Christological Dialogue
This post is dedicated to Tom A. Tom, please read the whole thing this time, I took a good 45 minutes to write this for you. I write with hope that the Duke socratics will be able to enact a properly christological dialogue that, I think, has rather fallen by the wayside of late--much to the chagrin of our beloved spiritual founder, no doubt (not Tom, but Clive Staples)--not at all a surprising development, given the fact that christologically shaped things usually end up getting crucified (Mk. 8.34). I had earlier suggested this defition of dialogue:
"A provisional definition: what we do when we (a) do not know what is
true (b) do not have the courage to tell the truth."
That was based on the exegetical examination of the clear meaning of John 18-19. Yes, my friends: I fear that we have followed rather in the footsteps of that coward, Pilate, of late. But that is not true dialogue. Now we shall examine Jn. 4. We find there the christological defition of dialogue that shall prove to us invaluable (of course we might have learned it already from Jesus' example in Jn. 18-19--but perhaps that strikes us as too overbold). That is this:
"Dialogue is what we do when we know what is true, and we love people who are trapped in falsehood. Knowing that these people (for whom Christ had died) will not listen to the direct statement of the truth, we seek, gently, through conversation, to lead them to the truth by roundabout--but never false--means."
My my: that sounds rather Socratic. Well, to the exegesis.
Jn. 4.1-6: Note that Jesus intentionally strays into foreign territory. Good shepherds seek to save the one that is lost actively; we might say that they go looking for a fight--but that is, rightly, denounced as overly belligerent language.
4.7: "Give me a drink." The Word of God asks the woman for a drink. Clearly he doesn't need the water. He is the well of life from whom streams of living water flow. He says this, not to quench his thrist, but to begin to show the woman that she is thirsty. She doesn't know it. She thinks she knows what is true. She has drank from wells that are not exegetical--i.e., she drinks from wells other than the Word of God who is the well of life. Drinking from these poisoned waters--no doubt appropriating the latest sociological and pyschological theory--she is in fact dying of thirst. But she does not know it. Jesus must ask her a question that will, so to speak, through water over her sleepy head.
4.9: "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" The woman assumes that Jesus must be a samaraphobe. Surely he must be. Samaraphobes are afraid to even speak to Samaritans, let alone share water from a well. Clearly she is dumbfounded.
4.10: "If you knew the gift of God." She does not know the gift of God, and Jesus isn't going to beat around the bush about that. She is dying of thirst, and if she doesn't come to know the gift, she will surely die. He who eternally is the way, truth and life doesn't have the time for anything but the truth. "If you knew the gift of God... you would have asked [me], and [I] would have given you living water." Unabashed proclamation of the Gift.
4.11-12: "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep." The woman is still trapped by her critical theory. Jesus claims that he has living water--but this simply cannot be, because her canon of reason cannot allow it. The well is so DEEP! "Are you greater than our father Abraham?" There are so many important scholars, so many books to read, even a man name Eugene who has written something about Barth and Thomas and many fine sounding people--how could I leave off all of that to just drink from this water you offer me? You, a Jew, with nothing to draw water with. Are you greater than all of these?
4.13: "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again." She feeds her desire with critical theory, but her desire is too great to be satiated by the merely faddish. She is created for eternity and she knows this in her inner-being--although she doesn't seem to know this, and rebels against it with great force. But note how Jesus dialogues with her. He recognizes that she thirsts, that she has desires--he recognizes these are real and legitimate because they are created by God. They are natural. But in the woman they are disordered. She pursues the good, and good is the pursuit: but she goes by a wide path that leads only to destruction and, woe of woes, in the end shall find only the pain of unrequited love. Jesus knows all of this. And so he tells her: you will thirst again, if you keep on drinking from these poisoned waters.
4.14: "But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever." Jesus does not hide the truth from her, not for the sake of an easy conversion, not even for the sake of a too-easy friendship--which of course would only be a false friendship. He tells her the truth. Why? Because he loves her. He loves her too much to let her keep on drawing water from poisoned wells. He offers instead the water that gives life eternal. "Come to me, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!" (Is. 55.1).
4.15: "Sir give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water." The woman sees the truth partially. She realizes that this water is far better than her critical theory and pyschology; but she still thinks that it will satisfy her in the way that those earthly things were attempting to do. She still has her mind set on temporal things, and not eternal (2 Cor. 4.18). Her mind is set on things below, not on things above (Col. 3.1-4). But she has progressed, and Jesus does not sneer at the progression. She is coming to the truth.
