When I awake, I am still with thee. (I need the unambiguous singular here.)
Then I will be innocent of the great offence. (I need the impossible.)
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. (I need escape.)
The third essay in chapter 12 is by Miroslav Volf, The Lamb of God and the Sin of the World. My understanding of sin has been like this: no God, no sin. He puts it this way:
He's right - no God, no sin.Sin is an irreducibly theocentric notion that cannot be translated without loss into psychological, sociological, or cosmological terms. Whatever sin may be formally (e.g. homelessness or disharmony), it is "ungodliness" in the sense of turning away from God.
Fundamentally sin is a failure in a relationship. Am I still with thee (Psalm 139)? Sin is unknown - there are hidden and presumptuous sins as we see in the last stanza of Psalm 19 - under detailed verse by verse examination by John with of course mad-colour disease by me. And sin is hard to face - so we deceive ourselves. (1 John)
Jews and Christians have a strong sense of sin. So much so that lots of people argue about it - especially original sin. Chapter 12 begins with a sensitive essay Turn us to you and we shall return: Original Sin, Atonement, and Redemption in Jewish Terms, by Stephen Kepnes. He reads Paul with understanding and shows several phrases and words in the TNK that undergird the 'concept' of original sin focussing particularly on galut, exile, as a way of helping a Jewish reader identify with the 'Christian' concept.
I put these terms in single quotes, because it is too easy to get lost in speculative cerebralism when the problem is relational - and relational with the only possible solver of the problem - God.
And of course, God's solution is not very attractive - death! (Hey - wait a minute - what about repentance?)
Oh - right. There is repentance, but both traditions ask if that is something I / you /we can do? Can we turn from our sin? Here Kepnes has picked in his title the essential verse - Turn us to you and we will turn. Lamentations 5:21 - right at the end of arguably one of the greatest expressions of human sorrow in poetry. We're in a catch-22 - needing something, deceived by ourselves, and yet knowing that there is more. I hear the problem caught in Psalm 90 - Lord, Thou has been our refuge, another poem about turning, and also caught in the Shaker song - till by turning, turning, we come round right.
Kepnes engages the scope of the problem and the many Jewish pointers to the reality of the I-Thou that must resolve it. He writes of the liturgical and sacrificial components from the Akedah (Abraham and Isaac) and its interpretation in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to the sin offering, to Yom Kippur. It's a short essay that is full to overflowing.
Volf accepts the efficacy of the liturgy and exile as analogy, but he does not accept exile as a sufficient image. He deals with the New Testament critical texts such as "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself." Theologically, this atonement is an "event in the life of God".
Volf ends with gratitude that Prefessor Kepnes has been very sympathetic but puzzlement that he has not asked the hard questions such as: why does repentance not suffice that the Son of God must take the sins of the world away? Or if I can add Nanos question to me: if the Messiah has come, why are we not yet living in the Messianaic age?
The middle essay - I think I have figured out what they were trying to do - the middle essay is a Jewish response to the Jewish first essay. I will have to read the book again and see if I can make better sense of them. The middle essay is by Laurie Zoloth, Exile and Return in a World of Injustice: A Response to Stephen Kepnes. I didn't want to go here in this review. Sin is pervasive and has large and complex consequences. Maybe later.
There is only one chapter left: The Image of God. Other chapter reviews in this series: 1-4 5 6 7 8 9, 10a and 10b, 11.
11 comments:
you are so right that sin is a failure in a relationship. but it is not exclusively theocentric by any means. that's why teshuvah as a path of reconciliation is so important between two people. god may often be the standard by which reconciliation is applied, but reconciliation between two people who have 'sinned' does not require god.
Hi Scott - I am not a pastor - so no advice; but I was just rereading my psalms blog - a record of a bootstrap learning process - and relevant to what you are thinking re relationships is the note on psalms 14 and 53. http://drmacdonald.blogspot.com/2007/01/psalms-14-53.html
Regardless of God - relationships between those made in the image of God are hard work - and costly. And yes, I agree, we can sin against each other. And it hurts.
bob-
thanks for the reference; will peruse this evening.
peace--
scott
bob--
sorry, can't access psalm notes easily. could you put a link to the spots you're talking about?
thanks--
peace--
scott
here's a Link
hopefully - I don't know if it will interpret correctly in the comment editor
bob—
i looked more at your psalm site—what a huge undertaking! tov! tov! i hope to do something similar, over the next twelve years, with the catholic lectionary. you are an inspiration for me—to take one’s time, think, read, write, talk with others. well done. thank you.
do you know this author:
"religion comes to each of us like a huge rorshach test, and people fall into four classes in the way they interpret it. first, there is the atheist who says there is no god. next comes the polytheist who says there are many gods...then there is the monotheist who says there is one god. and finally, the mystic, for whom there is only god. none, many, one, and only. using god as the measuring rod, these are the basic ways we can interpret the universe."
huston smith, the way things are
i find my understanding of god now to somewhere between mysticism and agnosticism: i’m an agnostic 95 days out of 100, an atheist 4 days out of 100, and a mystic 1 day out of 100. (one day in a hundred is enough; mystical ‘communion’ with god is filling, and overwhelming).
i tend now to look at scripture with as much of a mystic lens as possible. some of the psalms are written so much from a monotheistic point of view is difficult for me to find personal meaning in them. in psalm 14, ‘the impious fool says in his heart, there is no god!’ as a mystic, who feels there is only god, i have a hard time empathizing or projecting this sentiment (although, as we’ve discovered recently, mother teresa seems to have felt this very deeply). ‘the lord looks down from heaven’ is very much a monotheistic understanding of god. i have a very hard time finding personal meaning in these two psalms.
