Carnal Knowledge of God

Embodied Love and the Movement for Justice

Rebecca M. M. Voelkel

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781506420455
• eBook ISBN: 9781506420462
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Theologian, pastor, and seasoned activist Rebecca Voelkel offers a theological vision of embodied love, informed by her own experience, research, and pastoral and organizing work with gay, lesbian, transgender, and gender-queer persons. Voelkel lays out a theological vision interwoven with wisdom from social change "movement building, " offering principles that will enable allies to work strategically in the coming "progressive wave."

IV

Via Transformativa—The Transformative Way

The Via Transformativa is the part of the matrix where the hope and promise of God’s future break into our reality. It is rooted in and seeks to create a vision of what God’s realm, on earth and in heaven, might look, feel, and taste like. It is an eschatological project because it professes that our dreaming about what liberated and decolonized bodies and sexuality might be (and our work to realize those dreams) is rooted in God’s hope and promise. Such eschatological projects are always necessary, but they are particularly so when faced with the intransigence of colonization.

One moment in the Christian context in which the Via Positiva, the Via Negativa, the Via Creativa, and the Via Transformativa come together is that of communion. The congregation I served as pastor used these words as it practiced communion every week.

Words of Institution

We remember that on the night before Jesus was killed by those who feared him, he sat at table with his friends, women and men and children, sharing in the feast of the Passover, which is the celebration of the liberation of God’s people. And remembering God’s power, (take bread and break it while saying:) Jesus took bread, and after he had given thanks and blessed it, he broke it saying, “This is my work and my life, for you and with you. Take it all of you, and do this remembering me.”

After dinner Jesus took the Elijah Cup, the cup that was traditionally reserved for the Holy One to come. (Raise the cup.) But instead of waiting, Jesus passed it to them as it is now being passed on to us, and he said, “This is the cup of the new covenant. It is the cup of justice and peace poured out for all. Drink of it, all of you, and do this remembering me.”

Each time that we break bread together, we participate in the Body of the Risen Christ, for we are the Body of the Risen Christ. And each time we share this cup, we participate in the New Community for we are God’s hope of the New Community. Let us consecrate these elements as we sing our table prayer together.^[1]

Then, the congregation of mostly LGBTQ people, many of whom were dealing with addiction, were survivors of sexual violence, and/or were struggling with mental illness, came to the table and were served by clergy or lay people. After they were served, whoever had come together to the table would embrace and pray together, often through tears.

In it all is a clarity that God is about individual transformation but not only individual transformation. God is also about the liberation of communities and societies. The body of the risen Christ, having endured crucifixion, has been raised, and through communion, we are invited to participate together in this radical promise, realized in the present moment.

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1. Spirit of the Lakes United Church of Christ, “A Service of Communion,” in A Place in God’s Heart, A Place at Christ’s Table: Worship Resources for the Welcoming Church Movement, ed. David Lohman (Minneapolis: Institute for Welcoming Resources of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 2007), 44–45. ↵
   

7

The Already and Not Yet

Eschatology

Any constructive theological project that takes seriously women’s and genderqueer people’s bodies and sexualities is deeply eschatological. That is to say, the vision of how and what the world ought to be and how and what God’s future holds forms the basis and inspiration for much of liberated, feminist, queered embodiment. Especially in a colonized context, an eschatological vision is necessary to discern what liberation, decolonization, and hope might look like.

Because in discussing the Via Transformativa I rely so heavily on eschatology, I want to be clear how my usage is similar or different from others. For theologians, eschatology is the systematic reflection on our Christian hope and what is at risk when we do not attain what our hope holds out to us. Eschatology has traditionally been focused on the “last things.” But many Christians recognize that eschatology is more properly about the promised reign of God in all human experience and in all creation. It has powerful implications for both the individual and the community. Eschatology is not primarily concerned with what lies beyond death and outside of history. Eschatology is a practical and vital hope for the world as it is right now and in which we are all participating.^[1]

This “here and now” eschatology fits well with a liberation, feminist, and queer understanding of eschatology. It roots our Christian hope in what God is doing to create a more just and liberated world. Nevertheless, precisely because justice is a major part of what we are hoping for, a sense of the timing and pacing of the eschaton is key.

