Another Voice

Authoritarian church leaders, when they are either ignorant or simply short-sighted, often respond to theological observations they don’t comprehend by issuing speedy condemnations.

A few days ago, Gerhard Mueller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, did just that when he reprimanded representatives of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, for giving an “Outstanding Leadership Award” to Elizabeth A. Johnson.

Johnson is an eminent contemporary theologian, deeply rooted in our Catholic tradition. Mueller argued that due to “the gravity of the doctrinal errors” in her writings, LCWR’s award to Johnson was an “open provocation against the Holy See.” Quite a statement and more than a bit of overblown rhetoric. The CDF condemnation becomes even more puzzling when one realizes that, true to a pattern established a few centuries, the CDF has again condemned without indicating what has been condemned. An old bullying tactic.

Our USCCB Committee on Doctrine has also strongly criticized Johnson for her “errors” and “ambiguities.” Some members of that committee, I suspect, could use refresher courses in New Testament exegesis and historical theology.

I have read all of Elizabeth Johnson’s books and have never read anything that undermines our Christian tradition; and frankly I have a pretty good reputation for being an objective historical theologian. If an author seems to stray from our tradition in a “grave” way, I have no problem expressing my concern or alarm. (And there are indeed contemporary theological authors on the left and on the right of center who depart from authentic Christian belief.)

Two of Elizabeth Johnson’s books that I very much like (and strongly recommend) are: She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (1991) and Quest for the Living God (2007.)

She Who is was a well-developed attempt to integrate feminist categories such as women’s experience and emancipation into classical Catholic theology. (When this book came out thirteen years ago, one of my U.S. bishop friends — who never even bothered to read the dust-jacket — denounced Elizabeth Johnson and her book, cynically yelling “why can’t she acknowledge that God is our Father?” I responded with a friendly chuckle, “why can’t you acknowledge that all God-talk is analogical and perhaps many of our sisters and brothers in the faith relate better to God as a loving mother than a judgmental father.”)

Guest for the Living God is a masterpiece. I used it last autumn in an adult faith discussion group and will do that again this coming autumn. Johnson understands so very well that people of faith are seeking God, the Divine, not in abstract medieval doctrines but in sincere and deep reflection on our everyday experiences, struggles, and hopes. Her chapter headings say it well:

• Gracious Mystery, Ever Greater, Ever Nearer
• The Crucified God of Compassion
• Liberating God of Life
• God Acting Womanish
• God Who Breaks Chains
• Accompanying God of Fiesta
• Generous God of the Religions
• Creator Spirit in the Evolving World
• Trinity: The Living God of Love

Elizabeth A. Johnson is Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University.

And Gerhard Mueller? I am sure he is a fine fellow, like my bishop friend. These ecclesiastical authorities must learn, however, that theological exploration is the responsibility of ALL in the church. And we only make progress in our quests for the Living God when our conversations are mutually respectful, and open, and honest: without secretive hidden agendas.

Now go buy a copy of Johnson’s book………and organize your own adult faith discussion group!

Cardinal Bernard Law, formerly of Boston, was rewarded for his cover-up of sexually abusive priests by being appointed to a prestigious Vatican post in Rome. Bernard Law should have been sentenced to a few years in an American jail.

Under a new pope, the clock is ticking for wayward covert-up bishops, however. And there is quite a list to choose from. Perhaps we should hang their photos in our church vestibules, if not the local post office.

Since I am partial to my native state of Michigan, I would begin with John Clayton Nienstedt, the eighth and current Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis. A Motown boy, he attended and was later rector of my first alma mater: Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit.

John Clayton has a thing about gays. Shortly after becoming Twin Cities Archbishop, he discontinued the gay pride prayer service that was held at St. Joan of Arc Church in Minneapolis. John had earlier described homosexuality as a “result of psychological trauma” that “must be understood in the context of other human disorders: envy, malice, greed, etc.” In December 2013, Archbishop Nienstedt voluntarily stepped aside from all public ministry while police investigated an allegation that he touched a boy on his buttocks. In March 2014, he returned to public ministry after an extensive investigation found no buttocks-touching evidence against him. So much for a bit of general background……

The archbishop is on my list, however, not because of his gay paranoia but his history of sexual abuse cover-ups.

