An Advent Reflection on the Beginnings of the Gospels

Below is an edited version of the reflection I shared at a meeting at Carlow University this week.

Advent season takes Christians through a time of preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus. In many ways the birth of Jesus can be seen as a new beginning in the history of salvation; and yet in many other ways it can be understood as a continuation and more complete expression of God’s work throughout history. This can be seen most clearly by reading the beginnings of each of the four Gospels. 

The Gospel of Mark skips right over the birth of Jesus and begins with John the Baptist, preparing the way for the Messiah. John the Baptist, a Jewish preacher and prophet, is linked very much to the prophetic tradition of the Jewish Scriptures. John the Baptist also baptizes Jesus. In beginning in this way, Mark shows continuity with God’s work in history through the Jewish people.

The Gospel of Matthew begins with a genealogy, going back in time earlier than Mark does, tracing the lineage of Jesus back to Abraham, and through King David. Such a beginning shows Jesus to be of Jewish royal lineage- a messiah who is a king.

The Gospel of Luke also begins with a genealogy. But his genealogy goes back even further- past David, past Abraham, all the way back to Adam. Luke also portrays Jesus as a Jewish messiah and king, but by tracing his lineage back to Adam Luke hints at his emphasis on Jesus as a savior for all people- a theme which one can trace through the entire Gospel of Luke. This is also a theme which is prominent in the nativity passages, for example the angelic announcement to the shepherds: 

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.  (Luke 2:10-11)

The Gospel of John begins not with John the Baptist, or with a birth, or with a genealogy, but with a poem (John 1:1-18). This poem--quite possibly an early Christian hymn--takes readers back yet further in time, even prior to the very beginning of the world. And by doing so in the medium of poetry makes its claims in a powerful and evocative fashion.

As we read this ancient poem, I’d like to note that this poem lays a foundation for several aspects of our tradition as a Catholic University. First, Jesus is described as the Word, using the Greek term Logos, a term ancient philosophers used to describe universal reason- the divine principle that orders the cosmos and sustains the world. Jewish writers had already been using this term as well to describe the Wisdom of God, which sometimes is represented through personification in Wisdom poems in biblical texts and early Jewish texts. The idea for the author of this poem is that what happened with the birth of Jesus was in line with all of the other manifestations of God’s Wisdom throughout history. Second, as this poem begins with creation it lays a foundation for our understanding of the sacredness of creation- all creation is the work of God, and all life and light has its origin in him. Third, through imagery of light and darkness, the poem reminds us that there is a moral dimension to humanity’s quest for knowledge. People can accept or reject the illuminating Wisdom of God which is available to all, and throughout history they have. Finally, as the poem describes God’s Logos becoming flesh in the human person of Jesus, it lays a strong foundation for our understanding of the dignity of all humans, and a holistic view of persons as not only spiritual but also physical, and highly complex. A reminder that as a university we educate not disembodied minds, but  whole persons who are valuable in all of who they are.

The poem that begins the Gospel of John can be arranged in seven strophes representing seven different eras of the work of God in the world through the Logos:

1) The word with God (vv. 1-2)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  2 He was in the beginning with God. 

2) The word and Creation (vv. 3-4)

3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  

3) The Word in the World (v.5, v.9)

5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 

4) The Rejection of the Word in the World (vv. 10-11)

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.  11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 

5) The Word and those who Receive Him (vv. 12-13)

12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,  13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 

6) John’s Community’s Experience of the Word (v. 14)

14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.  

7) The Community’s Ongoing Reception of Grace (vv.16-17)

16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.  17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  

8) Concluding comment after the poem (v. 18)

18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

The climactic and startling moment of John’s opening poem comes in 1:14 where we learn that the Logos, the divine Wisdom, became flesh and made his dwelling among humans. The implications of this claim are rich and deep, and surely have yet to be fully probed. As noted above, though, the incarnation is foundational for some of the essential claims of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, particularly the sacredness of all creation and the dignity of all people. In the incarnation we learn that human experience, the bodily experience of humanity, can be a place of divine revelation. 

The incarnation thus affirms our bodily existence, and the basic stuff of daily life, as a place where God can be at work- and is. To me this all but eliminates the idea of an either/or distinction between the sacred and the profane. Instead, we can see life as a both/and. Our lives are both physical and spiritual at the same time. All of life is sacred and can reflect divine wonder.

