More on the theology of the body

As I mentioned last time,  the body of 'man' ('adam', or mankind) itself bears witness to its meaning by being both male and female. As Pope John Paul II pointed out, man bears the image of God not only in his humanity but also in the communion of persons as lived out in marriage. Marriage, then, has the purpose of making visible the image of God, both in the communion of love between husband and wife and in the natural creativity, bearing children, that flows from that communion.

This then is how the body 'speaks' to us. As there is an inherent meaning in our body, there is also a 'language' that speaks to us. When lived out in the image of God, it speaks truth. When lived out in rebellion to God, it speaks lies. In that way adultery and fornication attack the image of God.  In his reflections on this, the Pope noted that for the husband/wife bond to live out God's image it must be done in accord with what was taught in Genesis and re-iterated by Jesus: 'for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh'..This involved the complete gift of self to another, irrevocably.  It is not a complete gift if it is given to many others. That does not constitute 'cleaving' to the one. It is also permanent and irrevocable. Anything less is not a complete gift of self. Therefore the Bible says, 'what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.' God intends monogamy for life. Polygamy, adultery, and fornication all desecrate marriage, and in so doing desecrate the image of God in man. Homosexuality also desecrates God's image since it denies the meaning of the body as male and female and renders impossible the pro-creativity that reflects God.

 Both heterosexual sin and homosexual sin share a propensity to ignore the meaning of the body by reducing the object of desire into an object.  It is not possible to seek to live out God's image in our bodies, to make a complete gift of self, and to make the sanctification of our spouse as our goal and also to view them as an object for our own gratification.  To live out the meaning of the body demands a high view of the integrity and value of the person to whom we make the gift of self. It also demands a high view of how the body itself was created as male and female. Sexual sin, both of the heterosexual and homosexual variety, degrades this meaning, which the pope calls 'the spousal meaning of the body'.  You cannot live out God's image by using persons as objects.

This is one of the reasons that I refer to pornography as a lie. It treats people as objects, which is itself a lie even if they consent to such use. It also denies the very meaning of the body which can only be fulfilled in the monogamous, irrevocable gift of self within marriage, thereby telling another lie.

In their book The Meaning of Marriage, Tim and Kathy Keller raise this question: 'How can we claim that long term singleness is a good condition in light of the previous chapter's argument that males and females are in some ways incomplete without the other?" Good question, in light of the meaning of the body. We shall talk about that next time.

The meaning of our body

At Christmas I mentioned how the incarnation of Christ connects biology with theology, and gives witness to the fact that our bodies were created to bear the image of God. Christ is Himself the ultimate example of how He uses the body to make visible what is invisible, the spiritual and divine.

I have been reading lately in Pope John Paul II's transcribed talks about what he called the 'theology of the body'. In that teaching he goes back to Genesis based on Jesus teaching about marriage. Jesus also goes back to Genesis (see Matthew 19). In Genesis 1:26 it says that God created man (Hebrew 'adam) in his image, male ('is) and female ('issa). That is, the complete man was the combination of male and female. One of them alone was incomplete. The pope concludes that man carries the image of God not just in his humanity but also in the communion of persons in the union of male and female. Just as there is an intimate communion in the Trinity, so is there to be intimate communion in man by the union of male and female. Just as the love of God in the Trinity is naturally creative, resulting in man, so is the union in marriage to be naturally pro-creative, resulting in children. Just as the love of God in the Trinity is expressed in the giving of self, as Christ showed in giving Himself, so marriage is intended to bear God's image by the gift of self to each other. He concludes that this meaning of communion is carried to us not only by the Word, but by the body itself. As Adam recognized when he first saw Eve in chapter 2 of Genesis, he immediately recognized that she was intended to complete him. This message was clear from the body itself. So the pope concludes that the body itself has a meaning, and that meaning he calls 'spousal', 'the spousal meaning of the body'.  This also supports the very Biblical notion that we are a communion of body/soul, we are not just souls that happen to have a body temporarily. Just as Christ in His resurrected body shows how the body will be integral to our being in eternity, our bodies are integral to what it means to be persons, and integral to living out God's image on earth.

So then this means that marriage has a clear meaning. That meaning is not to make us happy, to give us companionship, or to provide self-actualization. Those are all aimed at individuals and the freedom and fulfillment of individuals, making self-actualization of the individual the highest good. This instead means that marriage is intended as a way to live out the image of God. The pope goes on to point out that it is possible to do this without marriage, as Jesus did, but that is not the norm. The norm is for marriage to be a way to live out, in the body, the complete/full image of God. And the work of marriage is sanctification.

