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Jesus Up Close

Last year Popular Mechanics announced that a team of British scientists, assisted by Israeli archaeologists, had fashioned "the most accurate image" of the face of Jesus. Assuming that Jesus would have looked like a typical Galilean Semite of his time, the scientists gathered skulls from that date found near Jerusalem and proceeded to reconstruct Jesus’ face.

I viewed the portrait with a group of seminary students and teachers. We all had the same reaction: this Jesus looked very little like the Jesus of our imaginings -- and not because we had assumed he was a blue-eyed blond. The purported "true image" wore a particular dumbfounded -- one might say stupid -- expression. His mouth was shown partially open and his wide brown eyes held a puzzled or somewhat worried expression. The caption "Who, me?" came to mind.

Pondering this image, I couldn’t help posing other questions: What exactly do we mean by a "true image" of Jesus? How appropriate or relevant is it to try to determine what Jesus really looked like?

As the Popular Mechanics article points out, no physical description of Jesus comes to us from the New Testament. If anything, the Gospels suggest that Jesus is hard to recognize, and may even take on different appearances, especially after the resurrection. For example, Mary Magdalene is cited as mistaking the risen Christ for the gardener (John 20:15). Two of the apostles walk the road to Emmaus with Jesus without realizing who he is -- "their eyes were kept from recognizing him" (Luke 24:15). In John’s Gospel, Jesus stands on the shore calling to the apostles in a boat, but from that distance they do not know him (21:4).

Over the centuries the followers of Jesus have made a host of portraits of him, but neither ancient nor contemporary artists have felt constrained by the need for historical accuracy. They have felt free to picture Jesus in many different guises and to affirm different images simultaneously.

I recently brought a series of pictures of Jesus to a confirmation class. These mostly white, middle-class children had no trouble recognizing Jesus, whether he was portrayed with a dark beard and a stern look or, with blond hair and a sweet expression. They had some preferences, laughed out loud at a few images, and were slightly disturbed by the image of Jesus as a woman. They wondered about the meaning of certain images but they did not ask "Which one is right?"

I think they realized that no one image could be correct. Jesus is baby and lamb, shepherd and Messiah, friend, judge, ruler and victim. In our hymns he is both "Beautiful Savior" and "Judge Eternal, throned in splendor" An enormous variety of representations have emerged from 2,000 years of Christian imagination, and we can find in these diverse images some element that identifies it as a portrait of Christ.

Not only is there no "accurate" visual representation of Jesus, but it is a heresy to insist that such a thing might exist. The heresy is that of limiting Christ’s character, nature or power by circumscribing his appearance. To put forth only one image as the "real portrait" of Christ is theologically untruthful. The Gospels’ account of his transfiguration testifies to the changeability of Christ’s appearance. One could argue that the four Gospels themselves offer four different portraits.

Some second-century church leaders did raise the question of whether Christ was handsome or ill favored. Origen took on the rumor, reported by the pagan critic Celsus, that Jesus had been ugly. Ugliness, in the mind of a traditional polytheist, was proof of his mere mortality and lack of divine status. Instead of simply denying the rumor, Origin (like Justin before him) claimed that Jesus’ unattractiveness fulfilled prophecy and he cited Isaiah 53: "He had no form nor comeliness that we should look upon him." At the same time, perhaps betraying his own discomfort with the rumor, Origen pointed to Psalm 45, which, according to his christological interpretation, claims that Jesus was the most handsome of men.

The question of what makes a true or false portrait, or whether a "true portrait" is even conceivable, vexed the ancient philosophers. The external appearance of a person was considered to be far less real than the invisible soul or mind, and so the possibility of representing a person through his or her physical appearance was denied. The recording of an external likeness was denounced by the third-century neo-Platonist philosopher Plotinus, who refused to allow his portrait to be painted, in part because he believed it only an "image of an image" (in true Platonist fashion), and in part because he rejected his material existence, claiming that its mortal fragility demonstrated that it was essentially untrue and unreal.

Most intellectuals of the first three centuries after Christ believed that the Divine One could not or should not be visually represented. Jews and pagans generally taught that the manifestation of God or the gods to humans usually took place in a mediated or disguised mode (through burning bushes or nocturnal visitors, for example). Moses, for example, was allowed to see only God’s backside (Exod. 33:17-23). But Christian doctrine proclaimed that in Jesus God was incarnate as a human being in historical time and space. Christians claimed that their god took on human bodily existence, and with it an actual human appearance.

Still, while claiming, that Jesus was a particular human appearance of God, the early church did not look for descriptions or portraits of Jesus "from life." In the earliest Christian images, Christ appears in different guises, often as a Good Shepherd, or like one of the youthful, savior gods from the Roman iconography of late antiquity. He is ordinarily beardless and youthful and wears long curls, but occasionally he looks older and wears the heavy beard of a philosopher. Sometimes he uses a wand to perform such wonders as changing water to wine or multiplying loaves and fishes. When he heals the sick, he lays his hand upon the sufferer. In most cases he is shown as no taller than his followers and no differently dressed.

In the mid-fourth century, artists started showing Jesus with a beard. He was shown enthroned as a ruler, lawgiver and judge as well as a savior, wonder-worker and healer. In some cases these different representations appeared in the same buildings -- apparently without causing a great deal of concern among viewers about which one was "correct."

Augustine of Hippo, aware that different artistic representations of Jesus were circulating, claimed that such variations were unavoidable since individual imaginations construct unique fabrications. The problem of verisimilitude, or even consistency, did not trouble him. Since no way exists to judge which image is closest to reality he said, the only nonnegotiable fact is that Jesus had a human face. In his treatise On the Trinity Augustine states that it is not "in the least relevant to salvation what our imaginations picture him like, which is probably quite different from the reality." What really matters is that we think of Jesus as a human being.

Most of the representations of Christ from the third and fourth centuries cannot be called "proper portraits," since they often appeared within complex scenes based on biblical stories, or were designed more to be symbolic or expressive than a record of a particular likeness. Only at the end of the fourth century do we see anything like a face of Christ presented alone, without background details or other figures in a narrative composition. Here again there were variations. Jesus was shown as old or young, bearded or unbearded, with light complexion or dark.

Did the rest of the Christian world agree with Augustine that Jesus had a particular human face, but that his particular appearance was immaterial to faith? That’s not clear. The belief that the Incarnate One possessed both human and divine natures raised a few additional questions on this matter: Did Christ’s divine nature also have an external appearance through its union with the human one? Was the human face of Jesus thus a manifestation of the invisible God? If so, how could Jesus be visually represented without danger, error or blasphemy? And if not, would his portrayal only in his human nature be incomplete or partial and thus untrue or even heretical? Was it better to aim for consistency or to deliberately project inconsistency in order to express the duality of Christ’s natures?

One response to this quandary is attributed to Eusebius of Caesarea in a famous (but possibly forged) letter to Constantine’s sister, Constantia. He rebuffed her request for a portrait of Jesus, saying: "What sort of image of Christ are you seeking? Is it the true and unalterable one which bears his essential characteristics, or the one which he took up for our sakes when he assumed the form of a servant?"

