[Dialogue] 2/01/18: Van Ham/Spong: God is Always Needing to Be Born; Spong revisited

Thu Feb 1 07:53:57 PST 2018

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God is Always Needing to Be Born
Lauren Van Ham

January is over and 2018 is finding its voice. Each year extends possibility. Within the possibility, events take place – births, deaths, celebrations, mishaps – and history is made. Meister Eckhart, the 12th century mystic proclaimed,

.........We are all meant to be mothers of God…
..........for God is always needing to be born.

In December, just after the shortest day of the year, the church calendar welcomes the return of holy innocence. Jesus is born and 12 days later, on Epiphany, Christians celebrate his physical arrival, a much-awaited incarnation called forth by ages of invocation and prophecy. Christmas carols lift the refrain, “Christ was born to save!” And then, Eckhart comes along with, “God is always needing to be born.” As 2018 unfolds, this teaching is a prompt for us. What role will we play as mothers of God?
For the last decade, my holy work in this world has been called, Eco-chaplaincy. On this path, I have tried to create some guiding principles to help me and others who wish to embody a lifestyle which supports and celebrates life in all its forms, humans included! In this time on Earth, the task of being an informed human is unrelenting; societal panic and personal despair are abundant. Fortunately, the eco-teachings we receive in winter are hugely instructive about how we might ready ourselves for whatever lies ahead, and I want to highlight 3 of them now.
Here’s the first one: Slow down. The insistent urgency of our economy pulls us along, yanking us from the end of one year into the next with stories of scarcity and endless tactics to stimulate spending. If we follow the Christmas story as it is shared in the New Testament, we know that the baby was taken away to Egypt, away from the noise and violence of the Imperial system. Or if, like me, you feel less moved by the story, but truly curious by what around you feels real, then in this season (at least for much of the Northern hemisphere) we observe Earth’s soil as frozen and fallow; it’s resting to be ready for when longer days return.
Walter Brueggemann, the brilliant Old Testament scholar, says this, “Sabbath, in the first instance, is not about worship. It is about work stoppage. It is about withdrawal from the anxiety system of Pharaoh, the refusal to let one’s life be defined by production and consumption and the endless pursuit of private well-being.”
Despite Advertising’s efforts to move us through this slower, liminal time and fast forward to Spring, we can honor what might feel a bit messier, but also more true. Stillness or sabbath, is the first practice to help us envision the life we are called to live, a place where God needs and wants to be born. Sometimes, the stillness is blissful but we cannot forget Brueggemann’s mention of an anxiety system that suggests our worth is determined by what we do and what we acquire. I don’t know about you, but when I pull away from such patterns, I feel disoriented and quite frankly, duped. In stillness, there can be a nervous backlash in response to “not doing.” I’m reminded of some lines from the David Wagoner poem, “Lost.”

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost… You must let them find you. 

Alright, so we slow down, and in that strange place of leaving the day-to-day pace of 120mph, finding ourselves on foot, in the forest, we might actually discover feelings. That’s right, I said this can get messy! When we allow ourselves to slow down so much that our emotional voices can be heard, what do they say? And more importantly, will we honor them? Feeling is the second practice that helps move us toward the world we are empowered to co-create. We begin with our own feelings, but to really appreciate the collective emotional intelligence available, there’s more to this one.
Soong-Chan Rah, is a theologian and seminary professor who is committed to freeing spiritual communities from what he calls, “Western Cultural Captivity.” Rah writes, “Lament is honesty before God and each other… should we not be concerned over a church that lives in denial over the reality of death in our midst?”  Friends, as readers of “Progressing Spirit,” and earlier posts by Bishop Spong, we are not blind to the death around us – the extinction of species, our government’s termination of life-affirming policies, and the archetypal display of patriarchy in its last gasps. While so much of laboring to birth God begins inwardly, as individuals, it is what we do together that makes our beliefs visibly alive in the world. This is tough when the dominant system rewards us for our ability to do things without needing any help – some thrive on this, and some give up entirely, hoping that others will find a magical way forward. But these, “Independence Teachings,” are written nowhere in the sacred texts I know. Moreover, Earth’s teachings repeatedly show us the brilliant interdependency that sustains us all – trees needing CO2, and mammals needing oxygen – as the most obvious example.
After winter’s snow and ice, rivers of water and muddy, sloppy mush precede the return of firm earth, gardens and leaves. Our communities are only as strong as the transparency and vulnerability we entrust to them. How will your spiritual community resolve, this year, to acknowledge the mess? To create a very intentional time and space for lament…and then to mindfully respond? When our anguish is fully met, we see our passions and convictions more clearly; more love becomes possible. Love = God being born.
In the poem, “The Man Watching,” Rainer Maria Rilke urges us to lean-in, allowing Earth’s expressions of intensity to metaphorically mentor us,

