Optical Illusion?
Commentary
Walking through a carnival midway at the county fair, a man met his neighbors, a young couple with their small daughter between them. The little girl was carrying a HUGE fluff of cotton candy on a paper tube, trying to munch at it as best she could.
After greeting her parents, the man knelt in front of the lass and exclaimed, “That’s a mighty big treat you have there! It’s bigger than you are! How are you going to get all of it inside of you?!”
The girl paused for a moment between sticky chews, and then said, “I can do it! I’m bigger on the inside than the outside!”
There are optical illusions, and not all of them at a county fair midway carnival, that make us strain our eyes in wonder, aren’t there? Theologically speaking, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity seems to be a kind of optical illusion. How do we make One into Three? How do we smush Three into One?
The Trinity is the essential bedrock to Christian theology, and has been right from the beginning, as the Apostles’ Creed testifies. But that doesn’t make it easy to understand. It arises from at least three ideas, each of which is probed in today’s lectionary passages. First, the God who created all things made the plurality of humankind in God’s own image -- a hint at the possible character of the community of heaven. Second, as Paul notes in his profound blessing upon the Corinthians, whenever we meet God we encounter blessings in three ways, tied to the uniqueness of each divine person. Third, Jesus himself declared that entering into and belonging to the Christian community of faith required baptismal markings “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
There is more to think about as we consider the Trinity on this Sunday devoted to such endeavors. But that is a good beginning.
Genesis 1:1--2:4a
The “mythical” qualities of Genesis 1-11 ought not to be interpreted as synonymous with either “untrue” or “non-historical.” Myths are stories that summarize worldviews in elided prose, giving snapshots of the value systems that drive a culture or providing hooks on which to hang the unspoken but ubiquitous understanding of a social group’s values and self-perception. This is why the stories told by way of myths may sometimes appear to be cartoon-like fairy tales, or at other times they may be a selection of emblematic events from the actual unfolding of a community’s early history. In fact, many times they appear to be a combination of both. Myths by their very nature are not scientific descriptions or journalistic documentaries, and should not be read in that manner. Myths serve, instead, to carry the fundamental values and worldview understandings of a culture in a manageable, memorable collection of tales.
It is in this way that Genesis functions as an extended historical prologue to the Sinai covenant. The stories of Genesis answer a number of important questions that arise simply because Israel has been shaken loose from 400 years of enslaved slumber, and is now being reshaped as the marriage partner of God in a divine mission that has not yet been fully clarified. Genesis gives the context to the suzerain-vassal treaty formed in Exodus 20-24. It takes important moments from both Israel’s distant and recent past, and uses these as the shepherding banks by which direct the flow of the people’s river of identity into their new and uncertain future.
Because there is no authorial self-disclosure within the pages of Genesis we are left to speculate about its specific origins. An interesting and important clue emerges from the text itself when the Hebrew nomenclature for God is analyzed. Most often, especially beginning with the stories of Abram in Genesis 12, “Yahweh” (???? ) is used to name the divinity. According to the book of Exodus, this name emerged in Israel through the deity’s self-disclosure to Moses in the encounter between them at Mt. Horeb (Exodus 3). This would indicate that whoever wrote Genesis, and whenever the writing happened, this book was created no earlier than the lifetime of Moses, and functions within the scope of the covenant-making events of Exodus. Thus, if one is to listen to the internal testimony of the literature of the Bible, Genesis must be understood to function as a companion volume to the covenant documents of Israel’s national identity formation at Mt. Sinai. Therefore Genesis must be read not as a volume pre-existing in a disconnected primeval world, but rather as the interpretation of events leading up to the engagement of Yahweh and Israel at Sinai in the suzerain-vassal covenant established there. Genesis is the extended historical prologue of the Sinai covenant.
Viewed this way, the message of Genesis is readily accessible. To begin with, the cosmological origins myths of chapters 1-11 are apologetic devices that announce a very different worldview than that available among and within the cultures which surrounded Israel. The two dominant cosmogonies in the ancient Near East were established by the civilizations of Mesopotamia (filtered largely through Babylonian recitations) and Egypt. Cosmogonic myths describe the origins of the world as we know it, providing a paradigm by which to analyze and interpret contemporary events.
