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Center for Theology, Lenoir-Rhyne University
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
October 5, 2003
Pericope Study
Old Testament Lesson: Genesis 2:18-24
Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and from the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." - RSV
1. The "Yahwist account," as the scholarship runs, is the older of the two Genesis renderings of God's good creation. Both of them testify, in modest-but-brilliant contrast to other ancient accounts, to the essential unity of creation - by God, and spoken into reality: "And God said, 'let there be light, and there was light." Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the adam should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." No cosmic struggle here, to say nothing of open warfare between the good and evil deities. No split between spirit and matter, of what ever dualistic stripe. No conjugal setting between goddess and god, whether of the nurturing sort or the competitive. The creation is not God's offspring, nor the fruit of divine lust. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit spoke the kosmos into reality, in the beginning. The Spirit of the living God moved over the face of the deep. The Logos is the One by Whom and for Whom all things are made. No other surviving account of any ancient people as to the origin of the universe couches that origin in the One God Who Created by Declaration, accomplished through the instrumentality of the Logos, in Whom all things cohere.
2. Since The Origin of Species the challenge has come as to a merely "materialist" account of both the origin of the universe and the origin of life. That is, from the "big bang" to the current events, there is no direction or intrusion from a Transcendent Force, of whatever sort. Materialist causality attributes to the laws of nature only "emergence" as to their provenance. Mind, rationality, and spirit are human attributes at the current "peak" of evolution … now able to probe space for evidence of other mind and other spirit. Is this the only mind in the cosmos? Perhaps, given the billions of stars, there are other planets on which life and mind have emerged and evolved. Perhaps. The challenge from materialist Darwinism renders the Genesis 2 account quaint, where the adam is understood to be alone, lacking a fit helper.
3. There is currently, and more prominent in the last fifteen years, a rejoinder from "intelligent design." What Hume consigned to the religious superstition and thus to the philosophical dustbin has been resurrected (!) by sciences as diverse as astrophysics and biochemistry. As to both cosmic forces and cellular structure, the resident complexity implies - indeed, requires - consideration of a designer, probably even a Designer. Mathematicians such as Walter Dembski and biochemists such as Michael Behe (Darwin's Black Box) have reopened the case for what Hume so prematurely dismissed in his rejection of teleology. In the discourse of the academy, as to creation, God is back. Or at least Intelligence, with a capital "I".
4. The section from Genesis 2 is companion to Genesis 1:26-28 - Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; make and female he created them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it … ." Both accounts address a single set of parents, a man and a woman, as constitutive of the adam (mankind, humankind). The verses in chapter 1 record the "first commandment," a directive to fecundity which presupposes marriage rather than mere cohabitation. That is, given God's subsequent commands to sexual fidelity, the state of marriage is constituted in the primal events of creation, as directives to the adam, in later account, and in God's own thoughtful action, in the earlier (c.2). That marriage is an "order of creation" ought not to be disputed,(1) because, from the point of view of the prophets and the rabbis, marriage, as constituted by one man and one woman, is the paradigm at the onset, qua God's intention and God's directive. Multiplications, alterations, deviancies .... all such are subsequent variants, historically rooted in the Fall and after the Fall, not as God made it.
5. As to the passage itself, Robert Gagnon at Corinth Church on September 13th voiced an interesting take on the Hebrew: that what is translated "rib" (sela) can legitimately be translated/understood as "side." From this, some ancient (i.e., pre-Christian) rabbis wove the account that the created adam, the human, was of two "sides," male and female, and that the separation of the wholeness of the adam (depicted in 2:21) is rejoined in the "cleaving to" and becoming "one flesh." The wholeness that is a couple is the rejoining of that which was at the origin unitary and whole. Or, wholeness for humanity is the wholeness of man and woman, joined in marriage. Physically and biologically, as well as spiritually and psychologically. As further indication of the possibility for such an interpretation, he cites the linguistic distinctions resident in the Hebrew, as between "the human," man as male, and woman as female, in vs. 23-24 - And the adam (the human) said, "This at last is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh; to this one shall be given the name 'woman,' (issa) for from man (is) this one was taken. Therefore a man (is) shall leave his father and his mother and become attached (or: joined, united) to his woman/wife (issa) and the two shall become one flesh." The linguistic distinctions between adam, is, and issa … make possible the rabbinic interpretation.
Gagnon noted the similarity - and the differences - of this to Aristophanes' account of sexuality in Plato's Symposium, where human beings are portrayed as having originally emerged from three models: one version was two sides male, another featured two sides female, the rest were one side male and the other female. Aristophanes' allowed that what is now called homosexuality is evidence of those whose "original configuration" was from the male/male or female/female models, now seeking rejoining and reconnecting with their "other half." And that heterosexuality is from those of the male/female original model.(2) The significant difference in the rabbinic interpretation of "side," rather than "rib," is that with Genesis there is only one model, rather than three. Hebrew understanding, informed by what they understood to be (and what we affirm to be) God's self-disclosure, not only introduces marriages as intrinsic to God's good creation, but also affirms one man and one woman as constitutive of marriage. Prior to the fall, there is no other circumstance considered, or even possible, much less permitted, to say nothing of being endorsed.
