Resurrection Regula

My patristics professor, Dr. Michel Barnes, proposes a thesis about the development of the biblical canon. Contrary to popular theory, Barnes claims that the canon did not come about simply in response to forces outside accepted orthodoxy such as Marcionism and gnosticism. Rather, a greater force in the effort to develop a canon was the church's internal process of positively defining it's doctrine based on the rule of faith (regula) given in baptism.

While the regula became increasingly significant during the end of the second century, Christian theologians also began to define doctrine based on exegesis of apostolic and early Christian writings -- a new trend distinct from the previous exegetical method that solely examined the Septuagint. It was the new practice of articulating doctrine by exegeting not only the Jewish scriptures but now also Christian writings, through the lens of the regula, that marks the era of church history which Barnes calls "the period of self-definition." The biblical canon, then, was formed to determine which Christian writings are suitable objects of exegesis for defining doctrine positively.

If all that sounds confusing, I apologize. Dr. Barnes presents it much more clearly with graphs and pictures. What I'm trying to get at is the way the church developed a measure (canon) for exegesis through the lens of a regula in its effort to define itself positively .

I'd like to take this one step further for the sake of reading scripture. The lens (regula) through which we read scripture is God's revelation in Jesus the Messiah in light of his resurrection. Now, before you go charging me with antinomianism (throwing God's law out the window) or with loosely interpretating texts "non-literally", allow me to point out that the Bible itself gives us the impetus to do this in Luke 24:25-27, 32.

Two of Jesus' disciples were walking along the road to Emmaus, despairing over the death of their rabbi even though they heard reports that he was alive. Indeed, he joins them on their walk and engages them in conversation, though they do not recognize him. Then he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. When the disciples later recognized him in the breaking of the bread they said to eachother, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was . . . opening the scriptures to us?"

Jesus' resurrection then is our lens, our regula, through which we read and exegete scripture. Not that we are artificially to insert meaning into a text, but rather we won't recognize the meaning within the text itself if we don't read it through this lens. When I approach scripture in this way I find meaning that has been shining out to me all along, but that I had blindly failed to comprehend in previous encounters. A powerful example of this occured in my ministry recently.

Tragedy struck our congregation a few weeks ago. Suddenly and unexpectedly our pastor's husband died, himself a retired pastor and pillar of our congregation. Our pastor was in no shape to lead worship or to preach the following Sunday so she asked me to do it as a lay Discipleship Coach who has seminary training and who is approved for ordination. Immediately I knew that God called me to be an assuring presence of the resurrection in the congregation's worship. So as I began to prepare my sermon, I already knew the word God intended to speak through me. But when I looked at the assigned text for that day, I failed to see how the power and promise of Jesus' resurrection was shining through Matthew 22:15-22 (Pharisees ask Jesus if it is lawful to pay taxes to the emperor). What did that have to do with Jesus' resurrection, I wondered. Then after much prayer and study through the regula of the resurrection, I recognized new meaning shining through the text.

I realized that when Jesus asks for a coin and says "whose head is this?" the word there in Greek is the word for image (eikwv). So Jesus is saying, "give back to the emperor the image that belongs to the emperor and give back to God the image that belongs to God." We are God's image, formed and completed on our behalf by Jesus' death and resurrection. We give back the image that belongs to God by living together in the assurance of the resurrection. That was the word I proclaimed that day. And yet this resurrection regula is so much more than an interpretive lens for reading scripture. It is the rule of faith for discerning meaning in life.

Like the church in the late second century, today we once again find ourselves in a context that requires self-definition. Lots of external forces are working hard to define the church to fit their needs. In return, many within the church define it negatively, that is, in reaction to these external forces. However, like our faith anscestors, I propose that the task God is calling us to is that of positive self-definition. We are the proclaimers of Jesus' resurrection and the witnesses to its transforming power through the in-breaking of God's reign. As leaders in the church, our vocation, then, is to train disciples to live according to the assurance we have in the resurrection: to steward God's image with reckless abandon; to live together without the fear and denial of death setting the ground rules; to love our neighbor as our selves and our enemies as our Messiah. Such is the canon (measure) of discipleship given to each of us in baptism.