A Puppet of language?

Two days ago we had that rather stark reading from  1 Timothy 6 urging the readers who were enslaved to obey their masters. The Timothy epistles are, of course, on the list of not-so-sure-its-Paul. But from this text ,as from the texts on women in Ephesians and Colossians, and the Romans and other texts apparently about human sexuality are we to draw moral absolutes? Obviously not in the case of slavery - but that line between historically and socially governed suggestion and what is always true seems to slide around in different hands.
For every text which appears to be any sort of absolute (and remember that a couple of hundred years ago in this country, and more recently elsewhere this Timothy text was used in the same battering way) when it comes to gender and sexuality there is a perfectly sensible argument which says - look at the situation, look through the eyes of the original readers and you will see what the writer is talking about - and this creeping conformity when the pen passes from the hand of Paul to his followers in the later Epistles includes a greater social conservatism in the widest sense of that word - do not upset the order or we will be squashed like flies by might Rome seems to be the clear message.
There are well rehearsed arguments for all the passages in the Epistles about women and about sexuality - I can rant as well as anyone although I am starting to find having the Bible quoted at me rather naive and irritating. This is because I too can turn up at Church debates with a Bible and I can counter quote and what does this achieve - really? To use the Word of God as a weapon - and against each other - when all of us, if we a honest, are just trying to follow Christ as best we can.
Do I accept the Holy Scriptures as revealing all things necessary for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ ( and there is a clever piece of theology from the Ordinal) - yes, absolutely. Do I think that the Word of God, the Bible, is the most amazing and liberating message ever - of course. Do I think that somehow God is the sum of all the words in the book - no - that would be to make God a simple puppet of language - and yet that is what we so often do - we parade our words, or someone's words, spoken centuries ago and say - this is God. No, I am sorry, but that is blasphemy.
I can only experience the God revealed in words through the Word, through faith and life and prayer. That God, that complete and utter God, that shocking and demanding God is revealed in incarnation - in a man, Jesus, who did not placate, who knew his place and time,yes; who showed patience and resilience, yes; but who ultimately chose a path which was to only conform to God's way and not that of humanity.
And this God, this God who speaks to people, who comes to all of us, more than anything this is a God of Compassion, of quiet conversation. God may be our shield and protector but when we start holding the Bible out in front of us in that same way we are heading in the wrong direction. Can we quote words of love when our hearts are set on the demise of another, or at least their point of view?
This is all so hard. We struggle for inclusion and praxis, we struggle to understand. We are angry. We are hurt. But God is never at our whim and His Word never reduced to writing on a sheet.

Confusing Paul - Romans 6

When you mention Paul's Letter to the Romans people have the same sorts of range of reaction – that's complicated, or I never understood that one, it is hard to read and very rarely – oh I love Romans.

In some senses, Romans is the easiest of the letters, after all we are not deciphering such complex cultural and local inferences as we are in, say, 1 Corinthians. Romans is more pure theology but as such it hits head on two problems which Paul faces throughout his ministry.

Firstly, Paul struggles all the time against the impossibility of ever finding adequate words to express his experience of Jesus Christ. It is at the centre of who is is that he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus and has carried that experience with him. His view of Christ is one who is so glorious and so awesome that all creation must, if it has any sense at all, turn to Him. Paul ties himself up in knots in Romans trying to make sense of his experience in words and every so often it is as if the bonds which tie him loosen and he comes out with pure poetry – if you only ever read one chapter of Romans, read Romans 8 and find, shining out from the twisting theology these moments where Paul simply lets go and breaks forth – God is God, he proclaims, and how could things be otherwise, and how could we not trust God to be God.

Secondly Paul is struggling against an unseen enemy. This is more obvious in Philippians where he launches a vicious attack on Jewish missionaries, Christians, but Christians who are insisting that the only way for a Gentile to be saved by Jesus is for that person to be circumcised. We know that there was a pervasive and persuasive party within early Christianity who would have held this line – who moved around the Diaspora preaching Christ but preaching Christ with traditional Jewish rules and regulations. Peter and Paul had not long since reconciled over this matter, with Paul's view that Jesus alone, without the Jewish accoutrements, was enough.

Paul was well educated in both Jewish and classical thought. He was educated in Greek to a high standard and, no doubt, could have had a promising career ahead of him in the Jewish world. It is his very capability in theology which produces such a complicated book as he darts down alleys and byways of thought and then appears again only to start down another. But his thrust is the same – Jesus is Lord and that is enough.

Romans 6 follows some lengthy arguments about faith and Judaism and how it all fits together. Romans is a book which should be read as a unity if possible for whilst there are nuggets to be picked out there is also a comprehension of what Paul is saying which can only come from reading the whole book.

This passage falls into three sections – first present yourselves to God and not to sin. That we are slaves of God and not of sin and whilst sin presents us with wages the righteousness which we receive from God is always a free gift.

First then, present yourselves to God. Paul sees coming to Christ as a complete and dramatic shift in a persons life. His language is reminiscent of that of the presentation of sacrifices in the Temple. Remember 1 Peter – present you bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable to God. Paul talks about the idea of dying to sin but this is not about switching off a small part of ourselves – the part which does bad things sometimes – it is about moving out whole selves into a different presence – into the world in which Christ reigns. For Paul conversion is not a trimming around the edges but a total paradigm shift.

Some people use Paul's mention of slavery as a sort of proof text that he somehow endorsed it. But there is nothing to say that he did any such thing – he is simply using a social norm – much as a Victorian writer might praise a woman for keeping a clean house or laud the Empire. Paul certainly steps outside his social norm when in Galatians he says there is neither male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free—all are one under Christ. But whatever Paul's views were on slavery, we know that the society in which he lived as rigidly structured – people were used to having other people in charge of them on one level or another. And so he talks into that structure and definition.

The Law, says Paul is one boss, this new way of living in Christ is another. It is not that there are no rules without the law but rather that the rules have a different focus and that that focus is a life of mercy and grace under Christ and not rules which seem to have an end in themselves and derive their validity from their own keeping. Move master, says Paul. Instead of fighting to keep lots of rules and finding definition in them, be a slave of Grace , of Christ.

And then Paul talks about wages. Most of us have, I am sure, seen a billboard or poster at some time with this famous line plastered on it – the wages of sin is death. When it is taken in isolation like that it sounds as though its corollary is going to be the wages of good behaviour is life – meaning that it is up to us, by our action, to choose life or death – but that is not what Paul says, what he says is that eternal life is the free gift of God – not that we have to bludgeon our way in by kind acts - but that is already given.

Imagine that – Jesus has already done the work, broken death and flung the door right open for us.

Paul talks a lot about freedom in Romans – he offers, if you like, a new slavery – not one of oppression and violence but one which bases itself in our free acceptance of the love of God in Christ Jesus. Just because the long list of rules and regulations are gone does not mean that we live in a free for all world, living in and with Christ should so profoundly influence everything we are and do that we truly taste eternity in the here and now.

I think the hymn writer sums it up well

Now is eternal life, if risen with Christ we stand

In him to life reborn and holden in his hand

No more we fear deaths ancient dread

In Christ arisen from the dead.