A changing understanding of God’s revelation

Here's the reflection that I shared this morning at St Andrew's Wickford:

This is a story (Mark 12.18-27) about interpretation of scripture, which is possibly as important for our understanding for what it reveals about ways of interpreting scripture, as for what it says about resurrection.

The Biblical scholar Tom Wright has noted that: ‘Resurrection was a late arrival on the scene in classic biblical writing … Much of the Hebrew Bible assumes that the dead are in Sheol …“The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any that go down into silence” (Psalm 115:17). Clear statements of resurrection are extremely rare. Daniel 12 is the most blatant, and remembered as such for centuries afterwards: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). Daniel is, however, the latest book of the Hebrew Bible.’

In Jesus’ day: ‘There was within Judaism a considerable spectrum of belief and speculation about what happened to dead people in general, and to dead Jews in particular. At one end were the Sadducees, who seem to have denied any doctrine of post-mortem existence (Mark 12:18; Josephus, War 2:165). At the other were the Pharisees, who affirmed a future embodied existence, and who seem to have at least begun to develop theories about how people continued to exist in the timelag between physical death and physical resurrection. And there are further options. Some writings speak of souls in disembodied bliss, some speculate about souls as angelic or astral beings, and so forth.‘

‘The Sadducees rejected the Oral Law as proposed by the Pharisees’ and ‘saw the written Torah as the sole source of divine authority.’ They insisted that the traditions did not contain this newfangled doctrine and that resurrection was not taught in the Torah itself. Their question to Jesus was based on the literal application of a commandment from the Torah and was ‘designed to make belief in a resurrection look foolish by proposing a dilemma it might entail.’ (Timothy J. Geddert, Mark, Herald Press)

In his reply to the Sadducees’ question Jesus goes back to the Torah itself (the five books of Moses) which were the only ones the very conservative Sadducees regarded as really authoritative, and stated that ‘God defines himself there in terms of his relationship to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ The underlying point was that ‘God would not define himself in relationship to people who were now non-existent.’ Therefore, Jesus implies or leaves unstated the remaining move in the argument that ‘if they are alive this must be because God will in fact raise them from the dead.’

Jesus therefore disagrees with a literal argument about scripture based on the earliest texts and affirms an emerging doctrine which only appears clearly in the last book of the Hebrew Bible. What he is affirming is an evolving revelation from God in scripture which develops or adds to or changes earlier interpretations and understandings.

The extent to which God’s revelation is fixed or emerging is one which continues to be debated within the Church and is a key ground on which debates about women’s ordination and human sexuality take place. What rarely seems to feature in these debates are the approaches to interpretation of scripture used by Jesus, the disciples and the Early Church, which are often very different from standard ways of interpreting scripture used today, particularly those which attempt to fix understandings of scripture for all time through literal interpretations. Here Jesus clearly teaches a later, newer doctrine which does not appear in the Torah and was not part of early Judaism. This emerging understanding, however, becomes central to Jesus’ mission and to Christian belief as Jesus’ resurrection and the teachings of the Early Church based on it are entirely new in the history of Judaism.

Tom Wright says: ‘The early Christian hope for bodily resurrection is clearly Jewish in origin, there being no possible pagan antecedent. Here, however, there is no spectrum of opinion: Earliest Christianity simply believed in resurrection, that is, the overcoming of death by the justice bringing power of the creator God … This is a radical mutation from within Jewish belief.’

Our core hope as Christians derives from a changing understanding of God’s revelation which Jesus taught and experienced. The literal interpretations of the Sadducees meant that they could not see or receive the new thing that God was doing in their midst. May God keep us open to receive the new things he is doing in our world through his Holy Spirit and prevent us from rejecting the unexpected moves of his Spirit because our rigidity in our own understandings of scripture. Amen.

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Paul Simon - Seven Psalms.

A developing understanding of resurrection

Here is my sermon from Wednesday's Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

This is a story about interpretation of scripture (Mark 12. 18-27), which is possibly as important for our understanding for what it reveals about ways of interpreting scripture, as for what it says about resurrection.

