Top 25 Albums of 2010: 15-11

15. Patty Griffin Downtown Church

14. Tift Merritt See You on the Moon

Just so you don’t think I only listen to indie rock, here’s my two americana albums of the year.

Of the two, Tift Merritt is the more diverse.  Merritt seems more willing to break free of the confines of americana and embrace a wider musical palette.  She certainly embraces the typical singer-songwriter and rootsy stuff that generally passes for the genre.  Merritt, however, dips into soul and even into a bit of adult-contemporary soft pop rock (think Sheryl Crow).  Merritt is talented enough writer to make it sound her own without sounding derivative.

Patty Griffin made a gospel album.  This, as one would expect, is a good thing.  Produced by the great Buddy Miller, Griffin showcases her always getter better voice with numbers that have shaped her as an artist.  I’m not a big gospel music fan, but I am a big Patty Griffin fan and she didn’t let me down.  And the album closers “We Shall All be Reunited” and “All Creatures of Our God and King” are stunners.

Patty Griffin "Move Up" (Live)

Tift Merritt "Mixtape"

13. Belle & Sebastian Write About Love

Although it’s a coincidence that Belle & Sebastian and Damien Jurado fell next to each other in this list, it’s fitting.  They both suffer from the same fate:  a large and consistent back catalogue that features a fair number of stone-cold classics.

With that, it’s not entirely fair to compare Write About Love to albums/songs that preceded it.  It just doesn’t stand up to albums like If You’re Feeling Sinister, Tigermilk, or The Life Pursuit.  There is no “Boy with the Arab Strap”, “Piazza New York Catcher”, or “Lazy Line Painter Jane”.

Instead it’s another standout collection of Belle & Sebastian doing what they do best.  The 11 songs alternate between the jangly twee-pop and plaintive ballads.  They feature the same bittersweet storytelling of love and loss, joy and pain.  It continues the large sound forged by the previous two albums.  But rather than being a re-tread, dance-fueled numbers like “I Want the World to Stop” push the band in new directions.  The more familiar songs like the title-track continue to refine and perfect a formula that has been working for years.  The patient listener is able to pick up on just how well the band has been able to tweak what they’ve done well for so long.

It might be more of the same, but more of Belle & Sebastian’s same is a winning deal.

Belle & Sebastian "I Want the World to Stop"

12.  Damien Jurado Saint Bartlett

I don’t know how he does it.  Jurado keeps making strong album after strong album.  In a fair world, the attention bestowed on Bon Iver and Iron & Wine would go Jurado’s way. Instead, Jurado seems content with his cult followers and growing number of acolytes.

The pre-release hype of Saint Bartlett centered on Richard Swift's production. Considering Swift's pedigree is one of an immaculate producer who mines the past for updated time capsutle's of am gold and 50's and 60's minimialist rock 'n' roll and the fact that lead single "Arkansas" was a little nugget of late 50's rock meets Jurado's folk pop sensibilities, the hype seemed to be warrented. Then opening track, "Cloudy Shoes" and its multi-tracked vocal, layered, and dare I say lush orchestration, comes along and it seem like Jurado has re-invented himself.

Then the rest of the album comes along, which sounds a bit like every other Jurado albums. The final 8 songs alternate between Jurado in his guy and a guitar storyteller and Jurado in his low-fi, a guy with an electric guitar and an amp, minimalist rockers. He tells a good story. His sad sack, stock characters seemingly transcend their usual origens and become someone you care about due to Jurado's attention to songwriting detail. He checkers his stories with enough geography and artifacts to root them in a real history. Finally, the low-fi rockers give the album a balance that keeps it from getting too bogged down.

Still, there is no killer singles that allows it to rise drastically above some of his best work (e.g. Rehearsal's for Departure's four killer tracks strewn about a pretty unimpressive six tracks makes it seem much better than it is.). As a result, it's MOR Jurado. Not nearly as good as I Break Chairs, Ghost of David, Caught in Trees, or some of his outstanding eps. But, overall it's consitancy and variation makes it much better than and now I'm in Your Shadow and On my Way to Absence.  Plus, MOR Jurado is better than a whole lot else out there.

On a personal note, one of its best songs "Kalama" is the name of my hometown. It's a dinky, blink of a town on I-5 in southwest Washington. It's full of sad sacks, losers, drinkers, forgotten dreams, deadbeats, and dead ends. It's the perfect setting for a Jurado song.

Damien Jurado "Arkansas"

11. Jonsi Go

Jonsi is best known for the nymph that fronts Sigur Ros.  Wait, Sigur Ros doesn’t have a nymph as its vocalist?  Then who sings?  Jonsi?  Oh.

Colored me surprised by how much I liked this.  Sigur Ros had made a great career of these operatic, grandiose, stirring spectacles.  It was music from and for another world.  Consequently, Sigur Ros was perhaps the most exciting band of the 2000’s.  But I for one had grown weary of it.  Each progressive album felt more and more like a re-tread.  Things got so bad, I didn’t even bother with Med sud I eyrum vid spilum endalaust.  The notable exception from that album was lead track “Gobbledigook”.  “Gobbledigook” told me that the band wasn’t content to operate on its own insular plane.  They began to look outward and look to their peers for inspiration.  In “Gobbledigook’s” case it was the giddy playfulness of the Animal Collective.  It worked.

On Go, Jonsi splits the difference between the ground well-traveled, but well loved by early Sigur Ros and combines it with the laughter of “Gobbledigook”.  Not surprisingly it’s the “Gobbledigook-esque” tracks like “Go Do” and “Lillikoi Boy” that got me.  They sound like Jonsi found a crayon box and when to town with a youthful abandon.  Playful and definitely childlike, Jonsi recaptured the wonder of those early Sigur Ros albums and does it in the brightest of colors.

Jonsi "Animal Arithmetic"


Albums 25-21 | 20-16 | 15-11 | 10-6 | 5-1

Top 25 Albums of 2010: 20-16

For albums 25-21, visit here.

20. The New Pornographers Together

Seriously, how good are the New Pornographers if Together is one of their lesser albums.  95% of the bands out there would kill to make an album this good.  The New Pornographers are a collective who makes powerful power-pop anthems.  Their hooks are the hookiest, the choruses the catchiest, and the vocals are the biggest.  Put it in, turn it up, and shout along.

The New Pornographers "The Crash Years"

19. Bubblegum Lemonade Sophomore Record

It’s fairly obvious Bubblegum Lemonade mastermind Laz McLuskey probably has a better record collection than you.  In a fine Scottish tradition, Bubblegum Lemonade mine the vaults of Jesus and the Mary Chain, toss in some Beach Boys, and add a pinch of Scottish twee.  The result is a bouncing collection of tunes that takes the ghosts of rock past and brings it into the present.

