O Subverter of Thánatos
[“(Y)ou meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring about the present result, to preserve many people’s lives” (Gen 50:20).]
[“(B)ehold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the root of David, . . . And I saw, . . .a Lamb standing as having been slain, . . .” (Apoc 5:5-6).]
O Lover,
In our era rife with huckstering of hatred, orchestrating of divisiveness, and catalyzing of violence, I am most offended when these efforts are scaffolded with religiosity. It is because of such baptizing that I restrain my use of the word “Christian” in general, “evangelical” in particular, in these posts. The co-opting of the Christ event with such brazenness might well be the modern acme of heresy. While all of us, whatever our faith tradition, are vulnerable to the temptation to buttress our prejudices, privileges, and predilections with Your imprimátur, the audacity of Christian nationalism is particularly stunning. Thus is variously raised a central question: how is Your dream for the cosmos to be characterized? what does Your Beloved Community “come on earth” (Mt 6:10) look like? what is Your intrinsic mien amid, your core disposition toward, the darkness besieging us persons, all peoples, and the entire planet?
Amid my spiritual trek, one nurtured throughout by Scripture, more recently by the mystics of the Jesus tradition as well, another name for You is emerging which begins to address the above questions: “Subverter.” The negative connotations of the term for some notwithstanding, it references Your propensity to draw forth good out of evil, life out of death, whether literally or metaphorically. In the library of Holy Writ this theme is already present in the Hebrew text of Genesis in which Joseph addresses his errant brothers with “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (50:20). It is also implied in the theme of “remnant” in the aftermath of the catastrophes of the 8th (Samaria) and 6th (Jerusalem) centuries BCE followed by exile. In the newer testament Your role as Transubstantiator is exemplified in Mary’s Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55), Paul’s letter to the Romans—“And we know that in all things [You are] working together for the good to those who love [You]” (8:28)—and the morphing of the image of Lamb from that of Lion (Apoc 5:5-6).
But for us in the Jesus tradition nothing is source and summit of Your role as Subverter as is the Passion of the Christ. His Tríduum—death and life flanking the traumatic limbo of Saturday—is Your subverting epiphany (“Self-manifestation”) of choice, Your Word—definitive, decisive, última—sans sequel. Your bringing forth of the Christ’s glorified, indeed, deified life, out of death becomes the template in terms of which absolutely everything, whether seemingly good or seemingly ill, can be held. His suffering, disclosed as nothing less than Your own, is thus all about subversion: Your turning hatred, violence, and catastrophe on its head! You, O Lover, are the first and the last Alchemist, the One ever transubstantiating human brokenness, loss, disaster, and thánatos into Your new not yet seen. Like a piece of kintsúgi pottery, its fractures oxymoronically mended with golden lacquer, the Lamb of Your Self-disclosure stands with the marks of slaughter upon him (Apoc 5:6).
Two concluding dimensions of Your M.O.: first, the manner of Your subversion. Instead of coercion, You employ persuasion and multifaceted wooing; rather than vengeance, Self-appropriation of suffering; instead of triumphalism, incarnational solidarity; rather than ruling by fiat, respect, often fearfully extended, for our agency. The least inadequate term for this Your subversive propensity and Your very identity is Agápe (“Love” [I Jn 4:8,16]), this being why I generally address You as “Lover.” Subverting Love is both Your journey and Your destination.
Second, the scale of Your subversion of darkness into light. I bear witness here to what is neither merely tangential to Your M.O. nor some chiliastic perk. A central truth evidenced throughout the heílsgeschichte saga is that Your subversive Love is Your core identity; it is who You are and what You do; it is what You ever, always, and intrinsically are about. It is thus You, the ever-subverting You, who are the center who holds, and—our incomprehension notwithstanding—will evermore hold, whatever else may transpire. In the face of the thanatotic chaos of our time, You continue to invite us to live grounded in “a new heaven and a new earth” (Apoc 21:1), Your Subversion Project now and always, here and everywhere.
