “distinguish[ing]” gap in the sacrificial purpose and
role between Leviticus 8 and 9-10 (126), at which point the evaluation of “effectiveness”
enters into the exegetical import of sacrifice. It is not the ritual of service
but the priestly role performances and dedication to temple treasuries that
come to define temple pieties, at least in the critical view of the writers of
the Gospels.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Anderson’s exegesis of Tamid as
a means for indwelling presumes something about the later Davidic impulse for
constructing a temple with tabernacle allusions. Anderson ties these means to
the Ark narrative in the Books of Samuel (pp. 120f): that God’s promise of an
enduring house for David has some conditioned and initiating volition on the
part of David to construct a house for that God, lamentably tying, in some
readings, God’s “house” to the destiny of David’s “house.”<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 107%;"><span> </span>The sacrificial service is part of the redistributive nature
of the sacrificial produce shared with the priests—an application of Lev. 19:19
is for the people to become priests as noted in the Book of Hebrews. Thus the
Tamid service prepares for the performance and operative witness of the Golden
Rule and the reorientation by Jesus of ritual formalism empty of social
concern. Such service also prepares for the priestly expansion at Pentecost
(fulfilling, as part of the new covenant, Jer. 33:22) so that the Tamid is a
realized feature of the burnt offering of priestly piety exemplified by John
the Baptist’s father in Luke 1. It anticipates the new covenanted sacramental
offerings of Pentecost’s witnessing. In this view, the detailed and particular
rigor of the sacrificial infrastructures dictated to Moses was God’s
preparation of a people for Pentecostal witness, a service where God is served which
is then expanded into social charity and care of human precarity. Where ritual
and moral service are aligned per Lev. 19:19, God is served in the structure’s
structuring of awareness, but when the structure becomes the paramount focus
absent the awareness of God’s processing essence, his volative and intentional
grace, the neighbor tends to be neglected and excluded by ritual scrupulosity
and imposition of priestly legal administration (the reverse of Saul and Cyrus’
arrogation noted in footnote 2). The one who lived dedicated to the temple as
if called to duties to its treasury (τ</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; line-height: 107%;">ὸ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 107%;">ν κορβαν</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; line-height: 107%;">ᾶ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 107%;">ν Matt
27:6; Mark 7:11) and participation in hegemony is reoriented by Jesus to human
needs (Matt 15:5; Mark 12:38-44) and
toward the sacrifice of repentance (Matt 23:23; announced by John the Baptist fulfilling,
e.g., Ps 51: 6-17). Anderson instead transmits that Tamid is conditioned by “sacrifice
[a]s effective…because it creates relationship by instantiating it”—an
ambiguity when devoted to the transcendent as covering a conditional or
limiting process to neighbors. Jesus comes to remove the bordering and gating
of service imposed on the people, street corners, and countryside by a
clarification of the Providential initiatives of grace flowing to the city and
not mediated by the institutional temples of religion.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To the extent that these
architectural constructions become tied to conditional theologies, they can
only fail in their operations because of the self-interested sins of the new
generations of systematizing enactors, so that historical destruction ever
looms for the material structure but never for God’s promise of an eternal
house, a destiny. The loss of the centralizing altar of the Ark in the later
history of the Solomonic Temple foreshadows—indeed reveals—the contingencies
and responsibilities involved in determining to build a house for God with
tabernacle allusions and a tribal priesthood.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span> </span>A related,
questionable exegetical feature of Anderson’s retrojection of an
institutionalized hermeneutic of continuance is his adopting the critical
academic rendering of Daniel 8 (pp. 84-5). He situates Daniel 8, repeatedly
contextualized as a vision, as a symbolized report of the temple profaning
event of Antiochus Epiphanes IV. He thereby follows the academic tradents that
condense the reports of the Book of Maccabees with Daniel’s vision. However,
there is a profound prophetic dimension to Daniel that does not require
journalism of Macabbean engagements to *unscroll. Rather, the reports of Ezra
and Nehemiah (See Olds 2023a Appendix V; Olds 2014) and fulfillment in the
birth announcement narratives in the Gospel of Luke (Olds 2023b).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">III. Methodological eclecticism and faulty
authorities<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Such exegetical problems as the above manifest Anderson’s
source methodology and hermeneutics of institutionalized themes that overwrite
historical sequence and territorial emplacement in the Biblical witness.
Anderson’s presentation locates its support in an idiosyncratic application of
Athanasius, Talmudic, modern critical academic, and a single Roman Catholic
Church liturgical rite--a lurching through time and space absent consistent
rendering of times and spaces as bounded by immanent events. Rather, he moves
to transcendentalize the historical material. As noted, other than a routine
revisting of the Johannine Prologue to translate <i>skēnē </i>as “tabernacle”
rather than tent, the NT witness is mostly excluded in this book. If he had
consulted the NT responsibly in a book marketed to Christian pastors, he would
have had to engage its consistent rebuttal to “continuance of form” history of
religion method and findings.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To wit, Anderson claims that a
thematic interruption of narrative validates his reconstructions of temporal
sequence as on page 154 discussed above. These narrative reconstructions of
structural meaning are situated on the precipices of methodological fault lines
that tear and swallow his findings. For example:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The presentation of the
tabernacle across Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers is <i>ordered just as much by
theme as it is chronology</i>. Exodus is devoted to the structure of the
tabernacle, Leviticus 1–10 to the service of the altar, and Numbers 1–10 to the
role played by the tabernacle in guiding the Israelites to the land of Canaan.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sometimes events that occurred
in a single moment are separated from one another to fit into their proper
thematic section. This is made explicit in Numbers 7 when our writer introduces
the story of the tribal chieftains’ gifts of wagons and draught animals to
transport the tabernacle. Though the unit belongs in the “guidance” section of
our narrative (thus its placement in the book of Numbers), the gifts themselves
were given on the day the tabernacle was erected (Num. 7:1). <i>Had
chronological time been the strict principle of organization, this narrative
should have been located at the close of the book of Exodus</i> (Anderson 2023,
10 emph. added).</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Anderson had proposed, “The Exodus story of the tabernacle’s
founding is written in such a way as to fold the dedication of the altar into
the rite of erecting the tabernacle (ibid.).”
If there are interruptions in the narrative temporal sequencing,
Anderson has noted (in the highlighted opening to the paragraph quoted above)
that chronology orders the Torah presentation of the Tabernacle while theme
plays a role. All this may be proper and responsible exegesis, but then just
prior to that he has made this astonishing statement that does not derive from
his explanation so far but finds its authority outside the canon or tradition:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Because the onset of the cult
points back to the creation of the universe, the nonlinear character of time at
creation reappears here as well. Beginning in Exodus 25 the restless advance of
<i>chronological time slows to a halt and even, in some places, flows backward.</i>
Sacred time, as Mircea Eliade has argued, is “indefinitely recoverable,
indefinitely repeatable. From one point of view, it could be said that [sacred <i>time]
does not ‘pass,’ that it does not constitute an irreversible direction</i>
(ibid., emph. added.)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This methodological move again demonstrates the fatal flaw of
Anderson’s work: he makes an astonishing, unsupportable, and
retrograde-by-its-very claim that time is flowing backward in the establishment
of the priestly Torah, and bases this claim on a non-applicable, canonically
non-supported hermeneutic—a politically “gnostic” backlook<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>--of
Eliade. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That God would need to go back
in time to reorient history to God’s will suggests that an interruption of God’s
will had taken place to such an extent as to reveal that time, rather than the
medium of contingencies, is itself contingent to forces outside of God’s free
and natural knowledge. At the very least, it seems, this vitiates traditions of
divine simplicity, divine omniscience, and divine omnipotence, as well as
introducing a non-Trinitarian, dualist metaphysics abridging the simplicity of divine
conation (Olds 2023a Appendix I). On the other hand, if the Creator’s eternal
purview allows for time’s reversal, it must be asked how such guides creatures
to freedom responsible to neighbors and the non-human order. In order not to
make a dilemma of metaphysics, it would have to be proposed that such
manifestation of God’s radical freedom serves a point of the necessary human
knowledge of God’s absolute transcendence. But such a point makes for another
dilemma: that such radical, seemingly mercurial incomprehensibility encompasses
and vitiates revealed Christological immanence by a point of hermetic
transcendence. Such does not accord with Christ’s words regarding his knowledge
of the Father and the Father’s will in the Gospel of John. And even if it does
not vitiate Christ’s immanent ministry, there is no revelation to Christ’s
immanent ordering of such incomprehensibility of will.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">At this point, it becomes
necessary to extensively rebut Eliade and his commitment to asserting a
cyclical view of time derived from non-monotheistic traditional societies
rather than an understanding of teleology (however phylogenetically and
ontogenetically fitful) that emerges in Judeo-Christian scriptures and
traditions. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">[The] Romanian historian of
religion proposed that ‘traditional’ societies lived in ‘cyclical time,’
innocent of history . . .<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In traditional societies,
according to Eliade, everything important has already happened. All the great
founding gestures go back to mythic times, the <i>illo tempore</i>, the dawn of
everything, when animals could talk or turn into humans, sky and earth were not
yet separated, and it was possible to create genuinely new things (marriage, or
cooking, or war). People living in this mental world, he felt, saw their own
actions as simply repeating the creative gestures of gods and ancestors in less
powerful ways, or as invoking primordial powers through ritual. According to
Eliade, historical events thus tended to merge into archetypes. If anyone in
what he considered a traditional society does do something remarkable –
establishes or destroys a city, creates a unique piece of music – the deed will
eventually end up being attributed to some mythic figure anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The alternative notion, that
history is actually going somewhere (the Last Days, Judgment, Redemption), is
what Eliade referred to as <i>‘linear time’</i>, in which historical events
take on significance in relation to the future, not just the past. And this
‘linear’ sense of time, Eliade insisted, was a relatively recent innovation in
human thought, one with catastrophic social and psychological consequences. In
his view, embracing the notion that events unfold in cumulative sequences
[teleologies in ethnic—language-bound structures], as opposed to recapitulating
some deeper pattern, rendered us less able to weather the vicissitudes of war,
injustice and misfortune, plunging us instead into an age of unprecedented anxiety
and, ultimately, nihilism. The political implications of this position were, to
say the least, unsettling. Eliade[’s . . . ] basic argument was that the
‘terror of history’ (as he sometimes called it) was <i>introduced by Judaism
and the Old Testament</i> – which he saw as paving the way for the further
disasters of Enlightenment thought.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Applying this evaluation of
Eliade’s religious historicism, Anderson thereby misapplies a traditional
society’s understanding of time as non-linear (recurrent) to the ethnic archive
of the Israelite people—to the Torah—in which linearly unfolding time
(teleology) takes hold of the Israelite (Priestly Theologian) religion from the
creation<i> ex nihilo</i>. Other than post-Biblical <i>midrash</i> cited by
Anderson and wishful thinking of those in the existential crises of reproach,
God does not go backward in time in the Biblical witness. God is a God of
history, not a systematic principle of force(s). Perhaps God could outside the
cosmos in which the Bible witnesses to the Word of God--the Beginning, which
includes the relationship of cause and effect. But as God’s witness to
humanity--God’s relation with temporally and geographically bound humans
directed to live morally and responsibly—living with both freedom and
necessity--within both the future and contemporary boundedness of regions, God
in and with humanity does not move backward in time! For if so, what is the
need for the Gospel’s atoning repair and the death of the Son? For the
incarnation? Anderson’s temporally loosed hermeneutic and any midrashim on
which he claims to find warrant are out of the bounds of mature, academic
witness to Biblical history and the unfolding flows of grace and reparative
processing of the Spirit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">[Eliade’s kind of ]“terror of
history” leads… [to] a cyclical, palingenetic reading of history to… make the
God of the Bible into a [recurrent]
Baal. A vindictive Canaanite war god …The Hebrew and Christian
scriptures repeatedly demonstrate that … the living God desires progress in
peacefulness, in courage, in commitment to life, in virtuous neighborliness so
much that even the terror of death be conquered. And that terror, to be
vanquished, has to be unexpectedly conquered by embracing the [future not
living mired in past regret or dreamy nostalgia. With justification, Christian
hermeneuts commit to a more generational re-engaging, mirroring, bumpy yet]
linear, ontogenetic trajectory [and] the Spirit-led unfolding of history
revealing …the wonder of advances and betterments, albeit recognizing they are
subject to episodic loops of [spiritual, interior lives experienced as]
reversal. Yet these loops are always followed by recovery of trend—of
Spirit-led historical development. [Teleology] is the ever-renewing though
challenging [awareness of the] forward trajectory of collective and individual
soul growth that overcomes the margins of sin, chaos, fear, and anxiety (Olds
2023a, 153-5 emph. added).</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Anderson’s substantial errors introducing his interpretation
of religious history—his existential misinterpretation of time that reports
that the tabernacle makes Sinai mobile-- are compounded by his rerooting of
place. By incorporating both the Aqeda and Golgotha within the “tabernacle
narrative” as he ignores the <i>Kippurah</i> implications of Leviticus 16 suggests
a way to trace from the perspective of
the Priestly theologians to their focus on the “furnishings.” These participate
in revealing, (using tendentious translations)<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
“God’s face” accelerating with the Book of Numbers (ch. 3 esp. pp. 62-6; 212).
Whether this “face” is of an essential portrayal or a symbolic representation
of divine attributes is unaddressed.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Then, after a considerable historical gap in the architectural archive of the
OT, the sacrificial cult resumes in Solomon’s temple with the architecture
proceeding from David’s volition (Ps 132:4a-5; cf. footnote 5 above), and then
another considerable gap into the period of the Second Temple decreed by Cyrus
on his architectural format (Ezra 6:3). These meaningful gaps in the narrative
of sacrificial structures presented by the OT histories are unaddressed by
Anderson. When, in Part II, he connects historical texts with the Priestly
source, he reaches not into the NT for confirmation but for Talmudic and
contemporary scholars outside the confessing Christian tradition to support a
Systematic Theology of territory and structure—P’s theology of time and place
that Anderson presents as the Priestly theology that the tabernacled altar and
ritual service complete—as the 8th day of—God’s creation [pp. 102-103,
referring to the linkages of unnamed medieval rabbis summarized by one modern
academic, Shaefer]. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Does the 8th Day of Creation
invert providence, making the human subject responsible for “feeding God” at
the sacrificial spot? Here, a deeper investigation of the processes of the
tabernacle needs to be unpacked as to subject/object, client/master relations:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In Exod. 25:2: the appended first person suffix objective
pronoun is translated by Anderson (29) as a dative of advantage, but the LXX
has it as a genitive (source or possession)! What is being returned to God who
has provided. But why is this an <i>advantage</i> for God? Anderson later locates
the sacrificial impulse in the ANE ritural concern to “feed God” (p. 100). But
can that be so when God “appears and provides” as in the Aqeda?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">God specifies to Moses to
construct an altar in the plan of the tabernacle (Exod. 25: 1-8; 27:2)-- a
mizbea</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 107%;">ḥ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">Mizbea</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 107%;">ḥ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"> “throughout the Semitic linguistic sphere
[follows] the semantic scope of Hebrew zā</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 107%;">ḇ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">a</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 107%;">ḥ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">, “slaughter, perform a ze</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 107%;">ḇ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">a</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 107%;">ḥ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"> ritual,
sacrifice… mizbēa</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 107%;">ḥ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"> can
refer to the <i>slaughter site…</i> to the place of ze</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 107%;">ḇ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">a</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 107%;">ḥ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">, and to
the sacrificial site in the general.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"> (</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">Dohmen 1997,
8.210 emph added).</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The translation “slaughter site,” noteworthy for its ANE
contextualization, is chosen by Fox (1995, 410) <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">Here, the LXX points to a
categorical distinction involved in emplaced sacrificial ritualization: “The
Septuagint renders mizbēa</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 107%;">ḥ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">
primarily with thysiastērion; 23 times it uses bōmós, though only in reference
to illegitimate pagan altars” (Dohmen, ibid.). Of θυσιαστήριον, LSJ notes this
“altar” is a place of sacrifice and a place “fitted for sacrifice.” To the
question: <i>what are the “fit” objects for such sacrifice?</i> God gives the
list in Exodus, after the Golden Calf episode, beginning with the peace
offerings in 25:2.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">These items are contextualized
in Exod. 27.1: offerings are “contributions,” not in the sense that God needs
to be fed, but what humans offer up in sacrifice of their own appetites that
derive from a certain, pre-reformed human nature--personality types driven by
the covetous and hoarding instincts of flesh. In giving up these things--these
features of their enmeshment in and by nature--they move toward the Godly
essence, which is the conation of grace (Olds 2023a), sharing provision and
dispensing with the hold on human personality (its heart of stone set on stone)
that these commodities exert and which inhibits their sharing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">To trace the ebb and flow of the
collective <i>ethnos</i> in its archived witnesses, and its changing ideas of
God’s “dwelling” in mediated or direct sovereignty, the canonical proxy for
Anderson is the Priestly Theologian’s claim that the temple is the 8th Day
completion of God’s intended creation (p. 103; chap. 7) and its sacrificial
dimension. To be canonical in a more collective and archival way, such must
include at the outset a consideration if not incorporation of the foregoing
historical datum of the Aqeda followed by the Bethel stone pillar of Jacob in
Genesis 28. AND Leviticus 16’s ritual of atonement. In both of the former, God
initiates a meeting. In the first, a call and then a resolution for sacrifice,
where God provides, calling Abraham’s awareness to God’s sourcing all gifts and
therefore righteous in calling for their offering. In the second, the Abrahamic
(natural human) impulse is to follow an encounter with God with a stone
structure—to settle at the spot as if the finite ground has an
institutionalized signification from theophany. By virtue of the twice utter
repudiation of the temple-making impulse and role performance, and the various
intermediate profanations and sackings of the implements, should put
commentators on notice that the institutionalizing impulse rendered in stone is
not religiously or historically progressive in the canonical witness. Instead, it
is the mobile tabernacle that is decreed and designed of God, and its summary
as a place of witness (testimony, tutelaries of signification) when the miškān
is linked with the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʾ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ō</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">hel m</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ô</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʿ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ē</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">d in integuments of
signification. The </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʾ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ō</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">hel m</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ô</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʿ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ē</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">d is where God’s appearance is signified
in the NT witness, though the distinctions of the two structure are entangled
in the OT as translated by both the LXX and the Vulgate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">Exod. 40:34 distinguishes, by
way of cloud and k</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ə</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">bôd, the miškān and the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʾ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ō</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">hel m</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ô</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʿ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ē</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">d. To see that these are
processive distinctions of process, not instituted forms, revisit Anderson’s
chart on p. 154. Moses entered the cloud on Mount Sinai in Exod. 24:18 but is
unable in 40:35. The tabernacle is a stage of pilgrimage, not a recurrence of a
Mosaic investiture.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">The miškān (covered by a tent of
ram’s skin curtained by goat hair Exod. 26:14; 36:14). Anderson consistently
reads the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʾ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ō</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">hel m</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ô</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʿ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ē</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">d, as indeed sometimes does the
LXX, as a synonym for the tabernacle. In this, he initially follows, by
quoting, Brown but misreads the latter’s conclusion (p. 2, emph. added):<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The theme of “tenting” is found
in Exod 25:8–9 where Israel is told to make a tent (the Tabernacle—skēnē) so
that God can dwell among His people; the Tabernacle became the site of God’s
localized presence on earth…. When the Prologue proclaims that the Word made
his dwelling among men, we are being told that the flesh of Jesus Christ is the
new localization of God’s presence on earth, and <i>that Jesus is the
replacement of the ancient Tabernacle</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">As replacement, how then does
Anderson immediately and elsewhere consistently “link” John’s Prologue to his
translation that the Word “tabernacled” among us? Why does a replacement for
the tabernacle in the incarnation come to be incorporated into it by Anderson’s
translations and his almost exclusive, concentrated focus on John’s Prologue as
the proxy for and signature of the incarnation? Because Anderson ignores most
other relevant NT considerations, it would seem he would have to be very
careful about how he translates skēnē in John 1:14. Rather, to apply some necessary
linguistic and contextual frame from the perspective of the replacement, not
from what is replaced! Why not read the verb of John 1:14 diachronically: “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ἐ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">σκήνωσεν”—as
tenting’s transitional feature, from Bedouin abode to traveling sanctuary to an
effulgent tent’s sent witness (skēnōma) and back again to an immanently situated
mobility of teaching in the spiritual deserts of the earthbound marked by generational
change and renewal? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Does Anderson think Jesus, as
incarnated covenanter, manifests the Tabernacle’s curtaining integuments of
goats and rams, its implements assembled altar-ward (rather than outward) and
ritual garb and pieties?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Anderson’s synonymizing of tent
and tabernacle needs far more validation before it can be said to lead to the
temples, and that Jesus’s incarnation is institutionalized by the tabernacle-to-temple
narrative in the way Anderson proposes. That Jesus is in some meaningful way following
and endorsing--by simple restructuring of the priesthood--an architectural path
of incarnated stone rather than a tutelary and atoning incarnation that reveals
how sacrifice is righteous not by its justice but by its mercy and self-discipline
for the sake of grace.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">Unpacking the textual history of
the LXX, the MT, and the Vulgate of this set of residential-made-institutional
constructs in various territorial and spiritual settings manifests the
complexity that leads translators to synonymize the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʾ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ō</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">hel mô</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʿ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ē</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">d and the miškān, both
contemporaneously and diachronically. Thereby ignoring the layering of
elements: altar, sanctuary, curtains, roof coverings, tentings in the
Tabernacle and the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʾ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ō</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">hel m</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ô</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʿ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ē</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">d, that is then incorporated
into the miškān and the later temples, both on earth and in the visions of Ezekiel
and John the Revelator.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The solution of the history of
religions approach is to harmonize and institutionalize these structures as a
foundationally recurrent and thus enduring form. A spiritual, reformed approach
rejects eternities of earth-bound forms and instead looks for the process of
eternity’s synchronic imprint in the texts and history, discerning any
diachronic teleology of what is materially and historically represented. Because
teleology is expected as Christ becomes all-in-all, humanity shares in Christ’s
mission and destiny. The rise and fall of Judeo-Christian institutions impart
meaning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">When the Clementine Vulgate
terms the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʾ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ō</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">hel m</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ô</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʿ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ē</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">d, <i>tectum </i>fœderis (Exod.
40:30; 33), it seems appropriate to consider the meaning of an <i>integument of
signification</i>. It consists of curtains made of skin and hair, which portion
a body’s integument, and we read of its ram skin and goat hair. The tabernacle
has as its tent-roof a covering of signification and covenant. In this frame,
the Exodus generation meets ritually to develop, or not, the faith of Abraham with
testimony to this commitment. According to the Shema, the OT people’s call to
love God with all mô</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ʿ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ē</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">d (strength:
Deut 6:5) is part of its call developed in the tabernacle and reflected on
earth by a tent-bound integument. Might the ram skin be the integument of Davidic
warrior forces (the death of beloved sons securing the Zion’s mode—e.g. Jonathan)
or the goated hair the integument of angels ascending mountains (contra Song
6:5b) or turning traitor when Azazel met and re-engaged of it and set climbing
by other tactics? Might the integument be the manifest part of the testing and
spiritual body derived in a tabernacle movement of covenant signification?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Part 4: Hermeneutic gaps in the architectural
systematics of recurrence</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The above section spoke of Anderson’s “temporally loosed
hermeneutic.” This ties in with his hermeneutic of spatial looseness (historical
porosity he might align with his idea of “ontological leakage”): with how he
moves boundary lines imposed on his source strands to interpolate the Aqeda (Genesis
22) and the Cross into his materialist systematizing--his institutionalization
of the Temple as an absolute of the OT canonical “formalism” of the Priestly
theologians. Before he makes these moves, he omits two crucial historic-spatial
aspects of sacrificial time and place: the Scapegoat ritual of Leviticus 16 and
how, after a 300-year historical gap, the temple-making impulse of monarchs
ties with the Tabernacle-centrality of his systematizing narrative.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Taking up the second problem
first, Anderson gives the scriptural warrant that theophany in 1 Ki 8:10-11
provides the basis for the continuance of the Mosaic Tabernacle and its
services. But Anderson’s continuance of form theology does not analyze the
historical dimensions of the tabernacle and the two succeeding temples.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the former, the precise
instruction given to Moses made the Tabernacle an initiative detailed by God,
while for the temples, the initiative to build emerged from the dynastic
impulse. In David’s case, after he receives God’s promise of a house, his
intent is to mirror that promise by situating God in a house as an externalized
and validating warrant (Ps. 132:4-5; 2 Sa 7: 5-7). In Cyrus’, after he received
Israel’s God’s instruction to liberate the captives to return from exile in
Babylon. In each of these cases, God initiated a reform of temporal sovereignty
inside new national conditions (first under a king, then as a vassal state).<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The historical function of the later dynastic temple on Cyrus’s format is a
re-figured and refiguring institutionalizing of the Davidic temple under ephemeral
conditions of dynastic vassalage and expanded in its terminal phase by Herod.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In both cases, the temple
institution flowed from dynastic impulses to advertise, by mirroring, a special
relationship with the divine. At that point, the survival of institutions
becomes seen in the Biblical witness as contingent on the dynast’s and their
proxies’ performances of intentions to mirror the divine volition indeed, and
to the extent they themselves proclaimed such, they were held to that account
(cf. Matt 7:2; 2 Sa 7).<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
At this point, we might trace the architectural dimensions of material
institutionalization of these claimed special relationships:</span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">1)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">The miškān altar was made
of Acacia wood and is 5 x 5 x 3 cubits (Exod. 27:1; 38:1) while Solomon’s
temple’s altar was overlaid with gold (1 Ki 6:20) and the bronze altar far
larger: “twenty cubits long, twenty
cubits wide, and ten cubits high” (2 Chr. 4:1).</span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">2)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"> The house that King Solomon built for the Lord
was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high 1 Ki 6:2; cf
2 Chronicles 3:3).</span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">3)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">Cyrus’ temple magnifies
these dimensions: Ezra 6:3 (NRSV): “In the first year of his reign, King Cyrus
issued a decree: Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the house be
rebuilt, the place where sacrifices are offered and burnt offerings are
brought; its height shall be sixty cubits and its width sixty cubits.”<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Thus, the dimensions of
institutionalization of the tabernacle into temple form magnifies the grandiose
representations of dynastic intentions. Whereas Isaiah prophesied that Cyrus
would rebuild the “city” (Isa. 45:13), like Saul he diverts from administration
into religious venues. The second temple is built on Cyrus’s format (Ezra 6:3).
It introduces a spatial dimension to the vassalage (cf. Deut 17: 14-20) of
post-exilic Yehud and becomes more grandiose during Herod’s puppet hegemony.
This material and institutional magnification accompanied a reduction in
sovereign autonomy, imposing pagan hegemonic aesthetic impulses into the mix of
ethnically assertive dynastic and pious impulses addressed earlier by the
Josianic reforms.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">None of this is addressed by
Anderson. He situates the temples as the natural outgrowth of the tabernacle
phenomena in a history of religion approach to recurrent institutionalization.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Friedmann (1997 ch. 10)
discusses the connections and the continuities of Temple and Tabernacle and the
Hebrew Bible’s--not the OT's--final redactor (R), whom he identifies as Ezra (242), a
post-exilic Priestly theologian who reorganized the various source tradents (source
strands) to leave the assembled text to reveal a tension of God’s grace and
righteous justice into the 2nd temple period, a tension left hanging and poised
for the expected messiah’s resolution.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
In addition to the tension left hanging of God’s primary attributes, the various
strands from pre-R literary sources had different constituencies when posing
their religious life inside this tension.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The redaction of J, E, and D
occasionally can picture God as acting strictly according to justice, and P can
picture his mercy. But, on the whole, the distinction between them is apparent
and dramatic. P’s focus primarily is on divine justice. The other sources’
focus is on divine mercy. And the redactor combined them. When he did that, he
created a new formula, in which justice and mercy stood in a balance in which
they had never been before. They were more nearly equal than they had been in
any of the source texts. God was both just and merciful, angry and
compassionate, strict and forgiving. It became a powerful tension in the God of
the Bible. (Ibid. 239).</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It came for Jesus’ atonement to
reveal the priority of grace and the subsidiary operation of justice in the
Trinitarian essence. Getting them out of priority leads to the Anselmic error
and the institutionalizing corruption of Caiaphas’ vassalage administration
(esp. cf. John 11:50). The atonement reveals that God does not require
substitutes, though will provide the means of sacrifice in which we become
aware of God’s presence. Ideed, God has the power to extricate from all evils
of history. And the atonement reveals a
god not contingently bound to some human (Anselmic) idea of righteousness qua
consistency that makes its idea of justice (mirrored on the Cross) foundational
to the liberation of grace (Matt 5:45; Ps 145: 9).</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The hermeneutics of assumed
continuance of material form underlies the institutionalizing impulse and
grounds its frames of recurrence. This works both ways: eisegesis grounds
institutionalism (and the dynastic impulse) and dynasty grounds the application
of tradition-recovering and static hermeneutic principles of (ontological)
continuance. Ever the temptation of Abraham to sit down and fall asleep, whence
God calls him to go forth (Gen 12:1).<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Hence the necessity to attend to the full—not eclecticized--witness of the
canonical Bible’s development: Its implications of mobility of structure and
calling, the tension of camp and wilderness, of Zion as a city of people and as
a dynastic building program of David and continued later, of the initiative of
agency in institutionalization and the following of appearances of grace’s
initiative with a mirroring claim of processive righteousness. From these,
appropriate interpretive methods are necessary to enter the historical archives
of an<i> ethnos</i> (a language group, not a kinship structure) for
interpreting social arrangements and the (re-)ordering of sovereignty inside
the people of God.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Again, both the non-P strand of
the Aqeda and the institutionalizing impulse of temple making (in DtH and
post-exilic strands) must be integrated, per a “canonical” reading of the OT,
not from the centrality of P as manifesting the recurrent call of the divine to
institutionalize God’s stone dwelling but from a hermeneutical perspective that
takes into account the repeated failures of the institutionalizing impulse
actualized by the prophetic denunciation of monarchic injustices and the twice-destroyed,
much-prophesized, much lamented doomed temples. In other words, the
hermeneutics of human construction of God’s dwelling cannot emerge from a
“continuance of form” theological hermeneutic but rather a hermeneutic of continuance
of Spirit—the Spirit-processive hermeneutic remains tethered to the historical
dimensions of time, space, and their sequential imposition of necessity. While
reinterpretations of history are appropriate as hermeneutical methods are
updated by the processing Holy Spirit, traveling outside the immanent
collective in a transcendentalizing approach to material forms is not.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">David institutionalizes a
mediating relationship of sovereignty over the people, mirroring God’s living
promise of an eternal “house” with his impulse to find a “house” for God in the
manner he knows from his context: the ANE ziggurat constructed along an
architectural path of blazing a climb to heaven. While this may not have been
David’s idea, Solomon is represented as building the temple where the
institutionalzing impulse attempts to secure the Davidids confidence in the
enduring promise of earthly sovereign continuance. The OT does not address how
God directs the temple construction, detailed as it is for the tabernacle. The
altar and Tabernacle have a direct design deliverered to Moses from God. Not so
the Solomonic temple. The Tabernacle and altar services were taken up into the
temple rituals (and may, from a critical point of view, have originated there).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So as the Temples fall, at least
two competing strands of explanation are discerned in the OT witnesses. The
Temple service and ritual performance failed or were illegitimate (an
explanation more prominent during the Herodian temple phase of Judaism, where
both King and Priestly castes were [seen as] invalid) or it was the collective
people’s sins that were responsible (this characterizes the dominant southern
prophetic strands accompanying the first temple’s destruction and the tension
of city and temple in the Psalms.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Aqeda</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">re’iyyah in the Aqeda is linked to God’s provision of a
sacrifice. So that in sacrifice is God’s provision manifest and dedicated.
re’iyyah is made a substantive in the place name of such: Mount Moriah.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The place of the Aqeda is stated
to be Mount Moriah in 2 Chr 3:1, the site of the Temple Mount nearby to
Golgotha. (Schnittjer 2006, 133). All Biblical and archeological accounts cited
by Corbo (1992) place the site of the Crucifixion outside the city limits of
Jerusalem at the time:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> “It must be noted that
after the death of Jesus, the area of Golgotha was included within the
Jerusalem city walls by Herod Agrippa I (AD 40–44.)” (Corbo 1992, 1072 emph.
added).</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">While Schnittjer places the site
of the Cross at the site of the Aqeda, Mount Moriah, Anderson places the temple
on Mount Moriah following 2 Chr 3:1 and assumes the site of the Cross and the
Aqeda into an historical harmony and geographic overlap with temple.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">However, Drinkard (2006 loc cit.
emph. added) notes a basis to question such a triple historical linkage:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Moriah is mentioned twice in the
OT. 1. Moriah is the region (the Hebrew is literally “the land of the Moriah”)
where Abraham is sent to sacrifice his son Isaac (Gen 22:2); specifically, he
is directed to one of the mountains that God would show him in that region.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">2. Mount Moriah is identified as
the place where Solomon built the Temple; it is the place previously revealed
to David, the THRESHING FLOOR of ORNAN the Jebusite (2 Chr 3:1; Ornan = ARAUNAH
in the full account in 2 Sam 24:16-24 ). This is where David built an altar and
offered sacrifices to stay the plague God had sent as a result of David’s
presumptuous census.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Since these are the only
occurrences of the name Moriah, they are often assumed to refer to the same
place. The distance from Beer-sheba (where Abraham and Isaac’s journey began,
Gen 21:31-33 ) to Jerusalem is about 45 mi., a distance appropriate for the
three-day journey (Gen 22:4). <i>However, it is surprising that there is no
mention of Abraham, the near-sacrifice of Isaac, or the altar (Gen 22:9) in the
account of the threshing floor in Samuel or Chronicles.</i></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From this, it seems reasonable
to assert that the Biblical witness is more definitive in its witness that
geographically links the Aqeda to Jerusalem (and Moriah) than the Davidic site
of purchase to the Aqeda. If this is so, it is more reasonable, and thus
necessary, to link the geography of the Crucifixion to the sacrificial site of
the Aqeda first, and only then to explore the geographic parallels with the
Temple. Again, this is inverted in Anderson’s presentation of a geographical “narrative”
of form.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Golgotha as a geographical
parallel prefigures the typology of sacrificial substitution of blood (NOT for
wrath [see Olds 2023a Appendix III])—of the ram for the people embodied in the
hope of the promised child Isaac—and the sacrifice of the promised child Jesus
as a substitute for the people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Leviticus 16’s Atonement<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Porter (2021, 284) subordinates the place of the sacrifice in
Leviticus 16 to that of the place in Numbers 7: “references to atonement in
Lev. 16 are secondary to the revelatory function of the ‘mercy seat.’” He links
<i>hilasterion</i> not to a place of sacrifice where blood is sprinkled, but to
a site of revelation of declared righteousness, thereby bringing sacrifice to a
relationship with <i>forensic</i> mercy, such that mercy in declared
righteousness is effected in some way by sacrifice, linked by Porter,
predictably with “faith.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Porter at least engages,
errantly, with Leviticus 16. Anderson, on the other hand, omits references to
it except as “spiritual repair” for “gross priestly errors” (PP. 11; 90): “According
to the opening verses of Leviticus 16, the purpose of this atonement rite is
far more specific: to deal with the aftereffects of what Aaron’s sons have done
wrong” (102). Contrary to his statements that sacrifice in the OT were <i>not</i>
concerned with sin (p. 76; contrast 90
n. 17), if he were to include a responsible reading of the entirety of
Leviticus 16, he would see that the goat sacrificial rituals apply to sin and
transgression of the<i> people </i>(Lev. 16: 15), the <i>children of Israel</i>
(Lev. 16.21), not just of the priests.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sacrificial atonement processes
through antecedent allusion in the Aqeda and Leviticus (an “outside the camp”
[Leviticus 16] sacrificial system) rather than the “inside the camp” (Nu 1:1)
site of the ritual service of altar’s mercy seat (Nu 7:8) that is the
antecedent of the temple’s. The “outside the camp” sacrifice fits the context
of Golgotha’s (Moriah’s) crucifixion outside of the town of Jerusalem and picks
up the “outside/apartness” nature of God’s revelation of righteousness in Rom.
