Saltiness -- A Lectionary Meditation

Isaiah 58:1-9a



1 Corinthians 2:1-12


Matthew 5:13-20

Saltiness

The question that continually emerges from our engagement with is: Who am I in God’s economy? That is, what does God want from me? Micah 6:8 seems to answer that question fairly clearly – justice, kindness/mercy, and humility. There is, of course, another question that pushes ast us: Where is God in all of this? It’s not just what does God want, but is God invested in this as well? Or, am I on my own? The conversation about spirituality and religion stems from these other questions. In this Modern/Post-Modern Age that we live in, the institution isn’t enough. It’s not enough that religion reinforces moral virtue. We want to have the sense that God is in this with us.

The critique of religion has been with us from some time, and no one was more critical of “Religion” than Karl Barth. In a recent Christian Century article, theologian Douglas John Hall reminded us of Karl Barth’s critique of religion, calling our attention Barth’s definition of religion as “grasping” after God. Religion is our Tower of Babel, our attempt to storm heaven and take control of God. Such efforts ultimately have dangerous implications. Hall writes:

In every religion, there are vulnerable points—ideas, attitudes or emphases which, under certain historical conditions, are bound to become flash points of conflict. But surely there is no point more redolent of potential violence than this kind of spiritual certitude itself. In a global village where religious disputation no longer limits itself to quarrels within the various historic religions but spills over increasingly into the unprecedented meeting of world religions, every one of them made newly insecure by their felt awareness of one another and of rampant secularity, the greatest flash point of all is inseparable from the religious impulse as such. With its clamoring for ultimacy, its frenetic triumphalism, its incapacity for existential doubt and the entertainment of alternatives, such religion inevitably courts violent opposition. The newly minted atheism of today understands this and capitalizes on it. It argues, with a kind of dogged logic, that the only way human-kind can avoid the great catastrophes to which this situation points is by dispensing altogether with "the God delusion." (Douglas John Hall, “Against Religion: The Case for Faith,” Christian Century, January 3, 2011).

If we are to live the Christian faith in a way that differs from the grasping nature of religion, as Hall describes, what will that look like?

The answer, interestingly enough, seems to emerge quite clearly in the three texts that appear in this week’s lectionary readings. Each speaks of this issue a bit differently – Isaiah focuses on living justly, Paul hails the unconventional nature of God’s wisdom, and in this excerpt from Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls for the people of God to be salt and light, even as they exhibit an unconventional righteousness. Our temptation is to use religion to benefit ourselves, often at the expense of the other, but as we see from these three texts, this is not the way of God in the world.

Isaiah shouts to the people of Judah, who have returned home from exile and have returned to old habits. They delight in God and say they wish to know God’s ways, pretending, the prophet suggests, that they practiced righteousness and “delight to draw near to God” (Is. 58:2). They show their religiosity through fasting and prayer, but apparently they do so in order to be noticed – whether by God or by their neighbors! But God isn’t impressed by their religiosity, their desire to approach God on their own terms. God’s impatience, if we can call it that, is due to the fact that the people are serving their own interests, for even as they fast, they oppress their workers. Indeed, it appears that while fasting, they also engaging quarreling and fighting. The prophet responds – your fasting won’t make your voice heard by God. Bowing your head and lying in sack cloth and ashes, won’t gain God’s attention, as long as your religiosity is accompanied by injustice.

Even as we heard from the prophet Micah, Isaiah suggests that God desires that the oppressed be set free, bread be shared with the hungry, the homeless brought into one’s own homes, and the naked shall be clothed. Then, this post-exilic prophet says to the people, “your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly.” Yes, and they your vindicator will go out before you and the glory of the Lord will serve as your rearguard. When you act justly, God will answer your cry for help. Our witness, if we can call it that, is rooted in our acts of justice.

Paul picks up a theme that relates directly to Douglas John Hall’s statements on religion. This text follows upon the previous verses that defend the message of the cross from those who would call it foolish. What we know of the Corinthian situation suggests that the “spiritualists,” the pneumatakoi, were calling for a different understanding of the Gospel, one that was more intellectual or spiritual, a perspective that had little regard for the cross and its image of weakness. That’s why Paul speaks in the first chapter of the letter of its supposed “foolishness.” But Paul isn’t afraid of taking his stand on this foolish idea. Rather than define his message and ministry in terms the “spiritualists” would find acceptable, he is willing to present his calling in terms that can be conceived as weak and fearful. Yes, he will take his stand with the crucified one, putting the wisdom of the cross up against the wisdom of the world. Once again we need to be aware of the danger of anti-intellectualism that could present itself in this text. But the point isn’t one of rejecting science or history, but recognizing that too often the conventional wisdom that puts too much regard on power and class can undermine the gospel. Then it becomes mere grasping for power. Paul will have none of this. The power of the gospel isn’t found in my (or any preacher’s) rhetorical abilities. I may be able to offer a stemwinder of a sermon, but if it only points back at me and not on to the message of Christ, then does it have any real value? As Mark Achtemeier puts it:

One would not want to use Paul’s point to excuse poor preaching, but it does point to a truth that preachers know all too well: The person in the pulpit does not have power to create faith in the hearers. Preachers bear testimony to the best of their ability, but it is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit to write God’s truth upon people’s hearts and bring them to faith. (Mark Achtemeier, “1 Corinthians 2:1-12 (13-16): Theological Perspective” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 1, WJK, 2010, p. 328)

Thus, bearing as we do the Spirit of God, we can bear witness to the light, we can be the salt of the earth, by making use of the gifts of the Spirit who bears witness to the Crucified One.

The Sermon on the Mount, which begins with the Beatitudes – what Stanley Hauerwas calls gifts to the church – now moves on to describe the nature of our existence in the economy of God. We are salt and light. As salt we act to conserve the well-being of this world that we inhabit, and as light our “good works” stand out in such a way that God receives glory.

As salt and light, we must attend to the Law of God. Now, in this section, Matthew’s Jesus takes on those who would claim that in the new order the law has been done away with. Do you hear echoes of an argument within early Christianity between those who would elevate the law and those who would rid the church of law. Paul seems, at points, to throw the Law under the bus, but here we are given a reminder that the Law has not been abandoned. Now it is possible that Jesus will redefine the Law, but he makes quite clear that not one letter or even one stroke of a letter will pass away, so there isn’t any room here for those antinomians (anti-law) folks to hang their hats. In fact, Jesus even tells the teachers that they’ll be held liable if they teach the people to disobey the law. Your righteousness, Jesus tells the people, must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees. I have been reminded that as we listen for the meaning of this verse, we need to remember that this is a caricature of the Pharisees. The purpose of this passage, though, seems to be one of pointing us back to the message of Isaiah 58. It’s not our staying true to the ritual that God considers ultimate, but the way we treat one another. Justice and mercy and humility – these are the markers of Jesus’ message, a message to which we’ve been called to bear witness.

If we will act justly and humbly, then we can be salt of the earth and a light to the world.

The Human Face of God

Many years ago Karl Barth wrote an essay on "the humanity of God."  In that essay he wrote about the paradox of bringing together the deity and the humanity of God.  Of course, for Barth this is a question that involves Christology.  He writes:

In Jesus Christ there is no isolation of man from God or of God from man.  Rather, in Him we encounter the history the dialogue, in which God and man meet together and are together, the reality of the covenant mutually  contracted, preserved, and fulfilled by them.  Jesus Christ is in His one Person, as true God, man's loyal partner, and has true man, God's.  He is the Lord humbled for communion with man and likewise the Servant exalted to communion with God.  He is the Word spoken from the loftiest, most luminous transcendence, and likewise the Word heard in the deepest, darkest immanence.  He is both, without their being confused but also without their being divided; He is wholly the one and wholly the other.  Thus in his oneness Jesus Christ is the Mediator, the Reconciler, between God and man.  Thus He comes forward to man on behalf of God calling for and awakening faith, love, and hope, and to Godon behalf of man, representing man, making satisfaction and interceding.  Thus he attests to man God's free grace  and at the same time attests and guarantees to God man's free gratitude.  (Barth, Humanity of God, p. 46-47) 

James Dunn, in his book Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? (see review here), comes at the question from a somewhat different angle, but he too posits the idea that Jesus is the "human face of God."  This is, he believes the confession of John's Gospel.  Jesus is the "one who made the unseen God known and known more clearly and more fully than he had ever been known before.  In  a real sense that the first Christians could only explain inadequately, to be in the presence of Jesus was to be in the presence of God -- not, be it noted in the presence of a god, but in the presence of God" (Dunn, Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?, p. 122-123).   

Although the confession that Jesus is the human face of God affirms that when we approach Jesus, see Jesus, experience Jesus, we are in the presence of God, that doesn't mean that we are to worship Jesus as a substitute for God.  He is, as both Barth and Dunn seem to suggest, the mediator, the point of contact with God, in which and through which we are invited to worship the living God.  Jesus is the definitive Word (Logos) of God, but Jesus is not the Father -- the one who ultimately deserves our worship and adoration. 