Archbishop John Nienstedt maintained a relatively low profile on clergy sexual abuse until early October 2013, when he began re-arranging archdiocesan deck-chairs, reacting to charges of covering-up evidence of child pornography on a priest’s computer inside his own chancery. The accusation came from attorney Jennifer Haselberger, former chancellor for canonical affairs for the St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocese. She had earlier stated that the archdiocese had overlooked for nearly a decade the sexual compulsions of another priest, Curtis Wehmeyer, and did not warn parishioners. Wehmeyer is now in prison, convicted of sexually abusing two boys and possession of child pornography.

Nienstedt, who came to St. Paul and Minneapolis in 2008, said he had no knowledge of any cover-ups during his administration. Jennifer Haselberger, had warned him in 2009, however, not to promote a priest with a known history of sexual misconduct. Nienstedt reacted by making him pastor of the parish, where had had already been parish administrator. The priest then continued to abuse children in that parish.

Haselberger resigned because of the archdiocesan leader’s refusal to act on her allegations of cover-ups which she said had made it impossible for her to continue in her position with any sense of personal integrity.

Having lost confidence in him, lay people and priests in the archdiocese began to call for Nienstedt’s resignation. St. Paul Attorney Jeff Anderson, well-known for representing victims of sexual abuse, accused the archdiocese of a longstanding and ongoing cover-up of child sex abuse, going back to when Harry Flynn was the St. Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop.

Nienstedt’s top deputy, Father Peter Laird, stepped down as vicar general of the archdiocese in October 2013; and a couple weeks after that former Archbishop Harry Flynn resigned as chair of the board of trustees at the University of St. Thomas. Peter Laird had also told Archbishop Nienstedt that he too should resign.

More serious accusations emerged in November 2014, concerning Clarence Vavra, a priest and an admitted serial pedophile. For almost 19 years top ranking archdiocesan officials knew that Vavra admitted sexually assaulting kids. For at least a year and a half (possibly longer), Archbishop John Nienstedt knew about Vavra’s admitted sexual abuse of children. For years, due to the callousness of Nienstedt and others, this admitted predator priest continued to live and work with little or no supervision. He was sent from parish to parish, and therefore given, at each new location, a fresh group of children to potentially molest.

On Wednesday April 2, 2014, Archbishop John Nienstedt testified about his knowledge of clergy sexual abuse. Nienstedt testified that his former vicar general, Kevin McDonough, was aware of the details of wayward clergy while he was not. Nienstedt’s four-hour deposition came to an abrupt end, surprisingly however, with the archbishop walking out when asked to turn over the archdiocese’s files of credibly accused priests.

In his own deposition, two weeks after Nienstedt’s, Kevin McDonough denied having a conversation with Archbishop Nienstedt in which he instructed the archbishop not to write down sensitive information – a conversation Nienstedt, during his deposition, said happened.

“OH WHAT A TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE,
WHEN FIRST WE PRACTICE TO DECEIVE!”
– Sir Walter Scott

Some church anniversaries are best celebrated with new historical-theological insight. We had such a special anniversary this week on Thursday: the twentieth anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s apostolic letter, of 22 May 1994, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (on the ordination of priests). That document theoretically closed the door to women’s ordination in the Roman Catholic Church.
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Pope John Paul famously explained it this way:

Priestly ordination, which hands on the office entrusted by Christ to his Apostles of teaching, sanctifying, and governing the faithful, has in the Catholic Church from the beginning always been reserved to men alone….

When the question of the ordination of women arose in the Anglican Communion, Pope Paul VI, out of fidelity to his office of safeguarding the Apostolic Tradition, and also with a view to removing a new obstacle placed in the way of Christian unity, reminded Anglicans of the position of the Catholic Church: “She holds that it is not admissible to ordain women to the priesthood, for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God’s plan for his Church….

I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.

A closed book or still an open book? Just as we have nine gifts of the Holy Spirit, I suggest nine points for reflection, based on contemporary historical and biblical studies:

(1) Jesus chose men and women as his disciples, with no indication that one sex was superior to the other. Women disciples in fact played a major role as proclaimers of Jesus raised from the dead.

(2) As close friends and followers of their teacher and friend, it would seem that both men and women were gathered with Jesus for their last meal with him. And there were probably a few children scampering around as well.

(3) The historical Jesus had no understanding of ordination. Jesus did not ordain anyone, at any time. In his day ordination did not exist. It was a later creation of the Christian community, as a way of ensuring a sort of quality control in their leadership.

