An Intriguing Conversation!

Between last week and today I have had an interesting interruption in the three part blog on On Isaiah 58 and Luke 13:10-17.  A reader has presented me with some intriguing, thought provoking,  opinions.  What I have decided, is to share these various thoughts with all of you. I tried to use different colors for our comments but the blog auto correct doesn't like my idea(;  So I will identify them by our initials.   It does get wordy!  But Hey!!

Comment number 1

(M) My first question is how can your disregard the silver?

(C) I don’t disregard the sliver, but try to put it in a context of what happened before and the two thousand years of since.  I couldn’t understand any of it any other way.  To take Christianity, without question as born fully formed, is impossible for me.  The complex cultural environment, and all that followed in developing and synthesizing Jesus’s teaching into an actual thing called Christianity took a few hundred years.  HUNDRED YEARS - that’s a long time.  Think of all that influences any idea since 100 years ago.

For a few hundred years after Jesus’s life, small villages with competing interests and understanding had been ‘interpreting’ Jesus’s teachings (and those of his disciples) within the context of and influenced by their priorities and interests; depending on old conflicts and competition. 

Finally the time came for a coalescing of the lessons etc into a tome called The Bible and having it make sense with the Torah. This also took a very long time (I don’t recall that, but people have studied the precursors to the various ‘chapters’ and know this. 

(M) I have never thought of Christianity as-already-long- ago formed!  What ever gave you that opinion?  It has evolved from the time of Jesus until now. It will continue on into tomorrow with even more cultural changes. 

(C) Bottom line, things didn’t happen all at once in one beautiful statement after another shortly after Jesus died.   Just didn’t happen.  I remember listening to Diane and Ray’s son up at Holden talking about all he was learning in seminary in Berkeley and how blown away he was from his growing up lessons in Sunday School.  

(M) In most mainline seminaries students have his same epiphany.  I certainly did!

(C) People decided how to tell the story.  They were compelled to make it fit the prophesies of the the Old Testament relate to all the mysteries to be ‘explained’.  When that couldn't actually work, they included views to honor the many views on the subject. That’s a big reason for conflicting passages in the Bible. Depended on the point of view of the teller.  

(M) That is very true!  Just as preacher and writers do today.

(C) So yes, I see that few hundred years in a sliver within a broader context of human development and spiritual awakening in humans.  The context is critical considering how much language and thought has changed in two thousand years.  I can ignore this when a teaching is confusing, contradictory, or seems a bit superficial or idealistic.  I don’t discount the teaching but I can’t ignore the rest of the context. I simply am curious to want to know how much more I can learn. 

(M) Context, language and tradition are all important to my exegesis .  Most especially the languages! 

(C) What if one view of a particular aspect of our country was the only view accepted or viewed as acceptable or The Only Truth?  Can you imagine? Impossible.  Two thousand years from now, the curious would search for a little more information about us and that aspect of Only Truth.  

(M) I can imagine!  I also think that 2000 years from now there won’t be so much separation in religions and/or denominations.    

(C) I will continue with your next question in another email.

Comment #2 

(M) My second question is, who ever said that prophets no longer speaks?

(C) I think I may have misstated my idea.  My intended question was, why do we no longer recognize wisdom we receive as from a ’new' prophet.  No new statements are revealed any more in magical ways of the past (dreams, visions, etc). If those were real, I could ask why not?  We could sure use a few booming lessons from heaven.  To me such magical visits were a vehicle of oral tradition to make lessons memorable. And fear filled when necessary.  

 Today if someone believes God has spoken to them directly, or an angel has appeared to guide them, they are frequently ignored and considered psychologically challenged. 

(M) When I read this I felt that we were on the same page.  It made my heart glad!

I do believe that God still uses dreams, and angels to give us thoughts, ideas and inspiration.  It took me a long time to admit that God communicates with us still today.  For the very reason you mentioned above. I believe it is the Holy Spirit moving our minds, guiding us into new truths.  I have personally experienced such communication. The stories might get a bit long, to include here.  If you’d like to hear one, let me know.

I also think that prophets speak today.  I'm almost sure that I have even written a blog on this somewhere along the way.  It is also true that some people use God as a tool to make prophesies and predictions; that are possibly not from the Holy Spirit.  But that is a conversation for another time.

(C) That is what lead me to the idea about people actually feeling inspired to do their work etc.  We don’t speak in terms of angels descending to tell us what to do next.  We feel inspired from within.  We feel the impulse from our core.  

(M) Totally agree here!  

