#302 Interesting Links XXXVI

Rod Dreher doesn't see a big problem with the news of John Paul II's self-flagellation.  I really don't either.  It's a method of self-discipline and most importantly suffering-with, much like fasting.

Spencer Ackerman introduces Liz Cheney to some guy named David Petraeus.

I really liked this Google Super-Bowl ad.

As expected, Obama continues Bush's disgraceful record of disrespect for the rule of law with the help of the Patriot Act.  Julian Sanchez breaks it down.

Daniel Larison calls out hypocrites as he is wont to do.

Jacob Sullum shares a case of Obama contradicting himself within the confines of a single sentence: "We need to stand up to the special interests, bring Republicans and Democrats together, and pass the farm bill immediately."

Newt Gingrich has trouble keeping his facts straight.

What have we done?  We're getting to that point in the story that Tocqueville spoke of when he "When American ceases to be good..."

The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage from Ted Olson, whose conservative credentials can be viewed here.  He was at the first meeting of the Federalist Society and successfully represented Bush in Bush v. Gore.

Humans have been around a really long time.  Ben Witherington analyzes the discovery of an 11,500 year old temple found in Turkey.

#301 Conserving the Rule of Law

The New York Times has given former OLC lawyer, current University of California at Berkeley professor, war criminal, torture defender, and unchecked monarchial and near dictatorial executive power evangelist John Yoo the opportunity to speak regarding an article Elena Kagan wrote back in 2001 in the Harvard Law Review:

"Nonetheless, those who persevere will find that her article clearly and directly rejected the theories supporting the executive branch’s broad constitutional powers. Rather, it is in line with the views of a majority of the Supreme Court justices and many liberal scholars who feel the executive branch’s powers are quite limited"

Remember when it was conservatives who felt that the executive branch's powers were constitutionally quite limited?  Those were truly the good old days of the Republican party.  I remember as a child the atmosphere created by the events at Ruby Ridge and Waco and the lack of trust we all placed in government.  That all began to change in 2000 when George W. Bush was elected.  Doubt in the ability of government to solve problems evaporated from the party.  The deal was quickly sealed on 9/11 when the GOP threw conservatism out the window and bowed to the god of National Security at all costs.

Now, my guess is that Yoo's editorial is a caricature of Kagan's views.  She will be, in all likelihood, as acquiescent to executive power which governs from the left as Yoo disastrously was to the executive power that governed from the right.  After all, when an individual's party is in power, they tend to have the amazing ability to go blind as the Republican party did for eight long and rule-of-law-trashing, budget busting, government expanding years as the dear leader made the world safe for democracy in Mesopotamia.  Funny that they found their voice again on January 20th, 2008.  Hmmm, I wonder what happened that day.  Oh yeah, the other party's dear leader was elected.  What a coincidence!  Anyway, welcome back to distrusting government and making your voice heard.  Welcome back to conservatism, at least for now.  Where were you for eight years?  America could have really used your voice.

Remember, Yoo is the man who has sees no moral or legal issue with crushing the testicles of a young child of a unconvicted suspect if the American fuhrer thinks it might prevent a terrorist attack.  Yoo is the man who embodies the term "moral relativism."  I sense Edmund Burke and Ronald Reagan rolling over in the graves every time this man puts pen to paper.  If you're in the market for good reading on executive power, go with Pulitzer Prize winner Charlie Savage over John Yoo any day.

#300 Do What In Remembrance of You?

Luke has it that Jesus said,

"Now when the hour came, Jesus took his place at the table and the apostles joined him. And he said to them, 'I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.' Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, 'Take this and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.' Then he took bread, and after giving thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' And in the same way he took the cup after they had eaten, saying, 'This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.'"

Luke 22:14-20

Neither Mark nor Matthew add the bit about doing anything in remembrance.  Instead, Jesus simply says that they'll all drink again together in the kingdom.  John presumably doesn't find the story important enough to include in his account at all.  My guess is that Luke relied on Paul's source because Paul makes Jesus' command about remembrance a prominent part of his critique of his Corinthian friends.

But what exactly is it that Jesus would have us do in remembrance of him?  I have always assumed that the simple act of taking communion on Sunday was the way to fulfill this command by giving ourselves a weekly reminder of Jesus sacrifice.  In other words, Jesus instituted a simply mimetic mnemonic.  And, of course, it does function for many of us in precisely that way.  But was Jesus symbolically asking for something more?  Matthew Whelan thinks so:

"The Eucharist is the communal remembrance of Jesus' gift of himself for others. When Jesus instituted the Eucharist, he spoke of the bread as his body. But he was concerned with bread not only at the last supper. Issues surrounding food, feeding, sharing meals, and the banquet at the end of the age, marked his entire ministry. Concern with food animated a life, followers believe, lived as a gift for others. So when he takes the bread, breaks it, shares it, tells his disciples that the bread is his body and that they should 'do this in remembrance' of him, he speaks of a way of living in which his followers' bodies, like his, are to be gifts for the nourishment of others. Such bodies are Eucharistic: the spirit that moves them is one of concern for the nourishment of others. It is through this labor of peace, in which the self pours itself out (Isaiah 58:10), that individual bodies and the communal bodies in which they participate bear witness to the lord's light, which flickers in our world like a candle in danger of being extinguished."

