If you’ve ever heard that Jesus’ addressing God as “abba” would have been shocking for its intimacy; or if you’ve heard that “abba” is the Aramaic equivalent to “daddy,” you’ve been influenced by Jeremias’ work.

In critiquing Jeremias, I’ve found that I am doing so largely on the basis of the material he himself discusses. Ancient Jews, both in the biblical eras and in the Second Temple Period, spoke of God as Father, addressed God as Father in worship and prayer, and did so in contexts where they were looking for deliverance in particular (among other things).

To my mind, this data contraindicates Jeremias’ conclusions.

• To address God as Father was not scandalous.
• To call on God as Father was not an expression of heretofore untold intimacy.
• (And, point 3 is for free: the Aramaic word abba is translated for us in the NT every time it appears. And every time it is translated with the Greek word for “father,” πατήρ, not one of the Greek diminuitives that would be the equivalent of “daddy.” In other words, if abba means something like “daddy,” that point was lost on Mark and Paul. But I digress…)

Why is it that Jeremias can look at material that, to my eyes, looks like it places Jesus in continuity with his Jewish peers, and has nothing to do with intimacy, and give it the opposite read?

Two points come to mind.

First, in the late nineteenth and early to mid twentieth centuries, the predominate use to which Jewish backgrounds was put was to contrast early Christianity with early Judaism–especially to show the superiority of Jesus to Judaism.

In contrast, for the past thirty years NT scholarship has been marked by its appreciation for the Jewishness of both Jesus and Paul. Scholars are much more cautious about how to delineate the differences, and are especially cautious about over-reaching claims to uniqueness or inherent superiority.

Jeremias was trained to look for contrast, and found it. I’ve been trained to look for commonality, and I’ve found it.

So why should you believe me? Just because of the dozens of pieces of evidence that early Jewish people thought of and referred to God as Father before Jesus did! *ahem*

The other important piece of Jeremias’ context is the deep mark left by existentialism on early twentieth century NT scholarship, particularly in Germany. The most influential scholar of the century, Rudolf Bultmann, was unapologetic in his adoption of an existentialist philosophical framework.

When the great “problem to be solved” in our human existence is existential isolation, is it any wonder that we read of Jesus exercising, and inviting us into, a relationship of shocking, unprecedented “intimacy” with God? Existential isolation be gone!

There is a personal, individually-focused spirituality in play that Jeremias’ reading of the abba prayer resonates with. It’s a posture, and reading of the prayer, that makes sense to Evangelical Protestants because our own spirituality is highly influenced by existentialist and individualistic currents.

“God comes to you and you have before you a great moment of decision.”–Bultmann or Billy Graham?

Yes. Of course.

We read and understand and interpret as products of our own time and place and story. Jeremias clearly did.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I might, too…

But there’s a good argument to be made for metaphors and images that do justice to other dynamics of our collective sin problem. In the Gospel of Mark, one of the few interpretive cues for how to understand what Jesus’ death does is the “ransom saying”: “The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

Typically, ransom is not a word we use to talk about guilt.

Ransom is something that we might pay to have a hostage freed. We don’t think of the guilt of the hostage being atoned for in the payment; we think of a kidnapper being given what’s necessary to free his unjustly held captive.

At times, when the Greek translators of the OT use the word we find in Mark 10 (lutron) it carries this sense. Indentured servants can buy out their redemption price, for example (Lev 25:51-52). No guilt here by the person who’s being redeemed, just buying a person out from another’s ownership.

This sort of reading of “redemption” coordinates well with other indicators in Mark about what Jesus is up to. In ch. 3, when explaining his power over evil spirits, Jesus uses a metaphor of binding a strong man in order to plunder his goods. The idea that Jesus is engaged in a mission to free those who are enslaved to the strong man makes good sense of much of the Gospel.

But Adela Yarboro Collins asks us to pause for a moment and to think again (“Mark’s Interpretation of the Death of Jesus,” JBL 128 (2009)).

A redemption price can also be offered, according to OT law, for those who are guilty and stand under the penalty of death. Exodus 21:29-30 talks about the case of an ox goring someone to death–an ox known to have “issues.” Both the ox and the owner are supposed to be put to death.