Worshipping or working; being born or growing old; caring for a child or a loved one; teaching or serving; talking with a colleague or student; grading papers or writing an email; and even participating in a meeting. All that we do with our bodies has the potential to be seen as participating in God’s life-giving and light-giving work.

As throughout history, not everyone sees God’s Wisdom at work. And even in the life of Jesus, it was not everyone who perceived the glory of God in his life. But may our eyes be open to see every moment as a moment in which we are participating in something that is much larger than just ourselves alone. Amazingly, we are participants in God's story. This is the mystery that the Gospel writers, in their own ways, invite us to consider.

Notes on Some Challenges and Trends in Higher Education

After returning from the CIC annual Institute for Chief Academic Officers earlier this month I prepared some comments related to a few sessions I attended and shared these at our monthly college meeting. They touch on issues of innovation in higher education, changing trends in faculty work, and the challenging issues of race and inclusive excellence on college campuses.

The conference opened with an address by Jeffrey Selingo author of There is Life After College. His research finds that expectations for what should happen at college have grown to the extent that the current model is being overworked- doing more than it was ever intended to do. In a time of unprecedented change, this has become increasingly problematic. Looking specifically at employment prospects for college graduates, Selingo noted that 50% of current jobs may be threatened by automation (and a quick Google search confirms that it is not just factory jobs but things like accounting, insurance, paralegals, marketing and other jobs where software can be utilized to analyze enormous amounts of data). Selingo asked a very pertinent question: Given the changing nature of the workforce, what kind of college is needed now? His answer was college as a platform for lifelong learning--a hallmark of the liberal arts. As others are suggesting, Selingo recommends an emphasis on the soft skills that employers are seeking:

Curiosity; Creativity (to navigate ambiguity); Digital Awareness (“every job is a tech job in some way”); Contextual Thinking; and Humility. He also noted the importance of experiential learning and internships as one of the top three factors that determines how well students “launch” after college (the other two factors were debt and the credential they received). He believes colleges should make greater allowance for space for students to explore careers as well as their passion.

A session on Faculty Workforce Trends sponsored by the TIAA Institute was very enlightening and provided the data for what has been the experience of many faculty: a dramatic shift in faculty life over the last two decades. Among the major findings: IPEDS data from 1993-2013 show a reversal in the percentage of full-time (tenure, tenure track, non-tenure track) to part time faculty: from 60/40 in 1993 to 40/60 in 2013. The impact of the recession in 2008 began to be noticeable in 2009 and 2010. For example, the percent of faculty spending more than four hours per week in committee work jumped in 2007-08, and has been climbing since. Fewer full-time faculty are having to do more of the work. Another finding was that there is now a drop in percentage of faculty who agree that they are involved in campus decision making. From a high mark in 2010 this has trended down and is continuing to trend down. At the same time there is a marked jump in perception that faculty are at odds with their administration, a perception that is trending up at four year private colleges. Adjunct faculty demographics were also quite interesting: 79% only teach at one school and only 4% teach at 3 or more schools. How satisfied are faculty with their academic careers? Among full-time faculty 69% were very satisfied; among adjunct faculty 41% were very satisfied. The session made a strong case for intentionality about where these trends go based on university policy decisions. There is a need to have the conversation on campuses: What is the national data saying about faculty work and trends? Where are we at? Where do we want to be? How can we get there?

A highlight for me was the presentation by Beverly Daniel Tatum, president emerita of Spelman College. Her session was “‘Why are all theBlack Kids Still Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?’ and Other Campus Conversations about Race.”  She is working on a twentieth anniversary edition of her 1997 book of similar title. Of particular note was her comments that our demography has changed (current k-12 students are more than 50% students of color), but school segregation is worse now than in 1980. She discussed a number of societal factors and reasons for this and then offered the pointed question: Is diversity a core value or just a selling point? She also discussed ways of hiring for diversity, as well as some positive examples that give some hope amidst the otherwise gloomy state of affairs in the area of race on college campuses.

For my part, while each of these talks were challenging in many ways (and what I’ve noted above is just a subset of their many insights), each talk enabled me to see some of Carlow University’s campus initiatives in a broader context.

• The Carlow Compass is our newly designed and launched general education curriculum: its forward-thinking design grounded in the liberal arts is designed to strengthen students’ abilities in just the ways Selingo was calling for. We are still building the curriculum as students are advancing through it. Selingo’s talk was an encouragement to continue to strive to fulfill the design intent of the curriculum even as implantation challenges arise.
• Faculty trends: this is an ongoing point of discussion at Carlow, as at many institutions. Currently, faculty are reviewing a draft of a workload document that has potential to be a focal point for having this kind of candid conversation with faculty and administration.
• Diversity and Racial Climate: I am pleased to note that this issue is being addressed proactively by Carlow University’s president in a number of tangible ways including a President’s Task Force on Diversity and Inclusive Excellence, the use of “search advocates” on search committees, and by a number of other means.