While this may raise eyebrows in a modern world shaped significantly by monotheistic views and theologies, such an understanding of the world was resoundingly different from and overtly challenging to the Egyptian origins myths. Distilled from the various records that are available to us, the generalized creation story of ancient Egypt goes roughly like this. Nun was the chaos power pervading the primeval waters. Atum was the creative force which lived on Benben, a pyramidical hill rising out of the primeval waters. Atum split to form the elemental gods Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture). Tefnut bore two children: Geb (god of earth) and Nut (goddess of the skies). These, in turn gave birth to lesser gods who differentiated among themselves and came to rule various dimensions of the world as we now know it. Humanity was a final and unplanned outcome, with these newly produced weaklings useful only to do the work that the gods no longer wished to do, and to feed the gods by way of burning animal flesh in order to make it accessible.
Similar, and yet uniquely nuanced, are the cosmogonies of ancient Mesopotamia. The name Mesopotamia literally means “between the waters.” It denotes that region of the Near East encompassed by the combined watersheds of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Early civilizations here, enveloped by a somewhat different climatic environment than that found in Egypt, reflected this uniqueness in their origin myths. Apsu was the chaos power resident in the primeval waters. Tiamat was the bitter sea within the primeval waters upon which earth floated. Lhamu and Lahamu were gods of silt (at the edges of earth) created from the interaction of the primeval waters and the bitter seas. The horizons, Anshar and Kishar, were separated from one another by the birth of their child Anu (sky). Anu engendered Ea-Nudimmud, the god of earth and wisdom. All of these gods were filled with pent-up energy and this caused them to fight constantly. Since they existed within the belly of Tiamat, Apsu got indigestion and made plans to destroy all his restless and noisy children (i.e., the rest of the gods). In order to survive, Ea cast a spell which put Apsu to sleep. Then Ea killed Apsu, but his remains formed new gods, all of which were now in bitter struggle with each other and with their older relatives. Among the gods, Marduk rose as champion, quelling the fights and resurrecting order. To celebrate his success, Marduk created Babylon, which thus became the center of the universe and the source of all human civilization. These late-on-the-scene beings were created from the spilled blood of the gods, and they were deliberately fashioned as slaves who would do the work that the gods no longer wished to do.
When placed alongside these other cosmogonic myths, the Genesis creation story is very spare and poetically balanced. In brief testimony it declares that God existed before the world that is apprehended by our senses was brought into being. It also asserts that creation happened by way of divine speech rather than through the sexual interaction of deities, or as the animation of guts and gore left over and emerging out of their conflicts. Moreover, creation was an intentional act that took place by way of orderly progression:
Day 1: Arenas for Light and Darkness
Day 2: Arenas for Sky and Sea
Day 3: Arenas for Earth’s dominant surfaces
Day 4: Inhabitants of Light and Darkness
Day 5: Inhabitants of Sky and Sea
Day 6: Inhabitants of Earth
In the balanced rhythm of poetic prose, the Genesis creation story shows how divine planning and purpose brought the world into being specifically as a home for humanity. These creatures are not the byproduct of restless fighting among the gods. Nor are they a slave race produced in order to give the gods more leisure. In fact, according to the Genesis account, human beings are the only creatures made in the image of God, thus sharing the best of divine qualities.
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
The letter we call 1 Corinthians was not well received by its original readers. Their relations with Paul apparently deteriorated rapidly after it arrived, and many more among them began to call into question Paul’s presumed ongoing authority. In response, Paul decided that he needed to make a personal visit, both to address the immoral behavior and to renew his pastoral ties with the church as a whole. Paul’s return to Corinth was anything but triumphant, however, and actually turned out to be a bust. Later he would call it a “painful visit” (2 Corinthians 2:1).
After this debacle, Paul limped back to Ephesus confused and hurt, and wrote a severe letter of reproof that later caused him regret because of its caustic tone and content (2 Corinthians 7:8). Although we might wish to know more specifically what Paul said in that correspondence, no copies have survived. Still, Paul’s strongly worded pastoral medicine apparently worked, at least to a degree, for when Titus made his report after delivering the letter, he told of great and pervasive repentance and sorrow among the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 7:6-16). Humility was breeding healing and hope.
