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Our readings this Sunday take us into the evangelical mission of the congregation. For some of us this might strike up images of passing out tracts or camp altar calls after the preacher tried literally tried to “scare the hell out of us.” We can react against this, and turn our faith into a private “opinion” or private motivation for a type of social action that we can distance from the fact that evangelism begins with taking the good news of Jesus to the poor – as we saw in Luke 4.

Evangelism, the proclamation of the good news of God in Jesus Christ, is a fundamental task of the church, a privilege and honor God has given us. If you have time, take a moment to read the reflections on evangelism from Joseph Ratzinger a few years ago at http://tcrnews2.com/newevangel.html. Here are reflections outside the tradition of American conservative protestant pragmatism that nonetheless uphold the importance, indeed, the centrality of evangelism.

For our Scripture passages, it seems good to start with the Gospel reading, move to the Epistle, and then the OT to see a different type of interrelationship between the passages.

Luke 5:1-11

First, some socio-historical data. To fish for a living was the equivalent of a self-employed “day worker” in today’s society. Without means to process fish or refrigeration, it was hard work for little return. You didn’t exactly put fish in pottery out back and then distribute it when you have time or the market conditions warranted a higher return. It was daily work for daily pay, enough to live on for that day, but no more. It is interesting to catch the setting – Jesus was teaching. The fishing setting is completely secondary to those who came to hear the “word of God,” an interesting reference to Jesus’s teachings. Notice that the fishing work day was over, and that Simon has to go back out to the job.

What is Simon’s response to the heavy catch? Why? How does Jesus respond? What would be the goal of the fishermen leaving everything and following Jesus? Why does following Jesus call one to call others to follow as well?

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

This is one of my favorite Scripture passages. What is “the gospel” or “good news”? On what authority does Paul proclaim this good news? Why is it significant that Paul is the least of the apostles, unfit to be called the gospel? What would it be to come to “believe” this good news? Why is what Paul calls the “good news” really “good news”? Why would Paul want to transmit this good news to others?

Judges 6:11-24a

This is a really fun story in the OT. God calls Gideon a “mighty warrior” while he is hiding threshing grain in a wine press so as not to be found. Describe the conversation between Gideon and the “angel of the Lord”? How does this passage foreshadow what Paul describes in 1 Corinthians and the call of the fishermen? What do you notice about the overall pattern? How is this significant?

In closing, on the basis of these readings, discuss how we can be “fishers of humans” better in our congregation. The following is a quote from Joseph Ratzinger that seems appropriate. What do you think about this quote?

“This is why we are searching for, along with permanent and uninterrupted and never to be interrupted evangelization, a new evangelization, capable of being heard by that world that does not find access to "classic" evangelization. Everyone needs the Gospel; the Gospel is destined to all and not only to a specific circle and this is why we are obliged to look for new ways of bringing the Gospel to all.
Yet another temptation lies hidden beneath this -- the temptation of impatience, the temptation of immediately finding the great success, in finding large numbers. But this is not God´s way. For the Kingdom of God as well as for evangelization, the instrument and vehicle of the Kingdom of God, the parable of the grain of mustard seed is always valid (see Mark 4:31-32).
The Kingdom of God always starts anew under this sign. New evangelization cannot mean: immediately attracting the large masses that have distanced themselves from the Church by using new and more refined methods. No -- this is not what new evangelization promises.
New evangelization means: never being satisfied with the fact that from the grain of mustard seed, the great tree of the Universal Church grew; never thinking that the fact that different birds may find place among its branches can suffice -- rather, it means to dare, once again and with the humility of the small grain, to leave up to God the when and how it will grow (Mark 4:26-29).”

Have a wonderful evening!

Posted by johnwright at 1:07 PM | Comments (0)

Last night I preached from the Gospel passage from this week's readings. It was humbling and wonderful to hear the response of my "congregation" there. As I've reflected today, it might be good to start with the gospel, work back to Jeremiah, and then end with the Epistle reading.

In Epiphany, the readings seem again to tie together the revelation of God to the nations in the body of Jesus Christ as told in the gospels as well as the body of Christ as lived in a specific congregation. It reminds us to keep the life of the congregation tied deeply to the portrayal of Jesus in the gospels to sustain the continuity of witness of the church as the body of Christ.

Luke 4:21-32

The gospel reading continues the reading from last week. The emphasis on Jesus as the one upon whom the Spirit has come now shifts to the shifting responses of the people. Why the initial positive response from his townfolk? What do they seem to expect from Jesus by calling him "Joseph's son"? How does this relate to the Isaiah passage?

Jesus shifts the focus, letting the people know that in accordance with the OT, his mission is for all, not merely his own village folk. The widow and Namaan are not Jews, are not part of Israel; they are "gentile sinners" to use Paul's phrase. Why would Jesus' reference to these stories upset them so? What is Jesus tearing down? What would be the reason for tearing this down? What do they hope to accomplish by pushing Jesus off the cliff? What is the significance of him walking away unscathed to continue teaching in a synagogue? How has the Isaiah passage been fulfilled "that day"?

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Given the gospel reading, we can easily hear how the Jeremiah passage witnesses to Jesus Christ. JThe call of Jeremiah becomes a type, a foreshadowing of Jesus's mission. Jesus receives his role as prophet to the nations. The instruction is to be obedient -- why is the command to obedience combined with the message not to be afraid "of them". Who is the "them"? How is it that Jesus is appointed over nations and kingdoms? What is his role?
What is the function of the negative role? Why is it first? Is the negative an end in itself? How does the negative relate to the positive? How does Jesus through the Spirit do this in our lives? How does the formation of our lives as "the body of Christ and individually members of it" depend on Christ's ability to tear down and build up in each of our lives?

