Saturday Night Theologian
1 January 2012

Ecclesiastes 3:1-13

Stephen Greenblatt, in his recent book The Swerve, describes the discovery in 1417 of Lucretius' lost work "On the Nature of Things" by manuscript hunter and humanist Poggio Bracciolini. Lucretius was a first century B.C.E. Roman philosopher and devotee of Epicurus. Epicurus, the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism, taught that the goal of human life should be the pursuit of happiness and tranquility, preferably in the company of friends. As early Christianity developed, it adopted a form of Platonism as the basis upon which to construct Christian theology, and it explicitly rejected Epicureanism, which taught atomistic materialism and denied the existence of an eternal soul. During the High Middle Ages many Christian theologians replaced Plato with Aristotle as the philosophical foundation for Christianity, but they still rejected Epicureanism. Epicurus' materialism may have been the primary reason Christians rejected his teachings, but at the same time they also rejected his notion that people should enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Instead, Christianity adopted the ascetic ideal of desert saints such as Anthony of Egypt and Simeon Stylites, they viewed perpetual virginity as spiritually preferable to marriage, and they taught that taking pleasure in eating, drinking, sex, and spending time with friends was a sin. Thus Bracciolini's discovery of Lucretius' lost work in a monastic library introduced new and, some would say, dangerous ideas into medieval society. But was Epicurus' notion that people should seek happiness and tranquility in life really contrary to the teachings of Christianity? Not if the book of Ecclesiastes is recognized as a sacred text. The author of the book, who calls himself Qohelet (traditionally rendered "the Preacher"), speaks of the vagaries and unpredictability of life. People have knowledge of the past and a sense of the future, but there is no way to be certain what God is up to. Therefore, he concludes this section with words that Epicurus would certainly have agreed with: "I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live." Thomas Jefferson, a proponent of Epicureanism, included "the pursuit of happiness" as one of the basic human rights detailed in the Declaration of Independence, and most Christians have come around to the notion that the pursuit of happiness--within certain restraints, which vary in different traditions--is perfectly consistent with the Christian life. I think that we need to go a step further, however. Qohelet continues, "Moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil." If it is God's gift that all should eat, drink, and take pleasure in their toil, then food, drink, and a meaningful job are basic human rights alongside the pursuit of happiness. Aside from extreme libertarians, most Americans agree that everyone should have access to food, even if the government has to supply it. However, the idea that government should provide jobs to people who need them--let alone meaningful, rewarding jobs--is a notion that has fallen on hard times since the days of FDR and the New Deal, yet it is an idea that is fully consistent with the biblical worldview that so many on the right and in the center claim to espouse. With the nation's unemployment rate still hovering around 8.6% (this is the U-3 rate; the U-6 is 15.6%), tens of millions of people, including the children of the unemployed and underemployed, are currently unable to pursue their own happiness because of financial stress, as well as the wounded self-esteem that often accompanies unemployment. As the new year starts, let those of us who have jobs commit ourselves to enjoy the life that God has given us and to share some of our blessings with those who continue to struggle to find work.

Psalm 8 (first published 6 June 2004)

Alas, and did my Savior bleed,
And did my Sov'reign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?
So reads the first line of the hymn "At the Cross" as originally written. Now let's turn to "Amazing Grace."
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
Christianity has a long history of making people feel worthless. Of course, there is biblical precedence for such statements. Take, for instance, Psalm 22:6: "But I am a worm, and not human." Many theologians would argue that the degrading language is simply figurative: we are all no more than worms in the presence of a holy God. Perhaps, but too often the "total depravity" of humankind has been used by church leaders to exert the control of the church over the individual. Only if you acknowledge that you are completely worthless apart from the church (or some particular religious leader) will you have some chance of finding value in your miserable existence. The psalmist who wrote Psalm 8 disagrees. The NRSV entitles this psalm "Divine Majesty and Human Dignity," a concept foreign to those who would like to see people grovel in the presence of God, but one that is quite consistent with the creation story in Genesis, where God declares that all of creation is "very good." In Psalm 8, human beings are compared not to worms but to God (or divine beings, or angels, depending on the translation). God has created humans with a dignity that is only a little less than God's. We are not worms, we are not wretches, we are not worthless. We are created in God's image, and we are of immense value to God. The corollary to this understanding is that people should treat other humans as valuable, too. The treatment that Iraqi prisoners received at the hands of some American soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison (tacitly approved, I believe, by their superiors up the chain of command) is not only outrageous, it's blasphemous, because it denies the value that each human being possesses as a part of God's creation. As children of God, we must first recognize our own value, then we must accord that same sense of worth to everyone with whom we come in contact.