About the same time that Titus was back in Corinth, Paul apparently had a near-death experience during a preaching trip to Troas (2 Corinthians 1-2). This scare seems to have been the trigger which initiated Paul’s fourth letter, a letter of comfort and tenderness to the Corinthian congregation. Evidently Paul needed to confirm the renewal of his relationship with the church lest, if he should die soon, the lingering memories of their interaction would only be pain and conflict. Paul’s last letter to Corinth survives as our 2 Corinthians.
It is a passionate, tender, personal, and encouraging communication. Paul can hardly repeat the word “comfort” often enough in his opening paragraph (2 Corinthians 1:3-7). Then he reminisces nostalgically, telling of his travel plans, his apostolic authority and how it came to him, the difficulties he has faced over the years of dedicated service to God and the church, and the ministry of reconciliation that motivates him (2 Corinthians 1:12--7:16).
Next, Paul injects another note about his organization of the massive offering for the poor in Jerusalem (2 Corinthians 8-9), and uses the occasion to nurture expressions of authentic gratitude. Then, once again, he defends his apostolic authority and ministry (2 Corinthians 10-12), basing these in his divine calling, his servant lifestyle, his different motives than the “false apostles” who are circling about as if to create names and kingdoms for themselves, his profound vision of God’s glory coupled with the humbling weakness of his body, and his passionate concern for the Corinthians. Paul closes this otherwise engaging letter with somewhat fearful anticipations of the confrontations he might again face when he arrives in Corinth. He ends, though, with a clear sense of longing for the warmth he expects on the occasion of their reunion (2 Corinthians 13), pronouncing, finally, the Trinitarian blessing that we focus on today.
Matthew 28:16-20
The theme of Jesus’ royal identity is consistently emphasized throughout Matthew’s gospel, with a slightly different nuance than that found in Mark’s gospel. For Mark, who was publishing the preaching of Peter in Rome during the crisis of Nero’s persecution, Jesus was declared to be the mighty ruler who alone had the resources to defy and deny dehumanizing oppression in whatever form it challenged. In this way, Mark deliberately showed Jesus to be the only real alternative to the brutish power of the Roman Caesar. That is why even a Roman centurion could make the last and greatest testimony in the gospel, declaring Jesus’ preferred rule over that of the might of Rome.
For Matthew, however, Jesus’ kingship and kingdom are rooted directly in the covenant Yahweh made with David in 2 Samuel 7. In that passage the themes of God’s house and David’s house came together in powerful symmetry. David wished to build a house for God, since Israel was now settled in the Promised Land. While God appreciated this appropriate desire on David’s part, through the prophet Nathan God communicated that it would be David’s son, a man of peace, who would take up that honor and responsibility. But because David’s heart and desires were in the right place, God made a return commitment to him. God would build a royal “house” out of David’s descendants, and there would always be one of his sons ruling as king over God’s people.
This promise began well, with the amazingly successful reign of Solomon. The great Temple was built, the borders of the kingdom were expanded from Mesopotamia to Egypt, the economy soared, and people flooded to Jerusalem from all over the world to hear the wisdom of Solomon and experience the blessings of Yahweh. Then it all began to falter. Solomon’s massive empire was split at his death (922 BC), and the family successors who ruled the truncated kingdom from Jerusalem were a mixed lot with varying degrees of success in both politics and religion. By the end of Matthew’s second set of 14 generations, only a remnant of the people remained to be deported in the cataclysmic Babylonian exile. Fewer still returned to Jerusalem later, under Persian rule, and they were not permitted to reinstall David’s descendants to a self-governing throne. Only recently, through the Maccabean revolt, had a measure of Jewish self-determination been regained. But David’s family was not on the throne.
