the transcendence and tragedy of analogy: what's a meta for?

I am enjoying Hoftstader's  new book (with Emmanuel Sander) "Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking," though it seems none of his late-career books will top/topple the Pulitzer-winning Gödel, Escher, Bach,( This review even offers an analogy/metaphor about why this book about analogy isn't quite as classic as some of his others..Touché!)

Video previews below.

Amazon blurb:

Analogy is the core of all thinking.
This is the simple but unorthodox premise that Pulitzer Prize–winning author Douglas Hofstadter and French psychologist Emmanuel Sander defend in their new work. Hofstadter has been grappling with the mysteries of human thought for over thirty years. Now, with his trademark wit and special talent for making complex ideas vivid, he has partnered with Sander to put forth a highly novel perspective on cognition.

We are constantly faced with a swirling and intermingling multitude of ill-defined situations. Our brain’s job is to try to make sense of this unpredictable, swarming chaos of stimuli. How does it do so? The ceaseless hail of input triggers analogies galore, helping us to pinpoint the essence of what is going on. Often this means the spontaneous evocation of words, sometimes idioms, sometimes the triggering of nameless, long-buried memories.
Why did two-year-old Camille proudly exclaim, “I undressed the banana!”? Why do people who hear a story often blurt out, “Exactly the same thing happened to me!” when it was a completely different event? How do we recognize an aggressive driver from a split-second glance in our rearview mirror? What in a friend’s remark triggers the offhand reply, “That’s just sour grapes”? What did Albert Einstein see that made him suspect that light consists of particles when a century of research had driven the final nail in the coffin of that long-dead idea?

The answer to all these questions, of course, is analogy-making—the meat and potatoes, the heart and soul, the fuel and fire, the gist and the crux, the lifeblood and the wellsprings of thought. Analogy-making, far from happening at rare intervals, occurs at all moments, defining thinking from top to toe, from the tiniest and most fleeting thoughts to the most creative scientific insights.

Like Gödel, Escher, Bach before it, Surfaces and Essences will profoundly enrich our understanding of our own minds. By plunging the reader into an extraordinary variety of colorful situations involving language, thought, and memory, by revealing bit by bit the constantly churning cognitive mechanisms normally completely hidden from view, and by discovering in them one central, invariant core—the incessant, unconscious quest for strong analogical links to past experiences—this book puts forth a radical and deeply surprising new vision of the act of thinking.

Also on the primacy of analogy/metaphor, I am  rereading of Eugene Peterson's "Eat This Book," where  he can talk about metaphor being simultaneously so holy that it “signals transcendence an encounter with the One who speaks everything into being’ (98), and also call it “literally a lie” (94)

I remember Cytowic's conclusion the brain only thinks in/as/by/through.to metaphor.

see also:

holy heteroclite:: St Mike Nesmith on genius and madness

.

holy heteroclite:: holy blending...just do it

holy heteroclite:: meaningless (?) metaphors

 ...

holy heteroclite:: What's a meta for? metaphor creates ...

holy heteroclite:: Music as Metaphor for Emotion

Book Trailer
:

"Kingdom, grace, judgment: paradox, outrage, and vindication"

 interested in an
  amazing, creative,
 hilarious, provocative,
 profound
book on the parables? test-drive
"Kingdom, grace, judgment: paradox, outrage, and vindication in the parables of Jesus"
by Robert Farrar Capon:
Pages 1-32 strongly recommended, SCROLL DOWN:



....or hear his podcast on The Prodigal Son here.

The Missing Fourth Parable of Luke 15

The Missing Fourth Parable of Luke 15

meaningless (?) metaphors

Click here for meaningless (?) metaphors

What's a meta for? metaphor creates meaning; and is not just for optional illustration

Kenneth Bailey:
At least since the fifth century B.C., and the great days of classical Greece, the Western mind has done its serious thinking in concepts. In most forms of discourse, we from the West begin with an idea and then occasionally illustrate that idea with a simile, metaphor, or parable.

The conceptual language is primary and the metaphor or parable is secondary. The first is critical, the second is optional. If the listener/reader is intelligent enough, the speaker/writer may dispense with illustrations. For indeed the story is presented only to clarify the meaning of the concept. If people are able to catch that meaning without using up time with illustrations, so much the better.
 

The illustration is useful for simplification, the Western mind thinks. It aids memory. It assists in adding emotional coloration and in catching and holding attention. But through all of this, the pictorial remains a secondary form of speech. The concept continues as the primary form of theological language.
 

