An Epiphany Study: The God We Never Knew, Marcus Borg Supplementary material: I AND THOU by Martin Buber from the prologue by Walter Kaufmann Text The sacred is here and now. The only God worth keeping is a God that cannot be kept. The only God worth talking about is a God that cannot be talked about. God is no object of discourse, knowledge, or even experience. He cannot be spoken of, but he can be spoken to; he cannot be seen, but he can be listened to. The only possible relationship with God is to address him and to be addressed by him, here and now or, as Buber puts it, in the present. For him the Hebrew name of God, the tetragrammaton (YHVH), means HE IS PRESENT. Er ist da might be translated: He is there; but in this context it would be more nearly right to say: He is here. Where? After Auschwitz and Nagasaki, where? We look around and do not see him. But he is not to be seen. Never. Those who have claimed to see him did not see him. Does he really address us? Even if we wanted to, desperately, could we listen to him? Does he speak to us? On the first page of the original edition of the book one was confronted by only two lines: So hab ich endlich von dir erbarrt: In allen Elementen Gottes Gegenwart. Thus I have finally obtained from you by waiting God s presence in all elements. Page 25f. Notes Reflect on Panentheism as presented by Marcus Borg in light of the above. Discuss The central stress falls on You not Thou. God is present when I confront You. But if I look away from You, I ignore him. As long as I merely experience or use you, I deny God. But when I encounter You I encounter him. Page 28. By avoiding the other, we avoid God. Where does Jesus reveal himself? Read MATTHEW 25: 31-45 31 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom 1
prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. 37 Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you? 40 And the king will answer them, Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. 44 Then they also will answer, Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you? 45 Then he will answer them, Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of thes e, you did not do it to me. For those who no longer have any use for the word God this may be too much; and for those who do, too little. But is it too little? When you come to appear before me, who requires of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and the calling of assemblies I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moon and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you spread forth your hands, I hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I no longer listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. Is that too little? Page 28f. 2
What epiphanies of God do we discover here? Far better than John Dewey who tried something similar in A Common Faith, Buber succeeds in endowing the social sphere with a religious dimension. Where other critics of religion tend to take away the sabbath and leave us with a life of weekdays, Buber attacks the dichotomy that condemns men to lives that are at least six-sevenths drab. While man cannot live in a continual sabbath, he should not resign himself to a flat two-dimensional life from which he escapes on rare occasions. The place of the sacred is not a house of God, no church, synagogue, or seminary, nor one day in seven, and the span of the sacred is much shorter than twenty-four hours. The sabbath is every day, several times a day. Page 30. Holy Space Holy Time What epiphanies are to be discovered in the sabbath every day, several times a day? Those without ties to organized religion who feel that, although much of institutional religion is repulsive, not all scriptures are bare nonsense, have to ask themselves: what about God? Those who prefer the God of Abraham, Jacob, and Job to the God of the philosophers and theologians have to ask: what about God? Those who read the Bible and the Sacred Books of the East not merely as so much literature but as a record of experiences that are relevant to their own lives must ask: what about God? They do not ask: what is he really like? what are his attributes? is he omniscient? can he do this or that? Nor: can his existence be proved? They do not assume that they know him and only need one additional piece of information. They do not even believe in him. What they ask about is not some supernatural He. And the theologians are of little help, if any. If only one knew the meaning of one's own question! If only one could ask it properly or formulate it more precisely! Is it really a question? Or is it a deep concern that finds no words that do it justice? This book responds to this concern. God as the eternal You whom men address and by whom they in turn feel Buber would say, are addressed makes sense of much literature and life. The book does not save, or seek to prop up, a tradition. Even less does it aim to save any institution. It speaks to those who no longer believe but who wonder whether life without religion is bound to lack some dimension. Page 32. What about God? 3
One of the central concepts of the book is that of Umkehr. This is Buber s German rendering of the Hebrew t shuvah and means return. The noun is found in the Bible, but not in the distinctive sense which is common in Jewish literature and liturgy. The verb is frequently used in the Bible with the connotations that are relevant here: Deuteronomy 4:30 and 30:2, Isaiah 10:21 and 19:22, and Jeremiah 4:1 are among the many examples. What is meant is the return to God. In fact, the idea is quite unecclesiastical and it constitutes a threat to organized religion. Christianity in particular is founded on its implicit denial. Page 36. What threat does the epiphany of return make to organized religion? This conception of return has been and is at the very heart of Judaism, and it is for the sake of this idea that Jonah is always read on the highest holiday of the year. Paul s elaborate argument concerning the impossibility of salvation under the Torah ( the Law ) and for the necessity of Christ s redemptive death presuppose that God cannot simply forgive anyone who returns. Page 37. Read Jeremiah 31: 31 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, Know the LORD, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. Does Jesus redemptive death prevent God from simply forgiving anyone who returns? Reflect and comment. I and Thou, Martin Buber A new translation, with a prologue and notes by Walter Kaufmann A Touchstone Book published by Simon & Schuster New 4
York, Copyright 1970 5