A Reflection for Monday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Bizarre Time
If I needed a reminder of how astonishingly removed from us the biblical times really are, today’s Scripture readings will do. The difficulties these texts pose make me feel like I actually have entered a disorienting time warp. To my twenty-first century self, little in these texts is sensible; the world they disclose is so different from what I do know and value. Let’s be honest: It takes work to not be offended and feel like I just don’t wish to read biblical texts like these anymore. It’s also tempting to have the alternative response and picture that uncritical acceptance is in some way what faith requires.
In the primary response I dismiss the texts off-hand. Within the second I could appear to just accept but in addition ultimately dismiss these writings. In each instances I actually have allowed these texts to turn into just a lot “church speak.” Yes, they’re there, but I don’t actually need to hassle with them. Whether as a voice I reject, or one I accept, the difficult wrestling each generation must undertake with the intricate library of texts we call the Bible (written in a thoroughly alien and ancient society!) has been thwarted. In literary criticism there’s a helpful concept called “defamiliarization.” It implies that by purposefully complicating day by day life (think concerning the writings of the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins), what may otherwise pass unnoticed claims our attention. Read Pied Beauty after which go outside at sunset.
The brokenness of our humanity cries out to God. How will we answer it?
So how is defamiliarization a technique that may also help us struggle productively with today’s readings? We first have to avoid taking refuge within the familiar, and as a substitute face what’s difficult. After we turn away from the section on the Eucharist and as a substitute see what takes up most of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, we must always be shocked. Removed from an idyllic past where the Christian community lives in harmony, what Paul writes of divisions and bitter polarization. Paul even seems to suggest that it’s good to have these factions exposed; then those “who’re approved” will be identified. There’s something about this that’s deeply troubling, and that may remind us of the bullying and shaming of others by opposing sides that dominates today’s social media environment. Paul’s letter reveals how quickly we descend into tribalism. The notion that “I’m all the time right and you might be all the time mistaken” replaces dialogue and, as we will see on this letter, nearly destroyed a community called to oneness in Christ Jesus. Will it finish us now?
Similarly, today’s story from the Gospel of Luke should jolt us. The traditional practice of ownership over others who were treated as non-persons erupts out of this reading to confront us. The person Jesus is asked to heal is a slave, and the one reason given for why this unnamed slave ought to be saved is due to what’s owed to the centurion. If we situate ourselves of their time attentive to our uneasiness, we will imagine life for the Jewish population. Just keep the Romans completely happy so they may allow us to live. In Capernaum, Jesus is near his hometown; these are his people. Does Jesus must make nice with the powerful because the opposite alternative would unleash violence upon his community? How long can he do that? As we all know, eventually Jesus will stop making nice, his friends will go into hiding and it is going to cost him his life. Today’s readings make us aware that divisions and dehumanization were rampant in the traditional world from which our religious tradition arises. Feeling the sting of such a brutal and removed from perfect world can connect us higher to our kinship with our ancestors in the religion and with Jesus, who eventually faced down the darkness because God’s heart was breaking.
The brokenness of our humanity cries out to God. How will we answer it?
