#dorothee-solle — Public Fediverse posts

"Dem weglosen Weg treu zu bleiben bedeutet, jeden Ort, selbst Kirchen, für gottgeeignet zu halten und mit #Rumi zu wissen, dass der mystische 'Ort die Ortlosigkeit' ist.

#DorotheeSölle #Mystik

"Dem weglosen Weg treu zu bleiben bedeutet, jeden Ort, selbst Kirchen, für gottgeeignet zu halten und mit #Rumi zu wissen, dass der mystische 'Ort die Ortlosigkeit' ist.

#DorotheeSölle #Mystik

"Dem weglosen Weg treu zu bleiben bedeutet, jeden Ort, selbst Kirchen, für gottgeeignet zu halten und mit #Rumi zu wissen, dass der mystische 'Ort die Ortlosigkeit' ist.

#DorotheeSölle #Mystik

Selig sind die Friedensstifter | Lebenshaus Schwäbische Alb - Predigt von #DorotheeSölle

https://www.lebenshaus-alb.de/magazin/001711.html

Sich einmischen, #Frieden machen, etwas aufmischen macht auch heute einen Unterschied.

Psalm 23:1-3 Abba God is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. Abba God makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.  God revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for God’s Name’s sake.

Introduction

At the end of last’s week sermon, we ended talking about remembrance, hope, and prayer. For Christians, when we gather to speak of, read of, hear of, and consume together with Christ in our weekly fellowship and worship, we are remembering Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are not just remembering Christ but participating the work of God made tangible in Christ: the divine revolution and mission of love, life, and liberation in the world for the beloved. This is truly εὐαγγέλιον. And if this is truly εὐαγγέλιον, then it is also the source and foundation of our hope that exists to sustain us today.

In remembering and having hope we are led to pray, to bring ourselves deeply into God, to bend our knee (literal or figurative), to be creatures fully dependent on God. We remember, we have hope, and we pray, and it is this that is the beginning of all our activity within the walls of the church and without. As mentioned last week, “Prayer does not resign the believer to non-activity as if it is the final act in the face of trouble; it is the starting point. Prayer is how the believer unites with God and God’s passion for life, love, and liberation.[1] It is the bold request for God to enter in, to act; in prayer God is spoken to and from, in prayer God is remembered, so, too, the neighbor.”[2]

But the author of Ephesians isn’t done with us yet as if it’s just about remembering and hoping and praying. But that this remembering, hoping, and praying participates in making believers one with God and with each other in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and bringing them into the true peace that surpasses all understanding.

Ephesians 2:11-22

For [Christ] is our peace, the one who made both [the Israelites and the Gentiles] one and [the one who] destroyed in his flesh the division-wall of the fence, [and] the enmity [between the two], and [the one who] rendered inoperative the law of the commands and public decrees, so that the two might build in him one new peace-making humanity… (Eph. 2:14-15)

So, the author of Ephesians verbally exhorts us (using an imperative!) to remember. To remember what? Not only Christ but who we were prior to being encountered by Christ in the event of faith. …remember that in the past you [were] Gentiles in the flesh, the ones who were called “The Uncircumcised” by the ones who were called “The Circumcised” in the flesh done by [human] hands (v. 11). But that isn’t enough; Paul asks his audience to remember, further, that they were for a time without Christ, having been alienated from the citizenship of Israel and a stranger of the covenant of the promise, not possessing hope and [were] without God in the cosmos (v 12). Paul is eager to recreate the situation for the Ephesians to cause more than just recall but real, heart-felt remembering,[3] pressing into the reality that apart from Christ they were dead in their false-steps and missing the mark (sin) (v 1), they were strangers to the promises of God, to Christ, and to the hope of God which is the hope of the reign of God in Christ.[4],[5] According to Ephesians, the Gentiles were overcome by their own desires, turned in on themselves, stuck in place by division, and consumed by hostility. This isn’t something that someone can work themselves out of, no matter how hard they try. For Paul, it is only through the encounter with Christ where one finds God, finds their neighbor, and finds themself; it is only in Christ where one finds true life, love, and liberation.[6] But at this time you who were once far off you became near by the blood of Christ (v 13). In other words, this is not done by human hands (χειροποιήτου in v 11), but by the love of God in Christ done by the power of the Spirit[7] as the down-payment in lives of the believers in Ephesus.

This is why Christ is the peace of everyone—for [Christ] is our peace (v 14a)—Children of Israel and Gentiles combined. Because, as Paul writes, the one who made both [the Israelites and the Gentiles] one and [the one who] destroyed in his flesh the division-wall of the fence, [and] the enmity [between the two], and [the one who] rendered inoperative the law of the commands and public decrees, so that the two might build in him one new peace-making humanity (vv 14b-15). There is now no longer us v. them, insiders v. outsiders, elected v. not-elected, Israel v. Gentiles, the circumcised v. the not circumcised.[8] There are not two groups, but one group. Thus, this peace Jesus brings in his own flesh, by the blood of the cross event and the glory of his resurrection is not just for privatized souls but for deprivatized humanity; it’s a socio-political event.[9] There is now no wall that keeps some in and some out, some included and some excluded; there is now (absolutely) no line—whether 2-D or 3-D—that can render some humans “good” and others “bad” based on which side of that line they fall because that line has been destroyed[10] and is now anathema for the believers and followers of Christ who benefit from the destruction of the division-wall of the fence by being included in to the heredity and mission of God by the work of Christ on the cross and the power of the Holy Spirits dwelling in their hearts.

And if the wall has been destroyed, so, too, division according to enmity,[11] which is the hostility and intolerance fomented between the two groups that was the fruit of the division wall; it is the anger of the kingdoms of humanity turned inward to tear humanity apart.[12] This includes the laws and public commandments used to make some clean and some unclean, some righteous and others unrighteous; these, too, like the wall and the enmity, have become inoperative in solidifying groups of people against each other. For Paul then writes, and so he might completely reconcile both in one body for God through the cross he killed the hostility in himself (v 16).By Christ’s work[13]—the mission of God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation for the world—there is now no wall, thus no enmity, thus no law[14] that can keep anyone out and in this radical establishment of divine equity, there is peace[15]—true peace that is not contingent on one group suffering under the weight of another.

Then the letter continues, [Christ] came and brought peace to you (all) who were far-off and peace to you (all) who were near because through him we—both in one spirit—possess access to God therefore now you are no longer a stranger and sojourner but you are a fellow citizens with the saints and of the family of God (vv 17-19). In Christ, these two have become one[16] and together they will dwell in and with God and they will have real peace—the type of peace that threatens the principalities and powers of the kingdom of humanity. [17] But this peace brought by Christ is more than reconciliation with each other, it is also reconciliation with God, thus, these two who are now one become the dwelling place of God. [18] As Paul continues, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets—Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone—in whom all building is being fitted together and grows itself into a holy temple in the lord in whom you, you also were built together into the dwelling place of God in Spirit (vv 20-22). Boldly Ephesians declares, where there is a lack of enmity and hostility, division walls and lines, laws and commands geared to keep some in and some out, there God is and there the saints of God are; no one is excluded and left out and the church is caught up in this radical inclusion and equity, snatched into this divine peace that knows absolutely positively no walls or dividing lines.[19],[20]

Conclusion

The church is without excuse here, according to Ephesians. Peace—the very peace Christ brings through his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension—is peace that is not contingent on the kingdom of humanity but dependent on the reign of God. It is peace that arises in the communion of humanity with humanity, humanity with God, and humanity with creation; it is peace that manifests within and among humanity in its unity to the glory of God, which is in opposition to the “peace” (i.e. “security” (“control”)) of the kingdom of humanity that thrives on the humanity’s disunity. None of us who claim to follow Christ can afford to support systems dead set on dividing and conquering, oppressing and marginalizing, and fostering anger and fear; these systems are antithetical to the gospel of Christ and to the faith and praxis of the believer in the world before God and neighbor. None of us who claim to follow Christ can find peace (and hope) anywhere else apart from God: not in federal positions and presidents, not in parties and platforms, not in promises and progress made with human hands. We can only find true peace in our reconciliation with God, which is reconciliation with our neighbor, and, thus, these two combined give us reconciliation with ourselves because we have been made one with our neighbor and thus have become the dwelling place of God.

We cannot find peace by building the world we long for with human hands because as soon as we build it it has expired and must be torn down to allow something new to be born. We cannot find peace by turning the gospel into a law as if it can found a nation that would only gift life, love, and liberation to those who qualify. We cannot find peace by letting enmity and hostility be the mortar holding the bricks of the division-wall together. We cannot find peace by legislating Christianity because the doctrines born of the second word of God that form the tissue of the Christian Church inherently resist such socio-political ossification. We can and will only find peace by pressing further into God, clinging to God’s Word in Christ, and leaning into the guidance and leading of the Spirit of God, the guarantor of the new covenant, the down payment of our adoption into God, and the fertile soil making us one with God, with our neighbor, thus, with ourselves. It is only here, in God and with God, do we find true and lasting peace that surpasses all understanding.

[1] See Sölle, Choosing Life, pp. 92-93

[2] This portion is taken from, Lauren R.E. Larkin, “Leaving Heaven Behind: Paradoxical Identity as the Anchor of Dorothee Sölle’s Theology of Political Resistance,” PhD Dissertation (University of Aberdeen, 2024), 202.

[3] Barth, Markus, Ephesians: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on Chapters 1-3, The Anchor Bible Series (Garden City: Doubleday, 1971), 254. “Repentance, decision, and gratitude are called for, not a mental recollection only.”

[4] Barth, Ephesians, 257. “In Eph 2:12 a status of strangership is described, not an event leading to estrangement.”

[5] Barth, Ephesians, 259. \“Unless Paul flippantly denied or dispossessed the Gentiles of any hope he must have meant a specific hope. This ‘hope,’ then, could be understood as fostered in the minds of the Jews, because it was founded and guaranteed in the heart of God or ‘laid up in heaven’……It is the hope for the promised messiah from the root of David…”

[6] Barth, Ephesians, 254. “Paul’s thought moves from men in the grip of ‘flesh’ (2:11), over the work performed in ‘Christ’s flesh’ (2:14, to the operation of the ‘Spirit’ (2:18). Nothing can prevent the ‘Spirit’ from operating ‘in the realm of flesh.’”

[7] Barth, Ephesians, 255. “As the building of the temple by God is contrasted to the construction of temples by men, so circumcision of the heart…highly excels handmade circumcision.”

[8] Allen Verhey and Joseph S. Harvard, Ephesians, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2011), 93. “If it was especially the Jewish Christian who needed to be reminded earlier that all are ‘sinners,’ not just the ‘uncircumcised,’ not just the Gentiles, and that all are brought from death to life by the gift of God’s grace, not by ‘works’  of the law, the Gentiles are now reminded of the promises to Israel and that it is in the Jewish Messiah that they are given a share in them.”

[9] Barth, Ephesians, 262. “Christ is praised here not primarily for the peace he bring to individual souls; rather the peace he brings is a social and political event…”

[10] Barth, Ephesians, 263-264. “The combination of the two Greek nouns yields a composite sense: it is a wall that prevents certain person from entering a house or a city (cf. 2:19), and is as much a mark of hostility (2:14, 16) as, e.g. a ghetto wall, the Iron Curtain the Berlin Wall, a racial barrier, or a railroad track that separates the right from the wrong side of the city, not to speak of the wall between state and church.”

[11] Barth, Ephesians, 264. “In this case, the ‘enmity’ is as much the object of destruction as the wall.”

[12] Barth, Ephesians, 264. “The word ‘enmity’ defines the separation between Jews and Gentiles more specifically: this segregation implies intolerance, and is a passionate, totalitarian, bellicose affair. While the ‘enmity’ mentioned at the end of vs. 16 is the one-sided enmity of man against God, the ‘enmity’ of vs. 14 is mutual among men.”

[13] Barth, Ephesians, 265. “…the context of Eph 2:15 reveals that for the author (as much as for Paul himself) the death of Christ rather than the promulgation of new decrees stood behind the abolition of the divisive statutes.”

[14] Barth, Ephesians, 264. Wall, enmity, and law “Each of these terms throws light on the others; the author wants them to be considered as synonyms.”

[15] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 96. “…God seals a ‘new covenant’ in ‘the blood of Christ.” And in that ‘new covenant’ there is a new community, a community of both Jew and Gentile, a community that shares the memory of Christ and the hope of God’s promises with a common meal.”

[16] Barth, Ephesians, 272. “After showing that the church exists only as a unity, that is, as one new man created out of Jews and Gentiles, the apostle does not proceed to split t into halves.”

[17] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 97. “But this was not merely an idea, as the reality of baptism makes clear. This was not merely an ideal that exists outside history and toward which we must strive. This was and is a reality wrought in Christ on the cross and displayed in the churches when God initiates diverse people into Christ and into the church. Ideals are powerless against the forces in this world that divide and abuse, against the principalities and power that nurture cultures of enmity. But those forces are and will be finally powerless against the promise and reality of God’s future.”

[18] Barth, Ephesians, 274. “The church herself is not reconciliation but she lives form it and manifests it. She serves the glory of God inasmuch as her members mutually assist, support, and strengthen one another. Neither jews nor Gentiles nor any individual can independently claim after Christ’s coming to offer an appropriate residence For God but Jews and Gentiles together are now ordained by God to become his temple.”

[19] Barth, Ephesians, 324-325. “Now the church is the sign of his mercy, his peace, and his nearness the whole world. If God can and will use people are who are as tempted and weak as the Christian are, then he is certainly able and willing to exclude no one from his realm. The church lives by this hope and bears witness to it publicly.”

