Christian Ethics Today

Life Together: The Biblical Understanding of Community

William E. Hull

Life Together: The Biblical Understanding of Community By William E. Hull

[Dr. William E. Hull is University Professor at Samford University. He is a frequent contributor to Christian Ethics Today. This material was delivered as a Bible Study to the General Assembly of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, June 25, 1999.]

The most cohesive force uniting the People of God during their long journey through Scripture was a tenacious sense of community. Over the centuries their life assumed many forms: family clan, tribal confederation, national monarchy, faithful remnant, holy congregation, sectarian commune, messianic movement. They were led by patriarchs, judges, kings, priests, scribes, apostles, and elders. Often challenged by external conflict or by internal controversy, they nevertheless maintained continuity in the midst of change because of an unshakable conviction that they had been chosen and called by God.

This towering achievement despite the cruel vicissitudes of history speaks powerfully to our modern yearning for community. In the public arena, scholars such as Robert Bellah worry that American individualism may have withered a concern for the common good so important to our nation`s founders.[i] In the private sphere, such factors as restless nomadism and spiraling divorce rates have shattered community and family solidarity, resulting in what David Riesman described with poignancy as "the lonely crowd."[ii] In a day of congregational and denominational fragmentation, it is no wonder that Daniel Vestal defined one of his highest priorities for the fellowship as the nurturing of a robust sense of community. For as T. S. Eliot put it:

What life have you if you have not life together?
There is no life that ispnot in community,
And no community niit lived in praise of GOD.[iii]

When we turn to the Bible in search of the source of its remarkable solidarity, we seem to confront only bewildering diversity. There is no recommended model of connectedness, no formula for forging the blest "ties that bind." Instead, we find many different patterns, each designed to meet a fresh challenge confronting the People of God. Almost every difference within and between various religious groups today is foreshadowed in its pages. By other names we find there Charismatics and Catholics, Fundamentalists and Formalists, Apocalypticists and Accomodationists. But it is precisely in the struggle to understand this complexity that we are able to identify those options best suited for our time. So let us look at the seven major eras during which community unfolded in the dialogue of the Biblical People of God with their history, then ask how we may respond to our changing times in ways that "nurture community" among Baptists.[iv]

I. Exodus and Conquest

Our story begins in the bleakness of a "house of bondage." Despite divine assurances to Abraham and his descendants, the Israelites found themselves enslaved in Egypt, without any protection or power or promise for the future. But God intervened to deliver them from poverty and oppression. Not only did he lead them through the sea, across the wilderness, and into a land of their own, but he gave them their freedom by which, in a voluntary act of self-determination, they entered into a covenant with their Redeemer that forever shaped the character of their community. Three convictions lay at the heart of this revolutionary new relationship to God.

(1) The first was that-they owed their very existence to the divine initiative. They were a chosen people, but he was the chooser. They were celled to a new destiny, but he was the caller. Without his antecedent grace and sustaining presence they would still be helpless in the brokenness of bondage. Therefore they were to honor God as the supreme and exclusive Sovereign of life. Note how their charter, the Decalogue, begins:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of
the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
You shall have no other gods before me (Exodus 20:2-3).

This was not some theological refinement of monotheism but was a repudiation of the dominant ancient myth according to which imperial rulers such as the Egyptian Pharaoh were viewed as divine and their royal courts as the earthly counterpart of heaven. In giving allegiance only to Yahweh, Israel could not submit to any hierarchical power structure used to legitimate an earthly ruling class.

(2) Second, these emancipated slaves realized that they had been delivered, not because of any intrinsic merit on their part, but because their God was a righteous judge determined to end their unfair treatment. After groveling under Egyptian taskmasters for generations, they were permitted to see that the greatest power in the universe is on the side of the downtrodden, that the God who created order out of chaos is determined to bring peace with justice to all the earth. Because God acted in holiness to end Egyptian oppression, the beneficiaries of his intervention were to embody that holiness in their corporate life.

You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle`s wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples . . .

and you shall be to me . . . a holy nation (Exodus 19:4-6).

This is why the covenant soon became a Covenant Code with specific guidelines to regulate behavior, why the Decalogue eventually included a comprehensive list of commandments, why Torah evolved, not merely as a legalistic compendium, but as an overarching effort to norm the culture of the community by the righteousness of God.

(3) Third, the willingness of God to hear the cries of an afflicted people (Exodus 3:7-8) was an expression, not only of his holy justice, but-of his tender mercies as well (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). This meant that the community was to be characterized, not only by a stringent standard of righteousness, but by an openness and concern for all of God`s family, particularly the vulnerable such as strangers, widows, and beggars. Because all members of the community shared a common origin in the degradation of slavery, they were all equal in status. Paul Hanson has well expressed the significance of this egalitarian impulse: "A pattern of social construction thus arose in Israel that resisted the dominant one in antiquity: here was a society constructed not by the privileged and the elite, but by ordinary folk, by former slaves drawing their guidelines from the example of a God who embraced the cause of the weak against the powerful oppressor."[v]

Application: Like the Israelites of old, Baptists began as a tiny marginalized movement on the fringes of society, their religious aspirations oppressed by hierarchical structures of both church and state. Spiritually we were slaves to a Constantinian myth enforced by punishment so arbitrary and so cruel that imprisonment or even martyrdom might result. But with our Puritan forebears we went into the wilderness seeking a new land of freedom on foreign shores. Persecution continued in the colonial context until the American revolution liberated us to achieve our destiny as a free and faithful people. In gratitude we bowed the knee only to God, repudiating every form of religious "establishment." We gladly accepted the sterner disciplines of a "sectarian" morality and became noted for our evangelistic fervor in reaching the so-called "lower classes" of society. To be sure, this was a harsh and demanding era, but it was one of strength and growth which made us champions of that democratic experiment which finally shattered the elitist structures of antiquity.

