Sarx

Second in the 2009 series on the Great O Antiphons. The complete text of the Antiphons is here, and a meta-post listing all the meditations is here.

 Adonai, et Dux domus Israel, qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.

 Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.

That was Jesus on Sinai?

For all of my life, I’ve been taught to think of sound as a wave, traveling through space. Of late, there seems to be a new discussion forming, suggesting that we think of sound, rather, as a bubble. I don’t know enough about the materials yet, but what little I’ve read seems to underscore that this is not a huge difference in reality, but rather a conceptual evolution: a wave is two-dimensional, a mathematical depiction existing on paper in discussions, whilst a bubble is simply that same reality in three dimensions. But, still, the concept seems revolutionary to me because while sound does, certainly, travel in three dimensions, I never thought about it doing so. And I never managed to visualise it as such. It’s a new way to think about sound: to remember that our universe is three (or more) dimensions and, of course, sound must travel in all of them. This evolution of thought creates a fuller picture while, at the same time, seeming to be so revolutionary as to create a new picture as well.

The Christian reading of OT texts is the same.

To gain a sense of the traditional Christian reading of the ancient Jewish Scriptures, it’s important to understand that any “appearance” of God in the text is understood as being indicative of the presence of the Second Person of the Trinity. God the Father is the still point at the centre, the unknown silence, the Mystery, from whom arises action in the persons of his Son, the Only Begotten, and the All-Holy, Good and Life-giving Holy Spirit. In traditional Christian reading,ho willed to make Israel Free: God the Father; who did it, God the Son; who moved before the people in the pillar or settled on the Tabernacle in fiery presence, God the Holy Spirit.

So, likewise, when God spoke to Moses in the Burning Bush, that was God the Son. And when God carved the Tablets of the Law, that, too, was God the Son. And When God showed Moses his backside (for no one can see my face and live) that was God the Son…

It trips up people not used to holding this mindset (both inside and outside the church). I remember talking to a friend about the opening lines of Psalm 1, sung at Vespers on every Saturday:

Happy indeed is the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked, nor lingers along the path of sinners, nor sits in the company of cynics, but who delights in the law of the Lord, and ponders his law day and night. He is like a tree planted near flowing waters, yielding fruit in due season, whose foliage never withers or fades. All that he does succeeds.

In the reading of the church, these verses point prophetically to Jesus. In fact, the entire Psalter is seen as pointing to Jesus. Which is why the Psalms are not read during Bright Week: the prophecy has been fulfilled.

My friend (a priest) said she could prove from within her scholarly tradition that these verses have nothing to do with Jesus. That is not a conversation we have had as of this writing, but while I doubt not at all that she has a convincing argument, without the living voice of the writer here, present, to tell us what he meant when he wrote it, these words – like all words – mean what we say they mean.

That’s what I want to hit at on this meditation…

The text is two dimensional. How we read it out requires more than just the text.

This is true of Judaism as well as Christianity and we do harm, damage, almost murder, to both traditions when we attempt to “prove” something by the text, alone.

That was Jesus on Sinai?

Each community has its moments of revelation that seem to define the meaning of the text, but, in reality, it is the community’s tradition of reading the text that makes the final definition.

For Judaism, simply, it is said that here, on Sinai, when God gave the written text of the covenant, he also gave to Moses the unwritten text of the tradition so that no Rabbinical evolution from that text is seen as “new”, but rather simply “only now unfolded” from among the complex meanings of the words and writing of “black fire on white fire”. The traditional understanding of Christians is likewise: for at several points in the post-Easter readings, Jesus is said to “reveal the meanings of the scriptures” to his followers. So, for us, too, nothing here is seen as “new” but rather simply “previously unknown.”

That was Jesus on Sinai?

By way of caveat, I do not posit that one way of reading the scriptures is “right” and the other “wrong”, that one is “newly-revealed” and the other is “superseded”. I only want to point out that they are different ways. Two different communities have the same text and while one community can be said in one way to have produced that text, both communities are equally removed from the culture, the mindset and the history of the writers. Both communities are struggling with certain preconceptions, certain biases, certain historical realities (including persecution, oppression, and death, often at the hands of each other, and sometimes from outsiders). We do grave harm to the understanding of the text if we try to “fix” one reading with the other (although each can provide enlightenment for the other, I think). But we do a graver harm to the text if we remove all of the external voices and attempt to read the text in a vacuum and pretend there is meaning therein. Sola Scriptura is the onanism of theology: single handed and without fertility.

Likewise we do harm, as well, trying to dig to the “real” meaning of the text. I’m sure my friend’s scholarship could easily divest the Psalter of several traditional Jewish readings as well.

Having divested the text of any “outside” meanings, we’ve lost both the white fire and the black fire. We’re left only with some words on paper, boring, ancient and pointless, speaking to us from a distant past with no more (or no less) clarity than Plato or Confucious. Being left with only the text, we can toss it out as do Jack Spong and his ilk. Dead words are only useless, meaningless, ancient weight.

Today is the Eve of one of the Twelve Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church Year, the feast of the Presentation of the Theotokos in the Temple. The story is that at a very young age, the child, Mary, was brought to the Temple by her parents where she was received by the High Priest, her cousin, Zacharias. During the “greeting ceremony”, the young virgin ran up the steps of the temple and through the doors and thence behind the curtain into the Holy of Holies. There she staid, fed by angels and contemplating God, until the time came for her to be betrothed to Joseph.

If you know anything about Judaism, there’s a number of things wrong with this story. If you know anything about the New Testament, too, there’s a number of things wrong with this story.

But only if you’re forcing yourself to see the text and imagine that the dead word are all there is…

That was Jesus on Sinai.