1 Corinthians 14:12b-20

We continual reading about the body of Christ, the purpose of the spiritual gifts. Look over chapters 11-14. Notice that Paul, well aware of the disunity in the Corinthian controversy, implores them not to abandon the Lord's Supper, but to live out what is taking place there even with the disunity of the congregation. Notice how chapter 12 and 13 follow chapter 11, and how he is moving towards a conclusion here. Given this, what is the function of the spiritual gifts? What is the major responsibility of each member of the congregation with their individual gifts and concerns? What does it mean to "build up the church"? How does this relate to not being children, but adults, as Paul implores? How does this relate to the Jeremiah passage, what needs torn down so that building can take place?

Given these passages, maybe you can end the study by discussing what are concrete, specific ways that we "build up the congregation"? How important is it to "build up the congregation" as a prerequisite for engaging in the mission of Jesus as described in Luke 4? What responsibility do each bear to uphold the building up of the body?

Have a wonderful evening!

Posted by johnwright at 3:07 PM | Comments (0)

I am just getting back on the ground from last weekends pilgrimage to Kansas City. Nazarene Theological Seminary was a wonderful place to meet for the little event, "Is the Reformation Over? George Lindbeck, David Burrell, and Stanley Hauerwas: A Conversation between Friends." Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete was not able to meet us due to health complications.

The weekend was as profound as it was exhausting. Thanks to all who attended, to President Ron Benefiel and Professor Andy Johnson and the NTS staff, and particularly, to my friends and students who were there. I will post here my opening address from last Thursday night. I was asked to provide the rationale and background for the event. As always, your responses are welcome!

“Is the Reformation Over?”
A conversation among friends: George Lindbeck, David Burrell, and Stanley Hauerwas

By John W. Wright
Professor of Theology and Christian Scriptures
Point Loma Nazarene University

“Is the Reformation Over?” Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom asked this question a few years ago – and cautiously answered no. Stanley Hauerwas, one of our guests here, asked a related question in the Spring 2006 volume of the Wesleyan Theological Journal: “Is Protestantism Over?” Hauerwas states, “I think . . . that we may be coming to a time when the story we call the “Reformation” will not determine our understanding of where we are as Protestant Christians. Bluntly put, we may be living during a time when we are watching Protestantism coming to an end. . . . When Protestanism became an end in itself, when Protestants became denominations, we became unintelligible to ourselves. Our inability to resist the market, our inability as Protestants not to become consumers of our religious preferences, is but an indication that we are in trouble. Of course, Roman Catholicism is also beset by the challenge of choice, which helps explain why Catholicism in America may now be a form of Protestantism!” If Roman Catholics have become Protestants, a recent article in the Christian Century wrote about significant Protestant theologians who have joined Roman to become Catholic because they found there the commitments to an evangelical, catholic, and orthodox faith in a way that they did not find supported in their mainline and evangelical Protestant denominations. These are strange times. Is the Reformation over?

A little closer to home here at Nazarene Theological Seminary, a year earlier William Abraham wrote in the Wesleyan Theological Journal, “The bad news is that half a century of splendid historical investigation has unwittingly become a worthy obituary notice for the death of the Wesleyan theological tradition.” Abraham argues that Wesley points beyond himself into a deeper catholicity of the church. Wesley “brings us into a wholly different way of thinking about the wider canonical heritage that we will find the full salvation of our souls. It is also within that canonical heritage that we will find the charter for a whole new way of doing theology.”

Such musings may surprise those of us accustomed to hearing repetitive concerns for “Wesleyan distinctives” or attempts to establish “Nazarene denominational identity” or “holiness institutional core values.” These concerns, however, arise from a similar observation: Christianity in the United States has become increasingly co-opted by social, political, and economic ideologies in which consumeristic needs of local congregations define more and more the nature of the gathering of the body of Christ. Whereas Hauerwas and Abraham turn to a notion of catholicity to avoid the idolatry of the marketplace, others understandably seek to brand “distinctives” to order to sustain long term ecclesial institutional viability within a highly competitive market place.

“Wesleyans,” “holiness people,” the Church of the Nazarene rest uneasy with such assimilative movements. We vaguely remember vestiges of language of being called out “from the world” into the church by the Spirit; we read Wesley’s consistent concern with the “church catholic” and his claim that the “particular glory” of his Methodists was their catholicity within their particularity – one might say, their practice of reconciliation without capitulation. We know that the National Camp Meeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness intentionally called its original meetings to pursue holiness among all believers; we remember persons like Albert Outler who retrieved the works of John Wesley while devoting himself to working for the visible unity of the church catholic; we celebrate the thought and work of persons like Paul Bassett and Donald Dayton for their work in representing the holiness movement to those not in connexion with us. We may even know that the Preamble to the Manual of the Church of the Nazarene states that the fundamental purpose of our entering into discipline together is to “preserve our God-given heritage, the faith once delivered to the saints . . . and also that we may cooperate effectually with other branches of the Church of Jesus Christ.” These provide a counterweight that moves us sympathetically towards a catholicity of witness amidst either a cultural captivity of congregations or the branding of our particular type of “worship celebration.”

I want to suggest a deeper reason why the discussion is of particular importance to take place here at Nazarene Theological Seminary. The Church of the Nazarene is, to my knowledge, one of two churches whose polity witnesses to the worldwide catholicity of the church within one ecclesiastic order. We are over a quarter century into the internationalization of the church; we are just now really beginning to struggle with its significance. The witness of the church outside the United States has called into question many of the cultural conventions thought central to earlier practices of the faith grounded in Midwestern American culture; we are trying to learn to relate the locality of church practice and structure with a catholicity that spans the world. It is difficult. Balancing consumerist choices is a hard process globally.