But now we are in danger of forgetting the house of bondage in which we were born. Our worship in sanctuaries of affluence is far more concerned to identify us as key players in the reigning establishment than as servants of the God who is sovereign over every ideology and power structure in modern culture. Since our religious freedom is-no longer suppressed by kings or popes, we now use it to test the traditional limits of ethical permissiveness, shrugging off inherited Codes of conduct as "petty legalisms." So captive have we become to middle class culture that we, mostly, sat on out hands through the civil rights struggle and now find it hard not to act condescendingly toward three `intellectual underclass with only a high school education. Our last great generation of denominational leaders came out of abject poverty (E. Y. Mullins, George W. Truett, R. G. Lee, J. M. Dawson) and it remains to be seen whether we can survive the prosperity that engulfed us once we left behind the Egypt of our European and Colonial origins.

II. Monarchy and Prophecy

Israel`s refusal to entrust its community to the leadership of a centralized hierarchy soon put it at risk from neighboring kingdoms, especially of the Egyptians and the Philistines. Fearful of their security in a land surrounded by hostile forces, the people began to clamor for a king of their own, a move bitterly opposed by those determined to have no sovereign but God. The turning point came with Samuel, who reluctantly agreed to the compromise of a limited monarchy in which the earthly ruler would be appointed by God, his continuing rule would be conditioned on approval by God, and his successor would be chosen by God rather than by dynastic kinship. Nevertheless, the move was fraught with danger because a community founded on equality for all, including the disenfranchised, was about to take on the trappings of centralized authority and royal hubris which had corrupted the societies of surrounding nations.

Specifically, who would police the king on behalf of God to insure his compliance with the terms of limited monarchy? If, by definition, the sovereign was to rule all of the people, then who could hold him accountable for a reign of righteousness and compassion? The answer was that concurrent with the rise of monarchy came the rise of prophecy. It was precisely the role of the prophet, acting independently of all earthly authority, to measure the king against the same standards as all other members of the covenant community. This is why Samuel, the last of the judges, became the first of the prophets when Saul was installed as king. His farewell address in I Samuel 12:19-25 well summarizes the threefold mission of the prophet to unceasingly "pray for you" (v. 23), So "instruct you in the good and the right way" (v. 23), and to warn that "if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king" (v. 25).

Saul`s troubled reign, was transitional at best but, with David, the kingship was greatly strengthened both politically, in response to a dire threat posed by the Philistines, and religiously by his moves to make Jerusalem the national center both of government and of worship. The king now became the patron of a temple which served as his royal chapel where worship celebrated not only the reign of Yahweh but the reign of his son, the king, as well. Despite the freedom of the prophet Nathan to rebuke David for his affair with Bathsheba, the throne soon passed by dynastic succession to his son, Solomon, who confirmed the worst fears of those who had opposed monarchy: consolidation of power, centralized control, punitive taxation, concentration of military might in the hands of the king, stratification of society with a wealthy class at the top and a captive labor force at the bottom, pagan influences at court through multiple marriages designed to facilitate foreign policy. As the kingdom of Solomon grew in earthly glory, it became virtually indistinguishable in the minds of the people from the kingdom of God. Most significantly, God`s conditional covenant with his people was reinterpreted as an unconditional covenant with the king.

This dangerous excursion into the corridors of power, a move which collapsed the critical distance between throne and altar, resulted in a time of testing for the exodus faith of Israel. To borrow modern categories, it seemed politically risky to maintain the separation of church and state, a decentralized tribal confederation with local militia and multiple sanctuaries being no match for the monolithic strength of neighboring foes. At the same time, it proved just as religiously risky to attempt the union of church and state and thereby confuse God`s sovereign purpose to establish universal peace through righteousness and compassion with the petty intrigues that converged on an ancient oriental court. The prophets were fearless in calling the kings to account, but their efforts to penetrate a protective palace culture proved increasingly futile. It is not accidental that the record reflects a conspicuous absence of prophetic intervention during the reign of Solomon (II Chronicles 9:29).

Application: As Baptists moved from the margins of society in Europe to the center of life in America, they aspired to influence a culture beset by many foes. Immigration brought "foreign" influences increasingly into play. Industrialization created huge impersonal corporations, especially in the cities, where materialism reigned supreme; The Philistines of secularism infiltrated once godly colleges and universities with their scientific naturalism. The stronger Baptists became internally, the weaker they seemed to become as an influence in the public square. Meanwhile, ever since FDR had used government to defeat the Depression and our Axis enemies, it had grown more powerful than any agency in society, with talk of an "imperial presidency" that would have made revolutionary patriots shudder. If only we could form an alliance between church and state–informal to be sure!–that would give us enough clout to defeat the enemies all about us. A few Supreme Court appointees sympathetic to school prayers, a constitutional amendment on abortion, voucher funds for Christian schools–the politics would be messy but the results would be worth it all.

