Biblical automata

When we say these days that something is automatic we probably imagine some mechanical contraption or a behaviour which is certain and predictable. But this association of automatic with machines is relatively recent, 200 or maximum 300 years.

            When the ancient people spoke about automatic they meant something completely different. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible as well as the New

Testament and even Jesus in one of his parables spoke about automatic behaviour and they did not mean any mechanical contraptions.
            AUTOMATOS (Αυτοματος) in the Greek literally meant “to act on its own inner volition, by its own inner desire, simply self-willing.” Automata acted without clear or obvious reason or causation by themselves and from within. The ancient automaton was not any dull machine performing mechanically preset commands. In certain sense all creatures including humans could be called automata when they acted on their own and without commands or obvious causation, when their actions were coming from the inner mental space and independent, free will.
            Thus, when Jesus, just like the Old Testament spoke about the Earth automatically growing and producing crop - they actually assigned to the Earth this inner mental space, its own agency and even its independent and free will. Quite a radical idea and something you might not know about the Bible. 

 

And you can join us in worship this Sunday in celebrating the divine gift of life which is the ultimate force of nature. 

Chickadee and a falling tree

About two weeks ago I was photographing chickadees on Iona Island on the Hudson River. And then suddenly came a gust of wind and a big dead old oak tree came crushing down just a few yards behind me. I jumped up really shaken just like the little chickadee who flew away.

       That entire experience got me thinking.... You know, there is a famous philosophical thought experiment which goes like this "If a tree falls in a forest and no person is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" 

       And the precise scientific answer is NO. Because sound is an air vibration as transmitted by our ear and recognized as sound only in our brain. The falling tree produces air vibrations, they become sound only in the brain of a person. If there is no person to hear, there is no sound." 

       But there is an inherent problem with this technical answer as I observed the chickadee. Humans are not the only creatures to hear. In a forest, there is always someone to receive and process air vibrations, actually hundreds and thousands of creatures! We even know that other trees and plants and mushrooms can sense, process and react to vibrations.

        The thought experiment about the falling tree was clearly designed by some arrogant anthropocentric philosophers all puffed up with human self-importance. Forest itself is a one great and constant dialogue of all possible creatures. Yes, it is more than a dialogue, it is a symphony composed and played and appreciated by an intricate lacework of forest creatures.

 

This Sunday we will rejoice in the Divine vision of nature in harmony. Join us in worship on this Second Sunday in Advent when we listen to Isaiah 11:6-10.

 

Hortulanus redivivus (Gardener revived)

Imagine the resurrected Jesus coming to you with a spade or a hoe! That is exactly the image you can find in many medieval paintings, book illuminations and on stain glass windows.

            It goes back to one ephemeral side sentence from the Gospel of John when Mary Magdalene did not recognize the resurrected Jesus and it explains “Supposing him to be the gardener.”

            But it is more than just explaining her mistake, her temporal blindness. It is a beautiful example of early Christian typological exegesis tying together the resurrected Jesus with the story of the Garden of Eden.

            But to me it has an even deeper function. This one sentence connects the Easter message with the beautiful, deep and meaningful ancient mythological tradition of humankind as a caring and gentle gardeners of our beautiful planet.

          This story of hortulanus redivivus will help us celebrate, the second Sunday of Easter, and at the same time Earth Day.

          Let us join our resurrected Lord and recommit ourselves to  cultivating and growing hope in the garden of this beautiful world.
Here is a link for our virtual worship on livestream:
https://livestream.com/rutgerschurchnyc/events/8967087

Divine potter

In Ancient Egypt, one of the oldest deities (as old as five thousand years ago) was a god Khnum (In Egyptian iconography he was portrayed with the head of a ram). Khnum was a patron of the sources of Nile and he also brought the annual floods and with them new clay and thus fertility of the land. But Khnum was also responsible for creating people from the very same clay. He was often depicted shaping humans on the potter’s wheel.

            Why do I mention this ancient Egyptian mytheme? Because it is also present in the Bible and can enrich our faith and inform our life. A number of times we hear about God creating or shaping humans out of clay and breathing into them life (Gen 2:7). Then prophets Isaiah (Isa 45:9) and Jeremiah (Jer 18) assert divine authority over human destiny comparing it to the authority of potter over the clay.

            And even in the New Testament Apostle Paul (2Cor 4:7) will use this same image while writing about us humans as clay pots to which God entrusted safekeeping of the gifts of faith, light and grace.

            I like this pottery image, it connects us with one of the oldest metaphors and with the beginning of our civilization. I love this ancient image because it also reminds us of our connection with earth and all its creatures. 