[20] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 98. “They are called to break down the walls and to perform this new social reality by forming friendships with the people on the other side of the aisle, or on the other side of town.”

https://laurenrelarkin.com/2024/07/21/6623/

#Beloved #ChoosingLife #ChristianNationalism #DividingWall #DivineLove #DivinePeace #Division #DorotheeSölle #Ephesians #Hope #Jesus #LawAndGospel #Love #LoveOfNeighbor #MarkusBarth #Peace #UnionWithGod #UnionWithSelf #UnionWithTheNeighbor

Psalm 23:1-3 Abba God is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. Abba God makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.  God revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for God’s Name’s sake.

Introduction

At the end of last’s week sermon, we ended talking about remembrance, hope, and prayer. For Christians, when we gather to speak of, read of, hear of, and consume together with Christ in our weekly fellowship and worship, we are remembering Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are not just remembering Christ but participating the work of God made tangible in Christ: the divine revolution and mission of love, life, and liberation in the world for the beloved. This is truly εὐαγγέλιον. And if this is truly εὐαγγέλιον, then it is also the source and foundation of our hope that exists to sustain us today.

In remembering and having hope we are led to pray, to bring ourselves deeply into God, to bend our knee (literal or figurative), to be creatures fully dependent on God. We remember, we have hope, and we pray, and it is this that is the beginning of all our activity within the walls of the church and without. As mentioned last week, “Prayer does not resign the believer to non-activity as if it is the final act in the face of trouble; it is the starting point. Prayer is how the believer unites with God and God’s passion for life, love, and liberation.[1] It is the bold request for God to enter in, to act; in prayer God is spoken to and from, in prayer God is remembered, so, too, the neighbor.”[2]

But the author of Ephesians isn’t done with us yet as if it’s just about remembering and hoping and praying. But that this remembering, hoping, and praying participates in making believers one with God and with each other in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and bringing them into the true peace that surpasses all understanding.

Ephesians 2:11-22

For [Christ] is our peace, the one who made both [the Israelites and the Gentiles] one and [the one who] destroyed in his flesh the division-wall of the fence, [and] the enmity [between the two], and [the one who] rendered inoperative the law of the commands and public decrees, so that the two might build in him one new peace-making humanity… (Eph. 2:14-15)

So, the author of Ephesians verbally exhorts us (using an imperative!) to remember. To remember what? Not only Christ but who we were prior to being encountered by Christ in the event of faith. …remember that in the past you [were] Gentiles in the flesh, the ones who were called “The Uncircumcised” by the ones who were called “The Circumcised” in the flesh done by [human] hands (v. 11). But that isn’t enough; Paul asks his audience to remember, further, that they were for a time without Christ, having been alienated from the citizenship of Israel and a stranger of the covenant of the promise, not possessing hope and [were] without God in the cosmos (v 12). Paul is eager to recreate the situation for the Ephesians to cause more than just recall but real, heart-felt remembering,[3] pressing into the reality that apart from Christ they were dead in their false-steps and missing the mark (sin) (v 1), they were strangers to the promises of God, to Christ, and to the hope of God which is the hope of the reign of God in Christ.[4],[5] According to Ephesians, the Gentiles were overcome by their own desires, turned in on themselves, stuck in place by division, and consumed by hostility. This isn’t something that someone can work themselves out of, no matter how hard they try. For Paul, it is only through the encounter with Christ where one finds God, finds their neighbor, and finds themself; it is only in Christ where one finds true life, love, and liberation.[6] But at this time you who were once far off you became near by the blood of Christ (v 13). In other words, this is not done by human hands (χειροποιήτου in v 11), but by the love of God in Christ done by the power of the Spirit[7] as the down-payment in lives of the believers in Ephesus.

This is why Christ is the peace of everyone—for [Christ] is our peace (v 14a)—Children of Israel and Gentiles combined. Because, as Paul writes, the one who made both [the Israelites and the Gentiles] one and [the one who] destroyed in his flesh the division-wall of the fence, [and] the enmity [between the two], and [the one who] rendered inoperative the law of the commands and public decrees, so that the two might build in him one new peace-making humanity (vv 14b-15). There is now no longer us v. them, insiders v. outsiders, elected v. not-elected, Israel v. Gentiles, the circumcised v. the not circumcised.[8] There are not two groups, but one group. Thus, this peace Jesus brings in his own flesh, by the blood of the cross event and the glory of his resurrection is not just for privatized souls but for deprivatized humanity; it’s a socio-political event.[9] There is now no wall that keeps some in and some out, some included and some excluded; there is now (absolutely) no line—whether 2-D or 3-D—that can render some humans “good” and others “bad” based on which side of that line they fall because that line has been destroyed[10] and is now anathema for the believers and followers of Christ who benefit from the destruction of the division-wall of the fence by being included in to the heredity and mission of God by the work of Christ on the cross and the power of the Holy Spirits dwelling in their hearts.

And if the wall has been destroyed, so, too, division according to enmity,[11] which is the hostility and intolerance fomented between the two groups that was the fruit of the division wall; it is the anger of the kingdoms of humanity turned inward to tear humanity apart.[12] This includes the laws and public commandments used to make some clean and some unclean, some righteous and others unrighteous; these, too, like the wall and the enmity, have become inoperative in solidifying groups of people against each other. For Paul then writes, and so he might completely reconcile both in one body for God through the cross he killed the hostility in himself (v 16).By Christ’s work[13]—the mission of God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation for the world—there is now no wall, thus no enmity, thus no law[14] that can keep anyone out and in this radical establishment of divine equity, there is peace[15]—true peace that is not contingent on one group suffering under the weight of another.

Then the letter continues, [Christ] came and brought peace to you (all) who were far-off and peace to you (all) who were near because through him we—both in one spirit—possess access to God therefore now you are no longer a stranger and sojourner but you are a fellow citizens with the saints and of the family of God (vv 17-19). In Christ, these two have become one[16] and together they will dwell in and with God and they will have real peace—the type of peace that threatens the principalities and powers of the kingdom of humanity. [17] But this peace brought by Christ is more than reconciliation with each other, it is also reconciliation with God, thus, these two who are now one become the dwelling place of God. [18] As Paul continues, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets—Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone—in whom all building is being fitted together and grows itself into a holy temple in the lord in whom you, you also were built together into the dwelling place of God in Spirit (vv 20-22). Boldly Ephesians declares, where there is a lack of enmity and hostility, division walls and lines, laws and commands geared to keep some in and some out, there God is and there the saints of God are; no one is excluded and left out and the church is caught up in this radical inclusion and equity, snatched into this divine peace that knows absolutely positively no walls or dividing lines.[19],[20]

Conclusion

The church is without excuse here, according to Ephesians. Peace—the very peace Christ brings through his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension—is peace that is not contingent on the kingdom of humanity but dependent on the reign of God. It is peace that arises in the communion of humanity with humanity, humanity with God, and humanity with creation; it is peace that manifests within and among humanity in its unity to the glory of God, which is in opposition to the “peace” (i.e. “security” (“control”)) of the kingdom of humanity that thrives on the humanity’s disunity. None of us who claim to follow Christ can afford to support systems dead set on dividing and conquering, oppressing and marginalizing, and fostering anger and fear; these systems are antithetical to the gospel of Christ and to the faith and praxis of the believer in the world before God and neighbor. None of us who claim to follow Christ can find peace (and hope) anywhere else apart from God: not in federal positions and presidents, not in parties and platforms, not in promises and progress made with human hands. We can only find true peace in our reconciliation with God, which is reconciliation with our neighbor, and, thus, these two combined give us reconciliation with ourselves because we have been made one with our neighbor and thus have become the dwelling place of God.

We cannot find peace by building the world we long for with human hands because as soon as we build it it has expired and must be torn down to allow something new to be born. We cannot find peace by turning the gospel into a law as if it can found a nation that would only gift life, love, and liberation to those who qualify. We cannot find peace by letting enmity and hostility be the mortar holding the bricks of the division-wall together. We cannot find peace by legislating Christianity because the doctrines born of the second word of God that form the tissue of the Christian Church inherently resist such socio-political ossification. We can and will only find peace by pressing further into God, clinging to God’s Word in Christ, and leaning into the guidance and leading of the Spirit of God, the guarantor of the new covenant, the down payment of our adoption into God, and the fertile soil making us one with God, with our neighbor, thus, with ourselves. It is only here, in God and with God, do we find true and lasting peace that surpasses all understanding.

[1] See Sölle, Choosing Life, pp. 92-93

[2] This portion is taken from, Lauren R.E. Larkin, “Leaving Heaven Behind: Paradoxical Identity as the Anchor of Dorothee Sölle’s Theology of Political Resistance,” PhD Dissertation (University of Aberdeen, 2024), 202.

[3] Barth, Markus, Ephesians: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on Chapters 1-3, The Anchor Bible Series (Garden City: Doubleday, 1971), 254. “Repentance, decision, and gratitude are called for, not a mental recollection only.”

[4] Barth, Ephesians, 257. “In Eph 2:12 a status of strangership is described, not an event leading to estrangement.”

[5] Barth, Ephesians, 259. \“Unless Paul flippantly denied or dispossessed the Gentiles of any hope he must have meant a specific hope. This ‘hope,’ then, could be understood as fostered in the minds of the Jews, because it was founded and guaranteed in the heart of God or ‘laid up in heaven’……It is the hope for the promised messiah from the root of David…”

[6] Barth, Ephesians, 254. “Paul’s thought moves from men in the grip of ‘flesh’ (2:11), over the work performed in ‘Christ’s flesh’ (2:14, to the operation of the ‘Spirit’ (2:18). Nothing can prevent the ‘Spirit’ from operating ‘in the realm of flesh.’”

[7] Barth, Ephesians, 255. “As the building of the temple by God is contrasted to the construction of temples by men, so circumcision of the heart…highly excels handmade circumcision.”

[8] Allen Verhey and Joseph S. Harvard, Ephesians, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2011), 93. “If it was especially the Jewish Christian who needed to be reminded earlier that all are ‘sinners,’ not just the ‘uncircumcised,’ not just the Gentiles, and that all are brought from death to life by the gift of God’s grace, not by ‘works’  of the law, the Gentiles are now reminded of the promises to Israel and that it is in the Jewish Messiah that they are given a share in them.”

[9] Barth, Ephesians, 262. “Christ is praised here not primarily for the peace he bring to individual souls; rather the peace he brings is a social and political event…”

[10] Barth, Ephesians, 263-264. “The combination of the two Greek nouns yields a composite sense: it is a wall that prevents certain person from entering a house or a city (cf. 2:19), and is as much a mark of hostility (2:14, 16) as, e.g. a ghetto wall, the Iron Curtain the Berlin Wall, a racial barrier, or a railroad track that separates the right from the wrong side of the city, not to speak of the wall between state and church.”

[11] Barth, Ephesians, 264. “In this case, the ‘enmity’ is as much the object of destruction as the wall.”

[12] Barth, Ephesians, 264. “The word ‘enmity’ defines the separation between Jews and Gentiles more specifically: this segregation implies intolerance, and is a passionate, totalitarian, bellicose affair. While the ‘enmity’ mentioned at the end of vs. 16 is the one-sided enmity of man against God, the ‘enmity’ of vs. 14 is mutual among men.”

[13] Barth, Ephesians, 265. “…the context of Eph 2:15 reveals that for the author (as much as for Paul himself) the death of Christ rather than the promulgation of new decrees stood behind the abolition of the divisive statutes.”

[14] Barth, Ephesians, 264. Wall, enmity, and law “Each of these terms throws light on the others; the author wants them to be considered as synonyms.”

[15] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 96. “…God seals a ‘new covenant’ in ‘the blood of Christ.” And in that ‘new covenant’ there is a new community, a community of both Jew and Gentile, a community that shares the memory of Christ and the hope of God’s promises with a common meal.”

[16] Barth, Ephesians, 272. “After showing that the church exists only as a unity, that is, as one new man created out of Jews and Gentiles, the apostle does not proceed to split t into halves.”

[17] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 97. “But this was not merely an idea, as the reality of baptism makes clear. This was not merely an ideal that exists outside history and toward which we must strive. This was and is a reality wrought in Christ on the cross and displayed in the churches when God initiates diverse people into Christ and into the church. Ideals are powerless against the forces in this world that divide and abuse, against the principalities and power that nurture cultures of enmity. But those forces are and will be finally powerless against the promise and reality of God’s future.”

[18] Barth, Ephesians, 274. “The church herself is not reconciliation but she lives form it and manifests it. She serves the glory of God inasmuch as her members mutually assist, support, and strengthen one another. Neither jews nor Gentiles nor any individual can independently claim after Christ’s coming to offer an appropriate residence For God but Jews and Gentiles together are now ordained by God to become his temple.”

[19] Barth, Ephesians, 324-325. “Now the church is the sign of his mercy, his peace, and his nearness the whole world. If God can and will use people are who are as tempted and weak as the Christian are, then he is certainly able and willing to exclude no one from his realm. The church lives by this hope and bears witness to it publicly.”

[20] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 98. “They are called to break down the walls and to perform this new social reality by forming friendships with the people on the other side of the aisle, or on the other side of town.”

https://laurenrelarkin.com/2024/07/21/6623/

#Beloved #ChoosingLife #ChristianNationalism #DividingWall #DivineLove #DivinePeace #Division #DorotheeSölle #Ephesians #Hope #Jesus #LawAndGospel #Love #LoveOfNeighbor #MarkusBarth #Peace #UnionWithGod #UnionWithSelf #UnionWithTheNeighbor

https://youtu.be/OZAN0zqZdts

Psalm 23:1-3 Abba God is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. Abba God makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.  God revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for God’s Name’s sake.