Now, however, Matthew makes it clear that this miraculously-born deliverer Jesus is indeed the one who will fulfill, both at this time and forever, God’s commitment to David. Matthew communicated this powerfully in the opening chapters of the gospel, when he linked Jesus to David, and in chapter 2 when the magi questioned King Herod’s authority as the “King of the Jews.” Matthew never relents from this central message that Jesus is the last and greatest and eternal son of David. Before the crucifixion Jesus is identified openly as king at least four different times (Matthew 27:1-44). When Jesus dies, the curtain of the temple, which marked Yahweh’s hidden quarters and separated God from the people, is torn away, so that the place becomes ceremonially dysfunctional (Matthew 27:51) and Israel’s ruler must move out of this particular residence. Even the earth itself heaves and groans in the seismic religious shift that is taking place between the Old and New forms of the covenant mission of Yahweh (Matthew 27:52).
As Matthew brings his preaching about Jesus to a close, he emphasizes Jesus’ kingship one more time. The last words of Jesus in the gospel (our lectionary reading for today) are a royal declaration and commission. Jesus the risen king addresses his key leaders, the ones who will take the mission of Yahweh to the world.
Application
The church’s wrestlings with the concept of the Trinity are essentially built upon two significant questions:
* Was the man Jesus fully divine? (Trinitarian Controversies, Second through Fourth Centuries)
* No! He was only infused with divine powers at baptism (Paul of Samosata, “Adoptionism”)
* No! He was only the manner of appearance of God’s unitary being (Sabellius, “Modalism”)
* No! He was a unique creation of God, neither fully human nor divine (Arius, “Subordinationism”)
*Yes! Council of Nicaea (325), Council of Constantinople (381)
* Was the divine Christ fully human? (Christological Controversies, Third through Fifth Centuries)
* No! His human mind was replaced by the divine “Logos” (Apollonarius)
* No! Jesus had two distinct natures and persons living in one body (Nestorius)
* No! Jesus’ character was a blend of divine and human in which the latter was fully absorbed into the former (Eutyches)
* Yes! Council of Chalcedon (451)
The great outcome of all of these conversations and debates was the Nicene Creed. Today in worship we should recite the Creed as we stand in unity of testimony and solidarity of faith with our sisters and brothers around the world.
Alternative Application
Genesis 1:1--2:4a. It is obvious from the careful structuring of the Genesis creation account that it is neither a journalistic description of sequential events nor the scientific report of an unfolding lab experiment. “Light” is the first “creation,” cutting through and overturning the power of darkness and chaos which otherwise precluded meaningful existence. Yet the sources of light that actually make illumination happen in our world do not begin to exist until the fourth “day” of creation. What is going on? Why are things about creation expressed in this manner?
The answer seems to be a combination of contrast and organization. All other ancient stories of cosmological beginnings also start with chaos, but none of them ever fully emerges from it. Elements of random functionality may present themselves at times in or out from chaos, but behind and above and around such moments of meaningful structure the cosmos remains a chaotic entity. In some civilizations competing forces within chaos (such as yin and yang) may actually balance one another enough to provide temporary stability and even creative energy. Yet they remain the restless tentacles of chaos which pervades everything.
The Genesis cosmological myth sees the world very differently. Before existence and chaos, there is/was God. Existence itself is not the roiling of quasi-independent powers, but the expression of thoughtful divine intent. The manner in which things came into being had purpose and organizational structuring from the start.
A comparison of the values that underlie these various creation myths reveals the differences that are fundamental for shaping distinct worldviews:
After greeting her parents, the man knelt in front of the lass and exclaimed, “That’s a mighty big treat you have there! It’s bigger than you are! How are you going to get all of it inside of you?!”
The girl paused for a moment between sticky chews, and then said, “I can do it! I’m bigger on the inside than the outside!”
There are optical illusions, and not all of them at a county fair midway carnival, that make us strain our eyes in wonder, aren’t there? Theologically speaking, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity seems to be a kind of optical illusion. How do we make One into Three? How do we smush Three into One?
