Standing There
This proposition is a modern restatement of the evaluation of the person which is implicit in the New Testament. Its meaning within its original New Testament context is that the individual is an end, not because he is the crown of being, but because he is not the crown of being. He is transcended by a divine reality which sanctifies and redeems in a way which is beyond the power of the individual himself or of his world.
But in modern individualism the principle that the individual is an end has been shifted to new foundations: it is assumed that there is nothing beyond the individual and that consequently all things are at his service. Thus the idea of divine sanctification is destroyed. And with this destruction the love which goes beyond sexual and sentimental attachment is undermined and selfishness is enthroned.
In this way, starting from an understanding of individual dignity in terms of an eternal destiny we have reached an individualism which means largely a sensitivity on the part of salesmen and politicians to the desires of consumers and voters. The spiritual course we have traveled may be measured roughly by the index of the distance which lies between the aphorisms of the New Testament and the slogans of modern advertising and electioneering.
― Glenn Tinder, "The Crisis of Political Imagination" (1964)
**********
Dear Kate,
"He that loveth his life shall lose it."
If an advertiser has ever been truthful, a politician trustworthy, a preacher faithful, the slogan of his/her rallying cry would have been and shall always be this: "Anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life."
You might say, Well, isn't this what they are doing? Isn't this what we are telling ourselves everyday?
If I want to buy something more to update and upgrade myself, am I not letting go of my old life and striving to be the "best version" of me? If I am to join a political cause for change, am I not trying to destroy an old way of life that is destroying myself and this world? And...
Now, a commercial break. A Sunday morning exercise for you: I am asking you to write the third sentence of the last paragraph.
Based on the my second paragraph, you know it is going to be about religion, a vision to see beyond what we have habitually taken to be the entire reality--this life, as it is. It will be a sentence, a question about our vision of the transcendence that purports to take us beyond the WYSIWYGs of our thoroughly secularized worldview but is in truth cooped up in the same crisis of imagination.
This morning you are going to meet God, so to speak, via Zoom, in particular by looking into the faces of those who claim to have been claimed by God, revolutionaries enlisted for His not-so-secretive mission to "set the world right". Are you expecting to hear the rallying cry "Anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life"? Are you expecting yourself to give it?
The truth is, if you don't need to show your face, you can't get yourself to do even that, and most of the "faces of Jesus" you will "meet" today will do just that, turning their back on you, giving you not even the benefit of a cold shoulder.
"A synagogue on Vancouver Island has been given the go-ahead to resume in-person services this weekend as long as strict protocols are followed," I read in the news yesterday. "The reason for that is because, as an orthodox synagogue, we follow traditional Jewish law, we cannot operate services on Zoom, or any electronics. The only way that we can do services on Shabbat is in person," explained Rabbi Meir Kaplan.
Do you see, hear the irony? We the "progressive" would accuse these people, true revolutionaries with a strange (meaning, everything that I can't justify with my sort of science to perpetuate my type of living) Vision, as being on a dangerous Mission to destroy humanity. What the world should see instead is me boxed up in my blank tile of a Zoom rectangle with my first name spelled out reluctantly in lowercase, hear the speaker buzz of my muted voice that is worse than silence for me being there for sure but just as much not caring to address the rest of this world---these are what they should see and hear to have a glimpse and an earful of a transcending Divine, who is in the business of preserving Me and My Life, My Dignity, My Freedom, My Personal Choice, and being sacrificial to My Need and My Wants and My Being Victimized and Misunderstood and Generally and Perpetually PISSED by a world that doesn't serve Me right, ignoring the I, Me, and Myself to the peril of humanity!
Advertisers lie, politicians cheat, we know what, just how they should to keep the world turning. The show must go on.
Where, then, does Jesus stand? That's the question the true revolutionaries of God would seek to answer and live out everyday.
The theatrics of Jesus is the end of all our theatrics. The show must not go on.
Yours, Alex
Comments
Post a Comment