Acts 17:22-31
Psalm 66:8-20
I Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21

The May lectionary is particularly rich because many of these readings deal, in one way or another, with the problem of reconciling the ongoing felt presence of Jesus Christ with his undeniable material absence. Thus we have the language of abiding in the Gospel of John and the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday, and the Father-Son-Spirit formulas that became the basis of the doctrine of the Trinity. The readings trace an arc from ascension to Pentecost to a nascent trinitarianism that shows how the early church made the transition in its thinking from the pre-Easter Jesus of history to the post-Easter Christ of faith.

At this point in the calendar of events, the initial crisis-the crucifixion-has already been resolved in the Gospel claims of the resurrected Christ. The new problem is where to go from here. The biblical answer is ascension into heaven, which explains why the risen Christ, though eternal, is no longer visible. However, it does not explain the persistent conviction of an ongoing presence. The gift of the Spirit and the later councilar moves toward divination-first of Christ, then of full trinitarianism-become the means by which classic Christianity made the transition.

How do our parishioners make that transition, especially in this brave new world of science and technology? In its own way, this journey from the Jesus of history to the Christ of faith is every bit as momentous as the Lenten road to Jerusalem, that metaphorical journey we still encourage our members to make every Lenten season. How exactly do we get from the historical Jesus to the Christ at the center of our faith? How do we reconcile the felt presence of Christ with the material facts of science and history? May's lectionary readings-especially as viewed from a process perspective-suggest a road that can still be taken.

Acts 17:22-31
Paul gives the first hint, suggesting that the religious impulse, which Whitehead and several others have identified as basic to human experience, can be identified with the transcendent Maker of all creation. In the polytheistic culture of the Roman Empire, the Athenians have included an altar to an "unknown god," and although this may strike the cynical as an attempt to cover all the bases, it also shows recognition of the limits to human knowledge. There is always the possibility of simple ignorance-not having all the facts-but there is also a limit imposed by human finitude. An altar to an "unknown god" suggests a prudent move on the part of the Athenians against ignorance, but it also suggests the groping toward a reality beyond the reach of human understanding-a reality to which the Athenians nevertheless sense that the proper response is worship.

Paul seizes on the "unknown god" and emphasizes this latter aspect. The God of which he speaks is not an object of empirical knowledge. This God is neither an image, nor wood or stone, nor a shrine made by human hands. It is not an object available to the senses or capable of investigation by such means. Instead Paul describes a God who precedes these objects-and the human hands that craft them-as their creator. This God is the creator of time, being, and location, a God who transcends human knowledge and experience, but who is nevertheless near; indeed, is that in which "we live and move and have our being." This God transcends the whole world but is yet the one who instilled in us our very breath. Moreover, Paul tells the Athenians that ignorance of this God was permissible in the past, but no more. Even Athenians, he notes, know that we are God's offspring, meaning we can no longer make the mistake of identifying deity with gold or silver or some other material object, for these things are not capable of producing human offspring. (Just to be clear: Paul is not making an anthropomorphic argument here; that is, by calling us God's offspring he is not telling us to imagine God as human. His speech relies on his listeners' knowledge of Greek philosophy, wherein the distinctive difference that requires humans be given their own classification in nature refers not to the human form but to the capacity for reason, or logos.)

In this passage we see a step in the church's transition from a Jesus of history to a Christ of faith. To have a divine Christ, it is necessary to identify Jesus with the divine, but also show how the divine transcends his being-in-history. That is, divinity cannot be limited or confined to the physical appearance of Jesus on earth in first-century Palestine. Think of Jesus as a vessel that is eventually contained in the larger "Christ" vessel. The "Jesus" vessel is earthenware-flesh, capable of being broken, and after a time, materially absent-while the "Christ" vessel becomes the pre-existent Logos and the eschatological goal of creation, the one who "was, is, and evermore shall be." To have an eternal Christ, present in reality but no longer materially (i.e., in the flesh), we have to accept but also transcend the literal fact of Jesus of Nazareth. The terms of our understanding change.

Paul also does two things here that are helpful to us today. He encourages us to identify our religious longings and impulses with God, even when we do not know who or what that God might be. He also argues against a concept of deity that can be represented in any object, or thought of as located in any specific place, such as a shrine. That is, he specifically separates understanding of God from empirical knowledge based on sense data. He wants us to stop thinking in such literal terms and grasp that when the object of our knowledge is divine, it changes the terms of our understanding. There are the beginnings of a re-orientation here, an encouragement to redirect our attention from a fixation on whether or not something "really" happened, in an empirically verifiable way, to consider the account in terms of something in which we live and move and have our being. In other words, it points us toward the metaphysical-a direction we, as process theologians, are more than happy to go.

From a process perspective, the altar to an unknown God can be seen as the religious impulse present in human experience-not always understood, sometimes misdirected, but always in relation to the creativity of the universe. This religious impulse is present, in Whiteheadian terms, as a lure to the all-inclusive well-being of creation-and ultimately God, as well-in the present moment in and of itself and also in its contribution to the future. The Athenian impulse to build an altar to an "unknown god" becomes our awareness that there is something more than the determinism of the past. There is the creative possibility of something new, something that can be felt as an awareness embued with intention to which some power in us can respond. This feeling, this religious impulse, is the lure of God, and it always-because it aims toward some vision of the future-includes the unknown.

Paul also opens the door to process interpretation when he disconnects the idea of deity from a material object, or something that can be known empirically. In effect, he tells us to shift the way we think of the divine from a tangible object (for us, an object of scientific inquiry) to something more intangible (but still a metaphysical reality; i.e., something in which we live and move and have our being). In so doing, he clears a way for our seeing God as creativity, as an initial aim present in every moment of becoming, and seeing Christ as creative transformation, a redemptive presence that can overcome the determinism of the past. These things are not generated by material objects, but have their origin in the Creator, who is the proper object of our worship.