(4) There were far more apostles than just “The Twelve.” Some apostles, like Paul, were not at the “Last Supper.” “The Twelve” was more symbolic for Jewish Christians who understood Jesus creating the New Israel under twelve just as the Old Israel had twelve tribes. Even in the four gospels, the number is somewhat ambiguous, with different gospel writers giving different names for the same individual, or some apostles mentioned in one gospel not being mentioned in another.

(5) The early Christian apostles were messengers sent out to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. And of course – just as there were men and women disciples, there were indeed men and women apostles. Certainly among them Mary of Magdala and Mary of Bethany. In Paul’s letter to the Romans he sends greetings to Prisca, Junia, Julia, and Nereus’ sister, who worked and traveled as missionary apostles with their husbands or brothers.

(6) Among church historians there is a strong consensus that the people who presided at Eucharist in the early church were the heads of households; and we know from biblical studies that there were women who were heads of these households as well. Did women preside at Eucharist in the early church? My understanding today is that they certainly did.

(7) When I study the research of historical theologians like Gary Macy in his book The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West, and Marianne Micks, writing in The Ordination of Women: Pro and Con, I have no doubts that in fact – in our tradition – women in earlier times were ordained as priests and bishops.

(8) It is appropriate that church authorities formulate clear statements of belief. It is equally important – necessary in fact – that church authorities acknowledge that official statements of belief (i.e. church teaching) have changed in the past; can change in the present; and will change in the future, as we grow in our understanding of our tradition and become aware of changes in human understanding, culture, and language.

(9) Twenty years after Ordinatio Sacerdotalis we are reminded of what I see as the major challenge confronting us as contemporary Roman Catholics: to develop effective ways of sharing new insights and information and effective ways of doing that in respectful and open and constructive conversation.

Yes…..just like you and me…..popes (even recently canonized ones) have made mistakes in official pronouncements. Like all professionals, they are always in need of historical updating and ongoing theological education and formation. No one is ever too old to learn….

An Historic and Very Contemporary Reflection

I remember the event, like it was yesterday. On October 7, 1979, in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Sister Theresa Kane, R.S.M., president of the LCWR, issued a formal plea to Pope John Paul II, during his apostolic visitation.

For me the most relevant part of her speech was this:

As I share this privileged moment with you, Your Holiness, I urge you to be mindful of the intense suffering and pain which is part of the life of many women in these United States. I call upon you to listen with compassion and to hear the call of women who comprise half of humankind.

As women we have heard the powerful messages of our Church addressing the dignity and reverence for all persons. As women we have pondered upon these words. Our contemplation leads us to state that the Church in its struggle to be faithful to its call for reverence and dignity for all persons must respond by providing the possibility of women as persons being included in all ministries of our Church.

I urge you, Your Holiness, to be open to and respond to the voices coming from the women of this country who are desirous of serving in and through the Church as fully participating members.

The Pope grumbled. Conservative Catholics were enraged. Later Sr. Teresa Kane reflected on the event in these words:

As president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, it was my privilege to extend greetings to the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, last October when he visited this country for the first time. I thought it appropriate to pledge our solidarity with the Pope as he called our attention to the serious responsibilities we have to our sisters and brothers who live in poverty and destitution. I also sensed the need of some women to articulate their growing concern about being included in all ministries within the church. Within my own heart there were only sentiments of profound fidelity, honesty, and sincerity to our God and to our Church. As a result of the greeting, a few congregations withdrew from the conference. Through that experience LCWR became more public; the membership gained new responsibilities. Reflection papers commissioned by the Conference will analyze “the voice of the faithful” as found in the thousands of letters received.

In the spring of 2012, the CDF issued a statement accusing LCWR of promoting “radical feminist themes” and “corporate dissent.” On April 30, 2014, the CDF’s Cardinal Gerhard Müller, accused U.S. nuns of not abiding to the harsh and unjust reform agenda imposed on them by the Vatican. In addition, the document personally attacked the well-known and greatly respected woman theologian Dr. Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ.

The Vatican mandate forced upon the nuns is a prime example of how fearful, chauvinistic, and manipulative church leaders can misuse and abuse their power to diminish the voice and witness of prophetic women.

It is time to act. http://www.nunjustice.org/

Another Voice is back! This week my final biblical Christological reflection: Pentecost.

The early followers of Jesus were of course observant Jews. We really cannot understand the Christian scriptures correctly unless we see them anchored in a Jewish (Christian) background. The men and women who were Jesus’ disciples had celebrated Passover with him in Jerusalem. Now (fifty days after Passover), as observant Jews they observed Shavuot without him physically present.

