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<h1 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(0, 61, 74); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 34px; font-weight: normal; display: block;">Charting
A New Reformation </h1>
<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(68, 135, 207); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 30px; font-weight: normal; display: block;">Part XVIII
- The Fifth Thesis, Miracles
(continued)</h2>
<div>Following the Exodus,
Moses’ miraculous power was
never again so powerfully
displayed in the biblical
story, but it did not
disappear. In a battle
against the Amalekites
(Exod. 17:8-14) when Moses
held his hands up, the
Hebrew army won the day, but
when fatigue forced him to
lower his arms, his enemies
prevailed. This problem was
solved when Aaron and Hur
stood by his side and held
his arms up. God was still
directing the affairs of
human beings from above the
sky and Moses was God’s
vessel. Other nature
miracles adorn the Moses
story. When the Hebrew
people had no food in the
wilderness God, at Moses’
request, rained heavenly
bread called manna, upon
them. When there was a
shortage of water, Moses
struck a rock at a place
called Meribah and water
flowed forth in abundance
(Exod. 17:1-7). This was,
however, a strange miracle
for although God appears to
have ordered it, a Hebrew
norm was violated. Moses
demanded that God bring
water out of this rock. It
was not proper for a human
being to give God orders.
The norm was for God to
command and for human beings
to obey. Moses had, quite
improperly, put “God to the
test.” God was not pleased.
The story said that God had
clothed Moses with
miraculous power, but
because of this serious
indiscretion, Moses was to
be punished by being forever
prohibited from entering the
“Promised Land.”</div>
<div>While miracles were clearly
associated with the memory
of Moses, it would not have
occurred to anyone to speak
of him as “the son of God.”
He was simply a human
channel through whom God’s
power was allowed to work.
There was no confusion of
the medium with the message.
Miraculous power belonged to
God; it was not thought of
as Moses’ possession.</div>
<div>When Moses died (Deut. 34),
he was succeeded by Joshua,
who had been his military
captain. There is always
great anxiety in a nation
when it loses its leader,
especially a long time and
successful leader like
Moses. One of the ways in
the story-telling tradition
of the Jews that anxiety was
dissipated was to wrap
stories about the deceased
leader around his successor.
The ancients did not see
this as dishonest. What this
practice was designed to do
was to convey the message
that the God of Moses was
still with them, but now as
the God of Joshua. So
Joshua’s life was said to be
marked with the same power
that had once marked the
life of Moses. The power to
manipulate the forces of
nature had been a sign of
God’s presence with Moses.
Moses had been portrayed as
able to command the forces
of nature. Joshua would now
exhibit a similar power. He
would command the sun to
stand still in the sky on
its journey around the earth
(Joshua 10). This would
enable Joshua’s army more
daylight in which his
soldiers were able to kill
more retreating Amorites
before they found safety
under the cover of darkness.
It was a power similar to
that of Moses.</div>
<div>The second example was an
even more obvious Moses
story. Moses had split the
waters of the Red Sea to
allow the children of Israel
to escape death at the hands
of the Egyptians and to walk
through that sea into the
safety of the wilderness.
Joshua confronted another
body of water that impeded
the Israelites’ progress.
This time it was the Jordan
River. Those who have seen
the Jordan River are not
impressed with either its
size or its difficulty to
navigate. In some seasons of
the year, one can literally
step across the tiny stream
in the midst of the river
basin. So the author of the
book of Joshua had to
heighten the size and degree
of difficulty. He states
that this miracle occurred
when the river was in flood
season and was a massive
body of rushing water. In
Moses-like fashion, Joshua
stepped into this flooded
river and the waters parted
so that Joshua and his army
could invade the territory
populated by the Canaanites
by walking on dry land. In
these narratives, Joshua,
like Moses, was seen as
possessing supernatural
power, but he too, was
simply a vehicle, a channel,
through which the miraculous
power of God could be made
available in human history.
