When the Mystery is Magnified: the Gospel and the Microscope (A Guest Post)
Jane Patterson, who lives in Los Angeles, is Emerita Professor of New Testament at Seminary of the Southwest, Project Director for the Communities of Calling Initiative of the Collegeville Institute, and a cohort leader for the Iona Collaborative's Thriving in Bi-Vocational Ministry initiative, where she is guiding a year-long study on Paul for Preaching and Ministry.
Dr. Patterson will be speaking to The Collective+ (Plus) on Thursday, December 8, 2022.
4x magnification, 10x, 40x, 100x. A mango leaf becomes a road map, becomes a tiny city, becomes a map of the stars.
When I was about ten years old, my dad gave me a microscope for Christmas. I had never asked for a microscope, but I was flattered that he gave me this adult tool, and I wanted to be worthy of it. I had seen the lab technician bent over a microscope in my dad’s office, and had never once thought that I would either have one or need to use one.
But I did have a passion for plants, so I had a lot of material to put under the lens.
The main thing I remember about the microscope was the mystery of how changing the magnification could make the object I was looking at appear completely different, even though it was the same leaf or seed or bark or flower.
Zooming out: More than Speaking, Feeding, and Healing
This memory came back to me a few years ago when I was teaching an introductory course in biblical interpretation to a roomful of future counselors and chaplains. I was trying to find a way to communicate how the biblical narratives are about more than Jesus speaking with or feeding or healing just this person right in front of him.
When we pull our lens back, we see that Jesus’s intimate actions with this particular man or woman or child were prophetic, that what he did with any individual person challenged the social and political structures of first century Palestine that kept certain people confused, hungry, sick, while others were safe, educated, well-fed.
My students were also very aware of the ways in which healthcare systems, hospital hierarchies, and interruptions in people’s ability to work, left the individual people they were caring for unable to afford medication, liable to lose their housing, powerless to provide adequately for their families.
We acknowledged, grimly, that Jesus’s concern for the people who were casualties of both Roman occupation and local misrule ultimately got him crucified, as we wondered what the risks might be for counselors and chaplains who challenged the systems that employed them.
But there is still a wider lens, the theological lens, the one that shows us where and how God was moving through the villages of Galilee. Once we peer through that lens, we see that God is everywhere, that the Gospels are at every point a story about God’s unstoppable will to heal, to feed, to teach, to raise, to mend, to free at any cost.
And Jesus isn’t the only person who is channeling God’s power into hopeless situations.
His refrain, “Your faith has saved you,” points again and again to how others are channeling the power of God into their own lives and relationships, upsetting timeworn patterns, and bringing healing to their communities.
The Three Levels of Magnification
The three magnifications work together to school us in living as followers of Jesus:
The individual level of the narratives awakens our hearts and our sympathies for every person who might cross our path.
The societal/political level pushes us beyond seeing our moral lives as purely individual, compelling us to take our place in a wider sphere of responsibility.
And the theological lens tunes our senses to discern where God is already empowering actions that align with God’s will toward justice, mercy, and reconciliation.
In their different ways, both the Revised Common Lectionary and the Narrative Lectionary for Advent and Christmas play with these lenses, schooling us over time to develop a consistent dynamic image out of the three magnifications.
The RCL begins on Advent 1 by jolting us out of the personal level entirely, spinning us out into a theological view of all time and space where there is only the knowledge of God (“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father,” Mt 24:36). This apocalyptic view can feel disorienting if you’ve been preaching mainly at the personal level, but that is also part of the aim of apocalyptic, to jolt us out of complacency, to grasp the urgency of God’s will toward a fully just and reconciled creation.
On Advent 2 and 3 in the RCL, John the Baptist first steps forward, with his sharp, prophetic call for societal repentance, and then he hands his mission forward to Jesus, through whom “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised; and the poor have good news brought to them” (Mt 11:5).
The Narrative Lectionary readings for Advent 1, 2, and 3 raise questions at a similar level of magnification as the stories of John the Baptist in the RCL, giving us a view of God’s concern for the social/political frame in very difficult times. The reading from Habakkuk for Advent 1 stresses faith as watchful hopefulness even when society seems to have lost its way entirely; while the story of Esther in Advent 2 (“for such a time as this”) offers a model for people of faith within a dangerous and corrupt political context. Finally, the reading for Advent 3 describes what a servant-nation (Israel) of the Lord looks like, weaving together God’s desires and societal faithfulness.
Finally, on Advent 4 and Christmas in both lectionaries we experience the complete coming together of the three magnifications as Jesus receives his two divine names, “God saves” (Jesus) and “God is with us” (Emmanuel); Joseph and Mary make their journeys both literally and inwardly; and the exhausted holy family is joined by beings from the lowliest to the highest, from laboring animals and shepherds to angels.
The Vision of Full Reconciliation
For a moment on Christmas there is a clear vision of what God’s full reconciliation of all things might look like. In the words of the poet Richard Wilbur (also quoted as Hymn #104 in the Hymnal 1982):
But now, as at the ending,
The low is lifted high;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry,
In praises of the Child
By whose descent among us
The worlds are reconciled.
Last Chance!
Hear more of Dr. Pattersion’s insights AND finish your Advent 4 & Christmas Sermons by December 16th
Our Advent-Christmas Sermon Prep Bundle includes both Dr. Patterson’s lecture on 12/8 and our week-long, online sermon prep workshop (12/12-16) to inspire your prep and provide the structure you need to finish early.
Breathe easier knowing your sermon prep is scheduled. And enjoy being fully present to the rest of your holiday festivities.