Shavuot commemorates God’s giving the Torah and establishing a covenant with the entire nation of Israel assembled at Mount Sinai. The holiday (holyday) was a great Jewish pilgrimage festival in Jerusalem. The word Shavuot means weeks, and the festival of Shavuot marked the completion of the seven-week period between Passover and Shavuot. Since Shavuot occurs 50 days after Passover, Hellenistic Jews gave it the name “Pentecost.”

The author of Acts of Apostles gives this description of Jewish Christians gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate their Jewish festival of Pentecost (Shavuot).

Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven…Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs… (Acts 2:5, 9-11)

In other words, Jews from the Diaspora as well as locals had gathered in Jerusalem. They came from as far away as today’s Iran, Turkey, and North Africa. Each speaking as well his or her own local language.

According to Acts of Apostles, Jesus’ disciples were gathered in a home when a strange, wind-like sound filled the air and tongues of fire appeared above their heads; and they “were filled with the Holy Spirit.” They began speaking in strange languages other than their own. Some observers thought that they were drunk; but one of the disciples, Peter, pointed out that it was early in the morning, much too early for people to be drunk. This dramatic episode appears nowhere else in the Christian scriptures.

As those early followers of Jesus, gathered in prayer and Christian solidarity, commemorated God’s forming ancient Israel under Moses’ leadership, they were overwhelmed by the deep realization of their own solidarity in the person and message of Jesus. They were deeply shaken by a group faith experience. The author of Acts describes their Pentecost experience in powerful images of wind, fire, and emotional murmuring (speaking in tongues).

I often think of the Pentecost event in connection with a much earlier biblical event we read about in Genesis 11:1-9: the primeval story of the Tower of Babel. There the ancient biblical author gives a dramatic explanation for human disunity and all the consequences flowing from it. The Tower of Babel tells of human arrogance and exaggerated self-sufficiency, in which people chose to create their own world apart from God.

Now compare Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) and Pentecost (Acts2:1-1). It is like a before and after scenario. In his life and ministry, Jesus healed the divisions created by human weakness. Through the power of his Spirit in the community (which we later call the church) people who were once alienated from each other are drawn together. Confusion and division are replaced by understanding and cooperation. Distrust makes room for the Spirit’s gifts of harmony and peace.

The concrete images of the Pentecost event? I would say highly imaginative; but I stress that getting tangled up in that discussion can blind us to the MEANING of Pentecost.

I very much like the explanation of Joseph Donders (The Peace of Jesus, Orbis Books, Maryknoll 1983).

Donders compared the dramatic effects of Pentecost to fireworks. “But fireworks never carry the day. Fireworks lit up the night very beautifully but only for a fleeting moment. . . Before the story of Pentecost in Jerusalem was over, the apostles were in the streets working. . . breaking through the structures that kept them and the world in which they lived captive in all kinds of undesirable bondages.”

At Pentecost, the men and women of the early church energized and motivated by the Spirit, realized their mission was living and witnessing to their faith in the public square.

When we once again celebrate Pentecost, on June 8, 2014, may we be similarly energized and motivated!

(Next week some comments about church leadership and women religious. That indeed is about faith in the public square….)

“The past will never return. New situations require new dispositions”

— Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, 2 December 1933

(Dear Friends, On the vigil of Palm Sunday, I am sending this reflection on the Apostles of Jesus. I will then be offline for two or three weeks. My first reflection, when I return, will be on Pentecost. After that I will focus more on theological reflections on current events. My very best wishes for the Easter season…..and now to the apostles!)

The Christian Scriptures provide four lists of twelve men whom Jesus chose during his ministry: Mark 3:16-19; Matthew 10:2-4; Luke 6:14-16; and Acts 1:13 (without Judas Iscariot). The Gospel According to John gives no list, but does mention “the Twelve” (6:67 and 20:24). Certainly there were three very prominent apostles, who belonged to “the Twelve”: Simon re-named Peter, and James and John the sons of Zebedee. We saw them at the Transfiguration.

The word “apostle” goes back to a Greek word meaning “one who is sent, a messenger.” Today we would probably best translate it in English as “missionary.”

When thinking about the early “apostolic” Christian community, however, I think it is important to understand that “apostle” in the early Jesus movement was a much broader term and included more people than just “the Twelve.” In the Christian Scriptures we see other people clearly designated as apostles, although they were not listed as members of “the Twelve.”

