That's what the early Church called her. The Apostle to the Apostles.

He spoke to her first.

Magdalen
Not Mary of Bethany, the good student
Not Lazarus, who you would have expected to expect the empty tomb.
Not His mother, not one of the three.

Magdalen
She of the seven demons.
She who needed him more than the others,
Because if he wasn't real, what had she to go back to?

He said that if you cleaned a house
you had better fill it
or it will be refilled by hell times ten.

He had more than filled her mind and heart and soul
And then He was gone.

Blinded by grief
she did not see Him.

She hadn't seen Him the first time either.
Cowering in a deep hidden corner of her soul.

But she had heard His approach
Demons screaming as they fled
or were bested in battle.

And He had found her then with His voice
He had called her by her name
And pulled her back up to herself.

Where have you taken Him?
That's where I have to be.
I don't care if it is death.

And He spoke
And she knew Him
And she was full
and sane
and whole.

Her house so in order
that she was ready for company.

And she went forth the First Witness.
Truth Teller.

And they believed her.
Eventually.


.

Jesus Fire Dancer

Update: Daughter #1 no longer works for the Lutherans, she still planning to teach but has taken time for an intensive internship in mothering my grandchild.   2.26.2008 Today's UPI column So There I was... Facing the righteous indignation of an eight year old. She stormed into the house, dramatically dropper her school bag and then slammed the door. My normally well-behaved and ebullient second grade daughter turned on me with eyes full of rage, nothing less than rage. “What’s the matter hon? You’re a few minutes late.” “SHE HELD US AFTER THE BELL! ALL OF US!” “Who? Did what?” “THE TEACHER. Ian and John were talking, but she punished us all! She made us stay after. SHE MADE US PUT OUR HEADS ON OUR DESKS! I WASN’T TALKING! I LISTEN! SHE HAD NO RIGHT TO PUNISH ME! THE TEACHER WAS WRONG!” I started as brief explanation of classroom management and why a teacher might try the admittedly lame tactic of using group pressure to control the few bad apples. Then I stopped. She was having none of it. She wasn’t mad at the bad boys. She was furious with the misadministration of justice. I asked her if she wanted me to talk to the teacher. She wanted me to talk to the principal. She wanted me to get the teacher fired. She knew to her marrow that punishing the innocent for the sins of the guilty was injustice of cosmic proportions. She couldn’t believe that they would let someone with such an obviously faulty moral compass teach children. I knew right then that transmitting any semblance of Christianity to this child was going to be a challenge. Because sometime, someplace some Sunday School teacher was going to tell this kid that the core of the Christian message was that she, along with everyone else, was guilty, that God needed to punish somebody, because that was just how it was, somebody had to be punished, but that it didn’t really matter that you got the right person, so the good news was that somebody really good, could step up and get punished in your place and then you would get off Scott free. I knew this kid would be buying none of that. Unfortunately I could not put the kid in stasis until I figured this one out. I started then to try and find different ways to talk about God, Jesus, and why death and resurrection are an important part of the story. It has taken me a couple of decades. The child is grown and gone. I am still working on it, but I have some handles. The break for me started to come when I began to look seriously at the metaphors used for Christ. The most important one was this “Behold, the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world.” This phrase comes from the earliest explainers of the Christ story, the Apostles, those who knew Him, or those who sat at the feet of the first witnesses. They were all Jews. They were using a Jewish metaphor. The temple sacrifice, which was especially poignant for those who had witnessed the destruction of the temple in 70 AD and the end of the animal sacrifice system. Jesus, they explained, was God’s Lamb. Which brings us right back to he was punished for your sins. Unless you really go back and look at the instructions for that temple rituals. So I spent some time in the Pentateuch, looking at the instructions. The sacrifices are all about community and restoring community. Bad behavior negatively affects community. Bad enough behavior breaks community. There is an element of justice, and even in the last resort, banishment from community. There is also a way to restore community. I discovered this when I found out the difference between the scapegoat and the lamb. Nobody talked much about the scapegoat in the church I grew up in. Once a year the priest was to do a ritual, in which all the sins of all the people are symbolically place upon the back of a goat (unclean – not kosher – not part of the community) and the goat is pushed out the gates into the wilderness, presumable to meet a bad fate. What happens to the goat doesn’t really matter. The punishment is being sent away from the community. The sins get sent away, not the people. The lamb is a whole different deal. The lamb is