Other interpreters looked to verses in the New Testament presenting Christ as the "image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15). Moreover, two passages from the Gospel of John present Jesus himself as claiming some kind of visual identity with God: "Whoever sees me sees the one who sent me" (12:45) and "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (14:9). Such texts imply that the invisible God is made visible through the incarnation in a concrete and not simply mystical or anagogical way -- that those who saw Jesus in his earthly life also "saw" the first person of the Trinity. Such an interpretation was strongly argued by early-church writers, including Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Tertullian,

This claim -- that through the incarnation the invisible Divine became both visible and human -- marked a critical break with traditional Judaism as well as with Greco-Roman philosophy. The doctrine of the incarnation created a bridge between the created and uncreated worlds, between the physical and spiritual realms, and allowed the image itself to serve a mediating function. The visual representation of God was a vital link in the chain of reality and closed the gap between absence and presence. And so, in time, a portrait came to be accepted as a representative presence of a sacred model, one that inspired devotion and prayer -- an icon.

Although icons of Jesus or the saints claim to be some kind of "likeness," they do not claim to be "real" in the sense that the scientists cited in Popular Mechanic sought the "real" image. Nor do the makers of icons believe the image can "contain" or spatially limit the divine being. This aspect of icons separates them from Idols. Icon makers of all generations have been careful to emphasize the two-dimensionality of their images, elongating noses and enlarging eyes, breaking perspective and adding prominent frames, to ensure that the viewer does not mistake the image for something "real" or living.

A fascination with icons has emerged lately in the Western church. Many observers have concluded that the general suppression of images, especially within the Reformed traditions, has resulted in a kind of visual starvation and a consequent desire to reincorporate art into liturgy, devotional practices and church design. Icons, books about icons, and even video instruction on the Orthodox liturgy, have become best sellers in religious bookstores. Seminaries are now offering courses in icon painting and instruction on how to pray with icons.

People want to see the divine "face to face." They are fascinated not so much by how Jesus might have really looked as by how his image conveys his holiness, his character and his presence. We recognize that his "real" appearance transcends our human understanding of literal "truth" and our desire for consistency. When it comes to Jesus, a portrait is not an achievement of external verisimilitude, but a means for us to catch a fleeting and clouded glimpse of the divine, to allow the eye to see what the mind might not know unaided.

America’s Theologian

Book Review:

Jonathan Edwards: A life. By George M. Marsden. Yale University Press. 505 pp.

 

Only one portrait of Jonathan Edwards was painted during his lifetime, a rather conventional "likeness" done by the Boston-based painter Joseph Badger. The face is severe, aloof, unsmiling and suspiciously similar to many of the other faces in Badger’s 150 or so portraits from the 1740s and ‘50s. It turned out to be too severe for many of Edwards’s admirers over the years. As a result, later variations on the Badger portrait have appeared, variations that struggle to soften the remoteness of Badger’s image and even to curl the unrelenting edges of Edwards’s mouth into a smile. One of these, an 1877 lithograph by John Ferguson Weir, adorns the jacket of George Marsden’s new Edwards biography.

Thereby hangs not one, but two, tales. Marsden has won a distinguished place in American religious history, especially with his landmark history of American fundamentalism published in 1980. He has also been an effective advocate for evangelicals in higher education. In his 1994 opus, The Soul of the American University, Marsden detailed the erosion of religious viewpoints from America’s prestigious and elite universities, and argued passionately that secularized universities that pride themselves on diversity have no reason to practice the deliberate exclusion and demonization of religious thinking that openly prevail on their campuses.

At the same time Marsden has energetically urged evangelicals not to wait for an evangelical affirmative-action plan but to seriously pursue vocations in higher education, despite the risks and the discouragements. A product himself of the evangelical Protestant subculture, Marsden was one of a group of talented evangelical historians (including Mark Noll, Harry S. Stout, Nathan Hatch and Joel Carpenter) who has exhorted evangelical students to do good work to compete for places in the secular academy and to bury the long associations evangelical Protestantism has had with anti-intellectualism. Knit together by personal as well as professional ties, this group helped organize the Conference on Faith and History and the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals. Their creative studies of American religion forced astonished praise from secular critics, and won them teaching posts at Yale (Stout) and Notre Dame (Marsden) and highly influential administrative positions at Notre Dame (Hatch) and the Pew Charitable Trusts (Carpenter). They preached, they practiced and then they preached some more -- Noll in his best-selling jeremiad, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, and Marsden in his handbook for aspiring evangelical scholars, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship,

The work of Marsden and his colleagues has always had these two aspects: shaming the secular university for its bigotry, and exhorting other evangelicals to give the bigotry no reason for flourishing. If there is one figure these historians refer to, almost as a charm to deflect the bigotry and energize the faithful, it is Jonathan Edwards. In Noll’s catalog of evangelical under-performance, the shining exception is Edwards; Harry Stout’s impressive work The New England Soul (on the history of colonial New England preaching genres) lauds Edwards as the "one towering intellectual figure" among American evangelicals.

They have been helped to these claims by the fact that Edwards is the one serious evangelical figure that even secular historians have felt obliged to include in their syllabi -- even if it is only to use him as a point of departure before hurrying on to Franklin, Emerson and William James. So when Stout moved to Yale in the 1980s, it surprised no one that his greatest project became the revival of Yale’s intention to publish a scholarly edition of Edwards’s works, a project which had lain virtually moribund since the death of Edwards’s greatest secular remembrancer, Perry Miller; in 1963. With Stout as its new general editor, the project gained new funding and a new momentum. The Works of Jonathan Edwards now consists of 20 volumes and is the premier scholarly editorial project in American intellectual history.

As Stout took over, Noll became a member of the editorial committee, Marsden and Hatch were incorporated into the conferences the committee organized, and the whole endeavor thrived on funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Edwards scholarship became the primary showcase for the larger evangelical project: to produce intellectual work which would give the lie to the stereotype of evangelicals as mental hillbillies, and to set up a sweeping evangelical paradigm for up-and-coming evangelical scholars to emulate. It is only appropriate, then, that Marsden should have tackled Yale’s biography of Edwards, and that the dust jacket should sport not the Badger portrait, but the lithograph which the Yale Works has long used as its semiofficial image of Edwards.

Edwards’s life brackets the first half of the 18th century from 1703 to 1758. It was an age of divided minds, home to both Benjamin Franklin and the pietist August Hermann Francke, and Edwards’s life is a study in these divisions. Edwards was educated at Yale, which was supposed to be the firewall that Congregational conservatives were building against the apostasies of Harvard. But he presided over the creation of an evangelical New Divinity which turned out to be as lethal to his ancestral Calvinism as were the Boston liberals he opposed. He was (just as the Badger portrait implies) remote, priggish and staggeringly unsympathetic to the inconsistencies and unevenness of normal human behavior; yet his family adored him, and the ministerial students who came to study in his parsonage were almost sacrilegiously worshipful. He was a Calvinist intellectual, but his most extended philosophical treatise, on The Freedom of the Will, offers a model of human volition that sits suspiciously close to the blank materialist determinism of Thomas Hobbes.

Almost none of these complexities and contradictions ruffle the surface of Marsden’s chunky new biography. In the first place, the 18th century is clearly not Marsden’s scholarly element, he has picked up a smattering of 18th-century interpretive vocabulary -- the significance of hierarchy from Gordon Wood, the economic pressures plaguing Northampton from Patricia Tracy, the entangling web of kinship networks from Kenneth Minkema’s marvelous dissertation on the Edwards family -- but a careful survey of the footnotes does not reveal much reading beyond a fairly small shelf of secondary sources and, of course, the published texts of the Yale Edwards volumes.

