Archive for May, 2009

St. Basil on “Whom Do I Wrong?”

Monday, May 4th, 2009

Here is St. Basil of Caesarea in the fourth century, in response to the question, “Whom do I wrong by keeping my property?”

“What, tell me, is your property? Where did you find it? Just like someone in the theater who had a seat and then stopped those who entered, judging that what lies in common in front of everyone to use was his own: Rich men are of the same kind. They first took possession of the common property, and then they keep it as their own become they were the first to take it. If one had taken what is necessary to cover one’s needs and had left the rest to those who are in need, no one would be rich; no one would be poor, no one would be in need.

“Isn’t it true that you fell off the womb naked? Isn’t it true that naked you shall return to the earth? Where is your present property from? If you think it came to your by itself, you don’t believe in God, you don’t acknowledge the creator, and you are not thankful to him who gave it to you. But if you agree and confess that you have it from God, tell us the reason why he gave it to you….

“Who is the greedy person? It’s him who doesn’t  content himself with what he has. And who strips? He who steals what belongs to the others. And you think that you are not greedy, and that you do not strip others? What was granted to you, in order for you to take care of the others, you took it and you made it your own. What do you think?

He who strips the clothed is to be called a thief. What should we name him, who is able to dress the naked and doesn’t do it; does he deserve some other name?

The bread that you possess belongs to the hungry. The clothes you store in boxes belong to the naked. The shoes rotting by you belong to the barefoot. The money that you need hide belongs to anyone in need. Your wrong as many people as you were able to help.

Reprinted in Sojourners (sojo.net), May 2008

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Easter’s Blow

Saturday, May 2nd, 2009

In the Journal for Preachers (Easter 2008), Barbara Brown Taylor notes that when the famed theologian Harvey Cox taught a class called “Jesus and Moral Life” at Harvard college, he left the Resurrection off the syllabus. He stopped at the crucifixion because not all of his students were of the Christian persuasion and the Resurrection stood on the borderline of the historical and the mystical. His students pressed him, however, and not just the Christians. They wanted to know why Cox was leaving out the climax of the story, the part that made Jesus different from Moses, Muhammand, or the Buddha.

Cox decided to add the Resurrection to his syllabus, but not before he had done his own research. Chief among his surprises was the discovery that stories of the raising of the dead in the Hebrew Bible had nothing to do with immortality. They are about God’s justice. “They did not spring up from a yearning for life after death,” Cox writes, “but from the conviction that ultimately a truly just God simply has to vindicate the victims of the callous and the powerful.”

To restore a dead person to life is to strike a blow at mortality, Cox points out, but to restore a crucified man to life is to strike a blow at the system that executed him.

Pastor Jaster

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