To begin with, we have James “the brother of The Lord.” (That designation opens another question which we cannot get into here.) Then we have Paul, Barnabas, Andronicus, and Junias (a woman). In the Gospel According to Luke (10:1-24) we have a post-resurrection narrative in which Jesus commissions seventy apostles. Jesus appointed them and sent them out in pairs on a specific mission which is detailed in the text. In Western Christianity, they are usually referred to as disciples. In Eastern Christianity they are usually called apostles. Clearly they were sent out on an apostolic mission. Thus really apostles.

In the early church, “the Twelve” had an historic meaning; but perhaps even a more important symbolic meaning: Jesus was seen as the founder of the New Israel, a term many in the early church began to apply to the Jesus Movement. The Old Israel had twelve tribes, by tradition formed by the twelve sons of Jacob. There was a strong sense, among early followers of Jesus, that the New Israel must also have twelve patriarchs who were the disciples of their founder, Jesus. “The Twelve” therefore became an important Christian term, even when some people were not always so certain about their names.

The Apostles were more than Leonardo ever imagined.

I suspect many contemporary people envision the apostles as Leonardo da Vinci painted them in his late fifteenth century mural in a convent dining room in Milan: mostly bearded older men sitting at a big table with Jesus. In fact, as scholars of ancient Jewish life and customs tell us, Jesus’ disciples at the “Last Supper” were probably eighteen years old or younger. At least one, Peter, was married. Perhaps others as well. And they didn’t sit at a big table. As was customary, Jesus and his friends reclined on the floor or on mats and pillows, leaning on their left elbow, eating with their right hand, and with their legs stretched out behind them. Well so much for the meal etiquette….One final point: if I were painting the Last Supper, I would add a few young women and a sprinkling of small children.

Ordination? Apostolic succession? Among biblical scholars and theologians there is a general consensus that Jesus knew nothing about ordination and certainly did not ordain anyone at the Last Supper. (Very disappointing to some bishops who imagine the apostles leaving the Last Supper with ancient crosiers in their left hands.) Ordination was created by the later Christian community about a hundred years after Jesus. It was a form of quality control: only well informed and trustworthy and officially approved men and women could lead Christian communities.

I understand that most bishops trace their leadership identity and role back to the apostles by way of “apostolic succession.” I have absolutely no problem with that, as long as they understand that “apostolic succession” is succession in the faith, witness, and ministry of the apostles. It has very little to do with an unbroken line of ordinations going back to the historic Jesus, because that frankly is a pious non-historical fantasy.

Jesus’ disciples were young, zealous, and energetic men and women. They were the foundation for apostolic leadership in the early church. And women were actively present and involved. No female tokenism for Jesus.
What a pity – what historical ignorance and/or nearsightedness – when contemporary church leaders fail to recognize that women played a major role in the early church.

Women appear prominently in accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion; in reporting that Jesus had been raised from the dead; and of course at Pentecost. Mary of Magdala was clearly a significant leader in the Jesus movement and doubtlessly the leader among women disciples. Texts in Mark (15:41), Matthew (27:55) and Luke (23:49) all attest that Jesus’ women disciples followed him all the way from Galilee.

So if we want to picture the members of the early Jesus Movement (the church), we would have to see a group of eighteen years old, or younger, women and men….and no doubt a few children as well. Men and women touched by God and full of youthful life and hope. A very exciting image.

What does this mean today? How do we recapture and pass on the energy and enthusiasm of those early church men and women? (Certainly not by pretending that marriage is not for priests and that women cannot be ordained.)

I am not anti-Catholic and have spent just about all of my professional life working for and with the church. But really……we really need to enliven our old church. It’s the eleventh hour and the Catholic eclipse is well underway (even with the Pope Francis positive PR). Let’s open the doors to a broad range of fresh thinking, community action, and creative forms of ministry for men AND women. Let’s do what Jesus did.

May Easter 2014 bring encouragement, joy, and hope to all in the community of faith!

Jesus’ ascension into heaven is a good case study of how Christian belief evolves over the centuries. Statements of belief are interpretations of our faith. Like all human understanding, they are ongoing and developmental.

Once upon a time, for example, Jewish and Christian believers understood the story of Noah and the ark as an historic event. Today we understand it as biblical mythology. Jesus’ ascension up to heaven may not be a myth but it is highly symbolic.