Thus, miracles in the Bible
were originally not a sign
of the human becoming
divine, but rather the sign
that God could work through
a human life to establish
God’s power over nature.</div>
<div>It would be about four
hundred years before
miracles would make a second
appearance in the biblical
story. Once again miracles
were associated with the
lives of Jewish heroes.
These heroes were also a
connected pair of figures,
who were at the heart of
Israel’s national life.</div>
<div>While Moses would become
known as the father of the
law, this man, Elijah, would
become known as the father
of Israel’s prophetic
movement. He would be linked
with his successor, Elisha,
to form the second tandem to
which miracles would be
attached. What constituted a
miracle, however, began to
be greatly expanded.</div>
<div>First, there was in the
lives of these two figures a
repetition of the nature
miracles that marked the
previous heroes, Moses and
Joshua. For example, Elijah
and Elisha had the power to
expand the food supply, a
cruse of oil and a supply of
grain were not diminished
with use. Perhaps the most
obvious sign of the
continuity of the
Moses-Joshua tradition was
seen in that both Elijah and
Elisha, when impeded from
their goals by the Jordan
River, responded by sweeping
a mantle over the water of
that river and standing back
to watch the waters part,
which enabled them to
overcome this watery barrier
and to walk across the river
bed on dry land. This Moses
story, wrapped originally
around Israel’s founding
hero at the Red Sea, was
later wrapped around Joshua,
then wrapped around Elijah
and finally wrapped around
Elisha. There are thus
four-splitting-of-the-waters
stories in the Hebrew
Scriptures.</div>
<div>Other miraculous acts were
attributed to this 8th
century BCE duo of Jewish
heroes. Elijah and Elisha
could both perform
supernatural acts of healing
that were seen as miracles.
Both were also said to be
able to raise the dead.
Elijah raised the only son
of a widow from the dead.
Elisha raised a child from
the dead. So by the eighth
century, before the Common
Era, the Hebrew Scriptures
spoke of the miraculous
power being within the
capability of the lives of
the foremost heroes of
Israel. Once again, it was
God’s power acting through
God’s servants in the Hebrew
Scriptures, although
increasingly as the stories
were told, that power was
more and more attributed to
the people themselves.</div>
<div>After Elijah and Elisha, we
note that miracles largely
disappeared from the
biblical story until the
first century when they were
told again, first about
Jesus of Nazareth in the
gospel tradition and then
about his immediate
successors, the apostles, in
the book of Acts. The
patterns were quite similar.
The supernatural acts fell
into three categories.
First, there were nature
miracles: the stilling of
the storm and the ability to
walk on water. There were
also narratives about the
ability to expand the food
supply. Six times in the
gospels an account was given
of Jesus feeding an almost
unlimited multitude — 5000
on four occasions, 4000 on
two occasions — with a
limited number of loaves and
fishes.</div>
<div>Next in the Jesus narrative
were the raising of the dead
stories, five to be specific
are related in the four
gospels, but only three
people were said to have
been raised from the dead.
That was because the
narrative of Jesus raising a
child, the daughter of
Jairus, from the dead, was
told three times, once in
Mark, once in Matthew and
once in Luke. The details
vary, but only slightly. The
main story line is, however,
almost identical with the
account of Elisha raising a
child from the dead. The
second raising of the dead
story is told only by Luke
and involved Jesus raising
from the dead the only son
of a widow, which supposedly
took place in the village of
Nain. This narrative, upon a
closer examination, appears
to be based on the story of
Elijah raising from the dead
the only son of a widow. The
third raising of the dead
story is only told by John
and is the familiar account
of the raising the
four-days-dead Lazarus, who
was said to have literally
walked out of his tomb. This
story appears to have had no
antecedent in the Hebrew
Scriptures whatsoever, but
perhaps it was based on
Luke’s parable of Lazarus
and the rich man. Finally
there is a series of miracle
stories associated with
Jesus that are the most
familiar of the miracle
stories in the Bible. I
refer to those narratives in
which the blind are enabled
to see, the deaf to hear,
the mute to sing and the
crippled or lame to leap.