What we choose to fight is so tiny! What fights with us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated as things do
by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

In the lines just after these, Rilke refers to Jacob wrestling the angel. Dominated in the struggle, Jacob “loses,” and comes away forever changed, blessed. In the face of more frequent natural disasters and civil wars over resources, we are most certainly being asked to wrestle! We don’t have to, of course, but I suspect that if we apply stillness and allow our true feelings to surface, that engagement will be a natural response. It is one thing to love Earth, to strive to defend and protect Her, but as with any sacred activism, there is also the moment when we lose our attachment to the outcome, when we move a particular way in the world because of a sacred communion we feel. And here it is! The third and final practice for this article. Do you feel Earth’s love for you? In the noise around us, imagining the magnitude of Earth’s love for us is a radical act.
Last July, there was an eerie string of days when a Delaware-sized piece of the Larsen C ice shelf was breaking away from Antarctica. Did some of you watch that? I was astonished, watching science blogs with awe and terror. I wanted to call out, “Is anyone else listening to this? Who among us is thinking about what this really, really means?” A few weeks later, I heard myself say to a close friend, “I wish the whole world would’ve paused for a moment of silence.” Yes! What if we had? Would anything feel different right now if, when the Larsen C left the South Pole to melt steadily on its float to the North, humans around the world had taken 60 seconds to be still…and to feel? We do this for other epic events, tragic, cosmic or otherwise. Where were you, for example, on the day of the total eclipse?
Perhaps the Larsen C’s split from Antarctica is the Divine plan unfolding just as it should. None of us knows how our story with Earth is to evolve or find its end for that matter; but it is in this paradoxical space of wrestling and finding blessing that our spiritual paths are formed. I think we do this because we DO know the Love that comes from it — the Divine Love that is in us, and for us, wants us to be in Love.
As 2018 evolves, how do you perceive God needing to be born? When we’re clear about what isn’t working, Eco-ministry asks us to imagine what we do want and I hope we all will consider these three practices: Stopping for Stillness, Daring to Feel and sharing our Laments in Community, and then Wrestling – not for the perceived reward of winning – but rather to receive the unimaginable flow of Earth’s Love that is in us, for us and beyond us, calling us to God who is always needing to be born!
~ Lauren Van Ham

Read the essay online here.
About the Author
Lauren Van Ham was born and raised beneath the big sky of the Midwest; Lauren holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, Naropa University and The Chaplaincy Institute.  Following her ordination in 1999, Lauren served as an interfaith chaplain in both healthcare (adolescent psychiatry and palliative care), and corporate settings (organizational development and employee wellness). Her passion and training in the fine arts, spirituality and Earth’s teachings has supported her specialization in eco-ministry, grief and loss, and sacred activism.  Lauren’s work with Green Sangha (a Bay Area-based non-profit) is featured in Renewal, a documentary celebrating the efforts of environmental activism taking place in religious America.  Her essay, “Way of the Eco-Chaplain” appears in the collection, Ways of the Spirit: Voices of Women.  Lauren tends a private spiritual direction practice and serves as Dean for The Chaplaincy Institute in Berkeley, CA.

Question & Answer

Cynthia from Engleswood, New Jersey asks:

Question:
I belong to a church that has a fairly sophisticated membership. We are inclusive and pride ourselves on our openness to diversity of race, socio-economic background, ethnic background and sexual orientation. It's a warm, comfortable atmosphere in which to worship, and people remark on the welcoming nature of our congregation. I cringe, however, every time we enter the Lenten season, especially as we get closer to Palm Sunday and Good Friday. Some of the references to the Jews clearly foster an anti-Semitic atmosphere. There are Jews in the choir and some in the congregation as well. While sophisticated people realize there is a 2000-year span of time between the Crucifixion and today, still there are people who succumb to literalist interpretations and justify their own prejudices. I am especially concerned about the impression this makes on children and for the feelings of the Jews who sit in the pews and listen to these readings. How can we address this and still read the accounts in a faithful manner?

Answer: Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D.

