Currents of Faith: Open and Unfolding Reflections

This passage from Hebrews, stressing Christ’s unique status, sets the stage for the claim—so central to this writing—that the revelation we have in Jesus is in fact the final revelation. Near the end of Hebrews, however, this sense of fulfillment is balanced by an emphasis upon hope in the midst of unfulfillment, as the author lays out a “pilgrim theology” encapsulated in 13:14: “For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.” The Christmas season—and this is especially so for process thinkers—combines the themes of present fulfillment and hope for the future in a powerful way. The birth of the Christ-child signals God’s unconditional presence with us and participation in both our joy and our suffering in the present; but the Christ-child is also a symbol of hope for the world—hope that God’s shalom, or ultimate peace and well-being, will at last be realized on earth. Some years ago, a Roman Catholic nun who has worked for peace and justice in Latin America for many decades spoke at my college. The picture she painted of that region was a bleak one indeed, and so I asked her how she was able to keep hope alive in the midst of the overwhelming problems she had lifted up. Her answer was this: “We need to learn to work for realities that we will not see realized in our lifetime.” That message speaks to me even more powerfully than it did when I first heard it. A native of the deep South born in the late nineteen-thirties, I have lived through times when hope was very much alive. I have seen systems of apartheid dismantled both in this country and in South Africa; I have seen a generation of young people bring an insane war to an end; and I have celebrated as I observed persons of all ages become aware of the injustice of our economic system and the dangers facing our environment. But I must also say that at present hope is harder to come by than at any point in my life, as I watch our government acting more and more like an empire and less and less an avenue for providing for the common good. It would be easy enough to fall into despair. To be a Christian, however, is to be a person of hope. We can work for realities that we may never see realized because we believe that far beyond our own lifetimes, the Christ-child still comes into the world as a sign that God is truly with us, sowing the seeds of ultimate shalom. ~ Russ Pregeant

During the Christmas season, we are inspired and enlivened with phrases from the prophet Isaiah. Among them: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. . . . For a child has been born to us . . . and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God . . .  Prince of Peace.” Within Christian circles, these words are traditionally assumed to prophesy the birth of Jesus centuries later. However, recognizing their historical locus, we may consider them more broadly as an empirical awareness of the powerful presence of redemptive grace even during times of seeming gloom and doom. Sixty years ago just following the long struggle against the destructive fury of fascism, Bernard E. Meland, process theologian, released a small book, Seeds of Redemption. In this text, he called us to assume a mood of repentance given the horrors of that time, preparing us thereby for renewed commitment to the source of all goodness with all that such a commitment entails for the reshaping of the world community. The present time is not unlike that period with its widespread violence, deep poverty, ecological degradation, ethnic bigotry, gender discrimination. Where, at this moment, can we discern signs of hope, sources of light, forces of peace? Are we prepared to follow in that pathway? ~ Douglas Sturm

This Christmas I am drawn to two verses in Psalm 96, the eleventh (designated as the antiphon) and the twelfth. In this psalm we are called to praise God, and (here’s what catches me) all creation is to get in the act. “Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy  . . . ” Once again, biblical insight anticipates the process ecological corrective necessitated by human anthropocentrism. Yet the long first sentence is directed, presumably, to us human creatures (cf. v. 7: “O families of the peoples”.). The imperative’s direction is appropriate, for the “creation groaning in labor pains” (Ro. 8:22) gets to play the victim in the planet’s drama to the wide ranging forms of human sin Paul recounts in his epistle. This is a long-standing crime, more fully empowered by humankind’s technological instrumentation for greed’s song. This Advent season we know that it is late, but it may not be too late. Holmes Rolston, III, proposes that evolution has now reached a stage where a kenotic imperative is newly empowered. He writes (The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis, ed. John Polkinghorne, 64) of the possibility that “self-interested humans impose limits on human welfare on behalf of the other species.” That could get us to verse 12’s wonderful indicative, fields exulting, trees singing for joy. Christmas sings of “peace on earth” and calls us to live to bring “peace to the earth.” That will be praise indeed for the Creator who fills heaven and earth (Jer. 23:24). ~ Paul Sponheim

his great oracle of hope was first proclaimed by a nameless prophet whom we call Second Isaiah. Spoken first to Jews living in exile in Babylon around 540 B.C.E., it declared that God would return to Jerusalem, a city that remained devastated from the war fifty years prior, and would redeem and restore it. Probably within fifteen years of this oracle’s proclamation Jews returned to rebuild the city. Over the years the oracle became a message of a hopeful future for Jews, declaring that God would work yet again a new wonder and bring a new and more glorious age. We Christians have inherited this oracle and connect it to the first coming of Jesus, God in the flesh, which we now celebrate at Christmas. But we also see that it can speak of any future coming of God to help people spiritually and physically. The oracle has moved through an evolutionary process from the sixth century B.C.E. to our modern age, as it speaks again and again of God coming to redeem and restore a helpless humanity. As Jesus is the incarnation of God into the human process of existence, in a similar way this oracle of hope is the incarnation of God’s promise into the flow of human history in the form of a spoken promise, a proclamation of hope. God has been speaking to humanity with this oracle for over two thousand years now. It commands us to break into song (Christmas carol or otherwise), for our God will act dramatically to save us. Rejoice, for yet again God will return, God will reign, God will comfort those who have faith to see the divine presence in the world about them. ~ Robert Gnuse

Experience is the basic reality for process theologians and experience is that which they seek in scripture. Here we have the father, mother, newborn child, shepherds, angel, a multitude of angels, and flocks of sheep. One may wish to add the cow and donkey sharing their home with the family. Many Christmas messages have been created by entering the experiences of those gathered. Yet this nativity scene was probably a metaphor, an event which never happened but a story which expresses a powerful truth, created by a first century Christian community. We may then seek the historical experiences of the authors, pondering, praying, and seeking inspiration and illumination. They creatively struggle to proclaim from their worldview the new reality initiated by Jesus. They found: God graces the least of the least, the lowest of the low, the shepherds! ~ Adrienne and Robert Brizee