MP3: "Caroline's Radio"

18. Very Truly Yours Very Truly Yours

  

Remember the Sundays?  They had a minor hit in the 90’s with “Summertime”.  Well, here is their 2010 counterpart.  Very Truly Yours makes pretty, if non-descript, breezy, autumnal pop songs.  It’s an album to put on when you need to smile, when you need warmth, when you need to be reminded that the world isn’t a terrible place, when you need to know that there is joy and beauty all around.

MP3: "I'd Write You a Song"

17. Arcade Fire The Suburbs

  

Whatever accusations you made about me for my placement of Sufjan Stevens, feel free to do with Arcade Fire as well.  The only difference:  this album rules.  Every song is a fist pumping anthem.  It might very well be their best album yet.  It features the thematic complexity of Funeral and Neon Bible with an ever increasing prowess as musicians.  Arcade Fire might very well take the throne of kings of rock.  Why so low?  I just don’t listen to it very much.  Also, it could probably stand to be a bit shorter.  If you disagree, make your own list.

Arcade Fire "Ready to Start"

16.  A Sunny Day in Glasgow Autumn, Again

More than a great name, A Sunny Day in Glasgow continue to put out strong neo-shoegaze albums.  As a genre, shoegaze tends to slide into My Bloody Valentine worship.  At it’s most generic, 40 minutes with a shoegaze album mostly makes me want to reach for Loveless or Slowdive.  A Sunny Day in Glasgow certainly follows in the pattern of Loveless:  it’s three minute pop songs layered with layer upon layer upon layers of guitars, sequenced to sound like a monolithic whole.  The key, as far as I can tell, is the “three minute pop song” core.  There has to be something to build on.  More often than not, Autumn, Again succeeds.  Need proof: check out the catchy as I’ll get out “Drink Drank Drunk”.

You can download the album for free here.

For albums 25-21, visit here.

Top 25 Albums of 2010: 25-21

25.  Best Coast Crazy for You 

24. Tender Trap Dansette Dansette

Tender Trap’s Amelia Fletcher is an indie pop icon.  It’s been 24 years since she first recorded with the seminal Talulah Gosh.  Since then she’s only been the main player in iconic bands such as Heavenly, Marine Research, and now Tender Trap.  By any stretch of the imagination this has been a great run.  Most impressive is that 24 years later she’s still making exciting and subversive fuzzed out sonic blasts of sing-along fun.  On this album, "Girls with Guns" and "Do You Wanna Boyfriend?" are some of the catchiest songs you'll hear this year.

If Amelia Fletcher is the icon, Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino is the bratty newcomer.  Although she often gets lumped with the new (and probably already gone) niche genre chillwave, I think Best Coast has much more in common with the indie and noise pop bands like Tender Trap.  Sure, she’s from California.  Sure, she has stupid lyrics about boys, cats, drugs, and general slackerdom.  But, really this is a pop album that’s cranked up the distortion. Each song is a two minute ball of fury.

Best Coast "When I'm with You"


Tender Trap "Do You Want a Boyfriend"



23. Sufjan Stevens Age of Adz
22. Sufjan Stevens All Delighted People

Why so low you ask? Perhaps I’m annoyed with Sufjan Stevens’ success? Perhaps I don’t get what he’s doing here? Perhaps I’m a fan who wishes he would stick to what he was doing before? Or perhaps I simply don’t like the deconstructed cacophony of noise that these two albums represent. Don’t get me wrong, Stevens is an immensely talented man. In most regards these are a triumph. They’re risky. They push boundaries. They challenge how one listens to music. There is so much go on, it's impossible to get bored with them. I also find them to be an indulgent (not the first time this accusation has been thrown at Stevens) puddle of colliding noises. There is so much going on that it’s hard to find the melodic core that has been totally deconstructed. That being said, there is something going on here and it’s likely that five years from now I’ll revisit this list and wish I had these much higher.

21. Jenny and Johnny I’m Having Fun Now

I’ve never understood the Jenny Lewis backlash. Sure, no one likes to hear a former child actress and current music star sing about how bad life is. Chances are, we’ve got it worse Jenny. Still, I think Jenny Lewis occupies that place where people secretly enjoy her albums but will never give them too much critical acclaim. Jenny Lewis plays to her strengths. She’s got a fine, if not exceptional voice that she keeps in range. And she’s got a razor sharp wit that’s fine at tossing acerbic barbs. Her one-off album, I’m Having Now Now, is a collaboration with boyfriend Jonathan Rice and is true to its title. It’s a brief barnstormer of an album that has tints of Americana and even the Byrds. Despite its politically charged tones, it’s a joyful bouncing record that’s, well, fun.

Patience with God

What if atheism is not a disease that needs eradicated?  What if it isn’t an enemy that needs vanquished?  What if atheism isn’t the opponent of faith?  What if atheism lays on the same continuum of faith?  What if it is the atheist—the vocal, passionate, and suffering atheist—who stands in solidarity with the kenotic Christ?  What if it is the atheist who best understands the derelict cries of the godforsaken Christ of Golgotha?

In his new book Patience with God, Thomas Halík argues that the atheist is blessed in his solidarity with Christ.  Rather than crushing him with fine crafted arguments in favor of God’s existence, the atheist stands in the same pilgrimage of faith.  She simply needs more patience with the periods of God’s hiddenness.  Instead of an enemy of faith, he is the prophetic voice of protest against a world gone mad, a God who is absent, and a world of violence and shame.  She gives voice to the secret doubts of the faithful soul.  Rather than eradicate the disease that is atheism, the person of faith, the person of the Church, is obligated to stand in solidarity with the sufferings of the impatient atheist.  It is in this moment of solidarity that the faithful approach God’s own kenotic (self-emptying; see Phil. 2) activity.

I for one have found the atheistic/theistic debates tiring.  From a purely rationalistic/apologetic standpoint I haven’t found either position particularly fruitful, helpful, or even overly convincing.  At the end of the day, both the atheist and theist have his or her reason for believing what they do.  While not airtight, most arguments have their plausibility, internal consistency, and external weaknesses.  While this language is pushing the case a bit, as a Christian most indebted to Barth (and I’d say the overall testimony of Scripture) I find many apologetic arguments abhorrent.  Arguments for God’s existence cannot be a preamble to faith.  The testimony of the Bible is one where the existence of God is taken for granted.  God’s existence can be assumed because God was not silent and has revealed himself first in Israel and definitively in Jesus Christ.  The question in the pages of the Bible is not, “is there?” but “what kind?” of God might we know.  In fact, following a thread of Zizek, I might add that the monotheist who takes the atheist as a serious rival is actually a polytheist.  Taking the god of atheism too seriously posits and creates the existence of another god that stands next to and in opposition to the God of Scriptures.  But I digress.

