Right as I was beginning this writing project in late February, I was in the library returning some books at a local seminary and on the periodical wall I saw a big bold cover article for the magazine called The Christian Century: "God does not require Blood." It was the February 10 issue. I skimmed the article, but I was kind of in a hurry and thought I can read the article again online later. Unfortunately I can't find it on-line, but if I remember correctly, the main jist of the article was that the author, Mr. Daniel Bell, disagreed with the idea that God demands the shedding of blood to justify sinners. He said that that doctrine promotes the idea of redemptive violence, so that Christians today are too willing to ask violence to problems because they see that God works that way.
Now that I have been spending so much time with blood language in the Bible for a few weeks, I really want to re-read that article. Maybe I can make it back to the library soon to clarify in my mind what the author really said, and properly consider and respond to it.
If his basic argument is that a doctrine of blood atonement necessarily leads Christians to resort to violence as a way to obey and follow their King, I would argue the opposite. It seems to me that if a Christian really accepted that Christ took on himself the blood-guilt of the world, that Christian would need to let go of all attempts to put "blood on the head" of another person. The blood-vengeance has been handed out already for once and all.
I have to find out if the author meant his title this way, "as a result of Christ's blood, God does not any longer require blood." Or this way, "God does not, and did not ever, require blood." The first I would agree with and the second I would strongly disagree with. Too bad, I have to read the article more carefully before I go any further.
Just a minute, now, I tried again and found it! You can read it too and I'll respond to it more tomorrow: click this to link to the article
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Day 30: Bleed Just to Know
I have always been a bit of an anxious and over-analytical worrier and the state of my fingertips often can clue me in to how agitated I have been in a given week. Nails bitten short is normal, increased stress brings peeled, torn cuticles, and worse is hunting for a pin or needle or embroidery scissors to really attack the cuticles, peel layers of skin off the sides of my thumb and ending up with several smarting, bleeding, band-aided fingertips.
When the song Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls was playing all the time on the radio in the late nineties, I did not bother to find out the name of the band, nor did I ever know the name of the song. All I noticed, besides that it was a beautiful sad song of longing, was this couplet:
When everything feels like the movies
And you bleed just to know you're alive.
I don't know what the writer meant by those lyrics, but I know what those words meant to me. One of the strangest experiences I had during a couple of years when I was floundering in a black hole of major depression was when there were days or hours when I felt like most of me was watching me and my life from a distance, like my life was the movies and I was just viewing this woman Jessica from a safe sofa. I've learned since then that it is called dissociation, and that it is a way of coping with trauma, or getting through a situation that a person doesn't have the skills to integrate into their understanding or model of reality. What is scary about it is the awareness that "there is a me that is watching myself from a distance. Am I the me or am I the myself?"
When that time of illness hit its most intense time and I was in crisis, I had a few weeks where I started a daily ritual that seemed to bring me a sense of release or relief and proof that "I am me AND myself." One day all my fingers were raw and I needed to attack something else and I found this spot on my scalp where the skin was a little bit bumpy or thick or something so I scratched and scratched and tried to scratch the bumpy part off until it was smooth. Eventually I scratched enough so that it bled. And then the next day there was an even bumpier layer of scab to attack and then after a few days I couldn't wait to have a few minutes alone to attack that spot on my scalp and peel off more layers and use a needle or a razor edge and it was like having a hit of drugs when the layer of scab came off and I felt the sticky wet fluid coming out clear or red and it felt so good to see the blood and feel the sting. I am alive! I am bleeding and it hurts! That is so comforting to say and experience when you are in a dissociative state and feel like you are a walking dead person.
I'm still a habitual nail-biter, and my cuticles get punished on occasion, but I have come a long way in finding other ways to release stress and cope with life. There was one other time in the last dozen years since my depression that I attacked my scalp, so I know that I have to beware of a tendency to turn on myself in my worst experiences of being angry or scared or stuck in a corner. That more recent time I wasn't experiencing dissociation and I told a few people I was struggling with it, so even though I was going for blood, it wasn't to prove to myself that I was alive, just a strange indulgence that seemsd to bring relief for a few minutes.
I don't personally know anyone that is caught in a long term struggle with resorting to cutting or self-mutilation as a way to bring on an emotional release, or prove that life is still happening somewhere in there, at least in the circulatory system. I understand, though, that is a very tempting ritual to peel or scratch or cut till the blood comes and believe that seeing red somehow will help the endorphins work their magic.