Two brief accounts of Jesus’ ascension are found in the “longer ending” to the Gospel According to Mark (16:19) and in the Gospel According to Luke. (24:50-53). A more detailed account is found in Acts of the Apostles (1:9-11). Jesus’ ascension into heaven is proclaimed as well in both the Nicene Creed (written during the fourth century C.E.) and the Apostles’ Creed (developed between the second and ninth centuries C.E. as a baptismal creed for new Christians). The Feast of the Ascension, celebrated on a Thursday forty days after Easter has long been a major holy day in the Christian liturgical year. (In most Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States, however, the celebration of Ascension has been transferred to the following Sunday.)

Most basically, the Ascension reaffirms the Resurrection. The post-death glorified Jesus is with God. (Perhaps it makes good sense to celebrate Ascension on the Day of the Resurrection? The Gospel According to Luke has both occur on the same day. The U.S. bishops, however, transferred the feast to Sunday because so few people were showing up on Ascension Thursday.)

The imagery of the Ascension, of course, is based on the ancient Hebrew and early Christian cosmology of the flat earth and triple level universe. (See the illustration.) Today we find this explanation of our earth and the solar system quaint, archaic, and scientifically naïve. For people “back then” it was very real indeed and they constructed their theological understanding around it as well. A highly anthropomorphized God the Father sat high up in the upper heaven on his throne. When early Christians contemplated Jesus-raised-from-the-dead, it made good theological sense to them that the Son of God, in the glory of the Resurrection, should also be up there in the high heaven “seated at the right hand of the Father.”

Early Christians, like the author of Acts of the Apostles, pondered how the (overly physicalized) Resurrected Jesus would get up to the (very physicalized) high heaven. The cloud elevator was the obvious solution. (Actually, much later, there was a similar line of thought, when Pope Pius XII proclaimed in 1950 that the Virgin Mary was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.)

Neither contemporary science nor contemporary theology understands God to be up there on a heavenly throne. Our faith experience, our understanding of God, is one of nearness: loving and close intimacy. As we understand and rephrase our belief, we are keenly aware that all language about God is analogical: it points to God but does not contain nor confine God. Our words are pointers toward God. God is LIKE ultimate “Father,” or “Mother,” or “most supportive Friend,” or “Ground of Being,” etc., etc.,

And so the Ascension. What does it mean today? The Resurrected Jesus is so intimately linked with God that “he and the Father are one” and he is one with us as well. Closer to us than the air in our lungs…All Christian life is a Divine communion. No small thing indeed.

And the old cosmology drifts off silently into the past. It worked fine for a while….

(Next week some thoughts about being an apostle….)

Our Christian Faith is anchored in the experience we commemorate and celebrate each Easter.

The apostle Paul summarized that experience in his letter to the people in Corinth: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day.” (I Corinthians 15)

In my first three Lenten biblical reflections, I stressed (1) that our Christian Scriptures announce genuine and authentic Christian belief; but that (2) more often than people realize, they are not detailed historical accounts. The biblical authors used a variety of imaginative images designed to convey the meaning and impact of the Jesus event. This week, I stress that same understanding, as we read and reflect about Jesus’ resurrection.

What exactly was the experience that became the first Easter experience?

Reading the Christian Scriptures in the light of contemporary biblical scholarship — and reflecting as well on my own personal faith experiences — it is clear to me that those early Christians’ Easter experience was not in first instance a physical historically verifiable experience. It was however a true and genuine faith experience: an experience in another dimension of our human reality.

Paul, writing between the years 50 CE and 64 CE never described the resurrection of Jesus as a resuscitation of his physical body, after death on the cross. In the Pauline writings, we never see a Jesus who walks out of his grave. Resurrection is not resuscitation.

Paul is very clear and firm, however, in his belief that God raised Jesus out of death and into a new form of life in God. Jesus’ resurrection transformed and raised Jesus into new life.

“Someone will ask,” Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?’ How foolish!….When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed….So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, and it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, and it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, and it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, and it is raised a spiritual body.” Another dimension of life.

Paul died somewhere around the year 64 CE and never read any of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. I suspect however that many Christians, coming after Paul, have always read Paul through the lens of the later-written Gospels, with their great and imaginative religious imagery. This is unfortunate, because we miss the concise and clear Pauline testimony about Jesus’ being raised from the dead.

