Jason Valendy 1/31/14 Jason Valendy 1/31/14

Is the Community the new Authority?

Recently I was invited by a friend and colleague, Rev. Ryan Kiblinger to share a bit more about my understanding of authority. In the course of writing a response to his interesting questions, a metaphor stuck me.

Over the past several centuries in the Christian tradition we have been shaped by one of the cries of the Reformation, sola scriptura - Scripture alone. Which is the belief that the Bible contains all the knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness. And so for many Protestant traditions, scripture becomes the Ultimate Authority on all things. Perhaps not summed up any better than the bumper sticker which reads, "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it."

Over the years Protestants began to place more and more emphasis on the authority of the scripture to the point that some of us elevate scripture to the point of idolizing the Bible. The Bible has held the position of privilege as the primary authority for so long that it is hard to remember there was a time when the Bible was not the Ultimate Authority in Christianity. There was a time it was the Pope. There was a time it was the Church. There was a time it was the Emperor.

Today the position of privilege the Bible has maintained is up for grabs. Not because the Bible is less True or less authoritative but that it is becoming more and more the case that the new authority is the "community".

Some are threatened by this idea that the community is becoming the privileged position of authority because there is the fear of some from of relativism. However, I want to submit the authoritative community for the Christian is not a group of people. The authoritative community for the Christian is a broad group that spans time and space. The community includes but is not limited to:

Jesus
Holy Spirit
God
Scriptures
Tradition
Reason
Experience
The Holy Spirit
Local customs and traditions
Science
The stories of the saints of the past
Current incarnation of the Church

And so, just like any community, there are times in which one member of the community might have a greater voice in one area and a diminished voice in another. This does not mean the voice is not authoritative but that the voice is in conversation with other authoritative voices and the community in order to discern Wisdom, Beauty, Grace, Justice and Truth.

This is why the Bible is not the Ultimate Authority for me. It is one member of the community of authority that guides and directs me. At times it has more weight than others, but even the Bible can be vetoed by other voices of the community (Jesus vetoed some of the way the Biblical tradition was understood).

Jason Valendy 1/29/14 Jason Valendy 1/29/14

More Jonah Greatness

In the last post I expressed how Jonah (whose name means "dove") was rejected as a sacrifice because God sent the fish to save and protect Jonah. The interpretive jump then was to the speculation that in the story of Jonah, God is rejecting the need for sacrifice all together. An idea that I am sure has been fleshed out elsewhere, but this post I want to share just another bit of Jonah greatness.

On the boat, it is clear that the sailors are looking for the cause of the violent seas. However all their searching to find the person responsible was just that - looking for someone else other. Not one sailor verbalized they may be part of the problem. All their finger pointing was to finding someone else to blame. Surely they are not part of the problem, right?

We do this. When there are "sea" of life becomes violent and out of control, we tend to be like the sailors and think that someone else must be to blame for the problems and difficult situations we find ourselves in. We tend to think that our contribution to a difficult situation is mild at best and if it were not for "the other person" life would not be so messy.

Sailors look to scapegoat others for the problems.

Which is why the actions of the king of Nineveh is so remarkable. He, and by extension the entire city, do not know why there is a pending calamity coming to their city but they all take a share of the blame. From Jonah 3:6-10

"When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: ‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.’ When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it."

The Ninevites do not look to blame others. They do not sacrifice a dove (like the sailors did at Jonah's direction). They did not look to find an alternate scapegoat. They covered themselves in ashes and sackcloth.

Nineveh looks inward and humbly accepts they might have been part of the problem.

It is my prayer that we all might be less like a sailor and more like a Ninevite.

Jason Valendy 1/27/14 Jason Valendy 1/27/14

God rejects sacrifice

Jonah is one of my favorite books of the Bible. I am proud of my religious tradition that in it's infancy it was the story of Jonah that the early Church elevated as a formative story. Not Moses. Not Isaiah. Not even the great Amos or David. It is the story of Jonah that we find carved in sarcophagus and on the walls of the early church meeting places.

Recently I re-read Jonah and lead a quick study on the book. There are many things that are worth elevating, and perhaps those will make an appearance on this site. But I want to share one insight that did not even dawn upon me until it just came out of my mouth the other night. I am sure that others smarter than me already knew this, but this insight is new to me.

Jonah's name means "dove". Which is not that interesting on the surface, but when coupled with the idea that one of the most common animals sacrificed in the temple to "appease the gods" were doves, then we have something interesting.

When the "dove" is thrown overboard and sacrificed to calm the storm, it is God who saves the "dove" from death by sending the great whale (big fish). Could it be that God is attempting to overthrow the sacrificial system?

As the story moves along, the people of Nineveh are called to repent. We might expect the people of Nineveh to sacrifice animals to avoid the pending doom. But they don't. In fact all they do is put on sackcloth and cover themselves in ashes. They don't sacrifice a dove like the sailors did.

And then, the pending doom was not to be. The great city is not destroyed.

Jonah is angry that this has happened. How could it be that God would forgive this city if they did not kill anything? How could God possibly forgive such sinners without the sacrifice of an animal (or for those who think Jesus was their sacrifice, remember Jesus was not around yet)?

The entire theological understanding of God that Jonah has is overturned. (Which may be what Jesus is trying to say when he overturns the tables that were in the temple selling sacrifices?)