BILLTESKA

More Isaiah. This time the Songs of the Suffering Servant, also familiar from Messiah of G.F. Handel:

This right after a continuation of last week’s theme of listening:

You must listen and learn before you can teach anything. There has to be some kind of communion in the heart, if there is to be any useful work.

The King James Version records Jesus as saying The Kingdom of God is within you. And it’s not a mistranslation – not exactly. The phrase can mean that. But the Greek is broader, more ambiguous. First of all, the you is plural. He was speaking to all the disciples, not just to one individual. Secondly, the preposition, within is really just in, and can also mean among, when applied to a group. So, this dictum, so often used as a proof-text for quietism (for those who want faith in God to be a purely private, inner matter with no boat-rocking, external implications) really doesn’t say what is implied by the old Authorized Version. It can just as well mean that the Reign of God is to be found amongst the disciples, in their interpersonal relationships and in the new way of organizing human society that the Messiah initiates. But, of course, kings are usually not interested in radically new ways of organizing their societies, so we get within in the version presented the most High and Dread Prince, King James I.

So, interpretation has some pretty far-reaching implications for what it may mean to follow Jesus. On the one hand, it could mean a purely individual, inner life of faith; on the other hand it could mean a dedication to a life of external struggle for social justice, that is, for the Reign of peace and justice on earth as in heaven.

Or, it could mean both, as I think.

Today, we also hear for the second time the clear, bracing words of the James. It is traditionally attributed to St. James the Just, not one of the twelve but the kinsman of Jesus called in the East the Brother of God, who was the first Bishop of Jerusalem. But whoever wrote it had a bone to pick with Paul, and it has always been controversial. Several ancient authorities questioned its inclusion in the canon of scripture. Luther grumbled and chafed at it. Mostly because of today’s passage, and the theological question of justification that so exercised him and his time. Now, if you want to know more about this interesting question, just google “justification by faith” and you’ll get a fine Wikipedia article, as I did. A good primer. There you will learn that it is still a controversy, and that the Church, as a whole, has never spoken dogmatically on the matter. Lutherans, Calvinists, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox all have slightly different positions. And some of the differences are not so slight.

It seems clear that Luther didn’t like James because it seemed to him to contradict Paul and the teaching of justification by faith alone. Paul says we are justified by grace alone – the pure gift if God, which we cannot and do not deserve. There is nothing we can do to justify ourselves. James, by contrast, says, “show me your faith and I will show you my works.” This seemed intolerably brazen and boastful to Luther. But if you think about it, how, exactly, IS anyone to display faith other than by doing something? A mere claim to have faith is just that. It doesn’t demonstrate anything. That is James’ point. And Luther gnashes his teeth. Furthermore, as James said in last week’s epistle, what earthly good is it to “hear the Word” if you don’t “do” it. Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, he advises. And Luther rends his garment.

Here’s what I learned on Wikipedia: there’s a new school of Pauline interpretation, prominent among whose scholars is our own N.T. Wright, the Lord Bishop of Durham. This new view revises the reading of Luther (and of Augustine, upon whom Luther based his) by revising the traditional Christian notion that Paul regarded the Pharisees as seeking to justify themselves by their observance of the Law. Salvation by works was supposed to have been the mistake of the Pharisees, and pharisaism came to mean a hypocritical observance of externals, disguising a reprehensible inner life. The Gospel itself is certainly patient of such an interpretation. Jesus, after all, compared the Pharisees to whitewashed tombs, gleaming in purity outside but harboring “all manner of corruption” within. And Luther’s point was that no amount of whitewash would suffice to freshen the stench inside. No justification by works. The very clarity and unassailable logic of James ~ show me you faith and I’ll show you my works ~ was enough for Luther to wish to demote him from the canon of authoritative scripture.

Now comes the New Perspective on Paul, with Bishop Wright and others. Actually, I think the earlier generation, led by the Swedish Lutheran, Krister Stendahl paved the way for this revision, according to which Paul was not opposed to the Pharisees but one of them, as he said himself. What we call his conversion was not a repudiation of that identity, but a new insight into it. Luther was all concerned with 16th Century abuses of the Roman penitential system and popular religiosity ~ the mercantile calculus of indulgences, and so on, and the apocalyptic corruption of certain Renaissance cardinals and popes. He tended to read Augustine and Paul from that perspective. He confused the Pharisees with his own immediate adversaries, and so have we until the “new perspective” appeared. According to that, Luther was mistaken in thinking the Pharisees sought to “earn their salvation” or to “justify themselves by their works.” Rather, all their detailed observances were signs of an inner reality, an expression of the relationship God had established with the people of Israel: the Covenant. It wasn’t that the Pharisees thought they could gain God’s favor by ritual observance (in the way a medieval Christian pilgrim or crusader might have thought): just as Paul said, the divine favor had already been bestowed in the Covenant. The Pharisees were just trying to fulfill their end of the agreement. If Paul has a quarrel with the Pharisees, it is in his observation that the observance of the externals of the Law does not fulfill the whole of the Covenant. We can’t fulfill our end of the agreement by obeying the Law externally.

But, as James observed, that doesn’t mean that deeds of justice and mercy are unimportant. Sure, they must proceed from a heart made righteous by God’s grace. As today’s Collect says, in good reformed language, without you we are not able to please you. But anyone who really is in a state of justification will necessarily behave in certain ways, namely, doing good deeds. In fact, such a person will not even want do anything else. (As Augustine advised, “Love God, and do as you please.”) But if there are no good works, it’s a pretty good sign that something is rotten in the state of Denmark, no matter what is claimed about faith. Good fruit is the sign of a healthy tree, and if it doesn't appear, there is probably something wrong with the tree. Likewise, good works are the fruit of justification, not the currency with which we can buy it.

So, within vs. among is a false dichotomy. If God reigns within your heart, there will be justice and peace among you. Moreover, there cannot be such external peace without the inner relationship. I do not think this means a particular theology or dogmatic construct. We cannot purchase a right relationship with God by holding correct theological opinions ~ by doing the external work of professing orthodox belief. A Jew, a Buddhist, and Muslim, a Hindu, an indigenous animist can be justified just as a Christian can. Christians, after all, do not believe that we are justified by Christianity, but by Christ. God help us, even a Mormon can be justified, or an atheist! Not by works, including the work of thinking a certain way about God or the work of knowing that you are justified. To be justified by faith certainly does not mean to think you are just. God can reign in your heart without your knowing it: incognito, as it were.

Jesus said, By their fruits shall ye know them. The faithful, like the healthy tree, are those who produce the fruits of justification: personal mercy and social justice.

# posted by billteska : 3:22 PM