Sunday, January 05, 2025

From the Lectionary for 5 January 2024 (Christmas 2ABC)

John 1:1-18 (NRSV)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

~

"It is difficult to capture the linguistic connotations of the term ‘logos’ in John 1. Scholars have long debated its background [...] It is a term used in Greek philosophy to refer to ‘the structuring principle of reality.’

[...]

"As the ‘structuring principle of reality’ it is more than ‘speech’, more than ‘power’, more than ‘thought’, more than ‘act’. It is all of the above and more. Friedrich Nietzsche, that great critic of Christianity proposed that the ‘Logos’ is ‘Nonsense’. I want to suggest that this is an insight worth pursuing. For what happens to this Logos is twofold nonsense: this Logos is rejected (1:11) and ‘becomes flesh’.

"Why is this logos rejected? Heraclitus, the pre-Socratic philosopher had identified that which structured reality as ‘polemos’ (violence or war). This is an insight about the way we humans structure reality long before [Rene] Girard discovered the power of violence to shape the way we do this thing called humanity, culture, history and religion. Violence is that which structures our reality!

"The nonviolent Logos, Jesus Christ, the Logos who structures reality in forgiveness will never make sense to a reality structured on violence. This is why so many people, especially Christians, cannot make sense of a nonviolent Jesus or a nonviolent God. We have made God into our own image: rivalrous, violent and retributive. A God who freely forgives apart from sacrifice, apart from blood, is a god who does not fit into this world’s (kosmos) way of thinking, therefore this kind of a God is sheer nonsense.

[...]

"This Christmas let us experience the SHOCK AND AWE of the evangelic message; let us stand stupefied before the absolute NONSENSE of the gospel of forgiveness. Let us come to the cradle of Bethlehem not with songs but with confusion, then perhaps we might just see how it is that this baby, this Jesus, is truly Emmanuel, God with us!"

- Michael Hardin (from facebook post on 14 December 2013)

~

"[T]he notion that [creation is] something good is because the One who is bringing it into being allows hints to those of us who are on the inside of what the Creator is really all about, the creation created through wisdom [...] [T]he principle of wisdom is precisely that it's making a live creation, holding it all together in such a way that it shows off of itself the glory of God. It gives off, points up to, gives away the glory of God. If you like, that creation, the wisdom, comes into our midst to open our eyes, to make it possible to be on the inside and actually see something clearly for what it is.

"And in the back of this, [...] part of the deep sense of this is that everything that is, there's a rationale to it, there's a logic to it. Reality is not simply a chaotic and random series of events and things. This is what the creation means, that there is a there's a rationale, an inner structure of reality which, when it's brought alive and we're unable to share with it, opens us up to what's going on, the possibility of us being participants and insiders in this, in creation. The world creation means God's rational dynamic product which is functional, which is for something, and inside which we are and can grow.

"So when we [...] get to St John's Gospel, we have these extraordinary phrases: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” So for “Word” - an act of communication - understand the logical structure, the structure of reality. That's what is coming into the world, the logical structural reality is actually going to enter into creation, to open us up actually to be able to come to life, to become fully alive in creation, to become sons and daughters of God.

"So this baby who is born is not just a baby, he's the beginning of the manifestation in our midst of the dynamic structuring reality of everything that is. If you like, the plan, the form of communication, all of that is being made alive so that it speaks to us and so that if we accept it we can be included in it, so that we can actually become Children of God. [...] We actually get to be the heirs of creation, creation fully alive its entire dynamic, fully revealed. We get to be participants in it.

"In other words, this is something which is less fashionable than it should be in Christian circles, is that Jesus is actually bringing about the reality of what is. That's part of what this birth is, it's the beginning of it becoming available and clear to us, the reality of what is. And as John says, the reality turns out to be  something much, much better than had been hoped for.

[...]

"What's being brought out is how the one came in, making it possible for people to receive him and therefore to become children of God, which meant that he became available as a sacrifice of forgiveness. Those who were able to receive this actually found that forgiveness turns out to be the structuring dynamic. There's not as it were a law and then something to be forgiven. There is the structuring dynamic of everything that is, that is in fact opened out by forgiveness. It is this that we're invited to participate in.

"John is saying here that this is the one that's coming in, this is the one that John the Baptist pointed to. What we're seeing here is not merely a baby, it's the baby who is going to grow into a man, we are going to be able to see him and he is going to become the way, the structuring principle of reality opens us up to it and to being participants in it. This is the greatest thing that could possibly ever have happened.

"[John says], “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.” This was the Lord, understood to be the begotten, not created, Son of God, who had come into our midst, thanks to the Virgin who became the holy place. That was how the ‘shekinah’, the Most High, tabernacled in our midst. And this is how the whole fullness of God became revealed to us, shown to us, but not, if you like, simply something for us to see, but for us to become participants in the making finally alive and full of creation.

"So this is if you like the richness of the Christmas story, the fullness of the invitation that's going on here, and the source of endless joy and the opening up of our imaginations."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for The Second Sunday of Christmas" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upVCydSEUcE)


[For further analysis and discussion on this week's lectionary text: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/xmas2abc/]

Wednesday, January 01, 2025

"I believe with all my heart that honesty with oneself is a central component to spiritual growth.  God honors our honest questions.  He is not surprised by them, nor is he ashamed to be our God when we pose them.  He is our God, not because of the questions we ask (or refrain from asking), but because he has united us to the risen Christ.  And being a part of God's family is ultimately a gift to us, not something to be obtained by us.  God has freed us in Christ and made us his children.  And, as all children do, we ask a lot of questions."

- Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation (2nd ed), pg xiv