3:21.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">The place of divine revelation (<i>hilasterion</i>)
is a place of speaking in Nu 7:89 (Exod. 25:22). In Nu 12: 8 Moses speaks with
God <i>pe </i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;"><i>ʾ</i></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><i>el-pe</i>, “mouth
to mouth,” which the NRSV translates, inappropriately, “face to face.” The
mercy seat is not a form of showing—a forensic seat of justice defined (so
Porter [2021]. Yet certainly not of a bloody and crucified body which visual
representation to the condemnors is a mirror of their injustice. When God
speaks at the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ἱ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">λαστήριον, the <i>message not the visual</i>
is the mercy seat, the kippurah, the seat of atonement. The visual is the mirror
of human injustice. The ultimate messaging of the atonement on the Cross is the
embodied blood that draws off sin and the supplication of the Logos met by
transcendent grant of mercy! Both the earthly site of the atonement as mercy
seat sprinkled through blood, and its verbal message that accords with what
happens at that “seat”--an embodiment of revealed injustice that sheds blood
transformed by the transcendent speech-act where expiation is in the divine
blood and supplication! Mercy revealed flowing from the spoken
supplication/petition and confirmed by the resurrection of the body and
following speech acts-- not a body left hanging and bloody—reveals the definitive expression (logos) of the
operation of righteousness:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">Rom. 3:21, which Porter (2021)
misreads as he links it to the material </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ἱ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">λαστήριον
of v. 25, is that God’s righteousness-- δικαιοσύνη θεο</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ῦ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"> (on the
Cross)-- is manifest apart from (or outside of) law/legalism/earthly law, as
opposed to what is witnessed by (Torah) Law </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ὑ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">π</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ὸ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"> το</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ῦ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"> νόμου.
The first use of “law” is anarthrous, while the second use has the article.
There is a meaningful distinction of Law in this verse--imparted by the
attachment or absence of the article--that is essential to recognize in the
spatial scene at the Cross. The Cross is a manifestation of law that is not of
God’s righteousness, while God’s righteousness is witnessed by The Law, the
Torah as indicated by its context with the prophets in this verse. It is
likewise essential not to bring inside the camp what is outside the camp at
Golgotha. Or to imagine that righteousness is revealed as forensic forum rather
than in a speech act of the Logos.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">Rom. 3:21 Νυν</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ὶ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"> δ</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ὲ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"> <b>χωρ</b></span><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ὶ</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">ς νόμου</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">
δικαιοσύνη θεο</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;">ῦ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"> πεφανέρωται</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Therefore, any consideration of
atonement looking for the revelation of God’s mercy seat needs to look outside
the camp for a blood sacrifice in a speech act, not in a material form in the
operation of en-templed, administrative legalism. This latter is the error of
Porter (2021, 289; 298), who links the <i>hilasterion</i> to a Numbers 7:89
emplaced implement that reveals the justice of forensic sacrifice that is
linked with mercy (292; 299 n. 31) rather than its substitutionary or tutelary
or cosmically expiatory functions. Anderson’s associated error is the placement
of the atonement inside the camp by incorporating it in some way into his “tabernacle
narrative,” in the environs of the temple precinct. by an abstruse application
of Louth’s historicizing diagram (pp. 213-5; 225-7) that detaches the
incarnation from the atonement (p. 228) except by way pardox: the atonement is
linked to the incarnation which Anderson situates in “the paradoxical,
sacrificial logic of Genesis 22” (pp. 222-23).<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[17]</span></span></span></a></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This does not mean denying the
role of the cross, but it does entail subordinating the sacrifice of Christ to
God’s primary providential end—the divinization of humanity by dint of the incarnation.
If we follow Augustine’s reading of St. Paul, however, we should be suspicious
of this sort of subordination. The Old Testament does link the indwelling of
God to creation as we have seen, but it also creates an unbreakable bond
between the act of indwelling the tabernacle and the sacrificial service that
will be conducted there. These arches, to return to Louth’s striking image, are
in parallel to one another; there is no subordination. But Louth was correct to
indicate that incarnation can be thought of apart from the demand to rectify
human sin. It is not the case that the incarnation has been made contingent on
an act of rebellion against God (p. 228).</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Anderson then goes on to conclude his book,</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The purpose of sacrifice in the
Tabernacle Narrative is not first and foremost that of effecting atonement. It
is rather to enable the enactment by Israel of a radical self-emptying before
her God (ibid.).</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Nowhere in this book does Anderson explicitly link
divinization with grace or (especially) the Golden Rule. Indeed both terms are
absent from the index, a dead giveaway of an ignorance of both the incarnation
and atonement revealing God’s essence--the conation of grace in providence and
repair. These are not “paradoxically linked” in sacrifice, but developed,
tutored, and witnessed in the tabernacle, and sent into the world as the skēnōma
of Israel, its illuminating force of grace. The glory of the sun that gives
growth by witness and force of gift-giving sustenance. The ultimate of the
latter is the atonement, while the incarnation prepares others to follow this
path into the eternity of grace. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>NOTES:</b></p><div><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="ftn1">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> As well as perhaps prefigure
role confusion of Saul and Cyrus who move from their appointments as
administrators into acting as religious entrepreneurs. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Kozlowski, Jan M., and
Maria Chodyko. “Socrates’ Triple Accusation in Plato’s Apol. 24b–c as a Source
of Jesus’ Triple Accusation in Luke 23.2.” <i>New Testament Studies</i> 69, no.
4 (October 2023): 472–75 (472 emph. added)
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0028688523000188<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">quoting
D. R. MacDonald, </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Luke and Vergil: Imitations of Classical Greek</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">
Literature (Lanham/Boulder/New York/London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015),
13.</span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> If we take these as
indicatives as does the LXX, as indicatives of shared volition and intention,
promise rather than commands, then the “so that” English translation ceases
having a justified transactional import—ceases its reading of a contingent
consecutive and a part of a sequence of conditionality. Rather, the LXX is non-conditioned,
a coordination of volitions witnessed to inside the sanctuary’s architecture
and ritual services.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The LXX translates the vavs in the Hebrew as
simple conjunctions alongside a change in voice for the second verb: “and will
be seen among you.” The sacrificial system here is NOT a means of dwelling with
God, but for heightening awareness of the individual and onlookers of God’s
indwelling, God’s participation in the pious worker, not vice versa, and the
thanks which flow ad intra and ad extra. The import is that the conjunctions
coordinate the flow of relationship mediated by the sacrificial structures in a
less determinate manner than its reduction to conditionalities. What is
continuous is God's indwelling of us (even before we become aware), not of a
material and institutionalized form that makes God in some way a contingent
property, that "unlocks" the divine incarnation and participation.
God has no need for recurrent institutionalized material forms, but there is a
processive--phylogenetic and ontogenetic--awareness that God is monitoring our
souls and shaping our hearts and minds by our experience of events (including
liturgy and reading of scripture) and our development of Christological virtues
and accepting participation in the teleology of the Golden Rule.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Of the
Hebrew verbal flow, we note these potential technical options:</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">w</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">ᵊ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">qātal (waw + perfect) — A form of the suffixed (perfect)
conjugation with a prefixed waw (modern: vav). Unlike the waw-prefixed forms of
the imperfect, there is no ‘strong’ waw to clearly differentiate when the waw
is conversive/consecutive versus when it is a simple conjunction (see wayyiqtōl
and w</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">ᵊ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">yiqtōl). The consecutive
perfect sometimes shows a shift in accent, but that shift may be missing for
any number of different reasons, including: the hif</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">ʿ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">î</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">l stem, the pausal
position, the presence of a pronominal suffix and certain </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">‘</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">weak</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> verb patterns. Thus the
only way to determine with certainty that a waw + perfect is a consecutive
perfect is to examine the context. Consecutive perfects often seemingly conveys
the equivalent of the prefixed (imperfect) conjugation, which often conveys
imperfective aspect but has other uses, such as conveying volition. Consecutive
perfects are also used for the apodosis of conditional clauses or other result
clauses that are contingent on something described previously (Heiser and Setterholm
2013).</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From
this discussion, the verbs of Exod. 25:8 may be read as consecutive perfects
(as does Alter [2008]): conditionally, as a cohortative followed by an
apodosis) or as dually inceptive portraying that the flow of volitional
alignment will process through witness. Read on this side of the NT and
contextualized by it, it is clear that the latter option is favored. Though
again, Anderson eschews, by a methodological lack of engagement,
contextualization of these texts from the perspective of the NT.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Cf. b. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Ḥ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">agigah 16a, part of the
Mishnah tractate concerned with <i>Re</i></span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">ʾ</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">iyyah</span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">--appearance and
provision, picking up allusions to the Aqeda.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn5">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> 2 Sa 7:13 relates the syntax of consecutive
verbs as do the verses from Exodus noted. The NRSV translates these with
contingent force: that David shall build God a temple, and God will establish
his kingdom. Notwithstanding the complicated textual history and fraught
context of this passage, it is again preferable to read these as structuring
volitions in the context of Psalm 132 rather than conditions. David’s intention
is dynastic, a mirroring of divine action as preparation to mediate divine sovereignty
over the collective people. The first verb is a simple imperfect, and the
latter a perfect of a polel stem, suggesting a strong, not a contingent
strengthening of--commitment conveying surety. Again, the vav-connection of the
verbs does not structure them in apposition as necessarily sequential or
concessive-- as indicating conditionality. The latter verb is a</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> suffixed
(perfect) conjugation with a prefixed waw (modern: vav</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">). Unlike the waw-prefixed forms of the
imperfect, there is no ‘strong’ waw to clearly differentiate when the waw is
conversive/consecutive versus when it is a simple conjunction …. Consecutive
perfects often seemingly conveys [sic] the equivalent of the prefixed
(imperfect) conjugation, which often conveys imperfective aspect but has other
uses, such as conveying volition. Consecutive perfects are also used for the
apodosis of conditional clauses or other result clauses that are contingent on
something described previously. (Heiser
and Setterholm 2013, emph. added).</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But
this latter condition is not marked in this verse. The verbs are not
consecutive perfects, so interpreting this verse as containing a contingent
syntax--a protasis and apodosis--is questionable.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Alter (1999, 233) translates this verse
accordingly--contrasting with his (Alter 2008) conditional translation of Exod.
25:8--with no sense of contingencies imparted by verbal syntax other than a
correspondance of inceptive futures: "He it is who will build a house for
My name and I will make the throne of his kingship unshaken forever." (Cf NIV).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn6">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> See esp. Ellwood, Robert
S. <i>The Politics of Myth: A Study of C.G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and
Joseph Campbell.</i> SUNY Series, Issues in the Study of Religion. Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1999. Eliade's "gnostic"
(salvific [pp. 8-9]) sense of history has an allusive tie to the political
theology of sovereignty in the work of Carl Schmitt.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ellwood
characterizes Eliade as an early admirer of fascism, "nostalgic for
the <i>unities</i> of the distant past...reaction[ary in his]
gnosticism" that delinks the individualist's obligation to collective
progress (viii emph, added)--where only the "wise" individualist can
escape the entrapments and enmeshments of the rootless and ignorant modern
collective. Eliade committed to "antimodernism and antirationalism tinged
with romanticism and existentialism...deeply suspicious...[of] the
Enlightenment...decr[ying] 'decadent' democracy [and] the rootless 'mass man'
its leveling fosters. In contrast, [he] lauded traditional 'rooted'
peasant culture...'the people' [and] the charismatic heroes...who allegedly
personified that culture's supreme values...[Eliade's] distinctive mood of
world-weariness, a sense that all has gone gray [by modernism]--and, just
beneath the surface, surging, impatient eagerness for change: for some
tremendous spasm, emotional far more than intellectual, based far more on
existential choice than on reason, that would recharge the world with color and
the blood with vitality. Perhaps a new elite, or a new leader capable of making
'great decisions' in the heroic mode of old"(p. xi). <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Eliade's
philosophy of religion was not theologically-derived, but phenomenologically.
The principal organization imposed onto sacred time and space occurred at the
time of a religion's origins (pp. 5-6). From this, religious phenomena cycled
in folk culture and consciousness, recurring, thereby confirming the
continuation of its forms and figures locked to material nature. Eliade's
ideology of history described above coheres with his philosophy of religion
attendant to forms in time and space, unifying them as a matter of
gnostic--salvific and sanctifying--method. It is from the phenomenological past
that our salvation will recur, and thus we must look ever to the past for the
form of the future transcendent. Quoting Harold Bloom, in such gnosis is
"a dangerous and doom-eager freedom [qua hunger]: from nature, time,
history, community, other selves" (p. 11).</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn7">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Graeber, David, and D.
Wengrow. <i>The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity</i>. New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2021, 497 emph. added. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn8">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">On p. 62, Anderson writes, "The
Hebrew original of Exodus 23:17 reads: “Three times a year (during the
pilgrimage festivals) all your males <b>shall see </b>the face of the
Lord, YHWH.” Notwithstanding that he is quoting not the "Hebrew
original" but an English rendering, it is worth noting the BHS:
</span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">שָׁלֹ֥שׁ פְּעָמִ֖ים בַּשָּׁנָ֑ה יֵ<b>רָאֶה֙</b> כָּל־זְכ֣וּרְךָ֔ <b>אֶל־פְּנֵ֖י</b> הָאָדֹ֥ן׀
יְהוָֽה</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> As a
niphal, the verb </span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">יֵרָאֶה֙</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>
yē·rā·</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">ʾ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">ě</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">h</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">ʹ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> has the sense of "appear"
[cause to be seen] as indicated by the locative preposition in the verb's
object</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">אֶל־פְּנֵ֖י</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>.
The better translation of this verse is the NRSV's: "Three times in the year
all your males <b>shall</b> <b>appear</b> <b>before</b> the
Lord GOD." <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">nif</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">ʿ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">al </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">—</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> In Biblical Hebrew, </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">‘</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">stem</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> refers to the
relationship of the verb</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">s subject to the action of the verb.
That is,</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">stems convey grammatical ‘voice’
relationships </span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">(Heiser and Setterholm 2013;
emph added).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Anderson's
translation interprets the verb as a Qal and does not account for the Hebrew
locative.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span> </span>On p. 64, Anderson
presents a similar rendering of Exod. 34:23 which his source translates the
verb as "must see," as if the change from the locative preposition to
the direct object marker </span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">אֶת־פְּנֵ֛י </span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="HE" style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">introduces intensification of a verbal
imperative (from "shall" to "must"). In contrast to the
earlier cited verse, however, what is increasingly marked in this latter verse
is the direct object which is no longer prefaced by a locative preposition. By
the direct object marking </span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">אֶת</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>, the object is more markedly involved than the previous quoted
verse in<i> coordinating the voice of agencies</i> embedded in the
niphal stem, not by a change in the force of the verb. The syntax
imparts passive voice not imperative mood to the verb, consistent with the
Hebrew stem:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Nifals
also have at the same time the <i>passive</i> meaning, e.g. </span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">נִסְתַּר</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>
to hide oneself and to be hidden; </span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">נִגְאַל</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> to redeem oneself and to be redeemed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Nifal tolerativum</span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">. In some cases the meaning is that of to allow something
to happen to oneself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">(Joüon,
P., & Muraoka, T. (2003).<i> A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew</i> (Vol.
1, p. 150, emph. added). Pontificio Istituto Biblico.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The "toleration"
by the subject indicated by the niphal stem accords with a (developing)
awareness of the passive voice, a feature of the subject agent <i>being
seen </i>by the object agent<i>.</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In both cases, the
predicate of Anderson's translated sources imparts a mistaken English rendering
of perspective from that of the verbal stem in the Hebrew text. The niphal is
not simply "reflexive" (Ibid.), but it does indicate
relationship--processing, coordinating and elucidating--of initiating and
acted-upon agencies. The translation "appear" is far more indicated
in the syntax of the verbal stem and in the processive marking of the direct
object as guiding the interpretation of the niphal in these verses. <i>More
awareness on Anderson's part of these syntactic features is required before he
claims "The Hebrew original" meaning of how the face of God was
encountered.</i></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn9">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This focus on crafted material form—on
furnishings-- leads to Anderson's speculation that the stones of the temple
themselves resonate with divine energy (59-60, viii). Like in Anderson's
presentation of sacrifice likened to ANE rituals of "feeding the
gods," this representation of "resonance" seems to accord with
pagan ideas of a hypostatized divine "numen" in temples that
"leaks" or resonates. As an example:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Zeús
Bōmios or Be</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">ʿ</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">el Madbach</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">â</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">, i.e., a<i> numen</i> dwelling<i> within</i> the
stone ...[for some] communit[ies is] the tangible manifestation of the highest
god. Similar interpretations may be found...within the Phoenician-Punic sphere
(Dohmen 1997, 8:211 emph. added). <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If this feature of temples
is intended--an ontology in stone--it evidences another feature of Anderson's
history of religion approach to the Hebrew Bible.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In contrast with the
resonating <i>numen</i> of stone architectures as presented by
Anderson-- <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">[and in contrast with the
link of the cloud in Exod. 40:38; Nu. 9:15 et al. by the <i>Shekinah</i> in
the Targum of Isa. 6:5],<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">--the Tamid service of God
in the temple is the witness of an opened the heart of its servant--the
appearance of God in and linked to the provision of God [<i>re’iyyah</i>].
Revealed as being transformed by witness as commitment—by the repentant witness
of steadied and awakened eyes and disciplined hands and intercessory and
thanksgiving prayer applied for neighbors. The temple is a place for the hearts
of generations to be renewed for witness. The sacrificial system trains the servant
to recognize the imprint of the master, not by "feeding God" but by
giving up what the possessive eye is attached to and sacrificially commit to
the heart of God (Deut 6: 5) to share what is hoarded--to align with the
metaphysics of conative grace. While the divinity is not fed as an object, God
may be fed in his people, part of redistributive function of the sacrifical
altar.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Since
sacrifice in Egypt exhibited primarily the character of a meal for the gods,the
altar itself can also be understood as having been modeled on secular eating
utensils such as the dining mat, table, bowl, etc. The original form of the
altar in Egypt is that of the food plate placed at the cultic location. An
offering mat portrayed with a loaf of bread also serves as a hieroglyph for
offering as such. (Dohmen ibid. 212). <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From
this, it can be seen how the temple architecture and furnishings are part of a
reorientation of sacrifice away from feeding God (by feeding priests and elites
and earning conditional merit) and toward a conative sharing of providential
gifts in a sending of transformed hearts into the world for mission and
witness. First the tabernacle and then the temple provide a physical space that
conditions the penitent's awareness that God will be encountered in some way by
the sacrificial offerings, and the operation of the tamid demonstrates and
cultivates awareness of "pleasing" reorientation. </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn10">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Rather,
that Temple worship is a mandate for the people is a claim Anderson validates
in Athanasius (pp. 7; 193-4). However, Anderson does not present whether
Athanasius is applying this direction for the first temple or for both (and all
succeeding?).</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn11">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A vassal state is one in which its
in-group political claims are subject to being overturned by a stronger or
controlling authority. See Smith, Rogers M. <i>Stories of
Peoplehood: The Politics and Morals of Political Membership</i>. Cambridge
University Press, 2003, 28.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">For an extended discussion of these historical dimensions
in the theological witness of Deuteronomistic reform of the monarchic
progression of Judah, see Olds, Douglas B. <i>Praxis for care of the
atmosphere in times of climate change: analysis, quantitative methods, and
ecclesial development</i> (San Francisco Theological Seminary. D. Min.
Dissertation) 2020, 100-102. https://shorturl.at/hsLMR</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn12">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> 2
Sa 7: 13 is again translated by the NRSV as a conditional set of verbs but the
verbal syntax allows a simple temporal sequence, as does Alter (1999, 23). The
rest of the chapter, one of the most complicated textual reports in the OT for
its consequences and salvation historical context, feeds back on v. 13 in the
conditional translations. However, unpacking the discourse flow of this chapter
indicates a change in relationship with the house of David when he undertakes
to build a house for God. His line then becomes accountable to God—by
shepherding the people (cf. Ezekiel 34) in upgraded accoutability befitting
David’s role as a monarchic witness by way of his asserted institutionalization
of a material temple as feature of his sovereign program.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn13">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Josephus (Antiquities XI.5–7)
suggests that Cyrus ordered the restoration and rebuilding of the temple after
reading Isaiah’s prophecy [45:1-17]. He also claims Cyrus himself ordered the
temple’s dimensions (Antiquities XV.386; see Ezra 6:3).--Silverman, J. M.
(2016). Cyrus II. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D.
Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, L. Wentz, E. Ritzema, & W. Widder
(Eds.), <i>The Lexham Bible Dictionary</i>. Lexham Press.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn14">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Though Friedmann does not explicitly note the messianic expectation in this context.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn15">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">While Anderson prefers to label his
method “canonical criticism” as a mode aligned with Rendtorff and Childs (esp.
3-6, 159-60), he centers his narrative of architectures in P and deriving from
P, the Priestly strand. He is aware of other source strands, though he does not
explicitly label them as Yahwist (J) or Deuteronomist (D). Instead, Anderson
proposes that Childs’ “canonical criticism” begins with P in order to
“understand fully who Jesus is, we need to correlate how he is understood in
both testaments” (x, emph. added). However, this method approaches Jesus as a
priest would, as if Jesus came to <i>institutionalize</i> another
priesthood by his incarnation and atonement.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">OR <i>de</i>-institutionalize.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A
Documentary source criticism approach (classically of J, E, P, D sources) would
present a different historical flow and set of theological emphases to the
narratives in the Hebrew Bible depending on how these strands were organized.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In 1878,
[Julius] Wellhausen (in <i>Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel) </i>presented
the “Documentary Hypothesis,” which was widely accepted. A number of other
scholars had already anticipated many of his assertions; for example, Graf
argued for the order “JEDP” [with P the latest strand], a view which Wellhausen
popularized in his Prolegomena.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Wellhausen
focused on parts of Genesis and Exodus where the “J” and “E” sources are
distinct from one another. He argued that, in most other parts of Genesis
through Numbers, a later editor or editors combined “J” and “E” into a “JE”
document.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">--Stuart,
D. K. (2016). Documentary Hypothesis. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R.
Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, L. Wentz, E. Ritzema, & W.
Widder (Eds.), <i>The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Lexham Press.</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Without
a reference to the full witness of the NT and the Gospel’s settlement of the
primacy of mercy over judgment, a more universal consideration of the various
source theologies and constituencies other than priests (such as monarchs,
people, prophets) would most likely emphasize a different awareness of both the
atonement and the incarnation (the latter’s “at-one-ment” of God with humanity,
not just with OT priests).</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn16">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> <i>Mobility </i>is an
Abrahamic course intention set forth in divine imperatives: </span><span dir="RTL" face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="HE">לֶךְ־לְךָ</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> go! Rouse yourself. (Gn 12:1, <span dir="RTL" face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="HE">קַח וָלֵךְ</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> go and take 12:19 ). Get up [ <span dir="RTL" face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="HE">קוּם</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> qûm] and go, get up and take (Gen 19:14-15; Num 22:20;
Deut 9:12; 10:11; other non-Torah references.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn17">
<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Book%20Reviews/Olds%20Review%20That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them%5eJ%20%20030124.docx#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[17]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"> Theologians who resort to the claim of
“paradox” have lost their way to the history of religion.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Aqeda is a test of Abraham’s resolve to sacrifice his son by whom the promise </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">is to take its next processive, generational step. The sacrifice tests whether </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the gifts of God derived from God may be called for by God and intended for </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">God’s purposes—God’s people. The Aqeda thus demonstrates at least six </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">comprehensible, incarnational principles of sacrifice: 1) all gifts come from </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">God and may be repurposed by God. 2) As God provided the original gift, God </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">will provide a substitute. In this, God may be recognized in providence’s </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">teleology.3) Sacrifice as a human act offers up attachments to the material </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">gifts of nature and bounty as a training and discipline feature of developing </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the virtues of the Golden Rule. However, covenanted providence does not require </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">human death. 4) (The idea of sacrifice) is tutelary and preparation for a life </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">of witness through service so its context retains its </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">religio</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> of </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">reverential service even after the altars of Israel fall. 5) God’s arranging a </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ram as a substitute re-validates the “genetic” (qua faith) promise of destiny </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">for Abraham. 6) The Aqeda prefigures a later, universally effective atoning </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">sacrifice of supplicating blood (embodied witness of the Son to divine essence) </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and which reveals that God is not a nepocidal agent but a giver of life </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">restored and enduring for purpose (Isaac) and eternalizing (Christ).</span></p>
</div>
</div><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">CITATIONS </span><span style="font-size: medium;">(in addition to those given in footnotes)</span><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Alter, Robert. <i>The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel</i>. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999, 233.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Alter, Robert.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2008.</span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Corbo, V. C. (1992). Golgotha (Place). In D. N. Freedman (Ed.), & D. M. Elliott (Trans.),</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">(Vol. 2, p. 1072 emph. added). Doubleday.</span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Drinkard Jr., Joel F., Moriah.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">In The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible </i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">(electronic edition). Edited by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld. Abingdon Press, 2009.</span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 19.26px;">Dohmen, C. (1997). </span><span dir="RTL" face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="HE" style="font-size: large; line-height: 19.26px;">מִזְבֵּחַ</span><span dir="LTR" style="font-size: large;"></span><span dir="LTR" style="font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 19.26px;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>. In G. J. Botterweck, H. Ringgren, & H.-J. Fabry (Eds.), & D. W. Stott (Trans.), <i>Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament</i> (Revised Edition, Vol. 8). Eerdmans.</span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Fox, Everett.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. </i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Schocken Bible 1 (New York, NY: Schocken Books, 1995).</span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Friedman, Richard Elliott.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Who Wrote the Bible</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">? San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997.</span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span lang="DE" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 19.26px;">Heiser, M. S., & Setterholm, V. M. (2013). </span><i style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 19.26px;">Glossary of Morpho-Syntactic Database Terminology</span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 19.26px;">. Lexham Press.</span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 19.26px;">[LSJ] Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones, and Roderick McKenzie. <i>A Greek-English Lexicon</i>, with a Supplement. Rev. and augm. Throughout. Oxford</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; line-height: 19.26px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 19.26px;">: New York: Clarendon Press</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; line-height: 19.26px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 19.26px;">; Oxford University Press, 1996.</span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Olds, Rev. Douglas. “Expect Something New: Messianic Predictions and Advent in 1st C Judea.” Crying in the Wilderness of Mammon (blog), December 13, 2014. https://douglasolds.blogspot.com/2014/12/expect-something-new-messianic.html.</span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Olds, Douglas B.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Architectures of Grace in Pastoral Care: Virtue as the Craft of Theology beyond Strategic and Authoritative Biblicism</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">. Wipf and Stock, 2023a.</span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Olds, Rev. Douglas. “The Gospel Sung In Christmas Carols.” Sermon. Crying in the Wilderness of Mammon (blog), December 24, 2023b. https://douglasolds.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-gospel-sung-in-christmas-carols.html</span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Porter, Nathan. “Between the Cherubim: The ‘Mercy Seat’ as Site of Divine Revelation in Romans 3.25.”</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Journal for the Study of the New Testament</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">44, no. 2 (December 2021): 284–309. https://doi.org/10.1177/0142064X211049101.</span></p><p style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Schnittjer, Gary E.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"> </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">The Torah Story: An Apprenticeship on the Pentateuch</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><p class="MsoFootnoteText"><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div><div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=That%20I%20May%20Dwell%20Among%20Them&rft.publisher=Eerdmans&rft.au=undefined&rft.date=2023"></span></div>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-15358049662403886442024-01-20T13:58:00.000-08:002024-01-21T14:59:43.928-08:00<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">[Sermon:]
“Cornerstone Living”</span><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><b>Point
Reyes Community (CA) Presbyterian Church<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><b>Rev.