However, the family of the victim can, instead, receive a “ransom price” from the owner. It’s a substitute penalty, buying the owner’s life from the death he had coming.

Perhaps more significantly, Collins cites the census instructions in Exod 30.

After a census, those numbered must offer an memorial offering to redeem their lives and stave off a possible plague. The money brought makes atonement.

Thus, Collins concludes:

In other words, the census, or its results, potentially offends God, and the offering is a means of winning God’s favor. This link of the notion of “ransom” to the notion of “propitiation” or “expiation” suggests that these ideas are synonymous or closely related, in some contexts at least.

Collins concedes that the “freedom” imagery comports well with other parts of Mark, but goes on to suggest that perhaps Mark uses multiple images and communicates a diverse set of understandings about how the death of Jesus works–including something like a traditional expiation or propitiation model.

It’s worth pondering.

And I wonder if we are pulling apart two things that others, including the writer of Colossians, easily held together under one overriding metaphor? Do we need to keep “rescue” and “forgiveness” separate?

He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

But I discovered something.

I really only like writing about theological things for normal people when I get to set the rules. When I have to adapt to someone else’s idea of what it means to talk to normal people, I’m not so happy about it.

I should have clued into this a long time ago.

Once I was interviewing for a position at a church. They asked me what sort of curriculum I’d use for Sunday School. My answer was basically: I’ve got a seminary degree and a Ph.D.–I’ll use the Bible and other books people have written and make my own. They weren’t so happy with that.

But to the point for today.

When you are preaching and/or teaching and/or leading folks in your faith community, to what extent do you see your task as providing direction through difficult issues? And to what extent do you see your task as raising questions for them to wrestle with?

This week I was revising something I had put together for a “popular” audience. I was revising it under the direction of the editors / readers whose first comment was this:

Author: Please rewrite the introduction. Think of writing it for Sunday school classes – not to raise questions but to provide orientation.

My first (and enduring) response to this in my heart was: “Please tell me what church you go to, because I do not want to attend such a Sunday school!”

But there’s a both/and here. I know it. In fact, I see one of my most important roles as a professor and writer as one of providing direction for asking the right, difficult questions.

It’s more important for me to raise the issues surrounding who might or might not have written a book of the Bible, and allow you to be disturbed, comforted, or otherwise engaged with the issues as you read.

It’s more important for me to highlight the difficulties entailed in signing off on household codes than to provide an explanation for why a NT writer might have made them all better by introducing Jesus into them.

The direction I can give, the value I can bring to the process, is often to disturb the comfortable and cause us to wrestle afresh with the text. I’m less concerned that people will be troubled by issues and more concerned that they will fail to be troubled by important difficulties that have the power to transform our understanding of what the Bible is and how we faithfully live out the narrative contained there.

Just as I was grumping about having to turn my vintage Kirk piece into tame “Sunday School” material, I saw a friends link to this:

It’s a promo video for a new Sunday-School-like material.

At one point, a person in the video says, “I think Animate will spark conversations for adults because we’re not spoon-feeding them the answers.”

Bingo. Christian education for adults.

Ok, so it’s not one or the other. (Either questions or answers.) But still…

Having laid out my own proclivities (and, knowing that I’m more of a provocateur than answer-giver!), I truly would like to hear from you:

• When you preach or teach or lead, how do you think through how much direction to give and how much you raise salient, even difficult or impossible questions?
• When you’re in a group such as a Bible study or Sunday School class, to what extent to you hope the person will be giving direction, and to what extent provoking difficult questions?
• To what extent do you imagine that it’s the leader’s job to direct you–into difficult / impossible questions?!

I’d love to have good conversation about this.

(And, that Animate series looks great–though don’t ask me what “electric, carbonated space,” is!)

On several occasionsI’ve reflected on the nameless woman who anoints Jesus in Mark 14. She is unique in that Jesus promises that her deed of burial-preparation / anointing will be told everywhere the gospel is proclaimed.

Why remember her?

It seems that she alone, of all the characters in the story, has held together “anointed one” with “the one who must die.”