The Biblical scholar Tom Wright has noted that: ‘Resurrection was a late arrival on the scene in classic biblical writing … Much of the Hebrew Bible assumes that the dead are in Sheol …“The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any that go down into silence” (Psalm 115:17). Clear statements of resurrection are extremely rare. Daniel 12 is the most blatant, and remembered as such for centuries afterwards: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). Daniel is, however, the latest book of the Hebrew Bible.’

In Jesus’ day: ‘There was within Judaism a considerable spectrum of belief and speculation about what happened to dead people in general, and to dead Jews in particular. At one end were the Sadducees, who seem to have denied any doctrine of post-mortem existence (Mark 12:18; Josephus, War 2:165). At the other were the Pharisees, who affirmed a future embodied existence, and who seem to have at least begun to develop theories about how people continued to exist in the timelag between physical death and physical resurrection. And there are further options. Some writings speak of souls in disembodied bliss, some speculate about souls as angelic or astral beings, and so forth.‘

‘The Sadducees rejected the Oral Law as proposed by the Pharisees’ and ‘saw the written Torah as the sole source of divine authority.’ They insisted that the traditions did not contain this newfangled doctrine and that resurrection was not taught in the Torah itself. Their question to Jesus was based on the literal application of a commandment from the Torah and was ‘designed to make belief in a resurrection look foolish by proposing a dilemma it might entail.’ (Timothy J. Geddert, Mark, Herald Press)

In his reply to the Sadducees’ question Jesus goes back to the Torah itself (the five books of Moses) which were the only ones the very conservative Sadducees regarded as really authoritative, and stated that ‘God defines himself there in terms of his relationship to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ The underlying point was that ‘God would not define himself in relationship to people who were now non-existent.’ Therefore, Jesus implies or leaves unstated the remaining move in the argument that ‘if they are alive this must be because God will in fact raise them from the dead.’

Jesus therefore disagrees with a literal argument about scripture based on the earliest texts and affirms an emerging doctrine which only appears clearly in the last book of the Hebrew Bible. What he is affirming is an evolving revelation from God in scripture which develops or adds to or changes earlier interpretations and understandings.

The extent to which God’s revelation is fixed or emerging is one which continues to be debated within the Church and is a key ground on which debates about women’s ordination and human sexuality take place. What rarely seems to feature in these debates are the approaches to interpretation of scripture used by Jesus, the disciples and the Early Church, which are often very different from standard ways of interpreting scripture used today, particularly those which attempt to fix understandings of scripture for all time through literal interpretations. Here Jesus clearly teaches a later, newer doctrine which does not appear in the Torah and was not part of early Judaism. This emerging understanding, however, becomes central to Jesus’ mission and to Christian belief as Jesus’ resurrection and the teachings of the Early Church based on it are entirely new in the history of Judaism.

Tom Wright says: ‘The early Christian hope for bodily resurrection is clearly Jewish in origin, there being no possible pagan antecedent. Here, however, there is no spectrum of opinion: Earliest Christianity simply believed in resurrection, that is, the overcoming of death by the justice bringing power of the creator God … This is a radical mutation from within Jewish belief.’

Our core hope as Christians derives from a changing understanding of God’s revelation which Jesus taught and experienced. The literal interpretations of the Sadducees meant that they could not see or receive the new thing that God was doing in their midst. May God keep us open to receive the new things he is doing in our world through his Holy Spirit and prevent us from rejecting the unexpected moves of his Spirit because our rigidity in our own understandings of scripture.

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Resurrection Band - Colours.

The heart and spirit of the Law

Jewish law identifies 39 categories of activity prohibited on the Sabbath. Work is understood from scripture to be creative activity which includes activities like: building, cooking, gathering, igniting a fire, kneading, laundering, planting, sewing, sorting, tearing, tying and writing, among others. It is likely that the synagogue official has these or similar categories in mind when he said to the people in this story, “There are six days in which we should work; so come during those days and be healed, but not on the Sabbath!” (Luke 13. 10 - 17) 

Although there is considerable debate within the Jewish community about what is and is not permissible on the Sabbath, these categories are used by many Jews today and are an attempt to define how the fourth commandment in the Ten Commandments can be met.