Dr. Douglas Olds<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><b>Sunday,
January 21, 2024<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><o:p style="background-color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RSsnWSrSJc51P2bBPIqcznNRxnr-AEie/view?usp=drive_link" target="_blank">Audio of Sermon Linked here </a></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><o:p><br /></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">OT Reading:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Psalm 48 <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">A Song. A Psalm FOR the Korahites<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1Great is the LORD and greatly to be
praised <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in the city of our God. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His holy mountain, 2 beautiful in
elevation, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is the joy of all the earth, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mount Zion, in the far north, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the city of the great King. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>3Within its citadels God <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>has shown himself a sure defense. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>4Then the kings assembled, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they came on together. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5As soon as they saw it, they were
astounded; <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they were in panic, they took to flight; <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>6trembling took hold of them there, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>pains as of a woman in labor, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>7as when an east wind shatters <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the ships of Tarshish. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>8As we have heard, so have we seen <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in the city of the LORD of hosts, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in the city of our God, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>which God establishes forever. Selah <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>9We ponder your steadfast love, O God, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in the midst of your temple [pondering what
we have seen, and:]. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>10Your name, O God, like your praise, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>reaches to the ends of the earth. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your right hand is filled with victory. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>11Let Mount Zion be glad, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>let the towns of Judah rejoice <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>because of your judgments. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>12Walk about Zion, go all around it, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>count its towers, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>13consider well its ramparts; <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>go through its citadels, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that you may tell the next generation <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>14that this is God, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>our God forever and ever. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He will be our guide forever. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">NT Reading: Hebrews 9:1-28 <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Now even the first covenant had
regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. 2 For a tent was constructed,
the first one, in which were the lampstand, the table, and the bread of the
Presence; this is called the Holy Place. 3 Behind the second curtain was a tent
called the Holy of Holies. 4 In it stood the golden altar of incense and the
ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which there were a
golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of
the covenant; 5 above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy
seat. Of these things we cannot speak now in detail. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">6 Such preparations having been
made, the priests go continually into the first tent to carry out their ritual
duties; 7 but only the high priest goes into the second, and he but once a
year, and not without taking the blood that he offers for himself and for the
sins committed unintentionally by the people. 8 By this the Holy Spirit
indicates that the way into the sanctuary has not yet been disclosed as long as
the first tent is still standing. 9 This is a symbol of the present time,
during which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the
conscience of the worshiper, 10 but deal only with food and drink and various
baptisms, regulations for the body imposed until the time comes to set things
right. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">11 But when Christ came as a high
priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect
tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), 12 he entered once
for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with
his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats
and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who
have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, 14 how much more will the
blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish
to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God! <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">15 For this reason he is the
mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the
promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them
from the transgressions under the first covenant. 16 Where a will is involved,
the death of the one who made it must be established. 17 For a will takes
effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it
is alive. 18 Hence not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood.
19 For when every commandment had been told to all the people by Moses in
accordance with the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and
scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the scroll itself and all the
people, 20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God has ordained for
you.” 21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all
the vessels used in worship. 22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is
purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness
of sins. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">23 Thus it was necessary for the
sketches of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the
heavenly things themselves need better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ did
not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he
entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
25 Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the
Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; 26 for then he would
have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it
is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the
sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once,
and after that the judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the
sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save
those who are eagerly waiting for him. //<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">I have two
stories from the turn of the year that I want to lift up about living in
Christ’s heaven-infused world of which our author from the Book of Hebrews
writes as a temple above:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">1)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>consideration of the NRG structure<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">2)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Jody and Peter’s great-granddaughters in the Christmas
dresses here, the youngest looking at me with wide eyes and a shy awareness
absolutely absent of suspicion. Her gaze took my breath away. In those moments
of condensation—the immersion and dance of truth, beauty, and grace, I can only
say, “Amen!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen! To the unfolding age.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">I’m reviewing a book concerning
temple sacrifice that, in the OT age, was how Israel felt it was to meet God. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">To dwell with God by “right
sacrifices.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Among its many problems, the book
doesn’t *consider the *tension I addressed in my sermon on NYE between temple
and city in the Psalms.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">This is relevant today in the
context of recrudescent call of so-called Christian Zionists to build
structures to house God to support their false authoritarian claims.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">The Psalms
testify to the tension between seeing God in the forms and furnishings of the
temple, serving God in the temple, and experiencing sublimity and witness to
such as from God. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The book I’m reviewing makes the
*preposterous claim that the stones of the temple themselves resonate with
divine energy--Vs. that the service of God in the temple opens the heart of its
servant subject revealed being transformed by witness—by the repentant witness
of steadied and awakened eyes and disciplined hands and intercessory and thanksgiving
prayer applied for neighbors.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The sublime experience of temple
sacrifice is subjective and sincere attendance to the proper sacrificial
service of the altar described in our reading from Hebrews, an interior
experience of the representation of God rather than an imposed external
sensation flowing from the stones. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">This temple service prepares its
witness for viewing the eternal sacrifice to come.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">The fall of the
Davidic temple and the exile to Babylon was an existential crisis for
Judahites—that God had removed his residence. Then the Persians conquered the
Babylonians and allowed the Jerusalemites to return. The Persian emperor Cyrus,
whom some misled conservatives believe serves as a type of Trump, then decrees
a new temple based on his—Cyrus’s format.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">Near that time,
the prophet Ezekiel had an *ornate vision of the New and *final temple (Ezek.
40-44). The Daniel 9 decrees set up the realization and resolution of the
tension of the city of Zion Jerusalem and the temple newly covenanted therein: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>both scripture and history will reveal that
the city and its varied ethnic peoples are favored over the hegemonic decrees
of a reattempted stone temple establishment to “purify the people.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The Book of Revelation later
comes to speak of a heavenly Jerusalem in which the temple serves as the “tent
of witness,” and at its culmination, the temple is the Lord God and the Lamb
alone. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">In our tent on earth, we meet
directly with the Trinitarian God.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Seeing God” in the earlier tabernacle and later
temple is portrayed by some commentators in the furnishings, so to “see God” in
the *representations of the altar. What the Book of Hebrews describes as the
altar representation of God.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">But the tension
in Psalm 48 considers that piety is learning to see how the sustenance of the
structures—walls and ramparts—reflects God’s care for the purpose of the common
folk, not that God cares for and sustains authorities because God is being fed
in some way by a *transacted sacrificial system. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">Psalm 48 grounds
the science of scanning history and nature for God’s imprint to counter
anxiety: the “not knowing what they do: panic/fear” that leads to the Cross of
Christ:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>3Within its citadels God <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>has shown himself a sure defense. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>4Then the kings assembled, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they came on together. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5As soon as they saw it, they were
astounded; <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they were in panic, they took to flight;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…9We ponder your steadfast love, O God, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in the midst of your temple [pondering what
we have seen, and ponder the meaning of:]. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>10Your name, O God, like your praise, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>reaches to the ends of the earth.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">This is how the temple functions
in the city: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">it is a place to train piety, to
reward service with the anxiety-dissolving conviction of God’s steadfast love, and
to send these priest-instructed pilgrims to witness to the steadfast and sustaining
providential properties of God, of God’s primary graciousness.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Our scouring Hebrew poetry for the
traces of the ancient’s interior awareness of God’s imprint—in the principles
we call logos of creation imprinted into the writers’ emotional and aesthetic
sensibilities at the awareness of their surroundings. The stability and beauty
of sustenance to which we join in giving witness to the Spirit-led processes of
repair, what modern Jews call <i>tikkun olam</i>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">This is why the renewability of
the earth—its essence of wild beauty and fecundity-- are necessary for the
human soul to develop its language and vocation in earth repair. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The human imago Dei becomes the
trustee of garden repair, taking on responsibility for its prior degradations
and injustices against providence.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes on the <i>hesed</i> constancy of the
will of God to commit steadfastly and lovingly to the Creation of both nature
and neighbor. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">God is by *unalterable character
steadfastly committed to God’s creation. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">We are to become so too—which
means committing unalterably to every neighbor we encounter and every beauty of
nature and every truth of history.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">On earth, Jesus,
the Son of God, manifests his messianic witness of God’s will to love creation
and his mission to repair God’s creation, his ministry to an ethnic people now
universalized to gentile.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This ministry comes to a head on Palm Sunday,
leading to the atonement of the Cross.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The palm leaves signify the<i>
sukkoth</i> watered in the desert—the temple at the oasis we call the Holy
Spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The palm branches are the people’s
demonstration that they are in the wilderness sustained by the fallen temple
establishment. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are signaling the
booth festival to the appearance of God. In addition, by waving their Palm
branches the common people are calling for a new temple establishment—a
purified temple along the lines of Ezekiel’s vision.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Let’s read a portion of that
vision:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Eze 41:17–20: on all the walls
all around in the inner room and the nave there was a pattern. 18 It was formed
of cherubim and palm trees, a palm tree between cherub and cherub. Each cherub
had two faces: 19 a human face turned toward the palm tree on the one side, and
the face of a young lion turned toward the palm tree on the other side. They
were carved on the whole temple all around; 20 from the floor to the area above
the door, cherubim and palm trees were carved on the wall. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Ezekiel’s temple altar is
centered and surrounded by Palm trees. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Palm trees mark oases in the
desert. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The Hosannah shouts to Jesus are
for an establishment—which only God can provide—for water in the desert. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Living water in desert of the
people’s exclusion and hegemonic manipulation. Hosannah! God save! <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">God save us from the current
pharaoh complex of Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">During their
wanderings in the wilderness, the Israelites had camped at a place notable for
its twelve springs (living water) and seventy palm trees (Ex 15:27; Num 33:9).
The palm tree thus repeatedly becomes linked with God’s blessing, as in:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Psalm 92:12 (NIV):<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The righteous will flourish like a palm
tree,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>planted in the house of the LORD,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they will flourish in the courts of our
God.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">After these Palm branching waving
cries of Hosannah—petitions for the blessing of homecoming from exile, according
to the Gospel narratives Jesus immediately invades the outer courts of the
temple—the court of gentiles franchised to give false witness to the character
of God as concerned with transactional religiosity: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">to change money to buy birds to
release. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">This is a false witness to what
is intended interiorly in the sacrificial system: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">that there was a transactional
rather than an ever gracious character of God revealed by sacrifice.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Jesus overturns the furnishings
(the tables of the franchise, the false front of God) and braids whips against
its practitioners. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">The messiah was
expected to come and “cleanse” the temple and legitimate the priestly cadres. But
instead, as other scripture makes clear, this stone temple is already
condemned. Jesus’ outer court acts provide the explanation for those who have
ears to hear and eyes to see.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Jesus comes to Jerusalem to lay
the “cornerstone” of a different temple (Ps. 118:22)—his deeds establish the
foundation of that temple in which we as his followers are incorporated and find
our destiny as we *add on to that heavenly *place.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">But these acts
get the temple authorities plotting, and Jesus is turned over by the temple
authorities to the Romans for crucifixion.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">Our reading from
the Book of Hebrews notes the necessity of a blood atonement to establish a new
temple covenant—this time a temple of the heart seated in the heavenly tent of
meeting where God and lamb are eternally seated.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
atonement/<i>hilasterion</i>—the “mercy seat”-- what the Book of Numbers calls
and pictures as the <i>Kippurah</i>-- is not a furnishing but an act—a *deed. Underlying
the Hebrew substantive noun is a verbal root: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The atoning deed is the
supplication for mercy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From which *flows
he expiation of judgement for sin. Amen.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">Jesus thus
establishes a heavenly form of the temple foretold by Ezekiel—and that is the
temple of mercy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The throne of judgment
represented in the Book of Hebrews portrayal of the old altar is by Christ’s
supplication for forgiveness is made subsidiary to this mercy, and the palm
trees come forth to the altar—better, sprouting like Aaron’s rod in the tent of
meeting of heaven.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">In our
incorporation into this cornerstone, humans must necessarily accommodate,
commune, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and commit to the terrain and atmosphere
encountered during its Jesus earthly walk. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then apply this to our neighbors and newborns
who come to partner with us in sustaining civilization both in the intended
ecology and in the partnerships and mutuality of vocational neighborliness. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">This is the cornerstone of social
ordering in the performances of love.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">We are called to
the witness and ethics of what I’m calling “cornerstone life.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Life in the cornerstone. Life as
the cornerstone.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">1)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cornerstone living means we cannot move from the
*patterns laid down by Jesus’ ministry—the ethical commandments and the
creative work of establishing a civilization of care for ALL neighbors we
encounter. There is no *accommodation with violence. NONE.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">2)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As cornerstones, we live on street corners rather than in
edifices. We attend to needs on street corners rather than blare accusations
masquerading as prayers on street corners.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">3)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cornerstone living is fully Christological. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Cornerstone ethics are
egalitarian virtues rather than the consequentialist/strategic ethics of
Christendom in *league with hierarchy-seeking hegemons. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Nassim Taleb, the Black Swan
author, writes, “If someone told you only a few weeks ago that Iran would be at
war, you would have guessed Israel, the US, or perhaps Saudi Arabia; not
Pakistan. It is very, very hard to keep in mind that we're not good at
predicting and even harder to incorporate [prediction of consequences] into a
general policy.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Even more so, there is no ethic
to bring about a better world from the top down of human authorities no matter
how machined.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">4)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>All instrumental claims—all doctrines—are provisional as
the Holy Spirit guides history. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The only permanence is the
cornerstone: the commandments by Christ to love. Social order flows and unfolds
*intrinsically from love, not from restrictive legalism.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">5)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It follows: gentleness and joy rather than “<i>thymos</i>”—<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">the cultural performance of
“rage” and malicious agitation as a sign of the opposite spirit that we are
seeing take shape all around us.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rage and agitation disqualify their messages. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Ignore them and its spirit. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">6)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cornerstone living is Loyal to planet and place: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">our language is shaped by history
and environmental surroundings on earth—its processes, cycles, actions,
metaphors, poetics of locality.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Outer space is where our bodies go to die. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">And our languages—our souls—too
go to die in its airless and waterless *sterility. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Do not abandon the earth’s
cornerstone vitality—the earth’s essence of renewability and processes of
repair. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">That repair is the current human
imaging of God—to sustain the life-giving qualities of the earth for ever more
generations.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">7)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cornerstone living is attendant to the present to sustain
the future—our eternal destinies with new neighbors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">If we are past-oriented—believing
we can only rediscover God in some idealized and nostalgic past, we sense the
future as bringing catastrophe. In order to hold on to the illusions of our
favored orders, this past orientation calls us to ever align with “lesser
evils” to preserve stasis. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Kissinger realism. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Cornerstone life NEVER aligns or
accommodates with evil, no matter how relatively lesser. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Thus as I preached on New Year’s
Eve, Christians lament and give humanitarian aid in the case of wars, but do
not arm lesser evils or bomb “greater evils.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">That would be to sustain the
operation and flow of evil.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">It’s well-past time to cease
transferring arms to the Levant and Ukraine—to stop trying to make money on
death. Jesus’ overturned those tables.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">8)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Finally, cornerstone living is other-directed—golden rule
directed. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Directed to the sustaining
renewability of the planet for future generations and the aesthetic value of
nature to revitalize our language and our souls. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Cornerstone living is a temple
that rejects self-interest that zeroes out the other and which degenerates into
the recurrent crises making of strategic cognitive programs and programming: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Our zeroing out others by deception leads to
our own hollowing out, our nihilism, its shadows of despair prefaced by *debilitating anxiety
because we know that we can be zeroed out by others who think, hollowing, mirroring us. We drag each down into voids. The way we look at the world is the way the way the world looks back at us.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">By contrast, cornerstone living both recovers
and is renewed by the heart—Jeremiah’s covenant of the renewing heart of flesh
rather than the sickling intentionality of programmed machines. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The temples of the machine are
all around us.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">They are the pyramids and tables
of finance unjustly amassed. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">For the
cornerstone of virtue ethics, the heart is more foundational than the mind. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The mind of ego is to follow the
heart of Jesus.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Far more than coming to Jerusalem
show us how to die with a *vague hope, Jesus incorporates us into living in the
heavenly city built by God through him. We are, like church alcoves, here and now
building on and building in this cornerstone Jesus’s call is directed to create
civilizations of care and now repair—committing as God’s creatures to the
creation.:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">We are earthbound to the broadest
expanse of the emerging threshold of historical ethics of earth repair, not
rejecting but *supplementing this mission by which we build character that builds
confidence that builds hope enduring.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">Be sure, the old
way of institutionalized coercion is always the point of its end times. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">It ever is as new generations
come in to repeat the mistakes of their parents and the sins of history. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The end times of earthly temple
worship resolve the dialectic of temple and city. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">We move through
the cities inside or outside the heavenly temple of Christ, humbly, like riding
a donkey, prophetically coaxing institutional temple authorities to abandon
their social desertifications in search of “order” to embody the oases of
egalitarian *plenty gushing from the spirit.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">So which age is
for you? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The old bombs bursting in air
billion dollar death machine necropower flyovers supporting temple builders of
ego and slavery <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">or the new wide-eyed angel
child’s wonder without suspicion of her backyard, her park down the street by
the neighborhood school, the seashore hikes alongside the cascading ocean? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Are we captivated by the
incursions of imperial wolf packs and eagle flags afar and in virtual reality
of AI propaganda promising pleasure palace pods on Mars, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">or the flagless and healing green
pastures of Gilead? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The balm which leads to life, or
the increasing shouts of a dying culture ragingly attempting the impossible: to
create a living order through war and trauma and escape from accountability. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">The quiet, the
generous, and the meek in our tender of the heavenly temple, the cornerstone
not laid by human appetites but extends a welcoming and caring hand—that is the
cornerstone built by the divine hand—inviting all to find purpose and a legacy
that endures eternally, beautifully, luminously.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s here, it’s not going away.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">So I return to
Jody and Peter’s little great-granddaughter who took my breath away on
Christmas Eve: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Let us say “Amen!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Amen! To the unfolding age of
openness without suspicion. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The age where religion is the virtuous
promotion of neighborliness.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">An age where humanity gets down
to imaging Christ in the repair of the earth—<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">the stage of new generations for
us to teach of nature’s beauty and processes that shaped our historical
languages and allow us to know what is sustaining and what is destructive. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">For new generations to take
flight in new discoveries of nature and history and civilizations of care here
on earth.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">We’re at a threshold of ages. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Make that a pivot, a cornerstone
for new life—for yours by giving life others. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Please join me in giving truth,
beauty, and new creative and inspiring life an AMEN whenever encountered. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">AMEN: may it be so. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">AMEN: as it does in the beginning
is now and ever shall be. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">AMEN for you and me, our
construction of worlds without end in the enduring city of the Spirit of God. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Amen.<o:p></o:p></p>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-83399525918823250232023-12-29T09:56:00.000-08:002024-01-04T08:00:47.372-08:00<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"> "Saying Farewell"</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A Sermon by Rev. Douglas Olds</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Point Reyes (CA) Community Presbyterian Church</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">December 31, 2023</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aDyG6P5MULw_j0YlmftxfVZZKNsjbhXU/view?usp=drive_link">AUDIO VERSION LINKED</a> (varies occasionally from prepared text below; audio cuts off in the middle of penultimate paragraph of this written text)</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">OT reading: Psalm 148</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">NT Reading: Luke 2:41-52</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;">41 Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. 42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. 43 When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. 44 Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” 49 He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” 50 But they did not understand what he said to them. 51 Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor. </span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This morning’s reading from the Gospel of Luke is our only entry into Jesus’ life prior to the onset of his ministry during the last 3 years of his human life. Last week we considered the incarnational implications of his birth. Today, we’ll look at the incarnational implications of his maturation.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Jesus, like all humans, underwent a process of training and pedagogy whereby he acquired and questioned the norms and traditions of his culture. A Christology that "takes seriously the incarnation in a particular time and place should take the enculturation"—the process of training inside a specific time and place-- "of Jesus seriously.” At some point, Jesus came to know like all of us that the world is broken. The scriptures are silent as to when, but we might infer from the full witness of scripture his maturing awareness of God and in God, his father.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We’ve just read that Jesus participated in the pilgrim festivals of his parents and disputed [an esp. reformation principle] with the elders/rabbis. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This pedagogy confirms the protestant principle that contextualizes events, while kairetic inbreakings of eternity, are not the deposit of an Absolute and therefore institutionalizable understanding. Jesus grows in wisdom from a beginning. He does not bring forth a completed system all at once. This is the Protestant principle of questioning and provisional truth claims. Supplementing commandment, which are absolute and eternal.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Also, it’s important to note that Jerusalem is the Father’s house, not the Temple. Jerusalem is emphasized in this text (3x vs. 1x). There is debate going on about where the Father’s concern is located. Jesus is appearing in Jerusalem and questioning the temple: he is questioning its teachers. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Psalm 132 has David saying, I will not give sleep to my eyes</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> or slumber to my eyelids,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">5 until I find a place for the LORD,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> a dwelling-place for the Mighty One of Jacob.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I have no doubt that the child is aware of his Father dwelling within. How is it, I imagine Jesus asking the teachers, that God might dwell in the temple alone? In a hierarchy alone, Luther asked.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So our first lesson this morning is:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Question your own teachers: your own childhood pastors who linger with poor theology like a recent visitor who came here asserting to me a toxic theology of the Cross, and rather than questioning my theology, she just blurted out I was wrong. I was willing to discuss, but she stormed out. Beware anyone who shuts down debate.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Or anything.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Like [Bing] ChatGPT did with me last week, cutting off my query and then eliminating the records of the conversations as I attempted to understand why a tool had the prerogative to not only not answer queries but then also to delete transcripts of those queries.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> My friend Mark Shaw reports on an Enron-style hoax operation at the highest level of government during the Warren Commission’s investigation of the JFK assassination:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> GA Senator Richard Russell's dissent of WC's “Oswald alone” narrative that Shaw believes was orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover was buried by a sham transcription (and phony stenographer), expunging his and KY Senator John Sherman Cooper’s and Rep. Hale Bogg’s doubts, thereby eliminating the record of dissent of the WC report from history. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> But these shams are futile. The truth is safe with God and cannot be buried. It will come out when it best suits God’s gracious process.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Shaw: “it's unfortunate because so much of this was covered up by the government. If we learn anything from this, the relevance of it is to ask questions, don't take all that bull on the Internet for what it says, don't [as] some of these extreme news outlets, so whatever it is [facts], it doesn't matter. Ask questions. you know young people I tell them all the time: ask questions, because they didn't ask enough questions back then. They bought that whole Warren Commission verdict just hook line and sinker.” [1]</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Esp. when authorities try to absolutize a certain self-interested reading of history—when they try to maintain certainty when provisionality is indicated—Generations change, and so too their historical and ethical awareness. The world changes always, and God accommodates this change. Questioning authorities and their absolutes is a Protestant principle. It’s what Luther did, though he was not the first. But his Reformation was timely in the process of the world. Questioning is what I hope you’ll do to me when you cannot follow my interpretations or claims. What you’ll do to all religious and political authorities. And, when you run up into the walls of increasingly machined bureaucracies. If they don't answer, say farewell to them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We can and must say farewell to what stunts our growth in grace: we can and we must forgive. Israel/Gaza: God knows who started it, who crossed an impermissible line (it was crossed far earlier than your side might claim). Hamas is not our moral compass. Jesus is. But the flag back there is supporting one side, dragging our principles into cooptation with one side of the killing. The political principles of our denomination (PCUSA) is not in the bombs bursting in air. It cannot be, but in what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. A chastened patriotism: An aspiration to moral equality, to peaceful compromise, to constructive liberty, to dispensations rebalancing concentrated self-interests. To a shared vision of how best to govern, not how best to take new territory or profit by selling armaments or manipulating other peoples to give us a false sense of security. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So that Christians are never called to weigh the scales of evil and to take the “less evil side.” Say farewell to that Henry Kissinger “realism.” No, we are to lament evil and pray for peace, call for peace, work for peace regardless of parochial interests. There is no “lesser evil” to a Christian. Give humanitarian ear and aid to both, but the US is failing by arming one side. Any side! We can pray for Tel Aviv, for Ukraine, for Gaza, but the reality is that Jerusalem is the heavenly Jerusalem! Consider the theme of Jerusalem in the scriptures—of Zion. Say farewell to the earthly territorial readings of spaces, recognizing their placings are spiritual, where events and acts have eternal significance. This is what Jesus’ life and death on the Cross reveal to us.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So our second lesson this morning is peace always, peace alone.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We get lulled instead to saying, out of sight, out of mind, as if our participation in something contrary to peace is forgotten and therefore we can say farewell to it. That is a false farewell, the farewell of forgetting, seeking oblivion. Narcotizing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That’s not the farewell to the calendar I have in mind. Fare well not as a chronological turn of the page of memory, but an enduring farewell to vain projects and vain hopes of hiding from truth. Hiding From our participations in trauma. These have to be confronted for growth to resume. We seek not the womb of comfort which is behind so many destructive addictions but we seek to the womb of creation’s repair. In God’s spirit modeled by Christ.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Tomorrow is Jesus’ naming day: the </span><i>initium </i><span>of his name’s “power”, not his Absolutizing. In his upbringing inside his context, Jesus learns to say farewell to the outdated authorities and structures and hello to the emerging, enduring quality of Jerusalem. Why Jerusalem? It is where the three monotheistic religions claim title. The way Jerusalem is encountered religiously on the ground has implications in the heavenlies.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Karl Barth speaks of <i>Sehnsucht</i>, a search in struggle, striving in a search for place. </span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We need not expect that life leads to sitting and possessing. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In no sense, at no moment. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We cannot remain standing. We may not.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And we ought not even once wish to do so. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Whatever awaits us on our way is under no circumstances our goal. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Even the most important the beautiful the tragic moments of our lives-- </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Are only stations on the way. Nothing more. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Saying farewell: that is the great rule of this life. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Woe to us if we reject this rule: </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If we want to remain standing, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">calling a halt, and attaching ourselves to a particular station. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There is nothing left for us but to acknowledge this, saying farewell, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">becoming obedient to it. Here, we have no lasting city. [2]</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Recognizing new beginnings tempts us to lie down and luxuriate as if the arrival is in the beginning, but in reality new beginnings require dedication to get up and get going. Saying farewell to our nostalgia, to our “comfort zones” which means to understand our neighbors, including not just tolerating but understanding how they use words. Let’s say farewell to what scripture calls the useless arguments over words.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Nostalgia blocks our making peace with the present, of redeeming our current situation because we want to build a future in our past: our personal or cultural memories (propaganda) that keep us stuck, like all children of Abraham who come to a stop without progressing, whom God repeatedly calls to<i> Kum, Lech!</i> (Gen. 12.1; 13:17; cf. Gen. 35:1) I heard that <i>Get up and get going</i> call this very week! It matters less where than how you walk.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So my third point this morning: all lessons of time and space on earth are provisional. Commandment alone is eternal: to Love God and One another operationalized by the 10 Commandments delivered by God to Moses on Sinai.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">“We Seek the Future Place” which is Righteousness. Not a space, but an essence—a human essence that commits to the repair of earth and neighborhood for the sake of new generations to join us in eternal homes. Mt 6. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Seek First God’s righteousness and all this will be added, incl. place--destiny!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">‘Saying Farewell”—to the year— to last year’s nationalism-- to seeking transcendence in our finitude-- say hello to the age of repair where all will find their destiny mirrored in their commitment to peace and supporting the creation’s ability to sustain new life ever emerging.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Saying farewell is a way of being in the world, an expectation and joy of being allowed to live in the ever last times of the world passing away. Provisionality. Always fresh hearings of scripture to get us moving again, attendant to grace—not to authority. We are bound to our individual understanding; modern theology is more in tune with these facets: provisionality, anti-authority, mature individuality in discerning will.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Life is a series of farewells to our illusions of what endures.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Farewell is an attitude timely and emergent as the earth’s calendar turns: to slow down and be responsive, attendant, turning static space and void into places defined by energizing and dancing shalom, the world without end recognized and repurposed by our participation and caring.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Say farewell to the familiar. Be open for God’s surprises with increasingly unshakeable confidence. AMEN.</span></p><div><br /></div><div>-------</div><div>NOTES</div><div><br /></div><div>[1] <span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;">https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/video/mark-shaw-60th-anniversary-jfks-assassination-retrospective</span></div><div>[2] <span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt;">Karl Barth, </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">Sermons 1913 (28 Dec). Published in German by </span></span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">Nelly Baxth and Gerhard Sauter. Theologischer Verlag Zurich (pp. 683-97).</span></span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt;">Transl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_yNEYpG8X8</span></div>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-7580093872551475492023-12-22T09:01:00.000-08:002023-12-30T08:55:27.413-08:00<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Gospel Sung In Christmas Carols</i></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A Seasonal Service for </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">December 24, 2023 </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Point Reyes (CA) Community Presbyterian Church</span><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Rev. Douglas Olds</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>Bulletin Quotes </b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">God can make a new beginning with people whenever God
pleases, but not people with God. Therefore, people cannot make a new beginning
at all; they can only pray for one. Where people are on their own and live by
their own devices, there is only the old, the past. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!”
