Author Archive
Irrevocable
Chesterton writes of Utopia, romance, and oaths:
I could never conceive or tolerate any Utopia which did not leave to me the liberty for which I chiefly care, the liberty to bind myself. Complete anarchy would not merely make it impossible to have any discipline or fidelity; it would also make it impossible to have any fun. To take an obvious instance, it would not be worth while to bet if a bet were not binding. The dissolution of all contracts would not only ruin morality but spoil sport. Now betting and such sports are only the stunted and twisted shapes of the original instinct of man for adventure and romance, of which much has been said in these pages. And the perils, rewards, punishments, and fulfilments of an adventure must be real, or the adventure is only a shifting and heartless nightmare. If I bet I must be made to pay, or there is no poetry in betting. If I challenge I must be made to fight, or there is no poetry in challenging. If I vow to be faithful I must be cursed when I am unfaithful, or there is no fun in vowing. You could not even make a fairy tale from the experiences of a man who, when he was swallowed by a whale, might find himself at the top of the Eiffel Tower, or when he was turned into a frog might begin to behave like a flamingo. For the purpose even of the wildest romance results must be real; results must be irrevocable. Christian marriage is the great example of a real and irrevocable result; and that is why it is the chief subject and centre of all our romantic writing. And this is my last instance of the things that I should ask, and ask imperatively, of any social paradise; I should ask to be kept to my bargain, to have my oaths and engagements taken seriously; I should ask Utopia to avenge my honour on myself.
All my modern Utopian friends look at each other rather doubtfully, for their ultimate hope is the dissolution of all special ties. But again I seem to hear, like a kind of echo, an answer from beyond the world. “You will have real obligations, and therefore real adventures when you get to my Utopia. But the hardest obligation and the steepest adventure is to get there.” (Orthodoxy, ch. 7)
Or screenwriters
Chesterton writes:
though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators. (Orthodoxy, ch. 2)
Neighbors
In the performed story that is Christian worship, we are related to others as neighbors rather than as an “audience.” (James K. A. Smith, Imagining the Kingdom, 150)
Idol
A marriage which does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-sufficiency, which does not “die to itself” that it may point beyond itself, is not a Christian marriage. The real sin of marriage today is not adultery or lack of “adjustment” or “mental cruelty.” It is the idolization of the family itself, the refusal to understand marriage as directed toward the Kingdom of God. This is expressed in the sentiment that one would “do anything” for his family, even steal. The family has here ceased to be for the glory of God; it has ceased to be a sacramental entrance into His presence. It is not the lack of respect for the family, it is the idolization of the family that breaks the modern family so easily, making divorce its almost natural shadow. It is the identification of marriage with happiness and the refusal to accept the cross in it. In a Christian marriage, in fact, three are married; and the united loyalty of the two toward the third, who is God, keeps the two in an active unity with each other as well as with God. Yet it is the presence of God which is the death of the marriage as something only “natural.” It is the cross of Christ that brings the self-sufficiency of nature to its end. But “by the cross joy [and not ‘happiness!’] entered the whole world.” Its presence is thus the real joy of marriage. It is the joyful certitude that the marriage vow, in the perspective of the eternal Kingdom, is not taken “until death parts,” but until death unites us completely. (Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World, 90-91)
Icon
In movies and magazines the “icon” of marriage is always a youthful couple. But once, in the light and warmth of an autumn afternoon, this writer saw on the bench of a public square, in a poor Parisian suburb, an old and poor couple. They were sitting hand in hand, in silence, enjoying the pale light, the last warmth of the season. In silence: all words had been said, all passion exhausted, all storms at peace. The whole life was behind—yet all of it was now present, in this silence, in this light, in this warmth, in this silent unity of hands. Present—and ready for eternity, ripe for joy. This to me remains the vision of marriage, of its heavenly beauty. (Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World, 90)
Chiasm and creation in John
Hajime Murai has proposed a deep chiasm running the entire length of the book of John. I’ve been following along off and on in our church’s readings in John, and some of the parallels are striking; for example, John 4 paired with John 19, or Nicodemus questioning and later burying Jesus.