That means that a variety of key manuscript sources for Edwards’s life (such as the journal Samuel Hopkins kept during his sojourn with the Edwards family in 1741-42, or the Joseph Bellamy letter books at the Presbyterian Historical Society) never make an appearance. Judging just from the notes, the Minkema dissertation is the backbone of this book, with George Claghorn’s edition of Edwards’s Letters and Personal Writings, (volume 16 in the Yale series) coming in a close second.

In the introduction Marsden promises "to tell the story of Edwards and his family with relatively few interpretive intrusions." This is a refreshing promise after a decade of postmodern biographies into which authors feel free to insert loopy personal fantasies and political self-congratulation. But those "few intrusions" are enormous, in terms of both substance and style. Substantively, the "largest theme" of this book is how "a religion that claims universal and exclusive truth" can fit "into a pluralistic environment." This is, of course, the theme that dominates The Soul of the American University and The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, and it suggests that the biography’s focus is not the Edwards of the 18th century but the evangelicals of the 21st, with Edwards as a stand-in and marker for them.

Stylistically, there is a breathlessness in Marsden’s estimates of Edwards that hints at trumpets and angel-choirs in the background. Edwards is fascinated "by the eternally momentous question of conversion"; his youthful self-examinations for the signs of grace were "honing a character of steel"; he is "working in similar worlds of discourse" as J. S. Bach; his preaching is "awe-inspiring"; his savage dismissal by his Northampton congregation in 1750 was caused by "his commitment to principle"; his "universe was similar to that of many of our own moral tales, from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings to countless lesser entertainments." (I am trying to imagine Solomon Stoddard as Gandalf or George Whitefield as a kind of Obi-wan Kenobi, but I just can’t.)

A more subtle kind of interpretive intrusion comes when Marsden lapses into traces of modern evangelicalese -- the vocabulary of "the last days" or portentous declarations that "the fires of the Holy Spirit were sweeping through the hearts of many of the people, spreading from one to another." And there is more than a little special evangelical pleading in those intrusions. The uneasiness with which modern readers react to Edwards’s most famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of Angry God," only shows for Marsden "how immense the gulf of assumptions is that separates most modern readers from the world" of the 18th century.

Fair enough, but then what is it about 18th-century people that makes "Sinners" so much more palatable to them than to modern readers? Marsden insists that that’s not the right question. The problem is with us: "Few today including many who affirm traditional Christian doctrines, have the sympathies to take seriously some of the deepest sensibilities" of those "ordinary 18th-century colonials." Once again, the focus is on modern incomprehension of evangelical uprightness, not on Edwards.

The paucity of primary research in Marsden’s book guarantees that there will be little in the way of new discoveries here. Most of what Marsden tells us about Edwards’s life follows the same path as Ola Elizabeth Winslow’s Jonathan Edwards (1940) and Iain Murray’s Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography (1986), or else repackages the research of Minkema and other Edwards scholars. Like Perry Miller (Jonathan Edwards [1949]), Marsden would like to imply that Edwards was a victim of the "transition from yeoman society to agrarian capitalism." But Miller wrote long before early American historians embraced "bottom-up" social history and turned to tax lists and probate inventories as sources for piecing together the world of colonial American. That social history from western Massachusetts in the 1750s shows very little evidence of anything that looks like serious enmeshment in transatlantic capitalist networks. That enmeshment would not begin in western Massachusetts until the 1820s, and Edwards himself thought that one reason for the comparative immunity of the Connecticut River valley from incursions of "Arminianism" was its remoteness from the coastal commercial towns.

It was not capitalism but Pietism which came the closest to enmeshing Edwards in transatlantic networks of discourse. Edwards scholars have long puzzled over why Edwards, in the Faithful Narrative of 1735 (the first publication which brought him international attention), used as his case studies in spiritual awakening a young woman, Abigail Hutchinson, and a four-year-old girl, Phoebe Bartlett. These were not the models most likely to persuade elite skeptics in a society as committed to hierarchy as Marsden portrays it. It is only when Hutchinson and Bartlett are placed against the template of conversion models in contemporaneous Pietist literature (such as the Silesian children’s revival described in W. G. Ward’s The Protestant Evangelical Awakening) that Edwards’s use of Hutchinson and Bartlett suddenly becomes part of a recognizable pattern. Yet Hutchinson and Bartlett get only one passing mention from Marsden, and Pietism disappears after a one-paragraph cameo appearance.

Still, I may be asking for attention to the trees when Marsden is after the forest. And the forest in this case is the idea that true evangelical faith and the highest flights of intellectual power, far from competing, are mutually energizing. Edwards’s "theological assessments" -- "regardless of whether one shares them" -- confer upon him a rare "prescience" of the "direction that Western thought, culture, and religion were heading." His "rigorous Calvinism" equips him with a timeless and totalizing capacity "to critically scrutinize his own era" and use "many of [its] categories and assumptions.., to criticize Its trends." Marsden’s Edwards, in other words, contains the same twofold endeavor which has dominated Marsden’s imagination from the start -- to show how good history can be done by evangelicals, and how the study of evangelicals can yield good history.

It would, I think, be safe to say that Marsden has written a life of Edwards the way Edwards would have liked such a life to be written. Edwards himself wrote such a biography about the tubercular missionary David Brainerd, whose journals Edwards rewrote and published in 1749 as An Account of the Life of the Late Reverend Mr. David Brainerd. Edwards presented Brainerd’s sacrificial mission to the Indians as the model of true evangelical piety. He made no great effort to provide context or to compile a bibliography of missionary treatises for comparison, and with a show of evenhandedness he acknowledged that Brainerd was not perfect, either in thought or deed. Nevertheless, Brainerd was, according to Edwards, "indeed a remarkable instance of true and eminent Christian piety in heart and practice." When we hear Marsden conclude that "Edwards, despite some evident shortcomings, was a saint according to the highest Reformed spiritual standards," we are not far from hearing what Edwards said of Brainerd. But this kind of assessment belongs to the lives-of-the-saints genre, not to history.

Can there be a biography of Edwards which avoids both the urge to make him into a preaching puppet and the tin-eared incredulity of the secular moderns Marsden criticizes? I think so, but this is not it. Like Miller’s Jonathan Edwards, which was less a biography and more of a tract for neo-orthodox times, Marsden’s Edwards will be remembered less as a biography and more as a period piece from the "evangelical surge" in American academic culture chronicled by Alan Wolfe and John Schmalzbauer. But it may also motivate the up-and-coming evangelicals Marsden has struggled to cultivate and encourage finally to write the Life that Edwards so richly deserves.

Reluctant Prophet (Lk. 4:14-21; 1 Cor. 12:12-31a)

The results of my efforts at a prophetic ministry have been mixed. I became a parish minister at the time when Barry Goldwater was challenging Lyndon Johnson for the presidency. The Democrats ran commercials that imagined an electoral victory by the warmongering Goldwater, then showed the world exploding. Seeing an opportunity to be involved in the really big issues of life I delivered a sermon on peacemaking. I barely avoided naming candidates or political parties, but the congregation got the message and laughed good-naturedly at my failed subtlety.

When Johnson won the election, he immediately adopted many of Goldwater’s aggressive Vietnam policies. I felt betrayed, and ended my career as a pulpit politician.