I’m grateful to the CIC and these colleagues at other institutions who shared their insights and expertise. And grateful for my colleagues at Carlow University who are open to trying new ways to adapt to our changing educational context.

Liberal Arts Alive at Carlow University

Today the Carlow University Art Gallery hosted a “Liberal Arts Alive” session in which theology professors Maureen Crossen and Jack Alverson offered theological perspectives on the current exhibition: “Illuminations: Worksby Vanessa German, Peter Oresick, and Christopher Ruane.” Professor Sylvia Rhor, director of the gallery and an art historian in Carlow’s Art Department convened today's session which was followed by further discussion in the gallery.

The exhibit as a whole showcases three local artists who utilize aspects of iconography as they portray contemporary events using iconographic styles, portray biblical and sacred stories in contemporary settings, or portray secular “saints” in traditional religious and iconographic forms.

Maureen’s reflections focused on how these kinds of works “work.” She emphasized in particular the way that icons have the potential to open up a new perspective. The iconographer “would have us see things differently.” This was certainly the case in the works of Vanessa German whose works illuminate newspaper stories with iconic imagery and coloring. In particular, one is struck by the flood of tears surrounding images of those individuals touched by the tragic shooting at the Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston last year. Maureen also cited James Keenan, SJ’s understanding of mercy as “entering into the chaos of another,” and suggested that Vanessa German was able to do that through her art. These were thus “works” of mercy in a very real sense.

Jack provided a philosophical-theological reflection starting with the notion of the difficulty that theology presents. Theology begins with the simplest of expressions: "In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1). And yet, theology is an impossible task since it is impossible to capture in human words a divine reality that is radically other. At the same time, it is impossible to “image” the invisible God. And this led Jack to a discussion about the difference between an idol and an icon, distilling the insights of Jean-Luc Marion from his God Without Being. In the end, Jack led to the idea that an icon is “a visible mirror of the invisible.” As a biblical scholar, this philosophical-theological approach is very fruitful, especially as I consider the mystery that surrounds the remarkable notion that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). The works on display in this exhibit likewise express a similar paradox: they are human creations, and yet through them one can encounter divine realities.

To me the presence of the gallery in the heart of campus, the nature of the exhibits that have been hosted there, and the engagement of multiple constituents of the campus and community in these kinds of gallery talks has been a signal of the vitality of the liberal arts heritage at Carlow University. The Illuminations exhibit, in particular, invites viewers to see the world differently: to see the sacredness of all of of human life, to feel the pain of others, and to see the breaking in of the divine into the earthly realm. 

A Guest Lecture on the Banquet Parables

Professor Jack Alverson, co-chair of the humanities department and professor of theology here at Carlow for 25 years, gave a guest lecture in my parables course. He spoke on the great banquet parables in Matthew 22 and Luke 14, and my students and I were very fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience a class session by a master teacher like Dr. Alverson.

He introduced the class to hermeneutical philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s notion of a threefold process of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. With regard to parables, the initial setting of a parable is familiar and orients the reader to the short story which is to unfold. In the case of the banquet parables, a king holds a wedding banquet for his son and invites guests. Readers and hearers are immediately drawn into the story since people know about royalty and they know about weddings, wedding invitations, and all that goes with such an event. Even accounting for cultural differences across time, space, and cultures, the setting is familiar enough to orient the reader.

Disorientation occurs when something in the parable catches us off guard, surprises us, or disturbs us. In these parables, we begin to be disoriented as the invited guests decline the invitation. Although this may not seem all that odd in our day, professor Alverson explained to the class that in ancient Mediterranean society, such a refusal would have been seen as highly insulting. But where we become really disoriented is through the violence that results, particularly in Matthew’s telling of this parable. Inexplicably, some of the invitees murder the messengers with the result that the king send his troops to kill those individuals and burn their city. At the beginning of class, my students’ reactions to this parable focused on being confused at the meaning of such details, and also of their inclusion in Matthew but their omission in Luke. Further disorientation occurs as the king invites others and eventually compels people off of the streets to come to the wedding. Finally, in Matthew, one such guest who was not wearing wedding clothes (why would he be, if he was a person just dragged in from the streets?) is confronted by the king about his clothing and then bound and thrown out to where there “is weeping and gnashing of teeth.” How such an unpopular banquet with a vindictive,  murderous, fashion loving, and unpredictable king represents the kingdom of heaven is indeed a puzzle. Disorientation has fully set in!

