October 21 , 2007
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See also: [2004] [2001] |
Commentary by John B. Cobb, Jr.
Jeremiah 31:27-34
Ps 119:97-104
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8
Jews and Christians are particularly fortunate in their scriptures. This is not simply because of the magnificent passages that these contain, including some of what is in the lectionary for today. It is because the deeply human character of the writing is so manifest. Furthermore, the authors make no pretense of divine authority for what they write. Some do, no doubt, claim the authority of great figures from the past, such as Moses, David, or Paul for writings that are not factually theirs. And within some of these writings there are passages reporting the claim of prophets to speak God’s words. Jesus’ language of “I say unto you” is also a claim of great authority. But nowhere do biblical authors claim divine authority for their own writings.
Furthermore, those who selected these writings to be scripture included material of great diversity. They made no attempt to achieve consistency. Jews in particular have continued a tradition of retaining multiple views in an ongoing tradition of discussion and debate. Christian attempts to formulate a single, coherent set of doctrines are repeatedly undermined by history and by biblical scholarship.
The Muslim scriptures are very different. They do claim to come quite directly from God. They are written in a single, and highly exalted, style. They express a generally coherent view.
That Muslims treat their sacred scriptures as the direct and wholly accurate word of God is entirely understandable. The Qu’ran presents itself to them as such. That some Christians treat their scriptures in a similar way tells us very little about the Bible but a great deal about the human desire for absolutes and for certitude. We have in today’s readings the one short passage to which conservative biblicists most often appeal to support their treatment of the Bible as having supernatural authority. It is an astonishingly weak basis for such claims.
The passage, from 2 Timothy, reads as follows. “You have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.”
In my discussion of the lectionary readings for October 7, I emphasized the danger of the assertion that any writing is inspired by God. It has been taken to mean that God fully approves what is said. The issue was important on October 7 because we then confronted the scriptural statement that those who dash Babylonian children against the rocks are “happy.” The psalm in which this is to be found is inspired poetry, and in my view, God is the source of all such inspiration. But that does not mean that God favored of this form of revenge against Babylon.
What is “inspiration?” Many writers report “inspiration.” When the poet experiences no “inspiration,” there is unlikely to be much poetry, or readers are likely to report that the poem is “uninspired” and probably “uninspiring.” Teachers of writing talk about what to do when one lacks inspiration. Some encourage one to write anyway. A preacher who feels no inspiration must still prepare the Sunday sermon. The discipline of writing even when not inspired is important, and sometimes it provides the context for fresh inspiration.
I can testify that I often write almost mechanically, because I have committed myself to write something by a particular date. However, it sometimes happens that in the process, something of fresh interest, at least to me, breaks in. It may be a different way of looking at the question with which I am dealing. The result may just be that I add a paragraph. It may be that I re-work what I have written. Occasionally, all that I do in the future is affected.
The phenomenon of “inspiration” has been widely discussed. Whitehead is unusual in providing a metaphysical account. In his view, in every momentary experience there is the “ingression” of some element of novelty, however trivial. In this sense “inspiration” is universal. Even when one feels uninspired, that does not mean that there is no novelty at all in one’s experience. Hence, dramatic instances of inspiration, instances when novelty is consciously felt as such and changes the whole pattern of the experience, are not supernatural. We can study the contexts in which they are most likely to occur, the social and psychological, and even physiological factors that contribute to them. We can see also that what novelty is possible in a situation is conditioned by all the factors in the situation. The novelty is always a novel response to just that situation. Nevertheless, from a Whiteheadian perspective, we cannot reduce inspiration to these factors. They can make the occurrence of important novelty more likely. They cannot produce it. For Whitehead and for those who follow him, God is the source of novelty. All inspiration is from God.
All inspiration contributes to the value of what happens. All widening of horizons results from inspiration. All new insight is a form of inspiration. But this does not mean that what comes through inspiration embodies final truth or is protected from error or even from the risk of causing harm. Sometimes we are so pleased with a new insight that we close ourselves to others that would properly show the limits of its applicability. The insight then contributes to idolatry. Idols are not bad things but idolatry is profoundly bad. Idols are usually limited goods that are treated as final goods. This applies to what comes through the inspiration of God as well. We process theologians agree with the biblicists who affirm that all scripture is inspired by God. This affirmation is itself inspired. But we deplore the understanding of this affirmation that leads to closure against so many other inspirations that God offers us. It is painful to see this wonderful spiritual literature that is our heritage itself turned into an idol.