I think he is right. In our focus on falling in love and happiness in marriage we have turned it into a self-centered thing rather than a self-giving thing. Jesus taught that to save your life you must lose it. Where should we look to learn what it looks like to give yourself away on a daily basis? We should grow up learning that in the home, observing it in marriage. If we hope to teach our failing culture the true meaning of marriage, we must re-learn it in the church first.

Christmas: When Biology Meets Theology

It is Christmas, a time to remember the incarnation of Christ, when God came among us and demonstrated before our eyes to what good use these bodies we have could be put.

Pope John Paul II in his teaching on the theology of the body pointed out that it is in the incarnation of Christ that biology is taken up into theology, where the study of God includes the flesh. In our age, the current of popular opinion has been to continuously degrade the significance of our bodily existence. Our culture treats human existence as little more than an evolutionary accident, unborn children as little more than  'blob of flesh', and the body as a toy to play with for our own self-centered pleasure. It was this culture that the Pope hoped both to confront and to teach. On the first Christmas, as Christ entered a world dominated by a Roman empire both pagan and corrupt, it was not much different. His coming both confronted and taught the world, both in that time and ours, that He created these bodies of ours for better things, to reflect God's image in the world.

The apostle writes that He was 'the express image' of the Father. In his incarnation, we get to know God in a different way than in any other modes. The humility He expressed in taking on flesh to die on our behalf is in itself enormously humbling. The fact of the infinite taking on not just the finite but the form of a helpless babe is beyond my comprehension.

It is a somewhat academic question to ask, 'Which is the greatest miracle?' Yet to me the incarnation of Christ stands out. For the infinite Creator to take on flesh is as incomprehensible as the Trinity itself. It also makes possible the rest of his mission to redeem us, and confers upon our fleshly existence a dignity beyond what we could have imagined.

His Advent has shown us who He is, and also shown us who we are to be like.

Special before birth

The prelude to the Christmas story in Luke chronicles the birth of John the Baptist. John, like Jesus, was announced to his parents in advance of his conception by the archangel Gabriel, and was given his name at that time as well. This made him one of a very few in the Bible who would be named before birth.  Ishmael, Isaac, Solomon, Josiah, Maher-shalalhashbaz are agreed upon by most students of the Old Testament. Some say Moses, but that is not explicit in the text; some also say the emperor Cyrus, but that is a prophesy and not a naming event. Then in the New Testament we have John the Baptist and Jesus. Since name giving was a very important ceremony, a time in which the father essentially claimed the child as being his, this was a very special thing.

Even more special, though, was the fact that John is stated to have been filled with the Spirit before birth. (Luke 1:15). He also 'leaped for joy' in the womb when his mother heard the voice of Mary as she came to visit John's mother while carrying Jesus before his birth.

Several commentators have pointed out that this filling of the Spirit before birth is not something that happens to a 'blob of flesh', or an organ. It is a strong argument that the Scripture considers the unborn child a person, with the distinctive characteristics needed to be filled with the Spirit of God as a separate person from his mother. Our pastor brought this out in his sermon last week about John, and it does seem to me to support the dignity of the unborn child in a very unique way.

As we celebrate Christmas and the birth of the Christ child, it seems a good time to think about the dignity of every child, even before they are born.

A Blessed Thanksgiving

At Thanksgiving we pause to give thanks for the many blessings we have as well as feasting to enjoy those blessings. This makes it a good time to think about what it means to be ‘blessed’. We have recently been studying the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 on Sunday mornings, which begins with some unusual ‘blessings’: we are said to be blessed if we are poor in spirit, or meek, or merciful, or if we mourn, or are pure in heart.   These are not the kinds of blessings we are usually giving thanks for.  We say we are blessed when we are prosperous, have a good job, have good health, and have well behaved children.  Certainly those are things we desire but they are focused on our own comfort more than our character or ministry to others.

Some translations of the Bible replace the word ‘blessed’ with ‘happy’.   I think this misses the point completely. The passage is not about being happy. It is about having the right kind of character and about spiritual well-being. While the Greek word used in the text can be translated ‘happy’, Jesus was Jewish and the idea of ‘blessed’ is not a Greek idea: it is a Jewish concept. ‘Baruch’ is the Hebrew term that goes with the idea, and it is the start of many Jewish prayers and appears hundreds of times in the Old Testament. Jesus is talking about an old Jewish idea, baruch, and that is the idea we must understand in order to understand the Sermon on the Mount.  Matthew is simply seeking to translate that Jewish concept into Greek.

