soul - ache - Filed under 'substitutionary atonement'

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

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Posted March 30, 2009

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on (re)thinking atonement-part II

I admit that trying to denounce substitutionary atonement is a quarrelsome thing.

It's something most of us grew up with, and, especially around Easter, something we hold dear. This is, after all, time to sing about "fountains filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins". Clearly, there's still much good to be said about this perspective and many hold it well. It has only been in a subsequent conversation with a friend and colleague that I considered questions at the very heart of the issue. The question he asked was, loosely, "if blood was not required, then why the cross?" Trying to answer that question led to two larger realities that I'm still wrestling with.

What have we been saved from?

What have we been saved for?

So rewind to last night, as Jen and I made a bleary-eyed drive back from the local Steak-n-Shake across the rolling hills of North Paulding County. The sky was post-thunderstorm radiant, with gold gilding the underbelly of massive, swift-moving clouds. The grass looked greener than any green has ever been. Cows were dotted the landscape like pastoral troops re-emerging after the fighting had ceased. The iPod was on shuffle and Gabe was in the back, yelling any-time I stopped singing to talk to Jen-""Daddy...daddy!....DADDY! Ning!" (which is how Gabe says "sing").

Gabe doesn't really know how to sing. He mostly hums and sings (sometimes) along with whatever tune he starts hearing. Occasionally he'll substitute the words he does know (imagine hearing kid names for bodily functions to the tune of "On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand"--sacrilege? maybe, but still hilarious.)

So when Kyle Matthews "What in the World" came up next, I knew something good was happening. There was Gabe in the back, pushing out sounds and non-words at freakishly high decibels. There were Jen and I, singing along--every single word. I thought about the words of the song and how I've been thinking for weeks now how adoption is what God does with us.

It's not exactly normal adoption, mind you, because as bearers of God's divine image, we are not victims of a merciless father, but merely prodigals--people who ran our own course to do our own thing to (we hoped) bring us fulfillment. And when the gold rings of self-medicating greed turned our fingers green we came to our senses.

Paul says "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!".

That's an odd phrase "adoption as sons." It turns out, it appears only five times in the New Testament and is used exclusively by Paul. The first part is identical to the Greek word for sons (though it's normally in the feminine, so gender neutrality could be argued). The second part comes from another root, which is loosely translated as "to set, place" or "to establish". You almost as easily could say "to designate or name". We have been named sons. Once, in our rebellion, we would not have considered ourselves sons, yet we have been called "sons and daughters of God"

When that kind of adopting grace washes over you, it's hard to know how to respond.

When you were called wounded, outcast, despised and you are now called "son" and "daughter" it's only natural to feel compelled to do something.

I think most of us start with gratitude. The realization that someone, let alone our Creator, the one we kicked and screamed against--the one we told "I hate you" in our adolescence and walked out on--that that being would welcome us back with only love--well, we can't help but be grateful. I think many atonement models get us to this point.

I think most of us also start and stop with gratitude. Like fond memories of the kindness of a loved one or a stranger, we don't think about what was done for us until something triggers the memory. Here, gratitude oozes from remembrance, worn down by time and how far we've come.

I think we think we'll think about that when Easter gets around--or maybe Holy Week or Lent, depending on our liturgical devotion.

As the father to a newly-adopted three year old, I can tell you that very few moments go by that he doesn't call for Daddy or Mommy. The absence of just one of us, for any length of time, is enough to muscle its way to the forefront of his child-like consciousness.

For good or ill, Gabe hasn't quit responding. Maybe that will come someday (probably around 13 I'm guessing), but not today.

Today he cries only "Abba".

Today he cries only "Mommy".

And so as I sit here downstream of the torrent the Cross stirred up, I find myself wondering what this adoptive parent took me in for--what did God see in me that would make anyone think there's something worth holding onto here?

Or, as the song says it "Lord, what in the world have you saved us for?"

But that's not the first line of the song. The song is, in fact, rhetorical.

If we were not loved to love

If we were not touched to touch

If we were not lead to lead

If we were not fed to feed

If you did not sacrifice so we could have new life

fuller and deeper than before

then Lord, What in the world have you saved us for?

If we were not taught to teach

If we were not sought to seek

If we were not helped to help,

If we were not told to tell

If you'd not forgiven us to let mercy live in us,

so you could love through us once more,

then Lord, what in the world have you saved us for?

There's a reason we were brought to life

Lord you made us for this place and time

and you showed the way for us to find

our sacred purpose our place in your design

If you did not set us free so that our songs might lead

prisoners toward the open door,

then Lord, what in the world have you saved us for?

Paul says "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation."

We have been saved from that which is less, to rescue those who insatiably long for more.

We have been fed to feed those who starve on the crumbs of self-reliance.

We have not been saved to pay back blood-for-blood, but to make whole that which was broken.

We have been shown love in this way that we might tell others "it doesn't have to be like this."

We have been loved to love.

We have been touched to touch.

We have been adopted to adopt.

We have been shown grace to be grace.

We have been given Christ that we might be Christ.

