I'm going to have to make this myself, too, aren't I?

Thanks to a conversation with a friend, I now want a website with the official polity, judicial precedent, etc. of all denominations on full inclusion of GLBT persons (ordination, membership, etc.).

"I tore these out of your symbol, and they turned into paper"

Catching up on blogposts today, I read:

Serendipitously, Adam Gopknik in the current edition of The New Yorker, writes that often the edgy spirituality of Jesus as recorded in the gospels sounds a lot like Jack Kerouac: not some programmatic radicalism of a national revolution, but "the Kerouac-like-satori-seeking-on-the-road" of the Beats at their best.

Having recently read (and been very affected by) Horsley's Jesus and Empire, I went, "No!" -- and then I went to look for the article ("What Did Jesus Do?: Reading and unreading the Gospel" by Adam Gopnik - May 24, 2010).

I don't agree with everything in the article, but I did find a lot of it striking.

Excerpts:
 

In Mark, the voice says, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased,” seeming to inform a Jesus who doesn’t yet know that this is so. But some early versions of Luke have the voice quoting Psalm 2: “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.” Only in Matthew does it announce Jesus’ divinity to the world as though it were an ancient, fixed agreement, not a new act. In Mark, for that matter, the two miraculous engines that push the story forward at the start and pull it toward Heaven at the end—the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection—make no appearance at all. The story begins with Jesus’ adult baptism, with no hint of a special circumstance at his birth, and there is actually some grumbling by Jesus about his family (“Only in his home town, among his relatives and in his own house, is a prophet without honor,” he complains); it ends with a cry of desolation as he is executed—and then an enigmatic and empty tomb. (It’s left to the Roman centurion to recognize him as the Son of God after he is dead, while the verses in Mark that show him risen were apparently added later.)

[...]

 

While accepting a historical Jesus, the scholarship also tends to suggest that the search for him is a little like the search for the historical Sherlock Holmes: there were intellectual-minded detectives around, and Conan Doyle had one in mind in the eighteen-eighties, but the really interesting bits—Watson, Irene Adler, Moriarty, and the Reichenbach Falls—were, even if they all had remote real-life sources, shaped by the needs of storytelling, not by traces of truth. Holmes dies because heroes must, and returns from the dead, like Jesus, because the audience demanded it. (The view that the search for the historical Jesus is like the search for the historical Superman—that there’s nothing there but a hopeful story and a girlfriend with an alliterative name—has by now been marginalized from the seminaries to the Internet; the scholar Earl Doherty defends it on his Web site with grace and tenacity.)

[...]

    To a modern reader, the relaxed egalitarianism of the open road and the open table can seem undermined by the other part of Jesus’ message, a violent and even vengeful prediction of a final judgment and a large-scale damnation. In Mark, Jesus is both a fierce apocalyptic prophet who is preaching the death of the world—he says categorically that the end is near—and a wise philosophical teacher who professes love for his neighbor and supplies advice for living. If the end is near, why give so much sage counsel? If human life is nearly over, why preach in such detail the right way to live? One argument is that a later, perhaps “unpersonified” body of Hellenized wisdom literature was tacked on to an earlier account of a Jewish messianic prophet. Since both kinds of literature—apocalyptic hysterics and stoic sayings—can be found all over the period, perhaps they were merely wrenched together.
    And yet a single figure who “projects” two personae at the same time, or in close sequence, one dark and one dreamy, is a commonplace among charismatic prophets. That’s what a charismatic prophet is: someone whose aura of personal conviction manages to reconcile a hard doctrine with a humane manner. The leaders of the African-American community before the civil-rights era, for instance, had to be both prophets and political agitators to an oppressed and persecuted people in a way not unlike that of the real Jesus (and all the other forgotten zealots and rabbis whom the first-century Jewish historian Josephus names and sighs over). They, too, tended to oscillate between the comforting and the catastrophic. Malcolm X was the very model of a modern apocalyptic prophet-politician, unambiguously preaching violence and a doctrine of millennial revenge, all fuelled by a set of cult beliefs—a hovering U.F.O., a strange racial myth. But Malcolm was also a community builder, a moral reformer (genuinely distraught over the sexual sins of his leader), who refused to carry weapons, and who ended, within the constraints of his faith, as some kind of universalist. When he was martyred, he was called a prophet of hate; within three decades of his death—about the time that separates the Gospels from Jesus—he could be the cover subject of a liberal humanist magazine like this one. One can even see how martyrdom and “beatification” draws out more personal detail, almost perfectly on schedule: Alex Haley, Malcolm’s Paul, is long on doctrine and short on details; thirty years on, Spike Lee, his Mark, has a full role for a wife and children, and a universalist message that manages to blend Malcolm into Mandela. (As if to prove this point, just the other week came news of suppressed chapters of Haley’s “Autobiography,” which, according to Malcolm’s daughter, “showed too much of my father’s humanity.”)

[...]

    As the Bacchae knew, we always tear our Gods to bits, and eat the bits we like.

[...]

    In Mark, Jesus’ divinity unfolds without quite making sense intellectually, and without ever needing to. It has the hypnotic flow of dramatic movement. The story is one of self-discovery: he doesn’t know who he is and then he begins to think he does and then he doubts and in pain and glory he dies and is known. The story works. But, as a proposition under scrutiny, it makes intolerable demands on logic. If Jesus is truly one with God, in what sense could he suffer doubt, fear, exasperation, pain, horror, and so on? So we get the Jesus rendered in the Book of John, who doesn’t. But if he doesn’t suffer doubt, fear, exasperation, pain, and horror, in what sense is his death a sacrifice rather than just a theatrical enactment? A lamb whose throat is not cut and does not bleed is not really much of an offering.
    None of this is very troubling if one has a pagan idea of divinity: the Son of God might then be half human and half divine, suffering and triumphing and working out his heroic destiny in the half-mortal way of Hercules, for instance. But that’s ruled out by the full weight of the Jewish idea of divinity—omnipresent and omniscient, knowing all and seeing all. If God he was—not some Hindu-ish avatar or offspring of God, but actually one with God—then God once was born and had dirty diapers and took naps. The longer you think about it, the more astounding, or absurd, it becomes. To be really believed at all, it can only be told again.