A theological discourse is created by attaching one concept to another by means of logic. Philosophy then provides an overall structure for the material. This has been the primary Greco-Roman form of theological discourse and thereby the dominant Western form. It has been in use for centuries.

But there is another way to “do theology.” Middle Eastern creators of meaning do not offer a concept and then illustrate (or choose not to illustrate) with a metaphor or parable. For them the equation is reversed.
Rather than
 

concept + illustration
 

the Middle Easterner offers
 

parable + conceptual interpretation.
 

The Middle Eastern mind creates meaning by the use of simile, metaphor, proverb, parable, and dramatic action. The person involved is not illustrating a concept but is rather creating meaning by reference to something concrete.
 

The primary language is that of the metaphor/parable and the secondary language is the conceptual interpretation of the metaphor that in Biblical literature is often given with it.

[An] example of this structure is in the well-known text of Isaiah 53:7-8:
 

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth, INJUSTICE/ SILENCE

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, PARABLE

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, PARABLE

so he did not open his mouth SILENCE

By a perversion of justice he was taken away. INJUSTICE
 

The parable appears in the center and is encased with concepts that direct any reflection on the parable’s meaning. The meaning is created by metaphor. At the same time the metaphor, as it were, “cries out” for conceptual interpretation which appears in the text as a frame set around the metaphor. Thus concepts appear with the parable in Biblical literature and are not strangers to it (cf. also Isaiah 5:1-7).
 

Second, clearly the metaphorical language is the primarylanguage which creates the meaning set forth in the discourse. The metaphor says more than the conceptual frame. The conceptual interpretive language is important yet secondary. The reader of Is. 53:7-8 knows that the lamb is unjustly treated and that it is silent. Thoughtful contemplation on this “parable of the lamb before its killer and shearer” has for centuries taken readers into great depths of meaning that reach far beyond the interpretation that encases the parable.
 

The concepts that surround the Biblical metaphors (as can be seen in the above texts) catch only a part of the meaning of the metaphor. Yes, the servant of God is unjustly treated. Yes, he is silent. But the picture of the lamb standing mute before the butcher or shearer creates far more meaning than the concepts which surround it.   Finding the Lost Cultural Keys to Luke 15

Michael Frost: "Jesus the Jester"

"without a parable": Jesus and physics

"Without a parable, Jesus  spoke not to the multitudes" - Matthew 13

"Without a parable, modern physics speaks not to the multitudes" -C.S. Lewis
 (from the epilogue of "The Discarded Image")
----------

Found in John D. Barrow's "Between Inner Space and Outer Space," p.207

the pope of physics: Francis on "Time is greater than space"

In a section  of his  "The Joy of the Gospel" (APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION
EVANGELII GAUDIUM) called
The common good and peace in society,

Rock star Pope Francis covers four "greater than"s:

• Time is greater than space 
• Unity prevails over conflict  
• Realities are more important than ideas  
• The whole is greater than the part 

It's the time/space item I want to repost here, though do read the whole section to get the flow.
Some helpful connections between the pope's comments and Russian filmaker's  

Tarkovsky's thoughts  here.

Francis:

Time is greater than space

222. A constant tension exists between fullness and limitation. Fullness evokes the desire for complete possession, while limitation is a wall set before us. Broadly speaking, “time” has to do with fullness as an expression of the horizon which constantly opens before us, while each individual moment has to do with limitation as an expression of enclosure. People live poised between each individual moment and the greater, brighter horizon of the utopian future as the final cause which draws us to itself. Here we see a first principle for progress in building a people: time is greater than space.

223. This principle enables us to work slowly but surely, without being obsessed with immediate results. It helps us patiently to endure difficult and adverse situations, or inevitable changes in our plans. It invites us to accept the tension between fullness and limitation, and to give a priority to time. One of the faults which we occasionally observe in sociopolitical activity is that spaces and power are preferred to time and processes. Giving priority to space means madly attempting to keep everything together in the present, trying to possess all the spaces of power and of self-assertion; it is to crystallize processes and presume to hold them back. Giving priority to time means being concerned about initiating processes rather than possessing spaces. Time governs spaces, illumines them and makes them links in a constantly expanding chain, with no possibility of return. What we need, then, is to give priority to actions which generate new processes in society and engage other persons and groups who can develop them to the point where they bear fruit in significant historical events. Without anxiety, but with clear convictions and tenacity.