How do so many self-destructive acts become our self-medication? How can we get so mixed up that we indulge a lust to see our own blood rather than let it be where it needs to stay, inside of us.
When the song Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls was playing all the time on the radio in the late nineties, I did not bother to find out the name of the band, nor did I ever know the name of the song. All I noticed, besides that it was a beautiful sad song of longing, was this couplet:
When everything feels like the movies
And you bleed just to know you're alive.
I don't know what the writer meant by those lyrics, but I know what those words meant to me. One of the strangest experiences I had during a couple of years when I was floundering in a black hole of major depression was when there were days or hours when I felt like most of me was watching me and my life from a distance, like my life was the movies and I was just viewing this woman Jessica from a safe sofa. I've learned since then that it is called dissociation, and that it is a way of coping with trauma, or getting through a situation that a person doesn't have the skills to integrate into their understanding or model of reality. What is scary about it is the awareness that "there is a me that is watching myself from a distance. Am I the me or am I the myself?"
When that time of illness hit its most intense time and I was in crisis, I had a few weeks where I started a daily ritual that seemed to bring me a sense of release or relief and proof that "I am me AND myself." One day all my fingers were raw and I needed to attack something else and I found this spot on my scalp where the skin was a little bit bumpy or thick or something so I scratched and scratched and tried to scratch the bumpy part off until it was smooth. Eventually I scratched enough so that it bled. And then the next day there was an even bumpier layer of scab to attack and then after a few days I couldn't wait to have a few minutes alone to attack that spot on my scalp and peel off more layers and use a needle or a razor edge and it was like having a hit of drugs when the layer of scab came off and I felt the sticky wet fluid coming out clear or red and it felt so good to see the blood and feel the sting. I am alive! I am bleeding and it hurts! That is so comforting to say and experience when you are in a dissociative state and feel like you are a walking dead person.
I'm still a habitual nail-biter, and my cuticles get punished on occasion, but I have come a long way in finding other ways to release stress and cope with life. There was one other time in the last dozen years since my depression that I attacked my scalp, so I know that I have to beware of a tendency to turn on myself in my worst experiences of being angry or scared or stuck in a corner. That more recent time I wasn't experiencing dissociation and I told a few people I was struggling with it, so even though I was going for blood, it wasn't to prove to myself that I was alive, just a strange indulgence that seemsd to bring relief for a few minutes.
I don't personally know anyone that is caught in a long term struggle with resorting to cutting or self-mutilation as a way to bring on an emotional release, or prove that life is still happening somewhere in there, at least in the circulatory system. I understand, though, that is a very tempting ritual to peel or scratch or cut till the blood comes and believe that seeing red somehow will help the endorphins work their magic.
How do so many self-destructive acts become our self-medication? How can we get so mixed up that we indulge a lust to see our own blood rather than let it be where it needs to stay, inside of us.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Day 29: Blood HAS to Flow
As I have read more parts of the Bible that talk about blood-guilt and blood vengeance and the like, it seems clear that the only way to make things right after a violation is the shedding of blood. It seems like the most serious violations only could be made right by a claim on the blood of the violator(s). But sometimes, especially for unintentional violations, there was a (sort of) Plan B. Sometimes an animal could take on the blood-guilt, so if the animal died, that blood-shed was a substitute for the violators.
A commentator, Rabbi Moshe New, in an audio lecture about the system of sacrifices in Leviticus says these things:
As the animal was slaughtered and burned, the person who brought the animal was supposed to think this: "Whatever is happening to the animal right now, should be happening to me!" If the person is thinking about that, it will move them to make a change in their life. You can't transfer your sins to an animal, watch it die and burn up, and walk away unmoved!
When the animal's blood flowed into the ground, the claim on the violator's blood was given up. Another way to say that "the claim on my blood is given up" is to say, "I am forgiven."
Sometimes when I think of the word or concept of forgiveness, I think of it more as an overlooking of a violation. But in reality, "No big deal" or "That's ok" or "Whatever" or "It's all good" are not responses of forgiveness when something really wrong happens. Forgiveness still demands bloodshed, it just lets the claim on the violator's blood be transferred to the blood of an innocent animal sacrifice. Blood HAS to flow, otherwise the damage, or injustice, or injury, or dead victim will be seen as inconsequential, no big deal, part of a reality where nothing really matters.
A commentator, Rabbi Moshe New, in an audio lecture about the system of sacrifices in Leviticus says these things:
As the animal was slaughtered and burned, the person who brought the animal was supposed to think this: "Whatever is happening to the animal right now, should be happening to me!" If the person is thinking about that, it will move them to make a change in their life. You can't transfer your sins to an animal, watch it die and burn up, and walk away unmoved!