6. A companion (helper) fit for the adam (2:18) … in recent travels and conversations about the sexuality question before the ELCA and other "church bodies," I have learned of the "fit companion" argument in behalf of gay and lesbian relationships. A pastor who has pondered the whole set of issues on learning that one of his children is now a declared lesbian suggested to me that his study has led him to the point of regarding the statement about the "companion fit for the adam" as biblical opening, if not full-blown rationale, to legitimating loving and caring gay or lesbian relationships. What is "fit" for a person of homosexual orientation is someone of the same sex. Ergo, God's understanding of "fitness" can be extended to both inclinations and preferences. That the account then proceeds along heterosexual lines, and only those, is apparently of no significant import. Or at least of lesser import than the opening that "fitness" provides for rationalization. What does parental love do when confronted with such a phenomenon? Find a way to make the deviancy legitimate? Couch continued love and acceptance of the offspring in a thorough-going endorsement of inclinations and behaviors? The father here has bought the both the necessity and the legitimacy of the "ontological" argument of his daughter: God made me this way. I have a right to sexual expression. A helper fit for me is a woman, not a man. … So the question then becomes: how might this be legitimized by scripture? Rather than something for which one is to repent. Not so, in Genesis 1 and 2.
7. One final thought, concerning the challenge from the "revisionist agenda" that this is a piece of social justice (note the comparisons in the second study guide on sexuality and the ELCA), rather than something intrinsic to the doctrine of creation. What is brought forward, as comparison to issues especially in the recent past, is a set of social-justice questions on race and gender … issues on which the "church has changed its mind." Rather than couching the discussion in a theological challenge to the doctrine of creation, as occurred with the Gnostics vis-à-vis the Old Roman Symbol or the materialist evolutionists vis-à-vis the more virulent species of Darwinism. Embedded in the Apostles' Creed are assertions overtly anti-gnostic, contra two creations (spirit and matter), contra docetism (Jesus was truly human), contra anthropological dualism (the resurrection of the body). The present challenge to materialist evolution resides from science and not theology only.
But these are first questions of church dogma, teachings central to the nature of creation and the nature of the adam. So with the revisionist challenge on sexuality: couching the question in social-justice terms obscures, and perhaps eliminates, the prior problems theologically and ethically. Making homosexual behavior a social-justice question assumes that the inclination is part of God's good creation, and that a "fit helper" can include someone of whatever gender. … Whatever.
8. Moses did not so learn or teach about God. Nor did the prophets. Nor did the apostles. The teaching of the Hebrew scriptures is lifted up by Jesus in the synoptics (Matthew 19:4-5 and Mark 10:6-9) as in the gospel lesson for the day. And underscored by St. Paul. The prophets and the apostles praise you, O God. Your only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord lifts up in redemption what you have fashioned and declared in creation. We praise you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Kyrie eleison.
JLY - 09.30.03
Proper 22 for the 20th Sunday After Pentecost October 5th, 2003
Center for Theology in Lenoir-Rhyne University
Pericope September 30th, 2003
Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12
1:1 Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets,
1:2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.
1:3 He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
1:4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
2:5 Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels.
2:6 But someone has testified somewhere, "What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them?
2:7 You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor,
2:8 subjecting all things under their feet." Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them,
2:9 but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
2:10 It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
2:11 For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters,
2:12 saying, "I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you."
God has spoken to us by prophets and by angels. But now he has sent a Son, and this text [which is actually altogether unintelligible to me] appears to be urging its readers to try to grasp how awesome the difference there is.
He is the 'exact imprint' of God's very being. Here language is being marvelously well used to turn the idea of the portrayal or re-presentation of something into the idea of its real opposite--the real presenting of the thing itself, through however some medium. The Son is not an ambassodor like an angel, not a mere medium like a prophet, not even the impact and beauty of the glory. The Son is the whole of God, delivering Himself.
"Angels" talk is not helpful, but this might be the chance to do some teaching. Most people think angels are nice people who have died and gone to heaven. The Scriptural idea is better known--angels are messengers of God's intentions who by their presence reflect the glory of His, to which they are constitutionally somehow connected. The 'angel of the Lord' in the Old Testament often enough just means God's looming, threatening, beauteous imminence. But Hebrews is also in some mysterious way known no doubt to those who actually do some research invoking the intertestamental notions of angels as creatures in a hierarchy of creation, possessed of spiritual bodies and magnificent dignity, by their very being bespeaking the glory of God. To know one is to know about Him. They are 'emanations' or something.
A clue in that vein shows up later when the talk turns to the Name the Son has been given. The name is the instrument through which a person is identified, and a here there appears a thoroughly unique Name which delivers the fullness of the reality of God in all its majesty, righteousness and beautiful grace to those who are given to know the Bearer. The angels have names which deliver the knowledge of God's presence out there somewhere. The Son has the Name by which the Father actually delivers full knowledge of himself.