Revelation 21:1-6a (first published 9 May 2004)

My daughter is reading the book Alas, Babylon in her high school English class, so we've been talking a little bit about various representations of the postapocalyptic world in literature and movies. In this book, nuclear war breaks out between the U.S. and the Soviet Union (the book was written in 1959), and the book chronicles the efforts of a small Florida town to survive the aftermath. Most postapocalyptic books portray a world that has been decimated by human warfare or foolishness (e.g., the environmental destruction of the planet). They offer a bleak picture of the future, with hope--if there is any--only in the distant future. The earliest Christian portrayal of a postapocalyptic world is the book of Revelation. Like most modern books touching on the same theme, the devastation of the world is caused largely by humans, though Revelation also offers plenty of examples of divine judgment as well. Unlike modern tales, however, Revelation offers a decidedly rosy picture of the time beyond the apocalypse. In today's reading, the author describes a new heaven and a new earth that God sends down from heaven to replace the old, damaged copies. It is a world of beauty and perfection, where God dwells with people, and sorrow and death are exterminated. "See, I am making all things new," says God from the throne. This is such a beautiful picture of the future that many Christians anxiously long for the end of the world, which they assume will be brutal (but only for those who are "left behind"). Imagining a blessed time in the future where life is better can be a good thing, as long as it doesn't cause those of us living in the present world to neglect our present circumstances or--much worse--hope for the violent destruction of the present world as a prelude to the new world. If we can dream of a better world, we can work toward shaping our present world in that direction. If our idealized future world is one without violence, we should reject violence as a tool of international diplomacy now. If our idealized future world is one in which no one lacks any basic necessity, we should support policies, and policymakers, that offer plans that alleviate poverty and inequality in the distribution of wealth, access to health care, and so forth. If our idealized future world is a world of beauty and majesty, we should stand against exploitation of the planet for economic gain on the part of the few, and we should take measures to protect our fragile environment. The new heaven and new earth of Revelation 21 are idealized representations of the way we think the earth should be. Let us commit ourselves to moving our present earth in that direction.

Matthew 25:31-46 (first published 20 November 2004)

Martin Luther was a tortured soul. He longed to be worthy of God's eternal reward, but he was terrified that he would be found worthy only of God's eternal reprobation. As he struggled with these feelings, he ran across a verse in Romans that filled him with hope: "the just by faith shall live." For Luther, the understanding that no one can be justified by good deeds was a life-changing, even a life-saving, revelation. Justification comes only by faith, Luther said, and even faith is a gift of God. The doctrine of justification by faith has continued to be the centerpiece of Protestant soteriology through the ages. Somewhere along the way, though, too many Protestants and their spiritual descendants have neglected another major teaching of the New Testament, a teaching attributed to Jesus himself, that says that Christ's followers will be judged by their deeds. How to reconcile the idea of justification by faith with the principle that we will be judged for the way in which we treat other people is a matter for a longer theological discussion. However, in brief, I don't think that the two concepts are incompatible, particularly if we pay attention to the admonition of James: "Show me your faith without works and I'll show you my faith by my works." Our gospel reading for today is Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats (the third of today's readings that deal somehow with sheep). The scene is the final judgment, in which the Son of Man sits on his throne and judges the people. The criterion for the disposition of each case is simple: how did the person in question treat the needy with whom he came in contact? There is no question to which church the person belonged. Fine doctrinal points are not mentioned. Regular church attendance is irrelevant. All that matters in the parable is the way the defendant treated others. It is especially noteworthy that the person who is condemned to eternal punishment is not accused of actively persecuting the poor, the homeless, or the prisoners. The accusation is that the condemned did nothing explicit to help those in need. We often pat ourselves on the back and congratulate ourselves for being such good people, but are we really? We don't persecute others, but do we take a public stand against those who do? We don't turn the sick away from medical treatment, but do we do anything to help those who are turned away by others? We don't steal the limited resources of the poor, but do we replace what was stolen by the immoral people and structures of our society? Faith is important in Christianity, but so is meeting the real needs of the most desperate members of our society. Some people might dismiss these claims as the liberal rants of a fanatic, but that's OK. Jesus has been called worse.