Dear Cynthia, your concerns resonate deeply with me. Although context is not everything, it affects everything. Texts that emerged originally within a Jewish milieu and embody intra-Jewish differences, today land upon the heart and ear as anti-Jewish rhetoric within the very core of the holiest days of the Christian liturgical year. To be unresponsive is to be irresponsible. Our multicultural and interfaith context requires that we make significant changes in worship if we are to be faithful to the Christic wisdom path of Jesus.
Over the past decade I have worked with communities within the Episcopal church, at least one of which has various faith traditions counted among its worshiping membership, to reconceive the vision of Holy Week, to draw upon radically inclusive translations of scriptural texts, and to preach in such a way as to deliberately and forthrightly acknowledge the anti-Jewish history and rhetoric of prayer, song, and story, and to rewrite the liturgies we pray that shape our searching souls. Let me offer a few concrete examples.
Our flyer for Holy Week speaks of The Wisdom Way of Christ: A Holy Path for 21st Century Seekers. The spiritual path of the realization of our Christic nature, not sacrificial atonement, is the genesis of our worship. Within this embracing vision, the distinct liturgical days receive their renewed focus, drawing principally from the Wisdom literature of the scriptures. The Reign of Wisdom is the meaning of Palm Sunday. Being Sent to Serve is the thrust of Maundy Thursday. Companionship and Cross, not abandonment and isolation, is the heart of Good Friday, and the reality that Light Renews our Life is the message of Easter.
But it is not enough to reform the liturgies of Holy Week. The liturgies and readings and songs and prayers which shape us throughout the entire year must be reworked to reflect more clearly the Jewish spirituality of Jesus of Nazareth. We also need to radically expand our vision of what a faith community is today. For not only are there Jews who sit beside Christians in our faith communities, there are also Muslims and Unitarians and Buddhists and those who consciously eschew labels of identification and are searching for a safe place to search and question and be supported.
What this diverse presence brings is an invitation: the faith community exists not to convert to a belief system, but to welcome into faith journey. There is a universal relevance in the Christic wisdom path of Jesus: each and every being is a unique and precious embodiment of the Holy Source; a chosen One of immeasurable worth. Too often the light of Christ is dulled and distorted by text and ritual when it need not be. Our responsibility is to polish the lenses from centuries of deadening dust.
~ Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D.

Read and share online here
About the Author
Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. is an Episcopal priest, a student of the Diamond Approach for over a decade, as well as a certified teacher of the Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition. He is the founder of the Healing Arts Center of St. Paul’s Church in Marquette, Michigan, and the author of five books, including “I Have Called You Friends“, “Holding Beauty in My Soul’s Arms“, and “My Heart is a Raging Volcano of Love for You” and “Beyond my Wants, Beyond my Fears: The Soul’s Journey into the Heartland“.
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited

The Connection between the Crucifixion and the Passover, Part II 

Last week I began the analysis of the crucifixion of Jesus as it appears in all four gospels, examining in particular the claim that this founding moment in the Christian story occurred in the context of the Passover, which celebrates the founding moment in the sacred story of the Jewish people. I raised the question as to whether that connection is literal, remembered history or is rather an interpretative liturgical adaptation. My first clue was found in an examination of the narrative of the crucifixion found in Mark, the earliest gospel, which scholars generally date in the early 70's C.E. In that story of the Passion, (14:17-15:47), I pointed out that we have a format of a 24-hour vigil divided into eight clearly marked three-hour segments. The material that provides the content of this account has been lifted not from remembered history, but from Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. That was my first clue. Christians need to embrace that even the treasured description of Jesus' crucifixion is not literal history, it is later interpretative material. Jesus died alone with no one standing by to record what happened. Mark has made that clear by his assertion that when Jesus was arrested all of his disciples forsook him and fled (Mark 14:50).
It is the setting of the crucifixion story against the observance of the Passover that first started my questioning process. Passover is observed in the Jewish world on the 14th and 15th days of the month of Nisan, which would place it in late March or early April on our calendars. The biblical narrative in Mark, Matthew and Luke (to put them in the order in which they were written) suggests that the Palm Sunday triumphal entry into Jerusalem took place just five days before the Passover. It indeed was the Passover celebration that drew Jesus and his disciples to Jerusalem in the first place. If this entry came a week before Passover it would move the date to somewhere between mid-March and the first of April.
Yet the Palm Sunday procession, according to the earliest narration in Mark (11:1-10) was accompanied by the spreading of leafy branches that they cut from the fields (Mark 11:8). The only trouble with that little detail is that at that time of year, there are no leafy branches in the Holy Land. The leaves have not yet come out! Is that a hint that the Palm Sunday procession was either not history at all or was not originally in the spring of the year? It is at the very least a provocative clue that we might want to probe further.
The next step in our analysis comes when we examine the passion narrative in Matthew, which was the second gospel to be written, coming some 10-12 years after Mark. However, we know that Matthew had Mark in front of him when he wrote, so any time we see that Matthew has overtly and clearly changed the text of Mark, we need to ask why. What was his reason? Can we discover his agenda? Looking at Matthew's version of Mark's Palm Sunday procession story (Matt. 21:1-9) we discover a fascinating note. Whereas Mark refers to the cutting of "leafy" branches, Matthew, perhaps aware that there were no leaves on the branches of the trees in late March or early April, simply omits the reference to the leaves. This means that in Matthew's gospel the crowd only cut branches (v. 8). A branch without leaves might better be called a stick and sticks without leaves are not thought of as instruments that can be spread or waved. It is the leaves that provide the cover on the ground on which the procession can move. It is the leaves that flutter when the branches are waved. So I become slightly more suspicious when Matthew omits the leaves from these branches.
Turning next to Luke who wrote some 5 to 10 years after Matthew, and who also had Mark before him when he composed his gospel, we discover another interesting clue. Luke's Palm Sunday story (19:28-44) has omitted any reference to the waving of the branches at all.
There are no leafy branches in Luke because there are no branches at all. Luke has replaced that gesture with another. In Luke's Palm Story the people only lay down their clothes before him (v. 36). Was Luke also suggesting that Mark's story did not add up and he wanted to make it consistent? There were no leafy branches to be waved in the Holy Land in March.
When we come to John's gospel, that is generally dated somewhere between 95-100, we believe that we are dealing with a different and independent source. He is not dependent on the rest of the synoptic tradition.The data we find here is thus even more fascinating. John does not appear to identify Jesus' entry into Jerusalem with the Passover. He has been there in the region for some time. Jesus however stages a procession into Jerusalem just a few days before the Passover. When we recall that John is the only gospel that claims to be based on the work of an eyewitness, his placement needs to be looked at carefully. I know of no scholar who thinks this gospel was actually written by the disciple of Jesus named John Zebedee. However, there is a strong scholarly tradition that suggests that the Fourth Gospel John might be the work of a disciple of the apostle John and thus might reflect more remembered history than the others.
The Johanine note that I wish to add to the growing data, however, is that John is the first gospel to suggest that the branches they waved were made out of palm and thus were evergreen. Palms however would not be characterized as "leafy branches." By naming the Sunday before Easter, Palm Sunday, we have stamped the day with its particular identification with palm branches so it is of interest to note that only in a book written 65-70 years after the crucifixion does the narrative suggest that palms were used in the triumphal entry. One wonders why that note would have escaped the memory of the authors of Mark, Matthew and Luke. None of this is yet a persuasive argument. It is only a series of hints that are becoming cumulative — so on we move.
We come next to the story of a fig tree that Mark relates as coming on the day after the Palm Sunday procession (Mark 11:12-14, 20, 21). Mark's account says that when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, he went to the Temple and looked around. Presumably he saw the commerce and the moneychangers at work but he did nothing more than to take in this scene before withdrawing for the night to Bethany where the group was headquartered, probably at the home of Mary and Martha.
The next day on their way up to Jerusalem from Bethany for the activity that came to be called the cleansing of the Temple, Mark tells us that Jesus was hungry. Seeing a fig tree in the distance, he went to it seeking figs. However, no fig tree bears fruit in late March in the northern hemisphere. Jesus, apparently unaware of that bit of reality, is irate and curses the fig tree to eternal barrenness. It is a strange portrait of Jesus, generally ignored by sermon writers. To curse a fig tree for not bearing fruit in March is not unlike blaming a man for not getting pregnant. It is to be judged for the inability to do the impossible. After this episode, Mark relates the dramatic story of Jesus driving those buying and selling as well as those changing money from the Temple. Then on the way home, Mark concludes the fig tree story by observing that Jesus' curse took. The fig tree had withered to its roots.
Is this again hidden evidence of a different dating process? Had this story been in the fall it would not be so jarring, so difficult to understand the actions of Jesus. Is this a hint that it was originally a fall narrative and that when it was moved into the orbit of the Passover in early spring all of its now inappropriate time references were not smoothed away?
Once more we turn to see what Matthew and Luke do with this strange story as they work from Mark's text to create their own. Matthew relates the fig tree story almost identically. He simply makes it wither at once and does not have to revisit this uncomfortable narrative as Mark does. Luke however omits it altogether in this context, but earlier in his gospel (Lk 13:6-9) he uses much of this material in a parable about a fig tree that it does not produce fruit, creating in the owner of that land the desire to cut the unproductive tree down. His foreman saves the tree for at least a year with the promise of digging around it and fertilizing it.
The leafy branches reference in the first Palm Sunday triumphal entry story and the fig tree story were both told as part of the preamble to the crucifixion at the time of the Passover. They both seem out of place in that early spring setting. Is there a hint in these narratives that the original context of both was the fall of the year? They look like they have been moved and rather clumsily at that. When these things are examined one cannot help but wonder if these accounts were not originally connected with the fall of the year and, sometime between the death of Jesus and the writing of the gospels, were moved because the crucifixion had been attached liturgically to the Passover, and the death of the Paschal Lamb at Passover had become the way the death of Jesus was interpreted. I invite you to hold that possibility open until we can examine another clue that seems to suggest that the details of the Palm Sunday story have been borrowed from another Jewish tradition that occurs in the fall of the year.
To that story I will turn next week as this series on the relationship of the Passion Story of Jesus and the Passover of the Jews continues.
~ John Shelby Spong
Originally published May 9, 2005

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