Standing Apart from Ourselves

I ended the last post with:

‘“Bible-alone’ (that is, the contention that the Bible does its own interpretation, absent any divinely-intended participation of the organic workings-out of issues in the minds of readers) is a danger not simply in that it constitutes worship of the Bible.  That is really beside the point, and will scarcely be admitted to.  This-or-that-alone, however, stands apart from the teachings of Jesus not only because any such idea of isolation conflicts with the context-rich presentations of the gospels, but also because any such idea is an idol in itself.”

I must enlarge on the idea of “participation of the organic workings-out of issues in the minds of readers,” and I must show how this is important in “the context-rich presentations of the gospels.”  To do this, I must present some such “context-rich presentations” and then show how they can be viewed in terms of “organic workings-out.”  I will use Matthew, and in particular that part of the gospel that precedes Jesus’ first prediction of his death.

Early on, there is John the Baptist: “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”  When Jesus comes upon Peter and Andrew, he says to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  In both of these instances, the gospel is describing the listeners as challenged, not to consider the content of some argument, but to search within themselves for their true—though un-verbalized—faith orientations.  The point is not what the listeners can be made to believe, but rather what they can discover within themselves about what they already believe.

This leads to the Sermon on the Mount, and to the demands Jesus makes of his audience.  As ever when Jesus says what he requires, the age-old argument has been (regarding this and similar passages) whether or not Jesus is telling us what we must do to be saved.  For the “faith-alone” camp, of course, the contention is that the Sermon on the Mount tells the already-saved how to live The Christian Life.  Or as Moody Press’ Ryrie Study Bible says, “The Sermon on the Mount does not present the way of salvation but the way of righteous living for those who are in God’s family….”

Of course, the actual Sermon on the Mount begins with, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Unless there is a contingent of “God’s family” who will spend a blessed eternity somewhere else than in “the kingdom of heaven,” it is difficult indeed to see how it might be argued that the Sermon “does not present the way of salvation.”  On the other hand, it is admittedly difficult to see how a person could make himself or herself poor in spirit, or how—within the conventional Christian mind-set—being “poor in spirit” could be a good thing.

The only logical solution to the matter is the contention that being “poor in spirit” is a state—presumably a somewhat-attainable state—in which the person’s personal and conscious proclivities are scraped aside, allowing to surface faith-orientations that are of a more abiding (and admittedly more mysterious) nature.  We are born into this world, never “knowing” why we possess feelings and drives as we do.  Why would be assume that more or less “religious” orientations would be fundamentally different?  As I have noted about John 3, we understand neither the earthly wind that passes above us nor the ultimate substance of being “born from above.”  Why would we assume that our faith orientations would not reside within us—or even independently of that corporeal “us”—waiting for us to discover?

As we see the Gospel of Matthew proceed, we see that Jesus probes precisely that matter.  Jesus repeatedly emphasizes the discovery within the person of the true substance of what the person believes.

When Jesus offers to go and heal a centurion’s servant, the centurion replies, “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the world only, and my servant shall be healed.  For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.”

Jesus responds by saying, “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.”  The centurion has emphasized the structure of authority, not the particular content of Jesus’ ministry.  The centurion has addressed what he knows, not seeking to control or define the elements of his being that would cause him to care so about his servant, or to light upon Jesus as the hoped-for source of help.  The centurion has brought to Jesus what is rising up within himself, and Jesus greets it positively.

Then there is the woman afflicted with a hemorrhage, who invents her own methodology of healing: “For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole.”  Jesus greets this positively also, saying, “Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole.”  “Thy faith” is the key, not the performance of some act.  Jesus is emphasizing something that resides within her, something of which she might have had no or little recognition.  Similarly, Jesus heals the daughter of a gentile woman, praising her faith when she had only approached him for his efficacy as a healer.  The gentile woman—in what presumably was an un-scripted moment—draws from within herself a contention that the truly divine would have mercy on all creatures.

In Matthew this train of thought has its culmination in Peter’s great confession: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  And “Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”  From Jesus’ baptism (and from Nathanael’s outburst in John 1) the obvious association of Jesus with “Messiah” was well-known to the disciples (and presumably discussed among them.)  The notion that Jesus’ declaration “flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee” is meant to be a literal statement will not stand scrutiny.  Unavoidably, Jesus is not telling Peter from where Peter got his knowledge—he is telling Peter that the identification of Jesus with “Messiah” is (and has been from some point) an internalized element of Peter’s faith orientation.  Jesus is describing Peter discovering something within himself.

Indeed, that is what faith is (and that is why two thousand years have not settled the question of where “faith” comes from that saves people.)  We do not work ourselves into believing, and we do not have belief loaded onto us in some un-worked-for moment.  Both of these notions cheapen the belief experience, and both of these notions exist in presumptuous isolation from how our existence really works.

God in his mercy did not completely destroy the humanity that rejected him.  That humanity—us—was consigned to a state that we all recognize in some form and cannot escape.  That state is one of fleeting injection into and flashing removal from the stream of time and space.  We do not know where we come from, and we do not know where our web of associations and motivations comes from.  These conditions must apply in our religious endeavors as elsewhere, but all too commonly we will not accept this.  We think we can stand apart from the nebulous selves within which—as we must prudently accept—might reside unrecognized, crucial elements of our faith orientations.