the glory of community

Since last February, when I taught the topic of “salvation” at Bethany Bible School, a couple of texts have been paired in my mind.

Exodus 33:18-34:7 and 1 John 4:7-12 both define the essential characteristic of God as love. 1 John says that “God is love”, while Exodus says that Yahweh, “the LORD”, is “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”, something which Yahweh also “keeps to the thousandth generation” (1 Jn 4:8; Ex 34:6-7).

In Exodus, the love of God is linked to the “glory” of God, as in Moses’ request to God—“Show me your glory, I pray”—which led to God’s unfolding revelation of himself to Moses (Ex 33:18). In Exodus 33-34, that revelation of God’s glory “unfolded” in two stages. In the first place, in response to Moses’ request, God directs Moses to “a place in the rock” where Moses might hide while God “passes over”, enabling Moses to glimpse God’s back—not God’s face or else Moses would die (Ex 33:20-23). While passing over, God also proclaims God’s name, “Yahweh”, and pronounces God’s character, “gracious” and “merciful” (Ex 33:19).

Merciful and gracious, it turns out, are the very same characteristics which Yahweh uses to introduce himself again to Moses in the second stage, that is, when God again proclaims God’s name (Ex 34:5-6). Likewise, whereas God “passed over” Moses by the rock in the first revelation, in the second revelation God “passes before” Moses on the mountain (Ex 33:22, 34:6).

It was upon Exodus’s narrative foundation of God’s glory, God’s name, and God’s character that John built his address to “the beloved”, his “little children” (1 Jn 2:1, 28, 3:2, 7, 18, 21, 4:1, 4, 7, 11). The glory of God, for example, also appears as a prominent theme in the theology of John’s gospel, as in the prologue: “We have seen his glory, the glory of a Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14). Similarly for John was God’s name important: “Yahweh” or “I am” is the name which Jesus the Son applies to himself repeatedly throughout the gospel (Jn 6:35, 8:12, 8:58, 10:7, 10:11, 11:25, 14:6, 15:1). Finally, for John, God’s character was primary; in addition to the Father’s only Son being full of “grace and truth”, through the Son “God so loved the world” (Jn 3:16). Now, also in his first epistle, the apostle proclaims that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). And that “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world in order that we might live through him” (1 Jn 4:9).

It is here—within the context of God’s love “revealed among us”—that John states the greatest narrative modification to the story of Israel in the person of Jesus, the Christ, the Son. That is, whereas the glory, the name, and the character of God “passed over” Moses in Exodus 33-34, the “signs” of God’s presence “remains”, “abides”, “dwells”, “stays”, “lives” with God’s people—upon one condition: that they “love one another.” As it says, “If we love one another, God abides with us and his love is perfected among us” (1 Jn 4:12).

“If we love one another”, John perceived through God’s revelation of God’s very self in the person of Jesus, God will never take away God’s glory from God’s people; no longer to “pass over”, as a revelation of God’s back, the love shared between the followers of Jesus is that which allows us to begin to “look into” the face of God. Because we have not yet truly, fully loved, God’s glory is still hidden. “We see”, in the words of another apostle, “in a glass darkly” (1 Cor 13:12). Thus, as John put it, “it is not yet revealed what we will be; but when he is revealed we will be like him, for we will see him as he is”— “face to face” (1 Jn 3:2, compare with 1 Cor 13:12).

So Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.” And God replied, “Love one another.”

-Joe

Glory of glories

More than a year ago, I recorded some discoveries I had made on the transfiguration story from the gospels (Mk. 9:2-8; Mt. 17:1-8; Lk. 9:28-36) in conversation with African traditional religion. That entry reflected preparation I had done for teaching the story at Bethany Bible School. Finally, in May, that opportunity came to pass. I used the story as the Bible Study text for my lesson on the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

The story is a good one for getting at some of the thematic differences between the gospels. Taking Mark as the narrative baseline for the synoptic tradition in general, one can see through the transfiguration story the distinct ways in which Matthew and Luke built upon the story. Matthew, for example, adds to Mark’s account the description of Jesus coming to the disciples, touching them, and telling them not to fear after they have witnessed the dramatic scene, entered the cloud, and heard the voice. Jesus comforts the disciples because they have fallen “on their faces” in response to the cloud and the voice. This is the second usage of “face” in the text; the first occurs at the outset of the story when Jesus’ “face” begins to shine a brilliant white. Whereas in Mark it is Jesus’ clothes which turn white, Matthew adds also that Jesus’ face shines. In doing so, Matthew intensifies the comparison between Jesus and his prophetic predecessor, Moses, whose face also used to shine when communing directly with God. Matthew’s intensification of the comparison between Jesus and Moses is commensurate with his gospel’s broader emphasis of Jesus the Law Giver/Teacher who gives the new law which fulfills the law that was given to Moses.

Luke’s account, on the other hand, reveals his own emphases. Jesus is transfigured while he is “praying”, something he did regularly according to Luke. Moreover, the city of “Jerusalem” again figures in this story as it does throughout Luke. Luke alone informs the reader of what specifically Moses and Elijah were talking about with Jesus: the exodus that he was about to accomplish “from Jerusalem.”