as a mystic, the two deepest understandings of god as seen in christianity are the gospels’ ‘kingdom of heaven,’ and st paul’s ‘body of christ.’ the mystical understanding of the body of christ applies to reconciliation this way:
teshuvah between two people is teshuvah within the body of christ. if you, as offender or offended, feel that you are mystically connected to the other party, your participation in teshuvah is deeply important.
teshuvah facilitated by a monotheistic god, a ‘third party’ god, implies two children who require a parent, or two fender bender drivers who require a policeman, and i can’t empathize with this understanding of god. if in our maturity we feel that others we have relationships with are as respected, and loved, as we want ourselves to be, teshuvah becomes the default when we sin, not the exception.
that’s what i meant when i said god is not required for teshuvah; i meant a ‘third party policeman’ god.
thanks for the opportunity to clarify my thoughts here.
peace—
scott
Scott
thank you for the word from your heart. I know a little of Huston Smith - having heard of him by name. I rarely find intimations of the scope of my own experience which some would name mystic - but it is mystic with the fleshly body attached - if I can be so bold - it is incarnational mysticism if you like. The word of the comforter is key - it is a word with a history both legal and theological - another friend has asked me to write about it so I will try in a blog entry. Follow your path one step at a time.
bob--
incarnational mysticism is absolutely the best kind. i think it is the kind jesus had/has.
thanks again--
peace--
scott
bob--
a personal question, if you don't mind--when did you personally discover that 'sin-in-relationship' matters more than 'sin-in-law?'
peace--
scott
The dating of 'discovery' is difficult. It is not a recent development in my thinking. I may have been 'explained' to me by some forgotten teacher. I have used it as explicit guidance for me for understanding law for at least 15 years.
From a Biblical perspective, David's admission in Psalm 51 expresses the result of his sin in relation to God: against thee only have I sinned... Is it perhaps that laws arise because of the hurt that comes when expectations of co-operative behaviour are somehow violated. But the law itself never catches the essence of the hurt which is the damage, confusion and consequence to others.
The issue of relationship is clear everywhere in Scripture because the words are all about our relationship to God. Paul's argument with the works of the law seems to me to be more easily understood if we consider that rote-following-of-rules can be a start but cannot bring us to completion. At the end of his great argument in Romans, he concludes: I beseech you therefore, siblings, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable unto him - this is the logical outcome of the 11 preceding chapters - a priestly offering of our bodies to God through the work of Christ. It is the guarantee of participating in the accepted sacrifice of Abel and avoiding the lurking danger to Cain. Such participation is relational not legal. In such participation, we are bodily transformed [reflecting your use of the word matter in your question] by the life giving Spirit, the same Spirit of glory that raised Jesus from the dead.
This reflects, I think, how my personal understanding was formed over the last 35 or 40 years. I started with Romans and I continue to find its argument fascinating.
Your phrases sin-in-relationship and sin-in-law reflect a creative use of the preposiiton 'in'. One might have some difficulties with the Johannine use of sin as lawlessness. I can almost see 1 John as a record of one side of a problem that John could not solve. The broken relationship - they went out from among us - hurt more than whatever the broken law was. This is not to deny that Law as gift can be loved - but surely in the case of the Law of God, that is because the giver is loved also. In the world of human governance, even the laws of the state can be loved, but only to the extent that they reflect the law of God. If the state is loved for itself, such patiotism becomes idolatry. So perhaps John in closing - little children, keep yourselves from idols - is still keeping the door open for his wayward flock. In that way, even his 'lawlessness' becomes another expression of the failure of relationship.
We have personal experience of lawlessness. And we know that it could apply to any one of us. This extract from our Christmas letter from 1992 would be formative for me in confirming the difficulty of defining 'sin' in so many words of law when the real issue is relationships.
We have learned over the past three years what life is like when you cannot depend on mutual agreement with respect to rules of behaviour. We now have a name for James' condition: Fetal Alcohol Effects. This is the first passion, the passion of James and his family. We do not yet know the end of it, but as of two days ago, he has gone to search for himself under his own strength. This is also the two schools stopping - for school is a place where some rules cannot be broken. FAE behaviour is a lot like Alzheimer's disease. Doesn't work very well in a classroom. We have been reflecting on the passage in John's gospel where the disciples ask Jesus, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Christ answers "Neither this man nor his parents, but that the works of God might be shown."
The rules exist because of the relationship. But they don't define the relationship even if there are consequences to breaking them.
bob--
thanks for the post. i'm sorry about james, although i know him only through your letter. that was in 1992. how is he doing now?
this was a poignant turning point for me, about sin-in-law vs sin-in-relationship. about 7 years ago i was a musician in a small catholic parish. we had a new pastor who wanted policies of what was ok and what wasn't regarding weddings, liturgy, and funerals. the rules became convoluted and rigorous.
at one point a daughter came and wanted music for her father's funeral that wasn't on the approved list. pastor said no.
i realized then that the grieving family members don't care what the rules are. we can 'educate' them some other time about music in liturgy. when they are burying someone, our role is not to educate through rules, but rather to comfort, and celebrate their departed family member, both things offered in relationship, not rules.
i have printed and thought quite a bit about your 'lawlessness list' from a post about a month ago. it has been a source of much thinking.
thanks for sharing these things.
peace--
scott
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