Wednesday, August 17, 2005
‘Christ Plays’ 85-103
Our Peterson discussion at staff meeting focused on the use and importance of words. Near the beginning of the meeting one staff member asked if the rest of us noticed a growing emphasis on the importance of words and the use of words as art. Another person said that the Sunday morning service used to be a special event where the people would sit and listen to the sermon. People now, however, are under an “avalanche of words.”
Since we are constantly being bombarded with hearing words and speaking words, one wonders if words have lost some of their power. It is possible we need to have more “Sabbath” in speech. Maybe this comes through repetition, such as praying the same liturgy every week. Maybe this comes from concentrating on what the same words mean in a constantly changing context. (The example one person suggested was telling someone “I love you” can have richer and richer meaning as context and experiences together grow and change.) Maybe the “Sabbath” in speech comes from choosing words artfully as Peterson does so that our words mean what we say and so that we recognize the power of what we’re saying. (Peterson’s example: “Saying “I believe,” for instance, marks the difference between life and death.”)
And maybe the “Sabbath” in speech means slowing down and thinking about how God changes our ideas, such as allowing Jesus to redefine our ideas of glory as Peterson suggests in this section.
But this glory must now be reimagined and received and entered into as Jesus reveals it:
Jesus ignorable,
Jesus unimpressive,
Jesus dismissed,
Jesus marginal,
Jesus suffering,
Jesus rejected,
Jesus derided,
Jesus hung on a cross,
and—
the final and irrefutable indignity—Jesus dead and buried.
All this is included in the content of “we beheld his glory. (p.101)
For next week: pages 104-129.
Earlier: 61-85
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