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Reason 2: He rescued eschatology from irrelevance.

It’s not easy to talk about the end of the world. Jesus followers have been debating and discussing these matters for over two thousand years with a wide variation of answers. To put these diverse views on a scale, we can say there are two polarizing dangers: One, we can focus so much on what’s coming that we trivialize the present. (You’ve heard that phrase that some people are “of such heavenly mind they’re no earthly good.”) Two, we can focus so little on what’s coming that we trivialize the future.

In the modern period of Enlightenment, eschatology (the study of the ‘last things’) fell upon especially hard times. Theologians argued that no rational thinking person could have faith in a religion based on some superstitious view of what God will do in the future. Rudolf Bultmann famously embodied this understanding when he recast eschatology as something inherently personal and exclusively individualist; eschatology is the event of our own sense of judgment. Others chose to make eschatology a caricature of itself- one with charts and fatalistic predictions. Many of us understandably look at these options and consider giving up on eschatology entirely. The problem, of course, is that Judeo-Christian faith is by very definition an eschatological faith. And it is corporately, and even cosmically so.

Into this overly individualistic, self-indulgent, rational-overdrive environment, Moltmann birthed a theology of hope. He refused to say that eschatology didn’t matter. In fact, he did the opposite. When all other theologians began with creation and (much like their treatment of the Spirit) ended with a few vague paragraphs about eschatology, Moltmann exploded onto the scene by writing his first major theological work through the lens of eschatological hope. He writes, “The eschatological is not one element of Christianity, but it is the medium of Christian faith as such, the key in which everything in it is set, the glow that suffuses everything here in the dawn of an expected new day” (Theology of Hope, p.16).

What of superstition? Moltmann says our question is not “What can I know of historical facts?” but “What may I hope for?” There is a questionableness to all history and all human existence, and our task is to trust in the promise of God, which is above all a promise of redemption.

What of heavenly preoccupation? Moltmann says that a Jesus follower “does not find himself ‘in the air’, ‘between God and the world’, but he finds himself along with the world in that process to which the way is opened by the eschatological promise of Christ” (p.69 TOH).

Thank you, Professor, for showing us the third way between eschatological irrelevance and eschatological hyper-vigilance…and for showing us that redemptive, transformative hope is breathtakingly beautiful.

At our weekly Moltmann reading group we’ve been having a lot of discussions about judgment- specifically, what does God’s judgment look like and what is it for? This is an understandable talking point for those who are reading “A Theology of Hope” for the first time, because Moltmann’s view of judgment is quite different than what has become standard for many evangelical Christians. Without getting into all the details (too early on a Monday morning), it can be quite simply summarized in this one question: do you believe God’s goal is judgment or reconciliation? Or, even more broadly stated, is the God revealed to us through Abraham and Sarah, through the law and the prophets, through the crucified and resurrected Jesus a God of judgment or a God of reconciliation?

As you consider that question, it may be helpful to remember that reconciliation does not eliminate judgment. (We tend to keep going over that point, because many take these two to be either-or propositions.) Reconciliation by its definition requires honesty in judging whether one’s actions and intentions are right, good, just, pure, loving, gracious. Reconciliation requires us to confront those people who have done us harm. But the GOAL of that kind of judgment is not the punishment itself but the reconciliation of a relationship that has gone astray.

Last night at Journey we had a wonderful conversation on Matthew 5:21-26. These are the verses in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus talks about our command to be the kind of people who do not resort to violence, who do not spew our own anger onto others, who do not insult others and call them fools. Our command is not to be judging people but reconciling people. If you have something against another, Jesus says, don’t think you can come to the altar and offer a sacrifice and get off the hook just because you made nice with God. Go seek out the person, confront them, work it out as best you can. If you are to be my people, then you’re going to have to do the hard work of being a reconciling people.

We tend instead to be conflict-avoidant people, passive-aggressive people, forget-it-and-move-on-but-still-harbor-resentment people. Sometimes, we decide to be shove-it-in-their-face-until-they-weep people. Jesus tells us we won’t get out of that prison of anger until we’ve paid the last penny. And it’s going to be a costly kind of life choice.

To he God’s people, the way I understand it, is to be people who work always toward reconciliation. It may not happen overnight, we may not have control over the actions of others, it may not work out like an episode of Growing Pains. But we follow the God who, as 2 Corinthians 5:18 says, has reconciled us to Godself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That’s our job description in the world, or at least a big part of it- we are to be the reconciling people.

My friend Troy sent me this poem today. It’s very fitting, as our Journey Moltmann Group has been having nonstop conversations about the idea of God being all in all, which Moltmann believes is THE promise through which all other promises will be fulfilled. I’ll blog more about this later, but for now, the poem…

All in All

In this way, (and note) accordingly,
we might suppose that at the someday
consummation—what I would call
the promised restoration of all things—
those who make their gradual advance,
as well as those ascending
will step surprised into that land, into
the healing action of its elements.
Here, each will be prepared for all
immense occassions to which
nothing futher can be added.
And here, the King of all, Himself,
will school each blinking creature
in this the holy enterprise, instructing
all and reigning in them ’til He has
led them wholly to the Father—who
you’ll find has joined all things to Himself
—that is, until they are made capable
of receiving God, so that the God
may ever be to them The All in All.

-Origen of Alexandra (translation by Scott Cairns, Paraclete 2007)

Stepping surprisingly into a land and into the healing action of its elements? God schooling each blinking creature into the holy enterprise of promised restoration? Breathtaking, dear Origen. Just breathtaking.