Thomas Halík is a Polish Roman Catholic Priest.  Secretly ordained during a communist regime, he has spent the years following the velvet revolution coming to grips with what it means to live and serve openly as a man of faith.  Specifically this means living on the edge of the post-atheist, post-communist east and the post-Christian west.  As a Catholic, Halík takes his cues from popes past and present, Vatican II, theologians such as Karl Rahner and Luther, authors like Doestesky, and philosophers like Kierkegaard, Nietzche (yes, you read that correctly) and Simone Veil.  Most significantly, Halík draws deeply from the wells of a little known mystic saint:  St. Thèrése.

St. Thèrése de Lisieux was a 19^th century monastic who is perhaps best known for her deep anguish and spiritual conflicts near the end of the life.  She felt Christ slowly departed from here leaving in a desolate place “where no sun shines any longer.”  Rather than rebel against the God that left her, she resolved “to accept even the strangest thoughts” out of love for God.  God’s absence became a means for her to mark her solidarity with both Christ’s godforsaken cries on the cross and to mark her solidarity with unbelievers.

This, I believe, has great value as we grow and evolve in our faith.  It is practically common knowledge that at some point in our life, our faith grows cold.  The excitement and exuberance of young faith simply dies.  For many, clinging to the embers of a love grown cold isn’t enough.  And we grow angry, disillusioned.  “The church has failed me.”  “God has failed me.”  But what if we perceive this as an opportunity?  What if we mimic the patterns of Jesus and name our godforsakeness?  What if we follow the pattern of St. Thèrése and view this as an opportunity to identify with those who have no faith?

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t address the subtitle of the book: The Story of Zacchaeus Continuing in Us.  At the end of the day, this fine volume is a prolonged reflection on the Jesus and Zacchaeus story found in Luke.  While longer and more detailed than Henri Nouwen’s seminal Return of the Prodigal, Halík attempts many of the same things.  Job one is to see the potential Zacchaeuses around us.  A Zacchaeus is a person on the margins.  Someone who falls between the cracks.  Someone not easily seen.

This is a book for people on the margins.  This is a book for those who have grown weary with evidence driven apologetics that serve as a preamble to faith.  This is a book for those you who have lost heart with the hand grenades tossed back and forth between the Church and the atheist academics.  This is a book for people who want to find another way of faithful living.  It’s quieter.  But it’s powerful.  It’s a life of water slowing filling in the cracks.  It’s a life of subtle movements and resolute prayer.  I also think it’s the way of the kenotic Christ.

Failure and Loving Your Self

I used to be a youth minister. Say whatever you will about youth ministry, but in my experience it was a lot more than fun and games.

I recently re-read something I wrote about a particularly difficult time. In a one week span I faced one extremely poor evening gathering where nothing went right and another event that hardly anyone bothered to attend. And don’t forget the kids. One student was facing losing his one remaining parent to cancer. Another student was charged with a sexual felony. Then there was the girl who was kicked out of her Mom’s house and was couch surfing at 14. And there was the football game I got asked to attend, but I couldn’t. Oh, and I was also going to school nearly full time and had all the other normal responsibilities of being a husband/friend/son/sibling/juror/adult.

Basically, I could look down a list of names and events and pinpoint exactly where and how I was failing as their youth pastor. Why couldn’t I do more? Why couldn’t I get this person back on track? It wasn’t hard to slip from “I’m a failure as a youth pastor” to “I’m a failure as a human being.”

Thankfully, these moments of pity, regret, and incompetence were, for the most part, fleeting. But they raised a question: what about when those moments aren’t fleeting. What about those who live in the shadows of believing that he or she is truly a failure?

To add upon the woes is the well-meaning pastor, author, friend who points the Great Commandment as the essence of life: you need to love your God with your whole self and love your neighbor as your self. After pontificating on why and how we love God (“with my whole self? But I’m a failure.”), he or she moves into on how we’re to love our neighbor (see opening paragraphs about how I’m lame at that) and finally ends with an encouragement to love our self because that is the basis of how we love our neighbor.

The listener/reader hears: “I’m a failure and don’t really like myself right now. Thus I fail at loving my neighbor since I don’t really do enough. And because I fail at loving my neighbor, I fail at loving God.”

The well intentioned word of grace becomes a word of condemnation to those floundering in their own desperation.

Is there a better way to “love your self?” I think there is. I was recently reading I/2 of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. Barth doesn’t often get credit for his devotional writing. Clearly people haven’t read this section.

The first word is God’s free act of grace. We know ourselves and live our existence as pardoned sinners. He draws heavily on Luther in speaking of our standing as the pardoned sinner. Or in psychological terms: the forgiven failure.

“Behind him there is only the impossible, the sin which he was committed and the abyss of death. It is true that that is always behind him and to that extent he is still a sinner, and under sentence of death. He is saved only in Christ. But it is behind him. He is saved in Christ. He is a sinner pardoned, a peccator Justus.” (I/2, 370).

In loving our neighbor as our self, we see in our neighbor what we see in our self: a pardoned sinner. A redeemed failure.

“We can and should love our neighbor only as the people we are, and therefore ‘as ourselves.’ We cannot meet him in a self-invented mask of love. We can only venture, as the men we are, to do what we to commanded in word and deed and attitude.” (452-453)

This can only take two forms: one of humility and prayer. In humility as pardoned sinners at the service of our Lord. In prayer of reaching with empty hands to receive the love of the God who first loved us.

“In the last resort we can only love the neighbor by praying for ourselves and for him: for ourselves, that we might love him rightly, and for him, that he may let himself be loved; which means that either way prayer can have only one content and purpose: that according to His promise Jesus Christ may let his work be done for and to ourselves and to our neighbor.” (454)

I wish I could go back five years and hear this. I hope I can recall this in five years when I’ll need to hear again. I am a failure. I fail to love rightly. I fail to love well. But I am a pardoned failure and I encounter other pardoned failures. As a people of pardoned failures we live in light of the God who first loved us and pledged his very self to us. As pardoned failures we humbly pray with open hands for each that God’s work might be done and that we might receive love both from God and each other.

Amen.

Talking Scripture and Tending a Garden

Although, I doubt I’ll ever have to seriously face this question: how does one end a massive three-volume 2700 page Old Testament Theology? Most theologies I’ve read don’t really end well, they just end. That’s why Fuller professor John Goldingay takes the cake. For Goldingay, the Old (or First) Testament isn’t a dusty prolegomena rendered irrelevant by the New (or Second) Testament. It isn’t a historical relic to be dissected by history of religions schools. It’s a witness to the revelation of God and has words or instructions for living not just then but now. Here’s how he ends the book.

In the twenty-first century, what might be the structure of a life shaped by the First Testament? Here is a Decalogue. You can choose which you obey. But do some of them.