When the animal's blood flowed into the ground, the claim on the violator's blood was given up. Another way to say that "the claim on my blood is given up" is to say, "I am forgiven."
Sometimes when I think of the word or concept of forgiveness, I think of it more as an overlooking of a violation. But in reality, "No big deal" or "That's ok" or "Whatever" or "It's all good" are not responses of forgiveness when something really wrong happens. Forgiveness still demands bloodshed, it just lets the claim on the violator's blood be transferred to the blood of an innocent animal sacrifice. Blood HAS to flow, otherwise the damage, or injustice, or injury, or dead victim will be seen as inconsequential, no big deal, part of a reality where nothing really matters.
Day 28: Blood Brothers
I know I read several friendship stories that had this event, often friendships of boys, but I'm not sure which ones: I'm thinking Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn might have? And I think this happened in The Indian in the Cupboard. But anyway, there is a ritual of bonding or friendship that sometimes people used to do, to declare their unity or love or loyalty or something. Two people would each cut a gash somewhere in their body, we'll say arms. Once the blood was flowing, they would tie the two arms together and the idea was that blood of one person would get into the bloodstream of the other and vice-versa. Now when I think about that as an adult, it seems unlikely that blood would flow into a body at a place where the wound was trying to cleanse and clot up. But obviously it is a symbolic ritual to try to express unity and brotherhood using blood.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Day 27: Blood on the Head
A common phrase that turned up when I did a search of all the Bible verses with the word blood was "blood on their head," or variations like the "blood will be upon you," or "blood will rest on his house." This phrase seems connected to the concept of blood-vengeance, so that every time innocent blood is shed, it "remains on" the head of the murderer until that murderer is put to death. I Kings 2 is a place where this phrase is mentioned often as Solomon is beginning his reign as king. "Blood on the head" is a figurative way of describing the concept of "blood-guilt," which doesn't go away until the blood-shedder and sometimes his whole household also gets "their heads brought down with blood into Sheol." In Leviticus 20, it seems that the death sentence "your blood is upon you" is even declared for violations that are not murder. Here's an example: (Lev 20:9) "All who curse father or mother shall be put to death; having cursed father or mother, their blood is upon them." That also helps reassure the people who must stone and execute the guilty person. They don't have to fear having the blood they shed now put on their heads. Because they are executing a guilty person, the blood stays on the head of the one they are putting to death.
This figure of speech usually shows up as a second or third-person reference, that is, blood be on YOUR or THEIR head. But this phrase shows up once in the first-person when a crowd of people say, "Let the blood rest on us and our children!" That is in the end of Matthew 27 when Pilate (not wanting to get the "blood on his hands") publicly makes a show of washing his hands from any responsibility from the coming bloodshed of Jesus. So the people who had called out Hosanna a few days earlier now willingly take on blood-guilt, if there should turn out to be any, for the death of this carpenter/teacher who says he is the Messiah. There wouldn't be blood-guilt, I'm guessing, if Jesus were truly a blasphemer, only if he were actually innocent of all charges that the chief priests of the temple council were bringing forward. So the people were saying, if this Jesus is guilty, his blood will be on his own head, and if he is innocent, crucify him anyway and we're willing to accept the blood-guilt and pass the blood-guilt on to our descendants.
This figure of speech usually shows up as a second or third-person reference, that is, blood be on YOUR or THEIR head. But this phrase shows up once in the first-person when a crowd of people say, "Let the blood rest on us and our children!" That is in the end of Matthew 27 when Pilate (not wanting to get the "blood on his hands") publicly makes a show of washing his hands from any responsibility from the coming bloodshed of Jesus. So the people who had called out Hosanna a few days earlier now willingly take on blood-guilt, if there should turn out to be any, for the death of this carpenter/teacher who says he is the Messiah. There wouldn't be blood-guilt, I'm guessing, if Jesus were truly a blasphemer, only if he were actually innocent of all charges that the chief priests of the temple council were bringing forward. So the people were saying, if this Jesus is guilty, his blood will be on his own head, and if he is innocent, crucify him anyway and we're willing to accept the blood-guilt and pass the blood-guilt on to our descendants.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Day 26: Cup of Blood
from the Heidelberg Catechism (a Christian confession written in 1563 in Germany)
Question 75: How does the Lord's Supper remind you and assure you that you share in Christ's one sacrifice on the cross and in all his gifts?