Dr. James Hudson, an architect of internationalization, spoke to me openly in 1980 about using the Roman Catholic communion as a model for internationalization. Since, then, however, we have often used neo-liberal, globalization language to “spread Jesus” to the nations. Non-North Americans balk at such neo-conservative language for they recognize that it keeps the church based geographically and nationally in the church’s financial center. Frictions and penetrating questions arise. God is making us the church.

A genuine internationalization of the church requires a notion of catholicity; there are not two orders of baptism, one for wealthy North Americans; another for poor Africans. Questions of catholicity within the Church of the Nazarene raise questions of relationships to other churches now, and not only now, but also relationships to believers in the past, and those in the future. An international church is a catholic church; how one defines that catholicity is of exceeding importance. Will it be found in a vital evangelical, catholic, and orthodox faith as practiced and preserved through the ages to allow the appropriate cultural, local variations that do not annul, but enrich that catholicity? How can the faith remain vital as it is passed down from generation to generation, inviting others into the life of God through Christ?

This inner-ecclesial situation is not unlike that which Pope John XXIII found himself in 1959 when he was raised to the Pontificate. He decided to call an ecumenical council, eventually named “Vatican II” to show that is was not a merely continuation of the prematurely terminated Vatican I. In his opening sermon to the Council, he said the inspiration to call the Council “was completely unexpected, like a flash of heavenly light, shedding sweetness in eyes and hearts. And at the same time it gave rise to a great fervour throughout the world in expectation of the holding of the Council.” The Council was anchored in the past; in French, it was a Ressourcement, a return to the Sources: “The greatest concern of the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously.” This impulse was championed by French Catholic theologians in the mid-century, the Nouvelle Theologie, theologians like Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, Etionne Gilson, and Jean Daniélou.

Yet this Ressourcement could not be simple repetition. The church needed a renewal that cannot come from the repetition of formulas and a fortress like church oblivious to changes in the world that mediates an external grace to the faithful whose real life is lived in a completely distinct realm: “But at the same time she must ever look to the present, to the new conditions and new forms of life introduced into the modern world, which have opened new avenues to the Catholic apostolate.” This would be called in Italian would be called in Italian, “Aggiornamento”, the up-dating of the mission and language for the church in response to the world by the Council.

John XXIII struggled to keep these two strands, the Ressourcement and the Aggiornamento in proper balance, as Roman Catholicism has ever since. John XXIII’s vision for the Council was to take “a step forward toward a doctrinal penetration and a formation of consciousness in faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another. And it is the latter that must be taken into great consideration with patience if necessary, everything being measured in the forms and proportions of a magisterium which is predominantly pastoral in character.”

The significance of Vatican II is hard to gauge for those of us who did not live through it, not only for Roman Catholics, but all Christians, indeed, the whole world. Its interpretation and its implementation have not been without struggle. Documents on the reform of worship, on divine revelation, on the ecumenical task of the church, on the church’s relationship with non-Christian religions, particularly the special relationship Christianity has with Judaism, on the nature and mission of the church in the world all have influenced theological discourse and the church’s practices in the last forty-five years.

For our guests here tonight and tomorrow, I would venture to say that three particular documents stand out of particular importance: “Unitatis Redintegratio,” the Decree on Ecumenism; “Nostra Aetate,” the Declaration on the Church to non-Christian Religions, and “Lumen Gentium,” the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. Such changes in Roman Catholic Church as articulated in Vatican II have reached beyond Roman Catholicism, and touched in places to renew the faithful thought and witness of the church in the modern world in ways that we are only now beginning to realize. These changes make it possible to raise with a force the question, “Is the Reformation Over?” as a question of hope, of faithfulness, as an answer to the Son’s prayer that the Father might “sanctify them in truth” by the power of the Spirit so that they might be one, so that the world might believe.

Our three guests here all have lived in the wake of Vatican II, the forces and thoughts that gave rise to it, the events themselves, the continuing aftermath as God continues to lead God’s church. Their years of witness, thought, conversation, listening, teaching, and writing have borne great fruit. At first sight little seems to bind our three interviews together; one is an ecumenist; another a philosophical theologian; another a Christian ethicist. On closer examination, however, we find among them that they all possess graduate degrees from Yale University, though they never studied either with or under each other. To look deeper, we might recognize in each an attempt to go back to the Christian tradition to try to think a new modernity, especially from the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, to attempt to heal the Reformation by re-thinking the presuppositions that gave rise to it. Even more deeply, we discover friendships, decades- long relationships and conversations that have sustained and fructified each others work, friendships made possible by the ecumenical achievements arising out of Vatican II. We will explore with them their thought and lives, their experiences and their wisdom, their convictions and their hopes, in interviews tomorrow.

To have the opportunity to listen to either George Lindbeck, David Burrell, or Stanley Hauerwas alone is a profound honor; to have the opportunity to listen to them all in interaction with each other is a gift of a gracious God. If I may have the honor of introducing each of them in preparation for tomorrow:

Doctor George Lindbeck grew up as a son of Lutheran missionaries in China. He attended Yale Divinity School for his M Div, graduating in 1946. He studied with Etionne Gilson at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto before spending time in 1950-51 at the University of Paris. He joined the Yale faculty in 1951, receiving his PhD from Yale as a medievalist in 1955, writing his dissertation on Duns Scotus. Mr. Lindbeck was an official Delegated Observer to the Second Vatican Council, representing the World Lutheran Federation, and received honorary doctorates for his service there from his alma mater, Augustana College and from the University of Notre Dame. Mr. Lindbeck has an esteemed publication record, particularly in ecumenics. More significantly, however, has been his consistent behind the scenes work with ecclesial documents, culminating in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church, officially promulgated in 1999. Most recently he has signed “In One Body through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity”, an ecumenical document sponsored by the Centre for Catholic and Evangelical Theology. He remains active in publications, recently working on an edition of works by his own theology professor at Yale, Robert Lowry Calhoun.

