Front PageFaith and Incarnation: You Are What You Eat
Submitted by bill on Sat, 03/11/2006 - 17:26. faith
According to Paul Tillich, faith is the state of being ultimately concerned. Jesus said: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” What I treasure is my “ultimate concern.” It fills my heart, or soul, and I become it. That in which I have faith, molds me, and I become my ultimate concern incarnate.
The story of the Christ is the story of God incarnate. The name Immanuel means “God with us”. The anointed of God, Immanuel, is God incarnate. In the things that he did, his teaching, and most of all, his love for the unlovable, he demonstrated what a person filled with God's spirit does. He was loving, merciful and just. His love, mercy and justice were so powerful that the powers of the world had to do away with him. Worldly power is maintained by fear and fueled by pride. God's mercy destroys the power of fear and his love undermines pride. But only when they live within us. It is only by drinking of this Living Water that God comes to live within us. Living Water not only quenches the human thirst for God but it springs forth from within to bless those around us.
Faith, then, is the ultimate focus of my being. I can have faith in most anything, and I will become the object of that faith. If it is success that I treasure, then I will become success. But success is an empty shell because it comes at the expense of others. Therefore, the more I succeed, the farther I separate myself from others until there is nothing more to succeed at. Success increases until it becomes failure. And so it is with every treasure that is centered on self. Only by denying self can I become fully alive. Whatever it is that I treasure, faith is the means to become it.
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Faith As Potentiality
Submitted by bill on Sun, 03/12/2006 - 12:37.
Reido,
Great perspective.
It seems that faith strictly defined, ceases to be. Especially if it is defined as creed or theology. Becoming is potential and the Good News is that we are granted permission to pursuit God's will beyond the limitations of law, definitions, creeds and theologies.
I'm looking forward to more of your thoughts on faith and its development.
bill
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Faith as Good News
Submitted by reido on Sun, 03/12/2006 - 19:08.
If enthusiasm is contagious, I must be infected. Some years ago I read the marvellous little book by C. H. Dodd called "The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments". (When I gave it to my nephew in seminary, I tried to point it out as one of the best books in my library -- it's so little and kind of shelf-worn, so I doubt if he will recognize the value of a first printing of it.)
Tracing the etymology, I found the expression "Good News" was connected with the runner who brought the king the message of the outcome of battle, etc (in the OT). What was significant about Dodd's work and others like Bultmann, was that they were able to seek out the developmental aspects of the Gospel. To them it was not a set of particular rules -- more like a seed planted in the ancient mind in anticipation of the Messiah, and a heralding of the arrival of the Hope of Israel.
Even though it took some digging to comprehend how this all developed, what I found was that the many Scripture quotations of Isaiah, Joel, et al the prophets were only substantiation to the core of the message itself -- that is, their words were not used to formulate a particular doctrine so much as they were weighted with value and meaning (in the reification process it's called Truth).
Still, the many signs, powers, acts of following, developmental associations that grew out of the Gospel, were not the Gospel itself. The question begs to be asked as to just what the much anticipated heralding of Truth really is? Restoration and Redemption of Israel? In some ways yes, but not so as Israel thought. The Substitutionary Church as the Kingdom of God? Again, yes in some ways, but in history the church often demonstrated itself to be as worldly as its predecessor. Rules for who goes to heaven and who goes to hell? According to the "Turn or Burn" evangelicals, yes, but the actions and words of Christ often refused to recognize barriers, even those that would come after his death and in his name.
There is a verse that Jesus taught that has stuck in my mind. It was glossed over when I was in seminary, and really I do not know that many look at it, say as deeply as they would baptism. "The Kingdom of God is within you." What does it mean? Is it good news? For whom? And how does this kingdom manifest itself? Going deeper, when he said "Kingdom of God", what were the ancient roots of this teaching?
More questions, more seeking...
reido
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Fruit of the Spirit
For a long time, what has impressed me most about this passage is the wording, "against such there is no law." Limitations, boundaries, restrictions...these are what law is all about. In this regard, the Spirit of life is free to all and for all. Bill is so right when he senses that faith is an intangible. It is not property over which we can battle for domain.
Faith is about becoming, and becoming is the stuff of Being. Why is that relevant? In our day, more than perhaps any other, humanity is learning about potential and possibility. No longer will the woman be denigrated to the submissive role of domestic servant, the slave to bending the back, the gentile cast out of the kingdom of God, the Asian to less than the gentile.
Looking at the life, the teaching of Jesus -- he did not seek permission to grant privilege to those who were kept out. In more than one case, he verbalized specific mention of going to the Priest and showing yourself. It was an open door.
At what stage do we measure the faith of another? That is, since faith is potential and possibility, at what point may I be empowered to judge another and measure what has been given by God into a man's heart? Is it just a spark? Undetectable? Like a mustard seed? Or is it huge like the tree grown from the seed? Or, are such things by nature a diminishing of the gift of God?
Bill invites us to let the river flow, let the wind blow where it will.
What a great realization!
reido