So now the life of discipleship gets harder than we ever imagined.  A weekly, mysterious, memorial meal complete with literal bread and wine is edifying, but Jesus is asking for more.  He is asking for nothing less than that we break our own bodies, in the same way he broke his, for the nourishment of others.  Doesn't this tie in nicely with the fact that εὐχαριστία (eucharistia) is the Greek word for thanksgiving?  Jesus is asking, symbolically, that we make our bodies Eucharistic, to use Whelan's phrase.  Or to use Paul's phrase, the request is that we make our bodies a living sacrifice.  Jesus is asking us to suffer, like him, on behalf of others.  Notice the pattern:  Jesus gave thanks (eucharistia) and then broke the bread (his physical body) and passed it to us.  We are to give thanks (eucharistia) and then break the bread (our physical bodies) and pass it on to others.  This idea of receiving a gift and responding by passing it along has echoes with the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18.

The church has historically been in unanimous consent that Jesus' breaking of bread and drinking of wine are to be interpreted as a symbolic foreshadowing of his own suffering and death, that is that his physical body would be broken and his blood poured out.  Meanwhile, the church has historically been in unanimous consent that we should interpret them literally when applying them to ourselves, that is that we are to eat literal bread and drink literal wine regularly whenever we gather together.  Whelan's article, which is about how Eucharistic practice can exist in a world which hungers, suggests that when we apply Jesus command to our own lives the way he did to his own we come closer to the heart of what Jesus demanded:

"The paradigm for compassion is that Jesus' body is given up for others. The church is therefore called to 'make up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions' (Col. 1:24) in its participation in God's suffering in the world... The suffering bodies of Jesus' followers become redemptive when their suffering is undergone on behalf of others, as Christ's was."

Already in Paul's day, we can see that Jesus symbolic action and command was being interpreted literally rather than as a calling to suffer.  Paul's extended critique of his Corinthian friends regarding their distortion of the Eucharistic practice is worth reading in full [italics mine]:

"Now in giving the following instruction I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse. For in the first place, when you come together as a church I hear there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. For there must in fact be divisions among you, so that those of you who are approved may be evident. Now when you come together at the same place, you are not really eating the Lord’s Supper. For when it is time to eat, everyone proceeds with his own supper. One is hungry and another becomes drunk. Do you not have houses so that you can eat and drink? Or are you trying to show contempt for the church of God by shaming those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I praise you? I will not praise you for this!

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread, and after he had given thanks he broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, every time you drink it, in remembrance of me.' For every time you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

For this reason, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself first, and in this way let him eat the bread and drink of the cup. For the one who eats and drinks without careful regard for the body eats and drinks judgment against himself. That is why many of you are weak and sick, and quite a few are dead. But if we examined ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned with the world. So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that when you assemble it does not lead to judgment. I will give directions about other matters when I come."

I Corinthians 11:17-34

What is the exact accusation Paul is making?  Notice that his comments are book-ended by assertions that everyone in the community "proceeds with his own supper" (v. 21) and fails to "wait for one another" (v. 33).  This indicates that the specific failure which Paul is confronting is not a failure in hearts of individuals as they participate in the eucharist per se.  The failure to examine oneself is not a failure to look deep inside one's own soul, although that's the way in which I've always interpreted it.  No, Paul is addressing the failure to do precisely the opposite.  The Corinthian community has failed to look outside their own selves to the physical needs of the body of Christ.

I have always stood there in fear on Sunday's with the plastic cup in my hand wondering what the heck it is I'm supposed to be looking for in my heart, what I'm supposed to be examining. But the only questions I've ever needed to ask were these: Am I proceeding with my own supper?  Is another hungry while I am full?  Am I shaming those who have nothing?  Am I following the Eucharistic call of suffering which the broken bread and poured out wine symbolize?  Am I proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes?  The question which sums them all up is, am I really eating the Lord's supper or my own?