clean, kosher, spotless, good, and the lamb is not punished, the lamb is consumed. The lamb is fit to be eaten, fit to be taken in. The lamb is giving your best stuff to the community to show that your intention is to be restored. The lamb is making amends not escaping judgment. The lamb is taking responsibility. The lamb is investing in community. Then the lightbulb went on. I had been taught a scapegoat Jesus theology mislabeled as lamb theology. Jesus was the best God had, invested in us, not punished for us. Jesus was fit to be consumed, taken in, this was the message He himself taught at the last chance dinner. The Romans thought death was a punishment. God is not just a bigger badder Caesar. God understands that death is the universal human experience, and that joining us in even death is a connection of cosmic order. The ultimate community building experience. But just wait one heretical minute! Did not Paul talk about “propitiation for our sins”? Yes, he did. I think Paul was spending way too much time hanging around with the Romans, I think it was starting to wear off on him. So I don’t believe in scapegoat Jesus anymore. I don’t believe He was punished for my sins. I believe He taught me what to do about my sins, recognize them, send them away (i.e. stop) and then re-invest in community with my best stuff. Make my own amends wherever possible, and trust in the eternal resources that He made possible by joining my community to cover what I cannot. Come back, it works. Come as often as necessary. So what happened to the indignant little girl? She doesn’t sit much under the teachers of orthodox Christendom. I think she is a Quaker in her heart, I know she is a friend of Jesus, she is earning her bread as a church secretary for the Lutherans, probably printing up those Lenten materials as we speak. But most tellingly she is training to be a teacher. I think she has the right temperament for it. // posted by Peggy Senger Parsons @ Tuesday, February 26, 2008 Comments: Right on, sister! This is an issue that I have been doing a lot of thinking & reading about lately. I argued in my 1999 QRT article on 19th century Quakerism that the "substitutionary" or "satisfaction" theory (i.e., "scapegoat theology"!) was already opposed by George Fox and Robert Barclay! For long I suspected in the back of my mind that the big problem with that theory was its assumption that punishment was the "proper" response to sin or crime; my recent reading for an essay on restorative justice clarified for me the alternative -- that repair of the harm and restoration of the broken community (just what you are suggesting) is the proper response to sin/crime! -- and also pointed me to several recent books that confirmed my own suspicions re the basic assumptions involved in atonement theories. Expect lots more from me on this when I get to chapter 6 of "Friends, God, & the Bible" -- I've just completed chapter 4 -- Vail # posted by  Vail Palmer : February 26, 2008 9:34 PM   What a teaser from Vail. I can hardly wait. I wonder if we could get him to leak a few points to muse about. I have been doing some thinking along those lines myself (in spite of the pain thinking causes me). "Atonement" is one of those interesting issues that does not seem to have a settled and universal perception (check http://www.quakerinfo.com/atonement.shtml for a quick review) I recently made the following comment: "I think that it is self-evident that people do stuff that hurts others and causes uh, bumps in the functioning of society. Throughout history, and anthropologists will tell us pre-history, society has had to deal with such "bumps" and or the individuals that cause them. Somewhere else, we or I talked about "guilt" as a social mechanism for helping such dealings. It is effective when not over used (how does a Jewish mother change a light bulb? "don't worry about me, go out and have fun, I'll just sit here in the dark.") When we do feel guilt for actions that cause harm, there has to be a mechanism for replacing or destroying that guilt. Often, repenting and making whatever amends are possible is enough, but sometimes not, and often there is no possibility of making amends, and a load of guilt can build up. How do we deal with it? Sometimes there is a catharsis if we receive punishment appropriate to the guilt. Sometimes we may feel that there is no punishment that could do the job. There are a number of theories about "atonement," but I think that it is less a requirement of God than it is a requirement of man; to feel that a price has been paid (most often with a feeling of gratitude and love for the one who paid it) and that we are free from that accumulated burden." NOW I'm gonna hafta look into that "Paschal Lamb" thing and THIS time it's YOUR fault. In His Love, Nate # posted by  Anonymous : February 27, 2008 1:13 AM   I do not mean to be inappropriate, but I have to be brutally candid. If what I say sounds offensive, please disregard it. You are actually saying that Christ died in vain or that your sins are not that bad or even that you find it impossible that He should love you so much that He should lay down His life for you and yes, suffer injustice. On the road to Emmaus He explained, using the whole Hebrew Scriptures, that He must die for many. There is massive evidence