Christian resources re: mental illness?

I've been disappointed by the books I have read thus far that offer a Christian response to mental illness. My therapist housemate's response to this is, "We should write a book together." I'm not sure how serious either of us is about that project, but I am really curious: What do you think such a book should include?

this evening's visit through the liturgical spectrum

(1)

[Paten] Eastern Christian Usage

In the Eastern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Churches, the Paten is called a diskos and is elevated by a stand (or "foot") permanently attached underneath. The diskos is usually more ornate than its Latin-Rite counterpart, and must always be made of gold or at least be gold-plated. The diskos may be engraved with an icon of Jesus Christ, the Nativity of Christ, a cross, or more frequently, an icon of the Theotokos.

When a diskos is made, it is usually accompanied by a matching asterisk (small, folding metal stand used to keep the Aër from disturbing the particles on the diskos), a spoon (for distributing Holy Communion to the faithful), and a spear (used to cut the Lamb during the Liturgy of Preparation).

For Christians of the East the diskos symbolises the Virgin Mary, who received Christ into her womb, and gave him birth; and also the Tomb of Christ which received his body after the Crucifixion, and from which he resurrected.

(2)

pre-filled communion cups, which Keith likens to coffee creamers

you can also scroll down for pre-cubed Communion bread (which according to the URLs is unleavened?)

"Product has a 6-month shelf-life and boxes are stamped with expiration dates."  [After they expire, do the Elements resurrect?  After Jesus goes bad, does He turn into Cassandra Nova?]

[21] "Transforming Love Into Healing" [Pentecost +2(C) Wednesday, Rest and Bread]

Luke 8:42b-48

Jesus moved along, almost crushed by the crowd.  In the crowd was a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, and though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her.  She came up behind Jesus and touched the fringe of Jesus' cloak, and immediately the bleeding stopped.

"Who touched me?" Jesus asked?

When no one nearby responded, Peter said, "Rabbi, it's the crowd pressing around you."

But Jesus said, "Someone touched me.  I felt power leave me."

When the woman realized that she had been noticed, she approached in fear and knelt before Jesus.  She explained in front of the crowd why she had touched Jesus and how she had been instantly healed.

Jesus said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well.  Go in peace."

Transforming Love Into Healing

In her book Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith, Nora Gallagher writes: "In most of the other church seasons, we trace the life of Jesus--from expected arrival to resurrection, Advent to Eastertide.  But in Ordinary Time we are in our own lives, living out the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost" (203).

In John 14:12, shortly before promising them the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, "Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these."

My best friend and I were talking recently about the hymn "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love."  She finds it illogical and arrogant.  And it is.  To say that people will see love in action and think, "Those must be Christians," is to say that no other belief system can inspire people to act with love; and we know that's untrue.  But I can't help liking the song.  For it reminds us that our most defining characteristic should be love.

We are called to live our lives such that we are reflecting the face of God to everyone we encounter, such that people who encounter us think, "That force that drives your life, I want to be connected to that, because it is so obviously a good and life-giving thing."

The woman we read about in today's story had been suffering from bleeding for 12 years, and all the medical professionals had been unable to help her.  She has done everything she is "supposed" to do, to no effect.  She recognizes in Jesus the power to heal her.

What do people recognize in us?

I don't think that Jesus' words mean that our faith gives us the power to effect medical miracles for ourselves or others, but I think that they do remind us that we, too, have been empowered by the Holy Spirit.  My friend Scott articulated it as: we transform our faith into love, and we share our love, and that's how we heal.

I recently finished reading Susan Wendell's book The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability, so I have a whole discourse in my head about "cure" and the social model of disability, but for the moment I'll just encourage you to think beyond the medical model of "healing."

This woman has been suffering for twelve years.

She has seen many physicians and none have been able to cure her.  Have you ever been to a doctor who doesn't know what's wrong with you and doesn't know how to treat it?  This is not usually the beginning of a beautiful friendship.  More likely, the doctor sends you away -- possibly telling you there isn't really anything wrong with you, possibly telling you that your suffering is your own fault.

The woman's bleeding also renders her ritually unclean, severely circumscribing her community interaction.

She is likely hungry for human contact.

She is also hungry for contact with the Holy.

Ritual uncleanness means decreased access to the Temple, the dwelling place of the Holy.

So, you've been failed by or rejected by or turned away from .... the medical establishment, your community, your place of worship.  Where do you go?

According to this story, you go to Jesus.

Jesus has returned to Galilee from the other side of the lake -- welcomed by an expectant crowd who likely know of Jesus' travels to towns and villages, proclaiming the good news of the kindom of God and healing people.

And so this woman reaches out, to touch some of that healing power.

Who has come to us for healing?

What were we able to offer them?

Did we offer them a kind word?  Did we offer them a comforting touch?  Did we offer them a safe space in which to be vulnerable and real?

As we move into a time of reflection, I invite you to reflect on moments when you have been able to offer healing to someone -- or when someone has offered healing to you -- and if you feel so moved, I invite you to share that aloud, lighting a candle.