Introduction

At the end of last’s week sermon, we ended talking about remembrance, hope, and prayer. For Christians, when we gather to speak of, read of, hear of, and consume together with Christ in our weekly fellowship and worship, we are remembering Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are not just remembering Christ but participating the work of God made tangible in Christ: the divine revolution and mission of love, life, and liberation in the world for the beloved. This is truly εὐαγγέλιον. And if this is truly εὐαγγέλιον, then it is also the source and foundation of our hope that exists to sustain us today.

In remembering and having hope we are led to pray, to bring ourselves deeply into God, to bend our knee (literal or figurative), to be creatures fully dependent on God. We remember, we have hope, and we pray, and it is this that is the beginning of all our activity within the walls of the church and without. As mentioned last week, “Prayer does not resign the believer to non-activity as if it is the final act in the face of trouble; it is the starting point. Prayer is how the believer unites with God and God’s passion for life, love, and liberation.[1] It is the bold request for God to enter in, to act; in prayer God is spoken to and from, in prayer God is remembered, so, too, the neighbor.”[2]

But the author of Ephesians isn’t done with us yet as if it’s just about remembering and hoping and praying. But that this remembering, hoping, and praying participates in making believers one with God and with each other in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and bringing them into the true peace that surpasses all understanding.

Ephesians 2:11-22

For [Christ] is our peace, the one who made both [the Israelites and the Gentiles] one and [the one who] destroyed in his flesh the division-wall of the fence, [and] the enmity [between the two], and [the one who] rendered inoperative the law of the commands and public decrees, so that the two might build in him one new peace-making humanity… (Eph. 2:14-15)

So, the author of Ephesians verbally exhorts us (using an imperative!) to remember. To remember what? Not only Christ but who we were prior to being encountered by Christ in the event of faith. …remember that in the past you [were] Gentiles in the flesh, the ones who were called “The Uncircumcised” by the ones who were called “The Circumcised” in the flesh done by [human] hands (v. 11). But that isn’t enough; Paul asks his audience to remember, further, that they were for a time without Christ, having been alienated from the citizenship of Israel and a stranger of the covenant of the promise, not possessing hope and [were] without God in the cosmos (v 12). Paul is eager to recreate the situation for the Ephesians to cause more than just recall but real, heart-felt remembering,[3] pressing into the reality that apart from Christ they were dead in their false-steps and missing the mark (sin) (v 1), they were strangers to the promises of God, to Christ, and to the hope of God which is the hope of the reign of God in Christ.[4],[5] According to Ephesians, the Gentiles were overcome by their own desires, turned in on themselves, stuck in place by division, and consumed by hostility. This isn’t something that someone can work themselves out of, no matter how hard they try. For Paul, it is only through the encounter with Christ where one finds God, finds their neighbor, and finds themself; it is only in Christ where one finds true life, love, and liberation.[6] But at this time you who were once far off you became near by the blood of Christ (v 13). In other words, this is not done by human hands (χειροποιήτου in v 11), but by the love of God in Christ done by the power of the Spirit[7] as the down-payment in lives of the believers in Ephesus.

This is why Christ is the peace of everyone—for [Christ] is our peace (v 14a)—Children of Israel and Gentiles combined. Because, as Paul writes, the one who made both [the Israelites and the Gentiles] one and [the one who] destroyed in his flesh the division-wall of the fence, [and] the enmity [between the two], and [the one who] rendered inoperative the law of the commands and public decrees, so that the two might build in him one new peace-making humanity (vv 14b-15). There is now no longer us v. them, insiders v. outsiders, elected v. not-elected, Israel v. Gentiles, the circumcised v. the not circumcised.[8] There are not two groups, but one group. Thus, this peace Jesus brings in his own flesh, by the blood of the cross event and the glory of his resurrection is not just for privatized souls but for deprivatized humanity; it’s a socio-political event.[9] There is now no wall that keeps some in and some out, some included and some excluded; there is now (absolutely) no line—whether 2-D or 3-D—that can render some humans “good” and others “bad” based on which side of that line they fall because that line has been destroyed[10] and is now anathema for the believers and followers of Christ who benefit from the destruction of the division-wall of the fence by being included in to the heredity and mission of God by the work of Christ on the cross and the power of the Holy Spirits dwelling in their hearts.

And if the wall has been destroyed, so, too, division according to enmity,[11] which is the hostility and intolerance fomented between the two groups that was the fruit of the division wall; it is the anger of the kingdoms of humanity turned inward to tear humanity apart.[12] This includes the laws and public commandments used to make some clean and some unclean, some righteous and others unrighteous; these, too, like the wall and the enmity, have become inoperative in solidifying groups of people against each other. For Paul then writes, and so he might completely reconcile both in one body for God through the cross he killed the hostility in himself (v 16).By Christ’s work[13]—the mission of God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation for the world—there is now no wall, thus no enmity, thus no law[14] that can keep anyone out and in this radical establishment of divine equity, there is peace[15]—true peace that is not contingent on one group suffering under the weight of another.

Then the letter continues, [Christ] came and brought peace to you (all) who were far-off and peace to you (all) who were near because through him we—both in one spirit—possess access to God therefore now you are no longer a stranger and sojourner but you are a fellow citizens with the saints and of the family of God (vv 17-19). In Christ, these two have become one[16] and together they will dwell in and with God and they will have real peace—the type of peace that threatens the principalities and powers of the kingdom of humanity. [17] But this peace brought by Christ is more than reconciliation with each other, it is also reconciliation with God, thus, these two who are now one become the dwelling place of God. [18] As Paul continues, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets—Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone—in whom all building is being fitted together and grows itself into a holy temple in the lord in whom you, you also were built together into the dwelling place of God in Spirit (vv 20-22). Boldly Ephesians declares, where there is a lack of enmity and hostility, division walls and lines, laws and commands geared to keep some in and some out, there God is and there the saints of God are; no one is excluded and left out and the church is caught up in this radical inclusion and equity, snatched into this divine peace that knows absolutely positively no walls or dividing lines.[19],[20]

Conclusion

The church is without excuse here, according to Ephesians. Peace—the very peace Christ brings through his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension—is peace that is not contingent on the kingdom of humanity but dependent on the reign of God. It is peace that arises in the communion of humanity with humanity, humanity with God, and humanity with creation; it is peace that manifests within and among humanity in its unity to the glory of God, which is in opposition to the “peace” (i.e. “security” (“control”)) of the kingdom of humanity that thrives on the humanity’s disunity. None of us who claim to follow Christ can afford to support systems dead set on dividing and conquering, oppressing and marginalizing, and fostering anger and fear; these systems are antithetical to the gospel of Christ and to the faith and praxis of the believer in the world before God and neighbor. None of us who claim to follow Christ can find peace (and hope) anywhere else apart from God: not in federal positions and presidents, not in parties and platforms, not in promises and progress made with human hands. We can only find true peace in our reconciliation with God, which is reconciliation with our neighbor, and, thus, these two combined give us reconciliation with ourselves because we have been made one with our neighbor and thus have become the dwelling place of God.

We cannot find peace by building the world we long for with human hands because as soon as we build it it has expired and must be torn down to allow something new to be born. We cannot find peace by turning the gospel into a law as if it can found a nation that would only gift life, love, and liberation to those who qualify. We cannot find peace by letting enmity and hostility be the mortar holding the bricks of the division-wall together. We cannot find peace by legislating Christianity because the doctrines born of the second word of God that form the tissue of the Christian Church inherently resist such socio-political ossification. We can and will only find peace by pressing further into God, clinging to God’s Word in Christ, and leaning into the guidance and leading of the Spirit of God, the guarantor of the new covenant, the down payment of our adoption into God, and the fertile soil making us one with God, with our neighbor, thus, with ourselves. It is only here, in God and with God, do we find true and lasting peace that surpasses all understanding.

[1] See Sölle, Choosing Life, pp. 92-93

[2] This portion is taken from, Lauren R.E. Larkin, “Leaving Heaven Behind: Paradoxical Identity as the Anchor of Dorothee Sölle’s Theology of Political Resistance,” PhD Dissertation (University of Aberdeen, 2024), 202.

[3] Barth, Markus, Ephesians: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on Chapters 1-3, The Anchor Bible Series (Garden City: Doubleday, 1971), 254. “Repentance, decision, and gratitude are called for, not a mental recollection only.”

[4] Barth, Ephesians, 257. “In Eph 2:12 a status of strangership is described, not an event leading to estrangement.”

[5] Barth, Ephesians, 259. \“Unless Paul flippantly denied or dispossessed the Gentiles of any hope he must have meant a specific hope. This ‘hope,’ then, could be understood as fostered in the minds of the Jews, because it was founded and guaranteed in the heart of God or ‘laid up in heaven’……It is the hope for the promised messiah from the root of David…”

[6] Barth, Ephesians, 254. “Paul’s thought moves from men in the grip of ‘flesh’ (2:11), over the work performed in ‘Christ’s flesh’ (2:14, to the operation of the ‘Spirit’ (2:18). Nothing can prevent the ‘Spirit’ from operating ‘in the realm of flesh.’”

[7] Barth, Ephesians, 255. “As the building of the temple by God is contrasted to the construction of temples by men, so circumcision of the heart…highly excels handmade circumcision.”

[8] Allen Verhey and Joseph S. Harvard, Ephesians, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2011), 93. “If it was especially the Jewish Christian who needed to be reminded earlier that all are ‘sinners,’ not just the ‘uncircumcised,’ not just the Gentiles, and that all are brought from death to life by the gift of God’s grace, not by ‘works’  of the law, the Gentiles are now reminded of the promises to Israel and that it is in the Jewish Messiah that they are given a share in them.”

[9] Barth, Ephesians, 262. “Christ is praised here not primarily for the peace he bring to individual souls; rather the peace he brings is a social and political event…”

[10] Barth, Ephesians, 263-264. “The combination of the two Greek nouns yields a composite sense: it is a wall that prevents certain person from entering a house or a city (cf. 2:19), and is as much a mark of hostility (2:14, 16) as, e.g. a ghetto wall, the Iron Curtain the Berlin Wall, a racial barrier, or a railroad track that separates the right from the wrong side of the city, not to speak of the wall between state and church.”

[11] Barth, Ephesians, 264. “In this case, the ‘enmity’ is as much the object of destruction as the wall.”

[12] Barth, Ephesians, 264. “The word ‘enmity’ defines the separation between Jews and Gentiles more specifically: this segregation implies intolerance, and is a passionate, totalitarian, bellicose affair. While the ‘enmity’ mentioned at the end of vs. 16 is the one-sided enmity of man against God, the ‘enmity’ of vs. 14 is mutual among men.”

[13] Barth, Ephesians, 265. “…the context of Eph 2:15 reveals that for the author (as much as for Paul himself) the death of Christ rather than the promulgation of new decrees stood behind the abolition of the divisive statutes.”

[14] Barth, Ephesians, 264. Wall, enmity, and law “Each of these terms throws light on the others; the author wants them to be considered as synonyms.”

[15] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 96. “…God seals a ‘new covenant’ in ‘the blood of Christ.” And in that ‘new covenant’ there is a new community, a community of both Jew and Gentile, a community that shares the memory of Christ and the hope of God’s promises with a common meal.”

[16] Barth, Ephesians, 272. “After showing that the church exists only as a unity, that is, as one new man created out of Jews and Gentiles, the apostle does not proceed to split t into halves.”

[17] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 97. “But this was not merely an idea, as the reality of baptism makes clear. This was not merely an ideal that exists outside history and toward which we must strive. This was and is a reality wrought in Christ on the cross and displayed in the churches when God initiates diverse people into Christ and into the church. Ideals are powerless against the forces in this world that divide and abuse, against the principalities and power that nurture cultures of enmity. But those forces are and will be finally powerless against the promise and reality of God’s future.”

[18] Barth, Ephesians, 274. “The church herself is not reconciliation but she lives form it and manifests it. She serves the glory of God inasmuch as her members mutually assist, support, and strengthen one another. Neither jews nor Gentiles nor any individual can independently claim after Christ’s coming to offer an appropriate residence For God but Jews and Gentiles together are now ordained by God to become his temple.”

[19] Barth, Ephesians, 324-325. “Now the church is the sign of his mercy, his peace, and his nearness the whole world. If God can and will use people are who are as tempted and weak as the Christian are, then he is certainly able and willing to exclude no one from his realm. The church lives by this hope and bears witness to it publicly.”

[20] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 98. “They are called to break down the walls and to perform this new social reality by forming friendships with the people on the other side of the aisle, or on the other side of town.”

https://laurenrelarkin.com/2024/07/21/6623/

#Beloved #ChoosingLife #ChristianNationalism #DividingWall #DivineLove #DivinePeace #Division #DorotheeSölle #Ephesians #Hope #Jesus #LawAndGospel #Love #LoveOfNeighbor #MarkusBarth #Peace #UnionWithGod #UnionWithSelf #UnionWithTheNeighbor

Psalm 23:1-3 Abba God is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. Abba God makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.  God revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for God’s Name’s sake.

Introduction

At the end of last’s week sermon, we ended talking about remembrance, hope, and prayer. For Christians, when we gather to speak of, read of, hear of, and consume together with Christ in our weekly fellowship and worship, we are remembering Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are not just remembering Christ but participating the work of God made tangible in Christ: the divine revolution and mission of love, life, and liberation in the world for the beloved. This is truly εὐαγγέλιον. And if this is truly εὐαγγέλιον, then it is also the source and foundation of our hope that exists to sustain us today.

