All We Need to Know (Comm. Bl. Marcus J. Borg)

All We Need to Know

Homily for January 23, 2020 Noon Healing Mass

Commemorating Blessed Marcus J. Borg, Theologian and Teacher

(March 11, 1942 - January 21, 2015)

Trinity Parish Church Ashland Oregon

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, Ph.D., SCP

1 Chron 16:23-27, Psalm 103:1-17, Acts 17:22-25, 27b-29, Mark 3:19b-21, 31-35

We are doing something today that Christians have been doing since the earliest days—honoring and commemorating a dearly departed sibling in Christ not simply with prayers for the state of their soul, but with thanks for the service and witness they gave, and hopes that they continue in paradise to pray and work for our good and growth—and this without need of that person appearing in a sanctorale, or list of the saints approved by the larger Church.   Such local commemorations have always been encouraged for the edification and strengthening of church members, whom St. Paul always called saints, or holy one, themselves.    We celebrate the teaching and witness of Professor Marcus J. Borg, who was a faithful member of this diocese for decades, and whose books, articles, and teaching sessions have helped so many of us reconcile our faith with our varied experience, with history and science, reason, and the compassion Jesus so clearly taught again and again. 

Marcus entered into eternal glory five years ago this week.  I think he would have been amused and humbled that we want to so honor him.  Near the end of his life, he wrote,  “So, is there an afterlife, and if so, what will it be like? I don't have a clue. But I am confident that the one who has buoyed us up in life will also buoy us up through death. We die into God. What more that means, I do not know. But that is all I need to know.”

“All I need to know”—powerful words from a man who spent his adult life seeking truth, being unsparing in holding up his beliefs to the harsh light of evidence and the facts.  This is no fundamentalist throw-away line to the tune of “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.”    It expresses the powerful, irreducible core of his faith: not a parroted line from a received teaching, but rather an expression of what he called not “believing” but “beloving.” 

A leading scholar in the "Fourth Quest for the Historical Jesus," an original member of Robert Funk’s “Jesus Seminar,” a biblical scholar of some note, Marcus always tried to make the results of his research available and understandable to the masses, and for this he was pilloried and labeled a heretic by some.  Raised Lutheran, he became an Episcopalian early on and was married to Marianne Wells Borg, an Episcopal priest and once canon at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, where Marcus was named “canon theologian.”  With characteristic humility and humor, he explained that “canon” is Episcopal-speak for “big-shot.”  

 He was above all, I think, a teacher, struggling with and challenging his Gen-X, -Y, and Z students from the Pacific Northwest’s great pool of “spiritual but not religious” “none-of-the-aboves.”      This is clear in so many of his aphoristic-like statements:  

“Imagine that Christianity is about loving God. Imagine that it’s not about the self and its concerns, about ‘what’s in it for me?’, whether that be a blessed afterlife or prosperity in this life. Imagine that loving God is about being attentive to the one in whom we live and move and have our being. Imagine that it is about becoming more and more deeply centered in God. Imagine that it is about loving what God loves. How would that change our lives?”

“Experience of God, not belief in God, is the invitation of Christianity.” 

“’Be compassionate as God is compassionate’ is the defining mark of the follower of Jesus and the ethos of the Community of Jesus.” 

“Reality is permeated indeed flooded with divine creativity, nourishment, and care.” 

Marcus’s major insights, I think, were the careful distinction between what he called the pre-Easter and the post-Easter Jesus, what most scholars call the Historical Jesus and the Christ of Faith, the nature of faith as trusting and giving one’s heart to rather than subscribing to a proposition or dogmatic position, and how panentheism, the doctrine that God is beneath and behind all, is distinct from pantheism, saying that somehow God is the same as all things.  As Marcus underscored again and again, panentheism is an important core part of the Christian heritage from the beginning.  

For him, God is not “out there” waiting for us to convince him to break into nature by miracle, but rather, always there, implicit and pervasive.  One of his great lines was that when students told him they did not believe in God, he would ask them to describe what they didn't believe in, invariably a supernatural patriarch keeping scores.  His response was invariably, I don’t believe in that, either.  

Religious News Service in its obituary for Borg wrote, 

“[He] loved to debate but was no polemicist, and over the years maintained strong friendships with those who disagreed with him, developing a reputation as a gracious and generous scholar in a field and a profession that are not always known for those qualities.

