🍷 (Second Sunday Of Epiphany)

The scripture readings.

In the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke), the miracles are called dunamis. The Greek word translates into English as “act of power.” John, on the other hand, uses the Greek word semeia. It means “sign.” The miracles are signs; they point toward something. They indicate. In themselves they are not important. What they point to is what matters.

This is the first sign in John’s gospel. It is certainly an act of power. But what does it point to? What does it indicate?

This is the season of Epiphany, so the other reasonable question is, what does it reveal?

Paul writes of spiritual gifts. He means they point to God, that they are signs. Think of a sign by itself. A stop sign is just a piece of painted metal on a stake. But it points to the authority of the state, an authority we respect because it keeps traffic orderly, it keeps us safe. For Paul the spiritual gifts point to God, and what God gives for us; the emphasis on “us,” not you or me. The gifts point to the church, not to your merits. The stop sign is not for you; it is for us.

Who’s the wine for, then? What does it point to? What is revealed? Paul says the gifts are from God for the common good. Whose good is the wine for? Yours? Mine? The bridal party’s?

We might as well do the story the respect of taking all of it seriously. John opens his account of Jesus’ ministry with it for a reason. John says because of this sign Jesus’ disciples believed in him. What had they been doing before? He also says this sign reveals Jesus’ glory; so at least we’ve got the epiphany worked in. But what reveals Jesus’ glory? The water into wine, or the quality of the wine? Is it a better sign because the wine is so good? Is that the glory? Or does it just underline it?

Yes, signs have to be interpreted. What is revealed is what we understand.

In itself the sign is not important. But then why is the wine so good? The steward recognizes its quality, but not its provenance. Maybe that’s the point; maybe it serves a purely narrative purpose. But is all of it not a sign, then?

Is the story significant in itself, or is it a sign? In the narrative it’s important, because this is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. But is it just a McGuffin, meaningless in itself and forgotten as soon as it is used to start the story? Who are these people? Jesus’ mother appears again at the crucifixion (more than she does in Matthew or Luke, where she’s present only for the nativity); the disciples continue on; but this wedding disappears once this event is over. Is it really even important? Significant? What, then, does it signify?

According to John this is about the glory of God. Glory is the doxa, the light that comes off of God and is God, but obscures God. It is illuminating, it is light. Think of it as the light of revelation. It is the light that reveals. Paradoxically, it also hides. But that’s appropriate to John. In John’s telling, the semeia reveal; but they also hide. 

John’s “signs” reveal to those who understand; they also conceal the truth from those who don’t. Think of Mathew’s magi: the star reveals a truth to them Herod’s scholars don’t see. But the scripture, the word of God, reveal a truth the magi couldn’t know. The revelation is still hidden from Herod, who doesn’t see God’s action in the world; he only sees a threat to his power. In Matthew, as in Luke, the nativity is the first miracle of Jesus. It is dunamis, an act of power. It is a rather simple matter of who it is revealed to: magi, shepherds. In John the semeia reveals and hides: the steward of the wedding doesn’t get it; the disciples do. Of course, like Mary, the disciples know something the steward doesn’t. It’s not his fault; Jesus has not yet revealed himself. When he does, how can everyone know what it means?

Even John the Baptizer, in John’s gospel, has to tell the disciples, “Behold, the lamb of God.” That’s not a semeia, but it’s the first revelation. That the disciples understand it is not to their credit; it is meant for the common good. It is meant for us, the readers of this gospel. It is, for us, a sign. The sign is not the point. The point of the sign is what it signifies, what it points to. Whether we understand that, whether we realize that; well, that’s on us.

Thanks be to God.

"Reject the easy way of apathy...choose the hard course of action"

Start with the Gospel reading for this morning, the first "sign" or semeia, from John:

1And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:

2And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.

3And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine.

4Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.

5His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.

6And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.

7Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim.

8And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it.

9When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom,

10And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.

11This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.

First, everybody translates that word as "miracles," but John consistently calls it "semeia," or 'sign.' And he consistently undercuts their importance. Everyone who sees the sign and believes, John clearly implies in his gospel, believes in the wrong thing. Think of Nicodemus. Or remember at the end, when Thomas sees the scars of the Risen Jesus and believes, and Jesus says "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe!" There is always a hierarchy in John, and those who believe without signs are always truer believers than those persuaded by the signs. But that's not where we are going with this.

My other favorite bit of this story is Jesus' question to his mother, and her response. This is a woman who knows her son. He says to her "Why are you telling me?" She tells the servants "Do what he tells you." A mother knows. But that's not what we're going to do with this, either.

No, the whole thing is a springboard today (and so a cheat, of sorts) into the thoughts it aroused while listening/not listening (pastors do it, too!) to the sermon this morning. And the thoughts, in hastily scribbled notes, ran this way:

"Dying to old life; rising to new [related to the water and the jugs held for the purification. Crossan and Reed, by the way, note a place for ritual baths was a common feature of Jewish homes in 1st century Palestine]. But what does any of that have to do with me? If all change is internal or external, it to me but not of me, what is that to me, except external? [i.e., if my make an empty confession (external) or claim an inward change with no real change in who I am (internal) Is an internal change, then, the only sign of Xianity? Is it really taht I must be born again? But once I am, am I different? Or am I the same? Am I still looking to the big idea to save me?

'He did not ask of us anything great.' (attributed to Abraham Lincoln, in response to sermon) [Israel means 'struggles with God, but of] what is the use of struggling with God if the struggle is not a great one? Who of us has experienced birth that was not a struggle, found new life & identity without tremendous effort? (think of adolescents becoming adults, adults becoming parents or even simply newlyweds; starting a new job, a new profession, changing professions. Who am I if not what I do, and yet what do I do?) Why, then, should we imagine love of God, love for neighbor, would be an easy and empowering task?

Born again--am I the one involved w/being born again? or is that the act of God? If it is an act on me, is it external to me? If so, isn't it, even though from God, the "Big Idea" which save me from me, without any effort by me? And of what ultimate value is that to me?

The question, in other words, of the big idea. And precisely how existentialism comes to Christianity, and how Kierkegaard is still relevant today, if not still ahead of us. And perhaps even the way Romanticism points us in the direction out of the morass of solipsism we find ourselves (collectively) wandering into, again and again. When Kierkegaard launched his "Attack upon 'Christendom'," he was, and still is, largely misunderstood. He was not attackin Christianity, or declaring that only the most devoted could be disciples (a la Bonhoeffer almost 100 years later, who likewise realized he'd gone too far in one direction). What Kierkegaard was actually critiquing was the notion that one could be a Christian by birth only, by virtue of one's culture, of one's nationality. Indeed, what he saw coming to an end has ended for all intents and purposes in Europe: the "big idea" that something outside of us, which could stay outside of us, would take care of everything for us. That "big idea" is still the generally accepted salvation principle of Christianity: that a certain set of beliefs, properly applied and agreed on, is all that is necessary to set us off from the heathen; or the "non-traditional" Christian, or the faithless believers, the sinners, the apostates, the what-have-you. That's all the arguments of fundamentalists v. everybody, or "traditional" Episcopalians v. The Episcopal Church, or the Anglican Communion v. Presiding Bishop Schorti, come down to: whose "big idea" is going to be the one that rules.

Fortunately, so far at least, PB Schorti has refused to engage that battle. But that's also another issue.

But what if the big idea is contained here, instead?

31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' 37Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' 40And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,[a] you did it to me.'

41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' 44Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?' 45Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' 46And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

What if the big idea is less what you believe, than what you do? What if the big idea is, say, acompanamiento? That would make the teachings of Christ truly apocalyptic, because that would change our entire world; or at least the world you, and I, and other believers and followers of Christ, live in.

John Edwards said today, in Riverside Church:

Forty years ago, almost to the month, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood at this pulpit, in this house of God, and with the full force of his conscience, his principles and his love of peace, denounced the war in Vietnam, calling it a tragedy that threatened to drag our nation down to dust.

As he put it then, there comes a time when silence is a betrayal -- not only of one’s personal convictions, or even of one’s country alone, but also of our deeper obligations to one another and to the brotherhood of man.

That’s the thing I find the most important about the sermon Dr. King delivered here that day. He did not direct his demands to the government of the United States, which was escalating the war. He issued a direct appeal to the people of the United States, calling on us to break our own silence, and to take responsibility for bringing about what he called a revolution of values.

A revolution whose starting point is personal responsibility, of course, but whose animating force is the belief that we cannot stand idly by and wait for others to right the wrongs of the world.

* * *

Silence is betrayal. Speak out, and stop this escalation now. You have the power to prohibit the president from spending any money to escalate the war – use it.