Father David Burrell, CSC, showed up at the University of Notre Dame as an undergraduate about the same time that Professor Lindbeck arrived in France – and in a sense, he has never left. He has visited many exotic places as a member of the Congregation of Holy Cross – Rome, Jerusalem, Cairo, Bangladesh, Princeton. He received his Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Gregorian University in Rome in 1960, where he studied with Bernard Lonergan. He immediate matriculated at Yale, and completed his PhD in Philosophy at Yale in 1965. He has done ground breaking work in philosophical theology. His work has been instrumental in the recent creative re-readings of the theological program of Thomas Aquinas in terms conducive to contemporary analytic philosophy, particularly the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein. This work has taken him into publications concerning analogical language, particularly about God, the relationship between God and creation, and the interaction of Jewish, Islamic, and Christian thought about this relationship between God and creation. He was chair of the Department of Theology at Notre Dame from 1971-80, and has served as the Rector of the Ecumenical Institute for Theological Research at Tantur in Jerusalem, where he now resides for the majority of the year. He is the Theodore M. Hesburgh CSC Professor Emeritus in the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame.

Our third guest, Professor Stanley Hauerwas, showed up at Yale Divinity School as a M Div student while Professor Lindbeck was in Rome, and Professor Burrell in the midst of his PhD studies in Philosophy. Professor Hauerwas is the son of a Texan Methodist bricklayer who decided to study theology at Yale Divinity School because he never could get saved at the Sunday night evangelistic service in his evangelical Methodist church. He continued at Yale following his M Div and received his PhD in Theological Ethics in 1968 with the completion of a dissertation interacting with such thinkers as Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Bultmann, Barth, Calvin, Wesley, and Edwards. He joined the faculty at the University of Notre Dame in 1970, where he taught until he moved to Duke University in 1984. He is now the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics. A prolific writer, Professor Hauerwas has been instrumental in bringing language of character and virtues to the center of reflections upon the Christian life. Named Time Magazine’s “Best Theologian in America,” perhaps Professor Hauerwas’ most profound contribution has been his commitment to the formation of doctoral students. He has chaired or co-chaired at least 53 successful dissertations, and in 2001 received the Duke University Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award.

We are saddened that a fourth person who had planned to be here, Monsignor Lorzeno Albacete, is not able to attend due to health problems. Monsignor Albacete is the Responsible of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation in the United States and Canada. We will miss him in the course of our conversations

Is the Reformation Over? There is no doubt that things have changed. Listen to Benedict XVI, the Bishop of Rome, steal a page out of Martin Luther, or even John Wesley, in an address to the Swiss bishops from November 7, 2006:

Earlier, in my Homily [see page 6], I endeavored to say that in all the anguish of our time, faith must truly have priority. Two generations ago, it might still have been presumed natural: one grew up in the faith; in a certain way, faith was simply present as part of life and did not need any special seeking. It needed to be formed and deepened, but seemed something perfectly obvious.

Today, the opposite seems natural: in other words, that it is basically impossible to believe, and that God is actually absent. The faith of the Church, in any case, seems something that belongs to the distant past.

Thus, even practicing Christians are of the opinion that it is right to choose for oneself, from the overall faith of the Church, those things one considers still sustainable today. And especially, people also set about fulfilling their proper duty to God through their commitment to human beings, so to speak, at the same time.

This, however, is the beginning of a sort of "justification through works": the human being justifies himself and the world, in which he does what clearly seems necessary yet completely lacks the inner light and spirit.

Consequently, I believe it is important to acquire a fresh awareness of the fact that faith is the centre of all things -- "Fides tua te salvum fecit", the Lord said over and over again to those he healed. . . . . And we too can only serve the Lord energetically if our faith thrives and is present in abundance.”

Yes, the world has changed; the Church of the Nazarene has changed; the Roman Catholic Church has changed. Perhaps amidst all this change, the Spirit might bring about a convergence of minds, hearts, and even institutions so that the unity of the body of Christ might be seen in the world today. We thank NTS President Ron Benefiel, and Professor Andy Johnson for all their work in making these next few days take place and welcome you and our special guests to a time of thought and renewal for the sake of the witness of Christ’s church today.

Posted by johnwright at 10:19 AM | Comments (9)

It is interesting that our readings highlight the revelation of God through the body of Christ. In traditional Christian thought, Christians learned to talk of the three-fold body of Christ -- the historical body, crucified and buried; the "mystical" or "mysterious" body of Christ -- the body and blood of Christ present in the Lord's Supper identified as such by the historical body, "This is my body; this is my blood"; the "true" or visible body of Christ in the world -- the church, a particular congregation that is simultaneously the body of Christ universal. In orthodox Christian thought, the "true" body does not make the "Eucharistic" or mystical body; the Eucharistic body, the mysterious body produces the true body. To speak language from, I believe, an Eastern orthodox theologian, "the Eucharistic makes the church." To participate in the "mystical" body of Christ is the basis for unity of the visible body of Christ in the world; unity in the body of Christ in the world is not the basis for participation in the Eucharist. To make unity in the world the basis for participation in the Eucharist is to make salvation by works, not by grace through faith.

