(Im-)Perfection? The Case for a Sinning Christ

This past Sunday we celebrated the Baptism of our Lord.  And we sang a hymn that said, "he did not come for pardon, but as the sinless One."  Now, I know that it has been orthodoxy since pretty much the beginning of the church, but I've just never been big on the belief that Jesus never sinned.

Rather than being sinless, I think Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, who then had to be made to fit the mold of what was expected by those who were (and are) expecting something.  In other words, his life first convinced people that he was the long-awaited one and then his followers had to make sure that he lived up with the hype that had been building for a thousand years.

There was a lot of expectation.  But everything we know about Jesus is that he broke the mold of what was expected!  If anything, his life was about teaching people to expect the unexpected!  And those who were not (and are not) expecting anything - you think they really cared about the expectations for the Messiah?

You see, there were (and are) some people who know better than to expect anything from anyone.  These are the people who have been taught by the harsh realities of life that they can stop expecting anything because they aren't even going to get anything.  Instead of expecting, they hope.  They hope beyond hope.  And, no, they are not hoping for President Obama or anyone else to come to their aid, for they have long given up on politicians.  They hope, rather, for something to break into our world and shake things up.

So, when Jesus comes and does just that, announcing that the poor are blessed, inviting criminals and all sorts of "bad" folks to the dinner party, turning over tables, and pronouncing the day of Jubilee - you think those outcasts of society cared a lick if he had ever sinned?  If you're not sure, let me help you out: No, hell no, they did not.  All they cared about was that this man fulfilled their wildest hopes.

Sure, there are some passages in the Bible that state or allude to the fact that Jesus is without sin.  They are found in what Christians call the New Testament (NT) and most of them rely on a sacrificial theology from what we call the Old Testament (OT).

But there are a couple of issues here.  One thing is that I have already expressed my doubts about the idea of God requiring blood sacrifice.  (See here, here, and here.)  There are some dissenting voices in the OT on this issue as well.  (See, especially, the Prophets.)  Without the logic of sacrifice, without a God who desires blood, without the necessity of an innocent to die for the sins of the guilty, the idea of Jesus being sinless isn't all that important.

I don't know if Jesus sinned or not.  All I'm saying is that the case seems kind of skewed.  It seems like the NT authors looked back to the sacrificial theology of (parts of) the OT, some of which was sometimes used to describe the anticipated Messiah, and made Jesus fit the mold of expectation.  The NT authors, especially Matthew, did this quite often - they took looked at what the OT said about the Messiah and then found a way to incorporate that into the story of Jesus, even if it had to be forced.

Here's the kicker, though: If Jesus did sin, that is actually more meaningful to me.  The humanity of Jesus is supposed to make us relate to him, and him to us, but I don't (can't?) relate to sinless humanity.  I don't know about you, but I can't even imagine sinless humanity.  And, even more importantly, I don't think a sinless human can really experience humanity as you and I do.

"What if God was one of us?" asked Joan Osbourne, to which a bunch of church folk answered that he was in the person of Jesus.  But, for me, "one of us" means flawed like us, struggling with imperfections like us, trying to find a way to get back up after falling down yet again like us.

A sinless Christ, however, is not like us.  A sinless Christ is above us, better than us, aloof to our experience, oblivious to our needs.  A Jesus without sin can't relate to the struggles of us everyday people.

I like the idea that Jesus has the ability to bring salvation because he was one of us; I just have a different understanding of what it means to be one of us.  And so I think it is only a sinning Jesus that can be truly called the Christ.

We need someone like us and I believe Jesus really was like us, imperfections and all.

Epiphany

Seeing is believing, or so they say.

And that's what  Epiphany, which we celebrated on Thursday, is all about.  Some see and some don't, plain and simple.

Now, there are many reasons for this.  Some people can't see, while others just don't.  Still others do all that they possibly can to avoid seeing - or at least seeing certain things.  But the reason doesn't matter - if you didn't see it, it's pretty hard to believe a lot of things.  And that's why I always thought Doubting Thomas got a bum rap.  He just wanted to see.  What's wrong with that?

But seeing isn't an end in itself.  It doesn't matter if you can see if you don't know what you are looking at.  A big part of Epiphany is the Magi following the star to find the Christ-child.  Now, if there really was a star like that, you can't tell me that they were the only ones to see it.  If they followed this star "from the East," it had to have been a pretty big deal and a lot of folks would have seen it.  But it takes a little more to know exactly what you're looking at.

"We see through a glass, dimly," said Paul.  By this, I take him to mean that no one sees things exactly as they are.  Rather, our vision is limited and we have to figure our what it is we are looking at.  We're stuck with interpretation, all the way down.  And that's why those Magi, who saw a star and figured out that it was pointing to something important - that's why they are called wise.

What star have I failed to see?  What star have I look right at without knowing what it was?  What is keeping me from being wise?

