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soul - ache - ideas, sounds and images between the already and the not-yet

on the scarlet thread of redemption (atonement epilogue)

I genuinely thought I was done writing about this atonement thing, and for all intents and purposes I am. I felt good about my last posting about an understanding of atonement that I am beginning to embrace--that of adoption/restoration as opposed to a purely penal substitutionary perspective. Maybe the Almighty was just messing with me when "Nothing But the Blood of Jesus" was the closing chorus in church yesterday. Then there was a phrase from Romans 9 that I find in my Daily Lectionary e-mail that screamed to be part of the conversation in near-providential fashion.

Romans 9:26
"And in the very place where it was said
 to them, 'You are not my people', 
there they shall be called children
 of the living God."

No less than the patron saint of all things fundamentalist W.A.Criswell  preached a famous sermon entitled "The Scarlet Thread of Redemption". The OT nerds among us know the text in question--the story of Rahab, the madam of her day who graciously concealed the spies Joshua sent to scout out Jericho. She identified her house by a single scarlet cord hanging from the window, a concept that has inspired metaphors as diverse as the redemptive work of Christ on the Hebrew Bible and the origin of the"red light" tradition tied to prostitution.

Criswell was not the first to pick up the metaphor and run with it--the first "celebrity preacher" of the early church, St. John Chrysostom speaks of Rahab's act of grace as a defining characteristic that imparts salvation not only to her own family, but to all generations thereafter.

As I read Romans 9 this (early) morning, I couldn't get Rahab's thread out of my mind. Not for the traditional metaphors mind you--I find the uniqueness of the cord's color and perceived blood atonement as relatively coincidental, though as an occasional preacher, I can understand efforts to wed the two.

The idea that there is a group of people to whom God would say "You are not my people." is implicit in viewing any group as "The People of God." It flies against all sensibilities that God would deny favor to anyone, but the story of the Hebrew people certainly leans that way. Yet there, as in Rahab's case, certain exceptions--people for whom Yahweh seems to have a soft spot--who are spared the demise of their fellow countrymen(and women). And that gets us to Jesus--sort of.

In Luke's gospel one of the first public acts Jesus performs is a return to his hometown of Nazareth. He makes his way into the synagogue and is either handed the scroll of Isaiah or handpicks it himself. He reads Isaiah 61 , the creed of all social-justice-minded believers, and then is audacious enough to suggest that today, in the hearing of his hometown audience, this Scripture has been fulfilled. In a narrative aside only Luke could muster, we are told "all spoke well of him."

It's not until the good Jews of Nazareth are swapping stories on the synagogue steps that things take a turn. Jesus knows the people want to see some of the miracles they've heard Nazareth's son has been doing throughout the region. He famously quips "A prophet is without honor in his own hometown." He then references two familiar tales from the Old Testament--Elijah and the widow at Zarephath and Elisha's encounter with Naaman the Syrian.

Despite their differences, both stories reflect the idea that Yahweh was moving beyond the borders of Israel to care about widows losing sons in Zarephath, and even leprous military commanders in Syria. (even when the pagan commander relates that he must still bow in worship to the gods of Syria).

Jesus channels the narrative history to tell the anxious Nazareth crowd that he stands on scriptural precedent--Salvation is here, but it is not for Nazareth alone.

And this all throughout the Hebrew Bible--Elijah and Elisha were undoubtedly easy references (and a good use of alliteration).

Rahab's thread, Hosea's lived-out-metaphor of redemption of an unfaithful people, not to mention Jonah, who was swallowed by a fish not for disobedience but for bigotry. In what is possibly the best last line of any book of the Hebrew Bible, in Jonah Yahweh even displays concern for the cattle of Nineveh, not to mention all the people.

The scarlet thread of redemption may indeed be soaked in blood, but along the way it joins with other cords to weave a greater tapestry of what could be. 

This is the place Paul speaks of--a place where people "who are not My people" may be called children of the living God.

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! 
And 
that
is what we are!

Sons And Daughters by Jason Upton  
(download)

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Filed under  //   jonah   luke 4   rahab   salvation   substitutionary atonement  
Posted March 30, 2009
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thoughts on judgment (or the black robe disease)

There's something that's been kicking around in my head for a few days and just now has begun to wind it's way out in a way that I think I can make some sense of it. 

   
Click here to download:
thoughts_on_judgment_or_the_bl.zip (140 KB)

The daily lectionary readings have been working their way through the prophets for the last couple of months and there is a pattern, a certain view of God that persists, namely that of "judge". This particular aspect of the "divine nature" troubles me a great deal and as such, I've resisted it, though what I hope to express here is my meandering way to coming to grips with that idea.