Answer: In this way:
Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat this broken bread and to drink this cup. With this command he gave this promise:
First, as surely as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup given to me,
so surely his body was offered and broken for me and his blood poured out for me on the cross.
Second, as surely as I receive from the hand of the one who serves, and taste with my mouth the bread and cup of the Lord, given me as sure signs of Christ's body and blood,
so surely he nourishes and refreshes my soul for eternal life with his crucified body and poured-out blood.
Question 76: What does it mean to eat the crucified body of Christ and to drink his poured-out blood?
Answer: It means to accept with a believing heart the entire suffering and death of Christ and by believing to receive forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
But it means more. Through the Holy Spirit, who lives both in Christ and in us, we are united more and more to Christ's blessed body. And so, although he is in heaven and we are on earth, we are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. And we forever live on and are governed by one Spirit as members of our body are by one soul.
Question 77: Where does Christ promise to nourish and refresh believers with his body and blood as surely as they eat this broken bread and drink this cup?Answer: In the institution of the Lord's Supper:
"The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.' For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."
This promise is repeated by Paul in these words:
"Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf."
Question 75: How does the Lord's Supper remind you and assure you that you share in Christ's one sacrifice on the cross and in all his gifts?
Answer: In this way:
Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat this broken bread and to drink this cup. With this command he gave this promise:
First, as surely as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup given to me,
so surely his body was offered and broken for me and his blood poured out for me on the cross.
Second, as surely as I receive from the hand of the one who serves, and taste with my mouth the bread and cup of the Lord, given me as sure signs of Christ's body and blood,
so surely he nourishes and refreshes my soul for eternal life with his crucified body and poured-out blood.
Question 76: What does it mean to eat the crucified body of Christ and to drink his poured-out blood?
Answer: It means to accept with a believing heart the entire suffering and death of Christ and by believing to receive forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
But it means more. Through the Holy Spirit, who lives both in Christ and in us, we are united more and more to Christ's blessed body. And so, although he is in heaven and we are on earth, we are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. And we forever live on and are governed by one Spirit as members of our body are by one soul.
Question 77: Where does Christ promise to nourish and refresh believers with his body and blood as surely as they eat this broken bread and drink this cup?Answer: In the institution of the Lord's Supper:
"The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.' For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."
This promise is repeated by Paul in these words:
"Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf."
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Day 25: Quenching our Thirst for Blood
So if it is true that it is not just vampires that are bloodthirsty, but all humans, what do we do to overcome our natural urge to shed blood of other humans, whether by direct violence or by our participation in a society that thrives economically on injustice that brings bloodshed in distant places?
What if we, like Edward the vampire in Twilight have to find an alternate blood source in order to keep from shedding blood of others? To me, it helps the "drink my blood" talk that Jesus gives in John 6 seem a little less crazy.
It may not seem strange to life-long Christians, but one of our two holy sacraments is a ritual based on eating flesh and drinking blood. Of course we use bread and wine, but we are supposed to think of it as Jesus' human body and blood. That is strange!
But what if we acknowledge that, like Edward, we are struggling to overcome a thirst for the blood of others, not just our enemies, but the ones we love? What if, like Edward, we admitted we needed a substitute blood to quench that thirst so we would not fall upon each other?
I don't think it was a random reminder ceremony that Jesus put in place. We don't brush a symbolic blood on our doorways, or on our foreheads, or sprinkle it on our clothes during communion, we drink it! We admit that we come to the table as bloodthirsty humans and give thanks that Jesus has given us his own blood to drink so that we don't have to thirst for any other.
What if we, like Edward the vampire in Twilight have to find an alternate blood source in order to keep from shedding blood of others? To me, it helps the "drink my blood" talk that Jesus gives in John 6 seem a little less crazy.
It may not seem strange to life-long Christians, but one of our two holy sacraments is a ritual based on eating flesh and drinking blood. Of course we use bread and wine, but we are supposed to think of it as Jesus' human body and blood. That is strange!
But what if we acknowledge that, like Edward, we are struggling to overcome a thirst for the blood of others, not just our enemies, but the ones we love? What if, like Edward, we admitted we needed a substitute blood to quench that thirst so we would not fall upon each other?
I don't think it was a random reminder ceremony that Jesus put in place. We don't brush a symbolic blood on our doorways, or on our foreheads, or sprinkle it on our clothes during communion, we drink it! We admit that we come to the table as bloodthirsty humans and give thanks that Jesus has given us his own blood to drink so that we don't have to thirst for any other.
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