And so we began to gravitate toward the centers of power in Washington, some favoring the Carter Democrats and others favoring the Reagan Republicans. But politicians do not like divided loyalties, and soon the electronic evangelists taught us how to have (so they imagined) to have even more clout by aligning ourselves unambiguously with only one party. Before long the wall of separation was breached and the great defense of its validity by George W. Truett, delivered on the steps of the U. S. Capitol in 1920, was eventually dismissed even by his successor in Dallas. A .few prophets among us have resisted the siren song of governmental support but it is hard to hear their voices above the clamor of those who insist that, without the help of political leaders, America might be lost as a "Christian nation." Consider what an amazing anachronism James Dunn has become on the eve of his retirement as almost the only lobbyist in Washington pleading for less governmental favors for his constituency rather than for more!

III. Division and Exile

One of the deepest ironies of Israel`s history is that the nation fell apart at precisely the moment when it appeared to be most unified and powerful. Solomon had carried tire consolidation process to a point of almost total control, but no sooner did he die than his empire split into a Northern Kingdom under Jeroboam and a Southern Kingdom under Rehooam. For the next 350 years, Israel in the north and Judah in the south paid a heavy price for their misadventure into power politics. Hereditary kingship bred endless corruption at the very core of public life. Jeroboam did evil above all that were before him, provoking God utterly to consume his house "as a man burns dung until it is gone" (I Kings 14:9-11). Rehoboam led Judah to commit more sins than all their fathers had done, introducing male cultic prostitutes into the land (I Kings 14:22-24). As the Biblical text marks the end of each dynastic succession, a steady refrain is heard: "he did

evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his fathers had done" (e.g. 11 Kings 13:2; 14:24; 15:9; 15:28; 17:2; 21:2; 8 23:32; 24:9).

This institutionalization of evil at the highest levels of society called forth the classic age of Hebrew prophecy beginning with Elijah`s titanic struggle against Ahab and Jezebel. Voices such as Amos and Hosea in the North, Micah and Isaiah in the South, called the power structure to account and the people back to a God-centered religion of righteousness and compassion instead of a king-centered religion of presumption and exploitation. A few reforms were attempted, climaxed by the Deuteronomic reform under Josiah, but corruption was too entrenched for these well-meaning efforts to succeed. The old diseased body, wracked by centuries of compromise, would have to die so that a reborn community might take its place.

And die it did, first under Assyria in the north (722 B.C.), then under Babylonia in the south (586 B.C.). The land was ravaged, Jerusalem was sacked and its temple destroyed, while the nation`s leadership was deported into captivity. Jeremiah had seen the cancer of kingship and the sickness of religion so clearly that he knew a terrible calamity would overtake the community of a broken covenant. But even though it grieved him deeply, Jeremiah realized that God could use self-inflicted tragedy to give a new heart and make a new covenant with those who had forsaken him (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Once the cruel events of history confirmed the deepest forebodings of the weeping prophet, out of the abyss of exile Ezekiel seized on Jeremiah`s hope for a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:26-27) that would literally bring dry bones back from the dead (Ezekiel 37:1-14). His own contribution was to understand this happening through a restored Zadokite priesthood and a rebuilt Jerusalem Temple (Ezekiel 40-48) that would return purity to the land, an idea that was to have enormous consequences in the centuries that followed.

But it was the Isaiah of chapters 40-55 who, more than any other prophet, redefined the role of the exilic community. He dared to announce in the darkness of defeat that a new era of salvation was about to dawn (40:3), led not by earthly kings but by the Sovereign Lord (40:10, 17, 23). At the heart of this renewal was no royal entourage but a righteous remnant of the poor and needy whose mission would not be to "raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel" but to be "a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth" (49:6). Freed by political defeat from the agenda of competitive nationalism, Israel could now forsake every form of religious triumphalism and recover the dependence on divine strength which had led them as slaves out of Egypt. If only the exiles could grasp a vastly enlarged vision of God`s majesty, they would realize that they had not so much lost a narrow strip of land in Palestine as they had gained the whole world as an arena of witness!

The supreme symbol of this transformed mission was expressed in the shocking image of a servant. Four songs, in particular, described- one who was the very antithesis of kingly majesty (42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13-53:12). But notice carefully that not once do any of these poems engage in victimization, as if the servant`s humiliation were the fault of his enemies and so deserving of retribution. Nor is it the case that the servant merely personified the collective predicament of the exiles as an exercise in self-pity. No, these songs were not saying "Look how cruel are the Babylonians," or "Look how wretched are the Israelites." Rather, they depicted a servant who suffered for the suffering exiles:

Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows; . . .
He was wounded for our transgressions
he was bruised for our iniquities.
Upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,
and by his wounds we are healed (53:4-5).

What does it mean that the servant suffered for them? Had not everyone in exile already suffered more than enough? It is not sufficient to say that here, in the depths of affliction, we encounter a concept of vicarious suffering which would, in the death of Jesus centuries later, give rise to our doctrine of atonement. What the Servant Songs were saying to their own day was that there are two ways to suffer. The world`s way is to suffer in a seething bitterness that leads to vindictiveness and retaliation. Psalm 137 pictures all too vividly the feelings of those exiles who wept by the waters of Babylon:

O daughter of Babylon, you devastator!
Happy shall he be who requites you
with what you have done to us!
Happy shall he be who takes your little ones
and dashes them against the rock! (vv. 8-9)

But the prophet offered a diametrically different pedagogy of brokenness: from within their midst God would be pleased with those who deepened their agony by taking the festering enmity of the community upon themselves, who drew the sting of hostility against every foe by lodging it in their own hearts, who made themselves accursed by refusing to practice the politics of revenge. For only as Israel was thus purged of its venom would it be able to witness to every nation with glad and generous hearts.