Another word of approbation is given to a woman a couple chapters before. She, too, is nameless.

It is the widow who gives her own 2 cents.

Her presence here is double-edged, without a doubt. The scribes have just been accused of devouring widows houses. Enter the widow. Behold how she has put in her whole livelihood.

Check that.

She has put in her whole life (ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς).

Why would Jesus draw attention to this one person, of all the people in the gospel, and point to her as an example of discipleship? Why is she the great positive example who puts to shame all the others who are giving to God’s work?

Perhaps because in giving her life she has executed faithfully the sacrifice that Jesus lauds in ch. 8:

After calling the crowd together with his disciples, Jesus said to them, All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives because of me and because of the good news will save them. (Mark 8:34-36, CEB)

She has given her life. She has not clung to it.

Unlike the rich man who cannot part with his wares, and unlike these rich who give from the overflow, she has given all.

Yes, she is consumed by the scribes who devour widows’ houses.

But then again, such forces lay behind Jesus’ own cross as well.

Today I want to respond to one way that my evangelical Christian friends have stood in opposition to gay marriage. This is particularly pertinent to evangelicals, though there are some ramifications for Catholics as well. Here’s the argument from The Gospel Coalition website:

Marriage is more than a union of hearts and minds. It involves a union of bodies–and not bodies in any old way we please, as if giving your cousin a wet willy in the ear makes you married. Marriage, to quote one set of scholars, is a” comprehensive union of two sexually complementary persons who seal (consummate or complete) their relationship by the generative act—by the kind of activity that is by its nature fulfilled by the conception of a child. So marriage itself is oriented to and fulfilled by the bearing, rearing, and education of children.”

Evangelicals have no ground to argue on such a basis because we have embraced birth control.

You cannot simultaneously say that marriage is thus tied to sex-which-produces-children and then turn around and support the use of contraception which inhibits the production of said young ‘uns.

But then, what about other people who cannot make babies through their sex? Should the church refuse to marry any woman who has gone through menopause? Does entering mid-life without a partner mean that you should consider yourself doomed to die without a partner, even if you at long last discover a true companion? Do we refuse marriage to everyone over the age of 50something?

What if a couple in your church wants to marry, but the woman had a tumor as a child that has rendered her incapable of having children? Should the fact that their sex life will not be able to fulfill the telos of marriage as rearing children render her unmarriagable in the sight of the church?

And if this great and grand vision of marriage-for-raising-children fails? What do we do with infertility? It would seem that the stipulations laid out here would make infertility a viable cause for divorce. If violating the one-flesh union through infidelity is grounds for divorce, why not impeding the Great Purpose of child-rearing through inability to reproduce?

It is convenient for evangelicals to grab onto arguments about reproduction when we want to argue against something that we already oppose on other grounds. But I doubt that very many of us actually want to embrace the ramifications of such arguments as they come into the everyday lives we live ourselves.

This is an argument we have to leave aside. At least, most of us do. Because it strikes at the heart of what too many of us consider normal, and what none of us is willing to change.

The problem is, we’re too busy getting the speck of this argument out of our neighbor’s eye to notice that in so doing we’re clobbering him with the plank in our own.

You can purchase MP3, CD, or DVD recordings here.

Since I figure that most of you don’t read Catholic Biblical Quarterly, I thought I’d risk a spoiler here of a forthcoming article there. And, for those of you who do so read, you can go there for the argument later this summer.

Here it is: in Mark, the replacement of the physical temple is not, as it is in John, Jesus.

The temple Jesus encountered was a mess. Well, if it weren’t a mess itself, at least it was the system that was upholding the mess that was the Jerusalem leadership. Mark anticipates that the Temple will be destroyed (Mark 13:1ff.).

So if the Temple is lost, what then?

The sacrificial system was the principal means for receiving forgiveness of sins.

Moreover, in Isaiah the prophecy is that the House of God will be “a house of prayer for all the Gentiles (or nations).”

Forgiveness and prayer. What will happen to these when the Temple is no more? What will God’s provision for the people be as the Kingdom of God continues to draw near?