In this light, it is good to start at the Gospel passage, and move to the Epistle reading, and then to the Nehemiah reading today. We celebrate the revelation of God in Jesus to the nations that God calls us into through the Son by the Spirit that we might be the body of Christ in the world through Christ's presence in worship at the Lord's Supper.

Luke 4:14-21

This passage begins Jesus' public ministry in Luke. He begins in his hometown, in the synagogue. Read through the passage. Why is the Isaiah passage fulfilled "today in your hearing"? Can the fulfillment of the Isaiah passage be separated from Jesus? What is the importance of this question? Can one be committed to Jesus without the program? Can one be committed to the program without Jesus?

1 Corinthians 12:12-27

Read 1 Corinthians 2. Was the Corinthian church unified? Why then does Paul speak of the unity of the body of Christ in this passage? What is the basis for the unity of the body of Christ? What is the relationship between the Spirit that is with Jesus, the one that leads to the fulfillment of the Isaiah passage, with the Spirit that comes upon us in baptism? What happens to us in baptism? What then does the Spirit craft us to become? How does this relate to the fulfillment of the Isaiah passage in the Gospel reading? Do we pick our community as the body of Christ? Does becoming one body annul our individuality? Why not?

Nehemiah 8:2-10

After the public reading of the Law, why would Nehemiah have to tell the people not to weep or mourn? Why instead does he tell them to rejoice and feast? What is the proper response to the revelation of God to humanity?

Epiphany is a season of joy, of thanksgiving, of celebration. In none of these passages is it in denial of the reality of sin and fragmentation, in our lives, in the lives of a congregation, in the life of the world. Yet there seems to be a different reality witnessed here as well, a reality that calls for celebration, the recognition of the fulfillment of Scriptures, that in baptism by the Spirit, we ARE the body of Christ to live out this reality in the world -- to become what God has already made us. This is the basis for our thanksgiving, our Eucharistic sacrifice. How can we call our whole congregation into the joy of the kingdom that has come near in Jesus, how can we better call the world into this joy that arises out of a life in Christ by faith, rather than seeking to make the life of Christ present through our works?

Have a joyous meeting!

Posted by johnwright at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)

A week from today Nazarene Theological Seminary will host "A Conversation Between Friends: George Lindbeck, David Burrell, and Stanley Hauerwas." I hope that we can begin to overlap a type of catholic evangelicalism with an evangelical catholicism. I believe that this overlap is possible today because of the profound changes arising from Vatican II, and the work of persons such as George Lindbeck. Vatican II, particularly as interpreted by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, has fundamentally changed the landscape of the relationship between Roman Catholics and us protestors. Particularly those who trace the distinct form of our protest to John Wesley recognize that we have the necessity of committing to the unity of the church catholic.

I thought that as a bit of a "teaser," I would explore some parallel thoughts on Jesus Christ by Lindbeck and Benedict XVI. The fact that both have interacted deeply with the thought Hans Kung makes this more interesting. Joseph Ratzinger and Hans Kung's friendship and controversies, of course, are well known. Lindbeck, however, spent a year in Germany in the late 1950's and interacted with Kung's work for over twenty or more years -- Kung's early work on Barth and Justification particularly caught Lindbeck's attention.

Yet by the 1970's, Kung and Lindbeck had traveled different paths, even as Kung's and Ratzinger's had. Two essays particularly stand out of interest to show the closeness between Benedict and Lindbeck -- the new Preface to the upcoming book, Jesus of Nazareth, by Benedict XVI, already released (cf. www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=98747);and a brief 1980 essay from Lindbeck, "The Bible as Realistic Narrative" in Consensus in Theology? A Dialogue with Hans Kung and Edward Schillebeeckx (pp. 81-85). Benedict's Preface gives no direct evidence of direct dependence upon Professor Lindbeck's essay. Yet the underlying parrallel structures of thought are interesting.

Lindbeck's essay exemplifies the careful, charitable readings and agenda that has characterized his work throughout his career. The essay evinces the influence of his colleague, Hans Frei, on his work at this time, particularly Frei's work, The Identity of Jesus Christ and The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative. Lindbeck brings this archive into conversation with his own ecumenical agenda in his essay in response to a presentation by Kung.

Lindbeck analyzed Kung's argument in three premises: (1) "We can . . .distinguish without separating the Jesus of history from the faith responses of the early Christians as embodied in their various images of the Christ of faith" (p. 81); (2) The Jesus of history is the standard of the Christian faith and that "the theologically most important function of Scripture . . . is to supply the data for the historical reconstruction of who and what Jesus was in his life upon earth. Now that such a reconstruction is possible, it must be normative for theology in general" (p. 81); and (3) "the 'critical correlation' of the Jesus of history and early Christian experience with contemporary experience can lead to convergence in all areas of theology" (p. 81). In this, Lindbeck argues that Kung is motivated by a program that is "at one and the same time reformatory, ecumenical, and Catholic" (p. 81).