Application: Do I need to explain to anyone here what it means for Baptists to have had their kingdom divided and to have been driven into exile? Riding the crest of a post-war religious boom, we launched Bold Mission Thrust with the most ambitious goals in all our storied history. Even Solomon in all his glory could not have surpassed that achievement if only it had come to pass. But instead, when our leaders least expected it, we suddenly found ourselves split along ideological lines which had long been tolerated until we started playing national politics. For at least two decades we tried one "reform" after another–witness the futile exertions of the so-called SBC Peace Committee–but it was all too little and too late. A few prophets tried to call us back to our founding principles, but most folks paid little attention because they were too busy choosing up sides for a fight along party lines. Now that the battle is over, and the family has been divided into winners and losers, a central question is whether we are ready and willing to learn the hard lessons of exile.

At least three responses seek to evade the key issue: (1) Some seem willing to succumb to apathy, remorse, or even despair, as if God is not great enough to overcome our-brokenness by giving a new spirit to our dry bones. (2) Others are eager to forget the past and strike out on a new course as if nothing had ever happened. (3) Yet others are itching for a chance to get even with their enemies and recapture Baptist Zion from the Babylonians. But none of these approaches faces squarely the question of the servant, namely: What shall we do with our frustration over losing institutions in which we have invested so dearly, with our indignation over having our most sacred beliefs questioned and held up to scorn, with our perplexity that so few seem to understand or to care what the issues really are? There is a great deal of talk about what we suffer from, but the servant songs ask us what we are willing to suffer for. Who among us will vicariously bear the burden of our bitterness in their own lives so that we will not visit it upon our enemies?

What Isaiah 40-55 is saying to us today is that, even after we have broken our covenant and divided our kingdom, we can still save our battered community if only we will accept the mission of being God`s light to a darkened world. All of us, on all sides of Baptist life, continue to talk as if that is our highest priority. But the prophet knew that we cannot truly proclaim God`s peace to the Gentiles if all we are doing is projecting our own internal strife on them. We need not go half-way around the world to take the light to Nigerians and Indonesians if we cannot walk in the light with charismatics and fundamentalists and liberals who live across the street. The hard truth of exile is that we cannot love all nations if we cannot love all Baptists! What, then, shall we do with the head-bashing impulses of the past twenty years? Who among us is willing to be despised by us, and lose our esteem (Isaiah 53:3) because they ask us to give up the poisons of defeat that our hearts may be purified to serve a wider world? We now have more than enough winners and losers in our fratricidal strife. What we desperately need are more suffering servants!

IV. Return and Rebuilding

We have seen thus far that the Biblical People of God sought to build community around covenant, kingship, and mission. By the time of the exile, however, the original exodus covenant had been hopelessly compromised by the disobedience of those upon whom prophetic condemnation fell. The kingship had been toppled by foreign powers with no possibility of restoration in the foreseeable future. And what of the bracing call to a worldwide mission set forth in Isaiah 40-55? The servant role proved too idealistic for a battered and broken community to implement in the harsh climate of post-exilic Palestine. Instead of fading away, however, the legacy of exilic Isaiah became a visionary tradition that went "underground" as a living option to be claimed in the future. We see it surface in writings such as Joel, Ruth, and Jonah, with their counter-cultural plea for an other-directed inclusivism that would transcend the inner-directed exclusivism of post-exilic life. Meanwhile, three alternative approaches were developed that sought to build community around a restored Temple, a living Torah, and a heavenly Triumph. We may call this the strategy of multiple responses: when shattered and helpless, try several things in the hope that at least one of them will work!

(1) Picking up on the legacy of Ezekiel, the Jews who began returning to Jerusalem reasoned thus: The monarchy is gone and our overlords, the Persians, will never let us have a king. So let us restore our worship center as the one institution in which home rule is permitted and look to its priests as our community leaders. The prophets had warned that God would allow us to be taken into captivity because of our corruption, hence our best hope for regaining divine favor is to major on purity and become a "holy nation." This was both a rational and a pragmatic response to their precarious condition as an impoverished vassal state — after all, the liturgical activities of a few priests in their pathetic rebuilt Temple would hardly concern the masters of the mighty Persian Empire. The only problem was that when the priests began to fill the political vacuum left by the fall of the king, this unleashed an internal power struggle between competing parries which resulted in the Zadokites seizing total control of the Temple and reducing the Levites to the status of minor clergy with menial duties. Unable to prevail over its enemies abroad, Israel created enemies within who could be conquered by intramural warfare that ruptured the harmony of the beleaguered community.

We need to pause over this seldom noticed partisan strife long enough to trace its consequences for the spirit of the community. Paul Hanson has expressed it well: as contending groups "focused primarily on their own partisan interests . . . in the heat of polemic, human authorities thus became confused with the ultimate authority, and Yahweh was clothed in the ideologies of the striving parties."[vi] "God was no longer revered as the universal creator and redeemer . . . but became the projection of one or the other party`s self interest. The actual nexus of-authority shifted from the nature of the God revealed in the saving events of history to the nature of the leadership claims of the individual parties …. Compassion ceased to be the open invitation extended by the community to those denied the protection of its structures and laws, and became a courtesy limited to members of one`s own party."[vii]

(2) A second strategy was to consolidate the community around allegiance to the Torah. To overcome the dissension caused by priestly squabblings, Nehemiah shrewdly capitalized upon the need of the Persians to strengthen their buffer states by rebuilding the fortifications of Jerusalem, thereby introducing a measure of order to an unstable and increasingly vulnerable situation. Within this clearly defined compound, Ezra installed the Mosaic Torah as a constitutional guide defining a dependable standard of righteousness at the center of Jewish life. Neither of these efforts was in competition with priestly reforms. Rather, the building program of Nehemiah strengthened the centralization of worship at the Jerusalem Temple and the interpretation and enforcement of the Torah by Ezra added enormous legal clout to the claims of the Zadokites (Ezra 7:25-26).