Isaiah 64:1<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am
making all things new.” Rev. 21:5<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Today, we sing our traditional songs, but as Psalm 33 directs
us to sing to the Lord a New Song, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">let us sing these favorites with a new awareness, a new dedication—</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">to how God is guiding our hearts and shaping us into aware
and caring neighbors in God’s love. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Let our hearts sing to the Lord anew.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Please join me in a gathering prayer:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Gracious God, we have gathered
to sing our praises to you for the great gift of your son who brought the
healing light of your gospel that reveals your mercy and its triumph over every
evil. We celebrate his birth and sing the ways of your grace that is the hope
of all people. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Empower our spirits to be
witness to our understanding and attendance to this grace and healing presence
in our lives. and may the light of our journey in you become the shining light
of joy on us, in us, and through us. In your name, let us pray your prayer, saying
: Our father, who art…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Like so many others, my childhood's exposure to these beautiful Christmas hymns was my opening to the path of
the gospel. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Christmas continues to resonate for our communities focused by their children.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">It is fitting that our children
light the fourth candle of Advent and kindle ever anew the Christ candle,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the star of Christmas that comes first by a child
to children, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">and then by children to every
corner of street and place of struggle. It is in this spirit of Christian
service we light</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> the Advent Candles.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> // </span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: large; line-height: 107%;"><b>C</b></span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">ontemporary society ever promotes nostalgia and its mythic
Christmas, seasonal sentimentalities of Going Home’s Magic:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I’ll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m dreaming of a White Christmas just like the one I used to
know. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Here we are as happy olden days, happy golden days of yore. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Yet these ditties derive and are
supported by the transformative power of the birth of the savior child </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Jesus who is becoming all in all, </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">as the carols we sing this morning testify only a minute portion
of the whole and ever growing range of the human soul and history.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Christmas is not just about
going back, but mostly about how to reorient to this beautiful story to move
ahead./<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Long before the birth of Christ
the poet-prophet Isaiah of the Exile gave lyrical expression to Israel’s
longing for God to decisively intervene when he sang to the people:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Isaiah 64:1 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>O that you would tear open the heavens and come
down, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>so that the
mountains would quake at your presence!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">It was a long wait. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">"The season of Advent [concluding today has been] about
learning how to wait for God."<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://twitter.com/BrianZahnd/status/1732447769929957677" target="_blank"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brian Zahnd notes</a>: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“In our high-tech, high-speed, high-stress age, we're not
very good at waiting—<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">it feels too much like doing nothing. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">But it’s not doing nothing. As we wait, we slowly become
contemplative enough to discern what God is doing.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Isaiah knows that God, who created both time and space, is
therefore not limited by either. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">God <i>can</i> step out of eternity and come as the Lord of
Earth and Sky—can come as Emmanuel, God with Us. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Emmanuel can and will demonstrate what Lordship dominion is, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">which is <u>not</u> domination, </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">but walking in the way of Jesus that sets people free and calms
the furious raging all around.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">We long for this calming freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">With Isaiah, we sing:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><u>O come, O come, Emmanuel, vv: 1, 2, 4, 6, and 7//</u><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 16px;">O come, O come, Emmanuel</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and ransom captive Israel,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">that mourns in lonely exile here</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">until the Son of God appear.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Refrain:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">shall come to thee, O Israel.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">2 O come, thou Wisdom from on high,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">who orderest all things mightily:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">to us the path of knowledge show;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and teach us in her ways to go. [Refrain]</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">4 O come, thou Root of Jesse, free</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">thine own from Satan’s tyranny;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">from depths of hell thy people save</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and give them victory o’er the grave. [Refrain]</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">6 O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">our spirits by thine advent here;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">disperse the gloomy clouds of night,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and death’s dark shadows put to flight. [Refrain]</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">7 O come, Desire of nations, bind</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">all peoples in one heart and mind;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">bid envy, strife, and discord cease;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">fill the whole world with heaven’s peace. [Refrain]</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came (The Presbyterian Hymnal</span><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="AR-SA" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-font-family: Garamond; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Garamond;"> </span></u><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><u>#16)</u><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Oh that you would rend heavens and come down, Isaiah prayed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Another prophet of the exile in Babyon, Daniel, prayed for
the messiah, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and Gabriel, an angel named only thrice in the Bible, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>answers him with the prophetic timeline: the
70 weeks!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Gabriel now returns in the Gospel of Luke with a message,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>first to [edited: Zechariah, father] of John the Baptist who is to prepare the announcement of the way of the
Lord, who is Jesus come to the world. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Then to Mary, who prays that magnificent and magnifying magnficat: "My soul magnifies the Lord!" (Luke 1:46) Let this pregnancy be done as is your will, God! (Luke 1:38: according to God's word, the Logos, the principle of creation now repairing).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Her Magnificat is the height of OT righteousness: the acceptance of God's will to become<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">the Ark of Israel. She embodies the witness of the nation of Israel now carried by her womb for the repairing essence of creation.//<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">1 The angel Gabriel from heaven came,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">his wings as drifted snow, his eyes as flame;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">"All hail," said he to meek and lowly Mary,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">"most highly favored maiden." Gloria!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">2 "I come from heav'n to tell the Lord's decree:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">a blessed virgin mother you shall be.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Your Son shall be Immanuel, by seers foretold,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">most highly favored maiden." Gloria!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">3 Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">"To me be as it pleases God," she said.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">"My soul shall laud and magnify his holy name."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Most highly favored maiden, Gloria!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">4 Of her, Immanuel, the Christ, was born</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">In Bethlehem, all on a Christmas morn,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and Christian folk throughout the world will ever say,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">"Most highly favored maiden." Gloria!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p><u> </u></o:p></span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><u>(Glory to God Hymnal) 113. Angels We have Heard on High</u><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">So Mary knows from the very named Angel who gave Daniel the
timeline of the messiah.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is now. It is to
her. Yes, Mary knows.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://douglasolds.blogspot.com/2014/12/expect-something-new-messianic.html" target="_blank">Because of the Daniel 9 prophecy</a>,
Judea and Galilee were energized with anticipations of the Messiah. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">According to the Roman Historian Josephus, </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">there were about a dozen presumptive messianic pretenders
from the first decree through Herod the Awful (who thought he might be the
messiah) </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">to the fall of the
temple in 70AD and later.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Only one was a non-military aspirant, </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">only one named but
misinterpreted by the crowd.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Ps. 85 tells us this awaited figure will speak peace, but the
others spoke militarism.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Failed messiahs always speak violence and coercive and authoritarian
control.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The Daniel 9 chronology delivered by the angel to Daniel contextualizes the gospels of Luke and Matthew and in the letter of Paul to the
Galatians (4:2-4): “in the fullness of time...the date set by the Father.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The gospel of Luke adds that after Mary the shepherds were
the first to hear from angels.//<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">113. Angels We Have Heard on High</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">1 Angels we have heard on high,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">sweetly singing o'er the plains,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and the mountains in reply</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">echoing their joyous strains:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Refrain:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Gloria, in excelsis Deo!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Gloria, in excelsis Deo!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">2 Shepherds, why this jubilee?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Why your joyous strains prolong?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">What the gladsome tidings be</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">which inspire your heav'nly song? [Refrain]</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">3 Come to Bethlehem and see</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Him whose birth the angels sing;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">come, adore on bended knee</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Christ the Lord, the new-born King. [Refrain]</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[4 See Him in a manger laid,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Jesus, Lord of heav'n and earth!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Mary, Joseph, lend your aid,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">sing with us our Savior's birth. [Refrain]]</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><u>#145. What Child is This?</u><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The anticipation was high, but the confirmation came to Mary,
Joseph and the lowly shepherds. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The spiritual ancestors of the slain Abel—they exemplified
his calling so tragically cut short by his brother Cain. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Now God is going to make right that first murder by the
life-giving spirit.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The Gospel of Matthew has
another sequence to the anticipated countdown for the saving messiah. It begins
with a chronology to situate the coming Emmanuel in a human genealogy that
includes major figures both related to Abraham and gentiles incorporated into
the people of Israel by participation: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">the Moabitess Ruth, Bathsheba the
wife of the Hittite. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">We recall other prominent women who aided the history of Israel:
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">the midwives Shiphrah and Puah who lied to the evil Pharoah
to preserve the baby Moses’ life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Rahab of Jericho who aided the Israelite’s entry into the promised
land of Canaan, again by deceiving its evil king.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Jesus’ ministry was repeatedly characterized by the question:
“who do you say I am?” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Everyone since who hears this Christmas story is asked the
penultimate existential question: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>“Who do you say this Jesus is?”//</b><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">1 What child is this, who, laid to rest,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">on Mary’s lap is sleeping?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Whom angels greet with anthems sweet</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">while shepherds watch are keeping?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">This, this is Christ the King,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">whom shepherds guard and angels sing;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">haste, haste to bring him laud,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">the babe, the son of Mary!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">2 Why lies he in such mean estate</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">where ox and ass are feeding?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Good Christian, fear; for sinners here</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">the silent Word is pleading.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Nails, spear, shall pierce him through;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">the cross be borne for me, for you.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Hail, hail, the Word made flesh,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">the babe, the son of Mary!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">3 So bring him incense, gold, and myrrh;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">come, one and all, to own him.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The King of kings salvation brings;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">let loving hearts enthrone him.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Raise, raise the song on high.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The virgin sings her lullaby.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Joy, joy, for Christ is born,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">the babe, the son of Mary!</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><u>#140. Once in Royal David’s City</u><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Being born into the land is disorienting [<i>am ha’aret</i>z] especially
when into a brutal and brutalizing regime,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but the incarnation of
the messiah Christ is crucial to understanding who God is, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and he is not represented by the landed arrogates—<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">the awful hegemons of Rome and Herod and the temple elites wrapping
themselves to them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Symbolic transformations everywhere now come to reign—to rein
our minds by new spiritual understandings:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>every thing that made
sense will be reversed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Roman founding
myth, Rhea Silvia was violated by the god of war, Mars, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and gave birth to two twin sons: Romulus and Remus who were
abandoned to suckle on a she-wolf. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Romulus killed Remus and the Roman nation shaped its mythic
founding in this fratricidal wolf kingdom. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Generational, civilizationed trauma cycles but intensifies from the first
murder of Abel until the establishing fratricide of Remus until:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Mary is overshadowed by the God of peace and gives rise to
the shepherd redivivus of the sheep kingdom,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">for the shepherd’s task was interrupted by Cain but now to go forth
uninterrrupting.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The symbolic displacements of
Mars, of sexual violence, of predatory wolves, of the divinity claims of Caesar, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">should alert us to rereading the
two ways of the Book Proverbs and that these are opposites—the Roman way and the way of
Christ are not hybridizable. Blendable. [note 2]<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Image the baby born into refugees
displaced by the imperial demands for a census: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">outside the flimsiest door the Roman wolf howling of the absolute
pit of history.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that predatory howl,
A baby cries. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">It is that baby’s cry that will tame the howling wolf.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">For Comes a baby into a swaddllng
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>company <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of marginalized and liminal Jewish Palestinian
refugee couple. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Into this moment, the repair of creation is sparked!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Our next hymn, Once in Royal
David's City was written for children. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">It has a child's heart and is central to my message of how
God transforms every human wisdom from the perspective of children. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Let the Children come to me!” (Matthew 19:14)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Where we have all been asked what I called the penultimate
question: who do you say this child is? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The ultimate question, <i>“will you follow his childhood pattern
day by day from now on?</i>”//<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">1 Once in royal David’s city</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">stood a lowly cattle shed,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">where a mother laid her baby</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">in a manger for his bed:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Mary was that mother mild;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Jesus Christ, her little child.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">2 He came down to earth from heaven</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">who is God and Lord of all,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and his shelter was a stable,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and his cradle was a stall;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">with the poor and meek and lowly,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">lived on earth our Savior holy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">3 Jesus is our childhood’s pattern;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">day by day like us he grew;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">he was little, weak and helpless;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">tears and smiles like us he knew;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and he feels for all our sadness,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and he shares in all our gladness.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">4 and our eyes at last shall see him,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">through his own redeeming love;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">for that child so dear and gentle</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">is our Lord in heaven above;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and he leads his children on</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">to the place where he is gone.</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><u>133. O Come All Ye Faithful</u> (Magi of the Star)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The magi—the 3 kings--were sages who were studying all the
literature of the known world. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The gifts they brought to the cradle side were products of the [religious] world system [-- the latter two in accord with Exod. 30]: status
and finance (gold [now become charitable--Exod. 35:5]), traded goods of [perfumery] (frankincense), and myrrh's
ancient medicine of body part healing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Their gifts indicate the worldliness
of ancient wisdom which could interpret religious calendars but [might] not
understand its meaning as beyond the temporal bodily orders of earthly
kingdoms.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the Book of Esther testifies, the Hebrew
scriptures were well-studied by outsiders, and the decrees of the Persian emperors
Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes (in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah) reflect too that they, </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">or their religious advisors, </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">were well aware that the descendants of Israel claimed a
special relationship with the highest god as the sages would have understood
it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Which these descendants came to know as the one God. (Deut 6:4)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">From their studies, These wise
student magi thus recognized the “star” of his rising. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">They made their decision about <i>what child is this</i> they
found. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Herod the Awful interrogated them, and the magi turned back
by another route rather than betraying the Christ. (Matt. 2:7, 13)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">They rejected Judas’ later path to serve the most bloodthirsty
of imperial strategies. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Like the magi, before we grow into the swaddling of peace, </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">to know of the
astonishing and adoring beauty of the Christmas prophecies:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">we must cross deserts to serve them!//<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">1 O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Come, and behold Him, born the King of angels!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Refrain:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">O come, let us adore Him;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">O come, let us adore Him;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">O come, let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">2 God of God, Light of Light,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">lo, He abhors not the virgin's womb;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">very God, begotten not created; [Refrain]</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">3 Sing, choirs of angels; sing in exultation;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">sing, all ye citizens of heav'n above!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Glory to God, all glory in the highest![Refrain]</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">4 Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, born this happy morning;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Jesus, to Thee be all glory giv'n!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing! [Refrain]</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><u>134. Joy to the World</u>-- [vv. 1, 2, 4] (Leading to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Baptism)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Jesus’ grew in wisdom, including by interrogating the ritual
authorities and religious elites who later became his chief opponents. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">As he came into his adult maturity, he accepted baptism by
John, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and the heavens opened with birth imagery of the dove
descending (Mark 1: 9-11).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The personality of the messiah has become the essence of
king:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>from birth to
personality to spiritual essence of heaven come to earth in human form. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">This is the message of God's incarnation—the Christian incarnation!. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The site is the Jordan, where the wilderness generation 12 or
so C before crossed over to take possession of the land (Joshua 4:19-5:15); Gilgal, where Samuel judged the people (1 Sa 7:16) and where later Saul was crowned king (1 Sam 11:14–15). Many other important events in the declining history of the kingdom of Israel and its prophetic notice took place there [detailed by the reference in note 1, below].<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And now Jesus takes possession of the kingdom, to heal it through heaven: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">the earthy witness role of Israel is advanced into a heavenly
mission to bring the gospel.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And the Gospel brings joy.//<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">1 Joy to the world, the Lord is come!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Let earth receive her king;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">let every heart prepare him room,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and heaven and nature sing,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and heaven and nature sing,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and heaven, and heaven and nature sing.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">2 Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Let all their songs employ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">repeat the sounding joy,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">repeat the sounding joy,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">repeat, repeat the sounding joy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">4 He rules the world with truth and grace,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and makes the nations prove</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">the glories of his righteousness</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and wonders of his love,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and wonders of his love,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">and wonders, wonders of his love.</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><u>119. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing</u><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">While the exodus generation of Israel led by Moses suffered
testing in the desert,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus withstands the
desert testing by the devil. He “binds up the strong man.” (Mark 3:27; Matt. 12:29).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Now king of heaven bearing the dove’s witness and of earth by
the defeat of the devil, Jesus does not ride about on white stallions like the
triumphal entries of Caesars after their military campaigns. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">He rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, meek, not full of
himself despite his existential victory </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">because he knows that all too will have to reengage these
battles.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The crowd lay palm fronds, and sings
“Hosannah” meaning “May God Save! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hosannah is now Hark
because we are indeed saved—<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">by the Cross’s supplication prayer of forgiveness in the face
of the deepest possible evil without calling for vengeance.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The prayer ratified by his resurrection: <i>Hark! Means
listen</i>! Listen for this message, attend to repairing world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Psalm 33 states: the earth is full of the steadfast love of
the LORD. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">If you know how to harken to its dominion—the dominion of
steadfast love. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Which is revealed by the gentling and peace-enabling power of
Jesus. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The images and myths countered
in the gospel stories become part of the entire reimaging of the human: </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">the biological, the symbolic,
the mythic, the sociological, the religious, etc:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">"It’s an unwed woman who carries God.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">"It’s pagans from the East who recognize God.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">"It’s the workers in the field who hear first from God.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">"It’s the marginalized neighborhood who welcomes God."<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s the Jewish baby, born in Judea now called Palestine, "who
welcomes all."/<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>Harkening for the gospel, which if you know how
look--. Hear, feel, dance-- is everywhere hovering and surrounding, </b><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">in the beauty in nature and in our peaceful communities,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>at our tables and on
our service to our street corners<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">or in every culture’s historical literary documents that tell
of resisting every form of hegemony and coercion,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And the gospel is that God’s mercy is revealed apart from
Law (Rom 3:21), <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">so that grace structures justice. and not vice versa. You
see: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Mercy triumphs over evil. Hark! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Malachi 4:2:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will
rise with healing in its wings, and you will go out and playfully jump like
calves from the stall” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">It is the sun, the star that gives growth, that dances in the
new day, the grace of providence and NOT a righteousness apart from grace <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s the SUN of pure grace that is Christ’s dominion. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">He is not <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>SON of the
old Canaanite war god wreaking vengeance. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Harken to this hymn’s S-U-N light!//<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">1 Hark! the herald angels sing,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">"Glory to the newborn King:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">peace on earth, and mercy mild,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">God and sinners reconciled!"</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Joyful, all ye nations, rise,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">join the triumph of the skies;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">with th'angelic hosts proclaim,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">"Christ is born in Bethlehem!"</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Refrain:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Hark! the herald angels sing,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">"Glory to the newborn King"</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">2 Christ, by highest heaven adored,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Christ, the everlasting Lord,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">late in time behold him come,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">offspring of the Virgin's womb:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">veiled in flesh the Godhead see;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">hail th'incarnate Deity,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">pleased with us in flesh to dwell,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Jesus, our Immanuel. [Refrain]</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">3 Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Hail the Sun of Righteousness!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Light and life to all he brings,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">risen with healing in his wings.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Mild he lays his glory by,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">born that we no more may die,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">born to raise us from the earth,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">born to give us second birth. [Refrain]</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><u>122. Silent Night </u>(<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 16px;">Sending):</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 16px;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">"Behold, he lies in his manger, Calling to himself Me
and you..."<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Joyfully shall my heart leap as his wings float ever through/<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The incarnation means that human history, embodiment,
culture, and virtues matter. Christmas embodies our Hark! for grace’s dove—<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">hovering, awakening us to grace that cares—for us but also
caring by us to those in need:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">who will join us in eternity..<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">God, as creator of space and time, comes to us in God’s own
creation of space and time. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">God, creator of eye and ear is ever attendant to them and in
them, monitoring our experience of the world—the looping of our hearts inside
the challenges and joys of this life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">So that this ever-inner attending, outer shaping God
addresses and ever shapes our hearts into the keen instrument of peacemaking. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">We are by his call becoming ourselves Emmanuel, we are called from the darkest pits
of history to become new lights,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">To lead our free will shaped by human drives to freely will what
God wills.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">To lead us to freely and constantly will whatever is good for
our struggling neighbor.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Embarking into the Christmas silent night—not estranged from
our creator,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">to recollect and discern our own journey into God’s arms,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">into a new tonight’s silent wonder and star-filled awe.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">our childhood wonder at the gospel story committed by our
adult’s gentled <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and grateful craft<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">to share its blessings.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">God is righteous and God is steadfastly merciful.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is Christ’s
gospel manifest in his path of human life amidst struggle. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The Gospel is the child’s power over human strategies,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the lamb that tames
the wolf, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">the <i>Nazorean</i> (Matt 2:23) service displacing the<i> Caesarean </i>myths of
subordination and coercion.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our nights are now
silent of the howls of accusation and threat. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">We are freed from the calls for vengeance. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Adam is no longer in the dark, Adam is no longer driven by
haste and chaos. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Adam’s murdered shepherd son Abel lives on in Christ. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The decadence of trauma-making civilization comes to an end in Him.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And now: Let us lean into—let us harken to-- this night’s
silent holiness. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">In this we sing with the angels. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">By the gospel won by him, we are peacemakers at rest with
God.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through Christ our
Lord, Amen. //<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Silent Night<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">-----------</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u>Recapitulation:</u></p><p class="MsoNormal">The incarnation means human history matters, that embodiment
and culture matter, that virtues matter.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Christmas incarnates our Hark! for Jesus’ and now for grace—the
harkening to his angel wing—this dove—hovering above and through our world, awakening
us to grace and care. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">--how trom eternity, God has brought spiritual creatures
into existence in the only way such creatures could be formed: by calling them
to ascend out of the darkness of nonbeing into the infinite beauty of the
divine nature. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And God, the creator of space and time not only MAY, but DOES
come to us in the time and space he has created. God, who created eye and ear
knows and is ever IN them monitoring how we attend the world, this creator—ever
creating God—knows how to address each and every one of us by our hearts God
that is renewing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are <i>becoming</i>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Emmanuel,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">as Isaiah prayed and as Gabriel mediated between Daniel and Mary.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Rending the heaven to come down to lift us into mercy and forgiveness
so that we too becoming forgiven mercymakers. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now we embark into a new kind of silent night—not a night estranged
from our creator, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">but to recollect and discern our own journey into God’s arms,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>into a new holy peace
of tonight’s silent wonder and star-filled awe.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And in our recollections of our childhood wonder at this
blessed gospel story, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">let us know to the depths of our hearts and with great
gratitude that we commit to share our blessings and our forgiveness with
others. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For this is the gospel: God came down in Jesus to walk our
paths in the most evil darkness humankind has ever known: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">the perversion of religion enmeshed with the ultimate
brutality of the imperial Roman state. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On the cross, surrounded by evil and enemies, Jesus made
supplication: and because he was God’s son, that supplicating prayer had cosmic
effect and revealed what Paul says in Romans--that God’s righteousness works <i>apart
</i>from the Law. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">God is righteous and God is steadfastly merciful.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mercy triumphs over
evil. Christ is the gospel that manifests that path of human life amidst struggle.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is the child’s power over human strategies,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the lamb that tames the
wolf, the Nazorean religion over the Caesarean myth.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our nights are now
silent of the howls of accusation and threat. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We are freed from the calls for vengeance. Adam is no longer
in the dark, Adam is no longer driven by haste and chaos. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Adam’s murdered shepherd son Abel lives on in Christ. The decadence
of trauma comes to an end in Him.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>And now: Let us lean into—let us harken to-- this night’s
silent holiness. For</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Christmas is indeed truly here and is becoming everywhere.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">---</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">[1] Kotter, W. R. (1992). Gilgal (Place). In D. N. Freedman
(Ed.), <i>The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary</i> (Vol. 2, pp. 1022–1023). Doubleday.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">[2] <span style="text-indent: -2em;">Olds, Douglas B. </span><i style="text-indent: -2em;">Architectures of Grace in Pastoral Care: Virtue as the Craft of Theology beyond Strategic and Authoritative Biblicism</i><span style="text-indent: -2em;">. Wipf and Stock, 2023 (136-7):</span></p><div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=urn%3Aisbn%3A978-1-66676-697-4&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Architectures%20of%20Grace%20in%20Pastoral%20Care%3A%20Virtue%20as%20the%20Craft%20of%20Theology%20beyond%20Strategic%20and%20Authoritative%20Biblicism&rft.publisher=Wipf%20and%20Stock&rft.aufirst=Douglas%20B.&rft.aulast=Olds&rft.au=Douglas%20B.%20Olds&rft.date=2023-05-23&rft.tpages=332&rft.isbn=978-1-66676-697-4&rft.language=English"></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Bible passages rule
out a third-way syncretism (heterodox hybridization) that blends <i>agon</i>
with <i>shalom.</i><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/Biblical%20counseling/Architectures%20of%20Grace%20updating%20post%20submission.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[n. 1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><i> </i>Especially
in its moral center, the book of Proverbs, the Old Testament speaks of but
rules out blending the dichotomy of paths<a name="_Hlk124334319">—</a>the way
of the good and justice and the way of wickedness (Prov 2:20–22). In chapters
10–23, Proverbs contrasts the two ways of
strife and righteous peace, death and life in B-A and A-B structures. Often imaged as walking along two disparate ways (דֶּרֶךְ <i>derekh</i>,
including the pedagogical path of conduct per Prov 22:6), this dichotomous
structure formalizes the explicit contrast between (as opposed to hybridization
of) <i>shalom</i> and <i>agon</i>. No diversion is allowed from the right path
(Prov 3:6; 8:20; Proverbs 4). The good is straight and straightaway to be
followed. The one true way does not admit a third-way syncretism between the
truth and error, between the straight and what strays. We are never to waver
from the one path of truth and peace—not “to the right or to the left” (Deut
5:32–33; 17:11; 28:14; Josh 1:7; 23:6; Prov 4:25–27; 2 Kgs 22:2; Cf. Prov 10:9,
17; 12:28) by applying the techniques of <i>agon</i> in the attempt to deliver
oneself from <i>agon</i>. To do so is to live inside death-dealing clouds of
deception, to wander into the quick-mud and become trapped...</span></p><div><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="ftn1">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> n. 1: <i>Agon</i> is physically competitive and compelling strife,
valorized in pagan epics like the Homeric as the <i>arete </i>(excellence) of
combative cultures. <i>Shalom </i>is the Hebrew Bible’s alternative to pagan <i>agon—</i>it
is the state of a cultural collective living with secure attachment to its God
and God’s gracious provision. The state of <i>shalom</i> is peaceful, with its
civilian constituents living with a wholeness of body, soul, and God’s spirit.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In the biblical binary of
the two ways, there is no centrism: “Do not envy the violent and do not choose
any of their ways” (Prov. 3:31</span><span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-highlight: yellow;">)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></p></div><div id="ftn2">
</div>
</div></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-38112238529819941772023-12-18T09:56:00.000-08:002023-12-18T09:56:45.083-08:00<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b> Thursday before Christmas, 2023</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;">Rev. Douglas Olds</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>It’s Thursday again, the day the leafblowers pass through, their high whine</p><p>Whittling like a penknife my ears to round out the hastening by of weeks</p><p>their insistent noise from men to purchase a Saturday night beer I cannot begrudge (I know, I know), yet</p><p><br /></p><p>How can these weeks so fast elapsing to my unbalancing?</p><p>as hollowed out by noise’s quick rush, my vision is these ears’ tunneling junction:</p><p>Like weeks of leafblowers the cars’ high beams at night rush and warp my neck from the the weave lanes</p><p>Buoys Proliferating like drying flowers dropped on caskets, </p><p>an allegory’s condensation: "God is love," wrote the Presbyter; "Our God is a consuming fire," says the unnaming author </p><p><br /></p><p>And now I’ve burned the pancakes again</p><p>The walnut flour shatters into ashy resentment</p><p>I recoil from the stove like from a bad movie</p><p><br /></p><p>While new babies come in and the old exit and the world’s limb struggles to get out of gurneys</p><p>To meet cohorts of striving possible</p><p>It’s not the challenges of programming gadgetry as much as</p><p>To but dial up fresh smiles as friends move away parents fade slow siblings claw the walls of addiction</p><p><br /></p><p>One more Thursday then Christmas to sing its angel through:</p><p>"Behold, he lies in his manger, Calling to himself Me and you..."</p><p>Joyfully my heart to leap as healing wings bring e’er anew</p><div><br /></div>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-50559989776052229942023-10-26T14:18:00.026-07:002023-11-01T11:37:33.940-07:00<p> </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><b style="font-size: 14pt;"><i>Trustees
of Attendant Grace: Stewards No Longer!</i></b><i style="font-size: 14pt;"> </i></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">A sermon by Rev. Douglas Olds<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">Redwoods Presbyterian
Church<o:p></o:p></p><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">Reformation Sunday<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">October 29, 2023<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://youtu.be/vb6M63Cq0Kw" target="_blank"><b>Video</b></a> <b>(sermon begins after 19'19")</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Bulletin Quote: <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">“[Thy Kingdom Come] must always be read as an assertion
based on the revealed present and pointing towards the genuine future, but not
as an assertion pointing back from an anticipated future into the present.”