A few years later I was part of a pastoral staff in a large church in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. The congregation had been asked by an outside agency to undertake a project for racial reconciliation, but racial reconciliation was not on the agenda of this white, highly threatened church. Older members told me that race had never been mentioned from that pulpit. By then I was the father of a new baby and the husband of a wife with the early symptoms of a debilitating disease. I had lost any desire to be a martyr to noble causes. But the issue was unavoidable. I found myself almost paralyzed by fear one Sunday as I told the congregation as lovingly as I could that seeking racial justice was a part of the Christian calling.

The result of that sermon surprised no one. Most of the congregation expressed appreciation. Several were angry. Members of one family were so enraged that they promised never to return. But some stories have happy endings. That same family sought me out a few years later; thanked me for forcing them to face a blind spot in their faith, and returned to church more active and committed than ever.

Those early prophetic efforts may offer a helpful moral. When prophetic ministry is practiced for the wrong reasons, when its primary purpose is to nourish the ego of the speaker, faith is cheapened. Prophetic ministry is most effective when it is engaged reluctantly, when it’s difficult and even frightening, and when the speaker is compelled by a power that will not be denied.

In Jesus’ public reading in his home synagogue, he promised to put his strength at the disposal of the marginalized and encouraged his followers to do likewise. This passage challenges Christians to lay foundations on which communities of peace and justice can be constructed.

Interestingly, the passage from Luke is also a favorite of charismatic Christians, those who emphasize the activity of the Holy Spirit in the lives of individuals. They focus on the words about anointing, the sense of being grasped by the Spirit. For them those words are affirmation of their basic theological position.

A public reading of the passage will reveal which approach the reader takes. Charismatics put their emphasis on the early verbs: "anointed," "sent." Advocates of the social gospel slide more quickly through the first phrases, then put great weight on the nouns describing the objects of concern: the poor, the captives, the blind, the oppressed.

Seeing these two as mutually exclusive readings is a great mistake. Both the social gospelers and the charismatics identify real if bifurcated truths. The two readings need each other.

The advocates of a social gospel are correct in seeing this text as central to Christian commitment. Luke makes this event a coming-out party as it were -- the synoptic equivalent of John’s account of changing water into wine. Luke has Jesus define himself by his association with the dispossessed. The implication is clear: a Christian faith without a social dimension is a wimpish impostor. The individualism that runs unrestrained through many churches today is a late and tragic corruption of a communal tradition. Paul knew this. He dismissed individualism with a few incisive phrases: "When one member suffers, all suffer." "When one member is honored, all rejoice." As he enumerated the tasks of faith, being an apostle came first; being a prophet came second, preceding such essential tasks as teaching and heeling.

But the charismatics see another equally valid truth. Those who enter in to a prophetic ministry without proper motivation -- speakers who have no sense of being anointed by a persistent, nagging Power -- can damage faith as much as those who avoid the prophetic altogether. When we speak publicly on "the larger issues of life" simply because of the feeling of power such action provides, we risk ridicule. "What do those Christians know about economic policy?" "What do those Christians know about military strategy or international relations?"

The average Christian is not -- with some important exceptions -- an expert in sociology, economics or international affairs. So Christians, both clergy and lay, who address these issues out of faith must do so with appropriate humility. We can expect to be heard only when it is clear that we are grasped by something larger than ourselves.

The text, then, is about both calling and task. Those who speak out must be able to report: "I cannot refrain from doing this. I am anointed by, pushed by, inspired by One who will not let me express my faithfulness in any other way."

The opening scene of Jesus public ministry left no doubt: a commitment to Jesus involves a commitment to build communities of peace and justice. But first comes the calling.

Naming Names (Is. 43:1-7; Lk. 3:15-17, 21-22)

Rejoice, all who prepare weekly sermons. This is the year that Luke tells the story of Jesus’ baptism. Luke makes less of repentance as the basis or baptism than do the other two synoptic writers; in fact, the word "baptism" occurs only twice in Luke’s third chapter, and is not even included in this Sunday’s reading. Thus a potential problem is avoided. If Jesus lived without sin, as Paul insisted, why did Jesus undergo a "baptism for repentance"? Some have encouraged the church to reopen this question. But not this Sunday.

There is a second reason for joy. The reading omits three verses that cloud the issue of who baptized Jesus. Luke tells of people coming to John for baptism, then describes (verses 18-20) the arrest of John. Luke places the baptism of Jesus afterward, without saying who performed the act. We are left with a scene that is strikingly simple. Jesus was baptized, probably along with others. As Luke recounts the narrative, Jesus was praying when a physical being lit on him like a dove" and a voice announced that Jesus had found favor with God.

Luke, then, sees the baptism of Jesus as a setting apart. Jesus was called by a unique name: the beloved Son of God. With the name came a mission. But without the emphasis on sin and repentance, the reader is left with another dangling issue: Why are Jesus’ followers baptized?

Isaiah provides the threads by which Jesus and his followers are held together in the baptismal fabric. The prophet speaks for the Divine: "I have called you by name, you are mine." Placed in this context, all baptisms are a setting apart. Baptisms sets us apart in particular. They also set us apart in kind.

Names are the first means by which we are set apart, and baptism is a naming ceremony. This aspect of the rite has received little attention in recent times, when sonograms tell parents the sex of their offspring weeks prior to birth, and a name is attached before the umbilical cord is severed. By the time the child is brought to the altar his name is familiar to family and friends.

We make an admirable effort to pretend otherwise. Before the act of baptism, we refer to "this child" or "these children." Then comes the numinous moment when the church, through a local pastor, takes the child into its arms and asks, "By what name shall we baptize this child?" The parents respond with their chosen name. Only afterward does the liturgy allow the use of the child’s name. Religiously, if not practically, that which had no name has been given a name.

In our tradition, names are more than convenient tags by which we summon our offspring to dinner. Our names distinguish us from family and friends. They offer us the grace of individualization -- not to be confused with the sin of individualism.

Names participate in the object that is named. Thus the Decalogue teaches us to use the name of God with caution and respect. So, also, with people. One of the saddest sentences in our language says, "My good name has been sullied." Besmirching me and besmirching my name is the same act.

Names are sacred words by which we are individualized. Jesus, in baptism, received a new name. So do his followers,

Baptism also sets each of us apart as a particular kind of person -- one owned by God. ‘Those who have been baptized are called to live out the meaning of this remarkable reality. The unbaptized also belong to God, but they have had no public opportunity to announce and celebrate that fact; thus they are apt to feel no motivation to act on its implications.

Isaiah makes his point with such sparse, penetrating language that we are likely to miss its revolutionary nature. The idea that we belong to God is one of the most countercultural concepts abroad.

Multiple forces will attempt to re-define the child after she leaves the baptismal font. Commercial messages will attempt to convince her that she is owned by a great economic machine whose purpose is to make her a voracious consumer. Other voices will tell children that they belong to no one but themselves, that individualism is the supreme god. Government will attempt in myriad ways to establish its ultimate claim on our progeny.

Reinforcing the message of baptism should be the central task of the church. Yet churches often fail to confront the materialism of our consumption-obsessed society. Churches not only fail to challenge but often reinforce the deadly individualism that permeates Western culture. I am staggered by the ease with which the church yields its young men and women to Caesar to become cannon fodder in whatever adventures or misadventures Caesar contrives.

Those who have been baptized will be touched, but not controlled, by many forces. Some consumption is necessary. Individualization is a requirement of psychic development. Some persons will choose to be part of the military. The imprint of baptism, however, transcends all this.

