Metaphysical...metaphorical

February 22, 2018

I’m feeling more and more like abandoning the metaphysical elements of Christianity. The ethical aspects are solid. Of course they are grounded in the Jewish tradition: the prophetic, wisdom, and Torah. What Jesus added is the radical love—love of enemy. Jesus and Paul taught that everything is centered in the “law of love.” 

The Incarnation is metaphorical. You can’t get past the fact that Jesus himself is never reported as explicitly claiming to be God in the flesh. Even in John, he only claims a “oneness” with God, not an identity as God. He is the revealing of God’s nature and purpose. As Paul says, he is the visible image of the invisible God.

Jesus spoke of God using the metaphor of “father.” That is, we can relate to the Holy Mystery as if it were a loving father, yet a transcendent father, whose Name is holy/hallowed/transcendent. The father image is about being able to trust the Holy Mystery. And having a feeling that the HM (Holy Mystery) cares about us.

After the Teacher was executed by the Romans, colluding with the Jewish establishment, there was a quick response from the small Jesus movement—a sense that the Christ was still present in some way that motivated the small group to continue, even at the risk of their lives.

That movement persevered and took many forms. I grew up in a 20th century Baptist, American form. Through education I grew to understand the historical developments and various theological traditions. 

When I write a sermon to deliver to a congregation, I look at the texts and try to find something that is meaningful and relevant to life. I interpret the texts from a liberal, humanistic point of view. I interpret “God” and “Christ” to be the “power of love.”

Right now I continue to teach the hope of a continuing life/existence after death. It is part of the tradition; there is no scientific proof otherwise; millions of Near Death Experiences point to a phenomenon that opens the door to the possibility of another dimension of life.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Providence

  August 25, 2020   Providence.   In a selection of John Chrysostom's reflections on "providence," he says:   Our fathers in the Old Testament times saw events contradicting he promises of God , yet they were not shocked or worried. They trusted in a Providence beyond their understanding. Knowing the richness and skill of the divine wisdom they awaited the outcome and endured all the adversities, giving thanks to God. (from Drinking from the Hidden Fountain. reading for Oct. 13)   Paul Tillich , in a sermon on Providence, says:   Faith in divine Providence is the faith that nothing can prevent us from fulfilling the ultimate meaning of our existence. Providence does not mean a divine planning by which everything is predetermined, as is an efficient machine. Rather, Providence means that there is a creative and saving possibility implied in every situation, which cannot be destroyed by an event. (from The Shaking of the Foundations)   In a sermon on th...
Read more

the middle eastern sage

January 15, 2019  From the beginning humans have   perceived or imagined unseen powers and forces which spooked and awed them; and the humans tried to influence those unseen powers to be friendly.   Dying and rising gods and goddesses were already imagined way before the birth of Christianity.   Sagas of an ancient couple named Abraham and Sarah, and their descendants, also tell of a small clan of Semitic people held as slaves in Egypt. These people have a memory of being liberated from the tyranny of a Pharaoh by the power of their God, YHWH. They had stories of tribal leaders, then kings and prophets, followed by forced exile from their homeland in Palestine to Babylon. They eventually return to their homeland and rebuild.   The Christian religion has its roots in the Jewish story. A Jewish man named Jesus was born in Palestine in around the year 4 BCE (which is numbered as year ‘0’ by a historical slippage).   While some people in our time speculate that...
Read more
    I believe in the Cause that calls. There is a Voice… I live “as if…” (We all live as if.) God is not a thing, but a movement. To participate in the Movement is our calling. As Tillich said, God is “the power of being.” Which is to say: the power of life. God is life-ness. God is Being which is always Becoming. As Dante said, there is the Love that moves the planets and the sun and the other stars. Faith has a vagueness to it. We see in a vague mirror (1 Cor. 13). The ultimate reality is reflected to us in a fuzzy faith. A fuzzy faith. Gas lighting— fundamentalism— believe what I say, don’t believe what you see.  
Read more