Murai includes the so-called pericope adulterae, John 7:53-8:11, in his outline. This is a disputed passage that almost certainly was not part of John’s original manuscript. However, I think that the chiastic parallels are actually stronger if this passage is omitted. Murai suggests that 7:53-8:11 parallels 10:1-21, and links the Pharisees’ lack of understanding. I suggest the following arrangement, starting with Murai’s pairing of living water with the raising of Lazarus:
7:37-39 Living water
7:40-44 Division and seeking to arrest
7:45-52 The shepherds of Israel
8:12-30 Light of the world
8:31-59 I AM
9:1-41 A man born blind healed; the blindness of the Pharisees
10:1-18 The great shepherd
10:19-39 Division and seeking to arrest
10:40-11:54 Crossing the Jordan and the healing of Lazarus
This serves as a small and secondary confirmation the disputed passage is not original to John.
The fact that the center of John involves a discussion of light and seeing and what is “above” is also striking, especially following a discussion of water. This suggests to me that Murai’s overall chiasm could be bracketed into seven sections that track the days of creation (central day four being the heavenly lights, following day three’s separation of land and waters).
History
Romans 11:17-24 reads:
But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree. (ESV)
This has a significant implication for the history recorded into the Old Testament. It is possible both to be adopted into that history, and also to be disowned from that history. Thus, whatever its cultural make-up, Jesus’s church can claim the Old Testament as its own history: we were rescued from Egypt, we hung our harps on the willows, and we were preserved by Yahweh in exile.
It is also, of course, a sobering warning. It is possible for people and churches and cultures to live for centuries, even millennia, preoccupied with a history that is glorious but which has ceased to be your own.
Dragons and Leprosy
We watched the 1959 movie Ben Hur recently as a family and enjoyed it.
Contra the movie, I am not convinced that modern-day Hansen’s disease is linked with Biblical leprosy. They are very commonly confused, so I was not at all surprised. However, it did surprise and at first disappoint me to see leprosy healed just as soon as Jesus died; that seemed like a cheesy storytelling shortcut.
But upon reflection, it is true that Jesus brings us many great gifts apart from our deserving or even asking for them. A similar unasked-for miracle is recorded on that very day (Matt 27:52-54). And it is particularly striking that the kinds of leprosy described in Leviticus are nowhere quite exactly to be found today: just as today we no longer see the great dragons whose bones can still be found (e.g., Job 41, Isa. 27, 51), there is today no more leprosy of that kind. The last great leprous house was dismantled in AD 70 (Lev. 14:45, Matt. 24:2), so that we can say the death of Jesus truly did inaugurate the end of leprosy!
The great storyteller has seen fit to tie these transitions to the new covenant in Jesus. The great dragons are defeated, and there is now one washing that grants permanent access to the very throne of God, so that you could even say that it is now life rather than death that is contagious. This the movie portrayed well.
Baptized
2 Samuel 19 tells of the return of David to Jerusalem after the defeat of Absalom. Interestingly, it is said that Judah brings David back over the Jordan river, and a number of individuals who cross over to meet David are explicitly named. To properly show their repentance and receive David back, Judah first had to repudiate their rebellion and identify with David in his exile. These river crossings are very obviously a kind of baptism, a union with David in his exile and therefore his restoration.
A wise Benjaminite (Phil. 3:5) might have preached in Gilgal that day:
Men of Judah, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into David were baptized into his exile? We were separated therefore with him by baptism into exile, in order that, just as David was revived from the pit by the glory of Yahweh, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in an exile like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a restoration like his. We know that our old self was exiled with him in order that the rebellious nation might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer belong to rebellion. For one who has been exiled has been set free from rebellion. Now if we have been exiled with David, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that David, being revived from the pit, will never be exiled again; exile no longer has dominion over him. For the separation he endured he endured to rebellion, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to rebellion and alive to Yahweh in David.
Let not rebellion therefore reign in this nation, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to rebellion as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from exile to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For rebellion will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
As it happened, the more foolish Benjaminites Sheba and Shimei did not heed this warning.
Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. (Heb. 13:13)
I gotta have my orange juice. 