The authors of the Gospels, as they wrote some decades after the death of Jesus, used creative imagery and imagination to convey the experience of early Christian faith encounters with the resurrected Lord. Some experiences — especially faith experiences — are best, though still inadequately, interpreted and expressed through symbols and imaginative imagery. Think for a moment about the symbolic and imaginatively charged (and sometimes erotic) testimonies of the great Christian mystics.

In Mark, the first of the Gospels that we have today, the Risen Christ never appears. Jesus’ deceased body is taken from the cross and placed in the tomb. Mark’s account of Jesus’ resurrection speaks of grief-stricken women confronting an empty tomb and meeting a messenger who tells them that Jesus has been raised from the dead. Later another ending was added to Mark’s Gospel; but contemporary biblical scholarship stresses that Mark’s Gospel probably ended without the Resurrected Christ ever being seen by anyone.

The authors of Matthew, writing between 80-85 CE, and Luke, writing between 88-92 CE, changed and greatly expanded Mark. They wanted their audiences to have no doubts about Jesus truly raised from the dead and divinely transformed. Their imagery is more physical yet spiritual.

Matthew changes Mark’s story about the women at the tomb. Mark’s messenger becomes an angel; and Matthew asserts that the women did see Jesus in the garden. They grasp him by his feet and worship him. Here Jesus’ resurrection seems, at first, more like a physical resuscitation of the deceased Jesus. When Matthew narrates the account of Jesus’ resurrection to the disciples, however, the resurrected Jesus is on a mountaintop in Galilee, where he comes out of the sky with heavenly power.

Luke echoes Mark’s narration about the women at the tomb, and they do not see Jesus in the garden on Easter morning. Luke, however, transforms Mark’s messenger into two angels. Luke greatly emphasizes as well the physicality of Jesus’ resurrected body. He wants his readers to to see that this is really Jesus. Nevertheless the resurrected Jesus in Luke is not a resuscitated Jesus, because although he walks, talks, eats, and teaches, he also appears and disappears at will. He invites the disciples to touch his flesh, and stresses that he is not a ghost. The post-death Jesus is real. Luke then removes the resurrected Jesus from the earth, by imagining the story of Jesus’ Ascension up to heaven: A cloud comes down and, like a heavenly elevator, whisks him up to heaven. Don’t forget the ancient Jewish and Christian cosmology, with God on God’s throne up in the heavens.

When it comes to the Ascension, Luke however is not consistent: In his Gospel the Ascension occurs on Easter Sunday afternoon; but in Acts, the Ascension occurs 40 days after Easter. Ongoing imaginative development.

In John, written between 95 CE and 100 CE when most eyewitnesses of the Jesus event were already dead, the physicality of the Resurrection is enhanced even more. Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene in the garden and tells her not to cling to him. John then suggests that Jesus ascended up to heaven immediately; and from there he appears to the disciples. A transformed spiritual being, he enters a room with closed windows and locked doors, yet he is described as quite physical. A week later Jesus appears a second time to the disciples. This time Thomas is invited to touch Jesus’ nail wounds and pierced side. Later in the Gospel Jesus appears to the disciples fishing in Galilee and eats with them. John wants to affirm that the resurrected Jesus is really Jesus….

Over the years, we see therefore that accounts of Jesus’ resurrection grew rather dramatically. Something Divine happened after Jesus’ crucifixion that convinced his disciples that Jesus shared in the eternal life of God and was very much a living presence in their own lives. Human imagination, words, and images cannot adequately describe what happened. They are simply pointers. Pointers to the Divine in Jesus.

And so for us today? it is not enough to just study and ponder texts and events from the past. We live today. In today’s world.

Nevertheless, God’s working through Jesus in the past is God’s working through Jesus today; and just like the early Christians, our lives too are anchored in Jesus’ resurrection experience. Life is changed, not taken away. Through him, with him, and in him we meet the living God. Jesus in fact is the great sacrament of the human encounter with God. And “where two or three are gathered,” Jesus is present as well.

This Easter, and throughout the year, our biggest challenge is big indeed. It is not always delightful nor easy to realize and accept that we see and meet the living God in the man or woman standing next to us: whether handsome or ugly, whether gay or straight, whether “friend” or ” enemy,” they all have dignity and worth; and all can be channels to the Divine.

And like Jesus, when this life is over, we too shall continue on a new journey with God.

http://anothervoice-greenleaf.org/2014/03/20/crucified-under-pontius-pilate/