And to all of you here today – and the millions like us around the country who know this escalation is wrong – your job is to reject the easy way of apathy and choose instead the hard course of action.

Silence is betrayal. Speak out. Tell your elected leaders to block this misguided plan that is destined to cost more lives and further damage America’s ability to lead. And tell them also, that the reward of courage...is trust.

The big idea will get you started; but it won't do the task for you. Doing the task is up to you. Your salvation is secure; but it is also in your hands. Go, and seek the Lord among those who need you. Go, and find the Creator of the Universe, among those who are invisible. Go, and don't look for signs; the signs are all around you. And they all point to your brother, your sister, your neighbor, your friend: the ones you know, and sit in a pew with every Sunday; the ones you don't know, and who may never know you. Go, because the teachings of Jesus the Christ are truly apocalyptic; they truly reveal the truth: that the kingdom of God is here, now, among you. And that when you begin to live it, you see it.

And blessed are those who do not see it, and yet believe. Amen.

"Let justice roll down like waters...."

Fred Clark makes an interesting point, to which I would just add: there isn't a whole lot of punishing going on in the Hebrew Scriptures.

I know the "popular" image of God in the Hebrew scriptures is the vengeful one, the "sinners in the hands of an angry God" which is so much a part of American culture (and one more reason the past isn't over, or even passed). But, as the Yale website indicates, everything is subject to interpretation; and re-interpretation.

And my starting point for this would not be the prophets nor the histories in the Hebrew scriptures, but the wisdom literature: specifically, the book of Job. Do we consider Job when we consider the question of punishment? No, if only because the prologue to Job makes it clear Job is not being punished for anything, despite what his friends think. Job is not being punished because Job is righteous; but also because Job's life has become the game board in a cosmic game is being played out between God and Satan. There's something, indeed, almost Hellenistic about the book of Job; but I digress. The point is, nowhere in the book is Job's suffering properly identified as punishment; in part because it isn't, in part because such punishment is manifestly unjust. As much as Job is a very Hebraic meditation on the question of theodicy (and in Hellenistic terms, on the issue of fate and our mortal relationship to the immortal and powerful gods), it is a meditation on the nature of justice. Is what happens to Job unjust? Only in the sense that justice is something meted out to those who have violated some standard of conduct. But that's not the only sense of justice espoused in the Hebrew scriptures.

The primary discussion of justice is conducted among the prophets, and their subject is the apostasy of Israel that leads to the fall of the two kingdoms and the Exile. But the sin of apostasy is not punished by God through the Babylonians. It is not God who punishes Israel at all; it is Israel who punishes itself, because God leaves them to the consequences of their actions. Indeed, what choice does God have? God neither punishes Israel, nor removes God's magic shield of protection from Israel. God just tells Israel, through the prophets, how badly they screwed up, and what the consequences of their behavior is gonna be. Oh, yeah, and in several famous scenes scattered throughout the works of the prophets, God challenges Israel to point out where God failed and caused Israel to collapse.

Then God comes along and picks up the pieces, and promises to put Israel back together again:

1 The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”

4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath[a] enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”

7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

Ezekiel 37:

11 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’”

Isaiah 40:

1 Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins.

3 A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
the way for the LORD[a];
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.[b]
4 Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,
and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

6 A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”

“All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
7 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the LORD blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”

9 You who bring good news to Zion,
go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem,[c]
lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
say to the towns of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
10 See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power,
and he rules with a mighty arm.
See, his reward is with him,
and his recompense accompanies him.
11 He tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young.

12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
or weighed the mountains on the scales
and the hills in a balance?
13 Who can fathom the Spirit[d] of the LORD,
or instruct the LORD as his counselor?
14 Whom did the LORD consult to enlighten him,
and who taught him the right way?
Who was it that taught him knowledge,
or showed him the path of understanding?

15 Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
they are regarded as dust on the scales;
he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.
16 Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires,
nor its animals enough for burnt offerings.
17 Before him all the nations are as nothing;
they are regarded by him as worthless
and less than nothing.

18 With whom, then, will you compare God?
To what image will you liken him?
19 As for an idol, a metalworker casts it,
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
and fashions silver chains for it.
20 A person too poor to present such an offering
selects wood that will not rot;
they look for a skilled worker
to set up an idol that will not topple.

21 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
23 He brings princes to naught
and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
24 No sooner are they planted,
no sooner are they sown,
no sooner do they take root in the ground,
than he blows on them and they wither,
and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.

25 “To whom will you compare me?
Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing.

27 Why do you complain, Jacob?
Why do you say, Israel,
“My way is hidden from the LORD;
my cause is disregarded by my God”?
28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

It's not about punishment; it's about consequences. It's not about justice as punishment for wrongs done, or as suffering before lessons are learned. It is about justice as mercy, and redemption. God is not just because God abandons Israel. God is just because God restores Israel. Justice is not a consequence free life. Justice, as Martin Luther King said, is the telos toward which the arc of the universe is bent.

Fred references one of the semeia of John, the man born blind whose sight is restored. The disciples think justice is punishment for sins done, by the man or his parents. Jesus knows that is not justice, and he uses the man as a sign, a semeia, of God's work (as all the semeia are meant to be seen in John's gospel). In the synoptics the healings and other signs of God's power are dunamis, or acts of power. What they show, time and again, is that justice is accessible to us all, and justice is most important as an action, not an abstract concept. Especially in the synoptics the dunamis reveal that justice is active, not deliberative. When Jesus makes the lame walk and the blind see, he never does it because they deserve his attention, but because they deserve our attention. Do you see this woman? How do you see her? As a prostitute? A female? A child of God? The distinction is crucial; but it is crucial to us. If justice is going to be done on this earth, it must come from us. It does not fall down on us from God, any more than punishment falls down on us from God. What comes from God is justice; what we suffer is the consequences of our own actions. Can we complain against God for not saving us from ourselves? The children of Abraham have been doing so almost since the first children of Abraham. Does that make God unjust?

No. Only our definition of justice is unjust; especially when we limit who justice is done for, or think of justice as who it is done to.

The Problem of Metaphysics in Theology

This is not the best place to enter the issue, but it came up in the lectionary Sunday. And this will probably convince someone somewhere that I am a raving "liberal" theologian, if only because I don't take whatever the traditional explanation for this would be, as the best explanation possible:

Mark 6:1-13
6:1 He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him.

6:2 On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, "Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands!

6:3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him.

6:4 Then Jesus said to them, "Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house."

6:5 And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.

6:6 And he was amazed at their unbelief. Then he went about among the villages teaching.
6:7 He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.

6:8 He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts;

6:9 but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.

6:10 He said to them, "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place.

6:11 If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them."

6:12 So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent.

6:13 They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

The Hellenistic concept of the divine was one of perfection in power, if not in attitude. Greek Gods were all-powerful, and the only check on their actions was either Zeus (most powerful of all), or their own whims. There really isn't a lot of petty distinction among the Greek myths as to what god has what magical ability, although none of them have the power of creation, and there are other limits. They are, pretty much, superhumans; which means no human ability, or lack of it, is in any way a check on what power they do have. Which gets us to the Christian conception of the "Almighty."

Christians attached to the concepts of the God of Abraham the Greek idea of perfection. (This introduces a whole set of problems, which Charles Hartshorne says have to be resolved by rejiggering the idea of "perfection." But we'll leave that alone.) Basically, per Plato and Socrates (this argument figures strongly, IIRC, in Socrates' argument about immortality in the Phaedo, IIRC; and, of course, in book 10 of The Republic), perfection cannot be changed, because any change would be diminishment (later, after Aristotle is rediscovered, we get the immutability of God in the unmoved mover, but that's another argument). Now, part of the problem is, perfection is immutable, and God is perfect, but Hebrew scriptures are full of examples of God deciding to take another course: from the bargaining with Abraham over Sodom and Gomorrah to the opening of Job, to the testimony of the prophets. God relents, redecides, listens to arguments and pleas, and otherwise changes things. God, as my Hebrew Scriptures professor liked to reminds us, is active in human history. Unmoved movers cannot, by definition, be active; and Plato's "good" merely draws us to it; it doesn't get its hands dirty in the illusory realm we live in.

Perfection is immutable because any change from perfection is imperfection; it's going backwards, in brief, and that cannot be allowed. Change would mean perfection allowed imperfection into its makeup, and that would be a logical impossibility (to the Greek mind, anyway). So we're stuck with a static God, or an imperfect God. This is partly where the Manichee heresy came from, by the way; and is the central source of the problem of theodicy and free will. But, again, I digress.