But the protectionism inherent in these measures carried with it the seeds of religious separatism that fostered withdrawal and isolation. In strengthening the security of those on the inside, Nehemiah`s walls excluded "all those of foreign descent" (Nehemiah 13:3) on the outside. Ezra`s law came to be known as a wall guarding Israel from pagan corruption. Both men strongly opposed mixed marriages with foreigners (Nehemiah 13:23-25; Ezra 9:1-3) which they countered with a doctrine of "holy seed" that made heredity an important criterion in defining the identity of an Israelite. Obviously, the more that community life was determined by pre-existing hereditary structures, and the more it was regulated by immutable laws set forth in Torah, the less likely God was to do a surprising new thing in the future.

(3) This does not mean that eschatological hope withered in the face of pragmatic necessity; rather, the vision of messianic bliss was transformed from one of bringing light to one of inflicting vengeance on the nations. God was now portrayed as a divine warrior visiting punishment on Israel`s enemies. Already the pattern appears in Ezekiel 38-39, Isaiah 24-27, and Zechariah 10-14, but nowhere more clearly than in the contrast between the erpphasis of universal salvation in the exilic Isaiah 40-55 and the picture of universal slaughter in post-exilic Isaiah 56-66 (e.g. 63:1-6; 66:15-16). All of the frustration and resentment and bitterness of the struggling community was projected on that great cosmic battle which would determine the ultimate outcome of the struggle between good and evil. Only heaven itself could finally correct the cruel inequities of earth.

Application: For Baptists, Bold Mission Thrust was a noble attempt to open the life of our religious community to everyone in the whole wide world but, like the vision of exilic Isaiah, it proved too idealistic for the pluralism that was fragmenting American culture in the uneasy aftermath of the turbulent sixties and seventies. Afraid to throw our arms around an increasingly strange world that seemed to be changing before our eyes, we did exactly what post-exilic Israel did and fell into an internecine "preacher fight" that wracked our denomination with deadly controvers. Now we meet separately as Zadokites and as Levites, but the great majority of laity on both sides of the squabble has yet to decide what we shall do about these competing clergy groups. Perhaps we need a prophet like Malachi who delivered God`s judgment on the priests of his day in words that were unspeakably harsh:

And now; O priests, this command is for you. If you will not listen, if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings . . . Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung upon your faces . . . and I will put you out of my presence (2:1-3).

Baptists began, and were until recently, predominantly a lay movement. In this century, however, the complexities of modern life have led to an increasing professionalization of the clergy which, in some ways, has served us well. But as we gradually lost confidence in our ability to engage the secular world, we not only turned to politicians for help, we also began to focus increasingly on the internal life of our churches. Laity caught up in the hectic pace of urban life, and only dimly-aware of our historic polity, began to cede power and authority to the clergy in a move that may yet prove disastrous for our denomination. It is astonishing just how close we have comeito replicating the mistakes of post-exilic Israel that left it religiously impotent for centuries. Our only hope may be to give the denomination back to the laity, if they will have it, and restore the role of the minister as pastor rather than power-broker. Let us heed the warning of God speaking through the prophet Zechariah:

. . . the people wander like sheep;
they are afflicted for want of a shepherd.
My anger is hot against the shepherds,
and I will punish the leaders;
for the Lord of hosts cares for his flocks. (10:2-3a)

V. Danger and Diversity

The three hundred year period leading up to the New Testament era is often neglected in studies of this kind because much of its key literature was not included in the Old Testament or its Apocrypha. But this is a crucial chapter in our story, not only because it was a bridge between the Testaments, or because it shaped the context of Jesus` ministry, but because it illustrates the sharply differing responses that religion can make to the threat of extinction. The Hellenistic culture diffused throughout the Mediterranean world by the conquests of Alexander the Great was forced upon Judaism by the Roman Empire, raising the danger that its distinctive way of life would disappear through assimilation into the dominant "One World" community organized around the civil religion of the Caesars. Let us focus on four strategies for survival which received definitive form during this time of acute crisis.

(1) The triumph of the Zadokite priesthood over the Levitical priesthood in the Persian period was short-lived. .With the rise of Greece, the pro-Hellenistic Tobiads began to fight with the pro-Zadokite Oniads over the high-priestly office. Then when the Maccabees temporarily repulsed Greek influence, their Hasmonean successors seized the high priesthood for themselves, even though unqualified for this office by heredity. Supporting this religious power play by the Hasmoneans were the aristocratic guardians of the status quo in Jerusalem whom we know as the Sadducees. What this rather sordid story tells us is that if clergy are given too much authority, then those with a vested interest in accommodating the established power structure will try to control them. Ironically, Israel built up a hierarchical priesthood in the post-exilic period to insure the purity of the nation under, local leadership, but this very group ended up as the most

corrupted through political infighting and the most compromised through alliances with foreign influences.

