Riot, Religion and Righteousness -

When faced with this week’s readings, I was confronted with a stark play of differences between the passages, a series of differences that resonated more prominently than any similarity that I might be able to find betwixt and between the lines of this text.

The first passage – that of the giving of the ten commandments – presents the direct vox dei in a clear and present manner; that is to say, God himself “spoke all these words”. In contrast to this, the second Old Testament passage intentionally relies upon mysterious and ambiguous metaphors – though the heavens declare the glory of God, they do so without speech or words. It is almost as though the eternal law of the Psalm – rising from the heavens and found in every child’s smile, no doubt – is different in a way from the lithographic law of Exodus 20. Whether one wishes to equate these two passages as speaking about the same law or not, it seems to me that there are profound differences; perhaps these are difference that should be taken in tandem with one another, though perhaps they are differences that exclude one another.

A similar play of differences is found in the two New Testament passages; while Paul in First Corinthians speaks of a more sublime manifestation of God – a manifestation that has appeared as foolishness to the Hellenists and an unorthodoxy to Jerusalem; the world did not know God from its inception, nor were signs and wisdom given to the Jews and Greeks respectably – the passage from the gospel of John demonstrates a portrait of Jesus who gives clear didaction (to the point of excess, perhaps) with a concluding chiastic bookend that speaks of the sign of the resurrection of the dead Christ.

If one were to look to these passages for a unity, one could perhaps find one in the presence of the law in the Old Testament – first to the Hebrews in the form of the ten commandments and secondly to the world in the profession of the heavens – combined with the ‘fulfillment’ of the law in the uniting of Jew and Greek and the abolition of the temple (which, in some readings, represented the whole of creation) and the concomitant raising of Jesus in the place of the temple. This is, as far as I can tell, the most comprehensive unity between these passages (though my synopsis comes from my tradition; I trust that others in the class will have different ideas, and I look forward to hearing them); even still, I believe the various texts speak more poetically and believably in their differences, rather than this ‘common thread’ that circles over them and ties them together (even as they, I believe, try to squirm away from these bounds).

The title, by the way, is the name of the song (and the band) I'm currently listening to... I thought it was somewhat ironic as I gave my response.

Daniël