Psalm 66:8-20
This psalm describes a cycle of human experience, framed by the writer's faith in God, expressed in praise. The writer begins with God, endures hardship, makes promises to God, acknowledges deliverance, offers praise, keeps his promises, and offers praise. At each stage in the cycle, he recognizes the presence of God and maintains an attitude of faith. In process terms, the psalmist expresses essential relationship with God throughout the course of a cycle of experience and suggests that praise is a tool to heighten that relationship by making us more conscious of it.

1 Peter 3:13-22
In this passage the argument against literal interpretation continues. That is, the washing in water of baptism is not a literal "removal of dirt from the body," but an appeal to God for "a good conscience." This can be understood as fuller consciousness of God's will, a willingness to conform ourselves to it, and thus something that enriches our relationship to God. But the passage also addresses the problem experienced by people of faith in the midst of the faithless, and the potential harm the latter can do to the former. In the United States, Christians are not persecuted for their faith, but they do often encounter "cultured despisers" (Schleiermacher's classic term). Christians who have not simply reverted to a "Jesus as moral teacher" position (the Jesus of history) but still claim in him some transformative power (Christ of faith), do face reactions that range all the way from amusement to hostility. The writer reminds us to "sanctify Christ" in our hearts, that is, to find in our own hearts what enables us to believe and to speak authoritatively from that. What comes from our hearts will not necessarily be expressed in terms of science-or in the traditional language of church doctrine-but it will account for the hope that is in us. This language of "accounting for the hope that is in" us is a marvelous way to define faith. For process theologians, accounting for the hope that is in us may be our belief that nothing ever remains as it is. Transformation is always possible, and Christ as the principle of creative transformation is present in every becoming moment.

Two notes on suffering. First,  the text makes the suggestion that suffering may be God's will. It is difficult to deal with this without falling into the trap of instrumentalism-that suffering is for our own or another's moral good. Process theology rejects the idea that God ever wills our suffering, for character building or any other reason. It acknowledges, however, that sometimes the circumstances do not leave God much room in which to maneuver. God is always present, willing the good, but does not intervene to prevent either our suffering or the exercise of all the self-determinative moments that led up to our suffering. Instead, God is present and active in every becoming moment, offering the best possible outcome for that moment, however limited the range may be.

Second, because so much damage has been done with a distorted concept of "noble" suffering, it is always important to contextualize biblical references to suffering. This is similar to the corrective work the church has undertaken since the Holocaust in response to derogatory New Testament references to "the Jews." Too often, suffering has been interpreted as another kind of instrumentalism that in fact cloaks abusive practices. The church has told victims of abusive situations that suffering is redemptive and enduring violence is Christ-like. The test is always to ask who is doing the prescribing. When one person or group finds suffering acceptable and noble in another person or group, the suffering of Jesus is being used to justify oppression or maintain a power relationship. A commonplace example is abused women encouraged by clergy to stay with their abusers in the name of Christ-like endurance of suffering. If this is not named, any reference to suffering reinforces the idea of "noble" suffering.

John 14:15-21
This passage comes from Jesus' farewell discourse to his disciples. Textually, the promise is made before the crucifixion; in terms of the lectionary it is read just before Ascension Sunday. In each case, there is a parallel event-the impending absence of Jesus-which results in the promise of an Advocate, a Spirit of truth, that will be present when he is gone.

The phrase, "if you love me, you will keep my commandments" is not in itself a commandment; it is an observation. The one naturally follows the other. Love requires an object, which in turn implies conscious awareness of  the love-object. Love includes the desire to delight one's lover, to uncover the lover's desire and fulfill it. In process terms,  "love" expresses awareness of God's lure to well-being (beauty and harmony), which in turn encourages us to recognize and conform ourselves to God's aim. To love-keep commandments is to incorporate God's initial aim and make it our self-determining choice. When we do this, we are cultivating awareness of the divine. The Advocate, then, becomes a way of speaking about God's lure, which, as a metaphysical truth is indeed with us forever. To say it abides in us is to recognize that it is a constitutive part of us. This is something from which we cannot be separated, for as something present in every moment of becoming, it dwells in us.

This passage addresses the impending problem of absence-Jesus will be materially removed from the disciples-but it also promises this kind of constitutive presence referred to above. Jesus will not be visible, that is, not in a form that our eyes or other senses can verify. Jesus will not be an object external to us, but enter into our very being in mutual relation with God.

This leads to this gospel's exquisite language of interrelationship and mutuality: "On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you." This is the same as saying that we are in God and God is in us, for if we are in Christ, when where Christ is, there we are, too. The implications of this statement are radical-and troubling to those whose theology emphasizes a transcendent God and the utter difference between Creator and Creation. A God as radically Other, however, also leads to the divine attributes of omnipotence and omniscience, which process theology rejects. This passage in John supports the process notion of God and creation as co-constitutive of each other. The biblical argument uses Jesus as the intermediary, and later some theologians will apply the trinitarian idea of perichoresis-the interpenetration of Father, Son, and Spirit, although each is distinct in relation to the others-to suggest a similar human and divine relationship. The point is that there is a metaphysical trajectory in Christian thought to which process belongs, and a process preacher may skip the metaphysics in the pulpit, but still affirm that as Christ is in God and we are in Christ, then God is in us and we are in God. God truly is that in which we "live and move and have our being."

If you found this lectionary helpful, please consider contributing to Process & Faith by making a donation or becoming a member.

Process & Faith is a program of the Center for Process Studies, an affiliated program of the Claremont School of Theology.
This site and all content ©2006 Process & Faith, unless otherwise noted.