Does that mean we can't have a conversation with Jesus?  No, that's not the idea -- but if that conversation doesn't lead us through Jesus to God the Father then the ultimate conversation has been short-circuited.  But as Dunn is very clear in his book, even if we do not worship Jesus directly, Jesus defines what it means for to worship as Christians. 

Hannah's Child -- A Review

HANNAH’S CHILD: A Theologian’s Memoir. By Stanley Hauerwas. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2010. xii + 288 pages.

In 2001, just one day before the events of 9-11 transpired, Time Magazine announced its selection of Stanley Hauerwas as America’s most important theologian. Although there may be dissent as to whether Hauerwas deserves the honor, the fact that a general news magazine would deem the Duke Divinity School theologian and ethicist worthy of the honor suggests that he has impacted America’s religious and public life. But, who is Stanley Hauerwas? What has he done and said and written that has attracted the attention not just of the religious press but the secular press as well?

Memoirs offer persons of note the opportunity to define themselves, to lay out their own sense of who they are and how they became the person the public thinks they know. The author of this memoir seems to find it difficult to recognize himself in many of these portrayals, for in the very first sentence of the book he writes: “I did not intend to be ‘Stanley Hauerwas’” (p. ix). In making this statement he notes that there is a person out there who goes by this name, a person who is “allegedly famous,” but the question remains, who is Stanley Hauerwas? In this book, Hauerwas, the son of a West Texas bricklayer, tells how his parents married late and thus had a child late in life. The title of the book comes from the fact that his mother borrowed the prayer of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, and prayed that if she were blessed with a child, then she would dedicate this child to God’s ministry. It is the burden of this prayer that served as the guiding principle of his life, for not only did his mother pray this prayer, but she also shared this news with her son. The memoir is essentially Hauerwas’ reflection on how he moved from being Hannah’s child, the one dedicated to God’s service before his birth, to the person he is today, a person who with great difficulty and struggle, came to understand himself to be a Christian, so that his life is now “unintelligible if the God we Christians worship does not exist” (p. x).

As a reviewer, I came to this book having read here and there in Hauerwas’ writings. I know him more by reputation than by any close reading of his works. I have read the critiques of his work and know a number of his students, people who have been influenced not only by his writings but by his teaching and by their interactions with him. From these “encounters” with Hauerwas, all from a distance, I knew he had a reputation for being profane and for being a pacifist. I knew he embraced the call to community but found him – through my “at a distance” reading – to be too quick to abandon the public square. Not all of my preconceptions have been proven wrong, but I have come to have a greater appreciation for the man behind the headlines.

The story begins in Pleasant Grove, Texas, outside Dallas. As noted earlier, his father was a bricklayer, and his father and grandfather had been bricklayers. Early on in his life, Hauerwas took up his father’s trade, and probably would have been a brick layer himself, had his mother not dedicated him to God’s service. The calling came through his mother, but from his father he learned how to work hard. He also learned the words he would become famous for uttering in polite society. As for the prayer and the dedication of his life, Hauerwas wished that his mother had refrained from sharing the news, but he also believes that it was this prayer that made him the person he is today. Had he not known of this calling, which he confesses may have limited his autonomy, but ultimately, that may not have been a bad thing.

Autonomy, given my energy, probably would have meant going into business and making money. There is nothing wrong with making money, but it was just not in my family’s habits to know how to do that. All we knew how to do was work, and we usually liked the work we did. As it turns out, I certainly like the work Mother’s prayer gave me (p. 4).

Before this calling could be fulfilled, Hauerwas would have to be saved. Although baptized at Pleasant Mound Methodist Church, being saved was a long process, one that didn’t truly take until he became a theologian. Carrying the burden of service to God, he knew he had to go to college, something no one in his family had ever done. Encouraged by his teachers and by his ministers, he became an avid reader, so that even before he went to college he was reading history and philosophy. This need to study for ministry took him to Southwestern College, a place at which he discovered he didn’t really fit in. He was of working class stock and yet he has spent his life in academia. It was at Southwestern that he met the first of his mentors, a professor who would guide his studies and helped him navigate both life and faith. It was there that he discovered a love of philosophy, which would undergird his work as a theologian and ethicist. Despite the direction that his life was taking, he still wasn’t sure that he was a Christian. But during this time he discovered that “to be a Christian meant that you could never protect yourself from the truth” (p. 11). This discovery, combined with his working class Texas background helped contribute to another aspect of Hauerwas’s reputation – his straightforwardness and desire to get to the heart of the matter. It was a quality that would get him into trouble on many occasions during his academic career.