            This image also goes back to the very roots of the Hebrew language and its vocabulary: the word for earth (as a substance, as clay) - is אֲדָמָה - ADAMAH and it shares the same root with אָדָם - ADAM which is a name of the first human being but also a generic name for all humans.

            In the Hebrew language Adam is phonetically an earthling and thus all of us, humans, are all also earthlings. We are inseparably bound with earth, its soil and all its creatures. This is one of the oldest religious insights, something you might not know about the Bible and something we will embrace and celebrate this upcoming Sunday.

Advent podcasts

In Advent 2019 I prepared with Peter Rinaldi these podcasts (Part of our ReligioSanity channel - We primarily upload to SoundCloud but our podcasts can be found also on Apple Podcast and other platforms.)
We always closed ourselves in the Rutgers Presbyterian Library and chatted about Advent and Christmas traditions but mainly about biblical and theological conundrums and provocative questions swirling about these preeminent religious holidays.

Sane Christmas 1 - St. Nicholas Day

Sane Christmas 2 - How Jesus Was Born In Bethlehem
(40 Years After His Crucifixion)

Sane Christmas 3- Delicately Talking About Mary's Virginity

Sane Christmas 4 - How Mary Became A Virgin Again

Sane Christmas 5 - Protoevangelium of James (Part 1)

Sane Christmas 6 - Protoevangelium of James(Part 2)

Sane Christmas 7- The Infancy Gospel Of Thomas

Simple Gifts

This Monday I was making myself a simple supper – a slice of a rye bread, smothering of a vegan cream cheese and a slice of an heirloom tomato with a sprinkle of a salt and right as I was about to take my dinner to the table I was caught by sheer surprise. The slice of tomato looked like a beautiful star! And in a moment it also tasted heavenly in all its simplicity of rustic rye bread, the intense fragrance of a ripe juicy tomato and a few crunchy flakes of salt which I gathered myself half a year ago by the ocean shore. I savored every bit of my meal – the sight, the texture, the fragrance, the taste. My simple meal was tastier and happier than any elaborated banquet.
      This Second Sunday in Advent we will listen to John the Baptist. But before hearing any of his words we will hear the message through his dress code (coat of camel wool)  and diet (honey and locusts). He was an ascetic who was dressed and fed by divine providence yet in his time and place better than any royalty. Today we can translate his dress and diet into simple, locally sourced, sustainable, environmental, gentle living. That is and has been the model of divine providential care.
      I believe that the message of the blessed simplicity is always important for us to hear, but it is especially inspiring in this Advent season, while we are attacked and lured from every angle by sirens of consumerism.
       Join us to learn about and rejoice in the simple gifts.

What Would Jesus Eat?

Jesus would not harm a living thing, right?
     We expect Jesus to be gentle, compassionate, caring and loving, a true physician of our souls and the Universe. But that is not a full picture. In the Bible we hear about few occasions when Jesus got really angry and once even cursed an innocent tree which then withered and died (Mark 11:12-14+20). It is a unique example of a truly arbitrary and brutal miracle. People are shocked and theologians are often lost and left without answers.
    Scholars studying ancient agriculture and economy might have an answer. I would like to illustrate it on my own experience. Twenty years ago we lived for a year in Louisville and we were surrounded with beautiful tobacco plantations - fresh green fields on rolling Kentuckian hills sprinkled with dark red tobacco barns. As peaceful and bucolic as it looked I wanted to curse those fields knowing for what they stood and what they meant - horrible addiction, deceptive, fraudulent advertising, serious medical health problems,  endless suffering and often early deaths.
    Or imagine cotton fields in the American South 200 years ago, in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi. Beautiful, well kept by so well-mannered genteel owners. But all of that southern cotton and plantation culture deserved divine curse, regardless how they looked - because they stood for endless misery and suffering of slavery and racism which lingers until now.
    When Jesus cursed the fruitless fig tree I am certain it was for what it represented. It represented the disintegration of society and Judean farming communities. It was a symptom of dispossessed little family farmers who were originally growing food but were replaced by expanding plantations of absentee landlords.
Jesus cursed the fruitless fig tree because he was angry over the fate of small family farms and in support of communities growing food for people rather than plantations of cash crops grown for profit.
    This weekend we will welcome again our autumn speakers, this year Ben and Lindsey Shute - our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farmers. Come on Saturday at 2 pm for a presentation and discussion and on Sunday at 11 for worship to talk about their farm and to ask What and How Would Jesus Grow and for us How and What Would Jesus Eat.