To fail at our Eucharistic task is to fail at our task of κοινωνία (koinonia), that is sharing in the sufferings of Christ along with the body of Christ.  That is the meaning of Paul's invective against those community members who ate and drank "without careful regard for the body" (v. 29).  The body that he speaks of is none other than the body of Christ.  This is the meaning of the word body in the entirety of this passage.  But of course, for Paul, the body of Christ always has a double-meaning.  On the one hand it is the sharing community of Christ's followers.  On the other, those who fail to partake in the sharing of this community are said to be "guilty of the body and blood of the Lord" himself.  Ouch.  This idea of Christ's solidarity with the hungry "least of these" has echoes with the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25.  Paul phrases it this way earlier in the letter: "If you sin against your brothers or sisters... you sin against Christ." (8:12)

Finally, my warrant for claiming that Paul's use of the term body in I Corinthians 11:17-34 is a reference to the church is that the church is overwhelmingly what the entirety of First Corinthians is all about.  More specifically, it is Paul's guidance to a community struggling to live out its call to share in Christ's sufferings.  The letter starts out by encouraging the community to end its divisions and unite followed by Paul's theological rationale for his plea.  The remainder of the letter (and indeed much of Paul's writing elsewhere) follows this pattern of practical exhortation followed by theological rationale.  He even makes the explicit connection in 10:16-17, just before the passage we have been examining: "Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread that we break a sharing in the body of Christ?  Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all share the one bread."  Just after the passage we have been examining, in chapter 12, Paul launches into the most extensive discussion of the "body of Christ" concept anywhere in his letters.

We often separate the theological from the practical in the Pauline epistles.  But, in fact, all of Paul's theological reasoning in his first letter to the Corinthians is in support of his message of koinonia to them.  My argument here is that we've historically done the same thing with the words of Christ.  If there's any recovering of the meaning of the Eucharist that had already begun to be lost at Corinth and is today obscured, it will be by following the command of Christ to do koinonia in remembrance of him.  It will be by following Jesus' command to share sufferings in remembrance of him.

#299 The Story of My Life

My favorite quote from one of my favorite movies:

Peter Gibbons: It's not just about me and my dream of doing nothing. It's about all of us. I don't know what happened to me at that hypnotherapist and, I don't know, maybe it was just shock and it's wearing off now, but when I saw that fat man keel over and die - Michael, we don't have a lot of time on this earth! We weren't meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about, about mission statements.

 

Michael Bolton: I told those fudge-packers I liked Michael Bolton's music.

 

Peter Gibbons: Oh. That is not right, Michael.

I am Peter Gibbons.  We are all Peter Gibbons.

#298 Minority Theology: Women

Regarding the woman who annointed Jesus feet at Bethany,

"Although Jesus pronounces in Mark, "And truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her" (Mark 14:9) the woman's prophetic sign-action did not become part of the gospel knowledge of Christians.  Even her name is lost to us.  Wherever the gospel is proclaimed and the eucharist celebrated another story is told: the story of the apostle who betrayed Jesus.  The name of the betrayer is remembered, but the name of the faithful disciple is forgotten because she was a woman."

That's Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, the first woman to ever become president of the Society of Biblical Literature as quoted in Hays' MVNT.  What is the service that feminist theology provides?  She answer this question at great length, but the conclusion is that,

"Feminist theology therefore challenges biblical theological scholarship to develop a paradigm for biblical revelation that does not understand the New Testament as an achetype but as a prototype.  both archetype and prototype denote original models.  However, an archetype is an ideal form that establishes an unchanging timeless pattern, whereas a prototype is not a binding timeless pattern or principle.  A prototype, therefore, is critically open to the possibility of its own transformation."

#297 Yoder on Taking Up the Cross

To live is to suffer, obviously.  But to live as a community who follows Christ is to suffer with intent.

"To be a disciple is to share in that style of life of which the cross is the culmination."

-- John Howard Yoder, in The Politics of Jesus, p. 38

Is our style of life in the church one that leads toward crucifixion? Further,

"The believer's cross is no longer any and every kind of suffering, sickness, or tension, the bearing of which is demanded.  The believer's cross must be, like his Lord's, the price of social nonconformity.  It is not, like sickness or catastrophe, an inexplicable, unpredictable suffering; it is the end of a path freely chosen after counting the cost.  It is not... an inward wrestling of the sensitive soul with self and sin; is is the social reality of representing in an unwilling world the Order to Come."

-- John Howard Yoder, in The Politics of Jesus, p. 96

#296 May Modified Protestant Chronological Practical Bible Reading Plan

May 1-3: Micah
May 4-6: Hosea
May 7-9: II Kings 21-25
May 10-12: Nahum, Zephaniah
May 13-15: Jeremiah 1-10
May 16-18: Jeremiah 11-20
May 19-21: Jeremiah 21-30
May 22-24: Jeremiah 31-40
May 25-27: Jeremiah 41-52
May 28-30: Ezekiel 1-10

#295 Immigration and Free Markets

Arizona has every right to enforce the laws as it see fit.  However, businesses that hire Mexicans do so because they can more efficiently produce their products that way due to lower wage rates.  Mexicans get work done more efficiently, in a financial sense, than Americans do.  That is a fact.  These business know that or they wouldn't be hiring Mexicans.  But regardless of whether or not we agree with the last two sentences, the concept raises a question for proponents of truly free markets: why would we want the government to tell businesses who they can and can't hire?  Stated differently: why, from a free market standpoint, would we want to restrict the supply of labor?  Better yet: why are we asking for more government interference in business and in the resource allocation decisions thereof?  Why are we clamoring for more state control of the economy?