• Praise God at dusk and at dawn.
• Relax and sleep for the time in between.
• Grow things to eat.
• Tithe what you grow.
• Keep out of department stores and shopping malls (beware the Internet too).
• On Thursdays, pray laments for people who are suffering.
• On Fridays, think about the fact that you are going to die.
• On Saturdays, have a day’s rest (you can tend your garden if it’s not your regular work).
• On Sundays, talk with your friends or family about Scripture.
• Three times a year, hold a week-long holiday with your friends or family, and celebrate what God has done for us in nature and in delivering us.

Those are just regular, rule-of-life kinds of things. This volume is full of other things to do when occasion demands or invites. (Old Testament Theology, Volume 3: Israel's Life)


Brilliant.

In Defense of Black Friday

By mid-morning on Black Friday, my Facebook News Feed was plush with greetings of “Buy Nothing Day”, sarcastic tidings of “Happy Black Friday”, and plenty of condemnation of the evils of the unofficial holiday falling annually the day after Thanksgiving.

We didn’t do much shopping on this day this year. Our only purchases were the Christmas ornaments we put in our stockings every year. Of course we bought these locally at an independently owned small business. Since it was the “right” type of purchase at the “right” type of store, I can only imagine we were granted immunity in the blanket condemnation of Black Friday shopping.

Although we didn’t shop much this year, that doesn’t mean our household is morally opposed to it. Far from it. In fact, we’ve gone shopping on Black Friday in years past. Further, I think there is good reason to do. Finally, I found these Facebook statuses mean-spirited and frankly missed the mark. (As any status, tweet, or blog post probably will.) So, here are my reasons why we might not want to give those poor souls who shopped Black Friday the benefit of the doubt. And if not the masses, at least your aunt whose present you’ll be opening in two fortnight.

1. Shopping can be a time of togetherness.

Many of the people who shop Good Friday shop together. This is a time they anticipate all year. It’s a significant shared experience that deepens the bonds of friendship. Together, they wake earlier than they normally do. Together, they plan their trips. Together, they spend time waiting in lines. Together, they laugh. Together, they share. We Christians talk a lot about fellowship. Is this the wrong type of fellowship? In my mind, the Christmas season is a ripe time celebrating and enjoying the bonds of friendship and family. Who am I to say that can’t be done waiting in line at 6:00 am at Old Navy purchasing a sweater for someone that will wear it once a week ever winter for the next five years. Somehow I think if somebody forked out a couple hundred bucks to sit in bleachers and sing Alma matter, they’d be getting a free pass on this one.

2. Shopping can be a time to think of others.

Most people I know don’t shop indiscriminately. There is no anonymous abstraction of a person. Instead they shop with a specific person in mind. They consider the needs, wants, personality, and character of the intended. In shopping for others they examine each other by looking deep into the very character of the person. The gift chosen, purchased, and given is a type of the sacramental giving of Jesus Christ at his last Passover meal where he lifted, broke, and gave the bread to his companions. The gift is given and received with great joy because it was a personal encounter between to functioning humans.

3. Shopping can be a time of stewardship.

One of the most common charges against the shopping on Black Friday is rampant consumerism. People spend, spend, and spend some more. I can’t speak for other families, but I imagine there are many like ours. Our budget for the year is set well in advance. As best we can, every dollar is accounted for before it is spent. We don’t spend indiscriminately and we try not to spend wastefully. In fact, most of our extraneous spending is reserved for two times of celebration: birthdays and Christmas. Well in advance, we know exactly what we’re going to spend on gifts. Our giving is based on a budget. Living on a budget means looking for the best value. All things considered, Black Friday has good deals. And buying gifts at a lower price means, gasp, we’re free to spend less, give more, and all those other so-called more important things.

4. Giving is a an activity fit for the occasion.

In the Christian tradition, there are two high holidays: Easter and Christmas. Both are a time of celebration. Both are a time of feasting. Unless you make and grow everything yourself, feasting entails consumption through purchasing. It demands going out and making choices about what it is you’re going to consume and/or share. This is simply the nature of the game.

Listening to the self-righteous criticism on the anonymous, yet actual living and breathing people who might just be sitting in front of you at Church, persons who spent their day after Christmas purchasing gifts, I can’t help but think of two gospel accounts. The first occurs just before Jesus’ arrest. He was in the house of Simon the Leper. There a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on Jesus’ head. The disciples were indignant: “Why this waste? This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.” Instead of rebuking the woman, Jesus rebuked the disciples and commended to woman for her generous waste. Christmas is a time of celebration. It’s a time of generously giving, and this can be done in the name of Christ, to others. Instead of a waste, perhaps it might just be an act of worship. In condemning those who shop Black Friday, do we really wish to place ourselves in the shoes of the disciples?

The second is similar. Historically it had to deal with those who were unable to understand what was happening with John the Baptist and Jesus. In response to the dual charge of too much celebrating and too much fasting, Jesus described the crowd gathered as a child who called out in the marketplace: “We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not cry.” They missed the point. There is a time to laugh and celebrate. There is a time to cry and fast. They got the two confused. Could it be that it was those out at 5 am scouring for the perfect gift for family and friend to open on Christmas morning are the ones who could read the times? Could it be they’re the ones who hear the piper and know it’s time to dance?

5. Conclusion

This isn’t meant to be a blanket endorsement of unbridled consumerism. I get the necessary critique of spending wastefully. I think rampant consumerism can be and probably is a problem. However, I don’t believe taking pot shots at people who happen to be out on the day after Thanksgiving trying to find something nice for someone they love is the way to do it.

Isaac of Stella on Multiple Possibilities of Meaning in Holy Scripture

“The Wisdom of God truly takes many shapes, even though it is very simple, and although it is uniformly one, it is nonetheless found to be many-sided in many ways …
For this reason it often happens that those who disagree about the same Scriptural passages or who espouse different ideas about things can be in the highest agreement or harmony with the Holy Spirit. This is only provided that there has been a decision made not to disagree with the truth of faith, the building up of charity, and the rooting out of cupidity. Everyone is vigilant about these matters when it comes to Sacred Scripture. Fore everyone involved is in agreement about things one way or another, at one time or another. But there is no room for choice between one Spirit and another. On both sides of the issue, as has been mentioned, there exists a harmonious relationship with truth and charity.” (Isaac of Stella. Cited in Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: Volume 1—The Four Senses of Scripture, p. 81. Emphasis mine.)