Those who know that they are owned by God recognize that their primary identity is not as cogs in the economic machine. They acknowledge they cannot thrive on their strength alone. They realize they are not born to be sinew in the government’s military muscle. The baptism service has taught them who they are and whose they are.

Why was Jesus baptized? He was baptized so the Divine could set him apart -- could call him by name and claim him as God’s own, And that is why we are baptized.

Defining Moment (Ps. 36:5-10; Is. 62:1-5; John 2:1-11)

Even the Messiah had to adjust his schedule when events took a surprising turn. The story of Jesus coming-out event as told by John demonstrates his spiritual flexibility.

"My hour has not yet come." The phrase suggests that Jesus had hoped for a more carefully chosen setting for his first presentation of himself. In the political turmoil of first-century Judah. the way one called attention to oneself could be a matter of life or death. Jesus, understandably wanted to take on the heavy mantle of leadership in a considered manner. He did not want to stumble awkwardly onto the public stage.

Then came unexpected circumstances. He attended a wedding; the celebration went on and on; the wine ran out. A host family faced serious embarrassment. Mary, put in the rare role of a stage-managing mother, was confident her son could redeem the situation. Jesus objected. "My hour has not yet come."

The story fails to mention one of its most surprising but covert features: the ease with which Jesus surrendered his preplanned strategy and embraced a new possibility. He surely preferred whatever had been plan A; but he moved smoothly into plan B -- the opportunity presented by unexpected circumstances.

In the New Testament, the Greek word for hour, hora, is more often used in reference to kairos time than to cronos time: "The hour [hora] comes and now is when the true worshiper. . ." Hora is used in many gospel stories of mighty works to identify the moment of healing and in those cases it is usually translated "instantly."

Cronos time measures ordinary occurrences, events that "creep in this petty pace from day to day." Cronos time leaves the impression -- often false -- that we can control it, can enter it into our Palm Pilots and deal with its events on our own terms. Kairos time, by contrast, represents discontinuity when an unexpected barrier forces one to move off a planned course and adjust to new realities. Jesus had one schedule in mind. Circumstances pushed him in another direction. His hour his kairos moment, appeared before he wanted or expected it.

The wedding scene in Cana may have been constructed from a real event in Jesus’ life. But the careful reader will recognize the hand of John reconstructing the scene, building in multiple layers of symbolic meaning. At least three interpretations present themselves,

The first possibility is to see the story as a description of the contrast between what Jesus was about to offer and the inadequacy of ancient Judaism. According to this view, Judaism had exhausted itself. What was left was watery and tasteless. The finely fermented wine of Christianity was about to supplant it. Unfortunately this interpretation is consistent with an anti-Jewish theme that runs through the Gospel of John.

A second interpretation of the story focuses on the joy that characterizes the emerging realm of God. The setting was perfectly designed to point in this positive direction. Jesus had an opportunity to announce himself to people brought together by the exquisite happiness of the merging of two lives. His coming-out event was a party within a party, a celebration within a celebration. The work of Jesus began in a life-affirming setting. The sign of his ministry would be wine, a symbol of human conviviality and gladness.

Interpreted at the level of joy all traces of anti-Semitism disappear. This level builds appreciatively on Jewish tradition. The theme of joy is reflected in the Hebraic lessons for the day. The 62nd chapter of Isaiah begins with a wedding metaphor; the vindication of the divine will mean that Judah is no longer forsaken or desolate, for Judah will be the bride of none other than the Holy One. The psalm centers on hesed, the steadfast love that binds divine and human, the same force that holds bride and groom in secure relationship.

The third and perhaps most profound layer of meaning shows how the disruption of cronos time can be transformed into an event of kairos time. Jesus had been expecting an introductory moment that he could identify and control. Instead, his hora came upon him unexpectedly, pushed on him by circumstances and by his persistent mother.

The destruction of carefully constructed schedules causes people either to despair or to seek deeper sources of strength. A few years ago the news services carried an account of a wedding that was aborted by the groom at the last moment. The intended bride was left with her tears and enough food for an elaborate reception. Rather than waste the food, she sent messengers out to gather the homeless of the city. They were nourished by a feast planned for a very different group. This event represented more than a simple effort to find consolation in a tragic event, more than the classic shift from lemons to lemonade. In her personal tragedy the young woman recognized the possibility of significant witness. Cronos was transformed into kairos.

I have observed many such transformations. A vocational reversal forces a reevaluation of a person’s basic goals, causing a move into a style of work that is more productive and satisfying. A chronic illness closes doors so rapidly that every element of a worthwhile life seems beyond reach. The ill person makes the psalmist’s question her own: "From where does my help come?" Cronos into kairos.

One’s hour comes -- the kairos moment presents itself -- at the intersection of mangled plans and spiritual openness. Jesus demonstrated a creative response to an otherwise disconcerting surprise. The demonstration did more than launch him toward his goals; It embodied his goals.

Textual Appeal

Book Review:

An Introduction to the New Testament and the Origins of Christianity. By Delbert Burkett. Cambridge University Press,. 600pp., $80.00.

Introducing the New Testament: Its Literature and Theology. By Paul J. Achtemeier, Joel B. Green and Marianne Meye Thompson. Eerdmans, 614 pp.$35.00.

 

It’s the toughest job you’ll ever love. And no, it’s not the Marine Corps. Teaching an Introductory course in New Testament can be worthy of combat pay. This is especially true when most of the students are Christian.

Biblical scholars and their students have very different presuppositions regarding the Bible. If I could explain these presuppositions to my students, I thought, then we could begin to communicate. This strategy eased tensions tremendously. My students began to understand my reasons for making certain moves in interpretation and textbook selection. Nevertheless, teaching Christianity’s sacred texts to Christians can be dangerous -- a danger I try to deal with by structuring my New Testament course in a certain way.

‘No new Introductory textbooks for New Testament studies help clarify why I organize my course as I do. Delbert Burkett uses the historical-critical method as a means of reconstructing early Christian life and faith. Paul J. Achtemeier, Joel B. Green and Marianne Meye Thompson emphasize the New Testament canon as the foundational document of the church. Thompson’s syllabus includes a statement on the course’s relevance for ministry.

I have a particular preference -- actually a bias -- regarding how a course in New Testament should be taught, and I begin my course by making that preference clear. Like Burkett, I practice the historical-critical method. This means that I read scripture with an eye toward how the text fits into its larger historical context. There are, of course, other ways scriptural texts can be read: for their literary and aesthetic value, for example, or as a model for determining how one should conduct one’s life, which is the way most of my students read scripture. They are concerned with what the text means, whereas I am concerned with what the text meant. Acknowledging this difference is important because it informs the instructor’s theological perspective and has implications for her pedagogical style.

Achtemeier, Green and Thompson structure their book around their joint preference for studying the New Testament primarily as "the decisive witness to Jesus Christ and hence as normative for shaping Christian belief and practice." They approach the New Testament as a body of literature with a theological content that has meaning for the modern reader. By contrast, Burkett structures his work around his preference for historical investigation. This explains why his book begins with a chapter that emphasizes "the differences between the historical-critical method and the confessional method of studying the New Testament."

Though Burkett attempts to bring modern relevance to his investigation by adding discussion questions at the end of each chapter, these questions are few and far between. Bridging the chasm between past and present is difficult, and his book only underscores that difficulty. I prefer Burkett’s method over Achtemeier, Green and Thompson’s, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t use the latter work at all. If I used it, however, I would probably define my perspective over against that of the authors.