Jesus responded to them, “Have faith in God! I assure you that whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea’—and doesn’t waver but believes that what is said will really happen—it will happen. Therefore I say to you, whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you will receive it, and it will be so for you. And whenever you stand up to pray, if you have something against anyone, forgive so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your wrongdoings.” (Mark 11:22-25, CEB)

As Jesus’ prophecy against the Temple is fulfilled (the mount figuratively thrown into the sea as the city is razed by Rome), the people will not be lost in their hopes for a house of prayer for all peoples and a place to receive forgiveness of sins.

Jesus’ followers will fill this role.

They will pray and receive.

They will extend forgiveness–and receive it.

The new temple is not here Jesus, nor a coming building. It is the people who pray and forgive in the name of the Messiah who has come and is now enthroned.

My Opa lives in the same house I have been going to for holidays and summer breaks my whole life.

My other grandparents are buried in a small town’s small church graveyard alongside several generations on my dad’s side.

I went to college and grad school in North Carolina. It’s where my immediate family is, as well as numerous friends. So I care what happens there beyond just the normal interest in the affairs of our nation.

And so, for all my Christian friends back home, my two cents:

You don’t have to vote for Amendment 1, even if you don’t think God approves of homosexual behavior.

As Christians, we have to be able to differentiate between different spheres within which we live. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 5: What have I to do with judging outsiders? Those who are outside God judges. But do we not judge those who are inside the church?

We have a responsibility to guard the morality of the church in a way that God has not given us responsibility to guard the morality of the entire world.

Perhaps as importantly, however, we have the challenge of figuring out how to implement our dual calling to (1) love our neighbor as ourselves / do unto others what we would have done for us and (2) be dutiful Christian citizens in a pluralistic society.

When we hold positions for reasons that are clearly and fundamentally religious positions, we must take extra care not to impose these on our non-Christian neighbors–if, in fact, we would love them with our religious convictions in the same way we would have them love us with theirs.

In other words: if you don’t want the convictions of your Muslim neighbor to be forced on your through the laws of the state, you should not force your Christian convictions on your neighbor through that mechanism.

In this case, the issues tied to the amendment as I understand it (and I may be wrong here) extend far beyond what we dealt with in Prop 8 in California. Not only does this amendment forbid marriage, it forbids the state’s acknowledging of any other sort of domestic partnership:

Sec. 6. Marriage.
Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State. This section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts.

This would seem to suggest that people will stand to lose medical coverage, hospital visitation rights, rights of inheritance and the like that could be assured through domestic partnership laws if this amendment were not in place.

In other words: this is not merely about a definition of marriage, but about foundational civil liberties.

If my understanding of the amendment is correct, I would suggest that Christians not only have the freedom to stand against it, but are conscience-bound to vote against it. This is about being truly treated as equal under the law, something we should be at the forefront of making sure is the case for everyone–not just people like us.

When Jesus was walking around, doing his thing in Galilee, the “opposite” of being a faithful member of God’s family was, without a doubt, being a Roman military officer. Not only an idol-worshiping pagan, but an agent of the force of arms that kept God’s people subjugated on the land God had promised them for their own.

And yet, the kind of ministry Jesus embodied, the kind of word he proclaimed, was such that a Roman centurion came up, asking for one of Jesus’ authoritative words on his slave’s behalf: “Please, save him… only say the word and he will be healed.”

Is this how those outside the church see us? Is this how we extend ourselves on their behalf?

The challenge for us when we feel that the “outsider” and “opposition to God’s people” is bearing down is to be those who so love our neighbor that even the consummate “other” would see us as an ally, ready to stand together against the enslaving powers that bind us all.

Can we, even if we disagree, be people of self-giving love, who will do for our homosexual neighbors what we would have done for our straight selves?

North Carolinian Christians, you are free to vote against Amendment 1 and in this vote to love your neighbor as yourself.

It is always Easter. Christ the Lord is risen today. And yesterday. And in the middle of March. And on December 25.

But it seems that for most of us, remembering that it’s Easter for six or so weeks is difficult enough. So, to help keep the resurrection fires burning, I wanted to muse on the particular juxtaposition we’re walking through at The Table this morning: resurrection and the Conquest.