So if God is perfect, and Creator, God is also all powerful. So what's going on there in Mark 6:13? Sounds like a bad plot point from a "Star Trek" episode. "Who Mourns for Adonais," indeed? Unless we believe, we will not see? And yet, it is actually a very subtle point of theology, one that John makes great use of in his gospel, where these "deeds of power" are semeia, signs, a notion much loved by the medieval mind because they are both real, and point to a more real (dare I say "ultimate," and invoke Plato again?) reality. John uses the idea to indicate that those who look for signs (like Thomas, at the end of his gospel) are blessed, but more blesed are those who hear and believe. Jesus, after all, is the Logos, not the semeia! In John's theology, it is the logos (a very Greek idea, btw, but not so far from Hebraic thought after all) that is real, not the signs that point to it. John wants us to see past the signs to the reality.

But Mark's crowd can't seem to get that far. One almost imagines Jesus finding all his flint and tinder are wet, and he can't even get a spark. One can see him walking away, amazed that their unbelief is so profound it blocks even his ability to show them a sign. This is, by the way, very close to modern NT scholars understanding of the miracles. Those who don't reject them outright and absolutely (and that number is actually quite small; even my NT professor said he couldn't establish them as a historian, leaving himself the confessional out of professing them as a Christian) argue they were works of power because Jesus broke down social walls and made lepers and whores and beggars and other outcasts acceptable, simply by acknowledging them (I think, by the way, this is a rather weak and thoroughly Western way of seeing these stories, but that, too, is another matter.). Which is pretty close to what Mark is saying here. Those who have ears had better listen! But if they don't, well....they won't even see the presence of God if it slaps them in the face.

Apparently.

The seductive lure of the big idea

Yes, I'm on my hobby-horse, and I'm not inclined to get off anytime soon. I'm determined to ride until I know the winner.

It seems no accident that historically we are enthralled by John, whom we cannot understand, rather than Paul, whom we can but would prefer not to.

Courtesy of the MadPriest, who gets all the credit; one consonant blog to another. Actually, Bishop Marshall's letter is a gold mine of thought, but I'm starting here. That hobby horse, you know.

The other day, for no particular reason (except maybe that it was a Sunday night, and I was bored), I saw both Joel Osteen and Robert Tilton on TV. Osteen was telling his congregation they all looked like "victors" instead of "victums" (that's the way he pronounced it, presumably to make the consonants almost rhyme), and assuring them God wanted them to have all the rewards of life: which presumably meant the American Dream of 2.5 kids, a 2 car garage, and an iPod in every ear. Pardon my cynicism, but I can never help but wonder how that line of preaching would go over in Third World countries, where people are the "victums" or the very system that makes people like Joel Osteen so very rich and materially comfortable.

But I digress.

And then there was Robert Tilton, assuring me even more bluntly that Jesus wanted me to be rich, and if I just ordered Tilton's book Strike it Rich, and read it, then Jesus would enter my heart (which, since high school, I've always thought was a rather confined space for Jesus to get into) and I would begin to experience the blessings God had in store for me. Very material blessings, of course. And, of course, though they never said it, the one gospel Tilton and Osteen and every Bible-thumping "evangelical" preacher has in common, is the Gospel of John. Indeed, their credo, doctrine, and theology seem to begin and end with John 3:16. It is no accident you almost never hear an evangelical preach from the letters of Paul, or mention the gospel of Luke (social justice), or Mark (the disciples are idiots) or Matthew ("Lord, when did we see you?"). They love John, however, even though, as Bishop Marshall says, we don't understand John at all.

It is no accident that Rudolf Bultmann's magnum opus is a lengthy, scholarly, and very philosophical treatise on the gospel of John. With Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments in one hand, and a running argument with fellow faculty member Martin Heidegger in the other ear, Bultmann delivers a tour de force of 20th century existentialist thinking almost wholly grounded in the 2nd century gospel. Bultmann deals with the three synoptic gospels in one volume devoted to their textual history, and almost entirely overlooks their distinctive theologies. His work on John's gospel is nearly three times as long, and it, not his later popular work on "demythologizing" the gospels, is his true contribution to Christian theology. The gospel Bultmann insists is the touchstone gospel for modern humanity is the same gospel evangelicals insist is the touchstone for their literal reading of the Bible and for the assurance that only belief in Jesus as savior and filus dei saves. When Bishop Marshall says we don't understand John, but prefer it to Paul, he's right on the money.

Paul, of course, is the popular whipping boy today for all that is wrong in the church. Despite the fact he traveled with and regarded women as his apostolic equal, he's blamed for all the misogyny Christianity has been heir to. Despite the fact it was Paul, not Peter, who wanted to make the preaching of the Gospel inclusive (we distinquish by race, national origin, or gender. In the early church, they distinquished by ancestry: there were the children of Abraham, and the rest of the world. Of course, for the Greeks and then the Romans, there were Greeks or Romans, and barbarians, or "everyone else.") and not set entry requirements to the worship of Jesus based on circumcision or food laws. I am, I realize, grossly oversimplifying, but the point is Paul, with all his prickly particularity and our tendency to mis-read him thanks to Augustine, is the influential Christian writer we prefer to reject, precisely because we understand him. And since we understand him, we have to wrestle with him. Far easier to read the gauzy gnosticism of John, and get it wrong, and claim we have the insight reserved for the elect, the chosen of God. It flatters our ego so.

I mentioned before that John uses the word "semeia" rather than "dunameis." The former is "sign" or, in the context of Luke 2:12, proof or evidence (what the angels announce to the shepherds, to prove their statements about Jesus). The latter is the word preferred by the Synoptic writers for Jesus' healings and other supernatural activities. The former is so much a part of John's gospel that scholars identify a document that was source material for John, like the "Q" document for Matthew and Luke, and they call it the "Signs" gospel.

But John doesn't use the "signs" as proof of Jesus' divinity. Indeed, in John, the signs seem to be counter-proofs, almost negative examples of the divinity of Jesus. Not quite negative, of course; and that's where the confusion comes in. But John is constantly confusing. Take, for example, the famous exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus in the third chapter of the gospel. "Nobody can perform the miracles (semeia) you do unless God is with him," Nicodemus says. And rather than congratulate him on his insight, Jesus immediately tells Nicodemus something which simply makes no sense. Unless, of course, you already have the key, the gnosis:

"As God is my witness: No one can experience God's imperial rule without being born from above." Witnessing signs means nothing. The experience of the basileia tou theou is from God, not from human experience or even human understanding. When Nicodemus responds to this curious statement with a question, he speaks for the rest of us, and rather than explain it, Jesus launches into another set of odd statements:

"As God is my witness: No one can enter God's domain without being born of water and spirit. What is born of the human realm is human, but what is born of the spiritual realm is spirit. Don't be surprised that I told you, 'Every one of you must be reborn from above.' The spirit blows every which way, like wind: you hear the sound it makes but you can't tell where it's coming from or where it's headed. That's how it is with everyone born of the spirit."

John 3:5-8, SV.

Which seems to mean, or at least imply, that witnessing the signs themselves is"born of the human realm," living as we do in this material world. On the other hand, what is the purpose of the signs if not to show God's power? And yet it is the powerlessness of Jesus that is doubly reinforced in John's gospel, where Jesus banters words with Pilate just before his crucifixion, but meekly accepts the punishment the Romans mete out to him, because he must. But he goes on to tell Nicodemus that "everyone must be born from above" without explaining what that birth means, except in reference to the freedom and illusiveness of the spirit, which seems to mean that you don't know anything, and can't know anything, and won't ever know anything, because the spirit does what it wants to. Which leaves honest seekers like Nicodemus seemingly perpetually in the dark. And what of us? Are we wiser than Nicodemus? Do we know where the Spirit is blowing, and whom it is blowing in? Or does Jesus mean we can never know where those born of the spirit are coming from, or where they are going? Seems a very exclusive club, indeed.

It is all a darkness.

The rest of the chapter does little to clear it up. To Nicodemus' final question "How can that be possible?" (virtually the same question Mary asks Gabriel) Jesus is brutally dismissive: "As God is my witness: We tell you what we know, and we give evidence about what we've seen, but none of you accepts our evidence. If I tell you about what's mundane and you don't believe, how will you believe if I tell you about what's heavenly?" Notice, here, the emphasis that is the theme of John's gospel, and it is that theme which makes this one the favorite, even as we don't understand it: the necessity and importance of belief. But belief in what? In being "born from above" and in being part of the Spirit, coming from who knows where, going who knows where? But what does that mean? What is it I must believe in, and why is this belief so important? "This is how God loved the world: God gave up an only son, so that every one who believes in him will not be lost but have real life." All well and good, but what am I believing in, and how am I to know I believe unless I know what I believe? These are not idle questions, but John is not exactly anxious to answer them. The miracles of the synoptics are radically inclusive: those healed or blessed make no confession of either sin or faith before, or sometimes even after, their miracle. But in John's gospel, even those who honestly seek to understand, seem to be dismissed as hopelessly benighted.

