Archive for the ‘Scripture’ Category

Hunches, hopes, hints about grace

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Question: If we are saved by God’s grace and yet we continue to turn our back on God, i.e., we don’t practice our faith, we don’t pray, we don’t read God’s word, we continue to repeat the same sins over and over, etc. if we die are we saved or did we fall short of God’s grace? Ref: Hebrews 10:26-31
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This is why theologians get paid the big money [insert ironic chuckle here].

We are supposed to know what is going to happen when we die and why.

Let me be straight up and, on behalf of a whole bunch of us, say: We don’t. For sure. We have hunches, we have hopes, we have hints, but we don’t really, really know.

It’s tricky, right? There are texts that can really scare the dickens out of a person. Take a look at the one you mention: Hebrews 10:26-31.

And why stop there?

Matthew 7:13, Luke 16:26, 2 Thessalonians 1:9, Revelation 20:13-15 all can be cause for deep fear and even despair….and there are a lot more where these came from.

Of course, other texts aren’t so frightening, and actually suggest a wider door.

1 Tim. 2:6, 1 Cor. 15:22, Romans 5:17, Col. 1:20, 1 John 2:2.

Of course, each of these texts are bound to the verses before and after it, and bound by the author’s historical context, and many can be interpreted a number of ways.

My point here is that the Bible (in the cases listed above, the New Testament) isn’t as monolithic as one might believe.

Not that it is a huge surprise for those who read my blogs carefully, but I am of the mind that the question of what happens after we die is largely a theological question, and that in the end, we have to humbly say that we don’t know…and that we will not be paralyzed by that notion.

The way in which you phrase your thoughts, however, raises some interesting questions. You begin by saying that “If we are saved by God’s grace….” and close by wondering if we can “fall short of God’s grace.”

My immediate thought is, saved from what?

My second thought is, what is grace?

And my first answer to the first thought is, sin.

And my first answer to the second thought is, the gift of something undeserved.

And so two theological questions:

If we really believe that God offers grace (an undeserved gift) to we who sin (namely we who reject God in favor of something else) then:

1. isn’t the demand to repent, to stop the sin, to pray, etc…..aren’t these all acts to make us deserving of grace? And along side of that (this doesn’t cut into my two questions, btw! ;-) ), then what is grace, really? Can we fall short of something we don’t deserve in the first place?

2. Who doesn’t sin, and (again, still part of the same question!) who is aware of all the ways in which one sins? Is it ever possible to confess and repent of all our sins?

These are just beginning questions. Then begins a whole run of ‘em.

Like,

Are all sins choices, or could there be sinful behaviors which are bound up in mental illness, in fatigue, in family systems?

Do we really want to say that only Christians are going to heaven…and does even Scripture make that case?

Is this a slippery slope to universalism?

And if “all people get into heaven,” then what’s the point of believing?

Ah, but then there are counter-questions:

Like, if a person believes to get into heaven, isn’t the integrity and authenticity of the belief self-serving, since it appears to be motivated by a protecting one’s own eternal hiney?

When does one believe “enough” to be in God’s good graces?

Is there anyone who is purely good? And even if not entirely good, are there parts of people which are fundamentally good, and then are those parts not in need of salvation….and what would that mean?

But don’t good deeds matter somehow?

And yet if we say that they do, then don’t we say that we in part can save ourselves?

And what happens if we’ve lived a pretty good life, and in the moment that we allow ourselves to wonder these sorts of things, get hit by a car? What is going to be God’s final answer?

Regardless of how one comes down on the question of heaven/hell, salvation/damnation, this much is safe to assert is true:

If one says that they believe in God, then there are implications for how they live their lives, for the choices that they make.

We all mess up, sometime quite gloriously, even those who say that they–and in fact really do–believe.

There’s a reason why we have the word “grace,” in other words. We need it.

But generally, if one says that something is core to who they are, then they live life consistent to that notion: not to get something, but because they can’t help but to live in such a fashion.

I tell my husband that I love him not to get him to love me, but because I love him. I play with my kidlets not to get them to respect me, but because I adore them.

Actions are an expression, in other words.

And let it not be missed that some of the most life-giving people are those who are not connected to any one particular religious tradition.

So the point is not to “diss” confessing and repenting and praying and discerning what is faithful and striving to live accordingly.

The point is to rather raise the question about whether these are pre-reqs for salvation…and if we answer that they are, well….who doesn’t fall short of that?

It’s all clear…as mud.

Peace,

Anna

Posted in Christianity, God's Relevancy, Heaven & Hell, Mercy & Grace, Reader Questions, Scripture, Suffering, Truth | 6 Comments »

YWHW clearly means, um…I’ll get back to you…..

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Question:

In the Exodus rendition of God’s self-description, the syntax takes on expansive meanings: “I am who I am” could be “I will be what I will be” or “I am what I will be”.

God continues in the passage to describe Himself in relationship to mankind as the “God of your fathers”, etc. It would be nice to better understand what God meant (or Moses’s interpretation) of that event.

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Wowza. There’s something to keep a mind moving in the morning.

In short, in Exodus 3:13 and following, God lets God’s name slip. YHWH.

But the name YHWH has been keeping people awake ever since, and apparently you too have maybe lost a few minutes wrangling with it.

Why YHWH? What does that mean?

Bernhard Anderson, Old Testament theologian, calls this text “one of the most cryptic passages in the Old Testament.”