Is the author of Timothy guilty of this idolatry? I think not. The writer’s claim is that all scripture is useful. Surely that is true. The author refers only to the Jewish scriptures, but we Christians believe that this claim is true also of the writings canonized by the church and known to us as the New Testament. Our text tells us that its uses are for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. We could add many other uses. One of them is steering us away from our human tendency toward idolatry. Sadly, historically they have not worked for Christians as well as for Jews in this respect.
What usefulness have the other scriptures chosen for today? In Luke we have a parable. Jesus liked to teach in parables. His stories, short as they are, grip us. Typically the characters in the stories are not moral exemplars whose heroic virtues we are called to emulate. Last month the lectionary gave us the parable of the dishonest steward. That parable like so many has a surprising ending. We expect that this steward will incur his master’s wrath and be punished, thus restoring our sense of the justice inherent in events. Or else the master may forgive and thereby show how mercy trumps justice.
But Jesus’ ending is entirely different. The message is not about morality or justice at all. In Jesus’ story, the master commends the cheater. Of course, he does not comment him for his dishonesty. He commends him for his shrewdness.
This week we have an unjust judge who finally responds to the just plea of a woman, not because it is just, but in order to get rid of her. The lesson is not virtue but persistence. It is interesting that among those who claim to follow Jesus the virtues of shrewdness and persistence are rarely emphasized. This is surely a parable that can be used for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.
For Christians, today’s passage from Jeremiah is one of the most important for Christians in the Jewish scriptures. It speaks of a new covenant or new testament, and our language of Old and New Testaments arises from the claim that what Jeremiah predicts has been realized in and through Jesus. Christians believe that in Jesus we know God and that if we are truly faithful the “law” is written on our hearts rather than functioning as an external demand upon us. But the Christian appropriation of this wonderful message, surely a work of divine inspiration, has also done enormous harm. Jeremiah’s prophesy is of a transformation of Jewish life and spirit. The Christian appropriation came to imply that nothing of this sort happened among Jews, that the new covenant belongs exclusively to Christians, that Jews are still stuck in the old one. A more accurate historical judgment is that to this day most Jews and most Christians continue to operate according to the old covenant and continue to break it, whereas other Jews and Christians are living in that relation to God that Jeremiah called a “new covenant.”
Again there is no question but that this passage in Jeremiah can be used for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. Nor is there, in my view, any question but that Jesus and Paul both pointed their followers to the relationship with God described here as the new covenant. But notice that if we want to take the text straightforwardly and include ourselves as Christians within it, we must engage in some fancy footwork. Jeremiah’s prophesy is about the house of Israel and the house of Judah. There is no hint that it can apply to Gentiles. To make such an application required the new inspiration that was so important in the life and thinking of Paul. Left to itself, Jeremiah’s inspiration remained fully ethnocentric. Our engraftment into this promise required that new inspiration show the limits of old inspiration.
Sadly, when the followers of Paul ceased to constitute a form of Judaism, a form that in a particular way emphasized Jeremiah’s vision of a new covenant, and became a separate religious community and institution, Jeremiah’s prophesy about the future of Israel was turned into a condemnation of Israel for failing to appropriate this promise. The glorious promise became a new occasion of idolatry. This idolatry caused enormous suffering for the very people who were the primary heirs of the promise.
To any who doubt that Jeremiah’s prophecy has its fulfillment in Judaism as well as in Christianity, one can recommend the passage in our lectionary from Psalms. Surely no one can doubt that, in a way quite different from that bequeathed by Paul to Gentile Christians, the law is written on the heart of the Psalmist. Surely no one can doubt that the Psalmist knows the Lord.
Christians can properly affirm that our way of realizing the new covenant is different from that of the psalmist. We may even discuss which way is “better” for whom. But today we must be open to the insight, to which we were largely closed for many centuries, that Judaism and Christianity both offer ways of entering into the new covenant envisioned by the Jewish prophet.
~John B. Cobb, Jr.
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