But, of course, if we understand, if we penetrate the code of John's mysteries, if we unlock the ciper of John's stories and sayings, we have earned our salvation, we have proven ourselves worthy of God's secrets, fit stewards of God's authority. This is, of course, all of a piece with Greek epistemology, where only like knows like. It also flatters our egos. If we can achieve insight by our own efforts, it's better than being saved despite having no insight at all. Think of Luke's anointing, versus the one in John. In John the anointing has moved from the head (Mark and Matthew) to the feet, but the message is in accord with the synoptics: it's a preparation for death. John is obscure about spiritual matters, but underlines his themes of servanthood with a fine narrative hand. Mary washes Jesus' feet after Lazarus is raised, and later Jesus, rather than feed his disciples, washes their feet, like a good servant. It has the same effect on us as Luke's anointing: we overlook the fact the woman has shown no real "love," preferring to think she deserves the blessing she recieves (after all, blessings should not be unearned!). and we overlook the sacramental possibilities of the foot-washing in favor of the more familiar practice of being served a meal. Like knows like, and we know what we like. And of course there's the ego consolation that the knowledge John is giving us is spiritual, which means only those born of the spirit can understand it; and likewise, only those who understand it, are born of the spirit. So if you can't understand it, well....

And yet John undermines this teaching at almost every turn. When it comes time to feed the five thousand (evidence, again, that John's is the most recent gospel, and he knows the stories of the others. This gospel mentions this story as if it's a well-known part of Jesus lore, but look what John does with it.), it isn't just a miracle, but a sign: "When these folks saw the miracle he had performed they would say, 'Yes, indeed! This is undoubtedly the prophet who is to come into the world.' " (John 6:14, SV). But Jesus slips away for the night, as he knows they want to pronounce him "king," based on this sign. And the next day:

'I swear to God,' Jesus replied, 'you're looking for me only because you ate the bread and had all you wanted, not because you witnessed miracles. Don't work for food that goes to waste, but for food that lasts--food for real life--which the son of Adam will give you; on him God the Father has put his stamp of approval.'

John 6:26-27, SV.

Which seems fairly clear; except, like Nicodemus, we still aren't clear as to the nature of this food. And at the end, Jesus proves that he, too, eats and drinks (as Dr. King said, the distinction between the sacred and secular, between body and spirit, is not a Biblical one) when he appears to Peter and the others on the lakeshore after his crucifixion. It's the only resurrection story in which Jesus eats.

So John, like Luke, is another subtle theologian. But we flock around John's gospel and trample over the subtlety, sure we understand what it means, and pitying those who cannot understand our explanations, or who fail to understand its message of radical inclusion of those already chosen to be among the understanding. And we leave Paul alone to dirty his hands with his messy quotidian issues like who gets to eat at the table, and what worship is appropriate, and how to reconcile disparate beliefs and cultures. We who are born of spirit are above such things; and besides, being born of spirit, we all think alike, and are right in our thinking, and have no need of such mundance concerns. And when someone says it is all a darkness, we are sure it is only because they cannot see the light, which can only mean they are creatures of darkness. And we seldom question whether we are taking darkness for light ourselves. Perhaps because the alternative is too much like planting trees in concrete, Or perhaps because it just so much easier to imagine Jesus really does love us, and wants us to be happy, and wants everyone else to learn to think like us, so they will be happy, too. And this is a sign unto us: not the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger (what kind of sign is that? Peasant babies are wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in mangers every day in 1st century Palestine!), but that we are happy. Because, after all, the quiet and irresistable pursuit of truth is just so much work! Far easier to believe we were born with the secret decoder ring, and that all we need to do is read the signs; the signs we are sure only a few special people can read.

Paul is just so quotidian. And where's the power and the glory in that?

Which means we should feel badly about ourselves? No. But just as religion is responsibility, or it is nothing at all, without humility, there is no presence of Christianity either. And not the false, "aw shucks" humility that presumes you are worthy of praise but just good at humbly accepting it, nor the abasing humility of "We are not worthy!" No, the true humility of the servant, the one happy to be of service to others, the one who doesn't look for a reward, but isn't a doormat. Think of Mary, talking to Gabriel; or to her son, at the wedding in Cana.

There is a great deal more wisdom in Mary than most of us Protestants give her credit for. After all, she's not interested in big ideas. Her focus is mostly on the everyday, the ordinary, on other people; which seems plenty big enough for her, and for the rest of us.

Stop Making Sense

This isn't exactly the "religion" Bonhoeffer was critiquing, but I think had he known it in Germany, he would have:

According to the Pew Research Center, Alabama is the second most religious state in the nation with 74 percent of residents saying religion is very important in their lives. Number one is Mississippi. It is a pitiful irony that those states that are most religious are also states with the most individual suffering. More than 30 percent of the children in these two states suffer extreme poverty. In both states, the primary reason for abject poverty is that more than a third of children have parents who lack secure employment, decent wages, and healthcare. But thanks to Jesus, these poor saps vote for the party that rejects Medicaid expansion, opposes early education expansion, legislates larger cuts to education, and slashes food stamps to make room for oil and agriculture subsidies on top of tax cuts and loopholes for corporations and the wealthy.

I'm not convinced of the direct connection, or even of the correlation, between being the "second most religious state in the nation" and rejecting Medicaid expansion, opposing early education expansion, and all the rest.  But the idea that the "Ten Commandments" are God's last word on governance (which is what prompts the article; that Alabama is about to put an referendum to the state on the question of displaying the Ten Commandments on government property), is certainly a triumph of "religion," even if I don't know of too many Christian denominations who make a point of promoting such displays.

It is a curiosity to accept that Alabama (as in most of the American South) is so "religious" (and "religious" here is synonymous with "Christian") and yet so accepting of poverty, ignorance, and widespread and amenable suffering (and yes, education is basic to Christianity, not just to Christian European history.  If Jesus could read from Isaiah, it was because he knew how to read; Paul was an educated man, too.  The idea that education leads to apostasy is a modern fundamentalist concern, not an historical Christian stance.)  We don't have to link this religious posture to the acceptance of so much want and need to wonder why this religious posture doesn't work toward the alleviation of so much want and need.  The German Evangelicals who came to this country in the 19th century set up hospitals, orphanages, and even mental institutions, as well as schools, in response to such ordinary human individual and social problems, and did so because of their religious beliefs.  Concern for others is hardly antithetical to Christianity, and those German immigrants were certainly "religious."  But the question is: what has changed?  Or what never existed in the South, that so many problems persist despite widespread allegiance to Christianity?

First, of course, it has to do with the school of Christianity, which is to say it has to do with what you place are the center of your Christian faith:  soteriology, or care for others?  Soteriology, in this case, is a very specific form:  the soteriology of the "saved," of those who have secured their place in heaven and feel a responsibility to save the souls of others; but a soteriology that also puts emphasis on the sweet bye and bye, and de-emphasizes, in a kind of perverse Platonism, the life lived here.   It also shifts the problem of poverty back onto the backs of the poor; which would be perverse if it weren't so Biblical:  "Master, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born poor?"  John's Jesus ignores the question and turns the man's condition toward a sign, a semeia, a signifier, of the nature of Jesus.  Another reason the Gospel of John is the favorite of Southern evangelicals.  Luke would have turned that question against the questioners.

Such soteriology has absolutely no place for the idea that "people in need  are the ambassadors of the gods," and that "As God's Ambassadors you should be given food,  clothing and shelter by those who are able to give it."  This is not entirely peculiar to the South, however, because "the duty of hospitality is neither taught nor practiced in Christian countries."  The soteriology of this argument is  that salvation is an individual decision and responsibility, and that lodges a responsibility in the saved individual to save the soul (and not necessarily the body) of another.  The saved, in other words, is responsible for offering the salvation to another, but that other is responsible for accepting the offer.  If all you are responsible for is the eternal life of another's soul, you aren't your brother's keeper when it comes to food, clothing, and shelter.  And if your brother is responsible for their salvation, they are even more responsible for their own maintenance.  Especially if, as has been true for Southern culture since the time of the plantations, you have been kept in poverty yourself, and told to blame your poverty on other impoverished persons, such as poor blacks and even poor whites.  The bitter arrogance of Faulkner's Snopes is a fine example of what this culture produces:  poor whites who disdain both blacks and the rich whites who give them no more than subsistence wages, and less respect and regard than is paid to their livestock.  In such a culture, it isn't necessarily religion that blinds one to the needs of others.*

One other aspect of this soteriology is its emphasis on a kind of Neo-Platonism which denies the reality of this life in favor of the next one.  Of course, the people making those denials are themselves quite comfortable; but that's not a condition peculiar to conservative Christians in the American South.