(C) I do believe every person on earth can and many do serve as an angel for someone else.  I do not believe in winged angels and big storms rushing in to inspire anyone.  These are the stuff of story.  I do not believe they happened literally 2000 years ago.  If they did, why haven't these legitimate visits continued?

(M) Agreed!  And, to be vey clear, I am not a protonate of literal thinking when is come to biblical interpretation. People who take the Bible literally have created many misunderstanding and  problems in the past.  That continues today.  I will guess that is why, as a child, you had some huge issues with what your Sunday School teacher taught you.

(C) What I do believe is that we have even more wisdom available to us than the lessons of the prophets from that limited time and place in the past.  The world is FILLED with wisdom to access.  And I believe that is what the Unity is all about.  

(M) The writer of Ecclesiastics would not argue with that!  Neither do I!   

Comment number 3

(C) I suppose my last email (2) addresses this.  I have seen as largely non-existent the leap from the theology to actual action in some people.  That’s why I could never hang around a church for long. I felt too much of that with some folks (NOT our group) visiting with them in the food lines at Holden.   It’s as is if some people don’t make a connection. As if their church was their most important identity and how much better theirs was because some minister didn’t satisfy.  

(M) That mentality often is born in the literal arena.  At least that is mostly where I have found it.  However, in most denomination each congregation is a mix of those who quote the Bible word-for-word as literal; and those who don’t.

(C) I really liked your latest blog describing your time in New Orleans.   That’s people-to-people community action responding to needs.  Finding a fellowship where you can do this in a dozen ways every day of the week has been amazingly exploratory for me.  Step in and step up.  Get off the pew and go do.

(M) You just described  the theology of the Generation X and Millennial generation.  They want to do what Jesus asked us ‘to do’.  And, not doing that very thing is what has kill the integrity of the Christian church.  That is why pews are empty in most mainline churches today.

The ELCA is working very hard to change its mode of operation. I am on a synod committee working on just that.  You might be interested in reading some of the books I have been digesting the last two or three  years. Hayden Shaw’s Generational IQ is one.  David Kinnamann’s You Lost Me is another.  And my most recent read is, Dwight J Zscheile’s The Agile Church.

(C) I know I haven’t listened recently to sermons in a Christian church.  So I know I'm missing much of what is happening today.  However, I appreciate hearing probably the vary same lessons (without Biblical text as a reference) of a sermon from actual people DOING these things, KNOWING these things in depth, LIVING these things instead of the old traditional way of giving the lesson.  Usually offering invitations of specific ways to become involved to help, rather than simply shaking one’s head and sending prayers off for God to do it. 

Comment number 4

(C) You said it best.  The Bible is one tool.  However you suggest if it didn’t exist there would be no other tools available.  That’s not correct.  Wisdom on this planet abounds.  In many forms. 

(M) Okay let me restate my thought.  I do think I mentioned other biblical writings of the ancient texts. I believe there are about 400 or so known to be in existence .  But the Bible, is the only one easily available to, the ordinary person’s inquiring mind.  That is does not have a library like the theological schools do.  Ancient texts are not well know in most circles.  And very few libraries put them on their shelves.  

Comment number 5

(C) Good good.  That is why you are who your are and live the life you are inspired to live.  That is why you help those trying to believe again what they learned as children and what they are struggling with as adults.  I appreciate that you have listened to me patiently and tried to answer my questions from your faith and deep beliefs.  

I don’t mean to offend you or your beliefs by rejecting such a possibility for me. To believe only the Jesus story and requirements is simply one way, one possible explanation for me.  I suppose it’s the requirements that stop me quickest.  It excludes.  I can’t fathom this from a God of love.  It is conceivable to me that Jesus on occasion has been misquoted.  

I would expand your last idea: I can believe just as deeply that God’s way has done this over and over with the many peoples of this beautiful earth.  Yes, Jesus story is a way.  But I am convinced to my core that the exact same core ways of how to live a loving live are lived fully and well by those who have never heard of Jesus or the Bible.  Or who have, but found them lacking. The people of this world have found additional places that reflect Truth. 

(M) I am not at all sure that Jesus “excludes.”  If you mean that just staying with what Jesus taught, then yes, it may seem to exclude other sources.  But what I mean is that it is Jesus who puts it all together for me. Jesus helps me to know, have faith,  that God is a God of mercy, grace and love.  

You may, or may not, be aware that the folks who want to claim biblical superiority, those who take the Bible literally, without error — as I mentioned above -- quote the Old Testament and the Apostle Paul, and very little about what Jesus taught and modeled.  

I hope that helps!