And, when I see a star, when I understand its importance, what do I do?  Do I share it with others?  Do I flaunt it, letting others know how special I am to have seen it?  Do I love my star so much as to have to denigrate the star another sees?

For that matter, is there only one star?  Is there only one meaning to a star?  Do I have possession of truth in its entirety?  Or can there be different stars, different visions, different interpretations, different epiphanies (or Epiphanies), each with a partial grasp of truth?

"Do you see what I see?" asks the great carol.  But, if you see something different, does that make you wrong?  If you see the same thing, but think it means something else, does that mean that you have a problem?  Does my vision trump yours?

That's the problem with Epiphany in a pluralistic society, when our friends and family and neighbors are different from us, when we respect and learn from and even love them.

But maybe that's our Epiphany today - that there are multiple visions, many interpretations, more than one Epiphany...and that that's okay.

If these Magi "from the East" came to visit a poor Jewish boy because they thought he was important, then maybe I need to learn from those different than me.

Maybe the point of Epiphany is not that I have some special knowledge to share with you, not that I need to make sure that you have an epiphany.  Maybe, just maybe, the whole point of Epiphany is for me to receive an epiphany, for me to be open to a new idea, a foreign concept, an epiphany from another tradition.

Philosophy At West Point

What should members of our military study?  What should they read?  What should they think about?  What is the relationship between their academic training and the duties that are to be expected of them?

These are the questions I've been pondering, thanks to a discussion on Facebook with an old (but not old) professor about Just War Theory (JWT) and the Principle of Double Effect (PDE).  It all started because I sent him this link to an Utne post about cadets at West Point being taught philosophy - and specifically JWT - to help them become better decision-makers.

Now, I am all for these cadets - hell, anyone! - learning some philosophy.  I think it makes one a better person.  However, I'm not convinced that philosophy makes one a better soldier.  There is a lot that is expected of a soldier, but the bottom line is that a soldier is trained to kill.  And I don't think philosophy helps in that regard.  Military strategy, sure, but not killing.

You see, philosophy is a practice done in community.  And, when two or three are gathered, the Bible may say God is there, but I can pretty much guarantee that you'll get some disagreement.  Well, when you disagree, you can fight about it or you can work through it.  Philosophy chooses that latter.

And, yes, I know that many philosophers throughout history have championed wars and violence.

But, when it comes down to it, philosophy is about sitting down at the table (or walking around, peripatetically, if you're a Stoic) and talking.  It's about disagreeing with my friends - and still being friends.  It's about learning that, if I don't even agree with my friends about everything, then maybe there are some things on which I agree with my enemies.  It's about realizing that we are all human, that we sometimes agree and sometimes disagree, whether we're friends or enemies.

And, if I figure out that my enemies aren't all that different from my friends, that my enemies are in fact a lot like me, then I probably don't want to kill them.

Now, I'm perfectly fine with that.  I think it's great, actually.  That's why I'm such an advocate for philosophy and dialogue.  That's why early Christians, who took that love your neighbor stuff pretty seriously, were seen as a threat.

But does the military really want its soldiers to think that way?

If they want to train killers, then they may want to reconsider their curriculum.

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Blogging Holy Week, III

In my last post I made the claim that God never desired blood sacrifice.  And, if God never wanted sacrifice, then we need to rethink the story we tell about Jesus and the cross.

Now, I don't mean to say that there is nothing redemptive about the cross.  To the contrary, I believe that the cross of Jesus was indeed redemptive.  I do think that Jesus took upon himself the sins of the world.  I also happen to believe that Martin Luther King, Jr, bore the weight of the great sin of the South.  Suffering and death can be (but are not always) redemptive.  But I just don't think God demands blood.  Suffering and death are not redemptive because God requires them to balance the books, to erase a debt.

I do think, however, that God calls us toward sacrifice - and particularly sacrifice of ourselves.  The command to love the neighbor as the self is a call to sacrifice ourselves on behalf of our neighbor.

The confusion I see is where the emphasis is placed.  The emphasis is usually placed on the act of sacrifice, whereas I want to emphasize the act of love that ends in sacrifice.  The emphasis is usually placed on offering to God a sacrifice to pay back a debt caused by sin, whereas I want to emphasize the bearing the burden of another's sin to help bring wholeness into the world.  The emphasis is usually placed solely on the person of Jesus and an event that happened two millennia ago, whereas I want to emphasize our responsibility in a process that is ongoing so long as wholeness is not established.

So, on this so-called "Good" Friday, the challenge is for us to accept responsibility for our role in bringing peace and wholeness into the world.  Just because Jesus died on a cross does not mean that there is nothing left to be done.

And that is why, when I lead in the Eucharist (or Lord's Supper, or Communion), I adapt the traditional wording to the following:

This is the body of Christ, broken for us.  Take and eat.

May we also offer our bodies out of love for our neighbors.

This is the blood of Christ, spilled for us.  Take and drink. 

May we also spill our blood out of love for our neighbors.

Amen.