Christ Church Cathedral Epiphany IV
January 24, 2010 Proper III
Readings: Nehemiah 8: 3-5, 6-8, 10
I Corinthians 12: 12-31a
Luke 4: 14-21
With apologies to both St. Augustine and Charles Dickens, I would like to present you with A Tale of Two Cities. Cities are places where people live and die - this is why they can represent a way of understanding the morphology of God's presence in the world. In order to stay alive they must struggle to maintain a balance between permanence and change.
The first tale begins to unfold about 445 BCE. The prophets are long gone; the last of them, Zechariah has been dead for nearly a century. The Temple in Jerusalem has been restored and has begun to challenge the place of the Temple of Abraham in Shechem in Samaria. Nehemiah has led a group back from Exile and has begun to reestablish the governance of the city, rebuilding its fortified wall, repopulating it by bringing in those who lived in the countryside, and restoring obedience to the Law. He also established Judah as a province independent of Persia. Coming with him is a special emissary of the Persian king, the "scribe of the law of the God of heaven".
The secretary in the Government responsible for the department dealing with Jewish religious matters was Ezra, a member of an old priestly family. His relationship to the king of Persia was not without importance in relationship to what he was asked by Nehemiah to undertake.
When the seventh month came, all the people gathered as one man on the square before the water gate. They asked Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses which Yahweh has prescribed for Israel.....Ezra read from the Law of God, translating and giving the sense, so that the people understood what was read........This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not be sad the joy of Yahweh is our stronghold. (Nehemiah 8)
Ezra set himself the task of reorganizing the cultic structure and significance of the Temple based upon the strict interpretation of the law book which he had read to the gathered community. This Law was set forward as a renewal of the Covenant and brought with it a definition of Israel that was typified by the rejection of mixed marriages. This change had profound significance for the future identity of this community and set the pattern of development for the next several centuries. Most historians see this event as the beginning of Judaism.[1] This new entity involved a significant break with the past because Israel's identity was now to be determined not by the events of nature and history as portrayed in the tradition of Deuteronomy and the Prophets, but by the Law. Out was a flexible gearing of herself to particular times and places and conditions which were subject to change. In over the next four centuries is the Law, which becomes unconditionally valid irrespective of time and place.
"The most serious aspect of the whole process was that in understanding the law in this way, Israel parted company with the history which she had previously experienced with Jahweh. She did not part company with her relationship to Jahweh. But she began to look upon the will of Jahweh in such a timeless and absolute way, the saving history necessarily ceased moving on Thus Israel no longer had a history, at least a history with Jahweh from now on she lived and served God in, as it were, an enigmatic beyond history."[2]
One of the long term effects of this change was the establishment of Israel throughout the Mediterranean basin because the Temple no longer was the center of her life. The extraordinary group what grew up in Alexandria is the prime example. At the same time Greek and Aramaic assumed major roles in the everyday life of the community. Israel was governed by a timeless Law brought up to date by the casuistry of the rabbis. She celebrated her commitment by singing songs such as Psalm 19 as we did this morning and maintained her identity by telling the stories (e.g. the Passover) which brought her in touch with the birth of her faith.
And then something happened....
The spirit of the Lord has been given to me
For he has anointed me
He has sent me to bring good news to the poor
to proclaim liberty to the captives
and to the blind new sight
to set the downtrodden free
to proclaim the Lord ;s year of favor
This text is being fulfilled even today as you listen (Luke 4)
A theological shock wave went through those present. They were being asked to reconsider the meaning of Jahweh's presence not only in their lives, but in the events that were about to unfold. Particularly at stake was the prevailing identification of the Law as the authenticator of God's presence. The issue is framed in the Gospels by the question frequently addressed to Jesus in the Gospels "By what authority?" The indignation this aroused had more than 4 centuries of practice driving it. We have to understand this as the source of much of the so-called anger of many jews as it surfaces in the later ministry of Jesus even if his followers became an even greater threat to the stability of the Roman occupation..[3] The obsessive challenge of Paul to the Law also makes sense in this light.
So we begin the tale of a second city the New Israel and here we turn to Paul in his First Letter to the community in Corinth, with its analogy of the church as the body of Christ. Obviously, he is well aware of the tale of the first city and in his rejection of the Law of the Ezra restoration he goes back with Jesus to the pre-exilic vision of God - involved in the course of history with its concurrent risks of openness, confusion and obscurity that are inescapable such engagement. There is a remarkable similarity between the centuries' long relationship of Israel with its Canaanite neighbors and the situation in Corinth. But Paul is also establishing a very mystical city. The Body of Christ places emphasis on the crucified and glorified body present in history, Eucharist and community.[4] But at the same time there is a basic weakness in his mystical vision which requires someone and something to join the dots. The New Israel also needs a ground in time. Paul strongly resisted the Romanization of the church but there seemed to be at the time no other alternative. Eventually, the Body of Christ found that its attempts to prosper by an alliance with the political powers had its limits - much as Israel discovered in its experience with kings as well as surrounding powers. As we saw, the break which created our first city involved a curious alliance in which the occupying power - the king of Persia became the catalyst for change. I would like to suggest that the Council of Nicaea provided the New Israel (the Church) with an opportunity similar to that seized by Ezra nearly a millennium before. It created a moment in time which grounded the Church in a way which was both theoretically and practically distinguishable from both the hierarchy and the (at the time Roman) state.
So I would response to Harvey Cox[5] by suggesting that it is not possible to have faith without belief because they are functionally quite distinct. I am aware the Bishops were coerced by the Emperor into creating the Nicene settlement as it were, but once it was produced, it assumed an existence in its own right which was crucial for the future of the New Israel, in the church. This is because it required a constant theological response, a kind of casuistry if you will, and I distinguish this offspring from the dead end of creating new doctrine. It enabled the Bible to assume its role as the story of this faith; it demanded that this story be also retold in the lives of those would be faithful and it created the Eucharist as a Song of Songs which includes hymns and poems that reenact and expand what it means in the words of Pauline mysticism to have life in Christ.
[1] Gerhard Von Ran, Old Testament Theology, Vol.1, Edinburgh, 1962, p89
[2] Von Rad. p91
[3] John Dominic Crossan, THE BIRTH OF CHRISTIANITY. Harper, 1998, pp231f
[4] John Domin Crossen, IN SEARCH OF PAUL, San Francisco, 2004, p282f
[5] Harvey Cox, THE FUTURE OF FAITH, New York, 2009. (This book is to be discussed at a Cathedral group on February,14)