throughout the Bible. This is not some guy's interpretation. Yes, I do believe the Spirit speaks. But are we being led by His Spirit or by our own minds or, worse, feelings? Jesus once said in Luke 18 that "God will grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to Him day and night." Because He IS just AND good, He punished Jesus in our place. That is called love. Do you love your children? Would you give your life for them? Would you suffer injustice for them? I'm sure you would. Why then should it be preposterous that Jesus should love us like that and suffer the supreme injustice for our sake and as an example? What you call silly gospel is His gospel, the only gospel there is. Much as I admire George Fox, he was just a man. And he did not die for me. # posted by  spock : February 27, 2008 8:31 AM   Nate -- since you ask, I can't resist thinking out loud a bit on the issue! This may take more than one "comment"-- I'll make the first comment a bibliographical one. My jumping off point is my article, "Some Issues from 19th-Century Quakerism" in Quaker Religious Thought # 92 (Jan. 199)--I deal with atonement on pages 12 to 18 and 27 to 29. My jumping-off point there is Gustav Aulen's book CHRISTUS VICTOR. My recent reading: Timothy Gorringe, GOD'S JUST VENGEANCE, clearly unveils the interconnection between Anselm's "satisfaction" theory and feudal ideas of justice, and also between Calvin's "substitution" theory and 16th-century concepts of law. All of these involve the underlying assumption that if you hurt someone, you deserve to be hurt in response ("an eye for an eye" etc.). J. Denny Weaver, THE NONVIOLENT ATONEMENT, unpacks in satisfying detail Aulen's "Christus Victor" type of atonement theory, and emphasizes that the victory which God in Christ won over the forces of evil was won by nonviolent means. S. Mark Heim, SAVED FROM SACRIFICE: A THEOLOGY OF THE CROSS, emphasizes the scapegoating motif -- sees this motif as underlying many biblical writings -- and sees the cross as turning scapegoating inside out or upside down -- pretty murky, with some sharp insights; recommended only if the scapegoating issue is significant for you. I am now reading R. Larry Shelton, CROSS & COVENANT -- at first glance a completely new take on atonement theory, tying in the cross and the atonement with the covenant theme (a major theme in biblical theology). More in my next comment. Vail # posted by  Vail Palmer : February 27, 2008 1:27 PM   Vail - Thank-you so much for the lucid comments. It helps so much to have an actual theologian on the team!I consider myself to be a sort of intuitive theologian and a narrative theologian, but as you know I always feel more confident when I have your affirmation. Nate - Thanks for dropping in so often. I wish you would write me an e-mail on the back line. I have a couple of questions to ask you. Friend Spock - just in case you check back. I never choose to feel offense in response to honest, respectful, disagreement. You are welcome. I use my blog for self-expression and hopefully inspiration, and not debate. I have never found debate to be effective or edifying. But I have a few responses for you. 1 - about the blog title "silly poor gospel" I am not referring to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a reference to a quote from Margaret Fell. I refer you to the very first post in the first section of the archives which explains the title of the blog. It is a Quaker in-reference. When I strated this thing I never imagined so many non-quaker readers. 2- I am not saying that Christ died in vain. I think the cross was important and effective, I just do not believe that the purpose was punishment. 3-I sin as much as most people. - more than many. But I do not believe that I have ever committed a sin worthy of capital punishment. Neither have my children. 4-I have no trouble believing that Christ loves me. none at all. He was there when I went to sleep last night and there when I woke up this morning. 5-I think a good parent let's their children have the consequences of their own behavior. # posted by  Peggy Senger Parsons : February 27, 2008 8:17 PM   I checked out the site that Nate referenced -- it turned out to be a summary of 5 types of atonement theory, by our dear Friend Arthur Roberts! These relate to Aulen's 3 types, as follows. Roberts' 2. (Christ satisfies Divine honor - Anselm) and 3. (Christ substitutes for us) are 2 varieties of Aulen's "Latin" type. Roberts' 4. (Moral influence - Peter Abelard)is the same as Aulen's "subjective/moral influence" type. Roberts' 1.(Christ ransoms us from the devil)is what Aulen calls an early (Church fathers) form of the "Classic" or "Christus Victor" type --"Its central theme is Atonement as a Divine conflice & victory; Christ -- Christus Victor -- fights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world, the 'tyrants' under which mankind is in bondage and suffering, & in Him God reconciles the world to Himself" (Aulen, p. 4) Roberts' 5 (Jesus the Peacemaker - Phil Smith) sounds so much like Denny Weaver's "Narrative Christus Victor" that I wonder of Phil had read Weaver's book and adapted/adopted it for himself -- I'll have to email Phil & ask him!). In any case, I have for long preferred Aulen's Christus Victor theology -- now I know much better why, and am delighted with how Denny Weaver (a Mennonite, teaching at a Church of the Brethren college!) fleshes this approach out -- it even ties in with the "Mighty Acts of God" interpretation of Biblical Theology which I have long subscribed to. An important aspect of that theology is that it brings in the Covenant theme -- the Mighty Acts of God are covenant-creating and covenant-renewing acts -- and that is where I think Larry Shelton's views might combine well with Weaver's to make a richer, fresher atonement theology -- that's what I want to keep working on. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation" (2 Cor. 5:19). Everyone who has studied the issue in the past 60 years agrees that early Friends rejected the satisfaction/substitution view of the Atonement. I think I was the first to recognize clear elements of Christus Victor in George Fox's writings -- and of course the whole Lamb's War theme in early Quaker thought is a marvelous extension of Christus Victor. This also fits wonderfully in with Denny Weaver's "narrative Christus Victor" approach" -- like Fox & James Nayler, Weaver clearly sees that in the book of Revelation, "The slain lamb indicates a nonviolent confrontation between the reign of God and reign of evil, and a nonviolent victory via death and resurrection for the reign of God." (I owe a debt of thanks to Sarah Hoggatt for clueing me in to Larry Shelton's book, which adds such a good dimension to "narrative Christus Victor.") Evangelical Friends in the early 1800's -- especially Joseph John Gurney -- all strongly believed in the substitution theory, and believed it was the ONLY valid theory (I suspect Spock in his/her comment may be in the same situation?). And so (failing to recognize that early Friends had a different view!) they accused Elias Hicks & his friends (who may have held to the Moral Influence view) of "denying the atonement" -- with disastrous results, splitting Quakerism into two hostile camps. Anything you want me to clarify or expand on, Nate? Vail # posted by  Vail Palmer : February 27, 2008 9:52 PM   Peggy -- You are a narrative theologian! Of course! Biblical theology IS narrative theology -- the narrative of the Mighty Acts of God! I think that is what G. Fox and his friends intuitively recognized, and why, therefore, they refused to ossify their insights into a creed. Through the 19th century, Hicksite Friends gradually moved away from the original Christ-centered commitment of Quakerism; Gurneyite Friends forgot the original anti-credal stance, changed narrative theology into propositional theology, and eventually came up with that humongous "Richmond Declaration of Faith" in 1887. That's why we need to be Convergent!!! Vail # posted by  Vail Palmer : February 27, 2008 10:05 PM   So as a final note here. This morning I followed a visitor back to the google search 'jesus scapegoat' and was amazed to find many many site specifically touting how wonderful it was to recognize Jesus as scapegoat. (go ahead and try it) I am not aware of any Biblical reference to Christ as God's goat - only "the Lamb." this sort of amazes me - I suppose it should not. # posted by  Peggy Senger Parsons : February 28, 2008 9:29 AM   Vail, thank you much for your comments and concern. I think I will wait for your full exposition, though I am interested in that idea of "the cross turning scapegoating inside out," and "murky" fairly well describes my mind. This is one of those areas of interest that are not essential to my faith that Peggy described as something to check into as opportunity allows in her previous blog post. I surely agree with her that restoration of community is the primary concern. In His Love, Nate # posted by  Anonymous : February 28, 2008 5:08 PM   Peggy, I would like to tell you how much this week's article touched me. This is a theological point I have been grapplig with for several years now and this is one of the most meaningful ways I have heard the subject addressed. More and more, as much as I deeply appreciate my years in Sunday school, I believe there is far more than the Western Protestant perspective I have been taught and this article helped give me a good piece of what I needed to turn the next corner and grapple with it some more. Thank you. Sarah P.S. Vail - I have Dr. Shelton's book too and will be reading it shortly. We should sit down and talk about it sometime. That would be fun. :o) # posted by  Sarah Katreen Hoggatt : February 28, 2008 7:16 PM   Peggy, I'm not a Quaker (though my grandfather was!), but as a humble Episcopalian, I have never been able to make sense of the loving God/atonement paradox. It has always seemed to me that the crucifixion was an extravagant act of love, the proof of God's endless love for us, and that the Resurrection offers the assurance that this love will save us, flawed and broken as we are. But what do I know? I'm hardly a theologian! Judy # posted by  Judith : March 03, 2008 6:28 PM   WOW. This resonates with me better than any explanation I have ever read on the subject. # posted by  Jami Hart : March 17, 2008 12:27 PM   Post a Comment Links to this post: See links to this post <$BlogBacklinkTitle$>   <$BlogBacklinkSnippet$> posted by <$BlogBacklinkAuthor$> @ <$BlogBacklinkDateTime$> Create a Link << Home

