What Endures, What Putrefies
After we die,
and the weary heart
has lowered its final eyelid
on all that we’ve longed for,
on all that we’ve dreamt of,
all we’ve desired
or felt,
hate will be
the first thing
to putrefy
within us.
-Taha Muhammad Ali
Recently I was involved in caring for an African-American woman scarred with severe burns from a Molotov cocktail thrown into her home when she was a girl. Who is the ‘I” animated by this hate to inflict such pain?
I was also involved in the care of a young woman paralyzed form a gun related suicide attempt. Who is the “I” that hated her?
In this video of Mr Rogers, who is the “I” pouring chemicals into the pool and who is the “I” washing feet?
Who is the “I” hating you and hating me? What is at work here?
Conversely, who is the “I” at work within me loving you and loving me?
These people endure significant harm, disease, suffering, pain, etc…as a result of the power hate has to animate the body to perform such evil. Hate is a manifestation of the “powers” Paul writes about in Ephesians. We are animated by the Holy Spirit or are we animated by our enslavement to “the powers.” We are beings who both “are” and “becoming.” The Western world neglects the idea of the powers and the corporate nature of humanity in deference to the individual. In fact, the theological paradigm has shifted from the Hebrew narrative to the Western Christian narrative to reflect this ideology.
Western Christianity tells of a God that made individual man who is elected or predestined or chosen to go to a good place or bad place. The scriptural narrative is one of God creating humankind. Humankind falls but God elects, chooses, predestines Abraham to be the father of Israel and out of Israel will come the Messiah who is the elect, the chosen, the predestined One to restore all nations, all humankind to the right relation with the Father, His creation, and each other. What happens in the Garden is the beginning of all of it- it is the Genesis.
Genesis 3 shows us the Satan, sin (as an entity in the form of a snake) tempting mankind to have its own vision of good and evil. To be like God is to assert your right to decide that which is functional or dysfunctional (the general idea of “tov” and “ra” in Hebrew). Paul refers back to this scene in Romans 7 when he describes sin as not just the stupid things you do, but a power- an entity (v7 “sin taking opportunity through this command produced in me desiring…”). The fundamental sin of the Torah is coveting (desiring). Sin (not the snake) “deceived me” writes Paul in verse 11. The desiring is the animating force of an entity separate from you, but to whom you are enslaved to obey.
So, how did these powers get their power? Colossians 1 tells us “all things are created through Him and for Him” and these powers are both “visible” and “invisible”. The realities of the heavens and the earth are intertwined. Paul also writes in Romans 8 of the human powers and cosmic powers that cannot separate us from the love of Christ. He uses a timeline of things present and things to come as well as the expanse of Heaven and earth (the heights and depth).
Paul is a Hebrew scholar. Hebrew scripture informs his thinking. Where does this idea come from in the Hebrew scripture? Genesis 1, God is the One who separates light and darkness. He is the authority over the darkness to contain it and the authority over its opposite, light. But He delegates this responsibility to “the greater light” and “the lesser light” to rule the day and night. Moses warns in Deuteronomy 4 not to worship and serve the heavens. Deuteronomy 4: 19:
And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.
These are powers designated for the nations, but YHWH is your Authority. Deuteronomy 32: 7-19:
Remember the days of old;
consider the years of many generations;
ask your father, and he will show you,
your elders, and they will tell you.
When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders of the peoples
according to the number of the sons of God.
But the LORD's portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted heritage.
When did God divide up the nations and assign people places to live? Genesis again. God scattered the people because of their rebellion with the tower of Babel. It was an earthly rebellion of the powers. Deuteronomy 32 asks, “who are the sons of elohim (see Spiritual Beings series of thebibleproject)?” Do we have a category of spiritual beings appointed to rule? Yes, the hosts of heaven. These beings can attract worship, detracting from worship of Creator God. These beings have godlike power and are different from how I am a being. They draw our attention and we become like them in the process.
This sounds like primitive and unrelatable religious stuff. Polythesistc cultures had names for gods. The sun, moon, stars, fertility (sex), war, military prowess, the state- all had god names assigned to them in Roman and Greek culture. They built statues to honor them and ceremonies to celebrate or appease them. In the West, we have abstract ideas that we treat similarly, such as justice and liberty. In actuality, a study of Roman history reveals that we are not so different from them. These gods are representative of real entities at work in our world. They may have sacrificed animals, but “we slaughter one another (Tim Mackie, ‘Ephesians’ study).”
