Jesus of Nazareth - His Dance

CONNECTING THE DOTS

Athos tagged me and so as I was collecting my thoughts on Jesus I went back to reviewed Pope B16's book, Jesus of Nazareth. What a treasure this book is: speaking on the parable of The Good Samaritan, page 198-199;

"The topical relevance of the parable is evident. When we transpose it into the dimensions of world society, we see how the peoples of Africa, lying robbed and plundered, matter to us. Then we see how deeply they are our neighbors; that our lifestyle, the history in which we are involved, has plundered them and continues to do so. This is true above all in the sense that we have wounded their souls. Instead of giving them God, the God who has come close to us in Christ, which would have integrated and brought to completion all that is precious and great in their own traditions, we have given them the cynicism of a world without God in which all that counts is power and profit, a world that destroys moral standards so that corruption and unscrupulous will to power are taken for granted. And that applies not only to Africa. We do of course have material assistance to offer and we have to examine our own way of life. But we always give too little when we just give only material things."

WOW, just look at this: "Instead of giving them God, the God who has come close to us in Christ, which would have integrated and brought to completion all that is precious and great in their own traditions, we have given them the cynicism of a world without God in which all that counts is power and profit, a world that destroys moral standards so that corruption and unscrupulous will to power are taken for granted."

We have Girard's MT spelled out about as clearly as one can get. If we are NOT presenting ourselves, and our 'gifts', in the name of the Transcendent Other we will be coming in the name of the human other(s) which will inevitably work its way into ressentiment and lead to rivalrous situations, scapegoating and violence. On all levels of exchange; of interaction; of relationship this lesson is critical.

The idea of the human experience is totally wrapped up in relationship and we post-Christians have allowed ourselves to be distracted by all sorts of ‘desires’ – I mean here ‘desire’ from a Girardian perspective which is a compulsive, preoccupation with the others – that we have trivialized both, the human experience and relationship. As we have trivialized the human experience and relationship our substantiality – our ontological density wanes and we are prone to fall into greater and greater bouts of ressentiment, double-binds and scapegoating. In the long haul this scandalous spirit is what we pass on to others. So in the case of our aid detached from God to the people of Africa; they may receive a ‘good’ however, they will also assimilate that spirit of the human experience from which it is given.

There is no better way to examine our lifestyle, as recommended by Pope Benedict XVI in the quote above, then through the human experience of a relationship with Jesus who invites us into the life of the Trinity. To be able to enter into relationship with others may be what it means to be made in the image of God. “Relationship is at the heart of the Trinity” is a way of saying relationship is at the heart of who God is. To be in relationship with God is to be IN LIFE, inside the life of the Trinity. Some may say that outside of that relationship nothing exists, but think of it as the gnashing of teeth, because outside of that relationship we fall into this waning of ontological density which leads to ressentiment, rivalry and violence. Jesus, and the God of Abraham and Moses who raised him from the dead – revealing him as the Chosen One of God, and the Spirit of that resurrection let loose on the world is one way to describe the Triune God.

What does relationship look like? Do we see it as a procession characterized by order and dignity, formality, and logical progression? A dance, on the other hand, is joyous, spontaneous, and vital. The God of the Trinity imaged as dance is lively. In dance, life erupts in spontaneous celebration. God invites us into the dance of the Trinity, INTO LIFE!

In our holy history, throughout the Bible, in the life of the Church, in our own lives, we see a Triune God who invites, who crosses the dance floor, who takes us by the hand and draws us into the baptism dance of abundant life. We demur, we protest, we lack rhythm, and we even step on God’s toes. But God persists. The Triune God dignifies and reclaims us by compelling us to join the dance. (Michael A. Van Horn, Homily Service, Serving the Word, 6-2007, adapted)

But wait! Sermons all too often end there with some sentimental or romantic version of the dance. No, the DANCE brings us back to the two great commandments: 1) love God with your whole being and 2) love your neighbor; and so our part, no matter our awkwardness, is to always be inviting others into the DANCE.

Look at what we have here; God who exists in a perfect, tri-personal relationship is the image of the dance, what the Greek theologians have called perichoresis, [peri-CHOR-ee-sis] that dance of the Triune God. But this dance is not merely a description of the Godhead. This dance also describes our participation in the divine life: God invites us to join in the dance, enticing the whole world to enter into the holy life, the holy dance, the holy relationship of Trinity. However if we bring scandal to the relationship through our desire – through a negative compulsive, preoccupation with the other, then we are breaking from the dance – breaking from the relationship with the transcendence and tumbling down into ressentiment and rivalry.

Are we giving too little of ourselves in the way we have attempted to bring relief to our sisters and brothers in Africa? Giving of ourselves and our material aid – giving in this spirit of dance - in relationship is what the Church and particularly Pope Benedict XVI is prescribing and it is in this spirit of relationship that we grow in substantiality – in ontological density. And this spirit of relationship acts as a wave of faith, hope and love to envelope other relationships – other cultures and here we begin to envision true peace – the New Jerusalem can be seen descending from heaven to earth (Revelation 21:1-4; Revelation 22:1-3).

When I googled "perichoresis dance" this Rublev icon of The Trinity came up most frequently. So I end with how Gil Bailie closed his post Abraham, the father of faith which was a reflection on this same icon:

As the German poet, Rilke, said at the conclusion of his poem, Archaic Torso of Apollo:

. . . there is no place on it
that does not see you. You must change your life.