The Conquest. A.k.a., the Canaanite genocide. This is the point where the Israelite story has them stepping into the role of mighty conquerors. Well… It has them stepping aside and allowing God and God’s army to be the mighty conquerors, anyway.

This is a story that fits the larger narrative: coming out of Egypt, the people depended on YHWH not only to plague and pester the Egyptians and their gods, but in the end to kill off their sons and drown their armies.

Is it any wonder, then, that Peter and Andrew, James and John and so many alongside them were ready for a revolution?

Is it any wonder that at the great decisive moment the sword came out and swung?

And is it any wonder that, with Jesus preparing to go to the cross, the sword landed with merely a flesh wound, and the valiant warriors fled into the darkness?

It took the resurrection for the disciples to begin to get it. The new creation had to begin to dawn before their own eyes could see, before their own minds were finally enlightened.

The enemy that needed to be conquered was not, in the first instance, Rome.

There was an accuser, a Satan, a strong man, who was as responsible for Israel’s own succumbing to temptation as it was for Rome’s vicious exercise of power.

There was a Satan who stood behind every temptation–the temptation to pursue the way of the sword rather than the way of the cross not least of all.

“Get behind me, Satan.”

The resurrection, as the first word of the new creation, tells us that worldly conquest can never again be the word of God.

Conquest is transformed. The enslaving power of sin is undone. The enslaving power of death is undone. The enslaving power of the Law is undone.

Don the armor of God.

But know that our weapons are not of this world but divinely powerful for destroying far worse enemies.

Don the armor of God.

But know that the protection you need is from flaming arrows that burn hotter and fly straighter than what comes from any human bow.

Don the armor of God.

But know that the sword you bear is of the Spirit and the Word.

Yes, it’s a sword for the ears–Peter’s foolish act redeemed?

The resurrection transforms the Conquest narrative. It can–must–become a symbol of a greater act of faith in God engaging a greater battle.

The greater act of faith is the willingness to walk the way of the cross. Not seizing life for ourselves at the expense of the other’s life, but entrusting ourselves to the God who gives life to the dead.

But if the down side to this has been that we’re slow to realize the fully communal implications of our faith.

As I’ve said before, I used to shrug off the old hymn, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” Because, NEWS FLASH!, I wasn’t! I was a couple thousand years too late for that one.

But then I started to realize that the body of Christ is all around me every time I gather with God’s people. And I began to realize that these were people I had wounded, people whom I had judged and rejected and injured. I had become an instrument in the wounding of the body of Christ.

So yes, I was there. And I am there. I participate in the crucifixion when I judge and reject and injure those who are, themselves, members of Christ’s body.

When Jesus places His name on someone in baptism, he takes this identification with them with utmost seriousness. It’s not just that the person is bound to the story of Christ (something else we need to learn more deeply than we have) but that Christ is bound to the person of this story.

And so Jesus tells his disciples:

Whoever welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me isn’t actually welcoming me but rather the one who sent me. (Mark 9:37, CEB)

The disciples weren’t too sure about this whole, “name of Jesus” thing. So they pressed back a bit:

We saw someone throwing demons out in your name, and we tried to stop him because he wasn’t following us. (Mark 9:38, CEB)

Wrong answer.

Everyone who’s not against us is for us. In fact,

I assure you that whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will certainly be rewarded. (Mark 9:41, CEB).

We too often fall into the trap of thinking that our relationship with God is one thing, and our relationship with people is something else. Sometimes we’ll acknowledge the connection by saying something like, “When my relationship with God is askew, it messes with my relationships with people, too.”

There’s truth in that.

But there’s a more profound truth that such statements skirt; namely, our relationship with other people in the body is, itself, our relationship with the Christ whose name is upon them.

Before us is Jesus beyond Jesus.

God has determined to renew each of us after the image of the firstborn Son.

And so, what we do to them, those who bear the son’s image, is done to the son whose image they bear. When we engage the one who is Christ’s, for blessing or for curse, we bless or curse the Christ to whom they belong.