“For example, Borg co-authored a 1999 book, “The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions,” with N.T. Wright, an Anglican biblical scholar [and Bishop] who took a more orthodox view of the Gospels. But Wright also recommended many of Borg’s books and lectured alongside him on occasion.

“Spanning the study of Jesus and a wide variety of subjects, Marcus shaped the conversation about Jesus, the church, and Scripture in powerful ways over the space of four decades,” Frederick W. Schmidt, Jr., of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, wrote… “I came to different conclusions about a number of issues, but Marc was always incisive, tenacious, thoughtful, and unfailingly gracious; and over the years he became a cherished friend”…

“The Rev. Barkley Thompson, an Episcopal priest and rector of Christ Church Cathedral in Houston, … spoke of how much he had learned from Borg and how close they remained even as Thompson’s beliefs became more traditional and veered away from Borg’s[:] ‘I once introduced Marcus to a church audience by saying, ‘I agree with roughly 75 percent of what Marcus will say to you this evening. When he stepped into the pulpit, Marcus quipped, ‘I’m tempted to forgo my notes and discuss with Barkley the other 25 percent!’  During a question-and-answer period with parishioners at one event, someone asked Borg, ‘But how do you know that you’re right?’  Borg paused and responded: ‘I don’t know. I don’t know that I’m right.’"

Marcus came here to Ashland just a year and a half before his death, and he challenged us, and built us up.  We are blessed to have studied under his tutelage, and to have seen the witness of his faith. 

In the name of Christ, Amen 

+++
 

Marcus J. Borg, Teacher and Theologian

+ January 21, 2015

Local Commemoration

Trinity Episcopal Parish

Ashland, Oregon

Collect [Common of a Teacher and Theologian (GCW)]  

Almighty God, you gave to your servant Marcus Borg special gifts of grace to understand and teach the truth as it is in Christ Jesus: Grant that by this teaching we may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Proper Preface for a Saint

For the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all your saints, who have been the chosen vessels of your grace, and the lights of the world in their generations.

First Lesson

1 Chronicles 16

²³ Sing to the Lord, all the earth.
    Tell of his salvation from day to day.
²⁴ Declare his glory among the nations,
    his marvelous works among all the peoples.
²⁵ For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
    he is to be revered above all gods.
²⁶ For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
    but the Lord made the heavens.
²⁷ Honor and majesty are before him;
    strength and joy are in his place.

The Psalm

103:1-17  Benedic, anima mea (BCP 733-34)

1  Bless the Lord, O my soul, *

   and all that is within me, bless his holy Name.

    

2  Bless the Lord, O my soul, *

   and forget not all his benefits.

    

3  He forgives all your sins *

   and heals all your infirmities;

    

4  He redeems your life from the grave *

   and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness;

    

5  He satisfies you with good things, *

   and your youth is renewed like an eagle’s.

    

6  The Lord executes righteousness *

   and judgment for all who are oppressed.

    

7  He made his ways known to Moses *

   and his works to the children of Israel.

    

8  The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, *

   slow to anger and of great kindness.

    

9  He will not always accuse us, *

   nor will he keep his anger for ever.

    

10  He has not dealt with us according to our sins, *

     nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.

      

11  For as the heavens are high above the earth, *

     so is his mercy great upon those who fear him.

      

12  As far as the east is from the west, *

     so far has he removed our sins from us.

      

13  As a father cares for his children, *

     so does the Lord care for those who fear him.

      

14  For he himself knows whereof we are made; *

     he remembers that we are but dust.

      

15  Our days are like the grass; *

     we flourish like a flower of the field;

      

16  When the wind goes over it, it is gone, *

     and its place shall know it no more.

      

17  But the merciful goodness of the Lord endures for ever

     on those who fear him, *

     and his righteousness on children’s children;

The Second Lesson

Acts 17:22-25, 27b-29

²² Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. ²³ For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴ The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, ²⁵ nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things… [I]ndeed he is not far from each one of us. ²⁸ For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’  ²⁹ Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.

The Holy Gospel

Mark 3:19b-21, 31-35

Then Jesus went home; ²⁰ and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. ²¹ When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for they were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”  … ³¹ Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. ³² A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” ³³ And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” ³⁴ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵ Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”