--<b>Karl Rahner </b>[3]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>OT reading: Genesis
1:26- 2:15<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Psalm Reading: 148</b><o:p></o:p></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Infancy found God's arms in another face, my deciduous northland. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Not yet the people’s face of Christ. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">woods, lakes, the snow, and breezes, </p><p class="MsoNormal">Still All presented their bottomless bounties for wonder</p><p class="MsoNormal">Not yet cisterns capped by adult privileging concrete</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Bullfrogs sang me to sleep with muted tubas</p><p class="MsoNormal">While the daffy hilarity of loons</p><p class="MsoNormal">Mocked hasty dawn:</p><p class="MsoNormal">Await the palettes of grace, sleepyhead.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Hikes along Giant white pines and</p><p class="MsoNormal">A shallow stream, its currents braid through copper-colored stones plinking like gamelans</p><p class="MsoNormal">to reveal soul in motile physics—now</p><p class="MsoNormal">to reach coruscant turquoise, a lake, </p><p class="MsoNormal">My squinting, now ever less furtive</p><p class="MsoNormal">at ripples swaddled and tickled by the hovering breeze,</p><p class="MsoNormal">Expose the sunkist mirrors of midday .</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Along sloshy bog banks stand</p><p class="MsoNormal">Formal elms, maples, and quaking aspens, </p><p class="MsoNormal">Signaling their semaphore to me: Awaken!</p><p class="MsoNormal">Sun-ovened pine needles and dank myrrh mushrooms, their whiff pry my nose to sense </p><p class="MsoNormal">the tingle when come the rains that tap tent flaps or drum bedroom windows, </p><p class="MsoNormal">Caressing my ears in the gush of life’s fountains.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">The crunch of autumn leaves by my unshoed feet, raked or let lay</p><p class="MsoNormal">Like the ground-belonging abundance of Mouldering apples to replenish the hearths of seasons.</p><p class="MsoNormal">These too God embraces</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Earth embodied in me.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Endlessly inventive and precision-forged frosty miniatures. </p><p class="MsoNormal">non-pareils to whirl and dance in small flocks of entrance,</p><p class="MsoNormal">Such my delight at the individuated fly and then earth-collected dump of beauty </p><p class="MsoNormal">autographed by every single jeweled evanescent-- </p><p class="MsoNormal">cameos in winter’s complicit and disappearing matters, bringing</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Spring! </p><p class="MsoNormal">Afternoons outside, lily-puffed majestics</p><p class="MsoNormal">cottony wads of cloud sailing on the breeze , ruffling my windbreaker and hair in their wake.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Inside the vivid blue dome where I lay prone</p><p class="MsoNormal">in head-brushing meadow grass and milkweed cushioned Reveries , </p><p class="MsoNormal">Experiencing the sky and wind coaxing the arts of awe’s poignant intrigue </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">As they whisper that we are friends: </p><p class="MsoNormal">Embark into the sublime voyage of grace.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">I Awake anew, To the other face of God, </p><p class="MsoNormal">Whistling its gentle breeze </p><p class="MsoNormal">from the child's enchanted sensory privilege, </p><p class="MsoNormal">Recalling us to wonder and gratitude boundless.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Ever filling us with gift.//</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> I wrote this poem called, “A Michigan to My Lips” a half-decade ago. I wasn’t trying to express nostalgia—an ache to be returned to a simpler time I called “home,” but rather I was exploring an exercise of the poetic virtue of “recollection,” which reworks memory in a way that reinterprets sensibilities to arrive not only at new expressive awareness but also new commitments. New alignments with what is expressed by God in nature. By poetry, I explore my attendance to grace: grace discerned as received and shaping my contexts, and its call to dispense grace’s flow outward in the Golden Rule.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> A now unjustly neglected 18th C enlightenment philosopher, JG Herder wrote, </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">“One sees in a poem not only, for instance, as the masses proclaim, the person's poetic talents; one also sees which senses and inclinations governed in her, by what paths and how he received images, how he ordered and adjusted them and the chaos of his impressions, the favorite sides of his heart, and likewise often the fates of his life, her adult or childish understanding, the staffs of his thinking and of her memory [which is the soul expressed]"[1]</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">Like Herder, I propose that the way to read the Book of Genesis is as a poem of the Book of Nature recollected, the Hebrew people’s organizing the chaos of their impressions of life in harsh environments that came to discern a gracious and demanding deity. The Biblical poems, like the calls of nature and of our neighbors in need, call us to take up the commitment to serve—steward-- but also preserve, as trustees, our estate: what has been entrusted to us in our lives worthy of care and repair, what Jews call <i>tikkun olam</i>.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Today is Reformation Sunday which commemorates our denomination's recognition of the courage of Luther, Calvin, and others to reform the abuses of authoritarian hierarchy and return Christians to a more Christ-centered discipleship. On this church’s Stewardship Sunday, there is no need to convince you of the urgency of our ecological crisis that calls us to reform our approach to nature, which Christianity has been calling “wise use stewardship” for some time without a lot of effect. One necessary reform I see is to reframe our embeddedness in nature with another expression from that of the <i>oikonomos</i> --the antiquated and tired idea of stewardship that "rules over a house" --to a term pointing toa gentling presence in our common estate that is bringing us forward into the whole cosmos.</p><p class="MsoNormal">I propose the more virtuous and reparative--healing--ethic of “trusteeship” that preserves the renewing essence of our earth home.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The OT and NT depict many stewards as self-interested figures who lack understanding of their estate's operation and beneficiaries. Instead, they often see themselves as supervisors, aiming for a seat at the master's table. This limited perspective contributes to human failure in sustaining God's natural estate. Instead, fallen Adam stewards to rule and skims his fee off the top without undue concern for the beneficiary. Stewards focus on self-gain, working for a master who ages, while trustees align with eternal beneficiaries. The trustee is embedded in Christ’s enduring kingdom.</p><p class="MsoNormal">In our reading from Genesis this morning, we find the idea of God's grant of "dominion" in the relationship of Adam to other species, which inheres in his "naming rights" which is Adam applying his understanding of nature and how it functions to reveal the divine creator in the earth’s renewing energies. This knowledge is not of form, and this is important, but in action. Not in the anticipation of death, for animals did not die in Eden--or at least were unaware--but in enduring kinesthetic liveliness that heals, renews, and sustains. Yet Adam, sent away, goes forth to cut down a lot of forests and dam a lot of rivers and slaughter a lot of animals to build his static and lifeless monuments to himself to try to realign his descendants and their instruments with the transcendence of God. This faulty faith becomes the monuments and institutions walled around us, separating us from nature and neighbor. We transform the living energies of creation into something gated, bricked, and inert and call it our <i>temple</i>, our offering, and we take hope in the faulty idea that as long as it is perceived by others as standing, this is the <i>gospel preached</i> and we are in God’s grace and aligned with God’s transcendent righteousness--that we ourselves have regained the garden by our own efforts.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The idolatrous ethics of “dominion” as “domination” began after a half-millennium of the early church to subordinate nature to human extractive and exploitative production processes. A coercive and instrumental view of creation emerged with medieval Christendom: “Imperial Christianity, Christian Nationalism put Christianity into the service of the state. It’s an anti-doxology: The kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ has become the kingdom of the world, and we will reign forever.”[2]</p><p class="MsoNormal">It is as if a misreading of Gen. 1:28—our post-Fall forgetting that the prime mover of both our birth and our destiny is a Trinity inside the perfect imaging of Jesus. As if the “dominating” form of “dominion” of nature has captivated the modern mind bent on economic growth devoted to temples, and, like a black hole, vacuumed up all the light of Gen. 1 creative and beauteous harmony of nature and Spirit—as well as of Gen. 2:15’s clear directive to humanity to act as keepers and guarder’s-–trustees, not "subduers" in the sense of wrestling--of this harmonious “garden” which outside of Eden are to become the watched and kept pastures for the sheep now and to come.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Right now, we’re failing in that shepherd’s duty. Issues like environmental racism and climate injustice show that we’re not living up to our role. Psalm 104 envisions the intentional and interdependent ecosystem of divine creation—with non-human species participants in its gracious provisioning network. Psalm 148 incorporates non-human species into the worshiping universe, recognizing their intrinsic—non-instrumental--value. Yet in their instrumental, material pursuits, humanity has brought on a mass die-off of wildlife since 1970 -- 60%-70% of fauna, fish, reptile, and birds numbers, around 1/40th of these species have been entirely extinguished.[4]</p><p class="MsoNormal">Humans treat the sky, the source of our common breath, like they do the oceans like they do plants and animals: as a non-vitalizing entity devoid of the Spirit’s action and energies, a site to dump the byproducts of consumerism. Like in Gen.1’s poem, the sky is creation’s frontier in the Spirit; but now the sky is the site of the apocalypse of the decreation as greenhouse gases flow from the degrading imagers of God, their signal failure of trusteeship to allow the richness of God’s breathing creation to flow by the Spirit outward in place and onward through time. A morally unembedded economic system of material vanity absent the Golden Rule has replaced the spirit of energizing grace, assaulting nature and thereby our sensibilities, and we are coming to an apocalyptic awareness that our decreative force is descending from the sky like a boomerang.</p><p class="MsoNormal">As my poem recollects, the awareness of the sky is the entry of God into our contemplation. Ps. 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” Rev. 10:1 images divine messengers in cloud and rainbow (Cf. Ps. 104:3-4). Isaiah 34:4 and Rev. 6:14 ominously state that the heavens will be rolled up like a scroll, an image of the sky’s communication of God’s will in the cycles of divine messaging and providence. We live on the bread and word infused by the atmosphere. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Apocalypse (meaning “revealing” or “uncovering”) is coming down from the sky. Can any of us forget September 9, 2020? When there was an all-sky, still-born dawn like a sunset never escaped, an ominously burnt amber signal of something foul?? The sky-- the place we look to rainbows-- now assaulted by climate change-fueled wildfires and made a crucible of birdless--like before a hurricane—orange and strange fog, a pre-COVID "smaze" [a new word occasioned by that day]. I remember thinking that we were in the bizarre place of hoping the darkness would last so that we could breathe: because then the smoke would stay above the fog even though it prolong its veil to the sun.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjXIM4fScx0amBxeyoWS5rcqlDeLO5mNL7IpSGEZyi64IG3qzr3oXaYgVy88ItohmN3k_Rx7ueajucrTOfcv2aNQIvUez7UwFs7i7GOgXz7CqrhVgHf9M4NmtpgHtEMUvlP9jryGVc1DCvTvtNzZ4u-0T5iNKNADF3HMm5mADUzdnkRFmU2CuBkWJwU3TLK" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjXIM4fScx0amBxeyoWS5rcqlDeLO5mNL7IpSGEZyi64IG3qzr3oXaYgVy88ItohmN3k_Rx7ueajucrTOfcv2aNQIvUez7UwFs7i7GOgXz7CqrhVgHf9M4NmtpgHtEMUvlP9jryGVc1DCvTvtNzZ4u-0T5iNKNADF3HMm5mADUzdnkRFmU2CuBkWJwU3TLK" width="281" /></a></div><br /><br /></div>source: https://twitter.com/SFGate/status/1303710780307644416/photo/1<br /><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">We are so quickly diverted by political theater that we forget God's. We forget our duties to our youth and their mounting and justified lament regarding the health of the planet. And in this, on this Reformation Sunday, we make note of this week’s upcoming Día de Muertos: Our grief, and the ways we move to reform it by sharing it in lament by being realistic about these apocalyptic signs.</p><p class="MsoNormal">In such a moment of apocalypse, we recall Rahner’s quote: “[Thy Kingdom Come] must always be read as an assertion based on the revealed present and pointing towards the genuine future, but not as an assertion pointing back from an anticipated future into the present.” What is real and not what is imagined. We must look to the beneficiaries actually arriving, the coming heirs, and not favor some imagined cohort, such as our and our friend’s expectations. Trustees, themselves heirs, must not presume to await some future arrival of God's kingdom in technological fixes or Shiva dancing in a new planet for us. The Kingdom is here and now, and our duties, not to be neglected, are to eternity breathing on street corners and wildlands in the present moment.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Unconsidered combustion is disrupting the intended ecosystems imaged in Psalm 104, and the authentic and covenanted worship of God that is the full community of Creation imaged in Psalm 148. These oblige trustees to these species. We are turning their—and our--ecosytems into crucibles of fire, which scripture associates with divine displeasure, while God is variously portrayed in the OT delivering graciously from his storehouse of frost and snow to God’s people, the sweltering peasants working under the shapeshifting whips of masters.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Trusteeship asserts that humans uniquely mirror God's image through rational understanding and emotional sympathy. Unlike stewards, who focus on future speculation, Trustees act immediately to care for their environment, not postponing solving problems of the present's creation to some future fix. They aim to shift our perception from dominating nature to harmoniously caring for it. Trustees understand that we're part of historical language groups reflecting our ancestors’ awareness of nature, and our poets continue expanding our awareness of and emergence in nature’s attendant grace. Everything of God’s creation that enriches us—art, language, relationships, other species, beauty in landscapes—requires our dedicated care. Emulating Christ’s virtues, they build meaningful relationships with nature and community, living out God's intended virtues for the greater good. By these, then, trustees display they are true heirs of creation, expressing reverence and mutual care guided by the Golden Rule. They focus on keeping the planet vibrant not just for our own vacations in the backcountry but for others here and to come, emphasizing the need to preserve its renewing energies, not just its physical forms. Zoos, museums, or arboretums are insufficient; Trustees ensure their entrusted estate remains vibrant, beautiful, and renewing.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Our virtues serve as the cornerstone for ethical action and effective environmental care. They demonstrate to onlookers our trustworthiness and dutiful commitment for God’s Kingdom purposes. Virtuous trustees model the gospel. Virtues heal, while strategic ethics for instrumental purposes—what ethicists call consequentialism-- is inherently corrupting because exclusionary in its speculative logic for a favored end--which may not be God's! Trustees address traumatizing existential despair by companioning our neighbors’ and children’s laments over a heating and degrading world.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Six key Christian virtues can help address the climate crisis and its impact on Earth:</p><p class="MsoNormal">1. I’ve already spoken of Recollection**: Reflecting on God's work in your life and scripture fuels a hopeful future. This mindful remembrance lays the groundwork for spiritual growth, contrasting despair with gratitude to guide us toward hope. It identifies with grace received so to attend to it outside oneself, to then network and distribute grace.</p><p class="MsoNormal">2. **Hospitality**: Embodying the Golden Rule to our neighbors in other species and the future beneficiaries of nature’s estate, hospitality promotes peace and condemns and rejects militarism as well as every other material vanity: most esp. the futile cycles of violence and insatiable needs for “security” that mobilizes the exploitation of resources and disrupts natural values as well as peace.</p><p class="MsoNormal">3. **Thrift** (John 6: 12b) in the use of fossil fuels to support the praxis of atmospheric trusteeship. Thrift is aligned with the virtue of prudence (Prov. 2:11).</p><p class="MsoNormal">4. **Patience**: Countering the haste of our carbon-driven society, patience champions slower, more sustainable options. A couple who drives a car from SF to LA emits ¼ the carbon than by flying, for about the same amount of travel time.</p><p class="MsoNormal">5. **Loyalty**: A deep connection to our immediate environment involves our kinesthetic understanding of the genius of our place—where God has settled us. Aesthetic values encourage sustainable care and spiritual growth. Loyalty emphasizes sensory experience over abstract speculation, advocating for a more sensitive, localized understanding of the world. Loyalty is to our planet on which we were created and which we learned the languages of our places. The earth is the site of life's beauties. Mars wants our death. The death of our bodies, certainly, but also of the sensibilities of our souls expressed by language which originated on the awareness of the earth and its renewing essences. </p><p class="MsoNormal">6. **Asceticism**: Self-restraint curbs materialistic desires and rejects the allure of fashion and power structures promising security, focusing instead on simplicity, sustainability, and living securely in God’s superintending care.</p><p class="MsoNormal">In the apocalypse of global warming that signals a human economy out of whack, with misplaced values, a trustee’s virtues become the Gospel—God’s duty to sustain God's creation becomes our duty of spreading the grace that attends us, created us, sustains us, and ever rescues and renews us. We are responsible to do the same as our gifts and strengths allow.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><b>We are heirs to the creation’s eternal kingdom and so are responsible trustees for the here and now. </b></i><b><i>It’s not about our forms we think beautiful and admirable; </i></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-size: medium;">it’s not about these fashions or institutions. </span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> It’s about finding our soul in Christ’s caring for the Earth’s vital energies and cycles today and preserving them, including by the repairing virtues that calm a rapacious and hasty society. Christ is committed to the logos richness in all its creative expression recognized in the gentling by Shalom, world without end. </span></b></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><b><span style="font-size: medium;">May it be so for you and me. </span></b></i></p><p class="MsoNormal">
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<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/PRCPC/Stewardship%20Sunday%20Redwoods%20PC%20102923.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Johann Gottfried Herder, <i>On the Cognition and Sensation of the Human Soul,
II</i>, in <span style="text-indent: -2em;">Herder, Johann Gottfried. </span><i style="text-indent: -2em;">Philosophical Writings</i><span style="text-indent: -2em;">. Edited and translated by Michael N. Forster. Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 218 (quote is abridged).</span></p></div></div><p></p><div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=urn%3Aisbn%3A978-0-521-79088-8%20978-0-521-79409-1&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Philosophical%20writings&rft.place=Cambridge%2C%20UK%20%3B%20New%20York&rft.publisher=Cambridge%20University%20Press&rft.series=Cambridge%20texts%20in%20the%20history%20of%20philosophy&rft.aufirst=Johann%20Gottfried&rft.aulast=Herder&rft.au=Johann%20Gottfried%20Herder&rft.au=Michael%20N.%20Forster&rft.au=undefined&rft.date=2002&rft.tpages=436&rft.isbn=978-0-521-79088-8%20978-0-521-79409-1&rft.language=eng"></span></div><div style="mso-element: footnote-list;"><div style="mso-element: footnote;">
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<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/PRCPC/Stewardship%20Sunday%20Redwoods%20PC%20102923.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Quote adapted from https://twitter.com/BrianZahnd/status/1717133536904286629<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText">[3] Rahner, Karl 1966. “The Hermeneutics of Eschatological Assertions,” in Karl Rahner,<i> Theological Investigations, volume iv: More Recent Writing</i>s, translated by Kevin Smith. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 337. </p><p class="MsoFootnoteText">[4] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds</p></div></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 31.5pt; tab-stops: 58.5pt; text-indent: -24pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 31.5pt; tab-stops: 58.5pt; text-indent: -24pt;"><br /></p>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-20200229447365531752023-09-17T13:28:00.008-07:002024-03-16T10:38:48.671-07:00<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b> Are you on the 7 Mountains path of goats or 7 Matthew sheep </b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>situated by Jesus' sermon?</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;">Rev. Douglas Olds</p><p style="text-align: center;">17 September 2023</p><p><br /></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I. Mark 6:39 and Ps 23:2--the seekers are seated by the messiah in
green pastures. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Matt 5:1 Jesus goes
up the mountain to find a crowd. He sits down to deliver his Sermon on the
Mount, modeling, instructing, and habituating how these mountain seekers may
become his sheep by returning meekly to the sheepfold, through the sheep's gate (Matt 7:13-14), and the green pasturelands prepared by his Father.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">II. Goats ignore this sermon to keep climbing the (“7”) Mountains to win the high places.
Where they learn the gait of demons: 2 Chronicles 11:15; Isa. 13:21. Goats render
and activate (march for) the state (Prov. 30: 29-31). Goats serve the state--a coercive and hegemonic social order--not the people individually and severally in civilizing caregiving.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">III. The activated essence of OT beauty is the hair of the loved one which
resembles goats streaming down Mount Gilead (Song 4.1; 6:5) to where there are
good pasturelands (Nu. 32.1;26) and healing balm (Jer 8:22; 46:11)—where the
people are restored (Jer 50:19; Zech 10:10).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">IV. The kinesthetics of beauty are the goats leaving their
upwards chases of transcendence where are found only demons, to return to earth where they
find and serve grace and learn new, gentling and virtuous ways.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">V. Those presented with the Sermon on the Mount are posed with a choice: to keep climbing, marching toward a pipe dream of transcendence or, like the prodigal son, to return to the plains and pastures prepared by the Father and tended by the immanent Christ.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">VI. At the Father-determined terminus of the age there is a fixation of moral essence--a Christological judgement: one is
separated from the other (Ezek 34:17; Matt 25:31–46).<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">To enclose and sustain power, inner circle culture is an <a href="https://douglasolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/short-note-on-theoretical-physics-of.html?fbclid=IwAR0NQ6-pPzl671TnOB8-Uga2sJstw_QlXQdd3uSfyIP0OmSE65ZAEXbeS_8" target="_blank">entropy-spreading</a> system that climbs mountains on the backs of subordinates and is thus the palette of the prophetically goat-doomed.</span> As David French notes (NYT 12/7/23), its religious forms are marked by certainty, ad hominem “ferocity, and solidarity (loyalty + confidentiality)” to maintain an elite’s control of narratives, especially those that privilege their “power” at the expense of enemy outsiders, esp. traitors to this culture.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Instead as we come to recognize, by the Spirit of Pentecost, that an ethnos/nation is a language group (Acts 2:1-12), we discern political lies & propaganda function as ethnic “treason.” Beware the ad hominem sleight, redirecting questions of intent (logos) into disputes about “numbers.” And the “spirit of perpetual, unrepentant, anger-filled derision towards dissent:” revilement of the Kingdom of God, to be avoided. (1 Cor 5:11, 6:10). <span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Concocting enemies is the Machiavellian proclivity, mode, and ploy of [Schmittian] religious politics to warrant strong man saviors and justify their violence and hegemony-seeking.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">https://douglasolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/short-note-on-theoretical-physics-of.html</p><p class="MsoNormal">Dostoevsky’s great artistry poses “<b>Three questions that all societies must ask: </b>[https://twitter.com/oldbooksguy/status/1723346796511146436]</p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>"Whom can we now consider our best people? </b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Most important, where shall we find them? </b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Who will take the responsibility for proclaiming them the best, and on what basis?</b>"” </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><br /><p></p>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-60981295997673376852023-09-12T09:27:00.001-07:002023-09-12T09:30:14.843-07:00<p><i><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: medium; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b><br /></b></span></i></p><p><i><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: medium; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b><br /></b></span></i></p><p><i><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: medium; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Who for Plato’s sacked harbor intend</b></span></i></p><p><br /></p><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Who for Plato’s sacked harbor intend</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">cicada-sanded and vinegar air expect,</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Against grace’s headwinds vainly beat</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Who by red morning vapors from a box to box, note this:</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>lily dances with eagles while dandelions denude golden borders </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">like choral blizzards</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Relentless, embracing the voided sediment </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">with nonpareils, the sap sparking new eras</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">That melt into eternity bearing nuggeted angelic settlement, </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Poetry a people’s scar</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">shoveling from the paths of children</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">drifts of slave-fueled sentiment.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">~Douglas Olds, September 5, 2023</div></div>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-39540396431111782592023-09-07T17:10:00.009-07:002023-09-12T18:47:10.793-07:00<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b> September 7, 2023 </b></span><b style="font-size: x-large;">A Poem</b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Douglas Olds</i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Image a man—and a people that prepares and follows</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">—eyes that have wept —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">ears that have heard murder in the howls of a hungry child —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">a mouth that’s thirsted because her cistern has been capped</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">and her family’s olive trees chopped and burned</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">—with scars from suffering,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">a heart that’s been whipped,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">a back that’s bled.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Whips and thorns of luxuriating scorn drinking blood,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">the vinegar merchant’s vampiric therapy.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But living for new wine</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Is blood that heals, drinking its true and joy.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">By this inward blood we image outward.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A farmer thirsts for a different spring.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Digging beyond the blood-soaked dirt ever unslaked</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A gullet that trusts a bellied destiny that Easter belies,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Gunlets windbeaten ever backward into the past.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The summons OF Blood surely taps a fountain never failing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">To grow ever deeper and higher,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Spying not the splaying order of root</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Or some leafs’ mystic coding</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">or the mass of stalk or ironed gates of bark,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">but discerning the sap in the dance of hummingbirds,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">breath invisibly</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">dipping ever farther into the fountains of life--</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">A tiny pebble thrown toward the looming sunset is a poem
we write that skips into the concentric hues of dawn,
vortices expanding melodies of horizons at our aors' points of entry, caresses
launching us further
into serving the scarred not the scarring:
a universe, a garden, a symphony we ourselves part bequeathe.</span></span> </p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-3034454560883465482023-08-27T21:03:00.004-07:002023-08-27T21:07:00.764-07:00<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgVoaMYzzTxtAcHjhRAUhjqsWlm8bQ8nEcWL9nkRTdjZNUdYZmgSYa04_f9ak8W2qE2nb22Hz9BGw-u4V65ExVNdUzx9swe89f7YUEI1llkH1XzGg7Ot1goEodq3FBjN9WL_DQdZ9484AV1ULBeRWWvYiWx7T5u28QtI7y6YbizJoteimmY9YOFCDxd2_Wz" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="1317" height="97" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgVoaMYzzTxtAcHjhRAUhjqsWlm8bQ8nEcWL9nkRTdjZNUdYZmgSYa04_f9ak8W2qE2nb22Hz9BGw-u4V65ExVNdUzx9swe89f7YUEI1llkH1XzGg7Ot1goEodq3FBjN9WL_DQdZ9484AV1ULBeRWWvYiWx7T5u28QtI7y6YbizJoteimmY9YOFCDxd2_Wz" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> A sermon by Rev. Douglas Olds</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">Point Reyes (CA) Community Presbyterian Church</p><p style="text-align: center;">August 27, 2023</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6qLQnJuKOca1JtBCtXV7FBgzQ6nesXvTftgYc5zQ8kfUYegqs7ZnqTTfyvwL7DJcFxjSXXMcPAxYWETsBLTJ7TjNWkl_tH-PaV82YouJU1OjGF8GLfsyCYkzyaPG5gwVMkVgr6NmhvshW2Qx6vH_j5aphNt3siMgBwOQcpA0s1UkhzUsthwOO-ACciV5J/s299/PRCPC.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="299" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6qLQnJuKOca1JtBCtXV7FBgzQ6nesXvTftgYc5zQ8kfUYegqs7ZnqTTfyvwL7DJcFxjSXXMcPAxYWETsBLTJ7TjNWkl_tH-PaV82YouJU1OjGF8GLfsyCYkzyaPG5gwVMkVgr6NmhvshW2Qx6vH_j5aphNt3siMgBwOQcpA0s1UkhzUsthwOO-ACciV5J/s1600/PRCPC.jpg" width="299" /></a></span><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span><br /></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Readings: Genesis 4:1-16</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Luke 8: 42b-48</span><br /></p><div><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/16nlgPyeK2kaBsxb1Sg_8YHnSMkgdvsTe/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><br /></a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/16nlgPyeK2kaBsxb1Sg_8YHnSMkgdvsTe/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Audio of Sermon</span></a> [click]</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Three English translations of Gen. 4:11:</u></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Gen 4:11
(NASB, NRSV) Now you are <b>cursed from</b>
the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from
your hand.</span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Gen 4:11
(NIV) Now you are <b>under a curse and driven from </b>the ground, which opened
its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.</span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Gen 4:11
(NJPS) Therefore, you shall be <b>more cursed than the ground,</b> which opened
its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.</span></p></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></blockquote><p><br /></p><p> <span style="font-size: medium;">The chiasm in Genesis 4:10-11:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">pattern A-B-X-b-A featuring repetition of the A members and recurrent vocal patterns amidst the B and b members, with the central pivot at “curse”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">מן-האדמה</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> ועתה</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> ארור</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> אתה</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">מן-האדמה </span></p><div><br /></div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">For more information on the Hebrew structure and meaning of Gen. 4:11:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Olds, Rev Douglas. “Crying in the Wilderness of Mammon: Expect Something New: Messianic Predictions and Advent in 1st C Judea.” <i>Crying in the Wilderness of Mammon</i> (blog), December 13, 2014. https://douglasolds.blogspot.com/2014/12/expect-something-new-messianic.html.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Reprinted as Appendix V in Olds, Douglas. <i>Architectures of Grace in Pastoral Care: Virtue as the Craft of Theology beyond Strategic and Authoritative Biblicism</i> (2023) https://t.ly/PvMl</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /></span></div>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-58765847764197431052023-08-16T20:07:00.033-07:002023-11-11T08:32:02.438-08:00<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 200%;"><b><span>Two Contrasting Structures of “The Two Meanings
of Liberty:”</span></b><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">An Essay on Political Theology</span></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 200%;"><b>Douglas B. Olds</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">August 2023</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The civilization of care rather than the
politics of thymic and hegemonic authority recognizes the qualities, needs, and
particularities of citizens—especially those most vulnerable—in order to create
conditions for their flourishing. Thymic politics expressed in rhetorical
allegories of “heroic” rage, contention, control, and status seeking construct
a false metaphysics of human transcendence (Fame, Fortune, Peace though strength, Security through Order,<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/2%20Concepts%20of%20Freedom%20tupamahu%20review.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
[“good guys with a gun”]) rather than discover it in the aspirational folk poetics
of common people pursuing loving means. It instead proposes a positive program
of interventions for creating a "natural" order (often framed as negatively
engaging [controlling] ever-loosely identified threats of chaos). In contrast,
the civilization of care begins with people severally and individually to equip
the capacities of all to live fully in their God-graced character and
potentiality. Positive liberty—the ability to choose and enable constructive
and liberative projects that responsibly fulfill one’s gifts and calling (including to duty and responsibility)—is one such condition. A problem of politics arises when the conditions
for care and flourishing become abstracted by hegemonic epistemologies from
concrete, existential needs. For example, by abstracting positive liberty into
“freedom” absent obligation to liberate others. Valorizing negative liberty as
to be left alone to do anything one wishes. Abstractions such as this displace
the caring impulse and change the civilizing social contract of politics and
the collective peoples from seeking the common good of flourishing to that of
enabling and empowering highly individualized and facultative, centrifugal
self-interest that erupts in acute or chronic deprivation and trauma. In these
cases, the political margins of wolfish reactionaries invade the sheepfold’s
core consensus of Christian caring, blighting some churches with <i>thymos</i>,
adversarial culture warriors, and self-aggrandizing and transactional personalities.
By this, the neurosis of <i>agon</i> manifests, lamentable in its false witness
to the Gospel of love, peace, renewal, and restoration.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The dichotomization of liberty into “negative”
and “positive” captivated the thought of Isaiah Berlin’s acolytes, including many
libertarians. Berlin proposed a definition of this dichotomy that inverts the metaphysical
locus of ultimate agency (in the isolative creature rather than the relationally Trinitarian Creator) but
nevertheless are two overlapping aspects of negative responsibility to--failure
of--the duty to care:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The 'negative' sense [of
freedom], is involved in the answer to the question 'What is the area within
which the subject–a person or group of persons–is or should be left to do or be
what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons?' The
second, which I shall call the 'positive' sense, is involved in the answer to
the question 'What, or who, is the source of control or interference that can
determine someone to do, or be, this rather than that?<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/2%20Concepts%20of%20Freedom%20tupamahu%20review.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Berlin’s identifying outside controls and interference
(negative, limiting warrants) are labeled the “positive” (as in determinant “positivism”)
for a person’s self-chosen projects. A similar grammar of inversion—a double
negative (“without interference”)-- characterizes Berlin’s “negative liberty” that
seeks existential warrant or clarity for discerning personal spaces </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">absent</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
</span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">limitation</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> of self-chosen projects. As such, these limits are “negative”
social spaces and constructs. Positivistic liberty is determining that which
limits or interferes (a single negative). Berlin’s “negative liberty” is the
domain of permissiveness--having a sense of allowance and toleration. Such terminological
irony results from Berlin’s system’s proximities to the conservative rage (</span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">thymos</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">)
for collective(!) order realized in Carl Schmitt’s “political theology:” the coercive
exercise of the sovereign’s monopoly on violence because violence precedes legal
structures, and the sovereign’s identity is his agreement with and dominion inside the ontological
principle of violence ordering chaos.</span><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/2%20Concepts%20of%20Freedom%20tupamahu%20review.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
From this may be derived the hegemonic principle that the only duty is to be
ruled, rather than to care (give charity </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">in extremis</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> and in routine,
grace-spreading virtues that establish and maintain community </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">shalom</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> in
the historical processes of generational change and attendent new precarities.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Like his “negative liberty,” Berlin’s “positive
liberty” sustains the kind of egoism expressed in “heroic rage” that both by its limiting <i>virtus
</i>and refusal to care are grounded in an anthropology of radical and
agonistic false self-determination out of harmony with the metaphysical
conation of grace that creates and sustains. The Christian, in
contrast, understands <i>freedom as bounded</i> by the law of love: the
positive Golden Rule and its own negative constructs in the Decalogue (Exodus
20: 1-21) which Calvin (Institutes II, vii, 12) recognizes as the “third use of
the [moral] law.” Bounded freedom is structured solely by the positive duty to
care, which includes the training to recognize and respond to precarity (Olds
in prep.). Thus, Christological liberty has a positive aspect in the duty to
care (<i>positive</i> because the locus of liberation and material sustenance is realized by the <i>enabling of</i> <i>agency
of others first</i>) and a <i>negative</i> aspect that <i>prohibits the
infliction of harms</i> by individual practice of sin that violates the Decalogue’s
moral law.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Berlin must be aware of some relational
dimension to liberty (as, for example in its negotiations and political settlements by means of deliberative virtues) but primarily presents its structure in terms of
individualized (re)cognition of vectors of power qua negative influence arising
from social orders. Any constructive power of liberty is expressed by a
creature acting individually with “rational self-interest.” In this, an
ideology of power generates a self’s false sense of unboundedness from caring for others with their
own intrinsic value and claims to moral and material goods both private and
public.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In contrast, the Christological power is the laying
down of all expressions of hegemony as “false consciousness and praxis” of
power.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/2%20Concepts%20of%20Freedom%20tupamahu%20review.docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Christological power is constructive as it is supremely other-directed rather than self-interested. In the constructive duty of the
Golden Rule is the power of grace structured, shared, and recognized. Only in a
civilization of care is agency allowed to flourish. Selfishness pursued as
“negative freedom to be left alone” actually binds the practitioner to the limiting
powers (divine justice) he attempts to flee.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/2%20Concepts%20of%20Freedom%20tupamahu%20review.docx#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Giving up any expressions of coercion is a ceding of the ensnaring false power
(Matthew 13:41). Only in a re-definition of the power of freedom and caring absent
hegemonic control is Christological power realized. Positive power is caring.
Negative (ineffectual, creation-opposing) power is controlling. Positive
freedom is the allowance to choose one’s ideology and expression of power. Negative freedom is
the responsibility to choose wisely and live with the consequences—to live by
the sword is to die by the sword (Matthew 26:52; cf. 7:2).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Berlin’s existential confusion about the
metaphysics of power revealed by his ironical inversion of negative and
positive spaces of agency reveals that these two proposals </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">(Berlin’s and Christological) </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">of freedom’s
structure can themselves have these
considerations of agency applied to them. Berlin’s systematics of freedom is
“negative” in a multiplicity of senses. The very confusion of terms and the misunderstanding of
metaphysical duty and allowance ensnare personal agency rather than liberate.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Again in contrast, Christology reveals a
“positive” systematics of freedom. It induces allegiance to the reign of God expressed in the Christological virtues free from the necessity of strategizing and
control. Freed indeed from the vain practices of hegemony-seeking selfish advantage that will only
return the geometric wages of self-limiting justice coercing responsibility for
the hegemon and his sins and the return to freedom for his captives (Luke 4:18-19). Liberty for Pharaoh has no sustaining power. It looks into its own mirror, frozen in the hegemon's self-regard sublimating the terror at inexorably slipping control.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">But what makes others alive will truly make you alive too. Join in, freely, ceding control to the flow of metaphysical grace. In this--in Christ's virtues--is liberty truly found. This system of bounded liberty (bonded to the creation and its limitless goodness) is profoundly different than the structure of liberty that defines itself negatively by unbondedness from a limiting world.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">[POSTSCRIPT: I submitted this essay to the evaluation of ChatGPT 4.0 on August 16-17, 2023. <span style="color: #050505;">In the process it came up with its own alternative structure, "conditional liberty," machine monitoring of social conditions ("metrics"), constantly adjusting the operation of liberty to a </span><span style="border: 0px; color: #050505; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="ContentPasted3" style="border: 0px; color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" tabindex="-1"></a></span><span style="color: #050505;">predetermined (by system stakeholders) end and overseen by oligarchic cadres of human circuit breakers. In short, hegemony. It also proposed another structure for liberty, "Evolutionary Liberty," where the operationalization and definitions of freedom are tethered to a teleological principle, presumably as derived in the TESCREAL complex.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #050505;">Of course the effect on liberty from the virtue ethical approach is how it dispenses with the need to structure or predefine an "ends" for liberty. This is another distinction of the two structures of liberty's meaning proposed by this essay, and another dimension that poses a significant humanistic challenge to ideals of machined liberties of "conditionals" and "evolved:" Because of generational change and different stages of historical and epistemological development, including historicist epistemologies, the application of a predetermined end to these systems of distributing liberty as a public good inevitably involves coercion. Virtue ethics in its Christology is free of concerns with coerced ends.]</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #050505;"><br /></span></span></p><div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/2%20Concepts%20of%20Freedom%20tupamahu%20review.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Herder, Johann Gottfried.