(2) Those who built community around Torah more than Temple responded to the successive crises of this turbulent era with such deep devotion that they became known as pietists, or Hasidim. In response to secularizing forces they stressed the perfection and completeness of God`s revelation from the beginning of time. This orientation to the past enabled them to achieve great stability, patience, and tolerance in the face of rapid and bewildering change. At the same time, their skilled students of Torah, called scribes, evolved an open-ended, dialogical method of interpretation which balanced fidelity to the Biblical text with adaptability to changing circumstances. Eventually their growing commentary came to be codified as Mishnah and Talmud. It possessed all of the virtues of coherence, consensus, and comprehensiveness, but lacked the spontaneity and unpredictability of the prophetic temperament which was viewed by many as too risky for so troubled a time. Nevertheless, this tradition, which we know as Pharisaism, was the one that survived in post-Biblical Judaism.

(3) Of all the secularizing pressures of these centuries, the most intense came under the Selucid ruler Antiochus Epiphanes in 168 B.C., an outrage so flagrant that Daniel described it as "the abomination of desolation" (Daniel 12:11). In response, the Maccabees resorted to guerrilla warfare that produced a measure of political independence and reawakened hopes for a Davidic messiah. When Rome crushed this effort at self-rule, terrorist groups began to spring up which eventually coalesced into a movement called the Zealots. These were popular insurrectionists who were "zealous" for the nationalistic and theocratic traditions of Israel and willing to express their convictions with a sword. By the time of Jesus, conditions under Rome had become so intolerable that this form of fanaticism gained the upper hand and, within a few decades, produced a revolt that almost destroyed the Jewish community.

(4) A final group called the Essenes is of particular interest, not only because of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, but because its community combined in new forms elements from the other three. Like the Sadducees, the Essenes were deeply committed to the centrality of the Temple; indeed, they may have included Zadokites who fled to a desert commune when Simon Maccabeus usurped the high priesthood in 140 B.C. They totally condemned the current temple cult as hopelessly corrupt and viewed themselves as the "New Temple" that would take its place. Like the Pharisees, they were strict legalists with roots in Hasidic piety Who devoted major attention to commenting on the Biblical text. The difference was that at Qumran the Teacher of Righteousness functioned as the sole authoritative interpreter of a highly selective understanding of Scripture. Like the Zealots, they were readying themselves for a Holy War between the Sons of Darkness and the Sons of Light, but they viewed this struggle in apocalyptic categories as a cosmic cataclysm in which the hosts of heaven would fight at their side.

Application: In the present academic climate which champions "multiculturalism," this great diversity of religious movements within Judaism is being interpreted positively as a "rich" expression of pluralism made possible by such virtues as tolerance and freedom. From the tenor of this discussion, one could easily infer that Baptists would somehow be strengthened if only they permitted and even encouraged a similar multiplicity of alternatives today. The problem with this ideologically-based scenario is that these four rival groups fostered deep antagonisms within Judaism that eventually reduced the community to chaos. Far from creating a lovely flower garden with variegated blooms, they became a jungle of warring factions openly competitive, critical, or even contemptuous of each other. The ability of Baptists to proliferate local church splits, or even whole new denominations, is well known, but it is a misreading of the interbiblical situation to understand its religious movements as examples of an irenic Jewish ecumenism that would support similar fragmentation within Baptist life.

This issue is of great importance for interfaith relations today. Scholars are aggressively condemning widespread "anti-Semitism" which they find in the New Testament and in groups such as Baptists who closely follow the New Testament in proclaiming salvation through Jesus Christ. One would think from following this discussion that Christians have, from the beginning, been guilty of a virulent religious prejudice of which Judaism is wholly innocent. But what is now-called "anti-Semitism" was much stronger within first century-Judaism than it ever was between first century Christians and Jews. For example, there are obvious tensions between Christians and Jews reflected in the Gospel of John, but they do not begin to compare with the outright hatred of Jews for their fellow Jews found in contemporaneous writings from Qumran. Baptists have doubtless been guilty of a_measure of anti-Semitism for which we should sincerely repent but, as with our Jewish compatriots in the first century, we have saved our harshest condemnations for our fellow Baptists!

VI: Jesus and His Disciples

We have just seen how the various religious "parties" in first century Judaism represented competing interpretations of community based primarily on different emphases drawn from the post-exilic heritage of Israel`s storied past. That understanding prepares us to view the ministry of Jesus as yet another way of calling forth the People of God in obedience to their ancestral faith. The validity of this perspective is confirmed by the evidence of the gospels that Jesus was constantly embroiled in controversy with leaders of these alternative groups over the distinctive ways in which he was building community. Therefore, let us look at four of the key underpinnings of his movement and ask how he expressed them in ways that differed strikingly from similar movements in the Judasim of his day.

(1) First and foremost was a new eschatological orientation that rejected all forms of apocalyptic speculation with their scenarios of vindication for friends and vengeance for foes. Instead, in the free prophetic spirit of Isaiah 40-55, Jesus pr4eached that God`s new age of salvation was pressing into human affairs with such disarming nearness that signs of its arrival could already be seen in his ministry. But rather than coming suddenly and catastrophically from above, God`s kingdom would come gradually and unobtrusively from within, wherever it found faith, which meant that here was an "eschatology-in-process" that had now been inaugurated but not not yet consummated. Contrary to the pessimism reflected in Sudducean pragmatism, Pharisaic pietism, Zealot militancy, and Essene belligerence, Jesus dared to believe that the tide had turned, that God was beginning to do a new thing then and there which would permit his people to claim their right full destiny.