In the view of the synagogue official, Jesus has clearly broken the Sabbath requirements and presents a dangerous precedent to the people. So we could say that what Jesus does here shows that the Jewish law is wrong or obsolete and that, as Christians, we don’t need to pay attention to it. But that would be to misunderstand some of the Jewish background to this story as well as some of the Gospel background.

If we start with the Gospel background, it is helpful to remember that Jesus said, as we can read in Matthew 5. 17 – 18: “Do not think that I have come to do away with the Law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets. I have not come to do away with them, but to make their teachings come true. Remember that as long as heaven and earth last, not the least point nor the smallest detail of the Law will be done away with – not until the end of all things.”

Now if Jesus is not doing away with the Law of Moses by healing on the Sabbath, then what he would seem to be doing is challenging the way in which this part of the Law is understood. That brings us on to another aspect of the Jewish background to this story, which is that, in the event that human life is in danger, any Shabbat law can be disregarded if it stands in the way of saving that person.

So, what Jesus and the synagogue official are actually doing is debating whether the life of this woman was in danger or not. Both want to practice the requirements of the Law but, as continues to be the case within the Jewish community, they have differing or opposed views on how to do that. The synagogue official is saying that healing is a form of work and that, although she is unwell, the woman is not about to die, therefore she can and should be healed on a day other than the Sabbath. Jesus is saying her illness is something which endangers her life and therefore he is justified in healing on the Sabbath.

These kinds of debates between rabbis have been recorded and collected in Judaism and form part of the Oral Law which is interpretation of the Written Law. Judaism is therefore clear that interpretation and debate are part of the way in which we understand God’s words and Jesus too took part in just this kind of debate and interpretation.

However, what Jesus has to say regarding the Law goes further and deeper than just this alone. By healing on the Sabbath even when there is no immediate threat to life, Jesus is highlighting the compassion which is at the heart the Law and which is the spirit of the Law.

Love, he is saying, is what the Law ultimately aims at. Firstly, because it seeks to limit the harm we are able to do towards others. So, in the Ten Commandments, we are told not to murder, not to commit adultery, not to covet because all these things cause harm to others. Secondly, because the opposite of a negative is a positive; so, the opposite of wanting to murder others is to offer help; the opposite of committing adultery is to be faithful and the opposite of coveting is to give.

So what the Law seeks to do is to constrain the harm we do in order to create space in which we can learn to act lovingly toward others. The 39 categories of work constrain what is done on the Sabbath but simply to abide by these constraints is not actually what the Law is about. The Sabbath is not primarily about the things that aren’t done on it. Instead, those things are done in order to create space to focus on God and love him more deeply.          

Jesus commended the teacher of the Law who knew that love is the heart, the soul and spirit of the Law: “‘Love the Lord your God will all your heart, will all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind’; and ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself’” (Luke 10. 27). That is the summary of the Law. It is what the Law is all about and, if some of the detail of the Law is preventing people from practising the purpose of the Law then, Jesus says, our interpretation of the Law has gone wrong.

And that is what is at the very heart of his debate with the synagogue official. For the synagogue official keeping the Sabbath constraints overrides compassion for the woman who is unwell. Jesus is saying that the spirit of the Law means that we have to put things the other way and override the constraints in order to show compassion. This is not because we are anarchists opposed to all Law or because the constraints are wrong. Instead, it is about fulfilling the purpose of the constraints. They are there in order that we have space in which to learn to love. So, when we do act out of love then we are fulfilling their purpose even though we might override them.

A final illustration of this might help as we close. When we are young children, our parents place severe constraints on us when we are crossing a road. We are told we must stay with our parents at all times, hold their hands and only cross at the designated crossing places. Our parents do this firstly to keep us safe when we are too young to make appropriate decisions ourselves and secondly to help learn how to cross the road safely. We learn when and where we can cross the road safely, so that in future we can do it for ourselves without our parents there and can do it wherever it is safe to do so and not just at the designated crossing places.