4.16: "Go, call your husband." I need not complete the conversation. Jesus goes directly to the problem at hand, the issue that is keeping the woman from a total conversion. Note carefully that the issue is not intellectual. It is moral, it is spiritual. That is the way it always is. Those with whom we dialogue, those for whom Christ has died, are, in the end, rebels. We know that this is true because we are rebels ourselves, conquered in part by God's love--but conquered imperfectly, as yet. But note Jesus courage here in telling the truth. In this case the problem is sexuality. The woman is, as they say, 'living in sin.' It need not have been sexuality, it could have been any number of things, worst of all--worst--that which afflicts my sorry flesh, the sin of pride. But in this case, as in many cases, it is fallen sexuality. Jesus does not mince words. He speaks the truth that surely is painful, but he speaks it as one who is offering to this woman streams of living water. He is offering her life, love, friendship with God. He loves her. And so he speaks truth to her. And so he loves her. They are one and the same--for God is simple, and God is truth, and God is love. We are called to speak in the same way.
Well, we have to look at two more points.
First point. 4.27: "His disciples marveled that he was talking with a woman." When we are engaging in christological dialogue, not the world, but the CHURCH, will marvel at us. Why? Because the sight of a man who loves and so speaks truth and so loves, and loves so perfectly that he loves all without reserve and without partiality--that sight shocks us, offends, convicts (and that is the real problem, isn't it?). There is no room for samaraphobia in the church, but much there remains nevertheless. It will only be cast out by love. Why? Because perfect love casts out fear (1 Jn.). Now remember: perfect love is truth is God. There is no need to "balance" speaking truth and speaking love, because love and truth are, in the divine simplicity, one.
Second point. The woman becomes a great evangelist. "Many believed in him because of the woman's testimony" (4.39). The end, the telos, of truly christological dialogue, is the creation of a new person. And the new person is always an evangelist. How can they not be? One who was dead, and is alive again: one brought from death into life: this one cannot help but preach the good news.
Perhaps then we are still dead?
"A provisional definition: what we do when we (a) do not know what is
true (b) do not have the courage to tell the truth."
That was based on the exegetical examination of the clear meaning of John 18-19. Yes, my friends: I fear that we have followed rather in the footsteps of that coward, Pilate, of late. But that is not true dialogue. Now we shall examine Jn. 4. We find there the christological defition of dialogue that shall prove to us invaluable (of course we might have learned it already from Jesus' example in Jn. 18-19--but perhaps that strikes us as too overbold). That is this:
"Dialogue is what we do when we know what is true, and we love people who are trapped in falsehood. Knowing that these people (for whom Christ had died) will not listen to the direct statement of the truth, we seek, gently, through conversation, to lead them to the truth by roundabout--but never false--means."
My my: that sounds rather Socratic. Well, to the exegesis.
Jn. 4.1-6: Note that Jesus intentionally strays into foreign territory. Good shepherds seek to save the one that is lost actively; we might say that they go looking for a fight--but that is, rightly, denounced as overly belligerent language.
4.7: "Give me a drink." The Word of God asks the woman for a drink. Clearly he doesn't need the water. He is the well of life from whom streams of living water flow. He says this, not to quench his thrist, but to begin to show the woman that she is thirsty. She doesn't know it. She thinks she knows what is true. She has drank from wells that are not exegetical--i.e., she drinks from wells other than the Word of God who is the well of life. Drinking from these poisoned waters--no doubt appropriating the latest sociological and pyschological theory--she is in fact dying of thirst. But she does not know it. Jesus must ask her a question that will, so to speak, through water over her sleepy head.
4.9: "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" The woman assumes that Jesus must be a samaraphobe. Surely he must be. Samaraphobes are afraid to even speak to Samaritans, let alone share water from a well. Clearly she is dumbfounded.
4.10: "If you knew the gift of God." She does not know the gift of God, and Jesus isn't going to beat around the bush about that. She is dying of thirst, and if she doesn't come to know the gift, she will surely die. He who eternally is the way, truth and life doesn't have the time for anything but the truth. "If you knew the gift of God... you would have asked [me], and [I] would have given you living water." Unabashed proclamation of the Gift.
4.11-12: "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep." The woman is still trapped by her critical theory. Jesus claims that he has living water--but this simply cannot be, because her canon of reason cannot allow it. The well is so DEEP! "Are you greater than our father Abraham?" There are so many important scholars, so many books to read, even a man name Eugene who has written something about Barth and Thomas and many fine sounding people--how could I leave off all of that to just drink from this water you offer me? You, a Jew, with nothing to draw water with. Are you greater than all of these?