The Next three posts will be Seasonal Repeats - Happy Holy Days

3.04.2008

Geek Squad Jesus

Today's UPI column

So There I was…

Inside an organ. The church organ was old even during my childhood. It had fallen upon hard times, having been sold with the building by the Lutherans. It was as big as a small house, from the motor in the basement that filled its mighty bellows to the 16 foot pipes soaring above the sanctuary. My mother played it every Sunday. Trained on piano she taught herself how to play the two keyboards and the extra keyboard of pedals that she played with her feet. She had nearly perfect pitch and the organ that hadn’t had proper maintenance in a decade must have driven her to distraction.

This is how my father came to be the organ’s repairman.

He claimed it started with a toaster. She wanted to throw it out. He told her it was perfectly good, it just needed a little work. He was kinda cheap. She handed it to him. “Fine, Fix it.” So he took it apart and figured out what was wrong and fixed it on the spot. He was proud. She was cautiously impressed. She said “You think you can fix anything, don’t you?” He allowed as this might be close to the truth. She said “Fine – fix my organ.” And his career as a repairer of fine wooden tracker pipe organs began.


He climbed around inside that thing for years. And when there was occasionally something he wanted to reach in a space too small for an adult, he sent in one of us children. We learned obedience – touch this not that. Put your feet here not there. He was good with machines, and good with children. He was bold. And he knew that you couldn’t fix the organ from the keyboard you had to get inside it to do the job.

I cannot help that fact that he shaped my theological impressions. I wouldn’t want to.

I have previously stated that I think that the death of Christ had nothing to do with punishment. Even Pilate knew that this was a farce. So what did happen on that day outside of Jerusalem almost 2000 years ago?


I think something broken got fixed. I see Jesus the redeemer, as Jesus the repairman, tech support if you will. See, there was this system called ‘time and space’ and running on this system was a program called ‘humanity.’ And it got all buggy. And the code called ‘the law’ just wasn’t working. So the system designer had to crack it all open. Get inside, wipe some stuff, patch other stuff, write some whole new stuff.

It’s a frustrating job, but somebody’s got to do it. It helps if the somebody doing the fixing knows what they are doing. It also helps to have patience. Sometimes, people are just dumb, they do not interface well with the program, and you have to very patiently explain to them, again and again, how the thing is supposed to work. But if the code is all glitchy, you have to get your hands dirty. And you can’t fix the code from the desktop.

So for me the incarnation, life, teaching, death and resurrection of Christ is all part of the same repair job. He got in, bringing with Him tools, skills, and a supremely solid connection to the designer. He ran the program, personally. Diagnostics were completed. One of the buggiest parts of the program was death, so he ran that too. But death was not the end, Resurrection - the reboot to end all reboots was needed. Emptied the recycle bin called Hell while He was at it.

The Law was rewritten, and the concept of clean and unclean pretty much wiped. Do you know what a time saver that was? Efficiency upgrade deluxe. Religious practice within the confines of tribal groups was made obsolete. Limitless grace was written in.

Then the lovely fixed program had to be turned over to the users. So a help desk was established. Some people call it the Holy Spirit, some people call it the Present Christ, some people call it The Inner Light – there are lots of names for it. But it is there 24/7.

So we run the program. Seek the Kingdom. Pursue peace. Get Serenity. Achieve enlightenment. War and hate are options under the free will part of the program. So are glory, sacrifice, and love. Calamity is just part of the set up. Calamity makes room for altruism and compassion. The whole thing works imperfectly, very imperfectly, but that is because of the human interface, not the program. The program works just fine. The human learning curve is steep but it is also part of the design.

Everybody in the program has a task. Finding it and performing it is the work of being human.

I am a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I work for tech support. I run tutorials. I coach new users. I scan for viruses. I help people with their upgrades. I try and keep a very solid connection. Occasionally I help people bust out of dead end spots they get themselves into. It is a good gig.

Frustrating at times, but very satisfying at others.

I come by it naturally.

Dad would understand.

All my Theology lives in my garden.
Any dogma not displayed there is suspect to me.
My Father taught me this.
Early.

Compost is the visible lesson of life coming out of death.
Compost teaches me that nothing and no one is ever really lost.
Compost teaches me to work WITH God and God's processes.
Compost tells me that if I work with God, miracles are easy.

Hauling that miracle out to the right spot, can still be a bit of work.
Work is good for me.

.