224. Sometimes I wonder if there are people in today’s world who are really concerned about generating processes of people-building, as opposed to obtaining immediate results which yield easy, quick short-term political gains, but do not enhance human fullness. History will perhaps judge the latter with the criterion set forth by Romano Guardini: “The only measure for properly evaluating an age is to ask to what extent it fosters the development and attainment of a full and authentically meaningful human existence, in accordance with the peculiar character and the capacities of that age”.[182]

225. This criterion also applies to evangelization, which calls for attention to the bigger picture, openness to suitable processes and concern for the long run. The Lord himself, during his earthly life, often warned his disciples that there were things they could not yet understand and that they would have to await the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 16:12-13). The parable of the weeds among the wheat (cf. Mt 13:24-30) graphically illustrates an important aspect of evangelization: the enemy can intrude upon the kingdom and sow harm, but ultimately he is defeated by the goodness of the wheat.  link

N.T. Wright on interpreting the 'sinister" parable

here

holy blending...just do it

"Jesus never opened his mouth without a parable coming out," (Matt 13:34-5)

“The greatest thing by far is to be master of analogy....it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.”
(Poetics, 1459 a 5-8, "The Basic Works of Aristotle")


"If genius is the ability to see analogy;
certainly madness is the ability to see analogy where none exists." -Mike Nesmith
---


One of the most important disciplines for stretching your brain and creating creativity is

...whatever you want to call it:

• "looking for the unobvious" connections between two things
• reading, engaging parables that compare/contrast
• making a song mash-up of two songs
• seizing synesthesia
• making metaphors

In light of this photo by Brant Hansen 
(great blogger, hope he starts again), I have a new metaphor for

this whole metaphoring discipline:

holy blending

The look on the blender's face reminds me of the look on the faces of some students who at first think they can't do it/don't want to do it.
Usually, it's more fun than they thought.

Go to it.  Blend two items that you don't think blend well...

interventionist sewing machine from above or divine iceberg from below?

  Capon's charts on competing views of history below.  Which do prefer?

--

Capon on video talks on this:
 
 

  (all 3 videos here) ----------------

Gary Mar summarizes Capon's charts of divine action in history (from pp.426-433 of  Capon's subversive classic, "Kingdom Grace Judgment: Paradox, Outrage,and Vindication in the Parables"):

--

 

III-A. Two Models of the Divine Action in Human History.

History, according to a Christian perspective, is not merely a random series of happenings, but a meaningful sequence of events in the grandest of all narratives: a narrative that lead to the end of history in the final fulfillment of God's purposes for humanity. Moreover, the acts of God in history are not limited to the Old and New Testaments, but continue today in the unfolding of current events. To clarify how this might be conceived, I borrow two contrasting pictures from Robert Farrar Capon's Parables of Judgment. The first picture sees God as transcendent upon, but connected to, human history through a few critical biblically-recorded divine interventions. Robert Capon explains:

Since God, the Alpha and Omega, the A and the W, is up there above history, I shall draw a series of descending lines to represent his several comings down his interventions in history, his intersections in history. The picture we have drawn looks like nothing so much as a divine sewing machine, with the needle coming down at various points and tacking God to history. It is salvation as the divine basting stitch. [13]

Figure 3. The Divine Tailor or Interventionist Model of Gods Relation to Human History

The above divine tailor or interventionist view of history with its occasional biblically-recorded accounts of divine actions connecting heaven and earth can be contrasted with what might be called the divine iceberg or sacramental view of God's relationship to human history. Capon contrasts and continues:

Figure 4. The Divine Iceberg or Sacramental Model of Gods Relation to Human History.

But now, let me posit God not as a divine tailor in heaven sending down an interventionist needle from time to time but as a divine iceberg present under all of time. On that analogy, one-tenth of his presence to history will be visible above the surface of its waters and nine-tenths will be invisible below the surface, but his presence out of sight will be as much a part of history as his presence in broad daylight. The divine acts in history are not just occasional interventions of a reality that wasn't present before, they are precisely acted parablessacraments, if you will, real presences--of a reality that was there all along.[14]