Reorientation then occurs as listeners puzzle over the point of the parable and begin to come to grips with the challenge that the parable presents. In this way, parables invite the listener or reader to see the world in a new way. In particular, to consider that the arrival of the kingdom, in the person of Jesus, is not only surprising but also disturbing.

Comparing the two versions of the parable in Matthew and Luke can help us to appreciate the unique emphases of each gospel, and also make sense of what the parable would have meant to the audiences that first heard it from the mouth of Jesus. By framing the parables within their narratives in different ways, and by including different details, Luke and Matthew have told it in a way that speaks to their own concerns and perhaps the issues facing their own readers, a generation or more after the period in which Jesus actually spoke this parable. Matthew thus seems to be confronting the problem of religious certainty, by framing the parable as a response to the attitudes of certain Pharisees. Those most certain that they understand the messianic kingdom and are part of it should think twice; they may actually be the ones who are outside of it. Luke, on the other hand, seems to be emphasizing the extent to which the kingdom is the place where all are welcome, particularly the poor and those of low social status: those that are brought into the banquet at the end when the rest refused. This again offers a challenge to the wealthy and privileged who think their place in the kingdom is assured, but this is a different challenge than the one put forward in Matthew’s gospel.

Naturally we were unable to address all the questions that parables of these kinds raise, and the discussion here only scratches the surface. The parables of Jesus are designed to provoke, challenge, and cause readers to question what this means and how it can be so. But Dr. Alverson helped us understand these parables a little more clearly as he reinforced many of the concepts we had been engaging with throughout the semester. He also gave the class some new language to use (orientation; disorientation; reorientation) which provides a very useful framework for identifying the challenge of each parable that we will read in the remainder of the semester.

Mercy Education as I Saw it this Week

As a biblical scholar and an educator in a Sisters of Mercy university, this past week was a particularly rich one on the Carlow campus. The events below illustrate in practical terms some of the ways that the mercy tradition infuses the Carlow experience.

On Tuesday, the Center for Mercy Heritage hosted a lecture on “Mercy in the Hebrew Scriptures” with Rabbi Bisno from the Rodef Shalom congregation, just down the road from Carlow. This is one of several special events held at Carlow this year as part of the Jubilee Year of Mercy initiated by Pope Francis. Students learned about the place of mercy in the Hebrew Scriptures as well as in the rabbinic tradition, and were able to see many similarities and some differences between Jewish and Christian views of mercy.

On Wednesday, Campus Ministry hosted a panel on understanding Islam: “The Muslim Next Door.” Two Carlow students were on this panel as well as several individuals from the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh (Wasi Mohamed, Humza Ahmed, and Kelcey Sharkas) and Dr. Sebnem Unlu from the Turkish Cultural Center of Pittsburgh. In light of some of the negative rhetoric about Muslims in the media, this forum provided an opportunity for open dialogue and a chance to understand our Muslim students and neighbors better.

On Friday, my Parables of Jesus class met in the Carlow Art Gallery to view the “Observation and Exploration” exhibit and to have a talk and discussion with the two artists whose work makes up this exhibit, Dale Huffman and Bill DeBernardi (both faculty members in the Art Department). Dale and Bill also gave a gallery talk later in the day open to the entire university community. There were many connections between their work and the work of reading, interpreting, and responding to parables. Not least of which was the way in which these works repay careful and sustained observation. What may appear as a simple detail at first actually may play an important role in focusing attention and raising important questions about the significance of the piece. My students will be discussing these kinds of connections in our next class.

Taken together, these snapshots from this week at Carlow highlight to me the great value of an education grounded in the liberal arts, and specifically in the Mercy tradition. Students (and faculty and staff) have opportunities to engage with people from a wide variety of backgrounds and traditions, to encounter familiar ideas in new ways, to challenge prevailing cultural stereotypes, and to interact about the things in our lives that connect us as humans. As a biblical scholar and educator, it is highly gratifying to work within a community that encourages questions like “what is mercy?”, “who is my neighbor?”, and “how can we learn to observe the world around us in new ways?” These kinds of questions and these kinds of learning opportunities seem essential for an education to be truly transformational.