And about those nails
Posted on 13 Feb 2007
If you’ve seen Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ” you have no trouble recalling the surreal scene in which the angel tells Jesus that God is pleased with him, and he doesn’t have to go through with the early death. She pulls the nails out and they leave behind the cross and mayhem, unnoticed. It is stunning. Now I am not wondering if the Gospels tell the account of Christ’s death incorrectly, and that perhaps Christ married and lived to a ripe old age–as the film goes. However, the scene made me wonder how the Crucifixion story–with all its violence–has shaped my faith and specifically, my perception of love. Somehow, God setup our Atonement through unbelievable violence and injustice. God loves me because he came down and suffered death and separation from himself. God endured much in the name of love. I am not sure I actually live like this because I hardly endure much, nor can I conceive the ultimate love, which is to live with my life on the line (really, how does one do that from day-to-day). But I have come to realize that my version of love echoes with violence, which doesn’t sit well with me. Violence and love, not the pair I thought them to be. To love is to do what one does not wish to do, in other words.
&allthistalkofgettingold
“The Drugs Don’t Work” by The Verve
cris
16 Feb 2007 (01:48)
you know, i can actually hear you say “stunning” in the way it is written there in your second sentence.
Thanks for coming by the other night and your kind words about our parenting even tho it was kinda nuts there at the end.
Keep writing your thoughts. They are good ones. I’ve run into no greater personal sacrifice than loving a newborn (loss of sleep, no smiles or thank you’s back, etc) and yet…and yet…I am wretched at loving my enemy. No, not even my enemy. I am wretched at loving the person I just don’t hit it off with or that I think differently from or that I don’t like very much. Where am I willing to suffer in order to love?
There’s a great chapter in one of the books i had to read for Theology in the fall about violence and love and the focus on violence in our concept of redemption. Your words are making want to go back and look at it again cause it stirred some things in me I’d never thought of before.
Greg
16 Feb 2007 (05:03)
As a member of the friendly opposition, I must ask you: when you face these contradictions, could you consider simply abandoning any attachment you have to the authority of your scripture? How do you feel about the possibility that the God whom you know in your heart has very little, if anything, to do with the story that has been presented to you via printed words and the layered attempts of others to find meaning in them?
Just wonderin’….
LP
25 Feb 2007 (01:56)
so, by your definition of love, you should keep on leading us into worship, inspite of the fact that you feel like you’re being fake or doing it for yourself, because it’s for us/God, not for you.
how do you expect to feel motivated to lead worship? i guess God gave you talents and those should be appreciated, because God appreciates them. so, i don’t really get what’s wrong with you enjoying someone saying “good job”, because isn’t that what we’re all suposed to be living for? God telling us “good job” at the end of everything? so what’s the difference between God’s ultimate “good job” and the people God uses to say it to us now?
sorry, this is sort of comment to the last several posts, but anyway…
amanda
25 Feb 2007 (17:32)
these are intriguing thoughts…thanks for sharing them.