22nd Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 30)
October 28, 2007
One of the frightening consequences of living today is that we find it difficult if not impossible to understand our situation in terms of the truths which were taken as self evident. The past is no longer the bearer of revelation for us but has been over-sown by new inventions, newly constructed self-understandings and related practices. The result has been the emergence of a world which makes sense without God and which demands as a kind of corollary how we can explain any need for his continued presence. We are in the midst of a religious revolution which makes the changes wrought by the Protestant Reformation pale in comparison..
One possible response which is favoured by the evangelical/fundamentalist community is to insist that the world of the Bible remains a real option for living today and that its structure is sufficient to maintain a way of life which recognizes the presence of that other world and makes use of its amenities but nonetheless believes it has no real influence on the way in which life is played out. Faithful living manages to find a biblical definition for all of the circumstances which contemporary living produces. Its dependence on doctrine is absolute because in its definitions there is ample coverage for all aspects of existence. Ironically, as it has developed, this tradition seems to have become as “Godless” as the society of which it is most rejecting.
For those of who do not live in the evangelical/fundamentalist cocoon, living involves recognizing that there are alternative ways of understanding the world and its relationships which are not atheist in the old sense of the word but rather are founded on an understanding of the human body and mind as the source of all we can know. Life in the spirit then becomes an essential outgrowth of who we are - even if it offers many possibilities for understanding not possible in the old world where spirit was something which was outside of us or exterior to our bodily selves. One of the results of this picture of human nature has been the emergence of moral life which shares much with traditional morality but with the proviso that it now is impossible to classify human behaviour as requiring obedience to God-given laws as a warrant for its value. In an article in the latest HASTINGS CENTER REPORT, Eric Cassell notes
There are no such completely self-determining individual who are not influenced by others in their personal and social world........For ethics, relationships also matter because they are the basis of responsibility and the context of trust. In addition to an ethics of individuals, the time for us to develop an ethics of responsibility is past due. When Hans Jonas was developing an ethical basis for our relationship to nature and the preservation of the environment and the earth that did not depend on religion or God, the concept he chose was “responsibility”.
These comments provide the notes which I used to approach today’s readings.
The prophet Joel it is generally agreed was writing about the year 400 BCE and was associated with the activities in Jerusalem and the Temple though he himself was probably not a priest The earlier sections of the book are a condemnation of Israel’s behaviour. We read today a promise of restoration as the result of her changing her ways. The implication which is not limited to Joel is that good behaviour will bring a reward and conversely the opposite brings punishment. The reasoning is that the issue in both cases is the same - goodness or badness is a matter of obeying or disobeying specific commands or laws. One question which is inescapable for us is whether morality is produced by obeying that which is given, or the result of awareness and acceptance of responsibility for one’s self and others. The other is whether being good brings the expectation of rewards either in this life or that which is to come. In the case of the writer of I Timothy the answer seems to be yes to both. Taking this expectation to of a reward which is to come in another world to the absurdly extreme, it seems to me that Islam has the better of the argument - surely the life in a land of abundance is infinitely preferable to singing an endless chorus of holy, holy, holy.
The story from Luke offers the possibility of a somewhat different take on the matter before us i.e. responsibility becomes a kind of shorthand for the human condition with the result we can no longer use traditional religion as the only way of evaluating the source of goodness. Sin is the failure to accept the demands of responsibility. So then at the end of the story nothing has really changed. Each man went back to what he had been previously doing. BUT - What then did Jesus mean when he called one man “just”? The best we can surmise at this distance and it would be the same if it occurred right now in our midst - is that one man was at peace with himself and those around him. There are no further bells and whistles. Is this all there is to it? Imagine if there were a world filled with such persons. Why wait for paradise..... or is that the point!
1. Eric J.Cassell, Unanswered Questions: Bioethics and Human Relationships, Hastings Center Report, Vol 37 No 5 Sept-Oct 2007, pp. 20-23.
The Rev. Roger A. Balk, Ph.d.
