Like a Hammer Shattering Rock: Hearing the Gospels Today - Softcover

McKenna, Megan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385508549 ISBN 13: 9780385508544

Publisher: Image, 2013

Synopsis

Renowned Catholic author Megan McKenna celebrates her 50th book with a controversial interpretation of the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John and what they mean for the Church and society today.

In many ways, modern audiences have become so familiar with the gospels that we've stopped listening and integreting their wisdom into our everyday lives. Acclaimed author Megan McKenna explores the messages of the four gospels in the context of daily life when they were originally written and interprets their meaning for our modern world. While some argue for the development of new gospels for the 21st century, McKenna argues that we haven't paid due attention to the ones we already have; in many cases, we've ignored sections of these teachings entirely and twisted their meaning to suit our own agendas. McKenna breaks it down, gospel by gospel, and shows us how the lessons of Jesus's apostles continue to resonate.

About this title

About the Author

MEGAN MCKENNA, a native of New York City, has lived in, visited, and gypsied through North and South America, Europe, the Philippines, Singapore, Haiti, the Hawaiian Islands, Malaysia, India, the Marshall Islands, Thailand, Australia, China, and a collection of Celtic and Japanese islands. She works with indigenous groups in base Christian communities and with justice and peace groups, as well as with parishes, dioceses, and religious communities. An internationally known author, theologian, storyteller, and lecturer, McKenna teaches at several colleges and universities and organizes retreats, workshops and parish missions. She has authored more than forty books, including And Morning Came: Scriptures of the Resurrection, Praying the Rosary, Send My Roots Rain, The New Stations of the Cross, and Harm Not the Earth.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

 

 Chapter 1
  The Gospel

The Word of God Made Flesh Dwelling Among Us

A word is dead


When it is said


Some say.


I say it just


Begins to live


That day.

Emily Dickinson

For Christians there are traditionally four gospels:

Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John (in the order they were written down). These are the canonical gospels-the four accepted as uni­versally comprising the core of belief within the Church. In reality, historically there were many more-some say nineteen or twenty, others as many as thirty-four. Others say that many communities wrote their own gospels, perhaps as many as two hundred in the first couple of hundred years of Christianity being preached to all the ends of the earth. In Luke's gospel we read in the very fi rst line:

Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed. (Lk 1:1-4)

Out of the sheer abundance and diversity of the gospel-orderly accounts of events that have been fulfilled and passed on to others, concerning the truth-these four eventually became the founda­tion and universally preserved tradition that has been handed on by the institutional Church over the last two thousand years. A gospel is simply "good news," from the Greek euangelion. There were earlier oral traditions and lost written ones besides these four ac­counts, and there were myriad others. There are many called "lost gospels" and fragments and variations that belong to the category of noncanonical-meaning not usually accepted or included in the core teachings and beliefs of the Church. By the end of the second century these four gospels were chosen and used over the others. It is generally believed that no one really knows exactly how the four were singled out or how the canon was selected. The process seems to have happened at the grass roots, and spread across the Christian world along with the Church, drawing others into the practice and belief of Christianity. In other words, one could say that it was the work of the Spirit. There is mention of the list in 367 by Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria and in The Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius (early fourth century). It is thought that in 325 at the fi rst Council of Nicaea, Constantine established the canon and put an end to the writing of more gospels.

The gospels are collections of Jesus's sayings, stories about  Jesus, stories Jesus told, and reactions to these events and words. The practice of writing a gospel is not unique to Christianity; in fact, during the time of Jesus and the early Church, the most common gospel was that of Rome-the good news of the empire and of the emperor who saw himself as and decreed that he was indeed a god. This gospel of Rome was sent out periodically through the entire realm to inform the populace, those conquered, and those who wielded power in its name what Rome was doing and to stir up enthusiasm for the emperor and his edicts and decisions.

None of the four gospels are meant to be read as eyewitness accounts-they are belief statements of the early Christian Church. These are believers' creeds, so to speak: catechetical teaching texts to both prepare people for initiation-the receiving of the sacraments of baptism, confirmation (sealing in the Spirit), and Eucharist-as well as further lifelong instructions and exhorta­tions to believers after the initiation rites, called the mystogia, or the ever-deeper entrance into and experience of the mysteries of revelation and belief.