Exodus 12 says that YHWH was pronouncing judgement on Pharaoh “and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgement.” He is executing judgement on the human powers (Pharaoh) and the spiritual powers ruling Egypt (the gods). In Exodus 10, YHWH asserts His authority over light and darkness by reversing Genesis 1. The powers who were appointed to rule over light and darkness on His behalf were in rebellion. Who was the chief god of Egypt? Ra, the sun god. Turning day into night is YHWH asserting His authority over the gods the have elevated themselves and enslaved mankind.
When Paul writes of the powers, it is always a two-sided coin of human and spiritual powers. These powers exert their influence over us in order for us to worship them. The curse of mankind is that our exile reveals that in the act of choosing to be like a god, we became enslaved. On earth, we are slaves to violence, sickness, broken relationships, pain, toil; we are subdivided as male or female, slave or free, Greek or Jew; we regard one another based on ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation and all of these fall under the realm the powers: idolatry. The only allegiance those in the Messiah can claim is to the Messiah. Allegiance to anything else creates enmity with those outside of that allegiance. “In Him” we are delivered from this enmity. “In Him” we live and move and have our being. “In Him” we are free.
Ephesians addresses the powers in 1:20-21. 2:2, 3:10, and 6:12. Whatever identity divides us now is overthrown in Christ. Unity in Christ is the overcoming of the powers. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood. Jesus tells the disciples in John they will be persecuted, kicked out of the synagogue (by “the world”- the religious institutions threatened by Messiah). The actual enemy is not the one subject to the powers- its is the powers. Luke 22 describes the ruling priest (arch-hiereis), commanders of the temple (strategois), and the authority (exousia) of darkness as the manifestation of the powers. Yes, even the scholars of scripture and the very religious and well thought of are subject to the powers. The powers however, are not always bad, but they are easily corrupted. When corrupted, the nations rage, people draw up lines of division, the community that would reach to the heavens spirals into hell. Enmity, not unity, is the chaos of the powers in rebellion. People are dehumanized. We no longer exist as “I-Thou” but “I-It” (Martin Buber).
This is the hopeless human condition. We dream of something better. Perhaps we have deep remembrance, a home-sickness, for our Garden Life. The narrative of Hebrew scripture is one of enmity: man to woman, man to man, man and the earth, man to God. God chose Abraham to bless all nations, but Israel ended up in enmity with the nations. The Torah itself became a source of their enmity between Torah observers and those who are not. It still does. Ephesians 2 says Jesus ended this enmity as well. The view that I hear coming from the Western church is too often this: believe in Jesus, keep the Law, and you will go to the good place. Is that wrong? Mostly, but not entirely- its just not right enough. If keeping the Law was doable, we have no evidence of it in Hebrew history. The Messiah’s stated purpose would be vanity. Ephesians 2 says we were enslaved to the powers and alienated. The Law is part of the problem. Paul returns to this in Romans 7 and 8: sin was stimulated by the Law, Jesus released us from this, made us free to live in the newness of the Spirit. The narrative of Hebrew scriptures is clear, we are not equipped to keep the Law. At the very least, we can conclude that Jesus is the Authority, not the Law. But Messiah Jesus, the elected, the chosen, the One predestined delivered mankind from enmity on the cross. Ephesians says Jesus exposed, stripped the powers, rendering them powerless. How did He do that?
What was punished on the cross? The entity of sin. In whose body was sin condemned? The body of Jesus, the Son of God. When we are “in Him”, we bear the cross of Jesus in which enmity dies. Hate putrefies, the life of Christ endures. Paul never wrote that “Jesus bears the wrath of God” or “the Son bears the punishment of God.” It was sin, the powers that He destroyed. It was the powers that were subject to judgement in order for mankind to be redeemed from their rule. As in the first Passover, so too in this Passover. The earthly and heavenly powers were exposed. They put Jesus on the cross in their rebellion and Jesus ended it there. It was finished. The nation of Israel has become a blessing to all nations. All categories of division are erased, all mankind gathered into one allegiance.