This sounds pretty gnostic, but it makes an important point which perhaps needs to be heard by people who cherish the notion that their loved ones are winging about with harps and golden headbands. God has not sent a special being to break through into a world that is godless. God has not pulled aside the veil to disclose himself. Instead God has packed the fullness of his divinity under the cloak of the Incarnation that he may give all of himself to human beings in this world for life with him forever beyond it. The Son makes those who receive him like him in owning the fullness of God's life--by faith in this life, but in every reality according to the will of the One who sent him. Hence, as Hebrews says, he who was so much higher than the angels did not find it unacceptable to become what Incarnate divinity had to become to reach down into us, did not find it beneath him to proclaim his name in cross and resurrection, did not hesitate to make us equal to him in the knowledge of the Father's life-giving love.
Those who in heaven's certainty can proclaim the name of this Son make the angels blush and cover their faces. "For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying, "I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will".
WRF
SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
OCTOBER 5, 2003
MARK 10:2-16
The reading of the Gospel according to Mark continues. Jesus has told his disciples that life in the kingdom of God is judged not so much by rules and regulations as by results. Someone who trusts Christ but does not fully understand what that means should be accepted. A theologian who cannot help little children to believe should be rejected.
In today's reading Jesus demonstrates what this means in relationships of marriage and in relation to children.
Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked,
Early in this gospel the Pharisees had begun to test Jesus' use of the law (2:24) and soon concluded that they would have to destroy him because of what they found (3:6). When he reaches Jerusalem the priestly party leads the opposition, coming to the same conclusion (10:33, 14:1). They also put questions to Jesus in an effort to get him to give the wrong answers (11:27, 12:13, 12:18). The purpose of the Pharisees is not to determine Jesus' position for they have already decided that is wrong. They are looking for an answer that everyone will recognize as incorrect.
"Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"
There had never been a question about a wife's freedom to divorce her husband. It did not exist. Dt. 24:1-4 directed that a man who found something wrong with his wife could give her a certificate of divorce, indicating she was free to marry again, and send her away However, if she married again and that man did the same thing, the first husband was not free to marry her again. The question of the Pharisees would seem to indicate that there was some question about the circumstances in which the husband could do this. Some, at least, did not consider it right for a man to enter or end a marriage on a whim. But what precisely was his responsibility? The question was apparently open enough that the Pharisees thought they might raise some doubt in people's minds about Jesus. They might even get him to say something contrary to accepted interpretation of God's laws. Jesus' attitude toward activity on the Sabbath (2:23ff) and washing hands (7:1ff) would seem to promise something of the sort.
He answered them, "What did Moses command you?"
They must have felt like they were tightening the noose when Jesus responded with that question because it was precisely what they wanted - a debate about what the law of Moses meant. The record of Jesus in interpreting the law suggested to them that he would err in the direction of laxity.
But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you."
Jesus is about to tighten the requirements rather than loosen them. His appeal will be to an action of God that predates the law, to the intention of God in the creation. In creation God does not present man with a number of wives or even a selection. And his declaration at that time does not raise the possibility of separation but union. In fact, it is only the separation of Eve from Adam in Gen. 2 that makes the union possible, so that the union is a restoration of the unity of creation and does not entertain the possibility of a second separation. And the point of the law of Deuteronomy is not to make separation acceptable but to rule out the possibility of a second union. The intention of God in providing man with a partner is not that men are free to separate and women or not or even that both are free to separation. It is rather that the union is not to be broken, a restoration of the unity with which they began.
"Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."
Jesus raises the possibility of a woman divorcing her husband, just as a man could, but then he says that that does not make sense either. Union is meant to be union, even if you have to work at it. Every marriage takes work at times and any lasting joy in marriage results from that.
People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant
He got ticked off (about what the disciples were doing. They wanted to stand in the way of his being God, who does not invite people to come to him to give Him something but to bless them. (Gospel, not law). What is true of every person is particularly clear with children - we come to God to receive not to give. When we give it is not so that God will end up richer but so that we will. Even when we give we are receiving from Him.
W.Mueller
1 The "orders of creation" were impugned, by various participants in the first ELCA Task Force on Human Sexuality, as inventions of sundry Nazi apologists, German theologians who sought to bolster power on the basis of government's being an "order of creation." However the notion of orders of creation might have been slurred by Nazi apologists, the concepts have in fact an ancient history, back at least to Augustine and prominent in Aquinas. Marriage as an order of creation is no invention by those who opposed the current GLBT agenda. It is, though, a significant conceptual barrier to cross if the teaching is to be revised.
2 Some there are who have argued that the view in the Symposium expressed by Aristophanes is the view of Plato, as in "Plato argues that homosexual impulses are intrinsic to that view of creation and humanity." What this view ignores is Plato's habit in the dialogues of putting various views in the mouths of Socrates' interlocutors, and then recording Socrates in his arguments against them. In this case, Socrates relates the views on love that were told him by Diotima, a Mantinean woman "deeply versed in this and many other fields of knowledge," and in the course of relating his/Diotima's views, rebuts the views of the other disputants, including that of Aristophanes'. To say on these grounds that Plato argues for an intrinsic legitimacy to homosexual inclinations is simply to misread - or misrepresent - Plato.
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