Culture has a remarkable way of persisting over time; it is a persistence that cannot be overlooked, or underestimated.

So change the religion, change the outcome?  Perhaps.  Change the culture, and you will certainly change the outcome.  Aye, there's the rub.  But failing that, we're back to the question:

What would a "religionless" Christianity look like?  I think Bonhoeffer meant to use it as Bultmann meant to do; to remove the dead traditions of 2000 years accretion from the central teachings of Christianity.  But can we also use the concept to remove Christianity from its connections with the culture?  That Roman church, in large part (especially with its "Princes of the Church") clings to a past best left behind; but being international, it also tends to stand apart from culture better than most Protestant denominations (and most Protestants individually) do.  Protestantism has historically been almost entirely a creature of the culture it exists in; can it find a new way to be in the world but not of the world?

*Werleman's analysis goes completely awry on this point.  He states what he means to be his thesis:  "The point is that in an overly religious country it works too well, and to America’s detriment," but then the concluding paragraphs present analyses of the problem that rest entirely on culture, and have nothing directly or indirectly to do with religion.  He ends on this note:

The Republican Party, particularly in the South, will always dredge up these cultural issues to ensure its base remains a captive tool of corporate ideology. That way its corporate sponsors can maintain a perpetually impoverished lower class from which to draw its cheap labor.

Which is right, but marks a completely different issue than he started with.  The problem in the American South is cultural, not specifically religious or Christian.

Nunc Dimmitus

Now, Lord, you are releasing your servant in peace,
according to your promise.
For I have seen with my own eyes
the deliverance you have made
ready in full view of all nations;
a light that will bring revelation to the Gentiles
and glory to your people Israel.

Just looking at the song of Simeon again. It usually happens that, when taken out of context and reviewed for some reason other than exegesis, the exegesis is clearer and easier.  First, we blame the gospels, and not wrongly, for much of the anti-semitism of European history.  But look at those final lines:  it is a sentiment completely in keeping with the visions of Isaiah regarding the future of Israel from the midst of Exile in Babylon.  The vision of the Holy Mountain in Isaiah 40 is meant to be a vision of Israel in its apotheosis as the people of God, a condition which draws the nations (i.e., people, not nation-states) to it to share in and learn from this blessing.  Simeon echoes that:

a light that will bring revelation to the Gentiles/and glory to your people Israel.

By the time Luke wrote Christians had already mined the scriptures for references to their Messiah, so the idea is not original with Luke.  But part of the anti-semitism that would infect the church and the culture came from reading those scriptures as signs the Jews missed, and so brought their damnation on themselves.  Here is a sad example of how badly the gospels were misused, and how they have been more recently put right:  the vision of Simeon is whole, and should be seen as whole sight (or all the rest truly is desolation):  it is a vision of Hebrew and Christian, Gentile and Jew, drawing from the same source for revelation and glory.

And then Luke continues the story:

34And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;

35(Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

The "sign that shall be spoken against" (and I want to stop there and look up Luke's words, to see if he uses the word John uses for "miracles."  John doesn't use the dunamis of the other gospel writers, which should be directly translated as "act of power."  John's gospel uses semeia, which means "signs."  It's part of my own argument that, as Mark's gospel instructed Matthew's, and Q gave material to Matthew and Luke, John's gospel shows unmistakeable signs of Luke as forebear.  But I put this in a long note to remind myself to return to it someday.) is what piques my interest.   Why?  Because that sign which will "be spoken against" will then, by the action of rejection, "reveal the thoughts of many hearts."  And suddenly we're back to Jeremiah:

The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse--
 who can understand it?
 I the LORD test the mind
 and search the heart,
 to give to all according to their ways,
according to the fruit of their doings.

Jeremiah 17:9-10

Modern scholarship tends to emphasize the errors in Temple practice and religious ritual that Luke makes, which marks the gospel's author as a Gentile.  That may be true, but Luke is the subtlest theologian in the four gospels.  And it is that "set against" that is so revealing, if only because the sign provokes the response of rejection; and why does one object?

An argument reveals as much, and often more, about the person raising the argument, than the points of the argument itself.  Simeon's words appear to establish the very "either/or" that Kierkegaard wrote about as the fundamental position of the ethical.  And yet Kierkegaard meant that analysis as the limited view of the non-religious, not as the final word on what is ethically condoned or condemned.  But Simeon doesn't say the cosmic scales will be held by Jesus, and many will be weighed and found wanting.  Simeon says the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.  The innermost thoughts; the truest thoughts; of these there will be a revelation, and that revelation will come through the sign brought by Jesus.  And what is a sign?  According to semiotic theory, it is something which points to something else.  What does Jesus point to, according to Simeon, except the truth?

But what is truth?  Ah, what indeed.  The truth that Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the father except" through him?  No; Simeon is not referring to that truth.  Simeon refers to a revelation, not a salvation.  Simeon refers to a revealing, not a reconciling.  Simeon refers to the same revolution Mary's song earlier referred to:

My soul extols the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has shown consideration for the lowly stature of his slave. As a consequence, from now on every generation will congratulate me; the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name, and his mercy will come to generation after generation of those who fear him. He has shown the strength of his arm, he has put the arrogant to rout, along with their private schemes; he has pulled the mighty down from their thrones, and exalted the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, as he spoke to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.

(Luke 1:46-56, SV)

Right there, almost in the middle:

He has shown the strength of his arm, he has put the arrogant to rout, along with their private schemes; he has pulled the mighty down from their thrones, and exalted the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.

That sounds, at least to the rich, more like a prophet than a priest:

1:14 The great day of the LORD is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the LORD is bitter, the warrior cries aloud there.

1:15 That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness,

1:16 a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements.

Zechariah 1: 14-16

The revelation of God is never a judgment from a spiteful god; it is always a judgment brought on the people who have turned away from God, and now reap the whirlwind they have sown.  And the revelation of Jesus Simeon speaks of will be to some like a sword, revealing their metaphorical hearts.  They will be revealed for who they truly are and judged, not by a tribunal of superiors, but by their own actions:  "to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings."

A dark day, indeed, if we all are treated as we deserve.  Maybe a real sword would be better.  And yet Simeon promises, not a judgment, but merely a revelation.

Which, when you think about it, might be bad enough.  But it offers an interesting perspective for insight; especially into our own hearts.

Good Friday: A Meditation for 2017

I wrote this two years ago for Good Friday, and decided to re-post it this year.  Appropriate to the day, no art for this post; again.

There persists in corners of the internet those who think they are "wise" because they "know" there is no evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, and therefore Christianity itself is simply a sham.  Partly because it is Good Friday, I want to address this contention.*

First, Biblical scholars by and large agree there was a Joshua (Greek:  "Jesus") who lived in Nazareth in the 1st century, and preached in the countryside, and was crucified, dead and buried.  It isn't really a controversial point; even the infamous Quest of the Historical Jesus (which almost no one has read, these days) concluded that there was  Jesus of Nazareth alive at the time specified, and saying pretty much what he supposedly said.

That's not much of an argument, though, and even Biblical scholars don't spend much effort creating an airtight case for the matter.  It really isn't of much interest, there really isn't any sound reason to doubt it (given what we know of many personages of ancient times), so they move on.  Still, that's one response to those who insist Jesus was not "real."

Then there's the example of Socrates.  He lived in Athens, a literate culture at the time where many people apparently knew him.  He was well-known enough to make it into a play by Aristophanes; there's not much benefit to a story that mocks a person almost no one in the audience recognizes.  But otherwise, Socrates didn't leave much of a record.  Yes, there are the dialogues of Plato, but Socrates is a character in Plato's dialogues, not an historical figure whose every utterance Plato duly transcribed.  We know what Plato says Socrates said; we don't know what Socrates said.

And yet the thought, the ideas, attributed to Socrates form the foundation of Western culture and civilization.  You can't overstate the importance of Socrates; but we can't even be sure he is more than a fictional character, at least the Socrates of our knowledge.

Why does it matter that Jesus lived, if it doesn't matter that Socrates did?