After explaining my perspective, I have to clarify what I want my New Testament course to accomplish. This breaks down into at least two additional questions. First, do I want the course to be an introduction to the discipline of biblical scholarship, or do I want it to be an introduction to the New Testament texts? An introduction to the discipline involves familiarizing students with the history of interpretation and its present practitioners. An introduction to the texts involves orienting students to the various types of literature that make up the New Testament, and the claims or arguments of each. The lectures in my introductory courses are aimed at acquainting students with the texts themselves, while the textbooks I choose introduce them to the discipline.

Second, do I want this course to be an exercise in intellectual or in theological formation? Emphasizing intellectual formation means making connections between this body of literature and the wider project of humanistic inquiry. Theological formation means looking at the New Testament as a document of the church meant for the edification of practitioners of the faith. Since I teach students working for their master of divinity degrees, I want the course to be an exercise in theological formation and thinking. I want my students to see the New Testament as a basic document that informs preaching, teaching, counseling and administration. They should view it as a resource for constructing modern theological claims.

Burkett’s book is more of an introduction to the discipline. It discusses such issues as the two-document hypothesis, the quest for the historical Jesus, proto-orthodoxy in the New Testament and the authorship of the disputed Pauline letters. In addition, it includes discussions of various noncanonical Christian materials, including the apocryphal gospels (e.g., the Infancy Gospel of Thomas). This gives the reader a broader perspective on Christianity as a historical movement involving various manifestations of the faith. It complicates our understanding of Christianity’s development because it follows the historian’s method of not privileging an orthodox theological perspective. Thus, it is an exercise in intellectual formation. Because Burkett, associate professor of religious studies (New Testament and early Christianity) at Louisiana State University, teaches in a liberal arts setting, he is obligated to make connections between these Christian documents and other forms of humanistic inquiry.

Achtemeier, Green and Thompson -- from Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Virginia, Asbury Theological Seminary and Fuller Theological Seminary respectively -- teach at freestanding seminaries devoted to ministerial formation and theological thinking. Their introduction reflects this environment. Though it discusses some of the same disciplinary Issues found in Burkett’s book, it is an exercise in theological thinking, Their book intentionally gives privileged place to textual engagement over disciplinary analysis. Both books are balanced in their presentations of scholarly material, but their fundamental orientations ultimately determine how that material is to be read in relation to the New Testament documents themselves. In this instance, I would be more likely to choose Achtemeier, Green and Thompson over Burkett because I teach in an environment that has more in common with theirs than with Burkett’s.

The third thing I do when teaching a course in New Testament is to "guesstimate" my students’ interest in the topic. Some students have a purely confessional interest. That is, they want to see how the New Testament can assist them in their personal faith journeys. Others have a more professional interest. They want to be equipped to negotiate and apply the basic documents that constitute the core of Christian faith and proclamation. Still others have more intellectual interests. They are intrigued by why the New Testament says what it does on questions important to human existence generally. And, finally, some students are resistant to any academic approach to biblical interpretation whatsoever, These students are interested in theological education only because their denominations require it for ordination. This is the toughest group of students to teach. They don’t want to be in your classroom, and they let you know it. Enticing them into an interest in New Testament studies can be difficult. Yet this is my target group. If I can interest them, then the rest of the class will find their interests met in the process.

Achtemeier, Green and Thompson attempt to address students who have a keen interest in the New Testament because they are committed to Christian thinking and practice. Burkett has a much tougher job. He has to convince students in a liberal arts environment that the New Testament is meaningful to their overall educational experience. He makes the study of the New Testament an entirely intellectual matter. This is reflected in statements such as, "in an academic setting . . . we treat Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and all other religions in the same way: we seek to understand them, not necessarily to adopt or practice them." I prefer this aspect of Burkett’s approach to Achtemeier, Green and Thompson’s because my goal is to interest those students who do not see the relevance of studying the New Testament for their lives and ministries. Take, for example, the student interested in social-justice issues. She may see the New Testament as oppressive, reflecting the biases and interests of certain ancient elites (i.e., literate individuals who own commodious dwellings and support patriarchal social institutions). If this student can be convinced that the foundational Christian documents can be interpreted in ways that address modern social concerns, then these documents can take their rightful place as an indispensable source of Christian identity and practice. Burkett’s bibliographies provide a basis for this approach in ways that Achtemeier, Green and Thompson’s do not.

Finally, I try in my course to create an environment in which a "fusion of horizons" can take place. In my vision of the ideal teaching environment my scholarly preferences, my goals for the course and my students’ interests would come together. This fusion does not necessarily solve all classroom problems. And some classroom tension is good. It keeps us on our toes. It also allows us to move among a variety of perspectives. I tell students that conversion to my perspective is not the goal of my courses, nor do I want them to uncritically adopt the perspective of the textbook. I want them to see both me and the textbook as critical conversation partners for their own perspectives. You could say that my vision for an introductory course is discordia concors, the harmony or unity gained by combining disparate and conflicting elements.

I must admit that this fusion of horizons does not always occur. So my final pieces of advice regarding the creation of an introductory course in New Testament would be first, ora et labora (pray and work), and second, provide a resource for students that can be re-engaged later in their lives. To pray may sound like an odd piece of advice from a historical critic, but just because the efficacy of prayer cannot be critically analyzed does not mean that I exclude its revelatory capacity from my life. Prayer in conjunction with action forms a dynamic framework for teaching.

The right textbook can be an invaluable resource for students later in life. I may not be able to create the best environment for critical inquiry for every student. However, I hope that by selecting the right textbook I give my students an opportunity to engage the New Testament on their own. For many, this will be the only introductory work on the New Testament they will ever own and read. It is important that the text include resources for further study. Again, here I would choose Burkett over Achtemeier, Green and Thompson because he provides a more diverse set of readings for further consideration. But I cannot say conclusively that I will adopt Burkett for my course, nor would I reject the other textbook entirely. Both provide certain perspectives on the conduct of New Testament scholarship that are crucial for the successful creation and execution of an introductory course.

Parking Lot Palms (Hebrews 5:1-10)

"We are now seen by the world as having joined the ranks of those who know poverty in a way we have not experienced it ever before. There have been wars, depressions and tragedies of major proportions, but this one [September11] somehow is different. This time the blow has staggered us. . . . We are a people of great wealth and resources who for a moment have the opportunity to join Lazarus in a beggar’s view of the world. We can learn an incredible lesson from down here about values and priorities, about needs and wants, about the way much of the rest of the world views us. It is an opportunity the rich man of the parable did not have until it was too late. It is the ‘wisdom of the poor.’ If we can grasp this wisdom, perhaps we will alter our prayer from ‘God bless America’ to God make America a blessing to all the nations of the world"’ (Pastor Richard Michel, Trinity Lutheran Church, Staten Island).

The early believers grasped on to an image of Jesus as the priest who is in solidarity with humanity at its most vulnerable. The Book of Hebrews gives us a vision of divine solidarity "able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward since he himself is subject to weakness." The one who "offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears," Is the one who "learned obedience through what he suffered."

Ministries to and with the poor are usually the road not taken by seminaries, candidates, programs, initiatives, resources. The massive effort by the whole world to be at Ground Zero in person, prayer and support magnifies the ground zeros we have missed: AIDS, spending more for jails than schools in some of our communities, the 20 million American children who go to bed hungry every night, the grinding poverty of much of the world. Jimmy Carter told us once that the hardest thing to do in this world is for a person in poverty and a person of privilege to be placed in the same room together.