In remembering and having hope we are led to pray, to bring ourselves deeply into God, to bend our knee (literal or figurative), to be creatures fully dependent on God. We remember, we have hope, and we pray, and it is this that is the beginning of all our activity within the walls of the church and without. As mentioned last week, “Prayer does not resign the believer to non-activity as if it is the final act in the face of trouble; it is the starting point. Prayer is how the believer unites with God and God’s passion for life, love, and liberation.[1] It is the bold request for God to enter in, to act; in prayer God is spoken to and from, in prayer God is remembered, so, too, the neighbor.”[2]

But the author of Ephesians isn’t done with us yet as if it’s just about remembering and hoping and praying. But that this remembering, hoping, and praying participates in making believers one with God and with each other in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and bringing them into the true peace that surpasses all understanding.

Ephesians 2:11-22

For [Christ] is our peace, the one who made both [the Israelites and the Gentiles] one and [the one who] destroyed in his flesh the division-wall of the fence, [and] the enmity [between the two], and [the one who] rendered inoperative the law of the commands and public decrees, so that the two might build in him one new peace-making humanity… (Eph. 2:14-15)

So, the author of Ephesians verbally exhorts us (using an imperative!) to remember. To remember what? Not only Christ but who we were prior to being encountered by Christ in the event of faith. …remember that in the past you [were] Gentiles in the flesh, the ones who were called “The Uncircumcised” by the ones who were called “The Circumcised” in the flesh done by [human] hands (v. 11). But that isn’t enough; Paul asks his audience to remember, further, that they were for a time without Christ, having been alienated from the citizenship of Israel and a stranger of the covenant of the promise, not possessing hope and [were] without God in the cosmos (v 12). Paul is eager to recreate the situation for the Ephesians to cause more than just recall but real, heart-felt remembering,[3] pressing into the reality that apart from Christ they were dead in their false-steps and missing the mark (sin) (v 1), they were strangers to the promises of God, to Christ, and to the hope of God which is the hope of the reign of God in Christ.[4],[5] According to Ephesians, the Gentiles were overcome by their own desires, turned in on themselves, stuck in place by division, and consumed by hostility. This isn’t something that someone can work themselves out of, no matter how hard they try. For Paul, it is only through the encounter with Christ where one finds God, finds their neighbor, and finds themself; it is only in Christ where one finds true life, love, and liberation.[6] But at this time you who were once far off you became near by the blood of Christ (v 13). In other words, this is not done by human hands (χειροποιήτου in v 11), but by the love of God in Christ done by the power of the Spirit[7] as the down-payment in lives of the believers in Ephesus.

This is why Christ is the peace of everyone—for [Christ] is our peace (v 14a)—Children of Israel and Gentiles combined. Because, as Paul writes, the one who made both [the Israelites and the Gentiles] one and [the one who] destroyed in his flesh the division-wall of the fence, [and] the enmity [between the two], and [the one who] rendered inoperative the law of the commands and public decrees, so that the two might build in him one new peace-making humanity (vv 14b-15). There is now no longer us v. them, insiders v. outsiders, elected v. not-elected, Israel v. Gentiles, the circumcised v. the not circumcised.[8] There are not two groups, but one group. Thus, this peace Jesus brings in his own flesh, by the blood of the cross event and the glory of his resurrection is not just for privatized souls but for deprivatized humanity; it’s a socio-political event.[9] There is now no wall that keeps some in and some out, some included and some excluded; there is now (absolutely) no line—whether 2-D or 3-D—that can render some humans “good” and others “bad” based on which side of that line they fall because that line has been destroyed[10] and is now anathema for the believers and followers of Christ who benefit from the destruction of the division-wall of the fence by being included in to the heredity and mission of God by the work of Christ on the cross and the power of the Holy Spirits dwelling in their hearts.

And if the wall has been destroyed, so, too, division according to enmity,[11] which is the hostility and intolerance fomented between the two groups that was the fruit of the division wall; it is the anger of the kingdoms of humanity turned inward to tear humanity apart.[12] This includes the laws and public commandments used to make some clean and some unclean, some righteous and others unrighteous; these, too, like the wall and the enmity, have become inoperative in solidifying groups of people against each other. For Paul then writes, and so he might completely reconcile both in one body for God through the cross he killed the hostility in himself (v 16).By Christ’s work[13]—the mission of God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation for the world—there is now no wall, thus no enmity, thus no law[14] that can keep anyone out and in this radical establishment of divine equity, there is peace[15]—true peace that is not contingent on one group suffering under the weight of another.

Then the letter continues, [Christ] came and brought peace to you (all) who were far-off and peace to you (all) who were near because through him we—both in one spirit—possess access to God therefore now you are no longer a stranger and sojourner but you are a fellow citizens with the saints and of the family of God (vv 17-19). In Christ, these two have become one[16] and together they will dwell in and with God and they will have real peace—the type of peace that threatens the principalities and powers of the kingdom of humanity. [17] But this peace brought by Christ is more than reconciliation with each other, it is also reconciliation with God, thus, these two who are now one become the dwelling place of God. [18] As Paul continues, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets—Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone—in whom all building is being fitted together and grows itself into a holy temple in the lord in whom you, you also were built together into the dwelling place of God in Spirit (vv 20-22). Boldly Ephesians declares, where there is a lack of enmity and hostility, division walls and lines, laws and commands geared to keep some in and some out, there God is and there the saints of God are; no one is excluded and left out and the church is caught up in this radical inclusion and equity, snatched into this divine peace that knows absolutely positively no walls or dividing lines.[19],[20]

Conclusion

The church is without excuse here, according to Ephesians. Peace—the very peace Christ brings through his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension—is peace that is not contingent on the kingdom of humanity but dependent on the reign of God. It is peace that arises in the communion of humanity with humanity, humanity with God, and humanity with creation; it is peace that manifests within and among humanity in its unity to the glory of God, which is in opposition to the “peace” (i.e. “security” (“control”)) of the kingdom of humanity that thrives on the humanity’s disunity. None of us who claim to follow Christ can afford to support systems dead set on dividing and conquering, oppressing and marginalizing, and fostering anger and fear; these systems are antithetical to the gospel of Christ and to the faith and praxis of the believer in the world before God and neighbor. None of us who claim to follow Christ can find peace (and hope) anywhere else apart from God: not in federal positions and presidents, not in parties and platforms, not in promises and progress made with human hands. We can only find true peace in our reconciliation with God, which is reconciliation with our neighbor, and, thus, these two combined give us reconciliation with ourselves because we have been made one with our neighbor and thus have become the dwelling place of God.

We cannot find peace by building the world we long for with human hands because as soon as we build it it has expired and must be torn down to allow something new to be born. We cannot find peace by turning the gospel into a law as if it can found a nation that would only gift life, love, and liberation to those who qualify. We cannot find peace by letting enmity and hostility be the mortar holding the bricks of the division-wall together. We cannot find peace by legislating Christianity because the doctrines born of the second word of God that form the tissue of the Christian Church inherently resist such socio-political ossification. We can and will only find peace by pressing further into God, clinging to God’s Word in Christ, and leaning into the guidance and leading of the Spirit of God, the guarantor of the new covenant, the down payment of our adoption into God, and the fertile soil making us one with God, with our neighbor, thus, with ourselves. It is only here, in God and with God, do we find true and lasting peace that surpasses all understanding.

[1] See Sölle, Choosing Life, pp. 92-93

[2] This portion is taken from, Lauren R.E. Larkin, “Leaving Heaven Behind: Paradoxical Identity as the Anchor of Dorothee Sölle’s Theology of Political Resistance,” PhD Dissertation (University of Aberdeen, 2024), 202.

[3] Barth, Markus, Ephesians: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on Chapters 1-3, The Anchor Bible Series (Garden City: Doubleday, 1971), 254. “Repentance, decision, and gratitude are called for, not a mental recollection only.”

[4] Barth, Ephesians, 257. “In Eph 2:12 a status of strangership is described, not an event leading to estrangement.”

[5] Barth, Ephesians, 259. \“Unless Paul flippantly denied or dispossessed the Gentiles of any hope he must have meant a specific hope. This ‘hope,’ then, could be understood as fostered in the minds of the Jews, because it was founded and guaranteed in the heart of God or ‘laid up in heaven’……It is the hope for the promised messiah from the root of David…”

[6] Barth, Ephesians, 254. “Paul’s thought moves from men in the grip of ‘flesh’ (2:11), over the work performed in ‘Christ’s flesh’ (2:14, to the operation of the ‘Spirit’ (2:18). Nothing can prevent the ‘Spirit’ from operating ‘in the realm of flesh.’”

[7] Barth, Ephesians, 255. “As the building of the temple by God is contrasted to the construction of temples by men, so circumcision of the heart…highly excels handmade circumcision.”

[8] Allen Verhey and Joseph S. Harvard, Ephesians, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2011), 93. “If it was especially the Jewish Christian who needed to be reminded earlier that all are ‘sinners,’ not just the ‘uncircumcised,’ not just the Gentiles, and that all are brought from death to life by the gift of God’s grace, not by ‘works’  of the law, the Gentiles are now reminded of the promises to Israel and that it is in the Jewish Messiah that they are given a share in them.”

[9] Barth, Ephesians, 262. “Christ is praised here not primarily for the peace he bring to individual souls; rather the peace he brings is a social and political event…”

[10] Barth, Ephesians, 263-264. “The combination of the two Greek nouns yields a composite sense: it is a wall that prevents certain person from entering a house or a city (cf. 2:19), and is as much a mark of hostility (2:14, 16) as, e.g. a ghetto wall, the Iron Curtain the Berlin Wall, a racial barrier, or a railroad track that separates the right from the wrong side of the city, not to speak of the wall between state and church.”

[11] Barth, Ephesians, 264. “In this case, the ‘enmity’ is as much the object of destruction as the wall.”

[12] Barth, Ephesians, 264. “The word ‘enmity’ defines the separation between Jews and Gentiles more specifically: this segregation implies intolerance, and is a passionate, totalitarian, bellicose affair. While the ‘enmity’ mentioned at the end of vs. 16 is the one-sided enmity of man against God, the ‘enmity’ of vs. 14 is mutual among men.”

[13] Barth, Ephesians, 265. “…the context of Eph 2:15 reveals that for the author (as much as for Paul himself) the death of Christ rather than the promulgation of new decrees stood behind the abolition of the divisive statutes.”

[14] Barth, Ephesians, 264. Wall, enmity, and law “Each of these terms throws light on the others; the author wants them to be considered as synonyms.”

[15] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 96. “…God seals a ‘new covenant’ in ‘the blood of Christ.” And in that ‘new covenant’ there is a new community, a community of both Jew and Gentile, a community that shares the memory of Christ and the hope of God’s promises with a common meal.”

[16] Barth, Ephesians, 272. “After showing that the church exists only as a unity, that is, as one new man created out of Jews and Gentiles, the apostle does not proceed to split t into halves.”

[17] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 97. “But this was not merely an idea, as the reality of baptism makes clear. This was not merely an ideal that exists outside history and toward which we must strive. This was and is a reality wrought in Christ on the cross and displayed in the churches when God initiates diverse people into Christ and into the church. Ideals are powerless against the forces in this world that divide and abuse, against the principalities and power that nurture cultures of enmity. But those forces are and will be finally powerless against the promise and reality of God’s future.”

[18] Barth, Ephesians, 274. “The church herself is not reconciliation but she lives form it and manifests it. She serves the glory of God inasmuch as her members mutually assist, support, and strengthen one another. Neither jews nor Gentiles nor any individual can independently claim after Christ’s coming to offer an appropriate residence For God but Jews and Gentiles together are now ordained by God to become his temple.”

[19] Barth, Ephesians, 324-325. “Now the church is the sign of his mercy, his peace, and his nearness the whole world. If God can and will use people are who are as tempted and weak as the Christian are, then he is certainly able and willing to exclude no one from his realm. The church lives by this hope and bears witness to it publicly.”

[20] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 98. “They are called to break down the walls and to perform this new social reality by forming friendships with the people on the other side of the aisle, or on the other side of town.”

https://laurenrelarkin.com/2024/07/21/6623/

#Beloved #ChoosingLife #ChristianNationalism #DividingWall #DivineLove #DivinePeace #Division #DorotheeSölle #Ephesians #Hope #Jesus #LawAndGospel #Love #LoveOfNeighbor #MarkusBarth #Peace #UnionWithGod #UnionWithSelf #UnionWithTheNeighbor

Psalm 23:1-2, 6: Abba God is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. God makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of Abba God for ever.

Introduction

When I was first Christian, I was given the clear idea that being a Christian meant that I would be nice and that people would like me because I was so nice, kind, patient, and happy. I would be compliant and non-obtrusive. I would be meek and mild. I would be all things to all people in a very non-offensive and non-confrontational way. In fact, being offensive and confrontational—being the opposite of any adjective listed above—was synonymous with being “not a Christian.” So, following the logic: happy person = Christian person; grumpy person = Non-Christian person (etc.).

To be honest, I don’t know where this idea comes from. It’s not in the bible really. Yes, Paul says to rejoice and rejoice again, Jesus says not to worry, and there are many exhortations to love our neighbor and offer up service to them in the name and to the glory of God. There are even a couple (some Pauline and some pseudo-Pauline) references to being good, complaint, and prayerful citizens. But, in general, the Christian life is not particularly described as nice, happy, kind, compliant, etc. To be even more honest, I’m not sold on the idea that those we are exhorted to imitate were all that nice or happy. For instance, while Paul brought the gospel proclamation—God’s word of comfort and love—to many, he was a force to reckon with and very open about his suffering while bringing glory to God and the God’s beloved. Jesus—the incarnate Word of God who identified with the oppressed and marginalized—was quite the offensive and confrontational force toward many…how else do you think he ended up on the cross, a state instrument of death?