One of the traits that he mentions throughout the book is a lack of self awareness, or perhaps better, a lack of knowledge of the rules of etiquette, a trait that has led to misunderstandings. It was also a trait that seems to have led to a disastrous marriage to a woman he met in college. He seemed to fall into the marriage, quite unaware of what it involved, or Anne’s mental stability. The story of his relationship with his late wife, forms a significant part of the book, for he was by his own report left to do much of the child rearing and family duties. There was a fear of her hurting herself, and even him, whom she blamed for all her problems. The marriage lasted nearly a quarter century before she left, driven along by her own mental illness. Later he would meet a woman, one who would become his wife and his intellectual partner. There is a sense of healing that emerges out of this later story, even as he grieves what had come before. All of this helps humanize the well-known theologian. While there is this lack of social self awareness and the problems that developed as a result of his first marriage, we also see the devotion that he has to his son Adam, with whom he spent significant time, as he was functioning essentially as a single parent. Beyond this, we discover the importance of friendships to his life. Especially during the years at Notre Dame and Duke, more and more people came into his life – colleagues, students, church members. In the epilogue, he notes that his ability to write the book is a “testimony to friends,” for he confesses that without these friendships he would never have survived.

If friendships and family form a significant part of the story, so too does his developing theology and his commitment to the church as community. Going to Yale, he discovered Karl Barth whose discomfort with natural theology helped form Hauerwas’s commitment to a revelational theology, one that is Christocentric and rooted in community. Although Hauerwas is Methodist his understandings of church, society, and theology have been formed in conversation with Lutherans at Augustana College and Catholics at Notre Dame. He was influenced by James McClendon and John Howard Yoder, one a Baptist and the other a Mennonite. Yoder would become his colleague at Notre Dame. He seems to have thrived at Notre Dame, becoming more catholic in his perspectives. Later, as things began to change in his department at Notre Dame, he moved to Duke Divinity School, which put him back into the Methodist orbit. Although this was a good fit in many ways, bringing him into contact with new conversation partners, he did have troubles with his dean. One of the partnerships that proved fruitful was with William Willimon. What is interesting is that despite the fact that Hauerwas has a distinctively negative view of church growth perspectives – so much so that he eventually left the UMC church he had long been a member of after it turned in that direction and became an Episcopalian -- he makes no mention of Willimon’s increasingly vocal emphasis on numbers and growth since becoming a Methodist bishop.

What is clear about Hauerwas’ perspective is that he believes strongly that what one believes influences what one does. He believes strongly that God works through the church to bring transformation in the world – not by the church taking public political stands, but by living out the gospel. He’s all for interfaith dialogue and cooperation, but he urges Christians to own their own faith. He doesn’t put a lot of trust in public institutions, and while recognizing the frailty of the church, it is in the church that God is present. Ultimately, he believes that God is a necessary word, but “learning how to say ‘God is hard but good work.”

It is good work because the training necessary to say “God” forces us to be honest with ourselves about the way things. Are. Our lives are but a flicker. We are creatures destined to die. We fear ourselves and one another, sensing that we are more than willing to sacrifice the lives of others to sustain the fantasy that we will not have to die (p. 236).

What is important to understand about Hauerwas and his theology is that he is not easy to categorize. He speaks of himself as a conservative, and yet he is in many ways quite radical. He isn’t an evangelical, nor is he a classic liberal. He is influenced deeply by Barth, and yet isn’t a Barthian. His is a theology that is deeply philosophical, with Aristotle and Wittgenstein both being important influences on his thought. All of this may go a long way to explaining why he is so often misunderstood.

Whether one is a fan of Hauerwas or not, whether one agrees with his theology or not, this book is worth reading closely. It is honest and straightforward. In other words, it names names! It’s challenging in its content and yet graceful in its prose (and no there’s no profanity in the book). You will discover a man who is deeply flawed and yet committed to the God revealed in Jesus Christ. I’ve not jumped into the Hauerwas camp, but I do understand where he is coming from. I also appreciate the story of his faith journey, for it is a reminder that for many of us, salvation comes not in a moment in time, but often as we’re living in the midst of the community. Take and read, you will be enlightened, challenged, and maybe even blessed.