Pope's Jesus of Nazareth - Good Samaritan

From the Jesus of Nazareth in Chapter Seven, Pope Benedict XVI takes up the story of the Good Samaritan. (p 197)

And now the Samaritan enters the stage. What will he do? He does not ask how far his obligations of solidarity extend. Nor does he ask about the merits required for eternal life. Something else happens: His heart is wrenched open. The Gospel uses the word that in Hebrew had originally referred to the mother’s womb and maternal care. Seeing this man in such a state is a blow that strikes him “viscerally,” touching his soul. “He had compassion” – that is how we translate the text today, diminishing its original vitality. Struck in his soul by the lightning flash of mercy, he himself now becomes a neighbor, heedless of any question or danger. The burden of the question thus shifts here. The issue is no longer which other person is a neighbor to me or not. The question is about me. I have to become the neighbor, and when I do, the other person counts for me “as myself.” (my emphasis)

If the question had been “Is the Samaritan my neighbor, too?” the answer would have been a pretty clear-cut no given the situation at the time. But Jesus now turns the whole matter on its head: The Samaritan, the foreigner, makes himself the neighbor and shows me that I have to learn to be a neighbor deep within and that I already have the answer in myself. I have to become like someone in love, someone whose heart is open to being shaken up by another’s need. Then I find my neighbor, or – better – then I am found by him.

Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI

Pope's Jesus of Nazareth - Peter's Confession

This quote, from Chapter Nine, takes up Peter’s Confession:

The great period of preaching in Galilee is at an end and we are at a decisive milestone: Jesus is setting out on the journey to the Cross and issuing a call to decision that now clearly distinguishes the group of disciples from the people who merely listen, without accompanying him on his way – a decision that clearly shapes the disciples into the beginning of Jesus’ new family, the future Church. It is characteristic of this community to be “on the way” with Jesus – what that way involves is about to be made clear. It is also characteristic that this community’s decision to accompany Jesus rests upon a realization – on a “knowledge” of Jesus that at the same time gives them a new insight into God, the one God in whom they believe as children of Israel…

… The disciples are drawn into his solitude, his communion with the Father that is reserved to him alone… They are privileged to see what the “people” do not see, and this seeing gives rise to a recognition that goes beyond the “opinion” of the people. This seeing is the wellspring of their faith, their confession; it provides the foundation of the Church. – p 290-291

Chapters could be written from a single page, even single paragraph of this book and this is no exception. A couple points for me: the word, decisive: decision used in the above passage. The origin comes from the word decide c.1380, from O.Fr. decider, from Latin decidere "to decide," lit. "to cut off," from de- "off" + cædere "to cut". Sense is of resolving difficulties "at a stroke." Like the word sacrifice, to decide brings us to a critical (or a more accurate word may be crucial) anthropological aspect of being human. We are called to decide, to leave behind one existence for another. It is interesting how today we find all sorts of justifications to put off making critical decisions, but Jesus continues to demand that we follow him, and his way always goes by way of the Cross.

There is also something here that makes me think of vocation - marriage - calling. At some point we arrive at a time where Jesus asks us for a decision that costs nothing more than our lives.

Like the ripple effect when a pebble is tossed into a lake, Jesus starts with a small core group of disciples sending them forth to make disciples of the whole world. And this discipleship is not grounded on opinion, but rather by witnesses.



Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI

Pope's Jesus of Nazareth -- References to St. Francis

As some know, I am part of the Secular Franciscan Order (SFO), formerly known as the Third Order of St. Francis. So when I came upon this reference to St. Francis and the Third Order in Pope Benedict's new book, Jesus of Nazareth, I couldn't resist blogging the comment.

Jesus of Nazareth – Pope Benedict XVI
Chapter 4 – Sermon of the Mount
The Beatitudes

“Blessed are the poor in spirit – theirs is the Kingdom of God.”

But it may be a good idea – before we continue our meditation on the text – to turn for a moment to the figure whom the history of faith offers us as the most intensely lived illustration of this Beatitude: Francis of Assisi. The saints are the true interpreters of Holy Scripture. The meaning of a given passage of the Bible becomes most intelligible in those human beings who have been totally transfixed by it and have lived it out. Interpretation of Scripture can never be a purely academic affair, and it cannot be relegated to the purely historical. Scripture is full of potential for the future, a potential that can only be opened up when someone “lives through” and “suffers through” the sacred text. Francis of Assisi was gripped in an utterly radical way by the promise of the first Beatitude, to the point that he even gave away his garments and let himself be clothed anew by the bishop, the representative of God’s fatherly goodness, through which the lilies of the field were clad in robes finer than Solomon’s (cf. Mt 6:28-29). For Francis, this extreme humility was above all freedom for service, freedom for mission, ultimate trust in God, who cares not only for the flowers of the field but specifically for his human children. It was a corrective to the Church of his day, which, through the feudal system, had lost the freedom and dynamism of missionary outreach. It was the deepest possible openness to Christ, to whom Francis was perfectly configured by the wounds of the stigmata, so perfectly that from then on he truly no longer lived as himself, but as one reborn, totally from and in Christ. For he did not want to found a religious order: He simply wanted to gather the People of God to listen anew to the word – without evading the seriousness of God’s call by means of learned commentaries.

By creating the Third Order, though, Francis did accept the distinction between radical commitment and the necessity of living in the world. The point of the Third Order is to accept with humility the task of one’s secular profession and its requirements, wherever one happens to be, while directing one’s whole life to that deep interior communion with Christ that Francis showed us. “To own goods as if you owned nothing” (cf. Cor 7:29ff.) – to master this inner tension, which is perhaps the more difficult challenge, and, sustained by those pledged to follow Christ radically, truly to live it out ever anew – that is what the third orders are for. And they open up for us what this Beatitude can mean for all. It is above all by looking at Francis of Assisi that we see clearly what the words “Kingdom of God” mean. Francis stood totally within the Church, and at the same time it is in figures such as he that the Church grows toward the goal that lies in the future, and yet is already present: The Kingdom of God is drawing near…

-- pg 78-79