The Trinity is the essential bedrock to Christian theology, and has been right from the beginning, as the Apostles’ Creed testifies. But that doesn’t make it easy to understand. It arises from at least three ideas, each of which is probed in today’s lectionary passages. First, the God who created all things made the plurality of humankind in God’s own image -- a hint at the possible character of the community of heaven. Second, as Paul notes in his profound blessing upon the Corinthians, whenever we meet God we encounter blessings in three ways, tied to the uniqueness of each divine person. Third, Jesus himself declared that entering into and belonging to the Christian community of faith required baptismal markings “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
There is more to think about as we consider the Trinity on this Sunday devoted to such endeavors. But that is a good beginning.
Genesis 1:1--2:4a
The “mythical” qualities of Genesis 1-11 ought not to be interpreted as synonymous with either “untrue” or “non-historical.” Myths are stories that summarize worldviews in elided prose, giving snapshots of the value systems that drive a culture or providing hooks on which to hang the unspoken but ubiquitous understanding of a social group’s values and self-perception. This is why the stories told by way of myths may sometimes appear to be cartoon-like fairy tales, or at other times they may be a selection of emblematic events from the actual unfolding of a community’s early history. In fact, many times they appear to be a combination of both. Myths by their very nature are not scientific descriptions or journalistic documentaries, and should not be read in that manner. Myths serve, instead, to carry the fundamental values and worldview understandings of a culture in a manageable, memorable collection of tales.
It is in this way that Genesis functions as an extended historical prologue to the Sinai covenant. The stories of Genesis answer a number of important questions that arise simply because Israel has been shaken loose from 400 years of enslaved slumber, and is now being reshaped as the marriage partner of God in a divine mission that has not yet been fully clarified. Genesis gives the context to the suzerain-vassal treaty formed in Exodus 20-24. It takes important moments from both Israel’s distant and recent past, and uses these as the shepherding banks by which direct the flow of the people’s river of identity into their new and uncertain future.
Because there is no authorial self-disclosure within the pages of Genesis we are left to speculate about its specific origins. An interesting and important clue emerges from the text itself when the Hebrew nomenclature for God is analyzed. Most often, especially beginning with the stories of Abram in Genesis 12, “Yahweh” (???? ) is used to name the divinity. According to the book of Exodus, this name emerged in Israel through the deity’s self-disclosure to Moses in the encounter between them at Mt. Horeb (Exodus 3). This would indicate that whoever wrote Genesis, and whenever the writing happened, this book was created no earlier than the lifetime of Moses, and functions within the scope of the covenant-making events of Exodus. Thus, if one is to listen to the internal testimony of the literature of the Bible, Genesis must be understood to function as a companion volume to the covenant documents of Israel’s national identity formation at Mt. Sinai. Therefore Genesis must be read not as a volume pre-existing in a disconnected primeval world, but rather as the interpretation of events leading up to the engagement of Yahweh and Israel at Sinai in the suzerain-vassal covenant established there. Genesis is the extended historical prologue of the Sinai covenant.
Viewed this way, the message of Genesis is readily accessible. To begin with, the cosmological origins myths of chapters 1-11 are apologetic devices that announce a very different worldview than that available among and within the cultures which surrounded Israel. The two dominant cosmogonies in the ancient Near East were established by the civilizations of Mesopotamia (filtered largely through Babylonian recitations) and Egypt. Cosmogonic myths describe the origins of the world as we know it, providing a paradigm by which to analyze and interpret contemporary events.
While this may raise eyebrows in a modern world shaped significantly by monotheistic views and theologies, such an understanding of the world was resoundingly different from and overtly challenging to the Egyptian origins myths. Distilled from the various records that are available to us, the generalized creation story of ancient Egypt goes roughly like this. Nun was the chaos power pervading the primeval waters. Atum was the creative force which lived on Benben, a pyramidical hill rising out of the primeval waters. Atum split to form the elemental gods Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture). Tefnut bore two children: Geb (god of earth) and Nut (goddess of the skies). These, in turn gave birth to lesser gods who differentiated among themselves and came to rule various dimensions of the world as we now know it. Humanity was a final and unplanned outcome, with these newly produced weaklings useful only to do the work that the gods no longer wished to do, and to feed the gods by way of burning animal flesh in order to make it accessible.
