Believing in Folly

There are certain things in Holy Scripture which we find completely confusing. All of us confessed last Sunday that one of our readings (Luke 16:1-13), a parable of Jesus, falls into that category. It seems almost incomprehensible.

An incompetent manager is called to account by his 'lord' for mismanaging funds. To avoid becoming a pauper, the manager brings in his lord's debtors and lowers their debts, so that they will receive him into their homes when he loses his job. Yet, at the end of the story, his original master is pleased at 'the injustice', and the parable is framed by Jesus saying: 

Makes friends for yourselves by means of unjust wealth so that, when it fails, they might receive you into the eternal homes. Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is unjust in a very little is unjust also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the unjust wealth, who will entrust to you what is true? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

Again, this parable offers us a conundrum, and we considered several ways of resolving the question on Sunday, though each brought its own difficulties. I also spent over an hour tonight, reading and re-reading this text, poring over it in several English translations and in the original Greek before writing this post, trying to think through another way of interpreting the text and hoping to deliver some sort of solution. After having thought through that option, I was once again dissatisfied with the way my new interpretation construed some of the details of Jesus' parable. 

I hope we can make a larger point regarding this issue, though, and I hope we can continue to talk about these types of questions. Namely, what do we do when we don't understand every part of our Scriptures? What do we do when the meaning of a passage eludes us, frightens us, or even seems improper? How do we wrestle with the text and with the problems we think we see, yet still remain faithful to our tradition and to God? Finally, can we come to the realization that there are some things in our faith we may never fully understand, no matter how hard we try?

Let me give an example which I hope will be comforting to you, rather than depressing. I am working on my second theological degree, I've spent years learning biblical languages, and I've spent hours just looking at this parable alone. I'm still not sure about every detail. Cameron, our chaplain, has spent even more time in theological education and just as much time grappling with this text, and he is also unsure of the parable's meaning. I want to suggest to many of you something that you may or may not find surprising: intense study is never a guarantee for understanding. If you are confused and unsure about aspects of your faith or of the Bible, you should not be surprised nor should you think you're alone. 

Now, I want to make it clear (and perhaps, ease some of your worries) that this 'confession' of mystery is no prelude to jettisoning the Christian faith. It's not all mystery, nor is everything unclear. Our faith is not without content or reduced to simple 'sincerity of opinion' as C.S. Lewis's parody of 'the Anglican bishop' puts it in The Great Divorce. I do believe there is a way to live as a Christian which is completely faithful to our tradition and yet honest about its difficulties and challenges. To paraphrase the Psalms, we can love even your rubble, O Jerusalem. 

If this idea intrigues you (or offends you or even causes you dismay), you should take an opportunity which the Chaplaincy is offering soon. At the beginning of October, I will be starting a weekly discussion group. This group will grapple with the sorts of questions raised in this post. We will be dealing with some more difficult passages and questions like the one above and like the Jeremiah passage from a couple weeks ago, constantly asking these two questions simultaneously:

1. How do we make sense of these? 
2. How do faith, challenge, and inquiry all relate to each other and, just as importantly, to my daily life? 

I hope that you're intrigued by the idea and that you have questions, problems, and difficulties in mind. We're going to take the time to explore them, and we're not going to settle for all the easy answers.  But, we will look for and find answers to our questions, even if they're not the ones we expect.

Zack Guiliano

Kellogg Fellow

Let them have dominion...

            After this Sunday’s service at the Episcopal Chaplaincy, we spent a good deal of time talking about what it means to interpret the Bible and particularly in how such interpretation directly impacts our sense of who we are, both as individuals and as human beings. These sorts of questions are nowhere more crucial than when we are engaging the topic of our current series: the world as God’s creation.

As an example, the majority of airtime in American discussions of creation have tended to revolve around debates about evolution and creationism. When forming this series, we were incredibly conscious of this preoccupation, to the point that we almost entitled our series Creation, not Creationism rather than In the Beginning. What I believe is notable about such debates is that they rarely involve a careful interpretation of the Christian Scriptures, often reflecting little serious inquiry about both the original context of the Genesis narrative and other creation accounts in the Bible and how such narratives have been appropriated theologically by Christians before the modern period.

But, as I mentioned before, we are emphatically not addressing these concerns. Rather, we’ve been asking questions about what a robust theology of creation has to do with our spiritual life, our relationships with other human beings and the whole of creation, and (this week) how creation theology informs our understanding of all human action in the world, negative and positive.

Allow me to address in my remaining space this last concern, namely, the question of how human beings are called to act in the world, particularly in positive ways. While there are many entry points for this topic, I am going to relate the question to two passages from the Hebrew Bible: Genesis 1 and Psalm 72. I’m utilizing these passages because I think they both demonstrate what human beings are called to do and point out what that ‘doing’ ought to look like.

Genesis 1, perhaps the most famous creation account, reaches its climax with the creation of human beings. God is portrayed as saying, “Let us make the human as our image, in our likeness, and let them have dominion” over all creation. This passage has received a great deal of criticism in the past couple decades, with the rise of environmentalism but also with the rise of various critiques of Christian theology and its historic (and ongoing) influence in Western culture. The idea in Genesis of humans ruling or having dominion over creation is sometimes seen as the ideological source for the destructive exploitation of the resources of the earth and of the labor of other human beings.  Other, putatively more harmonious relationships are often envisaged in its place.

However, I think we must allow this idea (have dominion) to be tempered by its context in the passage and in the entirety of the Scriptures. Human beings, after all, are made in the image of God, the one who has structured the earth harmoniously that life might exist and flourish (“be fruitful and multiply”). Genesis 1 itself would militate against the idea of an exploitative dominion. Other biblical accounts of human dominion would as well.

Take Psalm 72. When speaking of the King of Israel this hymnic text envisages a universal dominion but also a supremely beneficial dominion. To rule over the whole earth as a truly human being will result in the flourishing of creation and will bring about justice and prosperity for all humanity, rather than accomplishing the desolation of the earth and the exploitation of the others’ labor.

Of course, what does this tell us? In its most basic form, for interpreting our Scriptures and for understanding Christian theology, it lets us know that we must be careful not to allow some features of one text to overshadow the full ramifications of the whole text and of the whole body of Christian teaching and spirituality. More importantly, though, we can begin to see the practical angle of a robust theology of creation. We are acting most fully, most entirely “as the image of God” not simply by exercising “dominion” over the earth but when doing so in a way that leads to the proper protection and safety of the whole creation. We are most like God when we work for justice and help bring about the flourishing of every other creature. Our life’s work, in the words of Psalm 72, is to:

Come down like rain upon the mown field, like showers that water the earth.

In other words, we exercise dominion and are “as the image of God” by engaging in work that brings benefit to others. This idea has a wide application, and I hope you will think about it throughout this week. I imagine that many of you reading this blog are attempting to engage in such work, whether it is through your studies, through volunteer activities, or through your future careers.

And, I hope, you can begin thinking of your work as this: the very purpose for which God created you.

Zack Guiliano

Kellogg Fellow 

In the Beginning...

Come join us as we spend some time reflecting on the Christian understanding of the world as God's creation and the many ways it intersects with our lives. Our creation series began September 3rd and will stretch to the beginning of October, with the Feast of St. Francis. 

Keep your eyes fixed here for blog posts on various topics related to Christian theology and spirituality, and come to Sunday Services at 5:30pm at Christ Church, Zero Garden St.