The purpose of the constraints is that we cross the road safely and when we know how to do that we don’t need to abide by all the constraints we once did. In a similar way, Jesus is saying here that the Sabbath constraints are about learning to love God and others and that, if those constraints need to be overridden in order to show compassion to others, then that is actually to fulfil their purpose.      

After being commended by Jesus for giving the summary of the Law, the teacher of the Law asks Jesus who is my neighbour. Jesus answers by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan. He then asks which man acted like a neighbour towards the man attacked by robbers? The one who was kind to him, the teacher of the Law replied. “You go, then,” says Jesus, “and do likewise.”   

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U2 - Angels Too Tied To The Ground.

Many different voices

Sam Norton has written an excellent post on approaches to reading and understanding the Bible. His starting point is that:
"One of the most important things to understand about the Bible is that it is a library of Holy Scripture – that is, there are many different voices within the Bible (even within particular books of the Bible) – and this is of God. That is, it is in recognising both what different books have in common, and where they disagree, that an individual Christian is enabled to come to a mature understanding of the text."

He sets out why the Bible can't be assumed to have one single unequivocal thing to say about a topic and explains historically how the idea that it does appeared within Christianity. With astute illustrations of the issues he raises, this is an excellent post which lays the ground for some examination of particular  texts in future.

See here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here for my take on this in a series of posts entitled Divine dialogues.

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Iona ~ Edge of the World.

The Writing on the Wall (2)

Excellent day spent with Maggi Dawn at St Margaret's Barking today exploring the multiple layers of meaning opened up by the interaction between the Arts and the Bible. Click here for a summary of the material Maggi took us through; all linked to the theme of her most recent book, The Writing on the Wall.

This was a day for exploring connections and intereptations rememberiung that the Arts do more than simply decorate, illustrate or communicate Biblical narrative as part of the engagement between the two. Our differing responses to the images we viewed and the poetry we read reminded us both of the multiple layers of meaning contained in Bible stories and artwork which explore such stories and also the differing perspectives that we bring to our interpretations of these stories and artworks.

One image which generated a range of responses illustrating the essential ambiguity of art to which viewers return repeatedly was Banksy's Christ with Shopping Bags, which could provoke reflection on the religion of consumerism, the death of consumerism, the commercialisation of Christianity, and the gift that is Christ, among other possibilities. Maggi noted that good art produced by non-believing artists is better than poor art produced by believing artists. This is, I think, because good art contains the ambiguity which derives from multi-layered meaning whereas poor art functions only at the levels of decoration, illustration or communication.

Through the works we explored, we saw that there is an ongoing dialogue between the Biblical text, its influences and interpretations through artworks and other cultural influences, and the way in which each artwork that we encounter which derive from or make use of Biblical stories or images then affect our responses to those same stories and images when we next read/see them.

A particularly interesting insight from Maggi came in reflecting on Igor Mitoraj's The Annunciation door at Santa Maria degli Angeli e Martiri in Rome which strips the traditional imagery back to the barest minimum and fragments and truncates the protagonist's bodies. Gabriel's wing contains a face which can only fully be seen when the viewer looks at Gabriel from the perspective of Mary. My recollection is of Maggi reflecting that one possible interpretation could be that God's messenger's do not simply bring a message about God but, because God is the content of the message which they bring, also bring God himself. In this instance then the medium and the message were one.

Other fascinating material included a sustained reflection on the life of Abraham based primarily on the Andrei Rublev's Icon of the Trinity and Caravaggio's The Sacrifice of Isaac.

One overall reflection for me was the sense that much of the Bible leaves great scope for imagination because, unlike a novel or contemporary biography, it does not give detailed descriptions or explanations of character's contexts, emotions or thought processes. This then enables artists and readers alike to imagine what these may have been for themselves, as in the marvellous Annunciation poem from Noel Rowe's Magnificat sequence.

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Franz Biebl - Ave Maria.