(2) This breathtaking perspective meant that his followers were proleptically set in an eschatological context where the boundless grace of God was already offering forgiveness even to the outcasts of society. As his inaugural sermon on Nazareth indicated, Jesus had dome to offer "release to the captives" and "liberty to the oppressed" (Luke 4:18), which would be nothing less than a new exodus of slaves from their house of bondage. This radical openness to "publicans and sinners" shattered the wall of separation by which the Pharisees sought to maintain holiness through rigid observance of Torah. For Jesus, goodness could not be earned by human merit, even his own (Mark 10:18), but was the gift of God`s presence and power. Likewise, heredity was symbolized by circumcision was of no advantage, a key Jewish claim on which Jesus was completely silent. Instead, the decision of faith which he demanded shattered the solidarity of families that shared the same religious legacy (Matthew 10:35-37).

(3) In the most provocative act of his ministry, Jesus condemned the Jerusalem Temple, not in an attempt to support some rival claimant to the priesthood, but because it was not serving as a "house of prayer for all the nations" (Mark 11:17). By constructing a series of walls to regulate access to the inner sanctuary, the Jews effectively barricaded Gentiles from God and socially marginalized them in the outermost court used primarily to merchandize sacrificial animals. Prophetic hopes had pictured the Temple in the new age as the center of a worldwide pilgrimage to the mount of God, but Jesus found it to be a bastion of exclusivism controlled by a hierarchical definition of holiness. In symbolically shutting down worship even for an hour, he struck at the heart of that sacerdotalism which had been central to Jewish life since the return from exile.

(4) By insisting that the Temple existed primarily "for all the nations," Jesus was falsely accused of trying to "destroy" it (Mark 14:58), and this became the indictment that eventuated in his death (Mark 15:29). The radical openness to outsiders which had been a hallmark of Jesus` ministry from the outset included Samaritans, centurions, and Syro-Phoenicians. Not only did he offer unlimited forgiveness to the despised within Jewish society, such as publicans and sinners, but he dared to teach that loving rather than hating one`s enemies was the most God-like thing that his disciples could do (Matthew 5:43-48). Clearly the universal vision of exilic Isaiah had now been reclaimed, which is why the death which it provoked was understood by Jesus in servant categories (Mark 10:42-45). Refusing to fan the flames of Holy War being urged by neo-Maccabean zealots at his "triumphal" entry, he decided to take upon himself all of the hostilities festering in the hearts of his countrymen rather than urge them to wreak vengeance on the Romans in what he correctly discerned would be a suicidal conflict.

Application: Baptists have just been through what some consider to be a decisive battle over the Bible, testing in what sense it is the Word of God for the People of God. Unfortunately, some of the code words which became crucial in that debate, such as "inerrancy" and "infallibility" provedimpossible to define, but the consensus was that the Southern Baptist Convention ended up with a "high" view of Scripture. One major problem with that outcome is that it ignores the equally important issue of how to interpret this ancient authority. All of the competing groups in Jesus` day had the highest possible view of Scripture, but that did not prevent them

from developing convictions about community that differed drastically from one another and from Jesus. These differences did not root in any lack of devotion to their sacred writings but were based on selecting strategies from various parts of the Bible and giving them different emphases to meet the perceived challenges of that day. In other words, the difference between Jesus and his contemporaries was not so much doctrinal as it was hermeneutical.

Like Jesus, we Baptists can adopt the "realized" eschatology of the Chronicler, the "futuristic" eschatology of Daniel 7-12, or the "incipient" eschatology of Isaiah 40-55. We can emphasize the brokenness of Exodus or the holiness of Ezra. We can major on the universalism of Jonah or the particularism of Nehemiah. We can decide to be the saved remnant of Ezekiel or the saving remnant of the Suffering Servant. In a very literal sense we can be modern Jesus-people, or we can also be, as we often are, modern Sadducees, Pharisees, Zealots, or Essenes. It is not that some of these communities are "Biblical" while others are "non-Biblical," for all are based on important aspects of Scripture. Rather, we must decide, as did Jesus, which model responds most effectively to the urgencies of our time. With the dawning of the post-modern era, is this the time to be a community of yesterday or of tomorrow? With every area of public life going global, is this the time to build protective walls or to tear down restrictive barriers? With human efforts at reconciliation underway in Vietnam, Ireland, and South Africa, is this the time to harbor grudges against our enemies or to practice radical forgiveness?

VII. The Early Church

The central question dominating the final era of Biblical history was whether the followers of Jesus would be able to implement their leader`s distinctive vision of what authentic community should be. It is fair to say that, by the end of his life, Jesus was the only person on earth who embodied his deepest convictions regarding eschatological newness, radical forgiveness, universal openness, and vicarious sacrifice. Would the reality of his resurrection do for his disciples what the exodus had done for Israel and enable this community-of-one to become a worldwide movement? Would the rolling away of the stone be like the parting of the waters by which a new remnant would be delivered from the "house of bondage"? Let us trace the answers to such questions as they unfold in the experience of the early church.

(1) From the outset at Pentecost, Peter left no doubt that for the nucleus of believers a new age had dawned (Acts 2:16-17). The first Christians were essentially a messianic movement within Judaism for whom the messiah had already come in lowliness but would come again in triumph. Already they lived in the power of the promised Holy Spirit but they were still harassed by the power of sin as a retreating foe. It was as if a new order of fulfillment had established a beachhead in the midst of an old order of frustration. Paul existentialized this eschatological polarity by suggesting that Christians were now free from wrath, sin, law, anddeath even though these threats were well entrenched in the world around them (Romans 5-8). The hopefulness generated by this futuristic orientation was sorely tested by rejection and persecution but never abandoned even when its fruits seemed modest indeed. By living "as though" the form of this world was already passing away (I Corinthians 7:29-31), the early Christians were able to focus their energies on ultimate rather than penultimate concerns.