I believe that in these two brief paragraphs, 12^th century English theologian, philosopher, and Cistercian monk, Isaac of Stella deftly moves us to a point where we can begin to maneuver between two opposing tensions in understanding the Biblical witness: 1) the move towards an open reading of the Scripture where we read the Bible in concert with others with a critical openness to a plurality of voices and interpretations. This is the move towards Jerome and Origen’s “infinite forest of meaning”. It also is the move where the reader recognizes that Holy Scripture is a living Word that continues to reveal the character, person, and will of God. 2) The move towards a closed reading of Scripture where we narrow our reading towards a point where we can claim to identify what the text meant in its original setting and thus what it means today. In its most charitable, a closed reading simply qualifies Origen and Jerome by simply rejecting heterodox and heretical views. In its most extreme, it allows only one meaning of Scripture and rejects all other interpretations.

First, Isaac affirms what we have already noted: there are multiple interpretations of Scripture. This is obvious enough that it hardly seems worth noting. But Isaac does affirm that there are real differences of opinions. Conflicting opinions are not a semantic game of saying the same thing in different ways: “you say ‘bachelor’, I say ‘unmarried man.’ You say Revelation is like a historical political cartoon obscured by time and I say it’s as an eschatological document outlining the future events.” Make no mistake, the next time you are in a Bible study or are reading two books or hearing two sermons or having a conversation over a coffee and a genuine difference of interpretation arises, it is not likely you’re saying the same things different ways.

Second, Isaac, while recognizing that there are multiple possibilities of meaning, simultaneously recognizes there “can be in the highest agreement or harmony with the Holy Spirit.” It is often assumed that harmony or unity requires total conformity as if we’re grieving the Spirit by reaching different conclusions. Naively, people sometimes point the existence of denominations as proof of the total disunity of the Christian Church as if their mere existence was an affront to God. Similarly, divergent possibilities of meaning seem to negate a Spirit-guided reading of Scripture because if the Spirit is a Spirit of unity and truth how could two people come to opposite opinions? Interestingly, Isaac doesn’t seem particularly troubled by multiple possibilities of meaning as long as the opinions are reached in the Spirit, according to the rule of faith, and with the posture of charity. (Of course, the East/West split notwithstanding, the Church was relatively normalized, at least compared to today.)

Isaac’s qualifications are huge. Much too large to squeeze into one blog post. But they point us in a good direction: one of charity and generosity where the person sitting next to might know as much as you do. Briefly, the rule of the Spirit involves an understanding of Holy Scriptures where the one Holy Spirit legitimately guides two prayerful people into two different possibilities of meaning. Although there are surface differences that cannot be discounted as differences there is a structural unity provided by the testimony of the Holy Spirit. The structural unity or foundation is found in a commitment to what Isaac calls “the truth of faith”. Alternately this might be called the rule of faith. In architecture, two buildings might take very different forms with two very different purposes. A hospital is not a house even though they are both buildings were people can sleep, cook, and eat. However, the two buildings are sound when they adhere to fundamental rules of design. Similarly, a Spirit led reading of Scripture that arrives a different interpretation is sound as long as it corresponds to the rule of faith—those things that all Christians at all times hold to be essential and fundamental to the Christian faith.

Multiple Possibilities of Meaning in Holy Scripture

In one of his letters, Church Father Jerome described scripture as “in infinite forest of meanings”. Likewise the towering Origen referred to the vastness of Biblical interpretation as “the exceedingly broad forest of Scripture.”

In the esteem of these two great minds, Scripture defies easy explanation. Instead the world of the Bible is a vast and sprawling forest. It is a world that is rich and lust. It is a world that is full of twists and turns. It is a world that defies simple solutions. It is a world that opens up new discoveries around every bend. It is a world that never exhausts its riches. It is a world of multiple possibilities of meaning.

With the poetic license of a Jerome or an Origen, the infinite forest of multiple possibilities is an alluring prospect. This touches the nerve of the Protestant sola scriptura by identifying the thickness of Scripture. As an infinite forest full of multiple possibilities of meaning, the Bible is alive and active today. It is more than capable of speaking truth and providing direction in the labyrinth of today and tomorrow’s moral quandaries. The faith of late 18th century France, the urban American church of the 21st century, and the rice patty farmers of Southeast Asia all read the same Scripture but with different eyes. Each person or group enters that broad forest and gleans meaning.

Yet, at the same time, I think there is uneasiness in affirming multiple possibilities of meaning. One of the core understandings of Biblical exegesis is thinking of it as a process that seeks to penetrate what the Biblical text meant as it left the pen of the Biblical author (or was edited by his redactor, or arranged by his editor, etc.). This view of exegesis seems to tip our hat to the impossibility of multiple meanings. The task of the interpreter is to come to the correct meaning of the text and correctly convey that text to his or her modern audience.

Is this not the very nature of a commentary? The commentator researches the historical context. He places the book in a literary, grammatical, and canonical setting. She uses all the tools of ancient and modern research to penetrate the old forms of thoughts. He converses with other commentators along the road, voicing his pleasure or disapproval. At the end, she offers her analysis on what the text means.

And what of heterodoxy or heresy? Certainly, we might all agree, the forest of Scripture isn’t infinite. There is a boundary between the lushness of orthodox Biblical meaning and the wasteland of heresy. There are certain interpretations that exclude other interpretations.

Is it possible to have it both ways? Can one, with Origen and Jerome, affirm the possibility of multiple possibilities of meaning and guard against heterodox meanings? Can one read two commentators who come to differing conclusions about the significance of a text and agree with both? Is it possible to attend two churches and hear two sermons on the same text and agree the Word of God has been proclaimed? Is there a via media that simultaneously affirms both the wideness and narrowness of the Biblical world?

I believe there is. I hope to explore this a bit over the next few weeks. As a thought experiment I’m going to look at some authors, past and present, who have attempted this same process.

My hope is that my next blog will look at Irenaeus and Isaac of Stella and the deposit or truth of faith and the place charity plays in interpretation.

A Happy Marriage and a Lonely Death

I have been spending time reading Rafael Yglesias’ novel A Happy Marriage. The novel, loosely based off the author’s own experience of meeting, falling-in-love, and marrying his own wife only to lose her to cancer 30 years later. The novel alternates between the characters Enrique and Margaret’s few weeks of courtship and the last few weeks of her life. Told entirely from the perspective of Enrique, we are given a first hand look into the emotional anguish he experiences as he faces the death of his beloved. In this paragraph, we see the true solitude in facing the death of a loved one:

He could not and did not ask Margaret or his boys for comfort. His father was dead. His mother too old and too self-pitying to be a solace. His in-laws too frightened and too bereft themselves. His half brother, Leo, to anxious and too selfish. His male friends too distant from the realities and too uncomprehending of the experience. Margaret’s best friend, Lily, too preoccupied comforting Margaret and herself. His half sister, Rebecca, who had been present and understanding and so great a help, could spell and reassure him, but she could not provide, no one could provide, what he had forsaken for nearly three years, what cancer had taken from him, and would soon take from him forever: Margaret’s attention.