Similar, and yet uniquely nuanced, are the cosmogonies of ancient Mesopotamia. The name Mesopotamia literally means “between the waters.” It denotes that region of the Near East encompassed by the combined watersheds of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Early civilizations here, enveloped by a somewhat different climatic environment than that found in Egypt, reflected this uniqueness in their origin myths. Apsu was the chaos power resident in the primeval waters. Tiamat was the bitter sea within the primeval waters upon which earth floated. Lhamu and Lahamu were gods of silt (at the edges of earth) created from the interaction of the primeval waters and the bitter seas. The horizons, Anshar and Kishar, were separated from one another by the birth of their child Anu (sky). Anu engendered Ea-Nudimmud, the god of earth and wisdom. All of these gods were filled with pent-up energy and this caused them to fight constantly. Since they existed within the belly of Tiamat, Apsu got indigestion and made plans to destroy all his restless and noisy children (i.e., the rest of the gods). In order to survive, Ea cast a spell which put Apsu to sleep. Then Ea killed Apsu, but his remains formed new gods, all of which were now in bitter struggle with each other and with their older relatives. Among the gods, Marduk rose as champion, quelling the fights and resurrecting order. To celebrate his success, Marduk created Babylon, which thus became the center of the universe and the source of all human civilization. These late-on-the-scene beings were created from the spilled blood of the gods, and they were deliberately fashioned as slaves who would do the work that the gods no longer wished to do.
When placed alongside these other cosmogonic myths, the Genesis creation story is very spare and poetically balanced. In brief testimony it declares that God existed before the world that is apprehended by our senses was brought into being. It also asserts that creation happened by way of divine speech rather than through the sexual interaction of deities, or as the animation of guts and gore left over and emerging out of their conflicts. Moreover, creation was an intentional act that took place by way of orderly progression:
Day 1: Arenas for Light and Darkness
Day 2: Arenas for Sky and Sea
Day 3: Arenas for Earth’s dominant surfaces
Day 4: Inhabitants of Light and Darkness
Day 5: Inhabitants of Sky and Sea
Day 6: Inhabitants of Earth
In the balanced rhythm of poetic prose, the Genesis creation story shows how divine planning and purpose brought the world into being specifically as a home for humanity. These creatures are not the byproduct of restless fighting among the gods. Nor are they a slave race produced in order to give the gods more leisure. In fact, according to the Genesis account, human beings are the only creatures made in the image of God, thus sharing the best of divine qualities.
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
The letter we call 1 Corinthians was not well received by its original readers. Their relations with Paul apparently deteriorated rapidly after it arrived, and many more among them began to call into question Paul’s presumed ongoing authority. In response, Paul decided that he needed to make a personal visit, both to address the immoral behavior and to renew his pastoral ties with the church as a whole. Paul’s return to Corinth was anything but triumphant, however, and actually turned out to be a bust. Later he would call it a “painful visit” (2 Corinthians 2:1).
After this debacle, Paul limped back to Ephesus confused and hurt, and wrote a severe letter of reproof that later caused him regret because of its caustic tone and content (2 Corinthians 7:8). Although we might wish to know more specifically what Paul said in that correspondence, no copies have survived. Still, Paul’s strongly worded pastoral medicine apparently worked, at least to a degree, for when Titus made his report after delivering the letter, he told of great and pervasive repentance and sorrow among the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 7:6-16). Humility was breeding healing and hope.
About the same time that Titus was back in Corinth, Paul apparently had a near-death experience during a preaching trip to Troas (2 Corinthians 1-2). This scare seems to have been the trigger which initiated Paul’s fourth letter, a letter of comfort and tenderness to the Corinthian congregation. Evidently Paul needed to confirm the renewal of his relationship with the church lest, if he should die soon, the lingering memories of their interaction would only be pain and conflict. Paul’s last letter to Corinth survives as our 2 Corinthians.
It is a passionate, tender, personal, and encouraging communication. Paul can hardly repeat the word “comfort” often enough in his opening paragraph (2 Corinthians 1:3-7). Then he reminisces nostalgically, telling of his travel plans, his apostolic authority and how it came to him, the difficulties he has faced over the years of dedicated service to God and the church, and the ministry of reconciliation that motivates him (2 Corinthians 1:12--7:16).
