Parousia -- The Coming of the Lord Part 4: Year A, Proper 27

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25; Wisdom of Solomon 6:12-20; Amos 5:18-24; Psalm 78:1-7; Psalm 70; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13

The parable of the wise and foolish virgins cannot be attributed to the historical Jesus.  The story makes a distinction between who is in, and who is out; who will be accepted, and who will not.  It is Matthew’s favorite theme, but it is not Jesus’s message.  It is Matthew’s interpretation of that message, in the context of the destruction of the Jewish Temple, and the decentralization of the Jewish religion from Jerusalem Temple to local synagogue, or in John Dominic Crossan’s words, “. . . the transmutation of Temple Judaism into Pharisaic and then rabbinic Judaism.” In Search of Paul, p. 173.

But the Elves, and traditional Christianity, believe otherwise.  According to Matthew’s Jesus, he will come in the middle of the night, and those who are not ready will not be let into the kingdom of God.  In this context, Matthew’s parable goes right along with Paul’s description of what fundamentalist Christians call “the Rapture”:  “For the Lord himself with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive, who are left [behind?] will be caught up on the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air . . .”

This is total nonsensical gobledegook to post-modern, educated, scientifically sophisticated minds.  Liberal Christians run screaming with laughter from that kind of preaching.  If John Shelby Spong and the Jesus Seminar Scholars are to be taken seriously, if Christianity is going to actually change and not die along with other discredited superstitions, the argument presented by Crossan and Reed has to be worked through.

Crossan argues that Paul and the group in Thessalonika had come under heavy persecution by the Roman authorities.  Some in the community may have been killed (martyred), while Paul himself managed to escape with the help of others.  Paul’s regret at the deaths that saved him may explain some of the defensiveness that arises in the letter (see 1 Thessalonians 1:7-8; 2:10).  But what is more important is a question that was profound to 1st Century Pharasaic Jews and others who believed in an eventual resurrection of all the dead when God at last establishes his Kingdom of distributive justice-compassion.  That question was, when God acts, what will happen to those who have already died in the struggle for justice?  

Crossan talks about a Jewish apocalypse, written 50 years after the destruction of Jerusalem (which must have felt like the end for sure to those who lived through it).  That apocalypse asks, “what will those do who were before me, or we ourselves, or those who come after us?”  God answers that God’s judgment is like a circle.  There is no first, no last, no beginning, no end, but all are saved at once.  The gospel folk song, “Will the Circle be Unbroken?” asks and answers the question in the same way. 

But Paul’s theology is different.  His answer blows the tradition out of the tub.  As pointed out in last week’s discussion, Paul’s use of the metaphor of parousia as it was experienced by 1st Century participants in the Roman Empire “controls the entire discussion.” Crossan & Reed, p. 168.  The parousia of the Roman Emperor was a visitation, a demonstration of total, complete power over the people.  The Roman Emperor was a god, of the living and of the dead.  In any 1st Century town, the first encounter the Emperor’s procession would have had was with the city of the dead – mausoleums, graves, tombs – on the outskirts of the town.  Then, the procession met the living citizens, who accompanied the conquering hero into the City, and presented him with the key – or feasting, or accolades, or tribute.  Paul – pressing mystical metaphor as far as it can go – says that when the Christ comes (parousia) the same thing will happen.  But because God has already raised Jesus the Christ from the dead into God’s realm, the people will have to meet him in the air – first the dead will be raised, then the living will join the procession.  But the procession does not stay in the air, nor did the Emperor’s procession stay on the outskirts of town among the graves.  The people met the procession, and accompanied it back into the city.  In the same way, the living would accompany the Christ back to the world.  But it would not be the same old world of retributive injustice.  For Paul, “The parousia of the Lord was not about destruction of earth and relocation to heaven, but about a world in which violence and injustice are transformed into purity and holiness.  And of course . . . a transformed world would demand not just spiritual souls, but renewed bodies” (p. 170).  The gospel story about Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem is a parody along the same lines (see Mark 11:1-11; Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week).  