Electra was four years old and lived with her mother in a welfare motel among prostitutes and drug abusers and the poorest of the poor. At a Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless, a pastor met Electra and her mother and invited them to stay with her for a weekend. Electra noticed that her new friends prayed before meals and implored them, "Please, teach me the God words." She then taught them to her neighbors in the motel. Her mother told us that the child could no longer bite into a peanut butter sandwich without making everyone around her say the God words.

Our great high priest chooses to stand with these people, and from their midst to renew the church and teach it once again the God words.

"Every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf."

When you invite the poor they come. Edgar lived alone in the same motel as Electra. He often walked two miles to our church. He was a bit rough around the edges and would sometimes get loud and demanding. My heart sank on Palm Sunday when he was waiting in the sanctuary for me after a full day of liturgies, first communions and pastoral conversations. I knew that Edgar would need a ride and some of my time, some bits and pieces of what I could produce toward his survival, and I wanted to go home.

On the drive back to his motel he talked my ear off and criticized the sermon. I prayed for patience. When I pulled into the parking lot of the run-down motor inn, a door opened and an elderly woman emerged. She knocked on another door and another elderly woman peeked out. They limped to our cart. Others waiting at the edges of the parking lot followed. I realized that they were expecting us. For the first time I noticed that Edgar’s hand grasped a bunch of palms. He had promised to bring his neighbors palms from our liturgy.

With all his rough edges, Edgar was the only person who passed for a pastor in that backwater parish of broken souls. There could be no more fertile soil for biblical "church growth" than this concrete parking lot and these waiting children of God and their wisdom "from below."

He gave the elderly lady a palm branch through his window and she clutched her piece of palm as if it were the Hope diamond. I watched in awe as the palms from our liturgy were distributed among those like Jesus "in the days of his flesh." Edgar got out of the car. "Bless us!" he commanded me. I got out of the car, blessed their palms, placed my hands on each forehead and pronounced benediction. If I had had bread and wine I would have fed them right there.

"He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness . . . So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him, "You are my Son. Today I have begotten you."

Our context for mission must have something to do with turning our church’s life toward a motel of "priests according to the order of Melchizedek," as well as the deep corporal and spiritual needs shared by all humanity in the solidarity at Ground Zero.

God willing, our lamentations are not the isolation and depression of wounded entitlement or private grief, but the community at the foot of the cross moving outward in solidarity and love toward the sorrow of the world for which Jesus "learned obedience through what he suffered."

At Ground Zero (James 5:13-20)

Are there any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord" (James 5:13,14).

 

I looked down at the familiar face of a young woman dying of AIDS. Her breathing was ragged, her eyes closed. Ramona was a leader of her struggling inner-city church, with an infectious and earthy love of her Lord. She had become a friend in the Diakonia lay training program and at some point we had switched roles: she became the teacher and I the student.

Her struggle with her illness was also a struggle of faith, and she had shared much of it with me: her anger and struggle to forgive her husband, whose intravenous drug use had visited this disease on her; her worry about her children and her parents; her elation and depression as she rode the rhythms of AIDS; her determination to maintain a strong interior landscape as her body deteriorated; her daily search for Jesus in all of it; her anguish at the swath this disease was cutting through the black community.

Now she was too weak to speak, but nodded her head toward my communion set. The faith is never more carnal and touching than when we are in the presence of suffering or illness. We proceeded with what Father Divine called the "tangibillification of God." I communed her with the tiniest bit of wafer, anointed her head with oil and prayed for God’s healing presence. We shared a blessing. I sat down and held her hand.

"I would like to give you a gift," her father said to me from his chair in the corner. He rose and in a deep voice recited a poem titled "Heaven’s Grocery Store," He gestured, his voice rising and falling dramatically as he became consumed by his poem and oblivious to those who stopped by the door to listen. His gift to me for caring about his daughter was also his way of telling her that heaven awaited her.

With a nod of her head, Ramona had confessed her faith. With a poem from his oral tradition, her father confessed his. In a hospital room in Bayonne, New Jersey two children of God made the church’s ancient confession their present quiet joy.

"Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise." The pastor lay in bed in a Brooklyn hospital, fighting the last stages of brain cancer. We spoke of many things, but the conversation repeatedly returned to the people and ministry of the Bronx congregation where he had served as interim pastor. His gently loving and patient pastoral ministry had helped the parish grasp a hopeful vision of the future. Their history of conflict and heartbreaking decline had many wondering if there was any future for this parish. His ministry provided space for healing and reconciliation. He loved the people of the parish back into confidence in their giftedness and potential. In the hospital bed this pastor spoke of his love for Fordham Lutheran Church in the Bronx.

Again the carnal "tangibillification" of the church. Bread and wine. "The Lord be with you . . . lift up your heart" echoing the prayers and songs of generations of faith. Oil traced on a sweaty fevered forehead reminding us of baptism and healing presence. It was like a revelation to this pastor. He ate and drank and was touched by oil, and he gave me a knowing smile. "So," he said, "This is what I have been doing."

"Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them. Anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord."

Members of his congregation gathered frequently at his bedside. They sang his favorite hymns, prayed, shared favorite passages from scripture. By their faith and presence, they reminded him of resurrection hope. The pastor whom God had sent to heal the heartbreak in the life of this parish was now visited in his own vulnerability at the gate of death.

"Are any among you suffering? They should pray."

We watched in horror from our 16th-floor office window as both towers lit up, then fell into a cloud of smoke and ash. Then we gathered in the chapel of the Interchurch Center with hundreds who came to pray, not knowing the fate of loved ones. I asked the people to name the folks in their hearts and their concern as our prayer before God. The chapel rang out with the precious names of loved ones, spoken through clenched teeth, strained and breaking voices.

Sitting next to a soot-covered survivor on a bench who was screaming hysterically as bodies rained from the sky, a pastor’s wife (who had just escaped from Tower One) takes her hand and quotes Romans 8: "Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord."

A chaplain anointed the foreheads of firemen with oil. Later survivors remembered seeing glistening foreheads rushing past them toward rescue . . . and death, living out baptismal vocation.

At Ground Zero, breathing lightly through my mask, I searched for hope. Then this came to me like a gift: we are already buried. "Do you not know that you have been buried with Christ Jesus by baptism unto death? So that as Christ was raised by the power of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life."

Carnal grace.

Cemetery Picnic (Gen. 2:15-17; 3:1-7)

Chang Lee survived two brutal wars in his mother country, Korea. He lived through the dangers posed by Japanese bombs, Chinese howitzers, North Korean minefields and American carbines. But he did not survive an encounter with a mugger in the hallway of his own apartment in the U.S. He was brutally stabbed, and died at the age of 80.

Chang Lee’s family were members of the parish I served in Queens. Two hundred people came to the funeral. Lessons and prayers were offered in English and Korean. The casket was set up like a Shinto shrine, with pictures of the deceased, flowers and two posters with Korean ideograms. One poster gave biographical details; the other, the 23rd Psalm.

A motorcade of 40 cars wended its way down the crowded Long Island Expressway to the cemetery. After the graveside committal, each family member bowed low before the casket in respect and deference to their new ancestor in the communion of saints. Then something remarkable happened. The entire funeral party began walking from the grave to a nearby grove of trees, where they spread out blankets, food and drink and had a picnic. One of the family came over to me and smiled, handing me a sandwich and a soft drink. "Eat and drink, pastor, enjoy! Life goes on!" And so it did. We ate and drank among the tombstones, celebrating life in a place of the dead transformed.