Many of these healing
miracles are later
attributed to the disciples
in the book of Acts, which
serve to give us the third
pairing of miracles stories
to keep the pattern intact.
Clearly the same power,
observed in Jesus, was said
to have been present in the
leaders of the early
Christian Church.</div>
<div>Is there a source in the
Hebrew Scriptures that might
give meaning to this final
type of healing miracles
attributed to Jesus? I think
there is. In the 35th
chapter of Isaiah, the
prophet is addressing the
subject of the signs that
will mark the emergence of
the Kingdom of God on earth.
This was, in apocalyptic
Jewish thought, nothing less
than the birth of the
messianic age. Isaiah
responded that the world
would recognize the
in-breaking of the Kingdom
in these ways: water would
flow in the desert, the
crocuses would bloom in
places where they had never
bloomed before and human
wholeness would appear in
places that had been marked
with human brokenness. That
is “the blind would see, the
deaf would hear, the mute
would shout and the lame
would leap.” For Isaiah
these would be the signs
that would signal the
messiah’s arrival on earth
to inaugurate the “Kingdom
of God.” Are these miracle
stories then interpretive
signs rather than literal
events? I think they are. We
will pursue this
conversation further next
week, when we discover that
Jesus himself is said to
have made this
identification. When one
really reads the text of the
gospels, much of the
miraculous framework that we
have traditionally placed on
the Bible gives way to a
very different
understanding.</div>
<div>~John Shelby Spong</div>
<div>Read the essay online <a style="color: rgb(68, 135, 207); font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=c4f7c9b4ab&e=0471473479" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(68, 135, 207); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 30px; font-weight: normal; display: block;">Question
& Answer</h2>
<div><span style="font-size: 18px;">Albert
Ringewald of Cocoa Beach,
Florida writes:</span></div>
<h4 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(68, 135, 207); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 22px; font-weight: normal; display: block;"><br>
Question:</h4>
<div>I would appreciate it if
you could provide me with
your views on Christian
forgiveness.</div>
<div>It seems to me on this
issue that Christians are
all over the map. Some are
quick to offer forgiveness
as shown to us recently over
closed circuit TV by the
relatives of the nine
victims of Charleston’s
Emmanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church to the
shooter, who specifically
expressed no remorse during
his court hearing; to the
author, Roxanne Gay, who
wrote in a New York Times
Op-Ed (June 23, 2015) that
her Catholic upbringing had
taught her that “forgiveness
requires reconciliation by
way of confession and
penance.” I think the almost
instantaneous expression of
forgiveness by the relatives
of the church shooter’s
victims perplexed many of us
as sincere, yet somehow
contrived because of its
suddenness.”</div>
<div>Complicating matters
further, Kristin Neff, out
of the University of Texas,
has written extensively
about self-compassion and to
forgive is to lay down the
burden of anger toward the
offender and thereby
changing your role as
“victim” to finding
compassion for yourself and
possibly even for the
offender.</div>
<div>Finally, we seem to be
taught the essentials of
forgiveness through the
parable of <em>“The
Prodigal Son”</em>
contained in the gospel of
Luke, in which the father
forgives the wayward son
only after the son
acknowledges his wrongdoings
and begs for forgiveness.
Would forgiveness have been
proffered by the father
without contrition on the
part of the son?</div>
<div>Does forgiveness require
acknowledgement of the wrong
doing by the offender? Does
forgiveness require the
offender to ask for it in
order that it be effective?
Psychologists are quick to
describe the benefits of
forgiveness, but they fail
to describe the
requirements, if any.</div>
<div> </div>
<h4 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(68, 135, 207); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 22px; font-weight: normal; display: block;">Answer:</h4>
<div>Dear Albert,</div>
<div>Thank you for your
questions and for posing the
issue so powerfully with
your very contemporary
examples. Let me try to
separate the wheat from the
chaff. First forgiveness is
in my opinion, ultimately a
godlike response. As such it
is freely given, always
available and requires
nothing. Our ability to
receive or to access this
ever-present forgiveness may
require repentance and an
attempt at restitution, but
that is a requirement of our
receptiveness, it is not a
requirement located in
forgiveness itself. So it
seems to me that the
families of the victims of
the shooting in the
Charleston, S.C. African
Methodist Episcopal Church
acted out of a profound
understanding of what the
forgiveness of God is like.