The reality is that the Christian life will bring us into direct conflict with both religious and civil authorities. Following in the steps of Christ as Christ’s disciples means that, like Christ, we will find ourselves confronting the false idols of our age, exposing decrepit and toxic systems, and coming face to face with structural violence meant to do harm to God’s beloved. In other words, no not everyone will like us and think we are so peachy keen and nice. If that is hard to believe, let’s turn to Luke’s story in Acts about Peter in full on confrontation with the authorities…

Acts 4:5-12

Now it happened that the rulers and the elders and the scribes of Israel were convened in Jerusalem—both Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and as many who were of the kin of the high priest—and after standing [the prisoners] in the middle, they were learning by inquiry, “By what power or in whose name did you, you do this thing?” Then Peter—by means of being filled by the Holy Spirit—said to them…” (Acts 4:5-8a)

Our lectionary drops us off with Peter and John as prisoners before the elders and rulers of the people of Israel in Jerusalem. But, how did they get there? Let’s look.

Last week, we saw Peter and John heal a man who needed healing his whole life. In response to this healing, the people of Israel are amazed and in awe of what Peter and John have done for this man. As these people gather around John and Peter, Peter begins to address the crowd with words of exposure and comfort in the proclamation of Christ raised from the dead. As a result, some Sadducees and the captain of the temple approach Peter and John and arrest them for proclaiming Jesus’s resurrection from the dead to the people.

Now, in our passage, it is the day after the arrest. As Luke tells us, Peter and John are dragged out into the middle of all the leaders (rulers, elders, scribes and the kin of the high priest) of Israel so that they, the rulers and elders, can interrogate John and Peter and find out, By what power or in whose name did you, you do this thing? Peter has a choice here…he could just say something ambiguous about God, but he doesn’t. Instead, Luke tells us, Peter being filled by the Holy Spirit said to them… The Spirit of God inspires and emboldens Peter[1] to speak light to darkness, to expose the errors of judgment and the missed mark. It’s the following speech about divine, liberating action of the oppressed that gets Peter and John in trouble with those who are in power.[2] Regular words about God do not raise eyebrows or provoke to anger; rather, it is the words demonstrating God as against those in power that will. Peter and John knew this would be the case; they’d seen it before with Jesus and it led to his death and this death would come for them, too.[3]

So, Peter, filled with the Spirit, boldly declares to the leaders of Israel and not just to a crowd of bystanders, ‘If we, we are being interrogated about the well-doing of a weak person, by what this man has been saved, let it be known to all of you and all the people of Israel, by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth—whom you, you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—this man has stood in your presence healthy.’ Peters words shatter the glass walls separating the religious and the political, what they proclaimed to the people they now proclaim to the leaders; liberation from oppression comes to liberate the oppressed and also the oppressor.[4] As a result, Peter and John are treated as criminals who thwart the law and break the social arrangement; as Willie James Jennings says in his commentary on Acts 4, “Real preaching and authentic teaching is inextricably bound to real criminality.”[5]

But something else is going on here. This scene is meant to demonstrate the power of the judges over the judged. But a reversal is happening. Rather than the judges asking the questions of the judged, Peter, the judged, turns the table and now the rulers and elders of the people of Israel are the ones being questioned. In one swift and divinely inspired word, Peter puts these judges on trial; they are now the guilty ones,[6] they are now exposed, they are now the ones who must justify their power.[7] The rulers must declare in whose name they act. And things become a bit trickier when Peter makes it clear that he and his friend are the representatives of God therefore implying the rulers and the elders are not. In and through Peter’s speech, the world is exposed as upside-down; Peter and John are caught up in the divine activity as they participate in turning it right-side up according to divine love, life, and liberation in the name of God for God’s beloved.[8]

Conclusion

Acts reminds us, from beginning to end, that the life of a Christian and the life of the Christian church is one that is hard and not easy. To follow Christ demands that we, like all his other disciples (i.e. Peter and John) will become caught up in the waterfall of divine justice for the beloved that is life, love, and liberation. And this necessarily means that we will not be nice, we will be confrontational, we may even be offensives especially to those who are benefiting being nestled comfortably in the power of an upside-down world. Willie James Jennings writes,

“The great illusion of followers of Jesus, especially those who imagine themselves leaders, is that they could live a path different from Jesus and his disciples. They believe somehow that they can be loved or at least liked or at least tolerated or even ignored by those with real power in the world.”[9]

Easter tells us that not only is our past tied up with Christ’s death and resurrection but so is our future. And if both our past and our future is so tied up with Christ, it means that our present is as well. To live into the gift of resurrected life means being lead, by the Spirit, to participate in the divine revolution of love in the world on behalf of God’s beloved. Many will be grateful; many more will not. The Christian walk is hard not because we have to be pious and self-righteous or force ourselves to be perfect and better than everyone else; it’s hard because to love your neighbor in the name of God is hard. In her most systematic text, Thinking About God, Dorothee Sölle writes,

“Love has its price. The cross expresses love to the endangered, threatened life of God in our world. It is no longer a question of a biophilic embracing of life which spares itself the cross. The more we love God, the threatened, endangered, crucified God, the nearer we are to [God], the more endangered we are ourselves. The message of Jesus is that the more you grow in love, the more vulnerable you make yourself.”[10]

Beloved to love is hard because it’s risky; God knows because God loves and risked everything for you, the beloved.

[1] Brittany E. Wilson, “Contextualizing. Masculinity in the Book of Acts: Peter and Paul as Test Cases,” in Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics, eds., Eric D. Barreto, Matthew L. Skinner, and Steve Walton (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 34. “…Luke indicates that Peter’s rhetorical savvy is not of his own doing, but of divine origin.”

[2] Willie James Jennings, “Acts”, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2017), 45. “Speaking holy words has serious consequences. These are not words that simply speak of God. There is nothing inherently serious, holy, or dangerous in God-talk. The holy words that bring consequences are words tied to the concrete liberating actions of God for broken people. Such holy words bring the speakers into direct confrontation with those in power. Jesus not only spoke such words but he was such a word.”

[3] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “The disciples know this confrontation was coming. The struggle against those in power that marked the life and death of Jesus was coming for them as well.”

[4] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “The disciples are among common people proclaiming liberation and that violence and death are no longer the ultimate power. Jesus is risen! Therefrom the site of the common, holy words touch two intersecting nerves, the religious and the political.”

[5] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “Only criminals touch nerves at this level and receive the consequences [arrest, trial, custody]…”

[6] Jennings, ”Acts,” 47-48. “The judges are in fact builders. This is the great dilemma of the advantaged in this world. They institutionalize life. They are socially ordered and they enact social order. They are inside what they create and they create what they are inside of and from within this circle they often cannot see a divine judgment being brought on them, brought against them. God judges them from the position of the judged.”

[7] Jennings, ”Acts,” 47. “The judged are questioned (the judges are not). The judged must give account of their power and authority to speak, to believe, to suggest a different world order. The judged must show connection to the powerful, to names that are recognized by those in power. Power only sees power. The judged are evaluated (the judges are not). A scale is unleashed against the judged. Their education, social pedigrees, elocution, and baring are all measured against the judges. Now the dividing line is exposed. Now the moment of judgment will begin, but not as the ruling religious and social elite imagine. They misunderstand this moment just like Herod and Pontus Pilate misunderstood it with Jesus.”

[8] Jennings, ”Acts,” 47.

[9] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “Peter spoke again…The table is being turned over, an upside down world is being turned right side up in these words of Peter. Peter stands next to the man God has healed not by the power claimed by the elites, by the judges of this world, but only through the Holy Spirit.”

[10] Dorothee Soelle, Thinking About God: An Introduction to Theology (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1990), 134.

https://laurenrelarkin.com/2024/04/21/love-is-risky/

#Beloved #DivineLove #DorotheeSölle #HolySpirit #Jesus #JesusTheChrist #Love #PeterAndJohn #Proclamation #TheBookOfActs #ThinkingAboutGod #WillieJamesJennings

Psalm 23:1-2, 6: Abba God is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. God makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of Abba God for ever.

Introduction

When I was first Christian, I was given the clear idea that being a Christian meant that I would be nice and that people would like me because I was so nice, kind, patient, and happy. I would be compliant and non-obtrusive. I would be meek and mild. I would be all things to all people in a very non-offensive and non-confrontational way. In fact, being offensive and confrontational—being the opposite of any adjective listed above—was synonymous with being “not a Christian.” So, following the logic: happy person = Christian person; grumpy person = Non-Christian person (etc.).

To be honest, I don’t know where this idea comes from. It’s not in the bible really. Yes, Paul says to rejoice and rejoice again, Jesus says not to worry, and there are many exhortations to love our neighbor and offer up service to them in the name and to the glory of God. There are even a couple (some Pauline and some pseudo-Pauline) references to being good, complaint, and prayerful citizens. But, in general, the Christian life is not particularly described as nice, happy, kind, compliant, etc. To be even more honest, I’m not sold on the idea that those we are exhorted to imitate were all that nice or happy. For instance, while Paul brought the gospel proclamation—God’s word of comfort and love—to many, he was a force to reckon with and very open about his suffering while bringing glory to God and the God’s beloved. Jesus—the incarnate Word of God who identified with the oppressed and marginalized—was quite the offensive and confrontational force toward many…how else do you think he ended up on the cross, a state instrument of death?

The reality is that the Christian life will bring us into direct conflict with both religious and civil authorities. Following in the steps of Christ as Christ’s disciples means that, like Christ, we will find ourselves confronting the false idols of our age, exposing decrepit and toxic systems, and coming face to face with structural violence meant to do harm to God’s beloved. In other words, no not everyone will like us and think we are so peachy keen and nice. If that is hard to believe, let’s turn to Luke’s story in Acts about Peter in full on confrontation with the authorities…

Acts 4:5-12

Now it happened that the rulers and the elders and the scribes of Israel were convened in Jerusalem—both Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and as many who were of the kin of the high priest—and after standing [the prisoners] in the middle, they were learning by inquiry, “By what power or in whose name did you, you do this thing?” Then Peter—by means of being filled by the Holy Spirit—said to them…” (Acts 4:5-8a)

Our lectionary drops us off with Peter and John as prisoners before the elders and rulers of the people of Israel in Jerusalem. But, how did they get there? Let’s look.

Last week, we saw Peter and John heal a man who needed healing his whole life. In response to this healing, the people of Israel are amazed and in awe of what Peter and John have done for this man. As these people gather around John and Peter, Peter begins to address the crowd with words of exposure and comfort in the proclamation of Christ raised from the dead. As a result, some Sadducees and the captain of the temple approach Peter and John and arrest them for proclaiming Jesus’s resurrection from the dead to the people.

Now, in our passage, it is the day after the arrest. As Luke tells us, Peter and John are dragged out into the middle of all the leaders (rulers, elders, scribes and the kin of the high priest) of Israel so that they, the rulers and elders, can interrogate John and Peter and find out, By what power or in whose name did you, you do this thing? Peter has a choice here…he could just say something ambiguous about God, but he doesn’t. Instead, Luke tells us, Peter being filled by the Holy Spirit said to them… The Spirit of God inspires and emboldens Peter[1] to speak light to darkness, to expose the errors of judgment and the missed mark. It’s the following speech about divine, liberating action of the oppressed that gets Peter and John in trouble with those who are in power.[2] Regular words about God do not raise eyebrows or provoke to anger; rather, it is the words demonstrating God as against those in power that will. Peter and John knew this would be the case; they’d seen it before with Jesus and it led to his death and this death would come for them, too.[3]

So, Peter, filled with the Spirit, boldly declares to the leaders of Israel and not just to a crowd of bystanders, ‘If we, we are being interrogated about the well-doing of a weak person, by what this man has been saved, let it be known to all of you and all the people of Israel, by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth—whom you, you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—this man has stood in your presence healthy.’ Peters words shatter the glass walls separating the religious and the political, what they proclaimed to the people they now proclaim to the leaders; liberation from oppression comes to liberate the oppressed and also the oppressor.[4] As a result, Peter and John are treated as criminals who thwart the law and break the social arrangement; as Willie James Jennings says in his commentary on Acts 4, “Real preaching and authentic teaching is inextricably bound to real criminality.”[5]

But something else is going on here. This scene is meant to demonstrate the power of the judges over the judged. But a reversal is happening. Rather than the judges asking the questions of the judged, Peter, the judged, turns the table and now the rulers and elders of the people of Israel are the ones being questioned. In one swift and divinely inspired word, Peter puts these judges on trial; they are now the guilty ones,[6] they are now exposed, they are now the ones who must justify their power.[7] The rulers must declare in whose name they act. And things become a bit trickier when Peter makes it clear that he and his friend are the representatives of God therefore implying the rulers and the elders are not. In and through Peter’s speech, the world is exposed as upside-down; Peter and John are caught up in the divine activity as they participate in turning it right-side up according to divine love, life, and liberation in the name of God for God’s beloved.[8]

Conclusion

Acts reminds us, from beginning to end, that the life of a Christian and the life of the Christian church is one that is hard and not easy. To follow Christ demands that we, like all his other disciples (i.e. Peter and John) will become caught up in the waterfall of divine justice for the beloved that is life, love, and liberation. And this necessarily means that we will not be nice, we will be confrontational, we may even be offensives especially to those who are benefiting being nestled comfortably in the power of an upside-down world. Willie James Jennings writes,

“The great illusion of followers of Jesus, especially those who imagine themselves leaders, is that they could live a path different from Jesus and his disciples. They believe somehow that they can be loved or at least liked or at least tolerated or even ignored by those with real power in the world.”[9]

Easter tells us that not only is our past tied up with Christ’s death and resurrection but so is our future. And if both our past and our future is so tied up with Christ, it means that our present is as well. To live into the gift of resurrected life means being lead, by the Spirit, to participate in the divine revolution of love in the world on behalf of God’s beloved. Many will be grateful; many more will not. The Christian walk is hard not because we have to be pious and self-righteous or force ourselves to be perfect and better than everyone else; it’s hard because to love your neighbor in the name of God is hard. In her most systematic text, Thinking About God, Dorothee Sölle writes,

“Love has its price. The cross expresses love to the endangered, threatened life of God in our world. It is no longer a question of a biophilic embracing of life which spares itself the cross. The more we love God, the threatened, endangered, crucified God, the nearer we are to [God], the more endangered we are ourselves. The message of Jesus is that the more you grow in love, the more vulnerable you make yourself.”[10]

Beloved to love is hard because it’s risky; God knows because God loves and risked everything for you, the beloved.