The importance of both men is in what they said, much more than what they did.  Even from Plato's accounts Socrates just gadded about Athens, ignoring his wife and children, staying up all night drinking when he had the mind to, and generally pissing off Athens until they decided to put him to death, a sentence he almost dared them not to pass on him.  But it isn't his prodigious ability to drink that we admire in Socrates, or his ability to carry on a dialogue at the drop of a hat, or even his claim that the Delphic Oracle pronounced him the wisest man in Athens.

We remember what he said; or, more accurately, what Plato says Socrates said.  Which puts Socrates (it has been noticed before, this is nothing new) in the same place as Jesus.  In terms of what we know about them, and what we most pay attention to, it is what they said, not what they did, that matters.

Now you may point to the miracles attributed to Jesus, and say those matter.  But to whom?  The synoptics call those actions "acts of power."  John's gospel calls them "signs."  One displays the power of the individual; one seems to signify (literally sign-ify) something other than the act itself.  And whether or not you think the gospel writers recorded them faithfully and truthfully, is an act of faith itself.  You can, rather like Jefferson, read the words of Jesus and skip over the dunamin, the semeia.  You can set aside what he reportedly did, and focus on what he reportedly said.

Nothing, so far, requires proof that Jesus, or Socrates, for that matter, was an actual historical figure.  It is the words attributed to them, the ideas associated with them, that matter.  So why is it so important that Jesus have actually lived?

Maybe because Paul says that, if Jesus didn't die, then the resurrection is a nullity, and Christian faith a pointless endeavor.  A sound enough argument, but it applies only to believers.  If you believe Jesus' death has spiritual or even metaphysical implications for you, then the life and death of Jesus are important for reasons that have nothing to do with history.  If you only believe the words of Jesus are interesting, are perhaps no more valuable to you than the words of Heraclitus, or even Thales of Miletus, then what does it matter if Jesus actually said these things, or if some tradition somehow sprang up that attributed these words to a fictional character (a fantastical idea, actually, which presumes we are far superior to people of the 1st century, an arrogant and unsustainable presumption).  If the words matter, the life of the person doesn't.  And the words of Socrates matter much more than how he did, or didn't, treat Xanthippe.

So why does the life of Jesus matter so much?  Perhaps because the faith of so many Christians rests on the historical figure of Jesus, and presumably, without that history, Christian faith disappears?  Or would that be like the Grinch stealing Christmas?

You cannot convince the faithful that Jesus of Nazareth never lived, and isn't alive now.  If you do convince someone of that, they are no longer faithful (for better or worse).  But it only matters to the world if the reality of the theology mentioned by Paul, above, matters to the world.  As a minister of the gospel, I think it does matter; but that's a far cry from saying I think it should matter to everyone in the world and it's my responsibility to see that it does.  If you don't accept Paul's faith claim, you don't care if Jesus lived or didn't.  His death is not material to you.  His lack of existence is not material to you, either.

So if you insist on arguing that "Jesus of Nazareth never existed!," you are making a faith claim no different from those who insist "Jesus is Lord!" and all the earth must acknowledge it.  You are claiming that the death of Jesus does matter, but you must erase it so it can't matter, so you can be:  what?  Free?

Free from what?

I don't make this as some kind of sneaky evangelical claim meant to prove beyond cavil that my faith claim is the only permissible faith claim.  It matters not to me whether or not you think Jesus was ever alive.  What I don't understand is why it matters to much to you that I believe he was.  Because if he wasn't, what does that change?  A theological claim you reject anyway?

What's really bothering you about the reality of Jesus?*

*I stumbled across this, this morning.  It is a fine summation of the argument I'm referring to, so I add it as a footnote:

It is not an impossible situation. We can start with Jesus, and establish a careful reading of the New Testament shows he was not an actual person. Once that one has been cleared up, I think a lot of the others might just fall by the wayside.

The New Testament, of course, establishes no such thing, in either direction.  We can't escape Kierkegaard's argument about the existence of God:  if you don't accept such existence, it can't be proven; if you do, there's no need to.  I'm going to call this the "Grinch" argument from now on, since it presumes the entirety of Christianity falls if the historical Jesus is removed.  And because that argument (or is it a belief?) rests more on the need of the person making it, than on the needs of the persons who call themselves Christians. 

“Who Do You Say That I Am?”

 

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years and in divine and human favor.

The really last words of Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth before the adult Jesus starts his career as an itinerant preacher. That's the part we never think about.  We’re more inclined toward the Greek idea expressed in The Cherry Tree Carol, where Jesus not only commands the cherry tree from Mary’s womb, but converses with Joseph, as well. Jesus is God, right? How can God be a child, or need formation? The kind of formation children go through? And yet Luke makes it clear Jesus is fully human; an idea the non-canonical gospels run with in telling stories of Jesus’, and the mischief he creates with his power to perform miracles.

That’s the separating factor in Luke, too. Matthew focuses on Joseph in his nativity: the husband, the patriarch. Mary is silent, the infant almost invisible. Luke’s narrative foregrounds Elizabeth after the embarrassment of Zechariah, and focuses on Mary. Joseph is the silent, almost invisible, one. The angels direct the shepherds to the child in the feeding trough, wrapped in the rags of a poor person’s child. And then they take the baby to the temple, and finally we see him teaching the elders. Luke has marked the baby as God from conception; he proves it by showing him teaching about scriptures he can’t himself have learned yet. (For Mark Jesus’ baptism by John is the point where he becomes the Christ, the Anointed One. For John, Jesus exists in the beginning with God. His incarnation is just another of God’s semeia, or signs.) The most human thing Jesus does in John’s gospel is weep over the news of Lazarus’ death. In Luke’s gospel he sweats blood in the garden of Gethsemane. In the infancy gospels, he behaves as a child with god-like powers would behave. In that way he increases in wisdom and, at least, human favor.

The gospels each, in their own way, are at pains to make Jesus human, but also something more. Again, this is not a theological argument or apologia. It’s more a literary analysis; I’m just looking at the texts and how each gospel handles the issue. Humanity and divinity are pretty much oil and water. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the very presence of God in creation leads to theophany: Moses in Sinai in a thunderstorm; or the appearance of God to Elijah. It isn’t referenced in Luke, but when the priest entered the inner sanctum of the temple, where God might be directly encountered, he did so with a rope tied to his ankle, so the corpse could be safely removed. Moses came down from Sinai with his face shining, having stood so long in the glory of God (a glory that obscures God from human sight in Isaiah’s vision of the throne room of God). Zechariah comes out unable to speak; so the people know something big has happened.

God is not, in other words, human. God is wholly Other. So what is Jesus?

Mark identifies Jesus with God at the Transfiguration, a private event (only three disciples see it) which is the public revelation of Jesus as divine, a divinity that seems to come to him at his baptism, where he publicly acknowledges his earthly ministry and all that will involve. That’s actually pushing it backwards into Jesus’ life, since Paul places Jesus’ divinity in the resurrection. Matthew pushes it back to birth; Luke to pre-birth (it predates the conception of his cousin, John), and John’s gospel takes it all the way back to “in the beginning.”

But the Greek idea of humanity and divinity is basically jerks with superpowers. Which is kind of the lane explored by the infancy gospels. Jesus has to learn to be human, while at the same time being God. Luke says that happened easily. The infancy gospels say: let’s think about that a minute. Which is not to say they get something fundamentally right; but they do raise an interesting issue.

"Do You See?"

Adam's prize was open eyes,
His sentence was to see.
Day by day, he's worn away
Against reality.

--Tom Rush

In his book The Essential Jesus John Dominic Crossan reduces the "authentic" sayings of Jesus to what he thinks were arguably their pithy originals (on the simple premise that time "improves" those quotations we remember, usually adding words and elaborations that weren't original, but are "better").  One of them that he attributes to the historical Jesus of Nazareth is:  "You have heads, use them!"

There are some places in the gospels where Jesus upbraids his audience:  "He who has ears had better listen!", is usually what he says.  Interestingly, Jesus never asks for insight.  He never asks "Do you see?"  Of course he never apparently asked "Were you listening to what I said?"  He's a bit more elliptical than that:  "He who has ears had better listen!"

"You have heads, use them!"

We privilege sight above all other senses.  Taste is irrelevant, except to infants, who put everything in their mouth to taste as well as smell, see, touch, and hear (does it rattle?  Bang?  Echo hollowly?).  But taste is for food, and we have few words for it, fewer metaphors (any meat that isn't beef "tastes like chicken."  Right?).  Sight takes pride of place.  "Do you see?," is usually a metaphorical inquiry, not a literal one.  Seeing is equated with understanding.  "Seeing is believing!"  Well, no, believing is believing; seeing is subject to deception (ask Penn & Teller).  "Pics or it didn't happen!"  What, I can take a picture of the moment I fell in love?  I can photograph my desires, affections, hopes, fears, dreams?