Jesus' Radical Prayer II

The opening of the Lord's Prayer in the Codex Vaticanus
Matthew 6:9-11a

In Rutgers Presbyterian Church we use several different translations of the Lord’s Prayer. A number of these translations are based on dynamic equivalence. I personally prepared one translation which was primarily informed by the economic and social context of Jesus’ prayer and attempted to translate it into our current idioms. (Four Years ago I also summarized some of the exegesis and reasoning here  - Jesus' Radical Prayer I)

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Loving God of the highest authority:
In other words - heavenly parent. But “father” in the Ancient Near East context was primarily a figure of authority, especially if that figure was situated in the heavenly realm.
May what you stand for be the measure for everything.
That is an attempt to convey the concept of holiness and divine kingdom.
May the world be shaped as your love will have it:
Translating a petition which asks for divine rule to come from Heaven down on Earth.     

Preserve for us and future generations enough for everyone to live:
with fresh air to breathe, clean water to drink, a blue planet to inhabit.
In the Ancient Near East devastating famines were a regular occurrence and for many people in Jesus’ times their food security was a daily concern.
In our world the food security is also a painfully reality, but is ever more associated with an environmental devastation.

May our society be organized fairly, without anyone crushed by debt or need.
The original text clearly spoke about the debt-forgiveness. All other words (sins, trespasses etc.) are attempts to translate the original Aramaic word חובא which was debt/obligation/anything owed. Our translation is an idiomatic attempt to provide similar meaning of forgiveness of debts and social justice.
(By the way, the medieval “trespassing” was primarily aimed against the destitute serfs who were driven to poaching in the vast holdings of their lords.)

Let the police and courts treat people justly, regardless of their class, nationality or race.
The original text requests protection from “being handed over to judgement/trial” either to the corrupt Jewish authorities or to the occupying Roman power. In our times when prisons are disproportionally full of black men, the poor and the mentally ill (not to mention recent highly problematic detention of Mesoamerican migrants), I think this is an accurate contextual translation.

With thanks we now submit ourselves under your bright and loving rule for ever.
And together we say - So be it!
The closing doxology is not biblical and I took freedom to translate it from the broader Greek context translating “kingdom, power and glory” and final “amen”. 

Very Hungry Caterpillars

This spring we decided to plant on our balcony not decorative annuals but just different green herbs. We planted oregano, parsley, two different kinds of thyme, marjoram and sage. I watered them faithfully and all were doing very well except for one lemon thyme. The parsley had been doing exceptionally well, growing into a lovely thick pillow overflowing from the planter.
     But then last Sunday morning a disaster struck! I opened the door to inspect our little herbal garden and our exuberant parsley turned into a bunch of stems and sticks. I looked closer - our parsley got all consumed by about a dozen hungry caterpillars. I quickly identified them as swallowtail caterpillars. By pure coincidence a day before on my hike in Bear Mountain I photographed some beautiful adult swallowtail butterflies.
      On Sunday after worship the hungry caterpillars on our balcony were just about finishing the last few remaining curly leaves. I quickly ran to our nearest grocery store and bought them another bunch of organic parsley and one small bunch of dill. I triple checked that the greens were organic, this time not for our family’s health sake, but for the health of those "pesty" caterpillars. You know, without those hungry caterpillars, there will be no beautiful butterflies, after all!

Why am I sharing with you this environmental fable? Surprisingly, or perhaps not, Jesus once told a very similar parable warning people against our zeal to eradicate what we so eagerly label as pests without even thinking about consequences. Try to guess what parable it might be? Come this Sunday to celebrate the intricate interconnected beauty of our world and divine as well as natural purpouse for pests and misfits.  

And here is an adult Eastern tiger swallowtail

Holy Mountain?

On this video you can see remains after an Ancient Hawaiian industrial operation near the summit of Mauna Kea.
- - -
What has been happening on Mauna Kea has been fascinating for any student of ancient and modern religion. "Protectors of Mauna Kea" can serve as an illustration example of the use of religion for political (nationalistic) ends.
My academic qualification has been in the study of the Ancient Near East bronze age religion (more specifically Ugaritic Mythology). Over the last decade (unable to travel to Syria) I have been studying Hawaiian religion. I visited Hawaii more than a dozen times and even started to learn the Hawaiian language to better understand the cultural and religious mentality. 