The Jewish people were the ‘elect’ and that was a great blessing. They were blessed. Yet, that very blessing made them accountable in a special way and also led to suffering. Similarly, when Mary took Jesus to the temple for His dedication, she was blessed by Simeon (see Luke 2). That blessing involves Simeon praising God for having lived to see the Messiah but also the blessing he gives includes telling Mary that ‘a sword shall pierce your own soul also’.  The blessing included suffering. This is a different idea from ‘happy’.  Using ‘happy’ in the Beatitudes instead of ‘blessed’ strikes me as a case of what C.S. Lewis called ‘verbicide’: killing the meaning in the word.

The Biblical idea of blessing has to do with being put in a special position, a position of special favor but also special responsibility. The eldest son typically received a special blessing from the father before the father died to pass on the inheritance, but with that blessing came responsibility to care for the extended family. At this Thanksgiving, it is easy for us in America to focus on our material well-being due to the economic difficulties,  though our spiritual health is suspect.  As a nation, we have special responsibilities to use our blessings for good and not just for our comfort.  Let us be thankful for the opportunity to do good with the abundance God has given.

Jobs versus jobs

The celebration of Steve Jobs continues, and today's USA Today had yet another opinion piece on his greatness. As with many prior articles that have appeared in various publications since his death, this one once again quotes from the Stanford graduation speech he gave a few years ago, which is excerpted here:

• "The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it," he told students at Stanford in a commencement speech in 2005."
• "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. … Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Today's article attributed this insight to his Buddhism and the manner in which Buddhism views death. Since he seems to have embraced Buddhism, it no doubt impacted his view of the world and of life. I do have some issues with this point of view, however.

First,  Jobs' take on this is very modern, if not post-modern. He assumes that to do meaningful work requires loving that work. Unfortunately, for most of history the vast majority of people have had very little choice in their work. Constraints of education, poverty, tyrants, war, and culture have pushed most people into their work, most often just to provide the basic necessities of food and shelter. Jobs' philosophy reflects our very spoiled and privileged time and location in history, and when taken to its logical conclusion it would say that most work is not meaningful and that most people lived meaningless lives. That is quite opposite to what Christianity implies, which is that all work (assuming it is ethical and honest) can be done as an offering to God with inherent value and meaning, and all lives have inherent meaning.  If circumstances consign us to menial labor, that job can still be offered to God and provide satisfaction in doing it well. (see Eccles.2:24-25). Having choice is a great privilege and luxury, but it is not what determines meaning.

Second, Jobs' philosophy is quite counter to Christ's teaching that 'to find your life you must lose it'. Jobs' emphasis seems to be on looking inside yourself to focus on what pleases you, to find what provides 'self-fulfillment'. Christ, on the other hand, taught that we must look to God and please Him, and then whatever we do will be meaningful. The one is very self-centered, the other very God-centered.

The fundamental difference, to me, seems to be why we work: do we work to please and fulfill ourselves, or do we work to glorify God? To work in order to glorify God is certainly not to 'waste your life', as Jobs said, but it is very much like 'living someone else's life', though the 'someone else' is really the 'Someone Else'.

The Death of the Pied Piper

Steve Jobs has died. The outpouring of grief at his passing reminds me of when Princess Diana died. At this point I really should not be surprised at the cult of celebrity in our world. The current trial of Michael Jackson's personal physician has put another celebrity life into the news every day, and whenever a famous celebrity dies, such as when Liz Taylor died a few months ago, it seems to me that the media attention far exceeds the newsworthiness of the event. Despite this ongoing attention to celebrities, I still find myself at times surprised at the seemingly religious adoration that a few of them receive when they die. Princess Diana was one of those, and so is Jobs.

I found little in Jobs to admire. Clearly he was successful in business. He was also ruthless, angry, compulsively driven, and notorious for cheating his partner Wozniak in the early days. The success of the products from Apple since 2000 is unquestionable, but before his second stint at Apple the story was mostly about what might have been had he not been so stubborn, which allowed Windows(r) to dominate the 90's. He did seem to learn from his early mistakes the second time around, which resulted in much greater business success. His success as a human being seems much more in question to me.
Christianity Today recently observed in an article titled 'The Gospel of Steve Jobs' that he did preach a certain gospel. (here is a link to that article: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/januaryweb-only/gospelstevejobs.html ) His gospel is best summed up in his Stanford graduation address of a few years ago, which is quoted in the article and has been quoted endlessly in the news media the past few days. That gospel is to live your own life, don't be 'trapped by dogma',  be your own god. It is a purely secular gospel, as Christianity Today points out, and is all about self-fulfillment. In a culture that preaches that we should be our own god, even the secular long for someone to put on a pedestal for adoration.

Don't get me wrong: I take no joy at his passing. I like my iPhone, too. I just marvel at how much our culture longs for someone to idolize, and how very vividly that shows up at the death of a celebrity who has some sort of 'gospel' that he promotes. Even when his personal character is such that you would never want your children to grow up to be like him.