Thank God I do not understand Enrique’s suffering. How could I? For each person’s suffering is unique is his own way. The best I could offer is my own sufferings.

But more to the point, thank God I have never had to face the loss of Lindsay. I do not think I could cope. It is something I do not wish to face, nor think it particularly helpful or healthy to speculate on what losing her young to a drawn out terminal illness might do to my psychological state.

What strikes me about Enrique’s pain is the solitude he faces. For thirty years Margaret has been his life and he is now facing a life without her, he is alone. Sure, he has children. Sure, he has family. He has friends. But there is no one to enter into his suffering. To know it as their own.

As I’ve read through this book and glimpsed into the mind of a tortured soul, I can’t help but think of Jurgen Moltmann’s The Crucified God. At it’s heart, it is a profound theological reflection on Jesus Christ’s final cry from the cross: “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.”

Traditionally, theologians and pastors have interpreted this in a number of ways. Most link it to a doctrine of the atonement similar to that of Anselm’s satisfaction theory where Jesus Christ made restitution on the cross for the sins of humanity. Or closely related is the penal theory where Jesus Christ is punished for the sins of humanity. In both theories there is a transaction between God the Father and God the Son where either Jesus incurs the wrath of God or makes a payment to God.

What Moltmann did was flip the transactional theories on their head and address the cross of Jesus that lead to his death as a death within the life of God. So not only did Jesus Christ suffer and died and experienced the throes of a godforsaken existence, but God the Father suffered in the real loss of his beloved Son. Thus, Moltmann argues, there is mutual suffering within the life of God in the death of Christ. This, of course, would frustrate those whose who deny the passion of God the Father.

But, I ask, what God has something to say to the suffering of Enrique? The God who punishes his beloved Son? The God who pours out his wrath upon the cross? Or is it the God who has foolishly and riskily loved and lost? The God who knows the solitude of death?

The Power of Story: Part 1

If you’ve been playing Buzzword Bingo with the emergent Christian crowd you’re in luck if your score card includes the word “story”. Spend any time at a worship service or in conversation with an emergent, po-mo Christian, it won’t be long before you hear the word. And why not? It doesn’t the baggage associated with older terms used to describe the experience of being a Christian (Christ-follower?) and it’s a versatile word capable of conveying an ample array of meanings.

For starters, it gets used to describe one’s conversion experience. “Once I was lost, but now I’m found…let me tell you my story of how that happened…” For those without a killer conversion experience, it can be used for the ways that God has been at work in their life. “I grew up in household with Christian parents. We went to church every Sunday. Even though it’s been a good life, it’s had its ups and downs. Let me tell you that story…”

Beyond the realm of personal experience, it’s a term that gets used to describe the events narrated in the Bible. This can be narrow. “Let me tell you the story of Abraham…” Or it can be broad, such as the broad meta-narrative that comprises the full scope of the Old and New Testament.

A third area of use is a bit trickier, but it’s broadly theological in context and usually refers to matters of salvation—how and why God saves. Those in the Reformed tradition (i.e. denominations influenced by John Calvin and followers) might describe this in terms of covenant: God’s story is that of binding himself to humanity in such a way that he would be their God and they his people.

A final area of use is where two of the above get liked so that personal experience meets the objective reality of God’s interaction with the world. Perhaps you’ve heard something like this: “…where God’s story and my story meet…” In this use of the word the theological use (story as a catch-all term to describe what God has done for humanity) meets the personal (my life events).

Full disclosure: I’m as guilty as the next for (over?) using this particular word. In the realm of the personal, it is certainly a modernization of the old term “testimony.” Of course, testimony has the strength of testifying about something. More specifically it’s testifying about someone. Ultimately a testimony tells about what God did for us or me. “My story” sounds strangely narcissistic. Still from an evangelistic point of view, the use of story in form and in term is powerful. One hears stories and is shaped by them. Rarely do we hear and story and ask “is that true?” The power of story is in its power to influence. Further, in its purest form, story is testimony or witness. Concerning God, to tell the story of God is to tell the narrative of who God is and how God has shown Himself to be. Often it was the way of Jesus himself: “You want to know what God is like? Here let me tell you a story: ‘there once was a man who went and scattered seed…’”. From our perspective this is still powerful: “What’s God like? Let me tell you about a man from Nazareth who came proclaiming a message…”

It’s also a fair term to use in its Biblical and theological sense. Story is a useful synonym for that which Biblical and Systematic theologians have often termed “salvation history”. As a God who has revealed Himself and acted in History, God has entered into a covenant partnership with the created order. In this partnership God has made himself the God who is for his creation. And this partnership has unfolded over the course of history in such a way that we are justified in calling it a story.

Lastly, we are justified in calling the Biblical narratives stories. For that it is what they are. As a champion of creedal and dogmatic theology, I must not forget that at the center of the Christian witness is the story of a man from Nazareth named Jesus Christ. This is seen most clearly in the gospel narratives that are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Much to the chagrin of so-called source critic fundamentalists that wish desperately to wrench the individual incidents out of their narrative unity in order to discern the historical kernel, the narrative must be read as a whole. While much has and will be gained by trying to discern the historical through source critical means, it seems most natural to read the gospel accounts as a literary whole. While they may have emerged from various sources (what historical narrative hasn’t?). They were compiled in such a way to tell the story of a particular man, in a particular place, at a particular man. And, I might add, to invoke a faith response on the part of the listeners. As a particular man, the man Jesus is a unique, unsubstitutable person.

Thus, I argue, reading the gospels as a unified whole is their most natural reading. Natural does not mean easy however. We need all the help we can get. And this is where the late theologian Hans Frei serves as a most useful guide.

Ivan Karamazov, Jurgen Moltmann, and The Crucified God

Lately, I have been thinking about Ivan Karamazov. As one of the three protagonists of Dostoevsky’s The Brother Karamazov, Ivan, the intellectual, represents humanity’s striving to move beyond God. Ivan envisions a post-religious world dominated by the rationality of human reason. While God may have had his moments, the use-by date of God has long since expired. Ivan asks, “how can one look upon the world and confess faith, love, and admiration of God?” The world has been forsaken by God. The human plight is so abysmal, Ivan had no choice but to reject the God that rejected the world. Of course, the rejection of God left a moral vacuum. A vacuum that left Ivan to opine, “If God does not exist, everything is permitted.”

For quite sometime Christians have used this conclusion as an argument against an atheistic morality. The argument goes: With no moral arbiter, there are no moral absolutes. If there are no moral absolutes, everything is relative. If everything is relative, it is impossible to evaluate ethical choices in any meaningful manner. As Ivan put it, “everything is permitted.”