What In The World by Kyle Matthews

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Filed under // adoption kyle matthews reconciliation substitutionary atonement what in the world

Posted March 27, 2009

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on lent and sacrifice (or towards a new understanding of atonement--part I)

I have made it my goal this Lenten season not to give up anything, but to take up something.

The season started auspiciously enough, with me telling a bunch of hungry college students at Southern Polytechnic State University what, exactly, Ash Wednesday is all about. I resisted the imposition of ashes, for the very reason that I wanted the students to understand that as much as Lent is lauded for the willing, disciplined sacrifice of mortal vices (chocolate, caffeine, facebook) the sacrifice itself is not the end, rather that the desire for that "thing" is redirected to Christ, and the looming celebration of his crucifixion and death.

As such, I felt compelled to warn these folks against finding moral security in the suspension of things that are otherwise bad habits, or worst, trivial things. Lent is, at its core, about remembering.

I am finding precious little time to read these days. Between the new addition to the Lyon household and a church web host that suddenly went down, there is very little time for casual reading, even when the thing you decide to take up is reading a book.

Phyllis Cole-Dai and James Murray are two unlikely co-authors who decided to spend the Lent of 1999 on the streets of Columbus, Ohio. The ensuing memoir of the journey, The Emptiness of Our Hands-A Lent Lived on the Streets, has been nagging, following, and haunting me as we hurtle toward Holy Week.

There is much worth writing about in this volume, but you would really best be served to simply read it yourself. You can buy it from Amazon, or let me know and I'll be glad to pass it on to you after Easter. In the interest of having something blog-worthy here, however, I would like to suggest that the book reflects a subtle shift in our understanding of atonement, namely, a rejection of substitutionary atonement for something else--something better.

Substitutionary atonement is the stuff of Lent--Christ taking our place. The evangelical metaphors linger like fog over a spring lake--the courtroom drama where we, the condemned sinner, are sentenced to death, only to see a long-haired Savior dash into the courtroom to take our place, or perhaps the grittier, post-Passion of the Christ perspective that focuses on the carnage of Calvary, with the tacit implication that it should have been us.

This isn't in the book, but it's worth stating that this kind of thinking isn't new, nor is it necessarily Christian. Every ancient culture practiced some manner of sacrifice to the gods. (I'm risking going off course here, so for now I'd suggest you see Rob Bell's The Gods Aren't Angry) The revolutionary thing about the relationship between Yahweh and Israel is that Yahweh is telling the Hebrews "I don't relate to you like all the other gods." (The sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 alone tells us this--notice Abraham never asks how to bind up his son or how to carry out the sacrifice--Abraham's father Terah from Ur undoubtedly carried out sacrifices to the gods of Canaan, possibly even Abraham's brothers and sisters)

A couple of years ago Jen and I were on a cruise with my parents when we chose to take a shore excursion in Cozumel to the Coba Mayan Ruins. I decided to make the climb up the Nohoch Mol pyramid tower. I took the picture above standing directly behind the "sacrifice stone" where the bodies of animals and even humans were laid to be ritually sacrificed to appease the gods. I noticed how the majestic pyramid was perfectly aligned with the smaller pyramid that peeks out above the trees a mile away, directly in line with the sacrificial stone.

I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by what had happened there--the loss of life--innocent ones, at that--all to placate imaginary gods. And instantly I thought about the cross. It was May then, and we had just come out of Easter. I thought that what I had been told all those years--that, to carry the metaphor, it was as if Jesus had taken our place on that sacrificial altar--well, if that was the case than God was neither loving nor merciful. No one, mortal or immortal, could leverage such vengeance on their child. The metaphor breaks down. It doesn't work.

If, then, Yahweh is not a vengeful God whose thirst is only quenched by the spilling of blood, even that of his own child, then how do we talk about the cross? Why "sacrifice" anything?

I'm still working through a good bit of this and plan on posting part 2 on atonement later this week, but what I have gleaned from my Lenten reading The Emptiness of Our Hands is a far better model for Lent--empathy and remembrance.

This is not a season to self-flagellate and hope to "make up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions". It is a time to reflect on the reality of perfect Love, fully revealed in Jesus, entering into the world. And we killed it. When it didn't do what we thought it should do, love who we thought it should love, overthrow who we thought it should overthrow, we nailed it on a tree and mocked it as a sham.

The efforts of Phyllis Cole-Dai and James Murray were to identify with the homeless community of Columbus and to be present with them. To not linger on thoughts of other things, or even how it would later sound on paper or in a book, but to simply be present.

Christ begs us during Lent to be fully present--

to the suffering of the cross and to the suffering in our midst

to the joy of Easter morn and the joy of friend and neighbor

to remember how we nailed Love on a tree and how we're still driving nails of greed and self-satisfaction

to the otherness of Christ and to the other-ness of others

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Filed under // coba mayan ruins lent sacrifice substitutionary atonement the emptiness of our hands the gods arent angry

Posted March 24, 2009

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on the scarlet thread of redemption (atonement epilogue)

on (re)thinking atonement-part II

on lent and sacrifice (or towards a new understanding of atonement--part I)

Trey Lyon

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