Colleagues,
First a correction. Second some Advent Archival Items. Third a word
about the Tin Cup (again).
Two items of introduction were missing in ThTh 76 last
week, Annemie Bosch's essay "Memory and Forgiveness." They were already
missing in the original cyberspace transmission I received and then passed
on to you. One was this notation: "This article was written for and
published by African Enterprise. It may be reproduced in whole or in part,
provided its author and African Enterprise are acknowledged. To learn more
about African Enterprise visit their website
The second item was a brief paragraph about the author: "Annemie Bosch is
an elder for a local congregation in Pretoria and a long-time helper and
supporter of African Enterprise. With her late husband, the renowned
missiologist David Bosch, Annemie worked tirelessly through the Apartheid
years, and still works in the present for reconciliation and justice in
South Africa." Not having those words in hand I composed a few sentences
about Annemie myself. But way too much hype, she subsequently told me. "I
am not a missiologist, definitely not a 'major voice' in IAMS. Missiology
was one of my majors for the BTh degree - and I perhaps know a little more
about missiology because I was married to David." To which I responded
noting that already in Jesus' day there was confusion about who was major
and who was minor in the Kingdom.
Church vocabulary in the (Latin) Middle Ages had two words for the future:
futurus and adventus. The word futurus designated what lay up ahead in
view of what could be extrapolated from the past. This future was to some
degree predictable. [E.g., weather forecasts are futurus stuff.]
Adventus, on the other hand, signalled something up ahead that arrived
from the other direction. Not at all the consequences of the past, this
future was an invasion from up front, from what had not yet happened.
Small wonder that the early Christian community latched on to adventus as
the word for their future in the light of the Good News. What they had
once expected from God was not what actually came. Even if some of the
clear-eyed ones had a hunch that the deity would arrive enfleshed, none
could even imagine what this humanized deity finally did. For that there
was no precedent. It was indeed a new thing.
One apostolic advertisement for adventus goes like this: "What no eye has
seen, nor ear heard, nor human heart even conceived, that's what God has
coming from the future toward those who trust him." (I Cor. 2:9) But can
anything so un-conceivable be described at all, if it is so radically brand
new? Paul answers yes. It is grounded in the Jesus story.
What happened from Bethlehem to the Ascension was adventus, nothing you
could have deduced from preceding human experience. Here's one way Paul
re-words it: "In Christ God was doing a balance sheet, settling accounts,
you might say, with the tenants in his world. But God did this by not
calculating their trespasses as debits against them. Call it a New
Creation." (II Cor. 5)
From what all of us know about balance sheets, is this any way to reconcile
accounts? Of course not. But our convictions about balance sheets are
deduced from our past experience. Call it Old Creation. We know of no case
where accounts ever get settled by simply cancelling debts and never
returning to collect--either in the world of economics or of personal
relations. Our lives in what we call the "real" world seem to make sense
only when we use a debit-credit calculus for human relations. But not so
for God, the God of Gospel-adventus.
Yet if you don't count people's debits and credits, how on earth do you
reconcile the books? How does God do it? Answer: With another surprise,
an adventus original. "God had his Son, the Christ, take ownership of the
debits of us all, and in the transaction transferred to us all this Son's
own native credits." (Ibid.) What a deal--our liabilities for his assets!
Our frightful futurus for his advantageous adventus. What a way to run a
railroad! Yet in view of who the beneficiaries are, why should we quibble?
So the Good News for Advent lies in the new futures market. Sinners, even
very moral ones, are offered an alternate future to the one they normally
expect. Therefore expect the unexpected this Advent. Expect what
otherwise never happens in the Old Creation, God's debts-for-assets
exchange--Christ's assets for our debts. It's a "froehlicher Wechsel," as
Luther calls it, and as Bob Bertram translates it, "a sweet swap." That's
the way God reconciles accounts operating out of God's own future, or, as
the Lord's Prayer puts it, the way "God's will is done in heaven."
No wonder the Bethlehem shepherds were scared stiff on Christmas Eve. The
heavenly messenger sings that in the mangered Messiah God's will is now
"being done on our earth as it is in heaven." How can you run things on
earth with such a management system, such strange bookkeeping? Yet, if
true, it is good tidings. And if we are the beneficiaries, then an earthly
"gloria!" is our best response to the angel's heavenly one.
And, oh yes, one more thing. In the time of your own Advent waiting, get
some practice in settling your own accounts by sweet-swapping (call it
"forgiveness"). Take advantage of Advent. See what happens when you
transact your own business of living by this Christic-calculus. Folks with
whom you settle accounts in this way may well think you crazy. All the
more so if they are committed to cornering the market for their own futures
by "trespass-counting." But that's their problem. They are not crazy
enough.
For we have it on good authority that sweet-swapping is the way of the
future, the one that lasts. The Christ of Advent says we have it coming to
us. We have his word for it.
Here's a German folk hymn, both tune and text, discovered some years ago by
Steven Mager (our church musician at Bethel Lutheran in St. Louis) and then
translated--in several versions--by M&E Schroeder. Below is one of the
renderings. [Melody and Mager's setting available on request, although I
don't know how to transmit musical scores via cyber-space.]
Dear Christians, rejoice, for Advent has come.
Dear Christians, rejoice, for Advent is here.
Dear Christians, rejoice, for Advent is here.
ThTh-beneficiaries may become ThTh-benefactors in supporting the Crossings
team (Robin Morgan, Marie & Ed Schroeder) heading for South Africa next
month. The event is the Tenth conference of the International Association
for Mission Studies in Pretoria January 21-28. Christology for the New
Millennium is the theme. A few days after the conference Robin will
return to parish duties in St. Louis, whilst we (Ed and Marie) stick around
for a couple more weeks. Our agenda, d.v., is to visit 3 seminaries as
well as Christian folks we know in S. Africa, to check out the ministries
of former Seminex students now pastoring in Malawi and Kenya, and then
conclude with a homecoming (and some guest lecturing) at the Mekane Yesus
Seminary in Addis Ababa. MYS was our work world in 1995.
Benefactors get US income-tax-deductible benefit by sending your check to
Crossings, Inc., P.O.Box 7011, Chesterfield MO 63006-7011. Mark your check:
"Crossings in Africa."
First One: THE FUTURES MARKET FOR ADVENT
[EHS November 1992]
Second One: AN ADVENT FOLK HYMN
Dear Christians, rejoice, for Advent is here,
See the first candle bright & clear
Attention on these, our holiest days.
Prepare your hearts for God's own ways.
Christians, be joyful, with one accord
Near at hand is the Lord.
The second candle signals John.
In our darkness too his message brings light,
Points us to Christ, from faith, not fright.
Christians, be joyful, with one accord
Near at hand is the Lord.
See the third candle, bright and clear.
Our God, three in one, sent Mary his call
To bear his Son and bless us all.
Christians, be joyful, with one accord.
Near at hand is the Lord.
See the fourth candle, bright and clear.
The circle is closed, we soon will be fed
At Bethlehem, God's House of Bread.
Christians, be joyful, with one accord.
Near at hand is the Lord.
Peace & Joy!
Ed