I was raised Baptist in a fairly conservative church. From a young age, I understood this kind person of Jesus, who looked somewhat cartoonish, with flowing brown hair and something of a perpetual grin. As I grew older I began to understand that Jesus had died. As years went by and I was emotionally capable of empathy, I was told that it was my sin--the sins of an 11 year old--that put Jesus on that cross. In this economy one wrong thought or action was tantamount to the greatest atrocities of history--little white lies and the Holocaust--all was equal because Jesus had to die for it all.

It's tempting to wax poetic on the atonement here, and the implications of a blood-thirsty God that would only be pacified by the blood of his first-born, but I'll resist that temptation for now, because the reality is most of us weren't allowed to sit with that thought long enough before we heard the upside.

That this blood had bought us freedom
that all sins heretofore and in the age to come were expiated by a glorious flow of blood from Emmanuel's veins
(I don't remember asking what that hymn meant growing up, but I should have).

I commenced to enjoying the fullness of this freedom, even taking every opportunity to immerse myself more fully in something that was, existentially, quite real to me at the age of 16.

Secretly I had done something else. What appeared to be a baptismal robe I mistook for a declaration of rank and status. What I read and heard of as "the kingdom" was now a moral code, that mysteriously seemed to have a lot to do with killing babies and people with "agendas". In truth, I exchanged one system for another--one that condemned me as an outsider for one for which I was respected and embraced as an insider. This was the place to hone all those skills--to out-debate, out-talk those who didn't know that the world was out to get us--to argue for God and morality in the face of the godless heathen.
This was the place. I wore an invisible robe, presiding at a mental bench of morality and justice, ready to dispense wisdom under the guise of discernment and prophecy (at least that's what my spiritual gift inventory said). 

My mom is, and has been, an attorney by profession as long as I have known her. She has never made a secret about her desire to one day be a judge. Her sense of fairness and decency is impressive, and she would serve well, but she has often mentioned the internal battle of not getting the "black coat disease". This is a condition where newly appointed judges mistake responsibility for power and tend to wield the gavel as a scepter and not a voice of moderation. Well, I had it. I had it before I think I ever knew who Jesus really was. And it would take me a few more years to ever get rid of it.

I was already in college and coming back for Thanksgiving and Christmas when I reconnected with an old friend. He had rediscovered his faith recently and we had coffee and talked. he invited me to a Bible Study where I went and made sure to talk more than anyone else and quote a lot of C.S. Lewis so they would know how smart I was. We talked about that stuff and what it meant to carry the Gospel. He told me he had been listening to some Keith Green, to which I clearly remember responding "My parents have some of his albums." I knew enough to know he was old, that he had died tragically, and that he was an artists/actor/musician who had been "radically saved" and was still pretty radical--enough so that his blunt speech had raised the ire of the "established church" but he was too preachy for some of the remaining folks of the "Jesus movement". I borrowed a couple of CD's and heard his version of the Sheep and the Goats. It's long, but you should check it out if you have time. 

It was a huge idea. I knew about the Sheep and the Goats, but I missed the criteria. I genuinely thought Jesus said something like "Whoever confesses me before men" but that's not what it says.

Jesus only talks about judgment once--In Matthew, chapter 25. And he says it all hangs on how we treat "the least of these, my brothers". Jesus says that ALL of humanity are his brothers (and sisters) and that we will be judged by how we did by them. 

Not Sunday School attendance, 
not walking aisles, 
not praying prayers, going to youth camps, singing songs, getting baptized, betting re-baptized,
getting rebaptized at youth camp in the ocean,
crying at youth camp,
crying cause your friend is crying at youth camp--NONE of that.

It's about how I treat the people I'm too busy, too self-involved to notice. It's the people on the margins. It's the fact that my salvation is not mine alone--it's bound up in the conditions of all those around me.

But that wasn't all Jesus said about judgment. There's that stuff in Matthew 7--"Judge not, lest ye yourself be judged" as my Pharisee former life memorized in the King's English. He went further than that. He said "You see a speck in your brother's eye, but you can't see the plank in your own.

"Don't you dare judge his lifestyle while you're watching porn."
"Don't you question her faith while you gossip and call it a prayer request."
"Don't say 'in Christian love' when Jesus would have nothing to do with what you said."

There are those who are uncomfortable with this, and I, on occasion, am one of them. Judgment is easy because when you are the judge, noone's asking you the questions about your home life, your selfishness, your junk. Judgment takes the eyes off me long enough to deflect. And we are masters of it.

There are people right now writing books and letters to attack people made in God's image, and they think they're doing it in Jesus' name.

There are people right now planning sermons on how to tell their audience what's wrong with them without hearing it themselves.

There are people right now (like me) wanting to judge them (whoever "them" is today) and Jesus says it has to stop (right now).

There is one judge, one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Parent of us all.

There cannot be room for judgment from those touched by grace.

 

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Filed under  //   jesus   judgment   salvation   sheep & goats  
Posted November 25, 2008
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