Here, I am aligning myself with a tradition that celebrates an inaugurated eschatology as contrasted with a “realized” or “sapiential” eschatology on the one hand and “futuristic” or “apocalyptic” eschatology on the other. According to Jesus Seminar scholar John Dominic Crossan, both realized and future eschatology say “no” to the world as it is. In future eschatology, the world is negated and the stress is on imminent divine intervention: we wait for God to act. In realized eschatology, the world is also negated and the stress is on immediate divine imitation: God waits for us to act.^[2]

By contrast, inaugurated eschatology says “yes” to the world but “no” to injustice. It recognizes both God’s power and movement in human history and emphasizes our agency in response to that movement. Inaugurated eschatology lives in the tension and interplay of the already and the not yet.

Jesus’s parables are full of pictures of what already-not-yet eschatology is like. They do not so much blueprint God’s strategic plan as stir hope and sharpen wits to read the signs of kin-dom coming.^[3] In the parables, we see Jesus telling stories that begin “the kingdom of heaven is like . . .” Taken together, Jesus’s parables declare that God’s kin-dom is surely coming because God cannot be defeated. They assure that appearances to the contrary deceive because kin-dom—like seeds and yeast—requires time to gestate and do its work in secret. Jesus’s parables exhort that we hope with boldness in spite of those things that look like setbacks (Mark 4:26–29; Matt 13:31–50; Luke 13:6–9; 13:18–30; 14:7–24). Jesus’s preaching heralds the imminent arrival of the kin-dom. The kin-dom is not some far-off, unreachable time (Matt 4:17; 10:7; 12:28; Mark 11:10; Luke 10:9–11; 17:20–21). It is “in our midst,” already really present in “the Jesus community,” in the people of God gathered to read the scripture. The kin-dom is already “on offer” for anyone who is willing to accept it (Luke 19:11–27).^[4]

Inaugurated eschatology calls on humanity to take an active part: to dream dreams of what is not yet but should be and, through the lens of these visions, to build up, recognize, and celebrate what is already really present among us. Inaugurated eschatology complicates our sense of time by forcing us to distinguish between what theologians call chronos and kairos. The Greek word chronos refers to chronological time, which orders events into a sequence: one thing after another. Chronological time orders the past before the present, which comes before the future. By contrast, kairos is God’s time. Kairos does not order events in a sequence but interrupts chronological time with the inbreaking of God’s presence, God’s justice, and God’s kin-dom. Inaugurated eschatology sees God’s world in the tension and interplay between chronos and kairos. God is relentlessly acting in chronological time, behind the scenes in the hidden processes of history. Inaugurated eschatology sustains hope by recognizing kairos moments, when God’s really present justice interrupts the sequence and breaks through in ways that wink (for those with eyes to see) or startle. This complex understanding of time helps us taste and feel and more fully understand the already-not-yet-ness of inaugurated eschatology. We, too, are called to do long-haul work, hidden and otherwise, to move along that arc of history that, we profess with confidence, bends toward justice. While it can be an excruciatingly slow process, the core of the gospel, the good news, is that God cheers us on with kairos moments of the kin-dom that assure us that the kin-dom of God is, indeed, in our midst.^[5]

Nothing brings out this chronos/kairos double-timing more than Luke’s story of Jesus and the disciples on the Emmaus Road.

Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” . . .

. . . When he was at table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem.^[6]

In this story, kairos interrupts chronos to move the disciples from the Via Negativa to the Via Transformativa. Christian communities reenact this episode at every communion service.

Several years ago, I preached a sermon on this text that highlights my understanding of God’s kairos inbreaking:

There are two things about our text that strike me. . . . The first is that the process of perc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table Of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Called to Be Lovers in the Name of God
• Via Positiva—The Positive Way
• Via Negativa—The Negative Way
• Via Creativa—The Creative Way
• Via Transformativa—The Transformative Way
• Conclusion
• Glossary of Terms
• Bibliography
• Index