<i>Adrastea</i> II.8 </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">(Continuation)</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">(1801-02): Imagery (Bilder), Allegories (Allegorien), and
Personifications. English translation.</span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/2%20Concepts%20of%20Freedom%20tupamahu%20review.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Berlin, Isaiah. “Two Concepts of Liberty.” In <i>Liberty:
Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty</i>, 166–217 (169). Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002. First published 1958.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/2%20Concepts%20of%20Freedom%20tupamahu%20review.docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Schmitt, Carl<i>.
Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty.</i> Translated
by George Schwab. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005, chap. 1.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">For
a repudiation of putatively Christian warrants of sovereignty and “dominion” through
ontological violence and religious ideologies of “<i>chaoskampf" </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(violent struggle with chaos) and theomachy (divine
battling), see Douglas B. Olds, <i>Architectures of Grace in Pastoral Care:
Virtue as the Craft of Theology beyond Strategic and Authoritative Biblicism</i>
(Wipf and Stock, 2023), 72-80.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/2%20Concepts%20of%20Freedom%20tupamahu%20review.docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Matthew Winthrop Barzun,
<i>The Power of Giving Away Power: How the Best Leaders Learn to Let Go</i> (New York:
Optimism Press, 2021).<span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;"> </span>See also empirical studies
on leadership power structured on hierarchy and control, e.g. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“In his study of brain stimulation,
neuroscientist Sukhvinder Obhi found that powerful people exhibited an
impairment in ‘mirroring.’ Mirroring is a neural process that causes us to
subconsciously mimic another person's non-verbal behavior.” Jerry Useem, “Power
Causes Brain Damage,” <i>The Atlantic</i>, June 18, 2017, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/power-causes-brain-damage/528711/">https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/power-causes-brain-damage/528711/</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Also:
mp2201 [author], “Power Damages Our Capacity for Compassion and Empathy." <i>The
Disability Inclusion Challenge. </i> https://www.thedisabilityinclusionchallenge.com/2022/07/12/power-damages-our-capacity-for-compassion-and-empathy/.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/2%20Concepts%20of%20Freedom%20tupamahu%20review.docx#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> The Golden Rule/duty to
care has negative (the Rich man in hell: Luke 16:19f) and positive (the Good
Samaritan Luke 10:14f) exemplars. The negative is radically cautionary.</span></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This duty is illustrated in the contexts of individuals in proximity and not of a political or sociological discourse. However, there is a sociological dimension to the duty to care, part of the developmental process of eschatology. The Greek version of Matthew 7:12 has Jesus address the plural of "you" in his imperative, similarly plural in the return flow of grace. It would be coherent for a directive to the individual would not be changed in a collective or historical context. </span></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Finally, these illustrations of bounded liberty involve no considerations or claims of reciprocity. Proximity of precarity triggers the awareness of sociological or humanistic responsibility carried out in the duty of the individual to provide care.</span></span></p>
</div>
</div>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-71404642861013468122023-08-15T12:28:00.006-07:002023-08-15T19:49:18.880-07:00<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">[<i>The Kinesthetics of Dance as an Allegory of Immanence</i>:] </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large; text-align: left;"> Johann Gottfried Herder's </span><span style="font-size: x-large; text-align: left;"><i>Adrastea, </i>II.9 [Introduction]</span><span style="font-size: x-large; text-align: left;"> (1801-02)</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>[translated from the German by ChatGPT 4.0 according to instructions, with brief annotations, by Douglas B. Olds]</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">Issue II.
<i>Früchte aus den sogenannt goldnen Zeiten des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts</i> ["</span></b><span face="Söhne, ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"" style="background-color: #f7f7f8; color: #374151; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Fruits from the so-called golden times of the eighteenth century"]</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">#9. Dance. Melodrama.</span><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The most expressive allegory (Allegorie [qua imaging of immanence]) we know is humanity. The forces, inclinations, thoughts, and passions of the soul are not merely hinted at by their exterior, the body, but are revealed to the discerning (Verständigen) observer. Constantly, individuals bear the visible expression of what they are inside or wish to be, i.e., their character (Charakter), with them; but in every, especially passionate and unexpected moment, they also temporarily reveal what stirs within them. They are a walking painting of themselves, a mirror in which their spiritual form inadvertently appears. Since feelings, drives, and affections are the more active part of our nature, which are only silently accompanied or guided by thoughts, and the former express themselves most powerfully through gestures, while language essentially only denotes thoughts and barely comments on feelings: thus, especially in passionate instances, the gesture disdainfully dismisses the word as alien and useless; an exclamation, an interjection is preferred. Nothing dilutes the emotion more than talking about it; with pretenders and deceivers, i.e., with posers and dissemblers, words often say the exact opposite of what the gaze conveys; or even if the gaze is deceitful, the whole heart often betrays itself – through a gesture.</p><p class="MsoNormal">One should indeed trust the natural mirror that eternal truth itself has set up for us! It cannot lie. Only look into it with a clear mind and an unbiased heart, not fleetingly, but attentively.</p><p class="MsoNormal">How powerful a gesture is! Convincing, stirring, lasting. When we think of someone absent, a [danced] gesture of theirs is the first thing that comes to mind, or rather they themselves characteristically in their gestures. Thus, moments of trust and love as well as revulsion and disgust are immortalized in us. Think of a person: as their image first comes to mind in gesture, so they are inscribed in your heart.</p><p class="MsoNormal">In both tender and fiery emotions, everything hinges on the gesture; often we even escape the word of the lips, as if it weakened or desecrated that inner expression. "Don't speak," we say; "give me your gaze, your hint, for the soul itself is inexpressible." In the most soulful expressions of theater, we hang on a gesture and gladly overlook the word. "Why," we ask, "is it necessary when the gesture says everything?"</p><p class="MsoNormal">But if the gesture dismisses words of emotion, won't it have another friend in nature to accompany it? It's music; tones naturally support the gesture. Not only do both rely on timing, on modulation; in gestures, in gait, in the eyes, in expression and action, movement and the measure of movement speak the most. Nothing, for example, disturbs us more than an uneven gait, a faltering false voice, etc., they throw us completely out of the rhythm of our soul.</p><p class="MsoNormal">But not just movement, tones are to one sense what gestures are to another, expression of the mobile nature, elastic oscillations, a direct language of the heart.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Like attracts like, one calls the other and takes it along. With the recurring gesture of the absent one, often even without words, the sound of their voice returns to us. In an enchanting posture, we wish it would turn into a tone. When, on the speaking stage, noble or gentle emotions rise to their highest, i.e., simplest height, they either lift themselves to tone or we painfully miss and lack the analogous tones that nature itself linked to them according to our feeling.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Among all the peoples of the earth, tones and gestures have been paired. The dances of the so-called savages are mimetic, whether they are war or peace, joy, mockery or love dances. Joy and love, the sweetest emotions of the human heart, are however the soul of the dance; even hate and mockery must, in it (e.g., in the war and mockery dances of the savages), if they are to be danceable, turn to joy.</p><p class="MsoNormal">And how the dance captures all natural humans! How it displays the inner and outer elasticity, the character! Hence the vast differences in national dances, which all aim at a single purpose and show a human figure. Under favorable climates, well-organized nations live and weave in these pleasures, in which the soul and body, rejoicing together, become one. Individuals forget burdens and whips when they jump on festival days. The future life to these natural humans is an ever-changing chain of dances of love and joy.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Have you ever seen human nature more alive than in a soulful dance? Does one of the so-called fine arts act more vividly, often dangerously vividly, on the heart of youth? There is grace in language, magic in tones and gestures.</p><p class="MsoNormal">It was, therefore, inevitable that every nation formed for joy and love would turn the spiritual bond between sounds and gestures into a kind of fine art, each in its own way. [S. Cahusac's "History of Dance Art," translated in the "Collection of Miscellaneous Writings" (Berlin, by Nicolai), in which Lucian's essay "On Dance", Vossius' "De poet. Graec.", the 23rd chapter of Meiners' "History of the Origins of Fine Arts in Greece", where one can also find further particulars on this subject.] </p><p class="MsoNormal">The more mature and original a nation, the more its dances will be related to its language and customs; however, with modern commercial nations, i.e., nations that are no longer original but only a copy of others, the dances will be universal.</p><p class="MsoNormal">However, not all individuals are formed for joy and love; many are rough, cold, and joyless, to which the spirit of the dance must seem as a new element. Even the most spiritual of all, the Greeks, were not entirely susceptible to it, because with them everything concentrated itself on the mind, and the heart was left too much out.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Therefore, the dance of love could only have originated in the east, where tenderness and gentleness sprout from every bush. It was invented by the more intelligent Hindus, which, as spiritualized as they were, could not long retain it. They had to pass it on to the Persians, and these, in turn, to the Greeks. One should read what has been written about it, especially in Plutarch's piece on music, and on the effects and powers of melodies contained in the work titled "On the Education of Children."</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The Romans had no spiritual dance art. Not that they couldn't dance, on the contrary, they were enthusiastic dancers, but it was only a hopping and twisting around without inner sensation, without the proper combination of sounds and gestures, without a spirit. The refinement, the development of the spirit, was the work of the Greeks, who also, without a doubt, introduced the dance art of the Greeks and Egyptians into Rome, the elegant part of which was called pantomime by the Romans, while the clumsy, crude part of the dance was called chorus.</p><p class="MsoNormal">However, how significant is the difference between the Greek chorus and the Roman pantomime! As is the case with everything Roman, the latter was only a rough caricature of the former. In Greece, dance art never became a separate thing; in Rome, on the other hand, it became a specific art, because every art has its childhood, its growth age, and its decay, and the pantomime is the age of growth of the Greek chorus, the final art of an over-ripe, decaying nation. Hence it also had its heyday under the Empire, where it even seems to have become the leading art.</p><p class="MsoNormal">However, just as this art, which was based on the connection of sounds and gestures, arose in the East, developed with the Greeks and reached its climax with the Romans, it then disappeared in the West for a long time, to reappear but differently.</p><p class="MsoNormal">If the dance of love is the beginning of every melodrama, if it originated in the East, if people from the Orient, especially those from the Hindu and Persian cultures, first made the spiritual bond of sounds and gestures into a fine art, then the Italians, who were in connection with the Romans, are to be thanked for having again given it to us, to all of Europe, but in a form that only modern nations can use.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Indeed, one cannot read Italian poetry without simultaneously hearing singing, playing, and acting. I believe that the first opera performers did nothing other than what every passionate Italian naturally does: they sang, played, and acted their roles at the same time. All Italians are natural singers, players, and actors; only the restrained North lacks all of this. When we hear Italian poetry, the gesturing, acting Italian also stands before our eyes.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Therefore, it was natural that the tones and gestures combined again, i.e., the melodrama, reappeared in Italy. It seems to have been the famous Ruggieri who, in 1600, reintroduced the ancient dance of love, the final element of all melodramas, in Rome, from which it spread throughout Italy.</p><p class="MsoNormal">However, even today, this dance art is not in its maturity but in its childhood; and Italy, Germany, France, and all modern nations are still busy with its first elements, with shaping it according to the spirit of the times. Only the English seem to have the true sense of it, and Shakespeare was the first modern poet. Not everything (Alles) can be expressed by dance, nor can every silent gesture, even if accompanied by music (Musik). Music (Musik), when paired with language and then supported by gestures, opens a new field for poetry (Dichtkunst). If dance can be introduced to this, well and good! But then let it work either by itself or led by singing choirs; song (Gesang) and dance in one person hinder each other...</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">---------</p><p class="MsoNormal">German Source: <i>Adrastea,</i> J. G. Herder</p><p class="MsoNormal">Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck</p><p class="MsoNormal">86450 Altenmünster, Loschberg 9</p><p class="MsoNormal">Deutschland</p><p class="MsoNormal">ISBN: 9783849627638</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal"><i><o:p></o:p></i></p><br /><p></p></blockquote>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-76457777535349425782023-07-03T16:40:00.010-07:002023-07-05T09:50:26.525-07:00<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 135%; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>“<i>Called Back to the Plow</i>” </b>[sermon]</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 135%; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Rev. Dr. Douglas B. Olds</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 135%; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Point Reyes (CA) Community Presbyterian Church</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 135%; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">July 2, 2023</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 135%; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">"A person's unhappiness never lies in his lack of
control over external conditions, since this would only make him completely
unhappy."</span></i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 135%;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal">-Kierkegaard<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #0f1419;"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03);"><i>"The gospel proclaims an imminent revolution, when nothing will remain as it is: 'And see the last shall be first, and the first, last.'” </i>--Jacob T</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; white-space-collapse: preserve;">aubes,<i> Occidental Eschatology</i>, 67.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 135%;">OT Reading: 1 Kings 19:15–21</span></u><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 135%;"> </span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 135%;"><span style="line-height: 135%;">15 Then the LORD said to him, “Go, return on your way to
the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king
over Aram. 16 Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over
Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet
in your place. 17 Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall
kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill.
18 Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not <b>bowed
to</b> Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 135%;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 135%;"><span style="line-height: 135%;">19 So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat,
who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with
the twelfth. Elijah <b>passed by him and threw his mantle over him</b>.
20 He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Let me kiss my father
and my mother, and then I will follow you.” Then Elijah said to him,<b> “Go
back again; </b>for what have I done to you?” 21 He returned from
following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using <b>the
equipment</b> from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people,
and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant. <span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 135%;"><u><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 135%;">NT Reading: Luke 9:51–62 <o:p></o:p></span></u></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 135%; text-align: left;"><b><o:p> </o:p></b>51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he <b>set
his face to go to Jerusalem</b>. 52 And he sent messengers ahead of him.
On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him;
53 but they did not receive him, because <b>his face was set toward
Jerusalem</b>. 54 When his disciples James and John saw it, they said,
“Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume
them?” 55 <a name="_Hlk137733389">But he <b>turned and rebuked</b> </a>them.
56 Then they went on to another village.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 135%;"><span style="line-height: 135%;">57 As they were going along the road, someone said to
him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes
have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has <b>nowhere
to lay his head</b>.” 59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said,
“Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60 But Jesus said to him, “Let
the dead bury their own dead; but as for you<a name="_Hlk137470422">, go and <b>proclaim
the kingdom of God.”</b> </a>61 Another said, “I will follow you, Lord;
but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 Jesus said to him,
“No one who puts a hand to the <b>plow and looks back</b> is <b><i>fit</i></b>
for the kingdom of God.” <span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">While the party line of our
denomination is that Sunday lectionary readings do not constitute a “fit,” </span><span>meaning a unified message, </span><span>there are quite often thematic linkages
between the OT and NT readings.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The necessity to find these links
is to have a well-worked out interpretive framework of the Bible, </span><span>which in my recently published book
is the metaphysical architecture of grace.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Grace’s architecture
is what the Bible reveals: </span><span>God’s program for justice, historical
progress, and the ethical call to virtue and human “immanence”— </span><span>the human imaging of God by actively
dispensing God’s transcendent grace to neighbors.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span> </span>This divine will of grace that
created life and then continues to sustain and redeem it from human sin is the metaphysical
and central interpretive framework to interpret historical examples of both
rebuke and redemption in the Bible.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The
thematic and symbolic link in this morning’s OT and NT readings is the yoked
plow.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the OT, it is laid down. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In the NT, it is picked up. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In the OT there is a material,
agricultural sense for the plow, </span><span>while in the NT it has a spiritual
sense in working seed into the kingdom soil, which is the spirit of grace.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A marked spiritual and historical
transformation proceeds through the plow laid down in the field by the hands of
the national prophets Elijah and Elisha, </span><span>and then spiritualized by the
messiah who not only restores but focuses disciples’ attention on diligence and
“not looking back” taking up the plow anew, </span><span>one transformed in the Spirit.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This strong transition of direction
and spirit suggests not only an historical change in Israel’s national destiny, </span><span>but also a strong ethical redirection
and focus for disciples.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This redirection
is crucial to understand as Christians are continually lured to consider that
their role in history is to recapitulate Israel’s violent, nationhood story. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">That story of national accountability is realized in the historical boomerang of the sword: the swords of Elijah and Elisha. <i>Whoever escapes from the sword of
Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha
shall kill. </i>That sword ever boomerangs. Violence begins a cycle of violence: even the pagan Greeks recognized that. N</span><span>ational Israel becomes hammered into fragmented vassal communities well before the end of the prophetic age.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">We know this by how Jesus applies
the symbols of yoke and plowing in contrast with that of Elisha. </span><span>There are strong directional verbs
which pick up this transformation of national symbols.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Israel moves into another
historical phase with Elisha around the 9th C BCE—<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">to promote other nations to wage
war on Israel’s behalf. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">That phase is ended when the OT
prophetic age culminates with Malachi around 400 B.C. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">At that point, Judea as national
Israel’s successors becomes stuck inside the imperial dominance of the Seleucid
Greeks then the Romans.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But in the
earlier national phase of the prophets, Elijah passes by Elisha plowing his
fields with a team of oxen. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Elisha represents the agricultural
phase of Israel’s history, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">but now Elijah is going to pass to
him the prophet’s mantle over a new phase of Israel’s history: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">its Machiavellian struggle with the
idolators surrounding it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Elijah lays upon Elisha his
cloak—mantle—and calls him to promote armed struggle. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Elisha as prophetic representative of the
Israelite people lays down his plow, </span><span>slaughters his oxen, </span><span>and by this new military careerism
will try to feed and secure his people from the flesh of conquest.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Elisha asks that Elijah permit him
to first go and take leave of his family, </span><span>a nostalgia for tradition and blood lines that Elijah allows but Jesus later will not.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In the New
Testament, Jesus recalls his disciples as the new people of spiritual Israel, </span><span>which the Apostle Paul calls the “Israel of
God,” </span><span>to return to the plow . </span><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">To take up the plow is to
reconstitute the spiritual industry that brings forth the kingdom of God. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This is a highly marked contrast,
so that we know</span><span> </span><span>(especially in the context of the Sermon on
the Mount) </span><span>that the followers of Jesus are not
constituted by him for an Elijah/Elisha mission of anointing sword-wielding
kings.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Like elsewhere too numerous to note
this morning, </span><span>Israel has gone through transitions
of nationalized vanities.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in our reading from Luke, taking up the yoke
to plow is the messianic and conclusive phase of the now spiritually-reconstituted people.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Spiritual Israel. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The church of disciples.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Rather than
following a team of oxen, the Israel of God are now yoked to Christ in union
with the Holy Spirit. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">They follow now not an economic or
military-industrial role, </span><span>but are called to “announce”-- </span><i>go
and give notice </i>of <span>the kingdom of God.</span><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The Greek work is διάγγελλε—“give
notice of and to”--the kingdom of God. “Giving notice” is not simply proclaiming
and evangelizing, </span><span>but the very context of this story
is the manifesting “fitness” of those who take up the yoke of Christ.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">That is, their conduct indicates this
fitness. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Not just voice but practice
demonstrates to onlookers the arriving and fitting of the Kingdom of God.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">As I ever try to distinguish from other
religious factions focused on simple belief and announcement alone, </span><span>the kingdom demonstration and its
call to witness is active, ethical, and aesthetic/poetic.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It speaks the language of modernity as it demonstrates
by virtues the kind of transformed life that is admirable to onlookers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Those to whom we are called by this
story to “give notice of and to” the Kingdom. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">It is not Elijah’s kingdom, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">ours is not Elijah’s call to sell our
implements and slaughter our means for feeding others by the sword, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">but to take up the yoke and plow
instead of the sword, </span><span>planting the seeds of <i>shalom</i> and
tending them by the virtues that make peace.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Could this be any clearer? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Not for militarized Christians,
tragically.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">To circle
back to our OT reading: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">the instrumental phase of Israel’s
national destiny under Elijah was taking up a punitive role of the prophetic. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The instrumental and arrogating role
of the sword, rather, that substituted for the humble and fructifying role of the
plow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">As Judea was later experiencing imperial
domination, </span><span>Second Temple Judaism’s book of Sirach was
written to announce the expected second coming of Elijah to bring retribution
in the same way as the first: </span><span>recapitulating history rather than
progressing it toward the conative will of God; </span><span> </span><span>its theodicy indicated by the Hebrew word in
Sirach used in the sense of ‘recompense’ which promotes the ugly vanity of executing vengeance against the "nations."</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The question should be asked: </span><span>“why would the all-knowing and
eternal God require a historical do-over?”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A doppelganger Elijah--an Elijah boomerang--to re-arm Israel’s
friends? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A new emperor Cyrus to empower
American Trumpians?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The answer is, God does <i>not</i>
need to repeat history. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The whole project of looking for OT
types recurring cyclically in historical time is ignorant of the age of the
messiah. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The history of grace does not and
need not repeat. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">History is not cyclical, though sin
ever rhymes. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">If we look for a repetition of
history, we are looking for the power of sin that ever repeats the same ol' vanities.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So my first point is this: the history inside the metaphysics of grace does not repeat.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Israel’s history progresses from nomadic to
bondage to liberation to settled peasant agriculture then to monarchy then to material and
prophetic militarism and now the unfolding age of the kingdom of grace.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The Book of
Sirach’s “turning back” expectation of Elijah returned—<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">as if God failed the first time
with this figure—<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">suggests why Ben Sira’s writings
were excluded from Christian canonization. John the Baptist is identified by
Mark as the spiritual return of Elijah to reorient Israel to make God’s paths
in the wilderness straight. The new Elijah was the prophet of repentence, which prepares the way for a radical historical transformation. Metaphorically, Israel is to take its eyes from the
expectation of a militarized messiah announced by a return of the old type of prophetic Elijah.
<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Instead, Israel’s
Messiah, in the Gospels, will </span><span>reinterpret the OT pattern of the
prophetic age situating plowing as the active imaging of grace by God’s
imagers.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">History is progressive in terms of
the realization of grace in immanence.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">My first point restated is: <b>Recapitulating
military adventurism is THE national sin.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">While God ever returns with mercy
and grace, God does not return with figures of violence.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The disciples calling down fire is
a (recompensatory) punishment rejected by Jesus. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The work for the Kingdom is NEVER
intended for the destruction or compellence of the unreceptive.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Secondly:
Jesus says that the “new call” to the disciples to take up the plow that Elisha
laid down requires that the plower not look back.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%;"> To take up the plow, Jesus gives a
pronouncement: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">if you <i>look back you</i> are not
“fit” for which the kingdom </span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">is fitted, <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">language that points to practical
crafts and conduct, </span><span>not simple and static beliefs.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This
passage is often preached as warning against procrastination (or regret or
quitting). </span><span>Even by the usually astute Eugene Peterson
in </span><i>The Message</i><span>.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%;">But I think this is simplistic and
misses the ethical point.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This
passage gives a repeated role of moral “directionalities” --turning to, looking
back. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Elisha seeks the nostalgia of his
family tradition, </span><span>the imperial hold of the past, of
jejune and unwise sentimentalities.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Yet Jesus won’t allow this
nostalgia, this simplistic traditionalism. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Eccl. 7: 10 is germane here, my new "go to quote:”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do not say, “Why were the former days better
than these?” <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For it is not from wisdom that you ask
this.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But “looking back” is to look at
the plowed rows points to the danger of ethical consequentialism. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Luke is contrasting Jesus with
Elijah and Elisha and OT instrumentalism concerned with compulsion and the lookout for effectiveness
compared with NT ethics of freedom from consequential accountability from strategic ethics accomplished instead by bottum-up virtues. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The OT was concerned with the
national destiny of Israel accomplished by compulsion and strategic instrumentalism—</span><span>how the sword is ever resorted to plow through
world.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The NT, on the other hand, is concerned with the Kingdom of God
accomplished in forward-looking virtue and liberation in and for grace. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Do what’s right and virtously effective for
what God calls us locally.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Not what is happening outside in
the world. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Not by judging the effects of what
happens from our discipleship plowing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">We don’t judge our activities by
the plowed rows, by </span><span>the Spirit rigged sail boat’s </span><span>wake,
which is</span><span> Traditionalism.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Now, we are called keep our eyes
firmly on the future and its unfolding task of progress.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Luke says twice! that “[Jesus’]
face was set toward Jerusalem.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Doubly emphatic future orientation.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Not looking back at what he had
accomplished so far.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Luke makes
this process explicitly, morally redirective:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>v. 54 <i>But he turned and rebuked them </i>[turning
is a moral concept, not an instrumental], </span><span>contextualized by v. 62</span><i>: Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to
the plow and looks back is for the kingdom of God.”</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-style: italic; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Fit </i>[</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">effective, but not by consequence,
by task and goal-accomplishing ethical virtue]. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">That’s my second message today: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Don’t look to the immediate
consequences of your kingdom task:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">keep plowing neighborhoods in gentleness for spreading the virtuous seed ahead, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">trusting God for the ripening and
harvests of your mission and call. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Your conduct.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This is a new era that follows
from Elisha slaughtering his 12 oxen, symbolic of the workers in Isaiah’s
prophecy of the vineyard. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Workers are instrumental, the
slaughter oxen instrumentally feed Elisha’s community. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But this instrumentalism, </span><span>this ethical and strategic
consequentialism, </span><span>is mooted in Jesus’ paradigm and symbolism
which is ethical in the way of <i>shalom</i> and grace-making alone.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Jesus is not strategically constructing, absent any fox's hole or a nest. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">He is not concerned with some putative <b>human</b> <b>natural
law</b> of strategic security and differential protection of self or progeny. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Jesus said
to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the
kingdom of God.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“Looking rearward” is to compare
yourself to others—</span><span> </span><span>the least theologically and ethically effective
(“FIT”) </span><i>activity imaginable</i><span>. Consider animals in nature.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Do they regard others
competitively? Enviously? Conventionally? Comparatively? Which is “natural”—</span><span>that problematic word when applied
to ALL humans as God’s imagers?</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Our antagonistic
culture leads us to expect instant impact, </span><span>our ministries </span><i>going viral is
the test </i><span>and BRAND of someone’s potential and power. </span><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The temptation to let our work be branded
and thus by the capitalist notion of ministry as product —</span><span>marketable, consumable, and lucrative.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Of one’s ministry curated to draw a
certain kind of attention (social media clicks) interpreted as cultural influence.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its wake, its diggings, its too-often fracking.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But this branding is all noise
external to the kingdom of care itself which is quiet and companionable, </span><span>humble and welcoming.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <span> </span></span>Take <i>shalom’s</i> long view.<i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Turn down the noise.</span></i><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Sail to the mark. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Regard the real and attend not to the
virtual: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">the algorithms and aesthetics of
conventions of consequential impact that exclude in the name of competition.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Our
bulletin quote this morning from Kierkegaard calls our attention to the fact
that the greater and harder point of life is to change what is inside of us, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">not what is outside of us, </span><span>which is the development of the
socially calming virtues rather than the development of what is impossible:</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">a consequentialist program of strategic intellect
to determine the future.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">While strategic rationality
proposes that for every natural cause there is a natural effect, </span><span>such an approach to guiding both
society and mission gets bogged down in human finiteness, </span><span>limitation of knowledge of future
sequences </span><span>and cascades of effects from
emerging information, </span><span> </span><span>the meaning of “natural” and the role of
chance, </span><span> </span><span>and, for those of us who know God, </span><span>the radical redirections of
salvation and grace on reshaping our human freedom:</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">our individual efforts and
intentions redirected by repentence and spirit. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Consequentialism as a program for
ethical, political, and cognitive rationality goes off the rails after a few
predictions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s why so many people are rightly
concerned with turning over management of complex systems to the “if then”
logic </span><span>and symbolic mathematics of AI
algorithms lacking souls.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">It took me
a long time to understand that Christ’s theology is about building
civilizations of care from the ground up— </span><span>from the humble perspective of immanent
grace— </span><span>not a strategic program for
designing social policy from the top down—</span><span>from a transcendent view of God’s
justice.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This is what taking up the plow
means. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">It means to be yoked to the
community on earth, </span><span>not peering into the councils of
heaven with regards to the unfolding global future.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">We leave to God the consequential
operation of justice. </span><span>We don’t look back to see how our
plowed actions bear fruit, </span><span>but continue to focus on our daily
routines and tasks, </span><span>entrusting that if the Holy Spirit
has called us, </span><span>our faithful allegiance to that
task will surely bear fruit.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Rather than
alerting us solely to the dangers of nostalgia or procrastination, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Luke’s text warns us against
developing a consequentialist and strategic rationality as a short cut to (a short-circuit of) the
time consuming and </span><span>arduous practices of virtue and the
ethical development of community <i>shalom</i> from the ground up, </span><span>relying on God for the big picture
organization of individual Christian callings to transform the world and its
systems.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The transcendent God is calling
individual disciples of Christ by the Holy Spirit to plow their own fields.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There will be others following later (even generationally) to seed, to weed, and to
harvest.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s not look back.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s keep our small teams moving forward by
keeping our eyes on the captain and perfecter of our faith, Jesus Christ. May it be so for you and me. AMEN.</span><o:p style="font-size: 15pt;"></o:p></span></p>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-33181271237090909082023-06-16T08:03:00.003-07:002023-06-18T08:34:46.050-07:00<p> <b> </b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> </b><b>ORAL/AURAL PARALLELISM IN GENESIS 4: 10-11: </b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b>A CASE OF SCRIBAL DELIMITATION WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR THE NARRATIVE OF CURSE
<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: 1in; mso-pagination: none;"><o:p> </o:p> </p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: 1in; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;">Douglas B. Olds (2009)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i>Abstract<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-pagination: none;">A marked parallelism is found in God’s declaration to Cain in Gen 4:
10-11. This declaration displays chiastic parallelism that was broken up when
written down, suggesting developments in scribal context and meaning. If the
text is read as of one oral discourse, the ablative, etiological, and thus
miasmic and spreading nature of the primeval history’s curse becomes a key for
translation and interpretation. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;"><i>Keywords<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-pagination: none;">--parallelism --verse
division --Cain and Abel --curse narrative<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: 1in; mso-pagination: none;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none;"><b> </b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->I.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"></span>Introduction<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 31.5pt;">To judge by the variety of interpretative traditions and English
translations, the Cain and Abel episode in Genesis 4 is complicated by
ambiguities. If this episode encompassed
an oral stage of performance and transmission, we might expect to find
“grammatical parallelism at every level,” and we do.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> When Masoretic versification of Gen 4:10-11
is ignored and God’s speech is read aloud<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
as one scene involving dramatic repetition, parallelism, rhythm and wordplay
become forefront:<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"> <a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></a></span><o:p></o:p></p>
<br clear="all" style="break-before: page; mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" />
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 31.5pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 31.5pt; margin-right: 67.5pt; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 67.5pt 0in 31.5pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: right; text-autospace: none;"><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">מה עשית קול דמי אחיך צעקים אלי <u>מן-האדמה ועתה ארור אתה מן-האדמה</u> אשר
פצתה את-פיה לקחה את-דמי אחיך </span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 67.5pt; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 67.5pt 0in 0.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><i>What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from
the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth
to receive your brother's blood</i>
[RSV].<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">A concentric inverted parallelism, or chiasm, stands out with the pattern
A-B-X-b-A featuring repetition of the A members and recurrent vocal patterns amidst
the B and b members:<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: 27pt; mso-pagination: none; text-align: right;"><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">מן-האדמה</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none;"><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ועתה<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none;"> <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ארור<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none;"><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span> <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">אתה<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-align: right; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">מן-האדמה</span> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">There are three main categories in translation of
relating primeval curse to Cain via the ground, each involving a different
sense (locative, ablative, or comparative) for the Hebrew preposition <span dir="RTL" lang="HE">מן</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> . When understood as oral wordplay of the pattern
A-B-X-b-A, <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ארור</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> serves as the key word that
unifies parallel members.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> This provides a structural clue for resolving
the ambiguities, at the hypothetical oral level, of the meaning of the A
members of the parallelism.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.75in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.75in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->II.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"></span> Tradition History in Genesis 4<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">Because the <span dir="RTL" lang="HE">אלי</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="HE"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> </span>of Gen 4:10 suggests a locative meaning for <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">מן-האדמה</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="HE"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> </span> that
follows it,<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"> <a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[vi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></a></span> <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">מן-האדמה</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>
in Gen 4:11 by reasons of oral parallelism most likely has the recurrent sense.