Without stealing a march on next week’s reading, what is missing at this point is the timing.  When will God’s kingdom come?  When will the Lord arrive?  When will the transformation happen?  Crossan sends us to 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 3:17-18: “And all of us . . . are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”  The verb tense is crucial.  It is not past, it is not future.  It is present-perfect: We are being transformed.  The work of restoring God’s distributive justice-compassion was begun by Jesus, and continues with us.

With this interpretation, the alternative readings for this Proper 27 from the Wisdom of Solomon are anachronisms.  The Elves have cherry-picked a portion of the poem praising Wisdom (Sophia), which might seem to tie in with the cautionary tale told by Matthew’s Jesus.  But the “liner notes” from the Harper Collins Study Bible indicate that this book has nothing to do with the context that Paul was writing about in 50 C.E. (whether Crossan’s work is considered or not), nor with the judgmental opinions of the writer of Matthew 30 years later – even though the poetry includes the words, “the desire for wisdom leads to a kingdom.”  I could stretch that metaphor into something about the wisdom of the seamless realm of the natural world, where Covenant happens without thought . . . but we have already redefined one metaphor (parousia) about as much as we can.  Cramming the Wisdom of Solomon into either Crossan’s form, or the form put forth by those determined Elves, is unnecessary, and unfair to the Alexandrian Jew who wrote it.

The story of Joshua, on the other hand, does remind us once more of the Covenant – the Covenant that is discussed and eventually agreed-upon by the people, not the “wisdom” of the natural universe.  We skip most of Joshua’s story, which is disappointing.  For some reason, only children are allowed to learn about the Battle of Jericho – the template for future attempts by the U.S. Air Force to harass and capture Manuel Noriega, and for torturing prisoners at Guantanamo.

The story does its best to prove to us that Joshua was the proper candidate to replace Moses.  He parts the waters of the Jordan River; he has a vision of God, who tells him to remove his sandals because he is standing on holy ground (5:13-15).  He conquers most of the territory of Canaan, and divides it among the tribes.  Finally in chapter 24, after several lost battles, he challenges the people to renew the Covenant with God.  He warns them several times that if they enter into this Covenant, God will destroy them if they break it.  The people pledge to forsake all foreign gods, and to keep God’s laws.  Then Joshua tells them they are therefore witnesses against themselves if they do not keep the agreement, and he sets up a stone as a witness.

Understanding Paul’s theology about the “second coming” of the Christ is important because if Crossan is correct, and the theology is not about a future moment but a present, here-and-now, ongoing process of transformation, then we are talking about our own responsibility for bringing God’s distributive justice-compassion into being.  Just as Joshua told the Hebrews, once we choose God’s Covenant, and sign on to God’s work, we have forsaken all other gods, including emperors living and dead, and the theology of empire.  We no longer subscribe to piety, war, victory; instead we stand with non-violence, distributive justice-compassion, and peace.

This is what the prophet Amos is calling for in his diatribe against the retributive injustice that holds sway in the world.  All we have to do is “let justice roll down like the waters, and righteousness [just living] like an ever-flowing stream.”  Amos doesn’t talk about some time in the future.  He asks, who wants the day of the Lord (final judgment)?  It is darkness, not light; it is ending, not salvation.  Instead of praying for the “day of the Lord,” Amos says, do justice now and live in the light of God’s favor.  

What better time to consider these points than this week, after the election of an African American to the office of President of the United States?  The accolades are pouring down.  But the danger is real that this parousia of Barack Obama will stop short of the transformation called for by Paul’s over-the-top rhetoric, and the prophet’s impassioned rant.  For Obama, the danger is that he – like so many Cesars before him – could succumb to the blinding light of the “bright shadow.” 
He could forget who he is and what he really wants to do in the dizzying heights of the power given to him by the people.  Similarly, we the people, in our projections of our own bright shadow upon him, are subject to the danger of disillusionment and anger, as we begin to realize that he cannot fulfill all the glory that is expected of him.

We must meet Barack in the jubilant air, and accompany him to a transformed world.  This is the ongoing, seemingly never-ending struggle.  To quote Crossan once again, “. . . Paul would have replied unabashedly:  To see God’s transformation in process, come and see how we live” (p. 175).

Let justice roll.

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