[1] Brittany E. Wilson, “Contextualizing. Masculinity in the Book of Acts: Peter and Paul as Test Cases,” in Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics, eds., Eric D. Barreto, Matthew L. Skinner, and Steve Walton (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 34. “…Luke indicates that Peter’s rhetorical savvy is not of his own doing, but of divine origin.”

[2] Willie James Jennings, “Acts”, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2017), 45. “Speaking holy words has serious consequences. These are not words that simply speak of God. There is nothing inherently serious, holy, or dangerous in God-talk. The holy words that bring consequences are words tied to the concrete liberating actions of God for broken people. Such holy words bring the speakers into direct confrontation with those in power. Jesus not only spoke such words but he was such a word.”

[3] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “The disciples know this confrontation was coming. The struggle against those in power that marked the life and death of Jesus was coming for them as well.”

[4] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “The disciples are among common people proclaiming liberation and that violence and death are no longer the ultimate power. Jesus is risen! Therefrom the site of the common, holy words touch two intersecting nerves, the religious and the political.”

[5] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “Only criminals touch nerves at this level and receive the consequences [arrest, trial, custody]…”

[6] Jennings, ”Acts,” 47-48. “The judges are in fact builders. This is the great dilemma of the advantaged in this world. They institutionalize life. They are socially ordered and they enact social order. They are inside what they create and they create what they are inside of and from within this circle they often cannot see a divine judgment being brought on them, brought against them. God judges them from the position of the judged.”

[7] Jennings, ”Acts,” 47. “The judged are questioned (the judges are not). The judged must give account of their power and authority to speak, to believe, to suggest a different world order. The judged must show connection to the powerful, to names that are recognized by those in power. Power only sees power. The judged are evaluated (the judges are not). A scale is unleashed against the judged. Their education, social pedigrees, elocution, and baring are all measured against the judges. Now the dividing line is exposed. Now the moment of judgment will begin, but not as the ruling religious and social elite imagine. They misunderstand this moment just like Herod and Pontus Pilate misunderstood it with Jesus.”

[8] Jennings, ”Acts,” 47.

[9] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “Peter spoke again…The table is being turned over, an upside down world is being turned right side up in these words of Peter. Peter stands next to the man God has healed not by the power claimed by the elites, by the judges of this world, but only through the Holy Spirit.”

[10] Dorothee Soelle, Thinking About God: An Introduction to Theology (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1990), 134.

https://laurenrelarkin.com/2024/04/21/love-is-risky/

#Beloved #DivineLove #DorotheeSölle #HolySpirit #Jesus #JesusTheChrist #Love #PeterAndJohn #Proclamation #TheBookOfActs #ThinkingAboutGod #WillieJamesJennings

Psalm 23:1-2, 6: Abba God is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. God makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of Abba God for ever.

Introduction

When I was first Christian, I was given the clear idea that being a Christian meant that I would be nice and that people would like me because I was so nice, kind, patient, and happy. I would be compliant and non-obtrusive. I would be meek and mild. I would be all things to all people in a very non-offensive and non-confrontational way. In fact, being offensive and confrontational—being the opposite of any adjective listed above—was synonymous with being “not a Christian.” So, following the logic: happy person = Christian person; grumpy person = Non-Christian person (etc.).

To be honest, I don’t know where this idea comes from. It’s not in the bible really. Yes, Paul says to rejoice and rejoice again, Jesus says not to worry, and there are many exhortations to love our neighbor and offer up service to them in the name and to the glory of God. There are even a couple (some Pauline and some pseudo-Pauline) references to being good, complaint, and prayerful citizens. But, in general, the Christian life is not particularly described as nice, happy, kind, compliant, etc. To be even more honest, I’m not sold on the idea that those we are exhorted to imitate were all that nice or happy. For instance, while Paul brought the gospel proclamation—God’s word of comfort and love—to many, he was a force to reckon with and very open about his suffering while bringing glory to God and the God’s beloved. Jesus—the incarnate Word of God who identified with the oppressed and marginalized—was quite the offensive and confrontational force toward many…how else do you think he ended up on the cross, a state instrument of death?

The reality is that the Christian life will bring us into direct conflict with both religious and civil authorities. Following in the steps of Christ as Christ’s disciples means that, like Christ, we will find ourselves confronting the false idols of our age, exposing decrepit and toxic systems, and coming face to face with structural violence meant to do harm to God’s beloved. In other words, no not everyone will like us and think we are so peachy keen and nice. If that is hard to believe, let’s turn to Luke’s story in Acts about Peter in full on confrontation with the authorities…

Acts 4:5-12

Now it happened that the rulers and the elders and the scribes of Israel were convened in Jerusalem—both Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and as many who were of the kin of the high priest—and after standing [the prisoners] in the middle, they were learning by inquiry, “By what power or in whose name did you, you do this thing?” Then Peter—by means of being filled by the Holy Spirit—said to them…” (Acts 4:5-8a)

Our lectionary drops us off with Peter and John as prisoners before the elders and rulers of the people of Israel in Jerusalem. But, how did they get there? Let’s look.

Last week, we saw Peter and John heal a man who needed healing his whole life. In response to this healing, the people of Israel are amazed and in awe of what Peter and John have done for this man. As these people gather around John and Peter, Peter begins to address the crowd with words of exposure and comfort in the proclamation of Christ raised from the dead. As a result, some Sadducees and the captain of the temple approach Peter and John and arrest them for proclaiming Jesus’s resurrection from the dead to the people.

Now, in our passage, it is the day after the arrest. As Luke tells us, Peter and John are dragged out into the middle of all the leaders (rulers, elders, scribes and the kin of the high priest) of Israel so that they, the rulers and elders, can interrogate John and Peter and find out, By what power or in whose name did you, you do this thing? Peter has a choice here…he could just say something ambiguous about God, but he doesn’t. Instead, Luke tells us, Peter being filled by the Holy Spirit said to them… The Spirit of God inspires and emboldens Peter[1] to speak light to darkness, to expose the errors of judgment and the missed mark. It’s the following speech about divine, liberating action of the oppressed that gets Peter and John in trouble with those who are in power.[2] Regular words about God do not raise eyebrows or provoke to anger; rather, it is the words demonstrating God as against those in power that will. Peter and John knew this would be the case; they’d seen it before with Jesus and it led to his death and this death would come for them, too.[3]

So, Peter, filled with the Spirit, boldly declares to the leaders of Israel and not just to a crowd of bystanders, ‘If we, we are being interrogated about the well-doing of a weak person, by what this man has been saved, let it be known to all of you and all the people of Israel, by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth—whom you, you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—this man has stood in your presence healthy.’ Peters words shatter the glass walls separating the religious and the political, what they proclaimed to the people they now proclaim to the leaders; liberation from oppression comes to liberate the oppressed and also the oppressor.[4] As a result, Peter and John are treated as criminals who thwart the law and break the social arrangement; as Willie James Jennings says in his commentary on Acts 4, “Real preaching and authentic teaching is inextricably bound to real criminality.”[5]

But something else is going on here. This scene is meant to demonstrate the power of the judges over the judged. But a reversal is happening. Rather than the judges asking the questions of the judged, Peter, the judged, turns the table and now the rulers and elders of the people of Israel are the ones being questioned. In one swift and divinely inspired word, Peter puts these judges on trial; they are now the guilty ones,[6] they are now exposed, they are now the ones who must justify their power.[7] The rulers must declare in whose name they act. And things become a bit trickier when Peter makes it clear that he and his friend are the representatives of God therefore implying the rulers and the elders are not. In and through Peter’s speech, the world is exposed as upside-down; Peter and John are caught up in the divine activity as they participate in turning it right-side up according to divine love, life, and liberation in the name of God for God’s beloved.[8]

Conclusion

Acts reminds us, from beginning to end, that the life of a Christian and the life of the Christian church is one that is hard and not easy. To follow Christ demands that we, like all his other disciples (i.e. Peter and John) will become caught up in the waterfall of divine justice for the beloved that is life, love, and liberation. And this necessarily means that we will not be nice, we will be confrontational, we may even be offensives especially to those who are benefiting being nestled comfortably in the power of an upside-down world. Willie James Jennings writes,

“The great illusion of followers of Jesus, especially those who imagine themselves leaders, is that they could live a path different from Jesus and his disciples. They believe somehow that they can be loved or at least liked or at least tolerated or even ignored by those with real power in the world.”[9]

Easter tells us that not only is our past tied up with Christ’s death and resurrection but so is our future. And if both our past and our future is so tied up with Christ, it means that our present is as well. To live into the gift of resurrected life means being lead, by the Spirit, to participate in the divine revolution of love in the world on behalf of God’s beloved. Many will be grateful; many more will not. The Christian walk is hard not because we have to be pious and self-righteous or force ourselves to be perfect and better than everyone else; it’s hard because to love your neighbor in the name of God is hard. In her most systematic text, Thinking About God, Dorothee Sölle writes,

“Love has its price. The cross expresses love to the endangered, threatened life of God in our world. It is no longer a question of a biophilic embracing of life which spares itself the cross. The more we love God, the threatened, endangered, crucified God, the nearer we are to [God], the more endangered we are ourselves. The message of Jesus is that the more you grow in love, the more vulnerable you make yourself.”[10]

Beloved to love is hard because it’s risky; God knows because God loves and risked everything for you, the beloved.

[1] Brittany E. Wilson, “Contextualizing. Masculinity in the Book of Acts: Peter and Paul as Test Cases,” in Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics, eds., Eric D. Barreto, Matthew L. Skinner, and Steve Walton (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 34. “…Luke indicates that Peter’s rhetorical savvy is not of his own doing, but of divine origin.”

[2] Willie James Jennings, “Acts”, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2017), 45. “Speaking holy words has serious consequences. These are not words that simply speak of God. There is nothing inherently serious, holy, or dangerous in God-talk. The holy words that bring consequences are words tied to the concrete liberating actions of God for broken people. Such holy words bring the speakers into direct confrontation with those in power. Jesus not only spoke such words but he was such a word.”

[3] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “The disciples know this confrontation was coming. The struggle against those in power that marked the life and death of Jesus was coming for them as well.”

[4] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “The disciples are among common people proclaiming liberation and that violence and death are no longer the ultimate power. Jesus is risen! Therefrom the site of the common, holy words touch two intersecting nerves, the religious and the political.”

[5] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “Only criminals touch nerves at this level and receive the consequences [arrest, trial, custody]…”

[6] Jennings, ”Acts,” 47-48. “The judges are in fact builders. This is the great dilemma of the advantaged in this world. They institutionalize life. They are socially ordered and they enact social order. They are inside what they create and they create what they are inside of and from within this circle they often cannot see a divine judgment being brought on them, brought against them. God judges them from the position of the judged.”

[7] Jennings, ”Acts,” 47. “The judged are questioned (the judges are not). The judged must give account of their power and authority to speak, to believe, to suggest a different world order. The judged must show connection to the powerful, to names that are recognized by those in power. Power only sees power. The judged are evaluated (the judges are not). A scale is unleashed against the judged. Their education, social pedigrees, elocution, and baring are all measured against the judges. Now the dividing line is exposed. Now the moment of judgment will begin, but not as the ruling religious and social elite imagine. They misunderstand this moment just like Herod and Pontus Pilate misunderstood it with Jesus.”

[8] Jennings, ”Acts,” 47.

[9] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “Peter spoke again…The table is being turned over, an upside down world is being turned right side up in these words of Peter. Peter stands next to the man God has healed not by the power claimed by the elites, by the judges of this world, but only through the Holy Spirit.”

[10] Dorothee Soelle, Thinking About God: An Introduction to Theology (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1990), 134.

https://laurenrelarkin.com/2024/04/21/love-is-risky/

#Beloved #DivineLove #DorotheeSölle #HolySpirit #Jesus #JesusTheChrist #Love #PeterAndJohn #Proclamation #TheBookOfActs #ThinkingAboutGod #WillieJamesJennings

From some reading I was doing today:

"Very often, [women] . . . were ridiculed or accused when they spoke of God being present. I sense a similar difficulty in the most important religious movement of our time, the movement for peace, justice, and integrity of creation. . . . God without weapons is a laughingstock."

The Silent Cry, Dorothee Sölle, pg 76

#nonviolence #peace #justice #Earth #NonviolentGod #NonviolenceInReligion
#DorotheeSolle #quotes #religion

From some reading I was doing today:

"Very often, [women] . . . were ridiculed or accused when they spoke of God being present. I sense a similar difficulty in the most important religious movement of our time, the movement for peace, justice, and integrity of creation. . . . God without weapons is a laughingstock."

The Silent Cry, Dorothee Sölle, pg 76

#nonviolence #peace #justice #Earth #NonviolentGod #NonviolenceInReligion
#DorotheeSolle #quotes #religion

From some reading I was doing today:

"Very often, [women] . . . were ridiculed or accused when they spoke of God being present. I sense a similar difficulty in the most important religious movement of our time, the movement for peace, justice, and integrity of creation. . . . God without weapons is a laughingstock."