Next, Paul injects another note about his organization of the massive offering for the poor in Jerusalem (2 Corinthians 8-9), and uses the occasion to nurture expressions of authentic gratitude. Then, once again, he defends his apostolic authority and ministry (2 Corinthians 10-12), basing these in his divine calling, his servant lifestyle, his different motives than the “false apostles” who are circling about as if to create names and kingdoms for themselves, his profound vision of God’s glory coupled with the humbling weakness of his body, and his passionate concern for the Corinthians. Paul closes this otherwise engaging letter with somewhat fearful anticipations of the confrontations he might again face when he arrives in Corinth. He ends, though, with a clear sense of longing for the warmth he expects on the occasion of their reunion (2 Corinthians 13), pronouncing, finally, the Trinitarian blessing that we focus on today.
Matthew 28:16-20
The theme of Jesus’ royal identity is consistently emphasized throughout Matthew’s gospel, with a slightly different nuance than that found in Mark’s gospel. For Mark, who was publishing the preaching of Peter in Rome during the crisis of Nero’s persecution, Jesus was declared to be the mighty ruler who alone had the resources to defy and deny dehumanizing oppression in whatever form it challenged. In this way, Mark deliberately showed Jesus to be the only real alternative to the brutish power of the Roman Caesar. That is why even a Roman centurion could make the last and greatest testimony in the gospel, declaring Jesus’ preferred rule over that of the might of Rome.
For Matthew, however, Jesus’ kingship and kingdom are rooted directly in the covenant Yahweh made with David in 2 Samuel 7. In that passage the themes of God’s house and David’s house came together in powerful symmetry. David wished to build a house for God, since Israel was now settled in the Promised Land. While God appreciated this appropriate desire on David’s part, through the prophet Nathan God communicated that it would be David’s son, a man of peace, who would take up that honor and responsibility. But because David’s heart and desires were in the right place, God made a return commitment to him. God would build a royal “house” out of David’s descendants, and there would always be one of his sons ruling as king over God’s people.
This promise began well, with the amazingly successful reign of Solomon. The great Temple was built, the borders of the kingdom were expanded from Mesopotamia to Egypt, the economy soared, and people flooded to Jerusalem from all over the world to hear the wisdom of Solomon and experience the blessings of Yahweh. Then it all began to falter. Solomon’s massive empire was split at his death (922 BC), and the family successors who ruled the truncated kingdom from Jerusalem were a mixed lot with varying degrees of success in both politics and religion. By the end of Matthew’s second set of 14 generations, only a remnant of the people remained to be deported in the cataclysmic Babylonian exile. Fewer still returned to Jerusalem later, under Persian rule, and they were not permitted to reinstall David’s descendants to a self-governing throne. Only recently, through the Maccabean revolt, had a measure of Jewish self-determination been regained. But David’s family was not on the throne.
Now, however, Matthew makes it clear that this miraculously-born deliverer Jesus is indeed the one who will fulfill, both at this time and forever, God’s commitment to David. Matthew communicated this powerfully in the opening chapters of the gospel, when he linked Jesus to David, and in chapter 2 when the magi questioned King Herod’s authority as the “King of the Jews.” Matthew never relents from this central message that Jesus is the last and greatest and eternal son of David. Before the crucifixion Jesus is identified openly as king at least four different times (Matthew 27:1-44). When Jesus dies, the curtain of the temple, which marked Yahweh’s hidden quarters and separated God from the people, is torn away, so that the place becomes ceremonially dysfunctional (Matthew 27:51) and Israel’s ruler must move out of this particular residence. Even the earth itself heaves and groans in the seismic religious shift that is taking place between the Old and New forms of the covenant mission of Yahweh (Matthew 27:52).
As Matthew brings his preaching about Jesus to a close, he emphasizes Jesus’ kingship one more time. The last words of Jesus in the gospel (our lectionary reading for today) are a royal declaration and commission. Jesus the risen king addresses his key leaders, the ones who will take the mission of Yahweh to the world.