It was that very powerful
witness to this ultimate
meaning of forgiveness that
moved the people of South
Carolina to look at their
own behavior vis-à-vis
people of African descent
and to bring to the ground
the long-flying flags of the
Confederacy. The forgiveness
of God, which they
articulated, does not
require confession from the
guilty one in order for it
to be given; but it may
require confession in order
for that forgiveness to be
received by the guilty one
to whom it was so freely
offered.</div>
<div>That is the picture of
forgiveness I find in the
New Testament. In the
episode of the woman taken
in the act of adultery,
forgiveness is offered long
before she was told, “go and
sin no more.” Jesus is
portrayed in Luke as
offering forgiveness to the
soldiers who crucified him.
There is no indication that
he required them to repent
first. Forgiveness is a gift
of God. It is grace; no
prerequisites are required.</div>
<div>The life of Jesus reveals
this to me quite powerfully.
He was betrayed and he loved
his betrayer. He was denied
and he loved his denier. He
was forsaken and he loved
those who forsook him. He
was tortured and he loved
his torturers. He was
murdered and he loved his
murderers. That is a
portrait of the forgiveness
of God being lived out in a
human life. What the God
presence in Jesus says to
each of us is this: “There
is nothing you can do and
nothing you can be that will
place you outside the
boundaries of God’s love.”
We are loved as the hymn
says: “Just as I am without
one plea.”</div>
<div>It is not your business or
mine to judge whether
forgiveness is deserved. It
is not your business or mine
to determine whether
repentance is adequate.
Those are the results of the
rules of religion that often
appear to have been elevated
to a status they have never
merited.</div>
<div>Even in the parable of the
Prodigal Son, which you
cite, the wayward son “comes
to himself,” that is, he
turns toward the forgiveness
that was always there even
when he could not see it.</div>
<div>It is human to judge, but
judging is finally an act of
idolatry. It assumes that
you have the right to judge.
It assumes that you can
place limits on the
forgiveness of God. It
assumes that your
righteousness is greater
than God’s righteousness.
The response of religion is
never to be identified with
the response of God.
Religion gave us
anti-Semitism, the
Muslim-hating Crusades, the
moralistic Puritans, the
justification of slavery,
segregation and Apartheid,
the diminution of women and
the repression of homosexual
persons. Judgment arises out
of the human tendency to
place onto God the limits
that you yourself cannot
transcend.</div>
<div>“How often shall my brother
sin against me and I forgive
him?” asked the disciples.
Then trying to answer their
own question, they said,
“until seven times?” Jesus’
response was “Until seventy
times seven.” Did he mean
that we must forgive 490
times, but not 491? No, he
was calling his disciples
beyond any limits because
forgiveness with limits is
never forgiveness.</div>
<div>There are no requirements
in the forgiveness of God.
That is the truth that calls
you and me beyond our own
limits and beyond the
perilous suggestion that you
or I have the right to judge
anyone.</div>
<div>~John Shelby Spong</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 22px;"><strong>Meet
Bishop Spong at a
private VIP reception</strong></span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: 20px;">Bishop
Spong will be the keynote
speaker at the upcoming <a style="color: rgb(68, 135, 207); font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=7f0024cc58&e=0471473479" target="_blank">Death and
Afterlife Awareness
Conference</a> in St.
Louis, May 12-15, 2016.<br>
<br>
He will also be the guest
of honor at an intimate
VIP reception limited to
only 30 guests.<br>
<br>
This is a rare opportunity
to meet at chat with him,
so reserve your tickets
early! </span><br>
<br>
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details!</a></div>
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