Although atheistic ethicists have fought to counter this argument, there is some truth to it. In a 1946 lecture on Existentialism and Humanism, French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre called the aforementioned quote by Ivan Karamazov as the “starting point” of all existentialist thought. There is no determinism in which we can appeal. Nor may we describe a person’s choice with reference to nature. Instead, humans are radically free to do whatever he or she wants. And as a radically free creature, it is only the individual who is ultimately responsible for his or her actions.

In what would bring Dostoevsky sadness, it appears Ivan has won. It does not take much imagination to believe we live in a time and a place where everything is permitted. Looking beyond the random acts of violence that occur ever day, we might point to the radical inequity of resources where some eat and drink wastefully and many more go without basic necessitates. In the United States, our pets are treated better than many people the world over. Let us not forget the increasing polarization of ideologies. One wonders if it is possible to engage constructively in any political dialogue, especially when the final arbiter is me. Add this all up and I can’t help but hear Ivan Karamazov and feel sympathy: how can we honestly look at the world and affirm the existence of God?

In November of 1969, six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter were murdered in a university in San Salvador. As they dragged the bodies back into the building they pulled one into an office, bumped a bookcase, and dislodged a book which became drenched in blood. The name of the book: The Crucified God by the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann. When reflecting upon that horrible incident, Moltmann found it reassuring that it was his book that was soaked in an innocent man’s blood. For a profound, rich, and complex book, the thesis is simple: only a crucified God can provide relief, hope, and salvation for a world stained by radical individualism and ceaseless violence. For Moltmann himself, it is the words of the martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Only a suffering God can help.”

Ivan Karamazov sees a world abandoned and forsaken by God. In the world’s godforsakeness, Ivan saw no alternative but to reject the very existence of God and turn to himself.

As a theological work, The Crucified God is an extended meditation on Jesus’ last cry from the cross “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.” In the cross of Jesus, the Godhead experiences death. There is a death within God.

There are many explanations for Jesus’ death. In one version, he died as a blasphemer. In another, he died as a political dissident. But in another, Jesus died as the godforsaken. On the cross, Jesus was the true innocent suffering the sins of humanity. And what did he find in his suffering? A God who looked the other way. On the cross, Jesus was utterly abandoned by God the Father and exemplifies a Godforsaken world.

But Jesus’ death upon the cross was more than the death of God who became flesh. The death Jesus died upon the cross was a death “within God”. Within the triune life of God, the Godhead experienced death. In the Trinity, the second person Jesus Christ suffered death and abandonment. Yet, the first person of the Trinity, God the Father experienced the heartbreak and loss of his only beloved and begotten son shamefully murdered upon the cross.

On the cross and within the life of God we fix our eyes on Jesus who suffered and experienced our own Godforsakeness. But on the cross and within the life of God we also encounter the Father who suffered and experience the loss of his only begotten and beloved son. When we approach God in faith, we approach a God who identifies and experiences the heartbreak and suffering of this world. God takes it upon Himself and suffers along with us. In the suffering of God, we have a God who helps and saves and transforms this present age.

Karl Barth - The Word of God & the Word of Man

There are many varied reasons why someone might wish to read Karl Barth’s The Word of God & the Word of Man. For some it might be that because Barth is such a towering figure not just in 20th century theology but in the history of Christian theology as well, it is probably worth taking the time to read at least something he wrote. Or, those who have moved beyond curiosity and actually have a great affinity (or hatred!) to Barth’s work and might be interested in reading this collection of some of his early lectures to better understand Barth’s beginnings. Reading the opening essay “The Righteousness of God” helps the Barth scholar better understand what was happening in say, “The Humanity of God”. As such, The Word of God & the Word of Man serves as a useful Polaroid of the early Barth. Or perhaps the would-be reader was left puzzled by the veritable hand grenade that was Romans. Despite its stature, Romans is by no means an easy read and this collection might serve as a helpful supplement to such a task.

As a pseudo-/wanna-be Barth scholar I must admit that part of my motivation for reading this collection falls in the later variety: where did Barth come from? How did he get from point A to point B? What is it that distinguishes the nebulous “early Barth” from “later Barth”? Ironically, my hunch is that the man himself would laugh at questions such as these. While it is certainly a worthwhile endeavor to understand the work of another person, this should never be the end of the matter. This is even more so considering the subject matter of theology. In theology we use the words of men, to reflect critically upon the Word of God. Yet, in the haste to do so we forget that it is the Word of God that has its proper place as the beginning and end of all theological speak – something that Barth argues in this volume is really an impossibility anyway. Yet, speak we must. So moving forward, might there be another, better reason for reading a collection as this? Something that moves beyond the realm of theological gymnastics and cuts to the center of why we even think theologically?

It is often forgotten that Barth wrote and thought with the Church in mind. Barth began his career as a parish minister. Even his magnum opus Church Dogmatics was written for the Church and specifically with the minister in mind. Yet due to the sheer volume and breadth of Dogmatics, it is easier to push aside that reality and think of Barth as a scholar’s scholar with little mind for what actually happens in the world whether it be in the parish or in the streets. However, with The Word of God & the Word of Man, the reader is forcefully reminded that Barth wrote and thought as a minister of the Word of God with great and terrible call to preach the Word of God whether it is in the pulpit on a Sunday morning or in the great halls of the academy. And as such Barth confronts us here with the Godness of God, the one that is wholly other and yet confronts us in our sinfulness and justifies us freely and thereby heightening the level of confrontation.

Opening essay “The Righteousness of God” makes this very clear. Any attempt to construct our own image of God is a foolish tower of Babel and denies the overwhelming reality of the otherness of God. As Barth writes with such lucidity one cannot help but be lead to a deeper place of, gasp, worship of the true God who confronts us as we are. In the exceptional “The Strange New World of the Bible” the reader is reminded of the nature of the Bible. The Bible is not a history as such. It is not the story of humanity. It is not the history of religion. The Bible is the history of God and must be read as such. It is not concerned with our history but the history of God. The Bible is the bony finger of John – “behold the lamb of God!” Essays “The Need and Promise of Christian Preaching” and “the Word of God and the Task of the Ministry” are just as they sound: a resounding call to the vocation of the Church and a reminder of the impossibility of the task, specifically for the minister. As ministers called to speak truthfully and bear witness to God we stand under the judgment of God. Yet as ministers we bear witness to the mercy of the God who justifies us and frees us for such an impossible task: “As ministers we ought to speak of God. We are human, however, and so cannot speak of God. We ought therefore to recognize both our obligation and our inability and by that very recognition give God the glory” (186).

