These readings articulate the enormous differential between God and all of us. God is attested in the prayer of Daniel as one "keeping covenant and steadfast love." as God of "mercy and forgiveness." In the Epistle reading, Jesus is the high priest who is "merciful and faithful." This rhetoric of fidelity is deeply rooted in our oldest covenant memory.
By contrast, Israel suffers from "open shame" in its recalcitrant disobedience and treachery; more broadly, in the epistle, human persons is fear of death live in bondage. The bondage of fear is all around us. It is that fear and open shame that governs so much of our interaction and that shapes so much of our public policy.
Where to start with that? Especially in terms of politics, of "public policy." Fear is the facilitator of fascism, along with every other human weakness. Our weaknesses, it turns out, are not what sets us free, not even in their successful pursuit as is the favorite promise of the pagan liturgy of entertainment. I was thinking that yesterday as I happened to see an ad for tobacco products which were alcohol and, of course, sex themed as well.
Lent is a time to overcome the romanticism of human self-actualization to recognize the unflinching honesty of the theological tradition that sees how we are deeply alienated from God. These readings, however, do not linger over the human condition. Rather they focus on the wonder of God's ready capacity to bridge the gap of alienation by the self-giving suffering in Christ. Given this huge contrast of Creator and creation the news is that from God's side, God in Jesus becomes like us "in every respect" so that we are drawn into the faithfulness of God, moved from the darkness of futility and drawn into the abiding well-being of his light.
It is appropriate in Lent to think through the deep alienation of creatureliness from the Creator. Such reflection is not a guilt trip but an act of self-awareness. These readings, however, move forcefully to the greater reality that God in Christ has overcome that alienation and ended the bondage of fear. A new life beyond alienation is made possible. But it must be lived.
Text from Walter Brueggeman: Gift and Task
In becoming reengaged with the Jewish-Christian-Islamic tradition I've seen that so many of the pat dismissals, Freudian and post-Freudian attributions of everything from childish wish fulfillment to terrified fear which is said to motivate religious faith are entirely wrong if it is an actual engagement with what is said in scripture that is the basis of that belief. It is a combination of the fearful idea that there will be consequences for our evil acts that are balanced rather neutrally against rewards for acting well. Getting any benefit requires giving up doing what we want to when what we want is bad, generally what is harmful to our fellow creatures, mostly in the Scripture to other people, though the Law does require better treatment of animals than most of human commerce does. There is nothing that treats animals with more indifferent cruelty than materialist secularism - remember what I said about Descartes' dissection of his wife's poor pet dog as just the start of the modern phase of that.
The new life that is promised, or, rather, the way to that new life that is pointed out as possible isn't any bed of roses. And the thing is that, despite what the 1970s style declarations of being re-born and Praise The Lord have led the superficial and naive to think about Christianity, you don't get that without actually living it in all of its exigent requirements. The reward isn't pie-in-the-sky, it's certainly not pie here and now, it's worth the high cost but it's not either of those. In terms of my political blog, equality under democracy with economic justice is part of that. But it's clear that will cost the affluent, just as Jesus said it would.
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