(2) If the presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers was the preeminent sign of the arrival of a new age, the forgiveness of sins even to those who had crucified Jesus was the preeminent sign of its power. For centuries, Judaism had conditioned the conversion of proselytes on circumcision, Temple sacrifice, and Torah observance, but in one. :generation the first Christians swept aside these religious requirements and offered God`s grace to Jew and Gentile alike solely by faith in Jesus Christ. This radical personalizing of redemption meant that those of every race, nationality, gender, and cultural background were equally welcome to experience, not only the forgiveness of God, but the fellowship of the community. In response to the complaint of scoffers that the intended transformation was not taking place fast enough, the early Christians replied that God was not slbw in sending his son either for the first time or the final time; rather, any apparent "delay" was really a sign of God`s patience in giving everyone as much time as possible to repent and be saved (Acts 17:30; Romans 2:4; II Peter 3:9).

(3) The religious apparatus designed to mediate forgiveness had long posed a barrier to those who were not Jews. But almost immediately after the resurrection, Stephen proclaimed that the one centralized Temple in Jerusalem had been a mistake (Acts 7:44-50). Paul took up the theme by designating each early Christian community as a true Sanctuary of God (e.g. I Corinthians 3:16-17; II Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:19-22). But believers were not only the New Temple, they were also its priests (I Peter 2:9), its sacrifice (Romans 12:1), its Jerusalem (Galatians 4:26), and its Mount Zion (Hebrews 12:22). This thoroughgoing spiritualization was designed to open worship to every person without distinction, thereby transcending the walls that made the Jewish cult unable to function as a "house of prayer for all the nations." The elimination of Temple, Torah, circumcision, and Sabbath from the center of the Christian faith in less than one generation testifies to the amazing sense of newness, forgiveness, and openness which characterized the movement from its outset.

(4) Even though God`s future was becoming present at an incredible pace, the early church still lived in tension between the "now" of a new existence and the "not yet" of a world that had crucified its Lord. During the New Testament era, two great crises tested its willingness to become a servant community in the face of overt hostility. The first was the Jewish War of A.D. 66-73, when Palestinian Christians refused the Zealot option of responding to Roman oppression with a sword. The secolid was the outbreak of persecution against Gentile Christians under emperors such as Nero and Domitian. Once again the followers of Jesus refused to retaliate, preferring to follow in Christ`s steps and "suffer patiently" than to fight a Holy War (I Peter 2:20-21). Soon the threats escalated to martyrdom but the faith held fast and the New Testament ended with an apocalypse that turned Jewish apocalyptic thought upside down. Instead of picturing a warrior God dripping with the blood and gore of Israel`s enemies (Isaiah 63:1-6), the Revelation of John describes all the hosts of heaven crying "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive . . . blessing and honor and glory and might for ever and ever!" (5:12-13).

Application: Baptists have long sought to embody the essential characteristics of the New Testament church in their corporate life. Now we see that this involves both accepting and rejecting different patterns of community presented to us in Scripture. But which options shall we choose? Christ is the Lord of Scripture and thus his choices are to guide our own. That is exactly the way in which his first followers formed the apostolic church, by building the same kind of community that Jesus had embodied during his ministry on earth. This selectivity does not mean that we pick what we prefer in Scripture and ignore the rest, but rather that we try to fashion a community so compatible with the intention of Jesus that it is worthy to be called "the body of Christ."

How may we describe the core characteristics of such a community? It is one that opts for newness over sameness, that strives for fulfillment rather than predictability, that faces the magnitude of evil with quiet confidence rather than failure of nerve. It is a community that lives on tiptoe, its nose pressed against the window-pane of the future, God`s avant-garde in a world of tired traditions and empty routines. It is a community more interested in providing pardon for sinners than protection for saints, a relational arena where grace overcomes not only divine alienation but human estrangement as well. Such a place is safe haven for the vulnerable, the forgotten and oppressed, a place where dignity is restored to the beaten and humility is offered to the proud. Free from political entanglements, it is a community that welcomes those of every nationality and ideology, a body that honors and yet transcends all of our earthly inheritances and affiliations. Where hostilities fester, it forgives enemies and seeks to affirm the essential humanity in every person. In a phrase, it is a company of the Jesus-people, those who give contemporary expression to his mind and heart and spirit. That is the "community" that we as Baptists are called to "nourish" in our day.

Endnotes

——————————————————————————–

[i] Robert N. Bellah and others, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).

[ii] David Riesman, Nathan Glazer and Reuel Denney, The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950).

[iii] T. S. Eliot, "Choruses from `The Rock,"` part II, in The Complete Poems and Plays: 1909-1950 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1971), p. 101.

[iv] The Biblical analysis represents a summary and abridgment of Paul D. Hanson, The People Called: The Growth of Community in the Bible (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986). All applications to Baptist life are my own suggestions and fall outside the framework traced by Hanson.

[v]Hanson, p. 66.

[vi] Hanson, p. 267.

[vii] Hanson, p. 259.

Share on Facebook
Tweet
Follow us
Exit mobile version