If Gods interaction with human history is more like an iceberg than a sewing machine, then it is reasonable to suppose that the particular cross section of the iceberg represented by the narrative of scripture might intersect with the cross-sectional histories of many nations. Martin Luther King Jr., for example, could direct and inspire the Civil Rights struggle in America by drawing upon the Old Testament narrative of the liberation of the Jewish nation from Egypt. When Christians immerse themselves in the gospel narratives, they naturally interpret the events of their lives through the spiritual categories and truths of the Scripture such notions as creational blessing, fall, and redemption. This is part of what is meant by conversion. Similarly, to interpret our nations historylike our life stories--through the categories of scripture is an invitation to see more, and more deeply.[15]  - LINK:   And the Leaves of the Tree Were for the Healing of Nations: Philosophical Explorations and Documentary Strategies for Global Missions

 by Professor Gary Mar

--

Excerpt from Capon's book:

Let me posit God not as a divine tailor in heaven sending down an interventionist needle from time to time but as a divine iceberg present under all of time. On that analogy, one tenth of his presence to history will be visible above the surface of its waters, and nine tenths will be invisible below the surface, but his presence out of sight will be just as much a part of history as his presence in broad daylight. The divine acts in history are not just occasional interventions of a reality that wasn’t present before; they are precisely acted parables - sacraments, if you will, real presences - of a reality that was there all along ... Better yet, the WHOLE of the mystery that underlies creation is present every time one of those sacramental outcroppings of the mystery occurs. It is not, for example, that the mystery of the Creation occurs only at the beginning, to be superseded later on by the mystery of the Passover and then by the mystery of the Cross, the mystery of the Resurrection, and the mystery of the Judgement at the End. It is that those several manifestations are outcroppings of a single, age-long mystery of Creation-Call-Passover-Redemption-Resurrection-Judgment that is fully present in every one fo the. Just as each upthrusting of the iceberg is one and the same iceberg in a visible aspect, so each upthrusting of the mystery is a visible aspect of one and the same mystery.”  link

Luke 11: not "be shameless in prayer," but "God is shameless, so pray!"

On the "friend at midnight" parable in Luke 11:

  ....The next phrase carries all the weight of the story.  The neighbor will rise because of his anaideia.  Two mysteries must be solved.  First, who does "his" refer to--the neighbor or the host?  Traditional interpretations point to the surprised host--but the Greek text is ambiguous.  Second, what is the meaning of anaideia? This is undoubtedly what motivates someone in the story to act.

Notice how the NIV interprets the passage for us:  "I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness,  he will surely get up and give him as much as he needs."  The NIV inserts the words "the man's" to point to the host as the subject of "his."  The TNIV barely improves this by inserting the word "your"...but this is not in  the original text either.  Furthermore, the NIV translates anaideia  as "boldness"--the host is bold in his request--as the key to gaining needed bread...(Fortunately the TNIV provides a footnote that straightens this out).  Many scholars today believe that "his" does not refer to the host but to the neighbor in bed...

...Added to this...traditional translators have said that anaideia   means "shameless" or "persistent" (hence "bold") and that it is the virtue belonging to the surprised host.  But this sense of the word only comes much later than the first century.  In Greek,  anaideia       (or its adjective   aidos   ) means "shame" and the prefix   an  negates it.  Thus   anaideia   means "shameless" or "without shame."

In the Middle Eastern cultural context shame is the very thing you sought  to avoid with all your life.  Honor--the absence of shame--was the attribute for which you wished to be known.....Therefore we might easily say that someone in the story is a person in whom there is no shame, someone of honor, someone who recognizes and protects his good name.

Now suddenly Jesus' story takes on new meaning. "Yet because of his lack of shame he will rise and give him..."  The parable is focused entirely on the neighbor in bed!...Let's attempt a paraphrase: 

I tell you, the sleeping neighbor will not get up and give his friend the bread because they are friends.  The neighbor will get up and give fresh bread because he is a man of honor--a man who will not bring shame to himself or his village

Suddenly Jesus' story takes on a new theme.  Fresh bread for a surprise visitor will come through the door not because of the nature of the request or the relationship with the neighbor.  This confident request is anchored to the honor of the neighbor in bed...

In Jesus' view,  prayer (as requests from God) may be made confidently not because of who we are--but because of who he is..

Our confidence that this is the correct interpretation is if we keep reading Luke 11:9-13.  Jesus is still explaining his view about prayer.


Jesus encourages us to ask, seek and knock because these requests will be met by a God who is good.  pp 38-40,   Gary M. Burge, Jesus, The Middle Eastern Storyteller

Note: be sure to read the whole chapter of the book here, as this is only one way he enlightens the parable

" it is subversive to all respectable religious order, which is precisely the point"

Michael Gerson on "Pope Francis the troublemaker":

This teaching — to always consider the person — was disorienting from the beginning. The outsiders get invited to the party. The prodigal is given the place of honor. The pious complain about their shocking treatment. The gatekeepers find the gate shut to them. It is subversive to all respectable religious order, which is precisely the point. With Francis, the argument gains a new hearing. link

Eugene Peterson on being a subversive pastor...like Jesus

John Frye posts:

"But isn’t [being subversive] dishonest? Not exactly, for I’m not misrepresenting myself. I’m simply taking my words and acts at a level of seriousness that would throw [the congregation] into a state of catatonic disbelief if they ever knew.”

How can the pastor be subversive and sustain his vocation?
Eugene Peterson wrestles with who is living in the real world. Is it the business man who thinks church is a nice diversion from the real world of money-making, bottom lines and profit margins or the faithful pastor who announces, “The kingdom of God is at hand”? In my view, when business or any other cultural metaphors replace the old, but ever new kingdom-of-God realities for describing the vocation of ministry, any pastor will lose his or her footing and begin sinking in the quicksand of artificial relevancy. Wanting to be seen or known as important is a giant step away from Christlikeness. “It’s hard to maintain a self-concept as a revolutionary when everyone treats us with the same affability they give the grocer.” Without a deep, enduring commitment to the realities of both the truth and the way(s) of the kingdom of God, a pastor will settle for becoming “a chaplain to the culture,” rather than a discerning challenger of it.

I like EHP’s description of the pastor as subversive because it points to the way of God in Jesus Christ. “Jesus was the master at subversion. … Jesus’ favorite speech form, the parable, was subversive. … But under the surface of conventionality and behind the scenes of probability, each was effectively inaugurating the kingdom: illegitimate (as was supposed) conception, barnyard birth, Nazareth silence, Galilee secularity, Sabbath healings, Gethsemane prayers, criminal death, baptismal water, eucharistic bread and wine. Subversion.” These quotes are from The Contemplative Pastor, a book we’re using to grasp EHP’s taxonomy of pastor.

EHP notes that there are three things implicit in subversion: One, the status quo is wrong and must be overthrown. (You can get fired for this one). Two, there is another in-breaking world; a God-oriented and Jesus-saturated world. Three, the usual means by which one kingdom is thrown out and another put in its place—military coup or democratic election—are not available. The tools available for the subversive pastor are two: prayer and parable. “Words are the real work of the world—prayer words with God, parable words with men and women. The behind the scenes work of creativity by word and sacrament, by parable and prayer, subverts the seduced world.

Prodial Son updated: four videos

At the Sierra Christian Ashram camp this summer, both  the  (delightful) Bible Teacher Susan Tucker and I faciltated conversations on the parables of Jesus.

Just as we do in a Fresno Pacific University class on Jesus,  I had  four small groups (see this classic: Prodigal Son..retold in rap and mime)
 act out modern day versions of The Prodigal Son. I love all of these, bit taks special pride in #2, as my kids (the prodigal's dad and the "older sister") are in that one!  Regular readers here may note Keltic Ken in #1.
 1)
2

3
4

Amy-Jill Levine: Dangers on the Road to Jericho

Amy-Jill Levine: Dangers on the Road to Jericho from Chautauqua Institution on FORA.tv

Greg Boyd on "the best Christian album ever" and "the violent parables of Jesus"

"Modern parables" retain the offense

Great scoop:

One of the great injustices a reader can do to the parables of Jesus is not to be offended by them...Thomas Purifoy, head of Compass Cinema, is doing his part to bring back the peculiarity, and in some cases the offensiveness, of the parables of Jesus. Modern Parables (Series 1) is six short films, each of which retells a parable of Jesus in a modern setting and in so doing awakens us to realities we may have missed.In Samaritan (for example), an old man who has been robbed and beaten is ignored by a deacon and then by a pastor, and for the same reasons that you or I might look past a grizzled, glassy-eyed old man lying in a pile of trash on a city street. The person who finally comes to the old man’s aid is a Middle Eastern taxi driver who reads Arabic-language newspapers and smokes cigarettes. I know the parable well enough to side automatically with the Samaritan and view the scribes and priests as villains to be booed and hissed. The film reminds me that I have more in common with the story’s villains than with its hero.

..Prodigal Sons depicts a young man blowing his half of the family fortune in riotous living in New York City. In the final scene, it is easy to see why the bitter older brother is so bitter. And in his bitterness it is obvious this parable is about two rebellious sons, not one. 

...Through the month of June, Compass Cinema is making the six films of the first Modern Parables series available on the Modern Parables Facebook page. Samaritanand Hidden Treasure are already available. The other four (Prodigal Sons, plus films based on the parables of the importunate widow and the sower) will be trickling onto the Facebook page as the month progresses. ,,,

Compass Cinema is making these movies available this month because they are in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a a second series of Modern Parables, beginning with the parable of the workers. If you like what you see and are in a position to help, here’s the link to the project’s Kickstarter page.   LINK

Rest of the parable previews here 

Parables, Figs and Manure

This below  is such a helpful sermon for several reasons.  First, it's honest (It's by The Sarcastic Lutheran herself).

I need to try that more often.

But we need reminders that parables are, among other things:

-"a loud fart in the salon of spirituality" -Eugene Peterson

-not allegories

-"sizzle in the mind...telling you 'Your attitude is the opposite of God's" (Kraybill, Upside Down Kingdom)

- To conceal teachings from those on the outside; To reveal/ illustrate teachings – both inside” and “outside” (Mark 12:12);To disarm listeners. Thus, a “backdoor” teaching device; the zinger element of effective parables; a sudden shift in identity or plot-change which turns the story on its ear.  -Klein, Link, this helpful article 

          -sometimes characterized by surprising, subversive...even shifting God-characters /Jesus-figures

 

-------------------------

Sermon: One More Year for Figs and Manure  by Nadia Bolz-Weber, the Sarcastic Lutheran
Audio of this complete sermon

Well, it’s parable day again boys and girls. And boy do we have a weird one. Today we hear the parable of the Fig tree. In this parable the Vineyard owner is frustrated that in 3 years his fig tree has not produced any fruit.  So the vineyard owner is ready to just chop it down.  To hell with it.  It’s a waste of good soil. The tree had it’s chance and will never be anything but useless so the guy might as well cut his losses.  But then the gardener steps in and pleads to give the tree one more year – a year when he can upturn the soil add some literal crap to it and see what happens.

Parables like this one are like Jesus’ subversive little stories of an alternate universe. But the alternate universe of Jesus’ parables is comprised not of alternate things but of ordinary things: coins and trees and wheat and sons and Fathers and widows. Yet it is in these ordinary things that parables allow us to see how the nature of God is revealed in surprising, even shocking or scandalous ways within the very ordinary.

Jesus’ parables tend to be deeply engaging and really frustrating at the same time: you can meditate on them, struggle with them, enter into them, speak of them but you just can not solve them. The best way to suck the life out of a parable is by attempting to figure out the so-called moral of the story.  Parables aren’t about morals they are about truth – hidden, unyielding, disruptive truth. The kind of truth that simply can’t be contained.

Ok, that stuff about parables is all well and good, but I have a confession to make:
Every once in awhile, on Tuesday mornings when I read the Gospel text assigned for the upcoming Sunday – the passage sounds so totally unfamiliar to me that I think Oh my Gosh…is that like, a new, recently added part of the Bible?  It’s like there are new parts that people just sneak in occasionally when we’re not looking just to mess with the preachers.

I honestly have zero familiarity with the parable we just heard – which is weird since you’d think that I’d totally remember a parable where poop is mentioned...
....

...I think the reason I couldn’t find anything to say about this parable is because I assumed in this parable, that God is the vineyard owner. Capricious and impatient and angry and ready to judge our pathetic fruitlessness and destroy us for our shortcomings.
There are not really assigned parts in parables, which is why we can always close one eye, tilt our heads and look a them other ways, so isn’t it weird how we tend to assume that in Jesus parables God is always the wealthy one?  The king, the land owner, the vineyard owner.  It’s not like that’s wrong it’s just not the whole truth of who God is.  And this week it seemed to me that the vineyard owner doesn’t sound like the God I know, the God revealed in Jesus Christ.  The God who came to dwell with us full of grace and truth, the God who doles out forgiveness like candy and eats with sinners and invites all to God’s table.  No, the vineyard owner who was angry and impatient and wanting results doesn’t sound like God.  The vineyard owner just sounds like me.   I’m the one who judges myself and others wondering why I can never seem to pull off the things I say I want

....continued

mundane yet dramatic spiritual warfare: running signs (and demons) off significant cliffs via random acts of kindness

Mistook signs for signified

And so since I’ve often tried
To run them off a cliff like Gadarene swine
-mewithoutYou, "Fox's Dream Of The Log Flume"
---


How many times have you seen doll-size (or life-size)individual Christian soldiers in full armor (per Ephesians 6, of course)  on the shelves or in the window of a Christian bookstore?

Well meaning............
                      ...but well off the mark.

Not as creepy as the John Haggai teddy  bear.....
                           ....but (ironically) dangerous, exegetically. 


For several reasons.

One has been dealt with in a previous post (misundertaking spiritual warfare: reading in context and in (anabaptist) communitas):

 The letter is to a church community, not an individual.  It's not the letter to the Ephesian.

 The "you"s are plural throughout.  Read passages you thought you had all figured out in that light, especially 2:8-10, 3:16....and the passage at hand.

How exactly  to imagine the armor on a group calls for...well, imagination.
(imagine that!  Imagination...in church?  This calls for spirituality that is   actually Ignatian and SpongeBob-ian).

Guy Chevrau, in a helpful book, offers one possibility:

In fact, we do not stand alone.  The entire armor passage is addressed not to an individual believer but to the Church. The pronouns are all plural.  In Texas they would say correctly, "Y'all stand."  The whole metaphor is a corporate calling..  This especially casts the "shield of faith in a new light/.  The shield Paul names is not the small, round, garbage can lid.of a  shield  but literally the thyreos...a Roman soldier would hold this shield in his left hand and the right two thirds of the shield would cover his left side.  The left third of the shield covered his fellow soldier's exposed right.  When the troops were in position, they created a defensive position called the 'tortoise,'  When the legionaires held their shields overhead and the front rows interlocked their shields, they created a kind of shell-like armor.  link, p.  138

Even though Chevrau gathers his  historical info from a trusted historical source (Rome at War), we still don't know for sure if this is the picture Paul means to evoke.  Thus the same problem on the other side of the ditch: the image will definitely  preach! And the powerful image (sign) may well stick in our minds more than actually using our faith (the sign-ified)....and other elements of armor)


It's the inevitable risk of a visual metaphor/parable/sign...

a risk God takes all over Scripture, 
           Jesus takes every time he opens his mouth (Matthew 13:34-35)
                        and Paul takes head on in the Ephesians text.

We in the West have focused on, obsexxed on the individual...thus individual armor.

I would  venture many USAmerican  fundagelicals  go through the motions  of "Putting on the shield of faith"....without the faith..

Like the character in the mewithoutYou song, "mistook signs for signified."

It's faith like a shield, not a "shield like faith."

Sometimes, after the metaphor has done its work and subverted us ( see Eugene Peterson's delightful...and still metaphorical.... definition of metaphor: "a loud fart in the salon of spirituality"), we can then in the (metaphorical!) language of the song, drive all said signs/demons of a cliff, so that  only the signified signified remains.

Peterson's  Message Bible is amazing on this passage.  .  It's not as sassy and sexy as most translations, which encourage us ti get jazzed up and armored up for some war games... but it is a necessary correction.  Note it completely refuses to even mention the signs (pieces of armor).   The emphasis and onus  is thus off the armor, and all  attention on the real reality.

^0-12 And that about wraps it up. God is strong, and he wants you strong. So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials. And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way. This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.^13-18 Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.

The most helpful commentator I know on Ephesians is Tim Gombis:

 Ts

In Ephesians 6:10-18, then, Paul is not merely addressing individuals but the entire gathered church...

Okay, we's heard that already.  But keep reading!  Gombis maintains that

.
.....Paul does not derive the armor of God from his pondering of the armor of a Roman soldier, therefore, but from a consideration of the Scriptures....
....The church engages in warfare in ways that defy and overturn our expectation

The clincher:

Our warfare against the powers takes place on a mundane level....Strategic acts of love and self-sacrificial service to others are cosmically significant.  ---all quotes from his book

Drat!  To "do spiritual warfare,"  I might just have to (get to) do something as non-dramatic as..

drum roll, please..

Love my neighbor.


But in fact, as mundane as that is, Gombis holds that it IS dramatic..in the biblical sense.
And that is the whole point (His book is "The Drama of Ephesians," buy it yesterday).

And start some mundane, messianic,  dramatic...and  sign-ificantly subversive warfare to beat the devil.