This conclusion supports the KJV, NRSV, RSV, and <st1:stockticker w:st="on">NASB</st1:stockticker>
understanding of <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">מן-האדמה</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> in Gen 4: 11 in an ablative, or separated source,
sense. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">A break in the expression’s anapestic rhythm—where iamb follows
iamb--occurs with the word <span dir="RTL" lang="HE">אתה</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>.
This rhythmic “catch” adds to the interrupted breathing from a compact
sequence of guttural consonants, further stressing the word <span dir="RTL" lang="HE">אתה</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>. After
the medium of transmission changed from oral to written,<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn7" name="_ednref7" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[vii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> however, a stop (and then verse division)
came to be inserted between the A and the B members of the parallelism. The
“delimitation” by the written text appears to increase ambiguity by
re-segmenting the parallelism, rebalancing its literary elements.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"> <a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn8" name="_ednref8" title=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[viii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></a></span> As a result, the relationship between
“curse” (<span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ארור</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>) and “the ground” (<span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">האדמה</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>) takes on changed significance in the written text
of Gen 4: 11. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">Moreover, the hiatus between verses 10
and 11 in the Masoretic interpretation of the written text appears to emphasize
the b member’s (<span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ועתה</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> )
beginning a normative clause. The oral inclusio becomes unbalanced when
committed to text, newly fronting the b member which promotes a rhetorical
aspect. The hiatus between clauses
emphasizes ethical progress rather than grammatical recurrence of oral
elements. By changing the structure of the expression,
the written medium “delimits”<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn9" name="_ednref9" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ix]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
or recontextualizes the source, mechanism, and implications of the curse at
this important waypoint in the Genesis 1-11 narrative. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">This hiatus could have resulted from the technical limitations of the
written medium, or from the requirements of a new rite of performance, or from
a pre-meditated exegetical decision by unidentified <i><u>sopherim</u></i>.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn10" name="_ednref10" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[x]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> The performance, grammatical, and literary
division markings implied by changes in the medium of transmission of this
parallelism may have implications for tradition-historical studies of the primeval
curse’s ontology and etiology, and for interpreting Cain’s status before God.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.75in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->III.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"></span>Application to Translation<b><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ועתה ארור אתה מן-האדמה אשר פצתה את-פיה לקחה את-דמי אחיך</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">Gen 4:11 (<st1:stockticker w:st="on">NASB</st1:stockticker>)
<span lang="EN">Now you are cursed from the ground,
which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">Gen 4:11 (NIV) Now you are under a curse and driven
from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from
your hand. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">Gen 4:11 (NJPS) Therefore, you shall be more cursed
than the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from
your hand.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Each translation
has arguments in its favor. To wit, the
NJPS takes the initial <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ועתה</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> of verse 11a as that which “generally
introduces an ethical <i><u>consequence</u>.</i>”<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn11" name="_ednref11" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Taking the Masoretes’ verse division as a
given, NJPS reflects the consequential, ethical sense in English. In addition, NJPS differs from the others in
the use of comparative <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">מן</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span face=""Hebpar",sans-serif" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Hebpar;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>, </span>suggesting a second point of departure from the other two
translations. Comparative <i>min </i>is also consistent with an ethical
judgment.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn12" name="_ednref12" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Hebpar; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The lexical and syntactic warrant for NJPS’ consequential meaning, though, begs
contextual questions--for example, is murder recognized as an ethical
transgression against human integrity at this time and place, or as a sin
against God?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">The NIV translation may be justified by
appeal to lexical studies. In contrast
with NJPS’s translation, it does not read into the initial <i>vav </i>of the B member any logical, sequential, or ethical sense that
is not confirmed elsewhere in the literary unit. HALOT states that <i>min </i>with warning verbs (in this case, verbal nouns) like “curse”
suggest a removal before a threatening presence.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn13" name="_ednref13" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Hebpar; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xiii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
“Removal/driven from” a cursing agent is thus a valid sense when a threat
becomes explicit. However, the
passive form of the translation “driven from the ground” may suggest that the
agent is not the ground but rather is God.
If so, this would conflict with the sense of agency delineated in this
usage and weakens NIV’s value for translation.
At the same time, NIV’s translation does not reflect that <b><i>it is the
blood(s) “crying from the ground for redress” that is the cursing agent.</i></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">Accordingly, from the reasons discussed above--of parallelism and the
context of its historical transmission--this paper suggests that the RSV and <st1:stockticker w:st="on">NASB</st1:stockticker> translations of Gen 4: 11 reflect most
cogently the early, oral-performative structure of the discourse. Localized in <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">האדמה</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>
, curse in its oral context is focused on its <u>[mediated]</u> <i><u>source</u></i> as it undergoes etiological development later in the
J account– its entropic spread of disorder by <i>human invocation</i>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.75in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->IV.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"></span> Interpretation: Toward an
Etiology of the Curse<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">Genesis 4 does not explicitly indicate God’s reason
for looking upon Abel’s offering with favor while not favoring Cain’s. This silence of the text regarding the nature
of Cain and his sacrifice became an on-going source of interpretive fascination
within [Second Temple Judaism]. By the Roman period, at least three solutions
circulated:<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn14" name="_ednref14" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xiv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></p>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-autospace: none;">Cain was a<i> <u>son of the devil</u> </i>and not of Adam (see also 1 Jn 3:10-12).<b><o:p></o:p></b></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-autospace: none;">Cain’s agrarian <i><u>vocation</u></i> was less favored than that of a shepherd’s
(Philo’s, Josephus’s, and Ambrose’s solution).<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn15" name="_ednref15" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Hebpar; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
<b><o:p></o:p></b></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-autospace: none;">The problem was with the <i><u>sacrificer’s faith and spirit</u> </i>(see
Heb 11:4). <b><o:p></o:p></b></li>
</ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 0.25in;"> The third solution is congruent with what is
proposed in this paper. Cain’s fault was
his predisposition to envy in which the devil found a place for entry.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"> <a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn16" name="_ednref16" title=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Hebpar; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xvi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></a></span>
“A greedy sin lurks at the entry, ready to pounce” (my paraphrase of <span class="heb1"><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">לפתח
חטאת רבץ ואליך</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> Gen 4: 7b).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 0.25in;"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 0.25in;">By this, we
see a parallel between what Jewish and early Christian commentators saw as the
characteristic and death-dealing <i><u>etiology
of disorder from envy</u></i>—as opposed to the <i><u>essence</u></i><u> </u>of
the disposition that Cain displays in Gen 4: 5.
Later Targumic and anti-Marcionite Christian accounts of Cain took a
more forensic than etiological frame.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn17" name="_ednref17" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Hebpar; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xvii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The former were concerned with judgment that removed the accursed from the land
of the living, less so with the propagation and transmission of the universal
curse.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn18" name="_ednref18" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Hebpar; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xviii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"> While 1 Jn 3:10-12 and Heb 11:.4 are
thematically related, there is a distinction. In the former interpretation,
Cain is distinguished from Abel by reason of essence prior to act, while in the
interpretation of Hebrews 11, the distinction between Adam and Eve’s two
children is based on their faith: one is more righteous because of his
faith. Abel has received the wages of a
watchful shepherd and is tendering back to God a portion of his successful flock.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"> As a manifestation of the
human-divine relationship, this distinction between birth and faith—between etiology
and dualism of essence--in characterizing piety and sin becomes crucial in the
early church as it struggled to determine whether it is action or essence that
justifies a human before God: his or her birth versus one’s faith and the
practices of the reliant spirit. It
follows that this distinction is important to debates regarding membership in
the new church community at the time of the New Testament writings and sermons
(in 1 John and Hebrews). It became a
question for the early church whether any condition of birth or “essence”
conflicts with a profession or act of faith that would otherwise qualify a
person for membership in the <i>ecclesia</i>. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"> Although God in Genesis 4 does not
explicitly evaluate Cain’s faith by the character of his sacrifice, the reader
regards Cain the sacrificer in consequence of his apparent disregard by God when Cain reacts to God favoring of
the fruit and sacrifice of Abel’s vocation: Cain displays an angry and
downfallen countenance. Such a countenance is consistent with envy. The “mark” that God fashions for Cain may
have been an apotropaic emblem or tattoo to distract from the “evil eye” of
envy.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn19" name="_ednref19" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Hebpar; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xix]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">The central theme of this episode, as this paper has
proposed by delineating the ablative parallelism of Gen 4: 10-11, is <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ארור</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span face=""Hebpar",sans-serif" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Hebpar;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>, </span>“curse.”<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn20" name="_ednref20" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xx]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Curse is doubly central to the episode in
question. It forms a chiastic climax to the episode itself, and this particular
episode contains a central waypoint of the spread of the aboriginal curse of Gen
3:14 and 17 and which recurs in Gen 5:29 and in Noah’s curse of his son in Gen
9:25.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"> <a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn21" name="_ednref21" title=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xxi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></a></span> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">Following this theme of <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ארור</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>
through the larger primeval history locates the curse of the earth with Adam’s
transgression, as the curse estranges Adam from his task as tiller of the
ground and from his mate Eve. From this reading, the curse then migrates <i><u>from</u></i> the ground where Abel’s
potential offspring (blood) lie unrequited.
Cain, as a tiller of the earth from which Adam was estranged, sows the
life blood of his brother into the earth.
The continuing alienation of the spirit from matter then is tragically
recapitulated in history’s reconstituted “post-flood family,” through Noah’s
alienation from the son, Canaan. Thus,
the curse flows to earth, and then earth to Cain, and from Noah to Canaan. It
inheres in all flesh derived from the dust, so that Noah goes so far as to
express curse upon his own son at the Genesis 9 conclusion of the curse narrative.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">The Cain and Abel episode brings into focus themes of
curse from earlier episodes as they carry through into later episodes in the
Genesis 2-9 story. According to the literary and historical context, <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ארור</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>
suggests a “spreading, miasmic” quality that contaminates what it contacts so
that the relationship between “curse”
(<span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ארור</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>) and “the ground” (<span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">האדמה</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>) takes on additional significance in the written
text.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"> <a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn22" name="_ednref22" title=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xxii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></a></span> <b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">In Genesis 6, 8,
and 9, God unconditionally blesses humankind.
Yet in Genesis 9, the Yahwist (J compiler) has Noah’s son shaming his
father while his father is nakedly drunk.
By putting into Noah’s mouth the curse explicit by the word <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ארור</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>, the J
compiler marks the reorientation and intensification of curse<i>--</i>not that it were possible to double the curse on
Canaan’s flesh, but rather to demonstrate that Noah himself has added a new and
lopsided vector to the curse’s psychic spread.
By usurping God’s initiative to dispense the report of <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ארור</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>, Noah has
become the agent of the “mimetic” spread of curse.<i> </i>All
humankind seems implicated by the text in this mimetic intensification of curse.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"> <a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn23" name="_ednref23" title=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xxiii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></a></span> The <i><u>pater familias</u></i> Noah has set
his children’s teeth on edge, endowing them not with blessing, but rather with
the inheritance of a lopsided curse that reflects and orients a culture of
retaliatory violence. From an unalloyed
blessing contingent only upon obedience in the J account of Genesis 2, J
suspends at Gen 11:7 with curse’s disorder unmitigated and unmediated by
blessing, repentance, or forgiveness. Genesis 4 is a dynamic moment in the
spread of disorder, and its central parallelism provides an exegetical key to
tracing the vectors and intensity of that spread.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -0.25in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 6.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 31.5pt;"> By the
time of the late Second Temple period in Palestine, the monotheistic oath
takers were interested in the relationship of a standing curse with the onset
of death. Interpreters of the Hebrew
scriptures noted both the source and the progression of the passive participle
“curse,” <span dir="RTL" lang="HE">ארור</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> , in the J-narrative of Genesis
3 through 9. Because death was patently
inevitable, adhering to created nature, an ancient propensity to link death
with technologies of curse began to conflict with monotheistic promises and
practices. Not only did the technologies
of curse become a subject for exploration, but also the circumstance that
surrounded and provoked a curse utterance was thought to determine the efficacy
of the curse. A curse uttered at the
time of death against the murderer was seen as especially effective in bringing
about retaliatory retribution from elements of nature.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn24" name="_ednref24" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xxiv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 31.5pt;">The Cain and Abel episode documents primeval curse’s
progress from a fated outcome to the creeping miasma of anxiety and
paranoia. Curse begins its migration
from the flesh into the psyche of humanity. The J account represents the shared
ANE understanding of “miasma” resulting from the metaphysical by-products of
inequitable treatment of kin in a <i>heno</i>theistic narrative of curse. Gen 4:13 and its LXX gloss <i><span style="font-family: Greek;">aitia </span></i>suggest that psychic state of
anxiety derives from the awareness of being scrutinized for cause, either by a
judging spirit or by the disenfranchised victim of the inequity herself.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_edn25" name="_ednref25" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xxv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> It is this psychic sense of being watched by
agents planning violence that characterizes (polytheistic) anxiety. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -0.25in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 6.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"> Whatever Abel’s sacrificial motivation in
the J account, the clearly marked blood-cry from the earth initiates in Cain a
fear of retribution. The curse has now
taken on the character of supporting <i>lex talionis </i>that supersede kin
relations. Cain fears retaliation by any
and every party, so that God marks Cain with a protected status. Cain departs the scene, bearing his anxiety
regarding retaliation and most likely the festering, de-spiritualizing disease
that sees enemies all around. As an
agent of fratricide prior to the giving of the <i>Torah</i>, Cain was a
transgressor of the moral norm of equity.
He is stabilized against a creeping anxiety regarding conspiracy so long
as he trusts God to fulfill the promise of protection. When the promise begins
to be distrusted, as when a polytheistic or atavistically hierarchical view of
the cosmos begins to take the human mind captive, trust as faith ebbs, and the
miasma of anxiety takes hold.<o:p></o:p></p>
<div><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> F. M. Cross, “Toward a History of
Hebrew Prosody,” in <i><u>Fortunate the Eyes that See: Essays in Honor of David
Noel Freeman in Celebration of His Seventieth Birthday</u></i> (ed. A. B. Beck,
A. H. Bartlett, P. R. Raabe, and C. A. Franke; Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmanns, 1995) 298-309, here 300.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> More manifold patterns of meaning
overlap in a written text. Parunak
states that the “first axiom” of Biblical literature is its essential
aurality. “Understanding came through
the ear, not through the eye.” H. v. D. Parunak, “Some Axioms for Literary
Architecture,” Semitics<i> </i>8 (1982) 1-16,
here 3.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> R. Alter, <i><u>The Art of Biblical
Narrative</u> </i>(New York: Basic Books, 1980) 51: “The biblical type-scene
occurs not in the rituals of daily existence but at the critical junctures in
the lives of the heroes.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 1in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> The slightest strategic variations in the
pattern of repetitions could serve the purposes of commentary, analysis,
foreshadowing, thematic assertion, with a wonderful combination of subtle
understatement and dramatic force (Alter, <i>The
Art of Biblical Narrative</i> 91; cf. 96-7).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn4">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Anadiplosis” of semantic units.
Parallel sonants are not uncommon in Semitic verse or in Genesis. A. R. Ceresko, “The Chiastic Word Pattern in
Hebrew,” <i><u>CBQ</u></i> 38 (1976) 303-11.
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: HE;">J. S. Kselman, “Semantic-Sonant Chiasmus in Biblical Poetry,” <i><u>Biblica</u>
</i>58 (1977) 219-223. J. M. Sasson,
“Word-Play in Gen 6: 8-9,” <i><u>CBQ</u> </i>37 (1975) 165-6.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn5">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Reverse symmetries—“chiastic
structures”—establish internal unity of segments. An internal <i>inclusio</i> is threaded through a central X member. J. T. Walsh, <i><u>Style and Structure in
Biblical Hebrew Narrative</u></i> (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2001)
177-8. H. v. D. Parunak, “Oral
Typesetting: Some Uses of Biblical Structures,” <i><u>Biblica</u> </i>62 (1981) 153-168<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn6">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[vi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> “This is one of the most monumental
sentences in the Bible…The most important word in the sentence is </span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: HE;">אלי </span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: HE;"><span dir="LTR"></span>, ‘to me.’” C. Westermann, <i><u>Genesis
1-11</u></i><u>: <i>A Continental Commentary</i></u><i> </i>(Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1994) 305. F. A. Spina, “The ‘Ground’ for Cain’s
Rejection (Gen 4):<i> adamah</i> in the Context of Gen 1-11,” <i><u>ZAW</u></i>
104 (1992) 319-332.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn7">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref7" name="_edn7" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[vii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> F.M. Cross notes that oral
symmetries and parallelisms “broke down” in texts between the archaic period
and the Persian and Greek periods.
Cross, “Toward a History of Hebrew Prosody,” 301.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn8">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref8" name="_edn8" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[viii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> M. Sternberg, <i><u>The Poetics of
Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading</u> </i>(Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature;
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994) 186ff.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn9">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref9" name="_edn9" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ix]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Systematic analysis of text
divisions at the level of verse and paragraph is the approach of M.C.A. Korpel and J.M Oesch eds., <i><u>Delimitation Criticism: A New Tool in
Biblical </u>Scholarship </i>(Pericope I; Assen: Van Gorcum, 2000). For a
discussion of method, see M. C. A Korpel, “Introduction” in <i><u>Delimitation Criticism</u></i>, 1-51,
esp. 37-40.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn10">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref10" name="_edn10" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[x]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Tov notes evidence from Qumran that
segmentation and divisions in texts accord with the logic of scribal exegetical
“impressions.” E. Tov, “The Background
of the Sense Divisions in Biblical Texts,” in <i><u>Delimitation Criticism</u></i> 312-50, here 339.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Parunak, “Oral Typesetting,” 166-7 gives
examples of what he terms the broken “panels” of parallel segments by scribal
acts. The scribe has “broken in” to the traditional symmetry of parallel
members with an exegetical judgment. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn11">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref11" name="_edn11" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
G. J. Wenham, <i><u>Genesis 1-15</u></i> (Word
Biblical Commentary; Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1987) 107 emph.
added.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn12">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref12" name="_edn12" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> L. Koehler
and W. Baumgartner, <i><u>The Hebrew and
Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament</u></i><u>:</u> (vol. I; Study Edition;, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2001) 598 meaning 5.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn13">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref13" name="_edn13" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xiii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Koehler and Baumgartner, <i><u>The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old
Testament</u></i></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Hebpar;">, I. 598 meaning 7.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn14">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref14" name="_edn14" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xiv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
J. L Kugel, <i><u>Traditions of the Bible: A
Guide to the Bible As It Was at the Start of the Common Era</u> </i>(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1998) 146-69.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn15">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref15" name="_edn15" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Kugel, <i><u>Traditions of the Bible</u>,</i> 149.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn16">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref16" name="_edn16" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xvi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Envy p</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Hebpar;">ersonified in the <i><u>Wisdom of Solomon</u></i> 2:23-4 with the
devil who leads to death.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn17">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref17" name="_edn17" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xvii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Cain and Abel were part of a dualist
frontier for the anti-Marcionite church. Satan acts by imprinting his
essence. See E. Levine, “The Syriac
Version of Genesis IV 1-16,” <i><u>VT</u> </i>26 (1976) 70-78. Levine’s (p. 78) “general principle that the
simpler and less developed a targumic tradition, the older it is;” that later
interpretations were increasingly forensic. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn18">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref18" name="_edn18" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xviii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "SBL Hebrew"; mso-bidi-language: HE;">In the ancient Mediterranean context, a curse uttered at
the time of death against the murderer was seen as especially effective in
bringing about retaliatory retribution from elements of nature. L. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Watson, <i><u>Arae: The Curse Poetry of Antiquity</u></i>
(Leeds, Great Britain: Francis Cairns, Ltd, 1991).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn19">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref19" name="_edn19" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xix]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> J. H. Elliot, “The Evil Eye in the
First Testament: The Ecology and Culture
of a Pervasive Belief,” in <i><u>The Bible and the Politics of Exegesis: Essays
in Honor of Norman K. Gottwald on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday</u> </i>(ed. D. H.
Jobling, P. L. Day, and G. T. Sheppard; Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1991)
147-60.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn20">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref20" name="_edn20" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xx]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Fufilling the conditions of what M.
Buber (quoted by Alter in <i><u>The Art of Biblical Narrative</u></i> [p. 93])
terms a <i><u>leitwort</u>, </i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 63.0pt; margin-right: 40.5pt; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 40.5pt 0in 63pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">a word…that recurs significantly in
a…continuum of texts…[B]y following [its] repetitions, one is able to decipher
or grasp a meaning…; in fact, the very difference…between combination of sounds
related to one another in this manner a kind of movement takes place: if one
imagines the entire text deployed before him, one can sense waves moving back
and forth between the words…the inner rhythm of the text…is one of the most
powerful means for conveying meaning without expressing it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn21">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref21" name="_edn21" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xxi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> The reverse symmetrical parallelism
of Gen 4.10-11 appears to reflect in microcosm the concentric macrostructure of
Genesis 1-11 discerned by J. A. Loader, “Rhythm in Primeval Narrative,” <i><u>Old
Testament Essays</u> </i>13 (2000) 204-17. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn22">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref22" name="_edn22" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xxii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
A.M. Kitz, “An Oath, its Curse and Anointing Ritual,”<i> <u>Journal of the
American Oriental Society</u></i> 124 (2004) 315-21. By these reckonings, a
dead body hung over the ground would not make contact with the ground. It
concentrates pollution because there is no apotropaic movement of the miasma. <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn23">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref23" name="_edn23" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xxiii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> On <i><u>mimesis</u></i>, see Rene Girard, <i><u>I
See Satan Fall like Lightning</u></i> (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2001). <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn24">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref24" name="_edn24" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xxiv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Watson, <i><u>Arae.<o:p></o:p></u></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn25">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Resumes/Publications/Publications/Gen%204/Parallelism%20in%20Gen%204%20CBQ%20020910%5b1%5d.doc#_ednref25" name="_edn25" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xxv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Williams, Bernard. <i>Shame and Necessity</i>
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) 219-33.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></p><p></p>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-51179498895877366712023-04-29T10:24:00.030-07:002023-04-30T18:50:29.884-07:00<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i> Vacations from wrathtown</i></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;">April 2023</p><p style="text-align: center;">Douglas Olds, all rights reserved</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>Into the car lot of claptrap’s steepled beaker </p><p>I roll And blare my horn</p><p>Leavening the town with dissonance added to thymic dissonance</p><p>My palm pressing the steering wheel's center like kneading out dough</p><p>Its <i>shofar</i> of disgust bleating at mongrel hegemony dressed in the cool fine fiber of his neighbors,</p><p><br /></p><p>That these walled tombs of beguiled, toothy comportment may come crumbling down</p><p>These rod-bearers of spittling rage, froth-flecked and bullet toting broadcasts of catastrophe </p><p><br /></p><p>Past-entrapped, neighborhood destroying implants, statues of majesty posed amid ambients of haste, </p><p>their imperturbable gaze like Rodin’s immortalized Balzac </p><p>Guaranteed by a phallus-grasped gun concealed under unflappable cloaks of lies.</p><p>For all who ignore such righteous members: Oh how the seven-masted wolf will set sail to sing again of its most excellent spear that suckles steel!</p><div><br /></div><p><br /></p><p>Would rather Snow paint its settlement on my ascent to reverse: soft, still, silencing amplitudes of variety</p><p>To cool and sift these strange distempers.</p><p>I look around at my town graced with new and old, the decent all kinds swimming deep and oblivious to the surface rage</p><p>Householding their schools far from the banks</p><p>In flows of destiny’s poetry tending ever to the quiet swells of Creation, its exits ever followed and entranced.</p><p><br /></p><p>Escape festivals unlocking garishly camouflaged</p><p>Histories of the beast’s retrieval</p><p>ruminate not on shame Recollect memory’s lathe, </p><p>Retool<i> anima</i> rusticating not the leisured bovine gibbet of resentment’s cud and curd</p><p><br /></p><p>Let instead the grape in assemblies of keening grace Ferment, the bread of novelty’s grain baked to ripple the coruscate tongue of our times,</p><p> the aromas of nature’s hearth released to lure the claptrapped</p><p>To crunch out arts’ marrow by ear and eye to swallow it deeply in muscle and bone for powers that build rather than tear.</p><p>Awakening us from our combative reveries against the implanted angel’s sword which stays our plans from ancient Eden’s retrieval.</p><div><br /></div>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-14535584309155201832023-04-13T13:22:00.006-07:002023-05-31T09:46:20.697-07:00Book in Press<p>Published, available at</p><p>https://shorturl.at/tBTXZ</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS1qQvv1e-Ch_g5Nzmp51_LTS7cwopABD91pJuDr12hdLFrX3fyJE1QuOayPCVeQwRC2oyNJ1YiCSdP1b4gX58R7FSxR4l6g2NxEwSP6Q6Ooc_XGc70rujdID2YWx6mOUyrTovmp5GbCdpulOmNcrodv4cahfn14j2PSlt0p8NVWRiqQwkktGdTfGgGA/s1896/Olds.Architectures.66974%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1351" data-original-width="1896" height="429" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS1qQvv1e-Ch_g5Nzmp51_LTS7cwopABD91pJuDr12hdLFrX3fyJE1QuOayPCVeQwRC2oyNJ1YiCSdP1b4gX58R7FSxR4l6g2NxEwSP6Q6Ooc_XGc70rujdID2YWx6mOUyrTovmp5GbCdpulOmNcrodv4cahfn14j2PSlt0p8NVWRiqQwkktGdTfGgGA/w604-h429/Olds.Architectures.66974%20(1).jpg" width="604" /></a></div><p></p>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-58708486216401234052023-04-03T11:21:00.028-07:002023-05-21T10:33:07.435-07:00Out From Ashes’ Bosom: A Sky Care Sermon for Earth Day<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <b style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px;">Out From Ashes’ Bosom</span></i></b><b style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px;"> </span></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> A Sky Care Sermon For </span></span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Earth Day </span></span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Rev. Dr. Douglas Olds</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Point Reyes (California) Community Presbyterian Church </span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">April 16, 2023</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">OT READING: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">Isaiah 44:9-20</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span> All
who make idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit; their
witnesses neither see nor know. And so they will be put to shame. 10 Who would
fashion a god or cast an image that can do no good? 11 Look, all its devotees shall
be put to shame; the artisans too are merely human. Let them all assemble, let
them stand up; they shall be terrified, they shall all be put to shame.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: georgia; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">12 The
ironsmith fashions it and works it over the coals, shaping it with hammers, and
forging it with his strong arm; he becomes hungry and his strength fails, he
drinks no water and is faint. 13 The carpenter stretches a line, marks it out
with a stylus, fashions it with planes, and marks it with a compass; he makes
it in human form, with human beauty, to be set up in a shrine. 14 He cuts down
cedars or chooses a holm tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees
of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. 15 Then it can be
used as fuel. Part of it he takes and warms himself; he kindles a fire and
bakes bread. Then he makes a god and worships it, makes it a carved image and
bows down before it. 16 Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he
roasts meat, eats it and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Ah, I
am warm, I can feel the fire!” 17 The rest of it he makes into a god, his idol,
bows down to it and worships it; he prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are
my god!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">18 They do not
know, nor do they comprehend; for their eyes are shut, so that they cannot see,
and their minds as well, so that they cannot understand. 19 No one considers,
nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire;
I also baked bread on its coals, I roasted meat and have eaten. Now shall I
make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?”
20 He feeds on ashes; a deluded mind has led him astray, and he cannot save
himself or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a fraud?”</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">---<br />
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Philosopher Hans Jonas claims, ‘the qualitatively novel nature of …our
[industrial economies] has opened up a whole new dimension of ethical relevance
for which there is no precedent in the standards and canons of ethics…’ Ethics
seems overwhelmed by climate change. None of our inherited moral traditions
anticipate practical responsibilities for managing the sky, nor construct
institutions of justice to discipline [petroleum’s] power across cultures and
generations... Adequate responses to climate change elude us in part because
atmospheric powers outstrip the capacities of our inherited traditions for
interpreting them.”<sup> <a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/PRCPC%20Earth%20Care%20sermon%20and%20041623%20service.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">[1]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></a></sup>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others
assert that there is no Biblical message or historical analogy to apply to the
issue of Global Warming and Climate <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Change</span>.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/PRCPC%20Earth%20Care%20sermon%20and%20041623%20service.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">However, my doctoral research into how the Bible does address human
environmental responsibility uncovered a number of verses directly applicable
to caring for both earth and sky. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Our initial reading this morning is centrally concerned with the idolator’s
use of combustible resources--the unsustainable scale of exploitation and
industrial combustion of which is at the root of the Greenhouse Effect. Sometimes
trivialized by scholars as a “parody,” Isaiah charges the idol maker with
diverting combustible resources away from their existential, intended
function--instrumental sufficiency for householding’s warming and
cooking--toward the creation of idols in the vain pursuit of self-created
transcendence. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The economic fabricators
of idols become conformed to them (Ps. 115.8), taking on their unhearing,
unseeing, senseless impotence (vv. 5-7). Isa. 44.9-20 images <i>feeding on ashes</i>
(cf. Ps. 102.9) as foreshadowing the Capitalocene political economy of combustion
heedless of Creation’s material, limiting justice. Global heating is an apocalypse:
it is an unveiling of God’s anger at the human economy’s idolatries of waste
and social failures to address material privation of social outsiders, the
vulnerable, and the ignored.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span>Feeding is a
key prophetic, often condemnatory, image. Ezek. 5:10 is the central indictment
of a society that symbolically feeds on children, realized in history during
sieges of Jerusalem. In feeding on ashes, the human economy is feeding on God’s
children: The poor.</span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Prov. 30:15-16:
The leech has two daughters; “Give, give,” they cry. Three things are never
satisfied; four never say, “Enough”: Sheol, the barren womb, the earth ever
thirsty for water, and the fire that never says, “Enough.”</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span>This proverb graphically
symbolizes the rapacity and insatiability of economies of fire and the
appetites it stimulates, both of which never say “enough.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Ashes” is metonymy for the idolatrous appetite
for physical fire, a vain wish for vaporous oblivion, in contrast with the
Created desire for the Burning Bush that is not consumed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span>The “leech” is a
symbol for the worm of anxiety that sucks the blood of the poor. The economies
of fire are representations of a people not in accord with shalom: secure attachment
to the grace of God. This anxiety powers idolatry, most pronouncedly in the
military-industrial complex’s bottomless gullet eating its way to weaponized vanities
of security. The U.S. military makes war on the sky as the world’s largest
source of Greenhouse gas emissions. God’s heating anger is returned to us.</span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span>Thomas Hardy in
<i>The Return of the Native </i>(1878) places the psychological impetus to
feeding on ashes (the theme of the novel’s chapter 3) in atavistic, rebellious
instinct against nature’s cycles of providence:</span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">[T]o light a [bon]fire is the instinctive and resistant act of man
when, at the winter<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">ingress, the curfew is sounded throughout Nature. It indicates a
spontaneous,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Promethean rebelliousness against the fiat that this recurrent
season shall bring foul<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">times, cold darkness, misery and death. Black chaos comes, [as] the
fettered gods of the </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">earth say, Let there be light.</span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">European
settlers of Colonial New England <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>were
ash feeders. William Cronon describes how they altered the terrain, cleared
forests, setting the fallen timber ablaze with no instrumental purpose other
than stoking huge bonfires in rituals of domination of the land and its festive
festoon of ashes.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/PRCPC%20Earth%20Care%20sermon%20and%20041623%20service.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Their notions of property intruded onto Native American ecosystems accelerating
ecological degradation absent the virtues of thrift and self-restraint and the
responsibilities of trusteeship of nature’s providence. They mistook temporal
gifts of nature for an eschatological, eternal bounty in their conceit of a new
promised land. They actualized this religious conceit by rolling depletion (heir performative malice of bonfire and tree axes) to invade the putatively
boundless frontier. Cronon concludes, ''And in the long run, [boundless
material growth] was impossible…the [pilgrim fanatics] of plenty were a people
of waste” (ibid.). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>Beside the jigs around toppled trees and bonfires, there is an aesthetics—rather
an artless noise, an anti-poetics—of ash and ashmaking. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dickens,
in <i>Bleak House</i> (1853, ch. 63), images Babel’s noisome language in the
combustion economy:</span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[Rouncewell] comes to a gateway
in the brick wall, looks in, and sees a great perplexity of iron lying about in
every stage and in a vast variety of shapes—in bars, in wedges, in sheets; in
tanks, in boilers, in axles, in wheels, in cogs, in cranks, in rails; twisted
and wrenched into eccentric and perverse forms as separate parts of machinery;
mountains of it broken up, and rusty in its age; distant furnaces of it glowing
and bubbling in its youth; bright fireworks of it showering about under the
blows of the steam-hammer; red-hot iron,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an iron smell, and a
Babel of iron sounds.</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Ironically, this idolatry of noise, haste,
and military-industrial pursuits of vain security has become limited not by
combustible stocks of petroleum, but by the capacity of the atmosphere to act
as a sink for carbon dumped into it as what is called the Capitalocene—the geological
epoch of the furnace of finance—overflows creation’s limits accorded to this
generation. Yet not all humanity is equally complicit: As of 2017, “The richest
10 percent of people [were] responsible for up to 43 percent of destructive
global environmental impacts. In contrast, the poorest 10 percent in the world
[were] responsible just around 5 percent of these environmental impacts.”<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/PRCPC%20Earth%20Care%20sermon%20and%20041623%20service.docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Isaiah is a prophet for today’s environmental
crises: Isa. 50:11: “But all of you are kindlers of fire, lighters of firebrands.
