April 2016 Philadelphia Chapter of Pax Christi U.S.A.
The Dream of God
The Dream of God is a small book on Scripture, by Verna Dozier, an English teacher in the public schools and a brilliant theologian and scripture scholar. Dozier, an Episcopalian church leader and author of several books believed the ministry of the laity could and should have a profound role in the institutional church. Ms. Dozier was a follower of Christ and for many in the church she was a contemporary prophet.
Dozier notes the first 30 years of Jesus’ life were amazingly ordinary, until his baptism by John. Then Christ appears in the prophetic tradition; one needs the grace of the Spirit to understand who Jesus is. “Where Jesus appears life is changed, calling us to a new life.” Dozier summarizes the four Gospels answer to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?”
In Mark’s Gospel, “Jesus is the incarnation of the reign of God. Where Jesus appears life is changed, restored to the good creation.”
In Matthew, Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law. “’You have heard it said of old, but I say unto you…’ God’s law is fulfilled by living out… new relationships with other human beings.”
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus returning to Nazareth went into the synagogue quoting Isaiah (Luke 4-18-19). “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord.”
In the Gospel of John, Jesus is the Word made flesh. The divine is in our midst. ‘I am the resurrection and the life’, Jesus’ words after bringing Lazarus back to life.
Pentecost the outpouring of the Spirit on all of us will soon be celebrated. We need this grace of the Spirit to be “followers of Christ” – crucial members of the institutional church.
Pope Francis, more than any Pope in my lifetime focuses on the Message of Christ, less on Church precepts. As scripture scholar Luke Timothy Johnson, a favorite of mine, affirms, the message of God to his people is ongoing; prophets in our midst. I believe Pope Francis is a prophet in our midst. Francis focuses on the plight of the poor, the destitute, the forgotten and calls upon all of us to respond. Compassion, mercy, forgiveness, conscience are words Francis loves.
Going back in history Dozier speaks of Constantine, the Roman Emperor who liberated Christians from persecution, the first of secular leaders imposing themselves on the Church. Barbara Tuchman, a trustworthy scholar writes that, “By Constantine’s gift, Christianity was both officially established and fatally compromised.” Dozier places a huge emphasis on our vocation to freely chose to imitate Christ; knowing the church can be, on occasion, compromised by its leaders. Thinking of that; it was only relatively recently the American church opposed capital punishment, sitting quietly by as prisoners were electrocuted. It took Sr. Helen Prejean’s book Dead Men Walking to awaken many in the church to the evil of the death penalty. Remember that 5th commandment, Thou shall not kill. Many of our states, a scandal, still allow the death sentence.
Our church needs a variety of leaders. Dorothy Day, the Berrigans, and a legion of Catholic Workers have relentlessly opposed nuclear weapons and U.S. wars. Their conscience dictated and the price was high, imprisonment. Would the pedophilia tragedy and cover up have been avoided if bishops had more married couples as advisors?
Dozier quotes Raymond Brown, the Roman Catholic scholar of the New Testament, “The great anomaly of Christianity is that only through an institution can the message of a non-institutional Jesus be preserved.”
Jesus came proclaiming, “Repent! The kingdom of God is at hand.” His message was, “Turn around! You are going in the wrong direction. You have been seduced by the ways of the kingdom of the world. I offer you the way of life in the kingdom of God.”
Dozier’s message: to be a follower of Christ, one needs to abandon fear, trust in God, and follow one’s conscience. This is not to say we don’t need our church, but at times you may walk a lonely path. Think of our friend Dennis Apel, Catholic Worker Beatitude House in Guadalupe CA; just sentenced to four months in prison for his constant protesting at Vandenberg Air Force Base, home of countless nuclear missiles.
To Dozier the Grand Inquisitor story in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov is a “classic indictment of the institutional church.” The setting is the Spanish Inquisition “where bonfires were lit every day to glorify God and burn wicked heretics…” The Grand Inquisitor approaches Jesus in the palace prison of the Inquisition. “Thou didst desire man’s free love, that he should follow thee freely, be enticed and taken captive by Thee. In place of the rigid ancient law, man must hereafter with free heart decide for himself what is good and what is evil, having only Thy image before him as his guide.”
Dozier loves mother church but the burden of freedom is ours.
Let us remember this message carved in stone from 1 John:4-6, God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him.
Dream of God, Verna J. Dozier Seabury Books, 2006
Joe Bradley