“Paul is claiming (1) that Jesus deliberately drew off onto himself the hostility between Torah observant Jews and those Gentiles whose company they avoided, and (2) that this hostility brought him to the cross, and (3) that because He refused to to return the hostility, it died there with Him.”
-George Caird, Paul’s Letters from Prison , p. 58-59
At the Tower of Babel, the world was filled with violence (Genesis 6). This is a far cry of the purpose God gave mankind in the beginning- fill the early and bless it. Jesus makes this available to us again. His Spirit breathes new life into us and animates us to bless the world we inhabit. But, the powers are still at work. “In Him”, enmity is dead. Outside of Him, they still rule the air and this age.
When we see creation brutalized by mankind, humans locked in cages, humans exploited to satisfy our desires, unseemly wealth next to the sick and impoverished, war machines escalating while healthcare and food allocation dwindle, the desire to possess instruments of death overshadows the slaughter of the innocent, churches enmeshed in the god of Roma (Roman god of state), we see the powers at work. When we see people attacked for the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, or their religion, we see the powers at work. Even in our entertainment, violence is praised and mob mentality takes over- just go to a hockey game or football game. In the game and in the stands, the lines are drawn and the enemy is the other. Perhaps it all in good fun, but there is a hatefulness toward other human beings that has a home in these environs. The love of Christ looks much, much different. It looks more like the washing of feet than the pouring of chemicals.
Who is the “I” that hates and does these things dysfunctional to creating shalom? The heart reveals the source. To the woman with the burns, it was the powers desperate to dehumanize people of color and violently exclude them. To the young woman who attempted suicide, it was the powers at work around her. Charles Horton Cooley's “Looking- Glass Self Theory” supports this concept. A loved and valued person, a celebrated person, a person judged by their peers as important, learns to see themself as loved, valued, celebrated, and important. Mr Rogers excelled at this one thing: making people feel loved. In the video, we get a glimpse of his courage and his gentle, affirming nature. Do not misunderstand me. I am not saying biochemical processes are not also at work within an individual . There certainly are. By all means, get medical care and support. But the environment around someone may subject them to elements that beat them down beyond their ability to cope. This is dysfunctional; this is evil, -it is ra.
Nadia Bolz-Weber writes in Accidental Saints of this idea in the chapter she entitled “Frances”, the name she gave her depression.
I don't think demons are something human reason can put its finger on. Or that human faith can resolve. I just know that demons, whether they be addictions or actual evil spirit, are not what Jesus wants for us, since basically every time he encounters them he tells them to piss off. The authority to face the things that lie to us, to face the things that keep us shackled, to face the things that keep us out of control, alone, and in pain and tell them in the name of Jesus to piss off is an authority that has been given to us all.
I agree with Taha Muhammad Ali. When we are dead,” hate will be the first thing to putrefy” And this is the invitation of the Christ, “come and die” (as Dietrich Bonhoeffer summarizes it in Cost of Discipleship) .
“The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
Be gathered into Jesus, allow His Spirit to animate your heart, soul, and “muchness.” Our allegiance, our attachments, to our “I” or the “I” of the powers at work to reinforce our desires and our rightness, must follow Jesus to His cross. Who is the ‘I” that hates? It is the powers at work in me, in whatever capacity, to assert desire over the call to shema. The whole of the temptation in the wilderness centers on this. In His Presence, enmity is powerless. Hate’s blood-thirst is emptied. It died with Jesus when He refused to return the violence poured on Him. The lines of division that our armaments defend kneel in surrender. I have seen the powers at work. I have seen their lust torment and ruin marriages with pornogrpahy and infidelity of various forms. I have seen bodies ravaged in self-harm. I hear the angry speech of our politicians and our evangelicals and, in it, I hear the religious leaders manipulating the law to force the hand of the state into violently defending what it perceives to be good (as in the trial of Jesus). And so the nations rage. Violence fills the earth. And all the while there are gentle, loving people washing feet. People who choose to listen to Jesus and surrender to do what He did. Mr Rogers: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping’.” Look for those running to a cross and letting hate die there. Only there does hate die. And only there will we discover the resurrection life the Spirit breathed into Jesus being breathed into us.
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