February 15, 2008 - Writings & Conversations

February 15, 2008

Paradox of Resurrection

v 32 “When they heard Paul speak about the resurrection of the dead, some laughed in contempt, but others said, ‘We want to hear more about this later.'”

To the Greeks, the idea of bodily resurrection was a ridiculous idea. Either all we have is this material world and nothing more or if there was anything after this life, it was the freedom from this material world into the world of spirit and ideas. What they found funny was why anyone would want this body again. There was a severe distaste of the human body and all its bodily functions.

The Christian resurrection that though this material world is not all there is, the material world is good. It does not fall into monism, only the material or only the ideal and the other is only illusion, or into a dualism, total separation. It is dialectic at its truest form, not in fancy arguments but in proof of a new life.

Resurrection says that the spirit and the body is always one and that a transformation happens where they become more one, and so so the spirit is glorified body, and the body is spirit more fully enfleshed. My spirit and my body is no longer at war, as Paul says, but that indeed they have been completely reconciled.

Resurrection sounds funny, but only to those who have given up on true hope and accepted cynicism and doubt, those who who settle for the simplistic ideas that keep our brains happily sedated, accepting only things that make sense.

But for those with faith, with the energy to continue to exercise our brains to grope towards what is complex but true, resurrection is the surest proof of what we have always believed, this current existence in body and spirit.

February 15, 2008

Inhumanity of Mammon

“Her master’s hopes of wealth were now shattered, so they grabbed Paul and Silas and dragged them before the authorities at the marketplace.” – ACTS 16.19

We must not underestimate how possessive and powerful the spirit of Mammon is. Many, if not all, of our decisions are driven by the need or greed of money. In this story, a teen is delivered from her misery of demon-possession. It is an occasion for celebration. But not for her master. He saw her as a money-maker so he could not see her liberation. He saw Peter and Silas not as liberators but destroyers who in one swoop ruined his income and retirement. So he returns the favor and attempts to destroy their lives.

Of course, the charges against them cannot be so blatantly selfish as greed. It has to be couched in a more sophisticated and civil language. The charge is their infraction of some obscure Roman practice.

We have to be more frank with our motivations. Mammon hides behind many of them. Money makes us see brothers and sisters as competitors, employees as money-makers and not as human beings longing to use their gifts and talents. I wonder how the world would run if it didn’t run in the economics of money but the economics of service? That is an ideal world, a heaven…and church should be a foretaste of that, but alas, the church is in bed with mammon much too often.

February 15, 2008

Compromise Is Repentance

“Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from eating food offered to idols, from sexual immorality, from eating the meat of strangled animals, and from consuming blood.” Acts 15:20

This is the first council of the churches on a make or break theological issue and the spirit of their rabbi Jesus prevailed over the gravity of tradition, a surprising turn.

Many Pharisees wanted to impose circumcision on the new Gentile ranks of Christ-followers. They saw this as an essential element to following Jesus, who himself was a Jew and circumcised: not a shabby argument. If this first council imposed circumcision, then Christianity could well have been a Jewish sect footnote. But Peter hits on what was the fundamental message of Jesus, “We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus” (v 11).

This message, that all are saved by the same grace, fortifies this fledgling church. But still, the council could not totally unchain itself from Jewish mores. They did not go all the way. As we read in v 20, it sets some classic Jewish laws as requisites. They are less severe than circumcision but they are set as laws nevertheless. Paul goes on to dismiss even these laws as he becomes more radical in his mission and theology. He writes in the letter to Corinth that eating food sacrificed to idol is totally permissive and it is an issue of conscience. But for now, Paul and the church settles for this compromise…and this is what I get…that compromise is not bad.

Compromise is an act of trust in God’s progressive work. Compromise forces the discipline of humility, for compromise is an act of repentance, accepting other ways of doing even when we think we are fully in the right. Lack of compromise leads to divisions and standstills. But more dangerous is victory without compromise. The victors will not only gloat over their win but will pride themselves for their purity, for not having compromised. Purity leaves no room for repentance and it is dangerous for people to think they have nothing to rethink.