The Silent Cry, Dorothee Sölle, pg 76

#nonviolence #peace #justice #Earth #NonviolentGod #NonviolenceInReligion
#DorotheeSolle #quotes #religion

From some reading I was doing today:

"Very often, [women] . . . were ridiculed or accused when they spoke of God being present. I sense a similar difficulty in the most important religious movement of our time, the movement for peace, justice, and integrity of creation. . . . God without weapons is a laughingstock."

The Silent Cry, Dorothee Sölle, pg 76

#nonviolence #peace #justice #Earth #NonviolentGod #NonviolenceInReligion
#DorotheeSolle #quotes #religion

From some reading I was doing today:

"Very often, [women] . . . were ridiculed or accused when they spoke of God being present. I sense a similar difficulty in the most important religious movement of our time, the movement for peace, justice, and integrity of creation. . . . God without weapons is a laughingstock."

The Silent Cry, Dorothee Sölle, pg 76

#nonviolence #peace #justice #Earth #NonviolentGod #NonviolenceInReligion
#DorotheeSolle #quotes #religion

Psalm 111:1-3  Hallelujah! I will give thanks to God with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, in the congregation. Great are the deeds of God! they are studied by all who delight in them. God’s work is full of majesty and splendor, and righteousness endures for ever.

Introduction

When you think about an encounter with Jesus, what do you think of first? You might think of wisdom. For surely encountering Jesus would be bringing you face to face with the wisdom of the ages. Jesus is a true teacher, one who can enlighten hearts and open minds. Maybe you’d think of healing. This would also make sense; there are so many stories in the Gospels about Jesus healing people, adults and children, living and dead. So, maybe you’d think of possibility… for truly this one is the Son of God and with God all things are possible. Maybe, being really good church school students, you would think of grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness. These, too, would be spot on; many stories about these very things confront us on every page of the Second Testament. Some of you might think about kindness, gentleness, and comfort; again, good thoughts and biblically solid. Maybe some of you—the stout hearted, the tell-me-like-it-is folx—would think about the way Jesus exposes us, like a bright light shining into the marrow of our bones type of exposure, yet a safe type of exposure, an exposure into life and love.

To all of these I say YES! An encounter with Jesus would carry all of these things. But we are still missing one more, the one that wraps up all of these: Liberation.

To encounter Christ in all of these ways—in wisdom, healing, possibility, grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, kindness, gentleness, comfort, and exposure—is to encounter Christ as the liberator, the one who sets captives free. Christ brings liberation to the people who are stuck, not only spiritually stuck but physically stuck. Christ comes to identify with humanity stuck in its plight and to set them (all!) free from those things that torment and haunt, oppress and possess.

Mark 1:21-28

And then at once there was a person with an unclean spirit in the synagogue crying out, “Go away! You leave us alone, Jesus of Nazareth![1] Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God!” And Jesus admonished the unclean spirit saying, “Shut up and come out of him!” And then after convulsing the man, the unclean spirit called out in a great voice and came out of him (Mark 1:23-26).[2]

Mark uses a story about Jesus’s teaching in the synagogue to demonstrate the depth of his divine power and authority. Mark’s use of ἐξουσία is potent here. This was a word normally used of kings and God is being applied to Jesus. He has authority in his teaching and in his deeds. [3] Mark moves the story from the shore of the sea of Galilee (Mk. 14-20) to Capernaum (v.21). Mark’s normal fast pace is heightened: as soon as they entered Capernaum, Jesus immediately taught in the synagogue on the sabbath.[4] Jesus didn’t force himself to the front to teach, he was invited to do so; this reinforces that Jesus was known and respected for his authority to interpret the scriptures and teach the people of God.[5] As Jesus teaches, the crowd was astonished/amazed regarding his teaching, for he was teaching them as having authority and not the authority of the scribes. Mark lets his audience know that not only does Jesus have authority to teach, his teaching exceeds that of the scribes; this truly is the Son of God (1:1).[6]

Then, in the midst of it all, the dramatic focus shifts[7] from Jesus to a person with an unclean spirit who enters the synagogue crying out and saying, “Go away! You leave us alone, Jesus of Nazareth![8] Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God!” (vv.23-24). It’s worth pointing out that a person with an unclean spirit (being ritually impure) was not to be in the sacred space of the synagogue.[9] And this, too, is worth pointing out that they make themselves the center of attention by yelling… at Jesus; not that this person is yelling, but the unclean spirit(s) inside them are yelling at Jesus because they recognize who Jesus is (as they always do).[10] Jesus—the ultimate non-anxious presence—responds with authority to the unclean spirit and admonished it saying, “Shut up[11] and come out of them!” With this type of divine command, the unclean spirit has no choice but to obey this superior spiritual power[12] and leave; however, not without first yelling in a loud voice and then convulsing the person as it leaves. The crowd was already astonished at his teaching, and now with this exorcism, they were amazed, almost terrified at Jesus’s ἐξουσία to liberate this person from such oppression. The people turn to themselves and begin wondering, what is this new teaching according to authority and commanding unclean spirits, and they obey him?! This new teaching is about profound liberation for the oppressed, the burdened, the lowly, the possessed, the ones who don’t belong in the synagogue, and the unclean. This is the new thing that God is doing in the world among God’s people: authority to teach and authority to liberate as one divine activity. Surely, the truth will set you free. And this freedom, if taken seriously, will provoke to anger everyone who is in power. What happens to the system if it is undone from the bottom? Even the top falls.

Conclusion

Beloved, in your encounter with God in Christ by faith you… you are liberated, inwardly and outwardly. When we go about conformed to the image of who we should be according to the world, we are no better than the unclean spirit storming into sacred places, hooting and hollering. We must dare to be fully “exorcised” of whatever vision we have of ourselves that is tied to things that are not of God, we must dare to (fully) step into the liberative encounter with God by faith in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and be ushered into our deliverance into and unto divine life and light. Mark is desperate to bring his readers, you, to the feet of this Jesus who sets the captives free, releases the bondages and fetters, and commands unclean spirits to be shut up and be gone so that the reader will be liberated into the world to participate in this great mission of the revolution of divine love in the world, to assist the divine Spirit seeking and searching for the beloved, bringing lightness and life out of the depth of darkness and death.

I’ll close with this quote from Dorothee Sölle talking about “renewed praxis” for those who encounter God in faith,

What the theologian should learn here is to dream and to hope. Our imagination has been freed from original sinful bondages, and we are empowered to imagine alternative institutions. We become agents of change. Prayer and action become our doing. The literary form is now the creative envisioning. We find new language. Only this last step discloses the text and makes us not only into readers but into ‘writers’ of the Bible. We say to each other ‘take up your bed and walk,’ which is a necessary step in any liberation theology.[13]

[1] France, Mark, 103. v. 24 “τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί; is an OT formula of disassociation…When addressed to an actual or potential aggressor it has the force of ‘Go away and leave me alone’… The demon assumes, without any word yet from Jesus, that his mission but be ἀπολέσαι ἡμᾶς; there is instant recognition that they are on opposite sides.”

[2] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[3] William C. Placher, Mark, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 37. “Twice in a few verses observers remark that he has authority. Exousia, the word for ‘authority,’ was often applied to kings and especially associated with what God would have when his reign came. This section mentions no opposition, but there are hints of things to come. He has authority, not like the scribes. His fame begins to spread.”

[4] R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 101.

[5] France, Mark, 101. “Mark’s καὶ εὐθὺς τοῖς σάββασιν ἐδίδασκεν might suggest that this unknown man of Nazareth took the initiative in imposing himself on the congregation, but the right to teach in the synagogue was controlled by its leaders (Acts 13:15), and the fact that Jesus was invited or allowed to do so suggests that, despite the orle of this pericope in Mark’s narrative as Jesus’ first public appearance, he had already been active in the area long enough to be known and respected.”

[6] France, Mark, 102. Stunned/amazed ἐκπλήσσομαι [these types of words] “…indicate the recognition of something out of the ordinary, and keep the reader aware of the unprecedented ἐξουσία of Jesus, and of the surprising and even shocking nature of some of the things he said.”

[7] France, Mark, 103. v. 23 “καὶ εὐθύς here serves to introduce a specific dramatic event within the more general scene set up in vv. 21-22.”

[8] France, Mark, 103. v. 24 “τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί; is an OT formula of disassociation…When addressed to an actual or potential aggressor it has the force of ‘Go away and leave me alone’… The demon assumes, without any word yet from Jesus, that his mission but be ἀπολέσαι ἡμᾶς; there is instant recognition that they are on opposite sides.”

[9] Placher, Mark, 37. “A man with an unclean sprit did not belong in a synagogue. He was ritually unclean, and this was a sacred space.”

[10] Placher, Mark, 37. “…he promptly disrupts things by yelling his head off. The spirit or spirits within him recognize Jesus as ‘the Holy One of God.’… Evil spirits never have any problem knowing who Jesus is…”

[11] Placher, Mark, 38. “English translations usually water down the blunt forcefulness of Jesus’ response: ‘Shut up’ or ‘Muzzle it’ and ‘Get out.’ The evil spirit(s) spoke truly enough, and Jesus’ insistence on secrecy about this identity is a theme in Mark…”

[12] France, Mark, 104. Son of God “Here it serves…to convey the demon’s awareness that he has come up against a superior spiritual power. If it is not yet a direct ascription to Jesus of the title ὀ υἰὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, it suitably prepares the reader for its use in 3:11; 5;7.” And, ἐπιτιμάω “In Mark the verb is used for Jesus’ authoritative silencing of unwelcome human utterance in 8:30, 33, and, strikingly, with reference to the natural elements…in 4:39…ἐπετίμησεν here therefore describes the effective command expressed in the direct speech which follows … rather than representing a separate element in the encounter,” 104-105

[13] Dorothe Sölle, On Earth as In Heaven: A Liberation Spirituality of Sharing, trans. Marc Batko (Louisville: WJK, 1993), xi.

https://laurenrelarkin.com/2024/01/28/shut-up-and-come-out-of-them/

#Beloved #Deliverance #DorotheeSölle #Encounter #Event #Exorcism #Jesus #JesusTheChrist #JesusTheLiberator #Liberation #Love #OnEarthAsInHeaven #RTFrance #Release #TheGospelOfMark #WilliamPlacher

Welche Rolle kann #DorotheeSölle Werk heute noch spielen? Im Akademiegespräch mit Stephan Bickhardt gehen wir dem Einfluss von Sölles Denken auf den Osten nach: #Theologie #Kirche #Sölle #WIDERSTAND https://eulemagazin.de/dorothee-soelle-theologie-politik-osten-ddr-bickhardt-kirche-widerstand

Welche Rolle kann #DorotheeSölle Werk heute noch spielen? Im Akademiegespräch mit Stephan Bickhardt gehen wir dem Einfluss von Sölles Denken auf den Osten nach: #Theologie #Kirche #Sölle #WIDERSTAND https://eulemagazin.de/dorothee-soelle-theologie-politik-osten-ddr-bickhardt-kirche-widerstand

Welche Rolle kann #DorotheeSölle Werk heute noch spielen? Im Akademiegespräch mit Stephan Bickhardt gehen wir dem Einfluss von Sölles Denken auf den Osten nach: #Theologie #Kirche #Sölle #WIDERSTAND https://eulemagazin.de/dorothee-soelle-theologie-politik-osten-ddr-bickhardt-kirche-widerstand

Wenn reaktionäre Menschen wie Söder und erzkonservative, moraline Menschen wie Bedford-Strohm (kirchen-) politische Debatten für beendet erklären, dann sollten echte Demokrat.inn.en aufhorchen. Dann geht es regelmäßig darum, für diese Machtmenschen unangenehme Diskussionen unter den Teppich zu kehren.

Meine Schlafstörungen (»Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht, so …«, ICD-10-Code H.31.n3) lassen sich davon nicht bessern, im Gegenteil.

Bedford-Strohms typische Äußerung ist schon Jahre her, hat sich mir aber eingebrannt.

#Aiwanger #Faschismus

#Befreiungstheologie #ChristinnenundChristenfürdenSozialismus #CfS #MaterialistischeBibellektüre #Religionskritik #Allende #Pinochet #CIA #PolitischeÖkonomie #GroßeErzählung #Menschenrechte #DorotheeSölle #KarlMarx #TonVeerkamp #MarieVeit #UnidadPopular #DickBoer #Prophetie #Antikapitalismus #Genesis #Exodus #Struktur #Emanzipation #BulletTheBlueSky #Evangelium #Agape #Solidarität #Herrschaftsreligion #Aufklärung #Wissenschaft

Wenn reaktionäre Menschen wie Söder und erzkonservative, moraline Menschen wie Bedford-Strohm (kirchen-) politische Debatten für beendet erklären, dann sollten echte Demokrat.inn.en aufhorchen. Dann geht es regelmäßig darum, für diese Machtmenschen unangenehme Diskussionen unter den Teppich zu kehren.

Meine Schlafstörungen (»Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht, so …«, ICD-10-Code H.31.n3) lassen sich davon nicht bessern, im Gegenteil.

Bedford-Strohms typische Äußerung ist schon Jahre her, hat sich mir aber eingebrannt.

