2 Timothy 3:16

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in justice.

Many trying to figure out just what Scripture is understandably plant their feet here. But a bit strangely, they then turn to formal definitions of the qualities of Scripture: as inerrant, infallible, perspicuous, etc. For instance, the “Chicago Statement” states, “the Bible expresses God's truth in propositional statements, and we declare that biblical truth is both objective and absolute,” (VI) and, “the meaning expressed in each biblical text is single, definite and fixed” (VII). This seems awfully far from the full context in which Paul is writing. Paul is imprisoned in Rome, and, as he appears to understand, is about to be martyred. To Timothy he writes:

You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in justice, so that all God's people may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:10-17)

Paul is about to die and writes with great heart and urgency to one of his closest workers. Paul attempts to persuade Timothy to remain loyal to their common cause of the gospel in the middle of suffering and to “continue in what he has learned” from “the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation.” But right here, Paul inserts an important clause: “because you know those from whom you learned it.” The Scriptures are always given to the Church, to “all God's people,” making wise and being useful for those who continue in witnessing to the gospel together. This is no individual mission. We always receive the Scriptures' true teaching in the company of those called likewise to a faithful witness to the gospel with the whole of our lives.

Finally, there is the question of what exactly “God-breathed” means. For all the finagling over definitions, the resonances with creation should have been obvious: “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). The Scriptures are about something far more serious than truth and error, especially in any narrow sense—they're about life and death. But they're only about life and death because they point always with outstretched finger to the crucified God in whom alone is the breath of being carried up into resurrection even beyond the cruelty of death, particularly death on a cross. So:

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. (2 Timothy 4:1-2)

Evangelicals and Catholics on the Virgin Mary

The ecumenical group, “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” have recently released a joint statement on the Virgin Mary, called “Do Whatever He Tells You,” a quote from the Cana wedding in John 2. Certainly a statement from evangelicals and Catholics on the Virgin Mary would say some interesting things, like this from the Catholics:

In drawing closer to Mary, we are drawn closer to Christ, for the entirety of her being is devoted to Christ, and her one will for his disciples is “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). Devotion to Mary, the fully redeemed creature, is directed to the adoration of Christ, true God and true man.

And this from the evangelicals:

For Luther, Mary is the workshop (fabrica) in which God operates to bring about the salvation of the world. Mary is the person and place where God has chosen to enter most deeply into the human story. She is the one who hears the Word of God (fides ex auditu), the one who responds in faith and thus is justified by faith alone (WA 7, 573). The Reformed tradition is more reticent, yet both Zwingli and Bullinger joined in the “Hail Mary, full of grace” not as a prayer to Mary but as an expression of praise in honour of her. Calvin too referred to Mary as “the treasurer of grace” and spoke of how Christ “chose for himself the virgin’s womb as a temple in which to dwell” (Institutes 2.14.1).

A hopeful sign, certainly.

Rowan Williams on Noah and the Environment

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, recently gave an address on environmental justice and the urgent need for a recovery of human self-understanding: as called to connection with the material world and responsibility for its future. Beginning with a reflection on the story of Noah, he travels “some way from Mount Ararat” to the current ecological crisis and offers some incisive criticism. Here's a snippet:

So we must begin by recognising that our ecological crisis is part of a crisis of what we understand by our humanity; it is part of a general process of losing our 'feel' for what is appropriately human, a loss that has been going on for some centuries and which some cultures and economies have been energetically exporting to the whole world. It is a loss that manifests itself in a variety of ways. It has to do with the erosion of rhythms in work and leisure, so that the old pattern of working days interrupted by a day of rest has been dangerously undermined; a loss of patience with the passing of time so that speed of communication has become a good in itself; a loss of patience which shows itself in the lack of respect and attention for the very old and the very young, and a fear in many quarters of the ageing process – a loss of the ability to accept that living as a material body in a material world is a risky thing.

Hauerwas on the Lord's Prayer

But the disciples also pray that what the Father has willed in his Son will be done over the whole earth. To pray that God's will be done is to pray that our wills be schooled to desire that God's will be done. Our wills, the will of the world, will nail Jesus to the cross. But God defeated our willfulness, making it possible for us to pray that God's will be done on earth.

That is why we should not ask for more than our daily bread. Only on the basis of the work of Christ is it possible for us to ask for no more than our daily bread. Just as God supplied Israel daily with bread in the wilderness, so followers of Jesus have been given all they need in order to learn to depend on one another on a daily basis. Without the community that Jesus has called into existence, we are tempted to hoard, to store up resources, in a vain effort to insure safety and security. Of course our effort to live without risk not only results in injustice, but it also makes our own lives anxious, fearing that we never have enough (Matt. 6:19-21). In truth, we can never have enough if what we want is the bread that the devil offered Jesus. But Jesus is good news to the poor (11:4), for he has brought into existence a people who ask for no more than their daily bread. (Matthew, 78).

Palpation

round the cusp of the world
with delicate and nimble tosses
tapped into play
come youthful joy, one smile
and leaves released from hangers

the singular slowness
excitable yet reticent
of being
awash in tendered embraces
the titillation of seed

new sprung une pauvre, grinding
clothes in water dirt
filtering a dialect as close
and ancient as the breast
profferred to her ragged beloved

whose untoothed mother bears
yet the titanic sword of history
commiserator with branch and quetzal
and land brimming
with lust against death

squatting to the new day
a lean-to of avid Father
donor of quizzical charity
and receiver back of Son
once marooned:

as it was in the beginning
so it is now
and so it evermore shall be
world without end
hallelujah
amen

Sonorous Folds

votive flowers—
this one blooming, that one now folding—
diminutives of the divine glory

children romping
(four and eight years now)
laughing in arabic

and i becoming,
fully and finally,
a body.