Generally speaking, the gospels were written within the fi rst hundred years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. This book is not interested in the historicity of the gospels, or specifi cs on their relation to other gospels. The diversity and the depth of the four we have as a foundation are rich and powerful wisdom for anyone who calls himself a believer in Jesus, to be counted among his followers and alive in the community of the Risen Lord. This book is interested in the Truth of the gospels and what they meant and should-and could-mean to believers today. In the last two thousand-plus years, it appears that the Church no longer preaches the gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John but instead preaches its own gospel: what it has developed into historically and cultur­ally, even politically and economically, rather than the Good News to the Poor, the Good News of the present reality of the Kingdom of God in our midst, and the Good News of Love as I Have Loved You as its essence, meaning, practice, and reason for existence in the world.

This book hopes to look at issues including: If the gospels were written today-Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John-would they say the same things, emphasize the same teachings, the same exhorta­tions on how to live and be in relation with others and the world, and with God? Or is there need for a new gospel? What is gospel truth? How do you read the gospels? What is the connection be­tween Word and practice in the gospels and in the community? How do you take words off the paper, put them into your mouth, and make them live again in a community? If the gospels were originally an oral tradition, how do we reclaim and recover that tradition-read between, under, and over the lines on the pages today? And perhaps most important of all-how does the Word in the gospels in the power of the Spirit continue to convert as radi­cally as it did in its beginning century; to transform human beings' lives, attitudes, decision making, choices, and beliefs on how to be human and like God in the world today?

Basically I am saying that there isn't a need to rewrite the gos­pels, because we have already done that in many ways: interpreting them to suit our needs, our power, and our agendas rather than letting the Word transform us. We have not lived the gospels or steeped ourselves in their mysteries, their power, and the presence of the Risen Lord among us. We have used the gospels to proof-text other statements and laws. We have taken lines and phrases out of context and often misused them and, in doing so, have often con­tradicted some of the primary and foundational teachings of Jesus. We have ignored whole pieces of the gospel because they are too difficult and too demanding, too convicting of us as not believing and not practicing what we claim in our words. We have betrayed the gospels as individual persons, as communities, as groups, as in­stitutions, and as leaders-even as Church, the Body of Christ.

The next eight chapters will look at each of the gospels in the order we have them, as they were written, in sets-then and now. We will look at their cores, at their hearts, and at what Jesus is say­ing, demanding, confronting us with, and summoning us to live. Each chapter will look at the gospel then and will be followed by a look at that gospel today. Each was written for a particular commu­nity coping with history, with persecution and peace, with econom­ics and other religions, with governments and cultures, and even with languages. Each has moral principles, values, and commands that are simple, clearly stated, and come with the expectation that they are to be obeyed-along with what to do when they are ig­nored, disobeyed, and twisted to destroy the integrity of Jesus's words and actions. They were written for believers-some already baptized, others preparing for the sacraments of initiation-and for those who were seeking reentry into the community after betraying their belief or committing such actions that tore the community to shreds religiously and spiritually.

Each chapter that looked at a particular gospel then will be fol­lowed by a look at that gospel now, in light of history today, at na­tional, universal, and local church levels. We'll analyze the struggles we are confronted with today not only as individuals but primarily as communities of believers who are to become Good News to all, but especially to the poor, the outcast, the fringe, the excluded, the "other" in all societies. Each gospel will reveal a piece of the larger puzzle of values, and ways of life and meaning that are found at the heart of the gospels-beliefs about Jesus and what it means to pro­claim and become the words that we speak aloud to others. Hope­fully we will experience the gospels as the living, breathing Word of God, the double-edged sword of truth, laying bare and exposing what is evil and yet as living water and the presence of the Spirit of God breathing life into us still.

The last chapter will look at suggestions for other gospels for the twenty-first-century world, and some issues that are alluded to in the four original gospels but now need to be spelled out: the de­mand that there be no war, no violence; the relationship between science, technology, and religion; interreligious dialogue; the uni­verse, its resources, and state of being in the two thousand years since Jesus; and the understanding of the world, the arts, and their connection to the gospels. Lastly we will look at the structure of the institution and how it contradicts and has become a stumbling block and scandal for many, even those who already believe. We will examine the position and devaluation of women, of sexuality, of marriage, and the Church that is not the hierarchy as the norm either for holiness or for a life lived in community following Jesus as disciples and friends.