It is also from Luke that I was able to make my major connection between the world of the text and the traditional thought-world of my Xhosa audience. As pointed out in my earlier entry, an African reader might quickly notice in this story what a westerner might not, namely, that Jesus is communicating with his dead ancestors. Traditional African Religion was/is based upon communication with the ancestors. The story then might be read as a justification of communication with the dead.

It is not always or perhaps often appropriate to make comparisons between Jewish religion pre-Christ and African religion pre-Christ. There are significant differences, the main one being that Jewish faith was oriented toward the one God, Yahweh, to the exclusion of other gods, whereas African religion was oriented functionally toward many spiritual mediators or “gods” in spite of the fact that a concept of the one Creator God did also exist. Still, for the purpose of proclaiming a text, in this case the transfiguration story, it works to place Moses and Elijah in place of the ancestors of African traditions. Indeed, in this story, Moses and Elijah appear personally to the disciples whom Jesus had led with him up the mountain--as a deceased African grandfather might appear to his progeny in a dream. Peter’s response to the sight, likewise, is functionally equivalent to the decisions many African Christians have made with Christ—put him alongside, not necessarily in place of or even higher than, the other spiritual authorities in one’s life (we must also say that westerners have not often placed Christ in a superior position to the particular “powers and principalities” of their cultures).

But back to Luke. What of his contribution to the story? Luke, alone among the synoptic evangelists, dwells with suspense upon the characters that turn out to be Moses and Elijah. That is, Luke initially does not say, as Matthew and Mark do, that “there appeared with him Moses with Elijah” but rather, simply, “two men”. Who are these two men? Only then does Luke answer: Moses and Elijah. Going on: “they appeared in glory and were speaking about his exodus which he was about to accomplish from Jerusalem”. Luke returns to the appearance of glory once more thereafter: “Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep, but because they stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.” Whereas in the first appearance of glory to the disciples, glory includes three—Moses, Elijah, and Jesus—in the second appearance of glory only one remains. He alone is glorious; Moses and Elijah are again, merely, “men.”

Of course, this is also how all of the synoptic evangelists conclude the narrative. The voice with the cloud acclaims “my beloved Son; listen to him” after which only one—"Jesus alone”—remains.

The ancestors used to look glorious to our eyes. But when Jesus came, we saw true glory.

-Joe

from danger to danger

One of the purest joys in my life is the act of preaching. In particular, this joy is the product of moments of unexpected creativity. In the flow of retelling a Bible story, words find me, flashing across my mind seconds before they leave my mouth.

Several weeks ago, I was taking my time in preaching the story of Moses. I came to the part in the story in which Moses' mother places him in a basket in the river in order to hide him from Pharaoh's campaign of slaughter of Hebrew boys (Ex. 1-2). In the concern of making the story exceedingly clear for my audience, I realized that it didn't make sense for me: why exactly would a mother think that putting her baby in a river, however pitched the basket and however watched by the baby's sister, is a situation more conducive to the child's survival than hiding him away in a house somewhere? Feeling my way through this dilemma, I suggested that the river was surely infested with hungry crocodiles. Then another scripture came to mind. In response to evildoers who proclaimed the coming of "the Day of the Lord", the prophet Amos had declared that "Day" not light but darkness. It was to be a day of judgment, and not one in which the perpetrators of justice would find comfort. Amos likened it to someone "who fled from a lion and was met by a bear", or "rested a hand against the wall and was bitten by a snake" (Amos 5:18-20). Taking up the imagery, I suggested that Moses adrift on the Nile was akin to going "from danger to danger."

From danger to danger. It was simply a phrase coined to find a way through a telling on my way to a broader point. It was, in the end, the phrase that one listener had filed in his memory bank, the phrase which he recounted to me weeks later upon our next meeting; the phrase had gone with him as the presence of God for weeks and weeks.

Why? I wondered. I do not know exactly, but I suspect that it has something to do with the reality that this brother's life is a going about "from danger to danger." A tempestuous marriage. A physically abusive wife (yes, contrary to the dominant pattern in South Africa, the domestic abuse in this situation runs the opposite way and, by the way, the wife is much bigger than the husband). Sporadic "piece" jobs. Wandering through town, dependent upon the generosity of acquaintances to provide for daily bread. Scrapping to pay school fees for four children.

If his life is not danger to danger, it is hardship to hardship, stress to stress, insecurity to insecurity.

"How are things?" I ask my friend. "It is better to have hope than not to have hope," he replies, reduced to one of the "three things that will remain" (1 Cor. 13:13).

"God is taking us somewhere", he also testifies to me. For my friend perceives that "from danger to danger" has a flip-side. The weight of suffering now is preparing him for "an eternal weight of glory", a "yoke that is easy and a burden that is light" (2 Cor. 4:17; Mt. 11:30).

"From danger to danger" is one side; "from glory to glory" is the other (2 Cor. 3:18).

-Joe