We never mean it that literally, of course, but our favorite metaphors for accepting or understanding relate to seeing.  So why doesn't Jesus ever say:  "Do you see?"

In the synoptic gospels the things that would most make people "see" that Jesus is something more than human are called dunamis.  This means "power," or more clearly "acts of power."  It is, per the synoptic writers, the power of God at work in the healings, the feeding of the 5000, etc.  John's gospel is different, and takes the metaphor of sight head on.  Now, is that because sight has become the metaphor it is today, probably through the Greek culture prevalent in that region of the Roman Empire?  Is it peculiar to the situation of John's community?  Hard to say, but in any case John calls the miraculous acts of Jesus semeia, or "signs."   Semioitics has taught us to pay attention to signs and signifiers, and I'm not sure if that's a great leap forward or simply looping backward to yet another strand of human history and culture, taking it up again as if it were new.  We are more and more inclined to reinvent the wheel and rediscover fire and think we've done something significant (a sign!).  In any case, John called the changing of the water to wine at the wedding in Cana a "sign," the first Jesus presented.

Do you see?

But John is ambivalent about the signs.  Jesus makes no claim for himself at the wedding; the groom is credited with saving the best wine for last.  Nobody acclaims Jesus and follows him that day.  When Jesus does signify (semiotics also teaches us to pay close attention to how we talk about signs and sign-ificance) in John's gospel, it's almost a challenge to the audience.  As Jesus says to Thomas after the Resurrection, it's better to hear and believe than to see and believe. The signs are treated as almost a distraction.  At the last supper in John, Jesus talks for three chapters, but he never institutes the Eucharist, the ultimate Christian sign. We still don't agree whether the sign is literal, symbolic, or both and a little bit of neither. In John's gospel, Jesus doesn't say "This is my body, this is my blood." John doesn't want Jesus pointing to anything as a sign.

This comes up in the question asked of Terry Eagleton, and his response.  The occasion is a lecture, which runs for about 42 minutes, and the first question, which appears on the video at about 43 minutes.  Thanks to TC there is a transcript of the question:

43:41  Stuart Ritchie, Psychology Department.  I hate to ask such a sublunary question, um, but do you actually  have any evidence for the existence of God because it seems to me that you can talk about how nice you think the emperor's clothes are and how fancy they are and all that but it doesn't really matter if the emperor isn't actually wearing any clothes at all.  Um, and in fact, you don't seem to be, I don't know who your talk is aimed at, 'cause you're not going to convince any atheist because you haven't provided any evidence for the existence of God and you're not going to convince any religious people because you've basically told them what they believe is not actually what, say, Christianity is.  So I'm not entirely sure where your lecture is aimed. 

The link to our discussion is Eagleton's response, because he calls this kind of question the "Yeti" question.  That is, proof of visual evidence of the Yeti would prove the Yeti's existence; and so, apparently, visual proof of God would prove God's existence.  This is not, contrary to what people like Stuart Ritchie think, a new problem:

Isaiah 64:1-9

64:1 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence--

64:2 as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil-- to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!

64:3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.

64:4 From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.

64:5 You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.

64:6 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

64:7 There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.

64:8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.

64:9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.

I've used that before, but there you are.  Second Isaiah, crying out for God to make an appearance, to prove God's existence, if you will, as he did in the time of Elijah:

So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel. 21And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word. 22Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the LORD, but Baal’s prophets are 450 men. 23Let two bulls be given to us, and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. 24And you call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the LORD, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.” And all the people answered, “It is well spoken.” 25Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many, and call upon the name of your god, but put no fire to it.” 26And they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice, and no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made. 27And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” 28And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them. 29And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. No one answered; no one paid attention.

30Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” And all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the LORD that had been thrown down. 31Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the LORD came, saying, “Israel shall be your name,” 32and with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD. And he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two seahsa of seed. 33And he put the wood in order and cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood. And he said, “Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” 34And he said, “Do it a second time.” And they did it a second time. And he said, “Do it a third time.” And they did it a third time. 35And the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water.

36And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. 37Answer me, O LORD, answer me, that this people may know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” 38Then the fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. 39And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The LORD, he is God; the LORD, he is God.”

1 Kings 18:20-39

Ah, yes; dem was de days!

But, you see (!), Stuart Ritchie doesn't see (he is the wise child in the Andersen fairy tale about the unclothed emperor), and therefor it is not.  Except, as Eagleton goes on to reply, you don't "see" love, either; does that mean it is false?  And so we are back to John's way of handling the subject:

Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Signs, you see, signify.  But what they signify is not always apparent, and not always so clear.  And we seldom look beyond the sign to the signification.  Take a STOP sign.  We read it, we follow it's direction, even in a private parking lot where (under Texas law, at least), it has no significance.  We follow it because it signifies the power of the state through law to enforce the command written on the sign.  But we seldom look beyond the sign itself; we just reflexively obey.  John doesn't want us to do anything by reflex.  If we saw the fire from heaven burn the wet wood and consume the water in the trough, would  believe?  In what?  If we saw the water turn to wine at Cana, would we believe? In what?  And why?  Because it is true, and the truth will set us free?  Or because it appeared to tell us something, and then we decide what that is?  And which is truth?

"You have heads, use them!"

I think about these things when I get bored with the news of the day, the reading of which is something of an addiction I need to break.  Now you'll excuse me, there are some shocking historical photos on the internet I need to see.

Ye shall know the truth, and yet probably know not that you know....

Trying to put recent posts in perspective, I wanted to say something about how telling people what you know won't necessarily make them think the way you think.  This is what Edward Snowden says he feared:  that his NSA revelations wouldn't lead to a reaction against the NSA similar to the one he had, the one that led him to spend a month or two preparing to breach his oath of secrecy.

And then the universe, or God, or happenstance, or just blind simple doo-dah luck, landed this in my lap:

Christianity is not about the divine becoming human so much as it is about the human becoming divine. That is a paradigm shift of the first order.

These are the conclusions to which my study of John's Gospel has led me, and they are the conclusions that I explore and document in this book "The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic."

That's Shelby Spong at the end of a blog post describing his new book.  He's rather boldly claiming that once you read it, you'll never go back, and in fact you'll be a Spong disciple and with him recreate Christianity in the way Shelby Spong thinks best!

Which, really, ain't gonna happen.

I have no problem with Spong's assertions about the Gospel of John.  I would make more of the importance of the semeia (signs) John's gospel uses.  That gospel calls the miracles not dunamis, as the synoptics do (usually translated as "miracle" but implying an act of power) and refers to them as "signs."

Yeah, kinda like the Mel Gibson movie.

There's a lot of subtlety going on in John's gospel, in other words; and yet it is often used as a club, because "whosoever believeth in him (things always sound more holy and authoritative in the King James' English)," donchaknow?  I mean, those who don't, will perish!  It's right there in black & white, waddyawantmetodoaboudit?

But I digress....

Shelby Spong, despite his claims of spending several years on this, is not a scholar.  He doesn't write for scholars, he doesn't write as a scholar, he doesn't even pretend to be a scholar.  He's a polemicist, really.  So he takes a bit of scholarship and spins a tale with it and comes up with an idea he's sure everyone would agree upon, if they just understood what he understands!

But it doesn't work that way.  It never does.

Scholars don't try to persuade a vast group of others of the truth of their position.  They try to defend it among other scholars; and very narrow ground that can be, too.  But if they imagine that what they know will enlighten and enlist others to their scholarly cause if it is just well enough understood; then they have gone astray from scholarship.

Mind, I have nothing against Biblical scholarship.  I think its incredibly valuable.  But I don't think it's going to change the world anytime soon.  The  very idea that the Gospel of John is not the work of John Zebedee, for example, is probably 150 years old; or older.  Among scholars, that is.  Spong cites it as if he just discovered fire, and is bringing the burning coal back to the cave for the first time.  The people who already know that, in other words, haven't had their paradigm shifted all that much by the knowledge.  Some of them accept it, and move on; some don't even accept it at all.

There's even a story in the Gospel of John about this, oddly enough.  Jesus is not baptized in that gospel, but like the baptisms in the Synoptics, there is a scene meant to show Jesus speaks for God.  Jesus says, "Father, glorify your name!"

Then a voice spoke out of the sky:  "I have glorified it and I'll glorify it further."

The crowd there heard this, and some people remarked that it had thundered, others that an angel had spoken to him.

"That voice did not come for me but for you," Jesus replied.

