episode 5: reconciling

episode five: reconciling

Common Hymnal, If We Walk Together (demo version)

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“My road ain’t your road, your road ain’t mine, but if we walk together, be just fine/If you come with me, I won’t be scared, with you by my side, we can be anywhere/If we walk to together, be just fine.

Though you can’t compute my struggle that doesn’t make it right to disregard/I’m just asking for your ear/I hope that you’ll be near/ the wall and worries of my heart/We can build this bridge together/we’ll use the bricks of my dividing wall/they’re will be nobody that we’ll leave behind/we’ll walk together and we’ll be just fine/If we walk to together, be just fine….Now I’ll go with you, so the world will know/every color of the rainbow/If we walk to together, be just fine”

Doing Theology

We concluded the last time by saying that we need to do some theology. Theology is simple:

               Theo (God) + Logos (Word) = Theology

It means talking about God. Traditionally is a structured and disciplined fashion. But really, when it is God-words, it just means we all engage in theology from time to time when we talk about God.

One of the first steps in formal theology sometimes is called, prolegomena:

“the study of preliminary matters that are necessary to “set up” the formal theological study. These issues might include how the theological study will be conducted, how we acquire knowledge and arrive at truth, the theological system or tradition that will govern the study, and the sources that will be considered authoritative. Prolegomena issues are important because they are often unspoken, but they powerfully govern the conclusions at which we arrive.”

Where are we starting from?

One of the pieces we need to figure out, based on the idea that Jesus is the Human One, the one who holds the full image of God. So let’s lay out some prolegomena:

  1. Jesus is the full image of God: a title that was ours to share from Genesis 1.26-27. But we also believe the Jesus is fully God and fully human.

  2. Nicean Creed: And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made; of the same essence as the Father. (4th century)

  3. Jesus came as redeemer, to free us from death

  4. the tree of life in the garden we no longer have access to

    1. It is interesting that early Christian metaphor was about Jesus dying on a tree, and in the graveyard, being mistaken as a gardener.

    2. Eden imagery: Incidental, or intentional?

  5. Jesus invites us to a mountain (Eden?) with him, Matthew 28

    1. if we think of ourselves as his followers, and tells us to go to the cultures and sub-cultures

    2. ethnos, recall Leonard Sweet’s illustration of skater culture

  6. And this last piece of “prelegomena” is that we regularly confess:

    1. Jesus is the center of our faith

    2. Community is the center of our life

    3. Reconciliation is the center of our work

 

God reconciling the world: II Cor 5.118-19

“All of these new things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and who gave us the ministry of reconciliation. In other words, God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation.”

The Early Church Responding to Imago Dei

  • Galatians 3.25-29 - “clothed in Christ”

    • Where else have we read about God providing clothing? What was being covered by the clothing? Genesis 3.7,11,21

    • There is neither Jew nor Greek: Galatian 3.25-29. If it is neither, what is a more positive way of saying what this relationship is, (using the language of the biblical metaphors already being discussed)?

 Some Radical Reformation History

Hans Denck: Denck believed that God desires the salvation of all persons:

"Since love in him was perfect and since love hates or is envious of none, but includes everyone, even though we were all his enemies, surely he would not wish to exclude anyone. And if he had excluded anyone, then love would have been squint-eyed and a respecter of persons. And that, [love,God] is not!" (Whether God is the Cause of Evil, p. 102.)

Hans Denck was criticized for his belief that disciples of Jesus should fellowship with other seekers of other faiths. In his meditation on Micah 4.2-7 he noted that on the mountain of God, each person will worship their god even as we worship Yahweh. But God’s work of restoration is that we be together. Jesus brings us to others as we all move toward God.

This interpretation is inspired from Micah 4.5, specifically:

Micah 4.5 “Though all the peoples, they shall walk, each man in the name of his elohim, Yet we/ shall walk in the Name of Yahweh our Elohim, for the eon and further.” (Concordant Literal Version)

There are a lot questions, and there’s a lot that we did not get to.

  1. What is your set of prolegomena when it comes to understanding God, relationships, and the role of Jesus in seeing others?

  2. Karla spoke about Jesus being a filter, or a lens, through which we see others, regardless of what we may initially think about that person and what they represent. How do you see Jesus effecting the way you see other people?

  3. The writings of Paul in the New Testament spent a lot of time in trying to reconcile disperate, separated, and often clashing groups of people. Jesus, in what is called the Great Commission, sends all disciples out. What if we see a fundamental role and practice of being sent as being reconcilers rather than being “evangelists” or “missionaries”? How does the change in name change the type of interaction?