Samoa ... and contextual theology

It has been a real privilege these past few days to be in Samoa - my first visit to this beautiful country, some four hours flying time to the north of Auckland airport. 

The occasion has been a meeting of Te Kotahitanga, a standing commission of our General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui, tasked with formal advice and guidance on theological education and ministry training for our whole church, a church which encompasses via the Diocese of Polynesia, Anglican churches, schools and a theological college, spread across Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and American Samoa. Hence some of our physical meetings take place in one or other island in the Diocese of Polynesia.

It has also been rather pleasant to have a few days away from the NZ winter - temperatures here in the high 20s Celsius, and there have been some lovely swims, including one today in a very warm sea.

People do not come to this blog for travel experiences, so, to business.

Part of the privilege of being together in this way, with various interactions with the local Anglican parish as well, is to experience directly the diversity of voices in our church (and thus in God's catholic church) in the context of some of those voices. (Mostly our meetings are in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand.) There is something beneficial about this mix of diversity and context which enables new insight into the challenges we face.

Reflecting more widely, into the general world of theology, attention to context can be challenging: surely, one line goes, the truth is the truth and its purity as truth is beyond considerations of context. There is, of course, truth in this proposition! Yet if we focus within the general world of theology, to the world of biblical theology - or the way in which theology is worked out within the pages of Scripture - we do see contextual shaping of the truth conveyed through Scripture.

One such example, in my view, was present in our lectionary readings yesterday (if we focus on Ephesians 3:14-21 and John 6:1-21). Paul writing to the Ephesians sets out in this passage a theology of God's love - of God's unlimited, immeasurable love. Within the context of the whole of the epistle, what Paul says is not (so to speak) a theory of love: what he says is anchored into the action of divine love, into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (as expounded previously to 3:14).

Yet, if we ask "who is Jesus Christ that this human being should be the exemplification of the love of God for humanity?", we have John's Gospel to consider, and in particular there is help for our thinking in yesterday's passage.

At the end of the Walking on the Water story, as Jesus seeks to calm his terrified disciples, he says, "... it is I ...", or, ego eimi, I am (6:20). Language already used by Jesus (John 4:26) and reminiscent of God's revelation to Moses about his Name (Exodus 3:14), and regularly reappearing through John's Gospel, notably in the "I am X" statements, including the imminent "I am the bread of life" (John 6:34). In other words, John takes up a clue re Jesus as God (e.g., pertinently, see the parallel stories, John 6:1-21/Mark 6:30-52, and "it is I" in Mark 6:50) and develops his incarnational theology: that Jesus is no mere man, nor mere prophet/teacher, nor a man filled with the Holy Spirit (per Luke's Gospel) - he is all of those and "the Word made flesh" (John 1:14). Let alone a man with magician skills re food multiplication and walking on water.

Alternatively put, it is God-in-Jesus who feeds the Five Thousand and Walks on Water, and thus, John sets the followers of Jesus on the pathway to understanding that God himself is involved in the event of the cross-and-resurrection. The love of God for humanity, which Paul so beautifully expounds in Ephesians, is the love of God grounded in the event of the cross-and-resurrection.

But John does all this in a context - in the context of time (he has distance from the actual life of Jesus to reflect on the meaning of that life, and that reflection is to a greater degree than his Synoptic colleagues have been able to do), location (John's Gospel is anchored into Judaism (as he experienced and understood it), into then conflict between Judaism and fledgling Christianity and into the realms of Hellenistic philosophy (albeit perhaps channelled through Philo, a Jewish philosopher).

Conversely, John's context leads him to embed his theological/christological insights into a new version of the gospel narrative of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus: he is no Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, or Barth, he is a gospel writer. The abstract theology later theologians will develop is not handed to them on a plate, they need to dig deep into "story", in some cases, for John's Gospel, his story needs comparing to other versions of the story to yield the subtle shifts he discloses to us.

For travel reasons I need to draw this reflection to something of an unfinished close. I mentioned diversity above: in the wisdom of God and in the inspired understanding of the ancient church, we have four diverse gospels. No matter how amazing John's Gospel is, the church continues to appreciate other versions, each of which is expressed within contexts other than that of John's Gospels own context.

To God be the glory in the church ...

PS Noting a comment below re the publication last Wednesday 24 June 2024 of the report of the  [NZ] Royal Commission on Abuse: I think likely I will not comment on the report and related matters here on this "personal" blog. The report is so significant and important for the life of our church that it is important than any comments I make (any responses to the report and its recommendations) are via "official diocesan channels." (See Anglican Life - our website.) Here in this post, I also commend visiting Anglican Taonga and these articles, here and here.)