Application
The church’s wrestlings with the concept of the Trinity are essentially built upon two significant questions:
* Was the man Jesus fully divine? (Trinitarian Controversies, Second through Fourth Centuries)
* No! He was only infused with divine powers at baptism (Paul of Samosata, “Adoptionism”)
* No! He was only the manner of appearance of God’s unitary being (Sabellius, “Modalism”)
* No! He was a unique creation of God, neither fully human nor divine (Arius, “Subordinationism”)
*Yes! Council of Nicaea (325), Council of Constantinople (381)
* Was the divine Christ fully human? (Christological Controversies, Third through Fifth Centuries)
* No! His human mind was replaced by the divine “Logos” (Apollonarius)
* No! Jesus had two distinct natures and persons living in one body (Nestorius)
* No! Jesus’ character was a blend of divine and human in which the latter was fully absorbed into the former (Eutyches)
* Yes! Council of Chalcedon (451)
The great outcome of all of these conversations and debates was the Nicene Creed. Today in worship we should recite the Creed as we stand in unity of testimony and solidarity of faith with our sisters and brothers around the world.
Alternative Application
Genesis 1:1--2:4a. It is obvious from the careful structuring of the Genesis creation account that it is neither a journalistic description of sequential events nor the scientific report of an unfolding lab experiment. “Light” is the first “creation,” cutting through and overturning the power of darkness and chaos which otherwise precluded meaningful existence. Yet the sources of light that actually make illumination happen in our world do not begin to exist until the fourth “day” of creation. What is going on? Why are things about creation expressed in this manner?
The answer seems to be a combination of contrast and organization. All other ancient stories of cosmological beginnings also start with chaos, but none of them ever fully emerges from it. Elements of random functionality may present themselves at times in or out from chaos, but behind and above and around such moments of meaningful structure the cosmos remains a chaotic entity. In some civilizations competing forces within chaos (such as yin and yang) may actually balance one another enough to provide temporary stability and even creative energy. Yet they remain the restless tentacles of chaos which pervades everything.
The Genesis cosmological myth sees the world very differently. Before existence and chaos, there is/was God. Existence itself is not the roiling of quasi-independent powers, but the expression of thoughtful divine intent. The manner in which things came into being had purpose and organizational structuring from the start.
A comparison of the values that underlie these various creation myths reveals the differences that are fundamental for shaping distinct worldviews:
Egypt and Mesopotamia |
Genesis |
Divinity exudes throughout the natural order |
Divinity is separate from the natural order |
There is an eternal dualism of good and evil |
All is created good, and evil only enters later as a usurper |
All things originate by devolution, with successive generations of creatures always crasser, baser, or less important than earlier ones |
All things originate by intentional divine plan and are developed into species that occupy unique homes in the natural order |
Humanity is an afterthought, a bother, and a slave race |
Humanity is the reason for all the previous creative activity and alone shares divine character and purpose |
The purpose for humanity’s existence is toil |
The purpose for humanity’s existence is creativity, relationship and rest |
If, as the literature itself requires, the creation stories of Genesis 1-2 are part of a lengthy historical prologue to the meeting of Yahweh and Israel at Mt. Sinai, these cosmogonic myths are not to be read as the end product of scientific or historical analysis. They are designed to place Israel in an entirely different worldview context than that which shaped their neighbors. Humanity’s place in this natural realm is one of intimacy with God, rather than fear and slavery. The human race exists in harmony with nature, not as its bitter opponent or only a helpless minor element. Women and men together share creative responsibility with God over animals and plants.
Moreover, there is no hint of evil or sin in the creation stories themselves. In fact, the recurring refrain is that God saw the coming-into-being of each successive wave of creation and declared it to be good. There is no eternal dualism of opposing forces that in their conflict engendered the world as we know it. Nor is the creative energy of human life itself derived from inherent and co-equal powers of good and evil which, in their chasing of one another, produce the changes necessary to drive the system. Instead, evil appears only after a fully developed created realm is complete, and then enters as a usurping power that seeks to draw away the reflected creativity of the human race into alliance with forces which deny the Creator’s values and goals. Evil and sin are essentially linked to human perspectives that are in competition with the one declared true and genuine by the creation stories themselves.
