Today, we will enter a section of James Alison's writing that is labeled "The Content of the Skandalon." Although the apostolic witness derives the main lines of force in its understanding of skandalon from the postresurrection understanding of the way in which Jesus had fulfilled the Scripture, it would be wrong to think that this exhausts the meaning of skandalon. The words skandalizo and skandalon appear too often in Jesus' mouth with too coherent (as well as too rich and too dense) a set of meanings for it to be doubted that Jesus himself taught in terms of the stumbling block before his death. When Jesus was teaching the disciples how to avoid being scandalized by him, he was not only teaching them something about him, but something about them: what it is to live in a world of skandala. Once again I'm stopping mid-paragraph and will add the rest tomorrow. This is a stopping point for me because once again, we do not merely read about Jesus and we do not merely talk about Jesus and we do not merely announce how he lived and died and was raised. Rather we - you and I - have the story unfolding among us - as us. In a day when 'church' means an acceptable component of society that keeps things as is, we are meant to be this scandalon - this Jesus figure still moving down this path of 'self-donation.' We are not an institutionalized group of people who simply reflect what the world want to see and hear. We are this outcast band still saying and doing that which is scandalous to the realm of 'normalcy.' To this I must remind us that the scandal is a love that let's no one go. It is not foolishness for the sake of being noticed. It is foolishness - plain and simple - foolishness acting out within the boxed up world that longs for liberation - even now. Connection: Sometimes we only need the companionship of others to take on the scandalous life of Jesus' way. In fact I would submit again that we must have such companionship - so that we come to test one another and refine the way and hold each other up so that we can see the vision of God's peaceable Reign even as we think we are falling down. This is how we see beyond death. This is how we walk right into it. O God of life, walk with us and among us as we face what will be the powers of the day in this day. Open our eyes to the light of resurrection and promise. Amen. |
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