Archive | January, 2011

Jesus and the Kingdom

by on January 31, 2011

This Monday morning’s Moltmann minute, from the opening chapter of Jesus Christ for Today’s World:

Anyone who gets involved with Jesus gets involved with the Kingdom of God. This is an inescapable fact, for Jesus’ own concern was, and is, God’s kingdom. Anyone who looks for God and asks about the kingdom in which ‘righteousness and peace kiss one another (Ps. 85:10) should look at Jesus and enter into the things that happened in his presence and that still happen today in his Spirit. That is obviously and palpably true; for who is Jesus: Simply the kingdom of God in person.

The two belong inseparably together: Jesus and the kingdom of God–the kingdom of God and Jesus. Jesus brings God’s kingdom to us human beings in his own unique way, and guides us into the breadth and beauty of the kingdom. And God’s kingdom makes Jesus the Christ, the savior and deliverer for us all. So if we want to learn what that mysterious ‘kingdom of God’ really is, we have to look at Jesus. And if we want to understand who Jesus really is, we have to experience the kingdom of God.

-Jesus Christ for Today’s World, p.7

Most of us are familiar with the concept of Jesus being the Word incarnate, as the Gospel of John tells us.  He is the word made flesh, the words of the prophets and the judges and the kings fully realized in human form.  ”And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).  I love that Moltmann expands this idea to its theo/logical conclusion.  Jesus is not only the Word made flesh, but is also, simply, the kingdom of God in person.  In this one person, we see the fullness of God’s realm.  And from his kingdom fullness, we have received “grace upon grace.”

There’s always a lot of debate about the kingdom in theological circles–what it is, where it is, how it is, and perhaps most ardently, what we should call it–and perhaps this is why I’m so drawn to the elegant simplicity of Moltmann’s words.  All of those things are worth discussing (and of course M himself does so at more length in other places) but it’s very helpful to start by reminding ourselves that this idea is not some abstract strange possibility looming in the universe.  It has come to us through the person of Jesus, who definitively showed us what it is, where it is, and how it is.  If we want to get anywhere at all in our discussions about the mysterious kingdom, we have to look at Jesus.

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Freedom as Community

by on January 24, 2011

Happy Moltmann Monday!  Some thoughts on freedom, love, and community for you:

The truth of freedom is love. It is only in love that human freedom arrives at its truth. I am free and feel myself to be truly free when I am respected and recognized by others and when I for my part respect and recognize them. I become truly free when I open my life for other people and share with them, and when other people open their lives for me and share them with me. Then the other person is no longer the limitation of my freedom; he is an expansion of it…

‘Divide and rule’ is the old, familiar method of domination. As long as freedom means lordship, everything has to be separated, isolated, detached and distinguished, so that it can be dominated. But if freedom means community, fellowship, then we experience the uniting of everything that has hitherto been separated. The alienation of person from person, the division between human society and nature, the dichotomy between soul and body, and, finally, religious anxiety are abolished; liberation is experienced when people are again one: one with each other, one with nature, and one with God. Freedom as community is therefore a movement that counters the history of power and class struggles, in which freedom could only be viewed in terms of lordship.

Freedom as lordship destroys community. As lordship, freedom is a lie. The truth of human freedom lies in the love that breaks down barriers. It leads to unhindered, open communities in solidarity. It is only this freedom that can heal the wounds which freedom as lordship has inflicted, and still inflicts today.

-The Trinity and the Kingdom, p.216

The older I get, the more amazed I become at how adept we are as humans at creating barriers.  We can do this with such great subtlety and complexity that it boggles the mind.  Last night a Journeyer and I were talking about the crazy idea of God loving all of us, even the terrible ones of us, even US when we are terrible, and we had to sigh a moment and shake our heads, exhausted at the very idea of attempting a love like that.  Love that breaks down barriers is hard work, and we know it.  Dear God, we know it.  But as Moltmann says so well, the truth of human freedom lies there- hidden right in there, waiting for us like an unwrapped present behind those barriers we’ve worked so hard to construct.  You know what else is hard?  Trying to be part of/create/encourage/pastor an unhindered, open community in solidarity with our world.  Dear God, that’s hard, too.  The upside, however, is that if we believe this crazy love of God to be true, the effort is absolutely worth it.  Our freedom’s in there, and everyone else’s, too, waiting to counter the history of power struggle and heal the wounds created by a false freedom predicated on lordship.  The truth of freedom is love.  Always has been, always will be.