The elementary act of eating and drinking in the graveyard echoed that first Eucharist in the Garden of Eden. God took man and put him in the garden to till it and keep it, and then commanded, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden."

Eating and drinking is primal communion with God. The hunger of our first parents was for God, who made Adam and Eve priests and told them to bless all creation by acknowledging the Creator. Each animal, plant and seed was shot through with the presence of God. The life between the man and the woman, marking the end of their loneliness, was also a gift. Life was sacramental, with every moment, every morsel of food, every surprise of beauty leading directly to the Giver of all good gifts. The entire world was Eucharist, with the human being receiving it from God and offering it to God by naming and tending creation. The humans were to bless, to name, to take responsibility; to eat and drink and partake with reverence and thanksgiving -- that was the eucharistic life of humanity in the midst of God’s creation.

But then the garden became a graveyard, a wilderness. When a former mayor of New York walked through the neighborhoods he used to ask residents, "How am I doing?" That is our question to the things of this world. Instead of offering the creation to God and receiving life from God through the creation, we look to creation to reflect and fill us. We are spiritual hypochondriacs, consumers of privatized religion, seekers of the salvation of our own souls and bodies. The graveyard is a hall of mirrors.

To us, people are objects, not subjects of their histories. We feel helpless and lack control over decisions that affect the life of our world. We’ve lost created solidarity, the collective power for naming and tending in the world. We argue over who will nurture our children, give them their communal stories, shape their public life. The red-and-blue state divide is a political hall of mirrors in which we cannot connect with each other. We make the private public and the public private. In the wilderness of the graveyard a poor person and a person of privilege never have to encounter one another.

Today we retreat from participation in decisions that shape our world into a narcissistic hall of mirrors. We have sold our God-given mandate to participate in the life of the world as worship of the Creator for a mess of privatized pottage. Even the Sunday eating and drinking is often a private affair, a picnic in the hall of mirrors, a catered escape from the world.

But Eucharist can still be a sign that Jesus, "the pioneer and perfector of our faith," has entered the wilderness, was tempted as we are, and remained faithful to his created vocation. Jesus said, "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him."’ As the ministering angels served him, the wilderness and graveyard again became Eucharist in the garden.

In the eating and drinking the church becomes the eucharistic presence of Christ in the world. Those who have been filled with the presence of Christ in communion also see the presence of Christ in a picnic in the cemetery. The church in the world understands that the reign of God, like an early shoot from a hidden seed, is breaking out in all the dark, anonymous corners of creation.

As creation is transformed at the altar in its journey with Christ to the Creator, God’s people see all that lies before them with new eyes. The kingdom, though "not yet," is "even now." Long ago it was the fervent desire of the faithful to be buried near the graves of the martyrs. When people of means died they provided copious amounts of food to be placed on their graves, and expected the poor to visit the graves and eat and drink in the presence of the departed. It was also expected that the poor would offer prayers to the God of creation on behalf of the departed. And so -- even now -- in the eating and drinking and praying among the tombstones, life goes on, on this side of eternity and on the other.

Marias Full of Grace (Gen. 12:1-4a; Mt. 17:1-9)

Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. . . So Abram went . . . [and] built there an altar [Schechem] to the Lord . . . and pitched his tent . . . and invoked the name of the Lord" (Gen. 12:1,4,7,8).

An economic migrant -- a desert nomad -- leads his family toward a land of promise, believing he is following the will of his Creator. And so begins the great trek for new life, survival, redemption. He will find danger, so much danger that he plans to pass his wife off as his sister. It is a trek repeated today in the heat of the Sonoran desert, in boats from Africa running ashore in southern Europe, in the hulls of boats from Fujian province to the shores of Long Island. When Abram finds hope, welcome and signs from God along the way, he builds an altar and calls on the name of God. His journey is a trail of altars leading home.

"I found us," said our daughter Rachel after a visit to Ellis Island where she read our family name on the museum’s wall. "We find us" as we read of Abram’s migration. This is the beginning of our family journey. The altars at which we worship on the Lord’s Day are our Schechem and Bethel, places of refreshment, hope and confirmation of the journey home.

In the movie Maria Full of Grace, Maria swallows some pellets filled with cocaine, aiming to transport them to the U.S. If the plastic breaks, the cocaine will kill her. She is fleeing Colombia, with its dead horizons and numbing poverty, and heading out to a land of promise. She reminds us of that other Mary, her baby and their migration to Egypt.

When I visit Jackson Heights, Queens, I recognize every building, bodega and travel agency alongside the Roosevelt Avenue #7 train -- this is the site of my first parish. I know all too well that this is no setting for a Hallmark card of a Mary traveling to an idyllic heavenly tableau. I remember shots in the night in this neighborhood, and three people killed across the street from the parsonage. I remember death threats when our community organization tried to take on a pusher. I remember children from the next block who were kidnapped and killed by the cartel. I know Mamas full of grace who have found a Bethel at our little church. If Mary were traveling today, she would be hounded and despised: in our time we think security means turning our backs on the stranger and blaming them.

"And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun. . . . But Jesus got up and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone (Matt. 17: 2, 7, 8).

Transfiguration. For a brief, shining moment on the migration to Jerusalem and the cross, God gave them what they needed to believe. Another Schechem in the trail of Abram’s altars. Here is what transfiguration looked like a few years ago in the streets of New York. You are driving along the FDR at night, you notice a car coming up on the right, sparks flying along the concrete. You think, "The poor guy’s losing his tire." You slow down, drift to the left, watch the other car careen off the side of the road. Then blam! His tire tears into your car. Glass is flying, the front windshield and the roof are coming in on you. . . you smell fresh air and fresh blood.

It happens just like that. You lose a job. Your water runs out in the Sonoran desert and you lie down to die. The doctor diagnoses the lump. Your mother dies. The twin towers fall. The wave tears life from 150,000 children. You lose your way. The point of the journey is lost: There is no big picture, just helter-skelter chaos. Blam. Your best friend tells you he must go to Jerusalem where they will kill him, says it has to be that way. And they might find a cross to fit you too. Blam. In a New York minute, as they say.

You are looking through shards of glass, wind whips through the car. You keep driving. That’s all the trek is anyway. Keep driving, punch the clock, keep the appointments. drift along, put one foot in front of the other. The Galilean ministry was one appointment after another, the hungry, the sick, the cynical, the poor, they all came after him, but now he says, come away. Build an altar before the appointment with death.

Kind people in cars note the bashed-in car and form a kind of motorcade guiding you to the hospital. This is what transfiguration looks like in the streets of New York. You stagger out of the car at Metropolitan Hospital. Somebody comes out of the shadows. A street person sees your clerical collar and moves in to ask for spare change. He sees your blood-spattered face and takes your arm. "It’s all right, brother, come with me." He leads you into the emergency room, gets people moving to help, and stands with you as your Joseph the guardian. Transfiguration.

Later I see him in the park across the street, lighting a fire to keep warm in the chill of his trek.

Transfiguration is the appearance of God’s glory in the midst of our journeys to the cross. Out of the darkness God sends transfiguring presence. It’s OK. I’m with you. You are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased. All will be well. A trail of altars.

At the cross the journeys will converge, home will come into view. "And I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself."