Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, and James Cone find themselves all at the same
time at Caesarea Philippi. Who should come along but Jesus, and he asks the four famous
theologians the same Christological question, “Who do you say that I am?”
Karl Barth stands up and says: “You are the totaliter aliter, the vestigious
trinitatum who speaks to us in the modality of Christo-monism.”
Not prepared for Barth's brevity, Paul Tillich stumbles out: “You are he who heals
our ambiguities and overcomes the split of angst and existential estrangement; you are he
who speaks of the theonomous viewpoint of the analogia entis, the analogy of our being and
the ground of all possibilities.”
Reinhold Niebuhr gives a cough for effect and says, in one breath: “You are the
impossible possibility who brings to us, your children of light and children of darkness,
the overwhelming oughtness in the midst of our fraught condition of estrangement and
brokenness in the contiguity and existential anxieties of our ontological relationships.”
Finally James Cone gets up, and raises his voice: “You are my Oppressed One,
my soul's shalom, the One who was, who is, and who shall be, who has never left us alone
in the struggle, the event of liberation in the lives of the oppressed struggling for
freedom, and whose blackness is both literal and symbolic.”
And Jesus writes in the sand, “Huh?”
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Japanese Fable
Tasuku was a poor man who cut blocks
of stone from the foot of a mountain. One day he saw a well-dressed prince
parade by. Tasuku envied the prince and wished that he could have that kind of
wealth. The Great Spirit heard Tasuku, and he was made a prince.
Tasuku was happy with his silk clothes and his
powerful armies until he saw the sun wilt the flowers in his royal garden. He
wished for such power as the sun had, and his wish was granted. He became the
sun, with power to parch fields and humble people with thirst.
Tasuku was happy to be the sun until a cloud
covered him and obscured his powerful heat. With that, he had another wish, and
the Spirit complied. Thereafter Tasuku was a cloud with the power to ravage the
land with floods and storms.
Tasuku was happy until he saw the mountain
remain in spite of his storm. So Tasuku demanded to be the mountain. The Spirit
obeyed. Tasuku became the mountain and was more powerful than the prince, the
sun, or the cloud. And he was happy until he felt a chisel chipping at his
feet. It was a stonecutter working away - cutting blocks to sell to make his
daily living.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
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