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Taking responsibility for our enemies

by on January 10, 2011

Fitting words of wisdom from Moltmann after this weekend’s tragedy in Tucson:

Today the peoples of the earth are entering a shared global history, because they are all mortally endangered, on the one hand by the nuclear threat they pose to one another, and on the other by the ecological crises they share. And the more this global history develops, the more important human rights will become, if we are to build a world-wide human society capable of warding off these perils. Human rights will therefore increasingly become the universally valid framework, capable of winning a general acceptance, by which humane politics are judged and legitimated. The recognition and realization of human rights for all human beings is going to be the factor which decides whether a global human community develops  out of this divided and perilous world, or whether human beings destroy themselves and this earth.  Because of the extreme danger of the present situation, the authority of human rights must be placed above all the particularist interests of nations, groups, religions and cultures. Today, the religious claims to particularist absoluteness and the ruthless implementation of particularist political interests are a threat to the continued existence of humanity itself.

Moltmann continues by discussing the idea of an open society, one in which people gather together not only out of shared similarity (Aristotle’s “like is only known by like”) but more importantly, out of a dialectical exchange (“other is known only by other”).  He continues,

The basic law of a society like this is ‘recognition of the other’ in his or her difference. Societies which develop according to this principle are not closed societies. Nor are they uniform societies, where people are brought into line. They are open societies. They can live not only with different and dissimilar people, but also, as Karl Popper required, with their enemies, too; for they can even make the enmity of their enemies frutiful for the things that are of concern to them.

How is that possible? Must a society’s enemies not be told: either adapt or emigrate? I do not believe so. While the foundation of a society consisting of people who are like each other is normally the love of friends, the foundation of the society made up of the different is, if the worst comes to the worst, the love of enemies. To love our enemies means taking responsibility not just for ourselves and for those who belong to us, but for our enemies too. We then no longer ask merely: how can we defend ourselves against our possible enemies? Our question now is: how can we take away their enmity, so that we can all survive together? In this sense, love of our enemies is the foundation for a shared life in conflicts.

-God for a Secular Society, pages 117-118 and 145-146 (bold mine)

America as a nation is, arguably, a project that can be described as a “society made up of the different.”  We hold no national religion, no singular monarch, no required creed other than the idea of freedom and democracy. That idea is one that is by its very definition open and not closed. And yet, there are very real limitations to our freedom, if we are to create a society that does not end in mutual self destruction.  (As the Pima County sheriff put so well, “Free speech is not without consequences.”)

Enough has been said already about the need to tone down the national rhetoric that is present in both parties and along both extremes of the political spectrum. (Then again, it’s been said for nearly three years now with stunning regularity, and I haven’t noticed many people taking it to heart…)  What I think Moltmann most strongly calls to our attention is the fact that in society, we cannot shun our responsibility for one another and expect to survive or thrive. If we are at all invested in fostering the American project of a society made up of the different, we must hold ourselves and one another accountable in such a way that does not increase enmity but diffuses it.

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Merry Epiphany!

by on January 6, 2011

Happy twelfth day of Christmas to all of you!  Take notes on the appropriate festive mood from my camel friend here.

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Preaching in Community- new column at Patheos

by on January 4, 2011

Hey friends, I recently started writing a column over at Patheos in their Preachers Portal.  I’ll be blogging there every other week, sharing stories about the process of preaching as a communal practice.  I’d love for you to check it out and let me know what you think!  This week, I talk about planning our annual New Years stations.  You can read it here.

*Also, a few people have said they can’t find the column when they go to the Patheos homepage.   Scroll over “Resources” on the top bar and then click on “Preachers Portal.”  Or, use this link to go to my Patheos homepage directly.  Hope that helps!

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We have arrived at God

by on January 3, 2011

Happy New Year, everyone!  I hope you enjoyed your Christmas break as much as I did.   It’s our first Moltmann Monday of 2011, and today’s excerpt comes from his book Jesus Christ for Today’s World.  I found it fitting as we celebrate these last few days of Christmastide and ponder what it means that the Christ child has come among us.  And it’s also a great rallying cry of hope and fresh starts as we begin a brand new year.

What happens for us and in us through Christ has two sides to it: in Christ we find God, and we find ourselves in Christ…If we live in Christ then we have this unique experience of God.  God has arrived with us.  He is so present, so close, that in him we live and move and have our being.  If we live in Christ then we have this unique experience of the self: we have arrived at God. We are good, just and beautiful, like a newly made creature on the first day of creation. The ‘old things’ are the burden of injustice and violence that weighs us down; and now this can be thrown away like an old coat. The new thing which is the springtime of the whole creation has already taken hold of us. (page 136-137)

Of all the cleaning, organizing and re-prioritizing I’ve been doing over the past few days in the spirit of a blank calendar, most of all I’m hoping that I remember continually to toss off the “old things” that weigh me down, to throw them away like an old coat, and to remind myself that I have arrived at God, and God has arrived with us, and this transaction makes the whole world good, and just, and beautiful.  What better start to the year could we possibly ask for?!

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