My hope is that I am suggesting that Barth in general and this work in particular are for more than the academic seeking to tag and classify God. Barth’s program is for the glory of God and the benefit of the Church. What minister, what Christian need to be less confronted with righteousness of God? What minister, what Christian does not need to be reminded of the strange new world of the Bible? What minister has not felt the crushing terror that comes with awesome task of the proclamation of the Word of God? And if one has not felt that terror, they should. And that is precisely what Barth is doing here. When one reads Barth one is confronted and reminded of the true starting point of all Christian thinking: God is God and I am not.

A Biblical Look at the Virgin Birth

In both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicean-Constantinople Creed there is an affirmation of belief in Jesus Christ, the second person of the trinity God incarnate, “who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary” (Apostles Creed) or who “was made incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man” (Nicene).

However, of the virgin birth, it bears mentioning that one the two other major ecumenically acknowledged creeds of the era (Chalcedon) also mentions the virgin birth but does not credit the Holy Spirit for conception. Then there is the Athanasian Creed focuses on the triune nature of God and as such is not as interested in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.

Yet, all the same the virgin birth has played a major confessional and theological role in Christian history. As confessed by the Apostles and Nicene Creed, the virgin birth is a historical reality putting the birth firmly in concrete history. Just as Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate, so too was Jesus born of the Virgin Mary. While the virgin birth clearly stands as a supernatural occurrence, it is still a birth and as such, natural and in and in the realm of history.

But before moving to the theological import of such a confession I wish to look at it from the Biblical Theological perspective by listening to Ben Witherington III.

The Biblical Perspective – From New Testament History - A Narrative Account

First Witherington addresses the charge that the birth narratives from Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 are of a different sort than the other Gospel narratives. That is, they do not come from different sources. Witherington points to the fact that the birth narratives feature a mixture of the mundane and supernatural like the rest of the gospel narratives. Further, he notes that the passion narratives and birth narratives (particularly Matthew) are interlaced with scriptural citations “precisely because these were the portions of the Jesus story that would most need justification and explanation. Early Jews were not looking for a messiah miraculously born a virgin" (emphasis mine, 67).

Second, there are enormous similarities: the betrothed Mary and Joseph, virginal conception, David decent of Joseph, the birth in Bethlehem during Herod’s reign, angelic revelation of Jesus’ name, and Jesus’ upbringing in Nazareth.

Third, there is the issue of Mt. 1:23’s citation of Is. 7:14. The word almah used in Is. 7:14 refers to a young woman of a marriageable age. Although virginity is not technically implied, virginity is implicit. Historically speaking Jews seemed to have believed the prophecy of Is. 7:14 was fulfilled in Hezekiah – the son of Ahaz. For the Jew of the era, to hear “a virgin will conceive and give birth” might mean no more than a women who had previously not had sexual relations did and became pregnant.

Fourth is the charge that the story of Jesus’ birth is a variant on the myths told of the gods of the Greco-Roman world. In those stories the divine being descends to the earth in the guise of a male and mates with a human woman. What Matthew and Luke are suggesting, however, is that Mary’s conception is miraculous in that there was no form of sexual intercourse and no male figure divine or human. Further, the presence of the Holy Spirit is never portrayed as a human figure or assuming human form. It is also noteworthy that no Old Testament character had such a birth nor did any messianic expectation envision such a conception.

This brings us to a fifth point with is more logical than historical. Why would Christians – member of a minority evangelistic group create such a myth? Why open Jesus up to the charge of illegitimacy (see Jn. 8:41; Mk. 6:3)? Further, Christians as early as the second century took the virgin conception as a matter of fact and it is alluded to elsewhere in the New Testament (Rom. 1:3; Gal. 4:4; Phil. 2:7; Jn. 1:13; 6:41-42).

Based upon these five points Witherington believes that it is easier to accept that the Gospel writers were writing history rather than creating theology. In fact, the unexpectedness of the virginal conception accounts for the awkwardness of the writer’s explanation. The messiah being born of a virgin was a surprise even to them and thus had to scramble for justification.

Advent Reflection 2 - The Homelessness of Jesus

“Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Under normal circumstances this time of the year would be spent doing things like picking out a Christmas tree, stringing it with lights and ornaments, and decorating the house for Christmas. This year we’ve done no such thing. Instead we’ve been running around town finding boxes, dropping items of at Goodwill, calling utility companies, movers, packing up boxes, and moving to our new house.

As I was driving through town reflecting on all this, I began to think how little this year felt like Christmas. I wished we could have been out finding the perfect tree. I wished we could have been decorating the house. I wish we could have been making cookies. Alas, that was not possible. I could not depend on the things that normally made the season feel like Christmas. If I couldn’t have those things, what did I have? The answer was surprisingly simple:

Jesus.

Advent is time of preparing. Of waiting. Of hoping. But not for presents. Not for holiday cookies. And not even for time with family and friends. No we wait, we prepare, and we hope for the coming of Christ the King. Without the tree, without the decorations, without the lights, what did I have?

Jesus.

If anything or upheaval marking our life has pushed me to a deeper place of preparation. The life and ministry of Jesus was one marked by homelessness: “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Jesus of Nazareth, God’s own son was a man on the move. His way was the way of obedience to his father in heaven. This purity of heart made Jesus a man on the move. There was no time or place for the trappings of normalcy.

This sense of homelessness marked Jesus’ birth as well. The popular images of Jesus’ birth suggest Mary in the ninth month of her pregnancy riding a donkey during the midnight hour to a closed-down Bethlehem accompanied only by her soon-to-be husband. With no place to sleep, they the lonely couple migrated to a barn where she gave birth to a son and placed him in a manger. Yet this popular account says too much. It’s entirely plausible that Mary and Joseph had been living in Bethlehem for some time before Jesus was born. And although now Joseph had presently resided to the north in Nazareth, it is entirely plausible that Bethlehem was home to some of Joseph’s kin who might have housed the couple.

What is certain is that Bethlehem was not home. Even at birth Jesus had no hole, he had no nest. Jesus was born on the move and continued to move. Eight days later he was in Jerusalem. Soon after that he was whisked away to Egypt, escaping the ruthless and paranoid Herod. It wasn’t until much later that Jesus arrived home in Nazareth. But even then that was only a temporary dwelling as Jesus’ public ministry was dominated by the homeless existence of a public prophet proclaiming the good news of the reign of God.

The birth of Jesus was one marked by great instability, danger, and risk. It is a sign of the loving freedom of the Son of God to descend to earth as a child in a position of vulnerability and dependence. Even at birth God freely gave of himself. He gave his future into the hands of a young mother and father. He gave himself to humanity in great political turmoil and distress. Even in birth and his early life Jesus was acted upon.

While Christmas can mean presents, cookies, and trees there is something deeper. While the holiday traditions hold a great and even meaningful place, we might take the risk of pulling back the husk to reveal the kernel of the advent season announced by the angel to Mary: “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”