 So some hear thunder; some hear an angel.  It's not clear anyone heard what was said, or knew who it was, or that any paradigms that day were shifted.

Maybe it's better not to expect them to be; and just to be happily surprised, whenever they are.

Argle-Bargle with a Soupçon of sheer nonsense

I'm detecting a theme....

First, most Biblical scholars understand "miracle" as an act which is in violation of natural law (the generic type, not the Thomistic type).  Second, "magic" has distinct gradations of form and definition according to anthropology, the science of human culture (and precious little of those definitions have anything to do with Harry Potter).  So this kind of discussion is possible with the terms of science and scholarship, but this is the internet, we don' need no book-larnin'!

Then again, this article starts with a quote from Douglas Adams, which I am too lazy to try to copy 'n' paste here.  Sure, he was a Brit with a glib tongue and a gift for the sardonic, but beyond that? Please.

Why do so many Christians believe in miracles? Former Evangelical minister, John Loftus—now author of skeptical books and founder of the website, Debunking Christianity—asked me to address this question as part of an upcoming anthology, The Case Against Miracles.

So our source is a contributor to a volume by another former evangelical, which means neither of you probably have any formal training in these subjects at all.  Nothing wrong with a lack of education, but what makes you an authority?  You were asked to write something for a book?  The subject touches on anthropology, cultural studies, several fields of the humanities. What you got, again? Douglas Adams?

One obvious answer is that Christians believe because our ancestors did. Handed-down religious beliefs are remarkably powerful and change-resistant, and Christian belief in miracles dates all the way back to the beginnings of Jesus worship. In fact, it dates back even further, back into the beginnings of the Hebrew religion and the earlier religions of the Ancient Near East from which the Hebrew stories and beliefs emerged.

Yes, and the definition of them offered by Biblical scholars (those who, like Bultmann, were interested in "demythologizing" Christianity, and those who are avowed atheists) is not the one you are going to use in a minute.  That one you pull out of thin air, crafted entirely to support your conclusions. I'd bounce that in a Freshman English essay in a heartbeat, but this is the intertoobs, so we move on.

Christianity was born at a time in history when every religion included a belief in magic or miracles. Miraculous healings, natural “signs and wonders,” good things magically happening to good people and (even more satisfying) bad people magically getting what they deserve . . .

Yes, in the New Testament they are called "dunamis" (which my computer, ironically, wants to re-write as "dynamos") or "acts of power."  John calls them "semeia," or "signs."  These things matter, but let's not clutter up your ignorance with knowledge, eh?  (Actually, I know some evangelicals who would know this much, so....).  Not so sure about the "bad people magically getting what they deserve," outside the she-bears eating the children for mocking Elijah, but maybe Ms. Taricot knows something about the scriptures I don't.

Belief in all of these was the norm, along with the conviction that we humans can draw magic to ourselves by attracting the attention of supernatural beings, engaging in certain rituals, eating or drinking special foods, touching objects with talismanic powers, and more. What would have been truly miraculous would have been the emergence of Christian texts and traditions that didn’t include magical thinking.

That would have been a real wonder.

No, the wonder is that you think you're a cultural anthropologist and an historian of the ancient Near East; or of all human culture, for that matter.  The Greek philosophers make reference to the gods, but never anything about special foods or rituals beyond pouring out libations, and Greek literature doesn't have much to say about drawing the attention of the gods, except generally you don't want to. But hey, I've only read some Plato and some Aristotle and a few plays; what do I know?

You can tell from the language I just used, that I see the Christian belief in miracles as a subset of humanity’s broader belief in magic. Christians for centuries have claimed that what they call miracles are somehow different than magic. They have claimed this, typically, while believing in other kinds of magic. The Bible writers and Church fathers were no exception. The Bible and the traditional Christian worldview include all manner of supernatural beings with special powers. In the Bible itself, this includes disembodied spirits, angels, devils, unicorns, dragons, seers, human sorcerers and witches, enchanted animals, and a whole pantheon of deities.

Unicorns?  In the Bible?  I must have the wrong translation.  Balaam's ass is, apparently, the "enchanted animal."  Or maybe the she-bears.  A "whole pantheon of deities"?  Doesn't that violate the radical monotheism of the Hebrews?

Many modern fundamentalists, at least in their own minds, continue to inhabit this wonderland. They believe that an invisible ethereal plane underlies the physical world, and that our lives are part of a cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil which spills from the otherworldly plane into this one. Magic, for them, still exists. On the website, Got Answers, one believer tried to clarify the difference between magic and miracles. His answer reflects the thinking of many other Bible believers:

“Basically, magic and miracles differ in their source: magic has either a human or demonic source, but miracles are a supernatural work of God. . . . “Magic is an attempt to circumvent God in the acquisition of knowledge or power. . . . “Miracles and magic sometimes look the same, but their goals are different. Magic and illusion distract the eye from reality, while miracles draw the eye to reality. Miracles reveal; magic hides. Miracles are an expression of creative power; magic uses what already exists. Miracles are a gift; magic is a studied skill. Miracles do not glorify men; magic seeks to be noticed and bring glory to the magician. Jesus was not a magician. He was the Son of God, known for His many miracles.”

Got that? Miracles are the magical stuff done by the Christian God or his proxies. Magic is the magical stuff done by the competition. The latter is bad, bad, bad, because it might trick you into worshiping someone or something else. And it’s real! The Occult. The Dark Arts. Keep your kids away from Harry Potter.

Well, that's it then:  a comment on a website speaks for all persons similarly situated.  Because of course it does.  You know, Disney went with that "magical" belief and fired James Gunn from the third "Guardians of the Galaxy" movie, and stuck with their decision because to go back on it would be just....well, just something.  Maybe an indication Disney shouldn't pay attention to a few comments on the internet.  I'm not sure basing your argument on some comment on the internet is exactly sound argument.  Again, I'd bounce a Freshman English essay for such lousy reasoning and research.

For those of us who don’t believe that any supernatural stuff is done by either the Christian god or any other gods for that matter—the distinction is little more than a cloud of smoke from an illusionist’s mist-making machine. It is just one of the many tedious ways that Christianity claims to be different—not a religion but a relationship, not man-made like all the others, not polytheistic like Hinduism, not antiquated like the fairy tales of Pagan Europe, and definitely not a bundle of superstitious woo like New Age wonders involving crystals and incantations. I find Christian exceptionalism of this sort—philosophers call it special pleading—to be narcissistic and irksome, and I’m going to use the terms miracle and magic interchangeably.

Oooh, "special pleading"!  Are you going to talk about "logical fallacies" next?  People who don't understand logic or reasoning love to talk about "logical fallacies" and throw around terms like "special pleading."  I don't know anybody who uses that term except first year philosophy students, or somebody in an Intro. Philosophy course.  As for the first sentence, can I introduce you to Rudolf Bultmann, or even Karl Rahner?  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, maybe?  Shubert Ogden?  I can think of a raft of modern theologians and even philosophers of religion who would take exception to your slip-shod generalization in just that sentence.

But I digress. It is true that specific Christian beliefs about miracles and magic are products of a specific handed-down tradition, kept alive by the architecture of the Church and the flow of history. But Christians are not alone in their miracle belief. Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say they believe in miracles, including almost 20 percent of nonbelievers.

I'm guessing "architecture" there is a metaphor, since architecture reflecting stories of miracles are not handed down but are still standing across Europe, although there aren't too many of them here in America, especially among Protestants like evangelicals.  "Flow of history"?  What are you now, a student of Hegel and Yeats?

The fact is, most all of us find ourselves attracted to magic, even if we are firmly convinced it isn’t real. People flock by the thousands to marvel at tricks performed by illusionists. Viewers flock by the millions to watch movies about super-villains and superheroes with superpowers. Young Adult fiction is dominated by genres like fantasy and science fiction and even paranormal romance. We humans love us some magic!

So, to answer the question, Why do Christians believe in miracles? we really have to ask—Why do we all love magic so much, child and adult, skeptic and believer alike? Why does magic so delight and call to us that it emerges in a myriad of different forms when we are given the freedom to build worlds from the unconstrained raw material of the human imagination? And what are the habits of mind that make us so prone not only to create magical stories but to believe the ones that have been handed down by our parents, and their parents, and their parents before them all the way back into the shadowy mists of pre-history?

Because we like ducks?  (You'll have to go read the Douglas Adams quote now to get that; and yes, it's as much a product of chop-logic as it seems to be.)  Then again, the article promises to explain why Christians believe in miracles, so apparently the answer is, we all do?

I mean, that's it?

"These things that pass for knowledge I don't understand."