#Aiwanger #Faschismus

#Befreiungstheologie #ChristinnenundChristenfürdenSozialismus #CfS #MaterialistischeBibellektüre #Religionskritik #Allende #Pinochet #CIA #PolitischeÖkonomie #GroßeErzählung #Menschenrechte #DorotheeSölle #KarlMarx #TonVeerkamp #MarieVeit #UnidadPopular #DickBoer #Prophetie #Antikapitalismus #Genesis #Exodus #Struktur #Emanzipation #BulletTheBlueSky #Evangelium #Agape #Solidarität #Herrschaftsreligion #Aufklärung #Wissenschaft

Wenn reaktionäre Menschen wie Söder und erzkonservative, moraline Menschen wie Bedford-Strohm (kirchen-) politische Debatten für beendet erklären, dann sollten echte Demokrat.inn.en aufhorchen. Dann geht es regelmäßig darum, für diese Machtmenschen unangenehme Diskussionen unter den Teppich zu kehren.

Meine Schlafstörungen (»Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht, so …«, ICD-10-Code H.31.n3) lassen sich davon nicht bessern, im Gegenteil.

Bedford-Strohms typische Äußerung ist schon Jahre her, hat sich mir aber eingebrannt.

#Aiwanger #Faschismus

#Befreiungstheologie #ChristinnenundChristenfürdenSozialismus #CfS #MaterialistischeBibellektüre #Religionskritik #Allende #Pinochet #CIA #PolitischeÖkonomie #GroßeErzählung #Menschenrechte #DorotheeSölle #KarlMarx #TonVeerkamp #MarieVeit #UnidadPopular #DickBoer #Prophetie #Antikapitalismus #Genesis #Exodus #Struktur #Emanzipation #BulletTheBlueSky #Evangelium #Agape #Solidarität #Herrschaftsreligion #Aufklärung #Wissenschaft

Wenn reaktionäre Menschen wie Söder und erzkonservative, moraline Menschen wie Bedford-Strohm (kirchen-) politische Debatten für beendet erklären, dann sollten echte Demokrat.inn.en aufhorchen. Dann geht es regelmäßig darum, für diese Machtmenschen unangenehme Diskussionen unter den Teppich zu kehren.

Meine Schlafstörungen (»Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht, so …«, ICD-10-Code H.31.n3) lassen sich davon nicht bessern, im Gegenteil.

Bedford-Strohms typische Äußerung ist schon Jahre her, hat sich mir aber eingebrannt.

#Aiwanger #Faschismus

#Befreiungstheologie #ChristinnenundChristenfürdenSozialismus #CfS #MaterialistischeBibellektüre #Religionskritik #Allende #Pinochet #CIA #PolitischeÖkonomie #GroßeErzählung #Menschenrechte #DorotheeSölle #KarlMarx #TonVeerkamp #MarieVeit #UnidadPopular #DickBoer #Prophetie #Antikapitalismus #Genesis #Exodus #Struktur #Emanzipation #BulletTheBlueSky #Evangelium #Agape #Solidarität #Herrschaftsreligion #Aufklärung #Wissenschaft

Ein kleines Update für alle Eule-Abonnent:innen, was im Magazin gerade aktuell ist: Unser Sölle-Projekt mit @evakademie
und @rockToamna
auf dem #Kirchentag: #DorotheeSölle #DEKT23 https://steadyhq.com/de/eulemagazin/posts/873c599b-f0ad-42b9-b390-e726cbf3594f

Ein kleines Update für alle Eule-Abonnent:innen, was im Magazin gerade aktuell ist: Unser Sölle-Projekt mit @evakademie
und @rockToamna
auf dem #Kirchentag: #DorotheeSölle #DEKT23 https://steadyhq.com/de/eulemagazin/posts/873c599b-f0ad-42b9-b390-e726cbf3594f

Die politische Theologie von #DorotheeSölle kann uns noch 20 Jahre nach ihrem Tod inspirieren, auch wenn manche ihrer „einfachen Antworten“ heute nicht mehr tragen, erklärt Jun.-Prof. Sarah Jäger im Interview: #Theologie https://eulemagazin.de/mit-glauben-und-aktivismus-ernst-machen

Die politische Theologie von #DorotheeSölle kann uns noch 20 Jahre nach ihrem Tod inspirieren, auch wenn manche ihrer „einfachen Antworten“ heute nicht mehr tragen, erklärt Jun.-Prof. Sarah Jäger im Interview: #Theologie https://eulemagazin.de/mit-glauben-und-aktivismus-ernst-machen

Die politische Theologie von #DorotheeSölle kann uns noch 20 Jahre nach ihrem Tod inspirieren, auch wenn manche ihrer „einfachen Antworten“ heute nicht mehr tragen, erklärt Jun.-Prof. Sarah Jäger im Interview: #Theologie https://eulemagazin.de/mit-glauben-und-aktivismus-ernst-machen

Alle bisher veröffentlichten Beiträge unseres Projekts "WIDERSTAND! Dorothee Sölle & der Osten", gemeinsam mit der Evangelischen Akademie Sachsen-Anhalt, findet ihr ab sofort auch auf dieser handlichen Website: #Sölle #DorotheeSölle https://soelle-und-der-osten.de

Alle bisher veröffentlichten Beiträge unseres Projekts "WIDERSTAND! Dorothee Sölle & der Osten", gemeinsam mit der Evangelischen Akademie Sachsen-Anhalt, findet ihr ab sofort auch auf dieser handlichen Website: #Sölle #DorotheeSölle https://soelle-und-der-osten.de

Was muss ChatGPT noch über Dorothee Sölle lernen? Carlotta Israel beschreibt in unserer intersektionalen Kolumne "Sektion F", was vom Werk Dorothee Sölle wichtig bleibt: #Sölle #DorotheeSölle #Theologie #Feminismus https://eulemagazin.de/wer-war-dorothee-soelle/

Was muss ChatGPT noch über Dorothee Sölle lernen? Carlotta Israel beschreibt in unserer intersektionalen Kolumne "Sektion F", was vom Werk Dorothee Sölle wichtig bleibt: #Sölle #DorotheeSölle #Theologie #Feminismus https://eulemagazin.de/wer-war-dorothee-soelle/

Was bedeutet uns Dorothee Sölle heute? Mit Sarah Jäger, Juniorprofessorin für Systematische Theologie / Ethik in Jena, hat @rockToamna über die politische Theologie Dorothee Sölles gesprochen: #WIDERSTAND #Kirche #Theologie #Sölle #DorotheeSölle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIDYtcQZ4RE

Was bedeutet uns Dorothee Sölle heute? Mit Sarah Jäger, Juniorprofessorin für Systematische Theologie / Ethik in Jena, hat @rockToamna über die politische Theologie Dorothee Sölles gesprochen: #WIDERSTAND #Kirche #Theologie #Sölle #DorotheeSölle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIDYtcQZ4RE

Was bedeutet uns Dorothee Sölle heute? Mit Sarah Jäger, Juniorprofessorin für Systematische Theologie / Ethik in Jena, hat @rockToamna über die politische Theologie Dorothee Sölles gesprochen: #WIDERSTAND #Kirche #Theologie #Sölle #DorotheeSölle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIDYtcQZ4RE

An vielen Orten wird zum 20. Todestag an Dorothee Sölle erinnert: Was bleibt von der deutschen Theologin und politischen Aktivistin übrig? Welchen digitalen Abdruck hat #DorotheeSölle hinterlassen? #Soelle https://eulemagazin.de/wer-war-dorothee-soelle/

An vielen Orten wird zum 20. Todestag an Dorothee Sölle erinnert: Was bleibt von der deutschen Theologin und politischen Aktivistin übrig? Welchen digitalen Abdruck hat #DorotheeSölle hinterlassen? #Soelle https://eulemagazin.de/wer-war-dorothee-soelle/

Die frischen #LaTdH: Wahlkampf für #Erdoğan in deutschen Moscheen und Sorgen um rechtsradikale #Muslime. Außerdem: Erinnern an #DorotheeSölle, Retraumatisierungen und Auszeichnungen für Kirchennachrichten: #Kirche #katholisch #Papst #Islam https://eulemagazin.de/die-latdh-vom-30-april/

Die frischen #LaTdH: Wahlkampf für #Erdoğan in deutschen Moscheen und Sorgen um rechtsradikale #Muslime. Außerdem: Erinnern an #DorotheeSölle, Retraumatisierungen und Auszeichnungen für Kirchennachrichten: #Kirche #katholisch #Papst #Islam https://eulemagazin.de/die-latdh-vom-30-april/

Die frischen #LaTdH: Wahlkampf für #Erdoğan in deutschen Moscheen und Sorgen um rechtsradikale #Muslime. Außerdem: Erinnern an #DorotheeSölle, Retraumatisierungen und Auszeichnungen für Kirchennachrichten: #Kirche #katholisch #Papst #Islam https://eulemagazin.de/die-latdh-vom-30-april/

Was können uns Werk und Leben Dorothee Sölles heute bedeuten? Lohnt sich die Auseinandersetzung mit der „Riesin, auf deren Schultern wir stehen“? Begegnungen mit #DorotheeSölle zum 20. Todestag von @rockToamna: #LetzteGeneration #Widerstand #Kirche #Theologie

Was können uns Werk und Leben Dorothee Sölles heute bedeuten? Lohnt sich die Auseinandersetzung mit der „Riesin, auf deren Schultern wir stehen“? Begegnungen mit #DorotheeSölle zum 20. Todestag von @rockToamna: #LetzteGeneration #Widerstand #Kirche #Theologie

Was können uns Werk und Leben Dorothee Sölles heute bedeuten? Lohnt sich die Auseinandersetzung mit der „Riesin, auf deren Schultern wir stehen“? Begegnungen mit #DorotheeSölle zum 20. Todestag von @rockToamna: #LetzteGeneration #Widerstand #Kirche #Theologie

Die Evangelische Akademie Sachsen-Anhalt und die Eule gehen der Geschichte Dorothee Sölles mit dem Osten auf den Grund. Zum 20. Todestag Sölles erinnern wir an die bedeutende Theologin des 20. Jahrhunderts: #DorotheeSölle #Sölle https://eulemagazin.de/widerstand-dorothee-soelle-der-osten/

Die Evangelische Akademie Sachsen-Anhalt und die Eule gehen der Geschichte Dorothee Sölles mit dem Osten auf den Grund. Zum 20. Todestag Sölles erinnern wir an die bedeutende Theologin des 20. Jahrhunderts: #DorotheeSölle #Sölle https://eulemagazin.de/widerstand-dorothee-soelle-der-osten/

Die Evangelische Akademie Sachsen-Anhalt und die Eule gehen der Geschichte Dorothee Sölles mit dem Osten auf den Grund. Zum 20. Todestag Sölles erinnern wir an die bedeutende Theologin des 20. Jahrhunderts: #DorotheeSölle #Sölle https://eulemagazin.de/widerstand-dorothee-soelle-der-osten/

@LorenzMeyer Auch frage ich mich, ob derartige Rasterfahndungsmethoden legal sind. Personendaten Konfessionsloser, gehen die die Kirchen etwas an? Das Kirchgeld, das die Kirchen von Konfessionslosen erheben, die mit einem ihrer Mitglieder verheiratet oder verpartnert sind, sorgt hier wohl für einen sehr großzügigen Datenfluss.

* #Befreiungstheologie #ChristinnenundChristenfürdenSozialismus #DorotheeSölle #KarlMarx
https://wordsmith.social/read-and-media-lists/materialistische-und-marxistische-bibellekture
https://www.chrisoz.de/

@LorenzMeyer Auch frage ich mich, ob derartige Rasterfahndungsmethoden legal sind. Personendaten Konfessionsloser, gehen die die Kirchen etwas an? Das Kirchgeld, das die Kirchen von Konfessionslosen erheben, die mit einem ihrer Mitglieder verheiratet oder verpartnert sind, sorgt hier wohl für einen sehr großzügigen Datenfluss.

* #Befreiungstheologie #ChristinnenundChristenfürdenSozialismus #DorotheeSölle #KarlMarx
https://wordsmith.social/read-and-media-lists/materialistische-und-marxistische-bibellekture
https://www.chrisoz.de/

@LorenzMeyer Auch frage ich mich, ob derartige Rasterfahndungsmethoden legal sind. Personendaten Konfessionsloser, gehen die die Kirchen etwas an? Das Kirchgeld, das die Kirchen von Konfessionslosen erheben, die mit einem ihrer Mitglieder verheiratet oder verpartnert sind, sorgt hier wohl für einen sehr großzügigen Datenfluss.

* #Befreiungstheologie #ChristinnenundChristenfürdenSozialismus #DorotheeSölle #KarlMarx
https://wordsmith.social/read-and-media-lists/materialistische-und-marxistische-bibellekture
https://www.chrisoz.de/

@LorenzMeyer Auch frage ich mich, ob derartige Rasterfahndungsmethoden legal sind. Personendaten Konfessionsloser, gehen die die Kirchen etwas an? Das Kirchgeld, das die Kirchen von Konfessionslosen erheben, die mit einem ihrer Mitglieder verheiratet oder verpartnert sind, sorgt hier wohl für einen sehr großzügigen Datenfluss.

* #Befreiungstheologie #ChristinnenundChristenfürdenSozialismus #DorotheeSölle #KarlMarx
https://wordsmith.social/read-and-media-lists/materialistische-und-marxistische-bibellekture
https://www.chrisoz.de/

@LorenzMeyer Auch frage ich mich, ob derartige Rasterfahndungsmethoden legal sind. Personendaten Konfessionsloser, gehen die die Kirchen etwas an? Das Kirchgeld, das die Kirchen von Konfessionslosen erheben, die mit einem ihrer Mitglieder verheiratet oder verpartnert sind, sorgt hier wohl für einen sehr großzügigen Datenfluss.

* #Befreiungstheologie #ChristinnenundChristenfürdenSozialismus #DorotheeSölle #KarlMarx
https://wordsmith.social/read-and-media-lists/materialistische-und-marxistische-bibellekture
https://www.chrisoz.de/