4.13: "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again." She feeds her desire with critical theory, but her desire is too great to be satiated by the merely faddish. She is created for eternity and she knows this in her inner-being--although she doesn't seem to know this, and rebels against it with great force. But note how Jesus dialogues with her. He recognizes that she thirsts, that she has desires--he recognizes these are real and legitimate because they are created by God. They are natural. But in the woman they are disordered. She pursues the good, and good is the pursuit: but she goes by a wide path that leads only to destruction and, woe of woes, in the end shall find only the pain of unrequited love. Jesus knows all of this. And so he tells her: you will thirst again, if you keep on drinking from these poisoned waters.
4.14: "But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever." Jesus does not hide the truth from her, not for the sake of an easy conversion, not even for the sake of a too-easy friendship--which of course would only be a false friendship. He tells her the truth. Why? Because he loves her. He loves her too much to let her keep on drawing water from poisoned wells. He offers instead the water that gives life eternal. "Come to me, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!" (Is. 55.1).
4.15: "Sir give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water." The woman sees the truth partially. She realizes that this water is far better than her critical theory and pyschology; but she still thinks that it will satisfy her in the way that those earthly things were attempting to do. She still has her mind set on temporal things, and not eternal (2 Cor. 4.18). Her mind is set on things below, not on things above (Col. 3.1-4). But she has progressed, and Jesus does not sneer at the progression. She is coming to the truth.
4.16: "Go, call your husband." I need not complete the conversation. Jesus goes directly to the problem at hand, the issue that is keeping the woman from a total conversion. Note carefully that the issue is not intellectual. It is moral, it is spiritual. That is the way it always is. Those with whom we dialogue, those for whom Christ has died, are, in the end, rebels. We know that this is true because we are rebels ourselves, conquered in part by God's love--but conquered imperfectly, as yet. But note Jesus courage here in telling the truth. In this case the problem is sexuality. The woman is, as they say, 'living in sin.' It need not have been sexuality, it could have been any number of things, worst of all--worst--that which afflicts my sorry flesh, the sin of pride. But in this case, as in many cases, it is fallen sexuality. Jesus does not mince words. He speaks the truth that surely is painful, but he speaks it as one who is offering to this woman streams of living water. He is offering her life, love, friendship with God. He loves her. And so he speaks truth to her. And so he loves her. They are one and the same--for God is simple, and God is truth, and God is love. We are called to speak in the same way.
Well, we have to look at two more points.
First point. 4.27: "His disciples marveled that he was talking with a woman." When we are engaging in christological dialogue, not the world, but the CHURCH, will marvel at us. Why? Because the sight of a man who loves and so speaks truth and so loves, and loves so perfectly that he loves all without reserve and without partiality--that sight shocks us, offends, convicts (and that is the real problem, isn't it?). There is no room for samaraphobia in the church, but much there remains nevertheless. It will only be cast out by love. Why? Because perfect love casts out fear (1 Jn.). Now remember: perfect love is truth is God. There is no need to "balance" speaking truth and speaking love, because love and truth are, in the divine simplicity, one.
Second point. The woman becomes a great evangelist. "Many believed in him because of the woman's testimony" (4.39). The end, the telos, of truly christological dialogue, is the creation of a new person. And the new person is always an evangelist. How can they not be? One who was dead, and is alive again: one brought from death into life: this one cannot help but preach the good news.
Perhaps then we are still dead?
posted by Anonymous at 4:02 PM
9 Comments:
I don't think it is crass of me to detect an Ambrosian influence on your exegesis, but I love it.
If you detected anything that sounded even a bit like Ambrose--Praise God!
What, or who, is your polemical target here, Phil? Is it the Socratic Club's dialogues on homosexuality co-sponsored with Sacred Worth? (Your references to "Eugene" and sexuality make me suspicious.) If that's not your primary intended target, how do you see what you've been saying applying to those events?
Dear Phil,
I wish I was well read enough to detect Ambrosian influences in your writing. But I am not.
Your Christological exegesis of this passage (read more closely this time by myself) is intriguing. It is very strong. Strong medicine. I wonder if it is a bit too strong for me. I am not Jesus, even though I am trying to become more like Jesus. Sometime when I have become more like Jesus, I will be able to speak more like Jesus. But until that day, I am left only with honesty. And it would be dishonest (and thus not like Jesus) to claim that I know more than I do when I don't. I know that Jesus is my Lord and Savior. I know that Jesus can be everyone's Lord and Savior. I do not always know what those words mean in specific situations. And when I do not know, I am open to dialogue. I am even open to dialogue about that which I do know (Jesus as my Lord and Savior). I could be wrong. I don't think I am. But my konwledge is one of faith (like all knowledges). And that implies finitude. It is a relational knowledge. And relational knowledge is always "uncertain." I wish it was some other way for me. But I do not know how to know in that way. I wish I could even do an exegeis of some passage to come up with what I just said. I suspect it might be possible if I tried.