Lindbeck thoroughly approves of Kung's goals, his motivation. As always, Lindbeck is concerned with the renewal and unity of the church in its catholicity. It is not the goals that Lindbeck found problematic, but Kung's method. Lindbeck questions the ability of historical-critical reconstructions to reach a consensus that Kung presupposes as the basis for reform, ecumenicity, and catholic. He notes that Kung's "critical correlation" itself has problems. Lindbeck writes, "If one asks why theologians look for such different things in the Bible (and in Jesus),the answer is that they differ in their analyses of what human beings needs, i.e., in their anthropologies and/or in their analyses of the requirements of the contemporary situation and experiences. They adopt some extra-biblical hermeneutical or interpretive framework . . . within whcih to read the Bible. The frameworks at least partly determine the kinds of questions which are asked and therefore also influence the answers received. . . . One can sympathize with why theologians proceed in this way. They want to make the Gospel relevant to human experience especially in its currently salient aspects; . . . Nevertheless, the result of this multiplicity of apologetic, correlational, and traditionalist approaches is a pluralism which threatens to become chaos" (p. 83). In other words, a correlational method defeats the reforming, ecumenical, and catholic motives in its very basis, fragmenting the life and thought of the church according to what exactly the theologian presupposes as the "given" with which the faith must be correlated. The past twenty five years of the history of the church and even local congregations in North America shows Lindbeck's concerns are well-flounded. Churches display deep differences according to what sociological, philosophical, economic, political, sexual preference, or demographic "givens" that produces the "needs" to which the leader correlates the language and mission of the congregation or Christian institution. Whereas in the '50s and '60s, ecumenical work was demanded between "denominations" to work for unity of the church, now it has to take place first within denominations, or even congregations. Indeed, some types of conservative and/or liberal Protestants and Catholics will find their confession of Jesus as fundamentally irrelevant in the unity that they discover with certain types of conservative and/or liberal Jews when compared to the inverse group of their own "denomination." The reason for this is the "correlational method" that lies at the basis of much of church growth, niche-marketed evangelicalism and mainline liberal Protestantism and its similar Roman Catholic manifestations.

How to respond, then? Lindbeck writes, "In all this, Kung's instincts are sound. He is quite right in seeking to find a criterion in the sources of Christian faith which has enough independence of later hermeneutical frameworks to enable theology to escape from the unmanageable pluralism of both traditional contemporary apologetic, correlational, and speculative approaches. My one and only question is whether there might not be a better way to meet the challenge.
It seems to me worth asking whether Scripture does not perhaps supply its own interpretive framework" (p. 84). Here Lindbeck is most Lutheran in his appeal to Sola Scriptura as the Reformers intended as a means of reaching towards catholicity and ecumenicity. The unity of the church finds its center in the Scriptures which has the "primary purpose" to "'render a character . . . offer an identity description of an agent,' viz., God (ibid.). Its primary purpose is not to tell the reader what actually happened in the sense of either profane or salvation history, and even less to provide doctrinal propositions, theological concepts, or symbolic expressions or re-presentations of religious experience or authentic Existenz--although it may do all these things as well" (pp. 84-85). Scriptures intent is to reveal God the Father through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit.

As a result, Lindbeck notes two important consequences from Kung. "It gives more theological weight to the Old Testament. . . . The fundamental identity description of God is provided by the stories of Israel, Exodus, and Creation. This identity description is then completed or fulfilled by the stories of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, bt tue latter stories must be read in the context of what went before. . . . Second, when looked at canonically rather than historically-criticalkly, the purpose of the gospels is not at all to provide information for its own sake about the earthly Jesus, but rather to tell about the risen, ascended, and now-present Christ whose identity as the divine-human agent is irreplaceably enacted in the stories of Jesus" (p. 85).

Fast forward to the current day when ecumenicity and catholicity have fallen off the board except as a common program for socio-political causes. Think of the turmoil within denominations and within Roman Catholicism itself. Over twenty-five years separate the essay of Lindbeck and the upcoming book by Benedict. Benedict introduces his book biographically:

"I have come to the book on Jesus, the first part of which I now present, following a long interior journey. In the period of my youth -- the thirties and forties -- a series of fascinating books were published on Jesus. . . . through the man Jesus, God was made visible and from God the image of the just man could be seen.

Beginning in the fifties, the situation changed. The split between the "historical Jesus" and the "Christ of faith" became ever greater . . . Progress in historical-critical research led to ever more subtle distinctions between the different strata of tradition. In the wake of this research, the figure of Jesus, on which faith leans, became ever more uncertain, it took on increasingly less defined features.

At the same time, reconstructions of this Jesus, who should be sought after the traditions of the evangelists and their sources, became ever more contradictory: from the revolutionary enemy of the Romans who opposed the established power and naturally failed, to the gentle moralist who allowed everything and inexplicably ended up by causing his own ruin."

TAs a result, the life of the church, the life of individual's faith in Jesus, became unstable, shaky, fragmented. "All these attempts have left in their wake, as common denominator, the impression that we know very little about Jesus, and that only later faith in his divinity has formed his image. Meanwhile, this image has been penetrating profoundly in the common consciousness of Christianity. Such a situation is tragic for the faith, because it makes its authentic point of reference uncertain: intimate friendship with Jesus, from whom everything depends, is debated and runs the risk of becoming useless." Benedict notes in retrospect the same problem that Lindbeck foresaw of such a correlational model based on historical reconstructions that Kung offered.

What is Benedict's solution? It is to turn to the Scriptures -- a very Protestant, Reforming, and Vatican II move: "this Jesus -- the one of the Gospels -- is a historically honest and convincing figure. The Crucifixion and its efficacy can only be explained if something extraordinary happened, if Jesus' figure and words radically exceeded all the hopes and expectations of the age.

Approximately twenty years after Jesus' death, we find fully displayed in the great hymn to Christ that is the Letter to the Philippians (2:6-8) a Christology which says that Jesus was equal to God but that he stripped himself, became man, humbled himself unto death on the cross and that to him is owed the homage of creation, the adoration that in the prophet Isaiah (45:23) God proclaimed is owed only to Him. . . . Is it not more logical, also from the historical point of view, that greatness be found in the origin and that the figure of Jesus break all available categories and thus be understood only from the mystery of God?"