I have also visited the summit region of Mauna Kea a number of times and I know that there are geologic features closely associated with the Hawaiian deities and religion. To the best of my knowledge there were never any signs of ancient (pre-contact) religious structures in the summit area.
At the same time I know that the mountain was NOT untouchable and ancient Hawaiians (still living in stone age) used the summit region for a major mining operation - quarrying hard basalt rock for their tools (mostly adzes). Substantial mine dumps (tailings or spoil tips) near the summit can be still observed. On this video is a mine dump the size of about 5.8 acres and the total area with signs of mining covers about 100 acres! By the way - this can serve as a prime example of the environmental impact of even the stone age cultures!
Ancient Hawaiians used the mountain for a major industrial operation (within the context of their technology) and modern Hawaiians are in the process of turning it into an untouchable holy mountain and making it into a substitute issue to voice their political, national and religious grievances.
This is how religions evolve, morph and transform and respond to ideological demands, how holy mountains are born.
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#Hawaii #MaunaKea #HawaiianReligion

Close look at refuse chips from pre-production of adzes.

 

An example of one smaller outlaying workshop with tailings of basalt chips.

Silly Salt?

Can salt be silly? Jesus certainly thought so! He said to his followers, “You are the salt of the world.” thus lifting up and validating his disciples. But he also gave them a warning - “You are the salt of the world, but don’t be silly salt!” Silly, stupid, moronic salt was the one which lost its purpose.
For a number of years I have been collecting my own salt  and I can relate to it. (Here I wrote more about it.)

             Salt certainly has a spiritual and even a metaphysical dimension. It is spiritually transformative to collect one’s own salt and then use it to spice up food and life, and at the same time to be aware of salt as an offering and an apotropaic (evil-repelling) agent.
             In Jesus’ time salt also had a sharp social justice (fair taxation) edge. Many of Jesus’ disciples were fishermen and they depended on affordable salt to preserve their catch. They struggled with salt monopolies and unjust taxation. (This may be from a different time and land, but remember for instance Gandhi's Salt March!)
             And these days we can extend the activism of salt into eco-justice. It is widely reported that sea salt is polluted with microplastic and table salt is produced with potentially harmful nanoparticles. From our current experience we can relate to Jesus’
concern for the purity of salt.

“You ARE the salt of this world,” Jesus says to us, “So, don’t be silly!” And thus we join in worship and activism to strive for the spiritual, social and environmental common good.

Singing Hallelujahs

The Christian salvation story is in great need of radical expansion. I am convinced that the Easter message needs to reintegrate with the entire creation. 

Here is an illustration of what might have gone wrong and why I think this reintegration is needed.
       Medieval art, especially from high Gothic times through Renaissance, often depicted baby Jesus with a bird. Sometimes Jesus awkwardly holds it, even clutches it. Later on, with some rising sensitivity, the bird is only gently touched. Occasionally the bird is being tethered on a golden string. 

      In order to understand what is going on, you need to know that the bird in these paintings is Carduelis Carduelis - the European Goldfinch. Goldfinches are associated with thistles, brambles and anything thorny. In those paintings this bird is a signal, a pointer and an omen foreshadowing the crucifixion. 
      I find it symptomatic of our treatment of nature in our religion. We made our religion all about us, and only us and about our individual salvation. Nature is used, like that bird in those paintings, as a stage or even worse as a tool and accessory to the great story of our own salvation. 
      I always felt badly for those pure birds in those paintings being so awkwardly handled by the medieval Jesus. Especially as they were made into those unwilling pointers to the cross and unwilling coincidental accessories to the crime of crucifixion while goldfinches are joyful and famous songbirds. 

Join us this Easter Sunday when we reintegrate goldfinches and all creation into the salvation story. It will not diminish its glory, it will amplify it! Let us all sing with entire creation our Salvation Hallelujahs.
And here is a video version of this blog - Singing Hallelujahs .

Recounting Divine Glory

This Sunday is the first in the season of Lent. This year we will follow our Presbyterian devotional called “Awaking to God’s Beauty” and the Book of Psalms will be our guide.

At first, people worshiped under the open skies, in some nice or special places; in a holy grove, by a brook, at a spring, or on a special hill or a mountain.
     Soon after, people erected a stela or created a stone circle, built an altar. Those were the beginnings of the first shrines which later grew into temples.
     Those ancient temple complexes were still built and decorated and organized as sacred models of the world, informed by the local mythological cosmology.
     In the center was the holy of holies, a divine habitation, surrounded with a place restricted only for priests, then a space for the local devotees and finally for anyone else. Basins and pools represented oceans, large pillars were mountains upon which the sky rested and columns stood for tall and splendid trees (especially their capitals preserved that notion). Some of this architectural cosmology is present in cathedrals till this day.
     Over time the divine became more and more confounded into the walls of temples, cathedrals and churches or even worse hidden in a transcendent distance. On this first Sunday in Lent the 19^th Psalm will encourage us again to return back to nature and to open our eyes and all our senses to the divine beauty all around us. Come and join us in the worship.