I too, like Tom, wonder whether there is a specific instance you are speaking to here.
Peace and grace,
Tom
King Arthur,
what about the boldness of faith?
What about the "I am not ashamed of the Gospel"?
Wilson, I would not deny what you are saying or reminding us about. That is why I called it "medicine." What Phil has proposed here is, at its heart, good for us. My reference to it being "too strong" was an assertion of weakness on my own part. I have never had the gift of strong faith. I have always been given the gift of "uncertainty," if that is a gift. I suspect God can work in spite of me.
Of course God can work in spite of you, but I feel like what you're saying implies that God leaves you where you were and works with what's there and I don't think that that is a very strong theological notion.
What if, and if this is ad hominem at all it is addressed to myself and not to you, your heinous, what if the uncertainty is not a gift but a sign of sin? That is the difference between an unrestrictively open theology and, how Phil would put it, a catholic one. If you are afraid to say no then the rhetorical baptizing of sin is not far behind and becomes logically necessary. I say rhetorical because it is the substantial baptizing, in the sacrament, in the community of the faithful, in many different ways that sin is destroyed and we are transformed.
I don't think Paul stands as an ideal nor do I think Jesus stands as an ideal for that is what theological liberalism demands. The witness of the saints becomes an unattainable ideal as opposed to the real possibility of the Spirit.
I agree with Wilson and I want to expand on one of the points he made. But first I should say that yes, emphatically yes, one of the matters I am discussing is our confusion over sexuality. But that is not the real problem. If only it were! The real problem is much more serious, and that is what we need to talk about, and that is what Wilson was talking about, only too briefly.
That is this. Heresy is ultimately a spiritual problem, as is fear, as is unbelief. If we are afraid, or if we are doubting, or if we are uncertain about something that the Church since Abraham has been certain, what are we to do? First the apophatic response: we are NOT to assume that we have either the authority (which is more important) or the intellectual capacity (less important) to determine a new course for the Church on anything. Many people at Duke feel like they have a responsibility to someone to read every book they can find on sexuality, on both sides of the debate--or a responsibility to 'dialogue' in the fashion ultimately of Pilate--and then when they've finished their reading, at some indefinite point in the future, they will come to a conclusion. They are, in the words of St. Paul, "always learning but never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth" (2 Timothy 3.7--a good book, by the way, we should all read it together sometime). Now there are two problems with this viewpoint. Three actually. First of all, it is horribly arrogant. Whoa--yes, I did say that. It is horribly arrogant. Why? Because it dissembles the 'false humility' of modern theology. Why do I say that? Well to the next two problems. First, the person thinking thus assumes that he has the authority to decide what is true. Second, the person thinking thus assumes that he is smart enough to find the truth. In both cases horribly arrogant. Surely that is obvious.
Now listen. Arrogance is a spiritual problem, not an intellectual problem. If you are arrogant--and I know this from experience, as you all well know--if you are arrogant, then you have a spiritual problem. And how, my brothers, my brothers who will become ministers of the gospel someday, my brothers who will be entrusted--entrusted!--with the spiritual care of people who made to live forever with God, but who, if led astray by false teaching, may very well stumble down the broad and easy path that leads to destruction: how, my brothers (sisters too, if Sarah Kerr is reading this), how do you help someone who is arrogant? Do you tell them to read another book? Do you tell them that they need to arrogate to themselves a little intellectual fiefdom in which they shall decide what is true and what is false? NO! You tell them to go out and serve a homeless man, to pray, to fast, to beg God for mercy, to immerse themselves in God's Holy Word, to receive as frequently as possible the Holy Eucharist, to submit to the discipline of a spiritual authority who loves them enough to tell them that they are arrogant.
Does that make any sense?
Tom, I plead with you, I PLEAD with you, listen to me: you have NO authority to teach or live in anyway that is contrary to the clear teaching of Holy Scripture as it has been received through the centuries by the Church.
My brother, I will say this as well: if you are weak in your faith, then you are as I. I promise you that if you so desire, we shall join together regularly to pray to God that will come and save us. I will be the first to admit that I am a coward. I am. But I am not content staying that way, and I beg the Almighty God to give me the heart of a lion. "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful. HE WILL SURELY DO IT" (1 Thess. 5.23-24). "The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God" (Rev. 3.12). "The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion" (Prov. 28.1). "Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love" (1 Cor. 16.13-14).
Dear Phil and Wilson,
I believe we have reached a point in which the "blog" is not a very helpful form of communication. If you would like to get together further and talk about it, email me and we can set up a time.
Peace,
Tom
Post a Comment
<< Home