For interpretation

Daniel Siedell has recently posted on Susan Sontag’s essay, "Against Interpretation" (1966), in which:

"Sontag argues that the classical mimetic theory of art has created an unnecessary distinction between form and content, which modern (and now postmodern) theories have merely intensified. Interpretation presumes that a work of art must justify itself through content. Sontag writes, "Directed to art, interpretation means plucking a set of elements (the X, the Y, the Z, and so forth) from the whole work. The task of interpretation is virtually one of translation." In the hands of interpretation, art becomes merely the visual illustration of an idea."

Arguing against interpretation seems problematic to me because as soon as one moves beyond factual reportage of form, one is instantly in the realm of interpretation where one’s worldview (whether consciously or unconsciously) frames all one’s responses to the artwork, however deep one’s engagement with the work of art may be. Each of us inevitably view all that we encounter through the lens of our particular perspective. That doesn’t prevent us from engaging with anything new but does mean that we cannot have an entirely objective (‘God’s eye’ perspective?) perspective on anything with which we engage. It seems to me that Sontag presupposes the possibility of an engagement with the artwork by the viewer which is entirely free of any internal influence and where engagement is only in relation to the work itself. I don’t think that is possible because we are always context bound and therefore are always interpreting.

If interpretation is inevitable, the question then becomes how to do it well. There seem to me to be at least five elements, which vary considerably in importance.

The first and most important is an engagement with the work itself. Like Sontag and Siedell I would also want to emphasise the importance of a deep engagement with the work of art itself as a unified whole combining form and content. Form and content cannot be separated in viewing, engaging with and responding to the work as an integrated entity. Form and content inter-relate and their inter-relation must be perceived and appreciated if there is to be real engagement with the integrity of the work. All interpretation must therefore begin with and constantly relate back to the unique combination of form and content which is the artwork itself.

The unified whole that is the artwork exists in relation to the artist who created it as a child exists in relation to her/his parents. The child is always a person in his/her own right who can be known and encountered entirely independently of the parents yet who has been formed by both the genes and upbringing of the parents and continues to be, whether in revolt against or in harmony with, in relationship with her/his parents. Similarly, an artwork can never be defined by the intent or history of the artist that created it but both the artist’s intent and history can shed valid and valuable light on the work.

Each artwork also exists within a range of different contexts. The most obvious is the physical context of the space in which it is encountered; most commonly, but by no means exclusively, gallery space. The inter-relation between the space and the work is most explicit in site-specific works but is a factor in response to all works. Other contexts include the social and cultural time in which it has been created, whether or not the work specifically refers to aspects of these or not (just as a child can be in revolt against or in harmony with his/her parents, so an artwork may respond to or react against its social and cultural context), and its place within art history and art movements (again, rejection or assimilation may be involved) including the influence of other art upon its creation and the effect that its creation has on art history and art movements.

Each artwork also generates its own critical trail as it is reviewed, analysed, interpreted and categorised by critics, curators, historians and other artists.

Finally, each viewer makes their own personal response to the work. One that is inevitably influenced by the factors already listed but which always holds the potential, because of the unique combination of influences and perspectives that each viewer brings, to perceptions which may differ markedly from those generated by these same factors.

Contemplation and reflection are key if the varied nuances of each work are to be perceived and integrated. Often the time required is not given affecting the quality and integrity, my own very much included, of the interpretation.

Observation and research into the practice of visitors to galleries suggests that the amount of time spent engaging with the work itself is often minimal (the crowds founded at blockbuster exhibition exacerbate this tendency) and that priority is often given to critical comment on the work, whether in the form of curatorial explanatory labels, catalogue entries or audio guides. Whether through lack of time or confidence, these practices seem to emphasise the least helpful factors in interpretation.

A sustained, deep engagement with the work seems the necessary beginning for interpretation, and the central reference to which interpretation should constantly return. In my view this would then lead to personal response which can be developed and challenged by consideration of the artist’s intent and history, the work’s several contexts, and the critical trail the work has generated to date. None are ultimately definitive, although the form and content of the work itself provide the parameters within which all interpretation takes place.

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The Low Anthem - Golden Cattle.