The canonical view of Jesus, the realistic narrative of the Scriptures presents a Jesus from faith for faith -- not a historical distortion, but the fullness of the mystery of the revelation of "the face of God" in the human Jesus of Nazareth. "If from this conviction of faith the texts are read with the historical method and the opening is greater, the texts open to reveal a path and a figure that are worthy of faith. Also clarified then is the struggle at other levels present in the writings of the New Testament around the figure of Jesus and despite all the differences, one comes to profound agreement with these writings."

Neither Benedict, nor Lindbeck, writing ignorantly of historical-critical scholarship nor deny its significance. But it belongs to a different order, a different polity than the church in its end. Benedict's questions have been pressed profoundly and to similar end by Larry Hurtado in The Lord Jesus Christ and other works. Richard Bauckham has a new work out on the closeness of the gospels to apostolic origins. Benedict's work updates the position of Lindbeck.

Yet the impulse is the same. Correlational theology does not provide an adequate, stable basis for reform nor provide what is necessary for not only the unity of the faith, but even the possibility of faith. The goal is not to ignore history, nor the accomplishments of historical-criticism, but to have it raised to its divine end in God by witnessing to the reality that is the Jesus revealed in the canonical Jesus as embedded in the narrative context of the Scriptures. Benedict writes, "I have attempted to go beyond the mere historical-critical interpretation applying new methodological criteria, which allows us to make a properly theological interpretation of the Bible and that naturally requires faith, without by so doing wanting in any way to renounce historical seriousness."

We see in Lindbeck and Benedict XVI not an identity, but a structural theological similarity in responding to our contemporary world, "up-dating the faith" but an up-dating that does not seek a correlation to the givenness of the contemporary world, but in a return to the sources, biblical and patristic. It is this joining of evangelical catholicism and catholic evangelicalism that I think holds the promise for the future faithful witness of the church in the decades to come. I hope that next weeks conversations might be a means to that end.

Posted by johnwright at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)

This Sunday we move into the Second Sunday of Epiphany. The Scripture readings thus focus on the Gospel of John – the first “sign” of Jesus at the wedding in Cana of Galilee in which Jesus’ actions bring forth faith – believe. The Revelation of God when we are encountered in the Spirit by Jesus Christ necessarily elicits a response – positive or negative.

Here, however, we see the formation of the church – disciples of Jesus who function as the body of Christ, the continued visible manifestation of the originating event of the Word made flesh, in the world. To see the logic of Epiphany it is helpful to take our readings in backwards order, beginning with the Gospel reading.

John 2:1-11

To read the Gospel of John well, one has to read it at multiple layers at once. Like a inside joke, John has different meanings dependent on whether one picks up the ironies or not, whether one reads it merely at the “literal” level, or if one sees in the “literal”, the “spiritual.” Such is the nature of a “sign” – a sign is a physical object that has a deeper significance that is found in the material of the sign, but that which goes farther to point to that which is beyond it. Think of a “stop sign.” It might help to walk through the passage on the “literal” level. The NIV translates the word as “miraculous sign” but it really is the emphasis is not on the physical act, but on what the transformation shows at a deeper level.

Seen from the spiritual, one can see that here we are at the “wedding feast of the Lamb.” Can you look through the passage and find how the passage “signs” the Lord’s Supper?

Finally, as Jesus “reveals his glory” – signs the Creator within the creation – his disciples believe in him. What is faith here? What does the revelation of God in Jesus bring about through this belief?

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

The Corinthian passage again presupposes the gathering of the church in worship. It seems to me that the reference to “Let Jesus be cursed!” and “Jesus is Lord” refers to two different confessions from this time that persons were occasionally faced as a result of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The first, the cursing of Jesus’ name, may have been required in certain settings to make sure that one was not a believer in Jesus. Fifty years later the governor Pliny tells the emperor that it is said that Christians would not curse Jesus’ name. It shows a severing of allegiance, faith, in Him. The confession “Jesus is Lord” may have been the earliest baptismal confession required which permitted one to entire the full worship of a congregation – participation in the body and blood of Jesus at the Lord’s Supper. Baptism was the entry to access into the full life of the church. The passage presupposes therefore that the Spirit has revealed Jesus Christ to persons who have then been pulled into a congregation through this common, but common, but very personal, faith.

The passage also presupposes a large distinction between the life of the congregation and a previous life in which one was a “pagan.” There is not an attempt to make the “pagan world” better; there is a call to a conversion from the practices of the wider world because one lives now in faith (allegiance, loyalty) to Jesus Christ as a member of a congregation. The worship of statues represented the proper order of the city and the empire. Paul seems to presuppose that such loyalties were utterly left behind in baptism
as living as a member of the congregation in Corinth.
Given that the revelation of Jesus Christ had gathered these individuals into a common group that contrasts with the society, the passage deals with the relationship in the church between the one and the many, the individual and the “community,” or better, the person and the congregation? What does one see in the passage about roles within the congregation? Is the individual absorbed into the “community”? Does initiation into the congregation annul or empower the individual? What is the purpose of the individual? Does the individual do “their own thing” regardless of the congregation? What holds the multiplicity of gifts and individuals within the congregation together? Why does the passage not speak of the “community” discerning the gifts of each other or as functioning to affirm each individual in their gifts? Why are the gifts lead to a common good? What is the “common good” for which the Spirit gives gifts? In other words, given the first part of the passage, what common good of the congregation for which the Spirit gives the individual gifts? One might need to think as a minority group, like the Sudanese, who try to sustain their culture and families amidst a society that radically undercuts their fundamental way of life.
Isaiah 62:1-5

If the Gospel shows the revelation of God in Christ, if 1 Corinthians shows the results of the gathering of the faith-full as a result of this revelation internally, we need to read Isaiah 62:1-5 as the mission to the world as a result of the revelation of God in Christ. “Zion” and “Jerusalem” provide images of the church or a congregation. It shows what God will bring about as a result of God’s revelation by the “servant of the Lord” (Isa. 53) and the impact among the nations. This is a statement of hope. What does the passage presuppose about the current state of “Jerusalem”? Yet what is Jerusalem’s purpose in the world? How does “Jerusalem” work as a revelation of God?

The passages thus speak of a certain order: God’s revelation in Christ, personal faith in Christ that leads to participation in a unified congregation that enfolds individuals without losing their individuality, a congregation’s positive visible witness amidst the world for the sake of “kings” and nations. It is not through influencing kings, or by taking control of the world that “Jerusalem” witnesses to God. It is by its movement from desolation to visible life in the world.

Maybe you can speak of this order, where you’ve seen it, or heard of it. Maybe you can talk and pray how we as a congregation might better live this unified witness in the world.

Have a wonderful time together!

Posted by johnwright at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)

This coming Sunday is the first Sunday following Epiphany. All of the readings between January 6th and Ash Wednesday celebrate the revelation of the Messiah of Israel, the Son of God, not only to the Jews, but also to all humanity.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has a very good description of Epiphany:

"The Epiphany is the manifestation of Jesus as Messiah of Israel, Son of God and Savior of the world. The great feast of Epiphany celebrates the adoration of Jesus by the wise men (magi) from the East, together with his baptism in the Jordan and the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee. In the magi, representatives of the neighboring pagan religions, the Gospel sees the first-fruits of the nations, who welcome the good news of salvation through the Incarnation. The magi's coming to Jerusalem in order to pay homage to the king of the Jews shows that they seek in Israel, in the messianic light of the star of David, the one who will be king of the nations. Their coming means that pagans can discover Jesus and worship him as Son of God and Savior of the world only by turning towards the Jews and receiving from them the messianic promise as contained in the Old Testament. The Epiphany shows that "the full number of the nations" now takes its "place in the family of the patriarchs", and acquires Israelitica dignitas (is made "worthy of the heritage of Israel")."

As we read these Scriptures, we recognize in them how we who were not once a people, have now become God's people, engrafted into the holy root that is the Jews. We also recognize, like the Jews, that we really "don't belong here" -- that our citizenship is in heaven. To read these Scriptures is to celebrate God's goodness to us in the full grace, love, and mercy of God.

Isaiah 42:1-9

Obviously the passage is read in terms of Jesus Christ. The passage decribes how the servant "brings forth justice". What is his method? How does it relate to the end of justice that he will establish?

Then the passage responds shifts to a singular "you" from the third person "he" as the text has God address each one of us directly as well as the servant. What is our mission as individuals and as followers of the "servant"? Who is the God who calls us?

Acts 10:34-38

The Acts passage speaks of Peter's sermon to Cornelius -- the Gentile who God calls to faith in the Jewish Messiah. What is it that Jesus preached? Of whom is Jesus Lord? How does Peter summarize the significance of Jesus? How did Jesus reveal the God of Isael to the nations in his life? How does this relate to the description of the method and end from Isaiah? What implications does this have for Cornelius? For us?

Luke 3:15-16,21-22

The Gospel reading identifies Jesus as the Messiah in his baptism. If you notice, Jesus is identified as the Beloved of the Father. The passage reveals the Triune God -- the Lover (the Father) identifies the Beloved (the Son) by the presence of Love itself (the Spirit). We see here the eternal Delight that the Son is to the Father by the Spirit. It is a scene of joy, happiness, gladness, as are the passages above.

The joy that runs through these passages, a joy grounded in the Joy that is the Triune God, reminds me of an Eastern Orthodox theologian, Alexander Schmemann's discussion of the mission of the church in light of the secularity of the age. He reminds us in For the Life of the World that "from its very beginning Christianity has been the proclamation of joy . . . with this joy it transformed the End into a Beginning. Without the proclamation of this joy Christianity is incomprehensible" (p. 24). We tend to see Christian mission, God's address to us as "you" as duty or moral obligation -- we are good modernists. Epiphany reminds of us of the Joy that is God into which God calls us to participate. Schmeman advises us "Let us, therefore, forget for a while the technical discussion about the Church, its mission, its methods. Not that these discussions are wrong or unnecessary—but they can be useful and meaningful only within a fundamental context, and that context is the ‘great joy’ from which everything else in Christianity developed and acquired its meaning" (p. 24). He goes on to again remind us "We have no other means of entering into that joy . . . . except through the one action which from the beginning has been for the Church both the source and the fulfillment of joy, the very sacrament of joy, the Eucharist" (p. 25).

Now hear is a point to discuss. How do well remain, to speak of C.S. Lewis, "Surprised by Joy" given the realities of the world around us? How do we keep the mission to which God has called us by name in God's own Epiphany in Jesus a function of "joy" rather than merely "duty" or "obligation"? What must remain the center of our faith, our whole life and being?

Have a wonderful evening!

Leitourgia. It meant an action by which a group of people become something corporately which they had not been as a mere collection of individuals – a whole greater than the sum of its parts. 25

Thus the Church itself is a leitourgia, a ministry a calling to act in this world after the fashion of Christ, to bear testimony to Him andHis kingdom. 25

The first condition for the understanding of liturgy is to forget about any specific ‘liturgical piety.’ 26

The Eucharist is the entrance of the Church into the joy of its Lord. And to enter into that joy, so as to be a witness to it in the world, is indeed the very calling of the Church, its essential leitourgia, the sacrament by which it ‘becomes what it is.’ 26

Posted by johnwright at 12:37 PM | Comments (1)