Walk in the flame of your fire, and among the brands that you have kindled!
This is what you shall have from my hand: you shall lie down in [what I’m
paraphrasing as ‘angry heat.’]”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">It doesn’t have be this way. The writer(s)
of Genesis 1 revealed an alternative, novel, and non-violent cosmogony absent
hostile chaotic forces. We know the story:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;">Gen. 1:27 So God created
humankind in his image, … blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and
multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of
the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves
upon the earth… 31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was
very good. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;">With the use of the imperative verbs for “subdue” ( כָּבַשׁ
<i>kāḇaš</i>) and “have dominion”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>( <a name="_Hlk3888063">רָדָה <i>rāḏâ</i></a>) we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">seem</i> to re-enter the ANE cognitive environment of forceful
monarchical power granted to divine agents over the earth.</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> However, as I’ve preached to you before, dominion
never implies doing of violence just as it cannot not mean depleting the gifts
of the earth to support life—all life. Rather dominion as exemplified in Jesus
is <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">An “utopian anthropological maxim that
every human is a [guiding] “ruler” of the world”<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/PRCPC%20Earth%20Care%20sermon%20and%20041623%20service.docx#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
[who <i>subdues </i>spaces by virtue and grace that soothe anxieties and calms
conflict]. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><a name="_Hlk61869556"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;">As a directive to humanity in Gen. 1:28, </span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk61869556;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">“<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Subduing” is a social call to calming
virtues not an environmental program of natural exploitation to the point of depletion. As you’ve heard from me before: “Subduing” tames the
wild horse by “gentling” rather than “breaking.” The practice of dominion that
subdues the earth is through non-violent, redirective “grace pressures,” --<i>Aikido</i>-like<i>
</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>modeling the virtues of Christ: his humility,
charity, healing empathy, and reverence</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The unfortunate instrumental construal of “dominion” applied as
environmental “domination” began after a half-millennium of Christendom to
subordinate nature to human extractive and exploitative production processes. It
is as if a misreading of Gen. 1:28—our post-Fall forgetting that the prime
mover of both being and becoming is perfectly gracious--to focus on domination
of nature captivated the medieval and modern mind bent on economic growth, and,
like a black hole, vacuumed up all the light of Gen. 1 ontology of living grace
and of Gen. 2:15’s clear directive to humanity to act as trustees of nature’s
“garden.”--</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">to “serve”
and “guard/preserve” the garden. Linking “serve” (<a name="_Hlk20822241">עָבַד </a>āḇaḏ)
to “guard” (שָׁמַר <i>šāmar</i>) is humanity’s role of trustee for the
long-term, productive sustainability of nature’s deposits and yearly harvests.</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Near Eastern monotheistic religions
recognize the trustee principle of human responsibility for nature’s gifts.
Rabbi David Gordis (2001, 1369) derives the principle of <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">human</span> <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">trusteeship</span>
for the natural world from Torah. The Koran (II:29-30) links Creation with
human trusteeship of the earth: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;">29. He made for you all
that lies within the earth, then turning to the firmament He proportioned
several skies: He has knowledge of everything.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;">30. Remember, when your
Lord said to the angels: "I have to place a trustee on the earth</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">" (Al-Qur'<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">an 2001</span>).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As in the opening to
the Book of Genesis, God’s creating activity is linked by the Koran with the
need for designating a human trustee in the Creation. In all three religions,
humanity is <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">designated</span> the trustee by a
decree founded in the Creation account itself. Other religions have pantheistic
principles to care for the Earth. Human trusteeship and an earth care ethic is
ontological in every religion with which I am familiar. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>God’s directive to Adam in Gen. 2:15
includes the whole “garden,” so that the imperatives “Serve” (עָבַד<i> āḇaḏ</i>)
and “Guard” ( שָׁמַר šāmar ) stipulates that Adam/humanity manage and harvest
sustainably and without waste, enhancing the natural estate given by God at the
Creation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">As God formed man, adam, from the Earth, Adamah humanity is not
limited to the dust but is headed for Life in the Spirit. Yet Adam is
disconnecting itself from its living Adamah by its idolatrous focus on sustaining
and reveling in its ashenness-- pursuing dead Adamah, the extinguished fire,
the ash. Adam is seeking its mother’s breast in ashes. All of creation is groans,
as Paul says in Romans, a text that grounds the Global South’s Accra Confession
from 2004 that calls western imperialist economies to account for their environmental
profligacies.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The delusion of
Homo combustialis is that its capitolocene epoch of disrupting the geochemical
cycles of earth and sky is how it becomes divine—or at least its rich celebrities
become worshipped as so. Space pirates we, abandoning our trust over non-human
species.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Yet Psalm 104 incorporates other species into God’s provident care and
commonwealth:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Psalm
104: 1Bless <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">the LORD, O my soul. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>O LORD my God, you are very great. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are clothed with honor and majesty…</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">10You make springs gush forth in the valleys; <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they flow between the hills,</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>11giving
drink to every wild animal; <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the
wild asses quench their thirst. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>12By
the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they
sing among the branches. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>13From
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">your lofty abode you water the mountains; <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your
work. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>14 You cause the grass to grow for the
cattle, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and plants for people to use,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to bring forth food from the earth,</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>15and
wine to gladden the human heart, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>oil
to <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">make the face</span> shine, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and
bread to strengthen the human <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">heart. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>16The trees of the LORD are watered
abundantly, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>17In them the birds build their nests; <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the stork has</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> its <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">home in the fir
trees. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>18The high mountains are for the wild goats; <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the rocks are a refuge for the</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> coneys<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">….</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">27These all look to you <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to give them their food in due season; <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>28when
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">you give to them, they gather it up; <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>when
you open your hand, they are filled with good things. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Psalm 104 envisions the intentional, providential,
and </span><span style="mso-no-proof: yes; text-indent: 0.5in;">interdependent</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> ecosystem—with the
non-human species citizens of nature’s commonwealth. Psalm 148 incorporates
non-human species into the worshiping community, poetically reveling in their intrinsic—non-instrumental—value
as loved of God.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Psalm 148:1 Praise the LORD! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Praise the LORD from the heavens; <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>praise him in the heights! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2Praise him, all his angels; <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>praise him, all his host! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>3Praise him, sun and moon; <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>praise him, all you shining stars! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>4Praise him, you highest heavens, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and you waters above the heavens! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5Let them praise the name of the LORD, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for he commanded and they were created. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>6He established them forever and ever; <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>he fixed their bounds, which cannot be
passed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>7Praise the LORD from the earth, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>you sea monsters and all deeps, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>8fire and hail, snow and frost, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>stormy wind fulfilling his command! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>9Mountains and all hills, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>fruit trees and all cedars! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>10Wild animals and all cattle, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>creeping things and flying birds! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>11Kings of the earth and all peoples, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>princes and all rulers of the earth! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>12Young men and women alike, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>old and young together! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>13Let them praise the name of the LORD, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for his name alone is exalted; <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>his glory is above earth and heaven. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>14He has raised up a horn for his people, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>praise for all his faithful, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for the people of Israel who are close to
him. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-no-proof: yes;">Praise the LORD</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">! <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The totality of the created community is tasked by these two Psalms with
praising God. Yet humanity has caused a massed extinction event of wildlife
since 1970 as 60% of fauna, fish, reptile, and bird species have been entirely
extinguished. Moreover, human idolatry—greed and failure of trusteeship—has
disrupted authentic and covenanted worship of God by the full community of
Creation detailed in Psalm 148.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Isaiah, again, agrees with the Psalmist,
linking the providence of the Creator’s grace with all nature’s duty to honor
and praise:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Isa. 43: 19–20b (cf Job 38: 41–39:6)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">19 I am about to do a <b><i>new</i></b>
thing; <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>now
it springs forth, do you not perceive it? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
will make a way in the wilderness <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and
rivers in the desert. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>20The wild animals will honor me, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the
jackals and the ostriches; <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for
I give water in the wilderness, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>rivers in the desert.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Trusteeship not only involves managing the
resource base, <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">it</span> <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">involves</span> preserving the opportunities for a good life for all
created beings, including non-human species. The texts of the 6 days of
Biblical creation tell us that animals were like <i>adam </i>also drawn from
the soil and filled with the common breath. As Eccl. 3.19: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">For the fate of humans and the fate of
animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">They all have the same breath (</span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">רוּחַ</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span></span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>
rûaḥ),</span> <span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">As animals are enfleshed in relationship
with air, the vector of the Holy Spirit in Creation, they are companions to <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">humanity in the atmospheric processes</span> and
similarly endowed with usufruct rights to the garden’s clean and temperate air.
And to have an intrinsic right to life as praiseworthy and praising created
beings. Animals are existentially beloved of God and integral to God’s proper
worship as citizens of God’s ecosystem and natural commonwealth. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Animals are shown to have souls: Even the
animals repent (</span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">שׁוּב</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> šûb) in Nineveh in Jonah
3:7-8. God expresses compassion and care for Nineveh’s animals (Jonah 4: 11).</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> </span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Greg Boyd
asks, If humans will “judge the angels” (according to 1 Cor 6:3) because the
angels were entrusted with the caring of humanity, might humanity someday stand
before the tribunal (of the animal kingdom)" for which we are trustees over the
whole earth (see also Hab 2:17)?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">I could go much further into the scope and
depth of the Bible’s environmental ethic of care. I have not addressed the clear
Earth Care ethics in the Gospels, in Deuteronomy, or in the Book of Proverbs
among others. As Jesus’s call is directed to create civilizations of care, we
are earthbound to the broadest expanse of the ethics of earth care. Grace knows
no cosmic limit! No territorial or species boundary!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The sky communicates (reveals) to humanity
God’s sustaining relationship (rainbow, winds, works) so that the sky and atmosphere are the frontier of idolatry’s assault: to treat the sky
as a non-living entity devoid of the Spirit’s action and energies, a dump for byproducts
of the combustion economy. <a name="_Toc23781658"></a><a name="_Toc32996990"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc23781658;"><o:p></o:p></span></a></span></p>
<span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc23781658;"></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc32996990;"></span>
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">We conclude by returning
to Eccl 1.4</span></span></b><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> as a key text for directing
conscience toward loyalty to the earth & our given place on it. The claim
that the earth remains <span dir="RTL" lang="HE">לְעוֹלָ֥ם</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> (leʿôlām: “forever”) This
signifies an eternal status for this aeon’s terra firma that is networked into bodies
& soul destined for eternity. Do we not know that we were created in
partnership with the creatures of the earth and its cycles, with landscapes that gave
our souls sensibility—that shaped our language in natural metaphors and awareness
of its energies and power? [6] Human loyalty necessarily must accommodate, commune, & commit to the terrain & atmosphere encountered during its ever earthly
walk. There is no evidence that such a sustaining terrain & atmosphere
exists for humanity in outer space so that we can trash this planet’s
sustaining processes to get there. The lure of outer space is an illusion
tailored for our death-dealing age of furnace finance. The lure of outer space demands our death.
Mars calls our language and our arts to die. Our air and water which enter and exit our <i>nephesh to </i>become poisoned. Even if our bodies could live, our souls
would die!</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Never in the
prophets is condemnation the final word, as God mercifully restores the people repentant.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">We see this as Isaiah
sums up with a prophecy of grace to counter our contemporary tendency to feel doomed
in these crisis—this crucible of an increasingly fevered planet. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Isa. 25.5: “the
noise of aliens like heat in
a dry place, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>you subdued the heat with the shade of
clouds; </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the song of the ruthless was stilled. </span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">For this
prophecy of grace is that not even human idolatry and injustice may extinguish the
incarnate, sanctified cosmos. God will work even in and through our ashes.
Despite our ashes and ash making. For God knows we come from dust. Grace is
what shapes dust and fructifies ashes. From the ashes of our histories baptized
by the Jordan. Our destiny ensured not by war’s Martian phoenix but by grace’s riverside dove. By
his Spirit, Christ is truly and irreversibly becoming all-in-all (Col. 3.11), even
in the ashes of our making. May this dove’s vision be so for all <i>adam</i>.
For you and me. Amen.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p style="font-size: 12pt;"></o:p></span></span></p>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/PRCPC%20Earth%20Care%20sermon%20and%20041623%20service.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="mso-ansi-language: DE;"> </span><span lang="DE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: DE;">Cited in </span>Jenkins, Willis. 2013.
<i>The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity.</i>
Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press..<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/PRCPC%20Earth%20Care%20sermon%20and%20041623%20service.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Jenkins
2013.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText">Jenkins, Willis “Atmospheric Powers, Global Injustice,
and Moral Incompetence: Challenges to Doing Social Ethics from Below.” <i>Journal
of the Society of Christian Ethics</i> 34, no. 1 (2014): 65–82. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText">Jenkins, Willis, Berry, Evan, and Luke Beck Kreider.
“Religion and Climate Change.” <i>Annual Review of Environment and Resources
</i>43:9.1–9.24 (2018).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText">Moe-Lobeda, Cynthia D. n.d. “Climate Change as Climate
Debt: Forging a Just Future.” Manuscript. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoFootnoteText">———. 2013. <i>Resisting Structural Evil: Love as
Ecological and Economic Vocation</i>. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/PRCPC%20Earth%20Care%20sermon%20and%20041623%20service.docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Cronon,
William. 2003. C<i>hanges in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New
England.</i> New York: Hill and Wang.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/PRCPC%20Earth%20Care%20sermon%20and%20041623%20service.docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/capitalism-is-eroding-safe-operating-space-for-humanity-warn-scientists-6e469132dbba<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="https://d.docs.live.net/ff394fb82e7b0145/Documents/Christianity/PRCPC%20Earth%20Care%20sermon%20and%20041623%20service.docx#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wagner 1995, <i>Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament</i>, vol. VII, 54-56.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText">[6] e.g. see https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/interactive/2023/birds-song-nature-mental-health-benefits/?fbclid=IwAR3ekiygzo_5b_MnNP-DNLbmqGYxuY3jPD4_lUVNiCOeyfhtOIUji8WG-Rw</p>
</div>
</div>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-74931376095046987922023-03-24T13:41:00.041-07:002023-03-27T18:18:19.603-07:00Sermon: "Journeying towards Grace"<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">"Journeying towards Grace"</span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Rev. Dr. Douglas Olds</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">5th Sunday in Lent<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Point Reyes (California) Community Presbyterian Church <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-size: medium;">March 26, 2023</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i>Singing grace that carves its snowy echoes,</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i>God’s pupils ripple time</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i>weaving galaxies </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i>beaded by strange esurience. I shudder.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i>Or Lazarus woken from death with a single tear.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i>More still should negligent and naught I shudder </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i>But God is not I. Joy will come, baby Achilles true. </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i>By songs cut your spears out from inherited schemes </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i>And circumcise the heavens by which obscuring lights you tread.</i></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Old Testament Reading: </span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Ezekiel 37:1–14 (NRSV)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">37 The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out
by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was
full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in
the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these
bones live?” I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.” 4 Then he said to me,
“Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the
LORD. 5 Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to
enter you, and you shall live. 6 I will lay sinews on you, and will cause
flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you
shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.” </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I
prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came
together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and
flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in
them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and
say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath,
and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10 I prophesied as he
commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their
feet, a vast multitude. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the
whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost;
we are cut off completely.’ 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus
says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your
graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.
13 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and
bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within
you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall
know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act,” says the LORD.</span></span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">New Testament Reading:
John 11:1–45</span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (NRSV)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">11 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village
of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord
with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill.
3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”
4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death;
rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through
it.” 5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus,
6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in
the place where he was.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go
to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just
now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 Jesus answered,
“Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not
stumble, because they see the light of this world. 10 But those who walk
at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” 11 After saying this,
he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to
awaken him.” 12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep,
he will be all right.” 13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his
death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14 Then
Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15 For your sake I am glad I
was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 Thomas,
who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we
may die with him.” </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already
been in the tomb four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two
miles away, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console
them about their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she
went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21 Martha said to Jesus,
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even
now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” 23 Jesus said
to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know
that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus
said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even
though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me
will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I
believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the
world.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">28 When she had said this, she went back and called her
sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for
you.” 29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him.
30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place
where Martha had met him. 31 The Jews who were with her in the house,
consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because
they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 When Mary
came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord,
if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw
her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly
disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, “Where have you laid
him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus began to weep.
36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them
said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man
from dying?”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the
tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said,
“Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord,
already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus
said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory
of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said,
“Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear
me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they
may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a
loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and
feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to
them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary
and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.//</span></span></p></blockquote><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span> </span>Two monumental questions are posed by our texts these
mornings: One specific to the text, one indicated: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><i>Can these bones live?<o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><i>Why did Jesus weep over Lazarus? </i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">If he knew Lazarus had an eternal destiny as his loved
friend?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">The body of Lazarus is attended by “Jews” (v. 19), which in John, himself almost certainly a Jew, means the <i>Jewish leaders</i>. Lazarus thus has some level of high social status.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><o:p><span><span> </span><span><span> </span></span></span></o:p><span>My first question this morning goes on: Did Jesus weep out of
compassion for the dead man or for the survivors? Mary and Martha?</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> Out of frustration
with the people’s lack of understanding or faith? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Let us reread John 11:21–27:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my
brother would not have died. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">22But even now I know that God will give you whatever you
ask of him.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">24Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the
resurrection on the last day.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.
Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">27She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the
Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Martha here redeems herself from the negative aspersion of
Luke 10. Do you remember it?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Luke 10:39–42 (NRSV)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">39She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet
and listened to what he was saying. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">40But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came
to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all
the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">41But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are
worried and distracted by many things; </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">42there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the
better part, which will not be taken away from her.”</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Alan Noble says of Luke 10: ‘We
are a people of Marthas, chronically unable to cease our work to delight in
Christ. We feel safer when we have exhausted ourselves labouring for our own
justification.’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">But now, in the Gospel of John, Martha's character is reformed by choosing the
better portion: allegiance to the resurrecting power of Jesus the Messiah.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Martha has laid aside her self-justifying labor to express
allegiance and trust in the power of Jesus to bring her brother back to life. By this, Martha
too is brought back to life. Given eternal life. Amen!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">To return to my original question, “why did Jesus weep?” I think
Jesus weeps not only out of compassion for the family of Mary, Martha, and
Lazarus, but because Jesus recognizes the exceedingly great value of THIS life
that has been cut short. Lazarus had not fulfilled his potential for life-experiencing
and life-extending to others because death had cut short his time on earth. Note that
Jesus does not express that commonplace piety, “He’s in a better place now. His
struggles are over.” No, Jesus weeps at the death of Lazarus, the bereavement of
his family, the opportunities for growth and service that Lazarus (and the world!) might miss out on.
The love cut off in absence and in grief.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">So my first message this morning is: This life is not an
illusion of suffering with real life to come “in heaven.” This life is so valuable to its
bearers and their loved ones that even God weeps at the death of His little
ones. Ps. 116:15: “Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his saints (his
<i>Hasid)</i>.” Jesus’s tears anoint his <i>Hasid</i>—his saints. As I mentioned last time,
the <i>Hasid </i>were those who experienced God’s steadfast love (<i>hesed</i>) AND practiced the
same. Those sanctified by grace to extend grace. That saint annointed by tears is Lazarus now returned to the stage of history by Jesus’s healing, and now also Martha is entering
the stage of eternity through her profession of adherence to Jesus as Lord. Jesus tears have the
supplicating power of absolute compassion. For all of us. Amen!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">My second question this morning repeats Ezekiel’s looking at history's recrudescent
fields of dead bones: “Can these bones live?” Follows a vivid description of
the re-fleshing of the bones, which the Church has often associated with the
resurrection of bodies at the end of days—at the final judgment. However, the Lord
explains Ezekiel’s vision to him, identifying the spiritual allegory (actually a "prophetic mirror" absent the people's repentance) in v. 11:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">11Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole
house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we
are cut off completely.’</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">God goes on:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">12Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord
GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my
people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">13And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your
graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">14I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I
will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have
spoken and will act,” says the LORD.</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">The dead bones in the valley are what to our unillumined eyes
might look like living inhabitants. But they are unrepentant, militaristic, spiritually dead. They are skeletons in the
fields of slaughter that they themselves are plotting against enemies. This story
is of the recrudescent slaughter of nations warring against nations, leaving
behind the killing fields. Leaving behind our blessed destiny if we plan and carry
forth war.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">But there is another way: grace. Following the Holy Spirit
will revive us by overturning our death-dealing plans and redirecting them into acts of grace and
care of others. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">An apocryphal book from before the time of Jesus is called
Maccabees. It recounts a history of Jews
in Judea who died defending their homeland against Seleucid domination in the
years 166–160 B.C.E. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">4 Maccabees 18:3–5 (NRSV)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">3Therefore those who gave over their bodies in suffering for
the sake of religion were not only admired by mortals, but also were deemed
worthy to share in a divine inheritance. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">4Because of them the nation gained peace, and by reviving
observance of the law in the homeland they ravaged the enemy. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">5The tyrant Antiochus was both punished on earth and is
being chastised after his death. Since in no way whatever was he able to compel
the Israelites to become pagans and to abandon their ancestral customs, he left
Jerusalem and marched against the Persians.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">4 Maccabees 18:16–19 (NRSV)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">16 He recounted to you Solomon’s proverb, ‘There is a tree
of life for those who do his will.’ 17 He confirmed the query of Ezekiel,
‘Shall these dry bones live?’ 18 For he did not forget to teach you the song
that Moses taught, which says, 19 ‘I kill and I make alive: this is your life
and the length of your days.’ ”</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">So in this apocryphal book and that of 1 Enoch too, the dry
bones of the slaughtered house of Israel are linked with the promise of resurrection
for their service to the Jewish homeland. These apocryphal books are linking
holy warfare with eternal bliss accomplished by resurrection after death. There
is a reason that the early Church, when it assembled its Bible, considered
these two books—4 Macc and 1 Enoch-- to be non-canonical. These texts do not
point to the eternal life-giving grace of and through Jesus Christ, but instead
arrogate divine warrant to warriors to take up arms in service of the homeland.
So many misled Christians through the ages have made this same mistake.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span>So as Easter is approaching, let’s revisit the question to
Ezekiel: “Can these bones live?” My initial proposal is, only through the Holy Spirit of Jesus
Christ and his revelation of Absolute Grace and ministry that brings </span><i>shalom.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Seeking life after death has ever been on the mind of
humanity. An answer shared by pagans and many moderns is that one lives on in the memories and posterity of a triumphant
nation secured inside war-shaping boundaries. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">No. And No: Absolutely No.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Paul in his letter to the Galatians speaks of Christians too inheriting the promises made to Abraham in the Book of Genesis. In the letter
to the Romans, Paul in chapter 4 again calls us to consider Abraham and Abraham’s
existential wonder: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Romans 4:16–21 (NRSV)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">16 [But] for… those who share the faith of Abraham (for he
is the father of all of us, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">17as it is written, “I have made you the father of many
nations”)—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the
dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">18Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the
father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your
descendants be.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">19He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own
body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old),
or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">20No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God,
but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">21being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had
promised.</span></p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Abraham’s existential question is “can these bones live,”
but he isn’t pointing toward skulls in a valley. He is pointing to his and his
wife’s age-desiccated loins. Their absence of children.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">For Christians and inheritors of the promises to Abraham, the
journey into life—the journey that we revisit and encapsulate during the season
of Lent—involves being renewed with new life in our previously dead flesh and
bones. <span style="line-height: 107%;">Abraham journeys into
life through active and ethical allegiance to God so that he & his aged
wife Sarah come to have the children of promise.</span><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span> Later, the prophets consider the spiritual deadness of
their compatriots and receive the vision of embodied renewal by the Holy
Spirit. The message is that human life has exceeding value here and now. Eternal
Life does NOT begin in heaven. Eternity is past, present, and future. Life came
to Abraham, life came to the prophets, and while there is always the lure of
detour into the scandalous religion of war, resurrected life comes through Jesus
the messiah as the next sequence in our journey of grace. History progresses.
Easter comes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">But I am getting ahead of the calendar.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">We are still in Lent. Today is the 5<sup>th</sup> Sunday of
that journey of lament into joy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Lamentations 1:9 summarizes the aim of all biblical lament: “O Lord,
look at my affliction.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Psalm 130 from which I prayed as the open to my sermon is like all
biblical lament seeking to get God to feel what the sufferer is feeling: “God,
I’m dying here!” Jesus, God as Man, weeps. God feels what we feel, suffers what
we suffer. Even knowing that life created by God is inextinguishable, the
struggles of life bring both grief and the growth of recognition
and renewals of grace. The earthly journey has eternal meaning. Our efforts in
this life have massive import. This repeats my message for this 5<sup>th</sup>
Sunday of Lent.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Lent is a time of self-criticism, our criticism of our
participations in vain systems of human institutions and human ethics that try
to bring on our self-interested idea of what God’s kingdom <i>should</i> be. Our self-reflections on our limitations and selfishness should disabuse us of our perspective of what "should be." Reflection stems from our participation in Christ’s journey from life to death to life that will
recommence next week in Palm Sunday. What we’ve been struggling with all during Lent
will be realized in the graphic images of Holy Week’s frustrated death-dealing
that gives life: its flakes and plotters
in the onlooking crowds and especially among Jesus’ closest followers. Among
us! A great reversal.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Unexpected: </span><span>A Grand Surprise by which we might recognize God breaking into history through miracle.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Rev. Benjamin Cremer writes of our Lenten struggle with the old ways and the Great Reversal of next week:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">We want the war horse.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Jesus rides a donkey. [A surprise opening]<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">We want the bird of prey.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">The Holy Spirit descends as a dove. [A preceding miracle]<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">We want the militia.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Jesus calls fishermen, tax collectors, women, & children.
[A social surprise and ministry of wonder]<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">We want to take up swords.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Jesus takes up a cross. [The penultimate miracle]<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">We want the courtroom.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Jesus sets a table. [A surprise the night before!]<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">We want the gavel.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Jesus washes feet. [Grace revealed at the table]<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">We want the nation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Jesus calls the church. [The ongoing miracle]<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">We want the roaring lion.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">God comes as a slaughtered lamb. [A miracle to shock our souls]<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">We keep trying to arm God.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">God keeps trying to disarm us. </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">[A call to repentance]</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; line-height: 150%;">[We want to hold onto our self-definitions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; line-height: 150%;">Jesus says, come & follow me into dying to yourself] [Baptism's miracle of rebirth]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"> </span><span>Becoming who God designed you to be by being agents of
healing & life-giving grace. This is my message for staying awake this
penultimate week of Lent's journey from death toward eternal life.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Amen. </span><o:p style="font-size: 15pt;"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">[<u><b>Postscript:</b></u> <span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why do skeptics demand evidence of law-busting miracle in shocked nature for evidence of God? Non-human nature operates according to the providential patterns and laws of Creation discoverable and confirmed by science. Skepticism lured by the routines and explanatory success of natural science has concluded that the watchmaker is absent.</span></span></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">But it is the disorders of humanity that necessitate the miracle. We should not be discomfited, then, that modern miracle is confined to the ethical, epistemological, and aesthetic--the drives of human society that require divine recalibration. Divine simplicity and elegance would suggest that these recalibrations, except for the cosmic miracle of the Cross, occur generationally and subtly. But they happen. Most often through the immanent agency of saintly genius. May we be awake to their steady punctuations of human surprise from our neighbor as in ourselves, evidences of the Holy Spirit.]</span></div></div>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2908478219879817119.post-31737714249368700212023-03-07T10:56:00.004-08:002023-03-07T18:18:07.701-08:00<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Douglas Olds Twitter Archive</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">2013-9/2020</span></p><p><br /></p><p>Because of the uncertainty regarding Twitter, I have archived my Twitter activity at the following address:</p><p><a href=" https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K3cdIm3PKEWNx7DDwlOp-vP3sOgkLhQ0/view?usp=share_link" target="_blank">Rev. Douglas Olds Twitter posts and activity from 2013 to 9/2020</a>: <a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-1dbjc4n r-1loqt21 r-1wbh5a2 r-dnmrzs r-1ny4l3l" href="https://twitter.com/RevDrOlds" role="link" style="-webkit-box-align: stretch; -webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; align-items: stretch; background-color: white; border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline !important; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 1; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; z-index: 0;" tabindex="-1"></a></p><div class="css-901oao css-1hf3ou5 r-14j79pv r-18u37iz r-37j5jr r-1wvb978 r-a023e6 r-16dba41 r-rjixqe r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" dir="ltr" style="-webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: horizontal; border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #536471; display: inline !important; flex-direction: row; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: "ss01"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" style="border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; white-space: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>@RevDrOlds</b></span></span></div><p> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K3cdIm3PKEWNx7DDwlOp-vP3sOgkLhQ0/view?usp=share_link</p>Rev. Douglas Oldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03018040847276797689noreply@blogger.com0