I’d add that to your fantastic adjective “expansive!”

To Moses’ “simple” question, God offers three responses.

1. “I am who I am,” or “I will be who I will be;”

2. “I am;”

3. “The God of your ancestors…”

We have been terribly interested in this “be-ing” piece, this name that in Hebrew is rendered YHWH.

The first person form of the Hebrew word for the verb “to be” is ‘ehyeh. In Hebrew, it would be spelled (transliterated into English now of course!) HYH, namely “I am.” The third person form of this verb (namely “he is”) is YHWH.

Anderson lays out three different ways of thinking through this odd choice of a name, and I’ll lay them out in turn. (All of the following is found in Understanding the Old Testament, 4th Edition, p. 60 and following).

1. One line of thinking puts out there that originally in the text, the word was based on the Hebrew verb for “cause to be,” as in “He makes things happen.” In other words, in the context of the text, it reads, “I bring things into being.” This works nicely grammatically and theologically, if the agenda were to make the case that God was the creator of all things. Martin Noth notes that the “to be” verb used here does not imply merely “existing,” but rather active being, movement. (Exodus: A Commentary, 1962, p. 45).

2. Another theory is that YWHW should be understood simply as “I am.” Some, says Anderson, don’t particularly like this approach, because the idea of thinking about God in some eternal sort of way wasn’t really an issue for the ancient Israelites; it’s actually more of a Greek concern.

That said, the Israelites were concerned about developing an idea about God who was, is, and will continue to be involved in history. Another twist on this approach maintains that the point is that YHWH is, rather than other gods. Anderson quotes R. de Vaux who wrote that the implication here is that YHWH “is the only one who exists for Israel.”

3. Last is the idea that the name means “I will be,” in a future-bound sort of way. Here is a sense of comfort and promise. Moses will not be going forth alone, but rather with God, and the Israelites will not be left alone, but will be with God. As Anderson writes, “…the divine name signifies God, whose being is turned toward the people, who is present in their midst as deliverer, guide, and judge, and who is accessible in worship.”

That said, the text suggests that God is not 100% sure that it’s a good idea to reveal the divine name, for fear that people will try and use it for their own purposes. Think, for a moment, of how wars, church battles, justifications for personal deeds, are engaged with the assumption that “God is on my side.” So the interpretation above implies that God retains control of God’s identity, as in, “I will be whom I will be, not whom you want me to be.”

Still, once you know the name of someone, you can be in relationship. A name can be said in gentleness, love, anger, rejection, consolation, jest. With this in mind, that God offered YHWH suggests God’s willingness to be vulnerable and accessible. In other words, not only the name is of interest here, but the very offering of the name is too. See Terrance Frethiem here, in Interpretation: Exodus, pp. 64 and following.

Much more could be said regarding the name YHWH. Anderson concedes that the “honest truth is that we do not know for sure the source from which Moses received the name Yahweh.” That said, he goes on, the most important matter is what the name meant to early Israel. Here, it seems as if the name YHWH was bound up with the Exodus event, a God who, to quote Exodus 20:2, “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”

To that degree, the name YHWH could continue to have relevance for those who call still upon that name. God continues to be, to be creative, to be involved, and to bring new things into being.

Posted in Christianity, God's Relevancy, Judaism, Reader Questions, Scripture | 2 Comments »

ELCA conversation about homosexuality

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Question:  Hi! was wondering if you had an opinion on the whole gay minister thing, particularly re: the editorial yesterday;03/03/2010 in the Argus Leader from Lutheran minister who equated the issue to the rebellion of Lucifer; wanting to place his throne above God’s throne.

Thanks for the question!

I do have an opinion.  I actively supported the recent change in policy.

One of the intriguing things about this entire conversation is the way in which Scripture has been employed.  I have come to decide (not surprisingly, given my vocational bias as a systematic theologian) that the question really is not a scriptural one, but rather a theological one.

That might seem to be a surprising distinction, but here’s what’s behind it:

You can use scripture to back up most anything one desires.  Slavery, women’s subjugation, bashing babies’ heads on stones, multiple wives, socialism (not capitalism, come to think of it), celibacy, giving away all you have…you get the idea; all are encouraged in Scripture.

But clearly, some matters in Scripture we embrace, some we do not.

Add to that the fact that Scripture was written over hundreds and hundreds of years, and hundreds and hundreds of years ago.  So as one of my Old Testament professors pointed out, the one commandment we have ever gotten correct was, “Be fruitful and multiply.”  Made sense then, in a day when they needed to populate.  But in a day when we struggle with overpopulation, well, does that law speak to us even now?

And for the Christians in the group, if you add the notion of the living, breathing, Holy Spirit into it, one can not make the case that the Spirit was done speaking at the end of Revelation.  The Spirit can speak to us outside of Scripture.

The question, it seems to me, is less “What does Scripture say,” and more “On what basis do we interpret Scripture?”

When we begin there, we learn about why different groups are in favor of the new ELCA rostering decision, and why some oppose it.

And when we begin there, we also understand something of context, and might even engage in a new form of respectful and humble dialogue.

So while I disagree with those who are angry with the new choice to ordain gays and lesbians in committed relationships, it helps to learn something of their theological framework, and then the conversation becomes much more fruitful than lobbing Bible verses back and forth.

What do you think?

Anna

Posted in Denominations, Homosexuality, Reader Questions, Scripture | 16 Comments »