For the remainder of this chapter we will look at how to read the gospels-and reclaim the oral tradition that lived in people's mouths and in the communities of believers before the words went down on paper. We will look at a few underlying assumptions- that the gospels are written for believers and are not to be used to "prove" anything, let alone threaten or harm anyone, or allow others to be harmed in the name of the gospel. We will also examine the necessity of reading the gospels in communities of belief, together and out loud, to provide accountability for our words and the in­tention to put our understanding of those words into practice, as the norm for studying and knowing the Scriptures; in other words, reading the gospels as wisdom for living. Finally, we will look at Jesus as alive today-in the Word Made Flesh dwelling among us- in the gospels and in the communities that seek to incarnate his words, insights, commands, and hope into their own lives and reali­ties in the here and now.

I will try to avoid documents, doctrines, dogmas, and teachings over the historical development of Christianity as a world power, nation, institutional structure, and global economic reality. But I will quote from past believers and contemporary disciples who struggle with putting the commands of Jesus into practice, being prophetic as Jesus was, and being constantly re-converted to and becoming the Good News for and with others.

Perhaps the place to begin in earnest is with a question and a story. How did Christians get so far removed from the teachings of Jesus, ignoring Jesus's Words and actions and altering them to serve their own ways in the world rather than being a visible sign of power, of hope, of "life ever more abundantly for everyone" (John 10:10)? How did the religion of Jesus become an individualistic work for saving one's own soul, of the morbid fear of sin, death, sex, and of being holy without loving the world and all that God created, with the narrow concentration on the me-and-Jesus men­tality, alongside the judgmental attitudes of who is saved and who is damned?

And at the same time, how did the followers of Jesus become those who dominated the world, history, the rise of nations, eco­nomics, and politics, steeped in blood, war, violence, torture, and the only religion that has value and meaning? It seems that by the third century, the Church was no longer just the Body of Christ, the followers of the Crucified and Risen One, but instead was the religion that had become the torturers, the empire, the force that dominates, manipulates, and demands that all become believers- or else.

This may sound overly damning and simplistic-but for many this is reality, and those who profess to be believers have betrayed Jesus by past and present behaviors, actions, and teachings. They are indeed both sinners and saints-but it seems the public face is more the sinner, more unrepentant and stubborn in resisting the gospels than in making them come true today worldwide.

What is the situation today? There is an old story, tradition­ally told in Eastern European and Muslim circles. Sometimes it is called the Lodestone, named for the mythical stone that while in one's possession held the wisdom and power of what it means to be human, to be holy, to be in right relation to others, to understand the mysteries of the universe, and to be in communion with God.

Once upon a time a man was obsessed with searching for and seeking knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. He studied with masters and read every book that he could lay his hands on-and this is at a time when books were rare, expensive, and hand copied. One day, he was finishing up a book on philosophy and got to the back cover. As he was closing the book, he noticed that there seemed to be another page in the binding that was loose-once glued but coming undone. Intrigued, he carefully separated the thin tissue of paper from the cover and found words written there.

Painstakingly he deciphered them and copied them down, and when he read them back to himself out loud he couldn't believe what he was hearing. The words spoke thusly: If you are serious in your intent to discover the Lodestone, the stone of truth-you must be diligent but it is not hard to do. Walk along the sea-the Black Sea-daily, without fail, and pick up stones, one at a time. Hold each in your hand briefl y. If it is cold to the touch, throw it back into the waters. But if it is warm, even fi ery, to the touch, as you hold it, grasp it fi rmly and hold it dear. It will lead you to all goodness and knowledge, to truth and life. Do not be afraid. I as­sure you, you will have it in your hand before long. Be blessed along the way.

Immediately the man set out for the Black Sea, gave away most of what he owned, left his job, family, friends, and got a small hut near the sea. Early in the morning, for most of the daylight hours and sometimes even in the moonlight, he walked the edge of the shoreline, his feet in the water. He bent and picked up a stone, held it briefly, squeezed it, and then threw it back. He did it for days, weeks, months that led into years. It became a ritual, a dance, a way of living. Pick up a stone (he rarely even looked at them anymore), grasp it firmly, and turn and lob it back into the waters. The stones were invariably cold, even frigid to the touch-never was there one that was hot, even warm. He per...

Edition details

• Publisher: Image
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0385508549
• ISBN 13: 9780385508544
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288