By Dr. Lani Wilson

Good morning, prayer and fasting partners. One week and it’s Christmas Eve. The year has flown by. We pray for peace everywhere. Everywhere.

The word this week is “open.” Yup. Open. So where do we begin? In origin, it’s related to the Dutch word open and German word offen, from the root for the word up (Apple Online Dictionary). The word can be used as a noun, an adjective, a verb, and an adverb. What is interesting in terms of its usage is that it is used most as an adjective. Merriam-Webster.com states that it may be used in nineteen (19) ways as an adjective. It can be used as a verb (both intransitive and transitive) in fourteen (14) different ways. But open is usable as a noun in only four (4) ways: It is the subject of any verb in only four (4) ways semantically. Of course the word has a more powerful meaning in association with its antonym, close. Again, according to Merriam-Webster close is a verb with ten (10) uses (transitive and intransitives) and only four (4) uses as a noun (in the United States) semantically. It has fifteen (15) uses as an adjective. Linguists hold that both words were first used in the 13th century. It seems that these two words have more sway describing something as opposed to doing something.

In Europe the 13th century Christianity saw the end of the Crusades, although the Inquisition continued; Thomas Aquinas writes his Summa Theologica, and within a generation it is deemed heresy in Paris and England. In World History, Marco Polo, preceded by his father and uncle, travels to China; Genghis Khan begins his family’s dynastic rule in Asia; in Africa the Ghanaian empire loses control over the gold trade; the Maoris settle what will become New Zealand; the Mexica People (Aztecs) settle near what is now Mexico City; Europeans are learning Arabic numerals and the concept of zero; the University of Paris is founded; under the Muslim leader Mongke Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism flourish; Jews experience violent oppression and are eventually exiled from England; the Little Ice Age begins in Europe, to last for 400 years. And that is where open and close come in. There are nineteen (19) uses for the adjective open but only four (4) uses for it as a noun. There are fifteen (15) uses for close as an adjective but only four (4) uses as a noun. “Sumpn’s up,” wouldn’t you think?

About 1100 years after the birth of The Christ (approximately between 6 and 4 BCE), the Bride of Christ had morphed into a political entity, competing with leaders of nations for influence and wealth.

To pinpoint Jesus' birth year, other scholars have tried to correlate the "Star of Bethlehem," which supposedly heralded Jesus' birth, with actual astronomical events. For example, in a 1991 article in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomer Colin Humphreys proposed that the fabled star was actually a slow-moving comet, which Chinese observers recorded in 5 B.C.
livescience.com/42976-when-was-Jesus- born.html

The Crusades (1095-1270 CE) were supposed to rescue The Holy Land from the Muslims, but they were in effect, a failure.

Historians have viewed the Crusades as a mixture of benefits and horrors. On one hand, there was a new knowledge of the East and the possibilities of trade to be found there, not to mention the spread of Christianity. On the other hand, Christianity was spread in a violent, militaristic manner, and the result was that new areas of possible trade turned into new areas of conquest and bloodshed. A number of non- Christians lost their lives to Christian armies in this era, and this trend would continue in the inquisitions of the coming centuries. The Crusades were a series of wars by Western European Christians to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims. The Crusades began in 1095 and ended in the mid- or late 13th century. The term Crusade was originally applied solely to European efforts to retake from the Muslims the city of Jerusalem, which was sacred to Christians as the site of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It was later used to designate any military effort by Europeans against non- Christians.
history-world.org/crusades.htm

So in one century the Crusades ended and we had the first use of both words, open and close. There are 262 uses of open in the New Testament (NT) but only 133 uses for close. In the part of the Holy Bible that is “The New Covenant commonly called The New testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (NRSV introduction to the New Testament), there is a semantic bias for using both words as adjectives describing something and a bias for use of the word open over close.

And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
Mathew 3:16 (NRSV)

The moment Jesus came up out of the baptismal waters, the skies opened up and he saw God’s Spirit --- it looked like a dove --- descending and landing on him.
Mathew 3:16 (TMB)

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.
Luke 3:21-22a (NRSV)

After all the people were baptized, Jesus was baptized. As he was praying, the sky opened up and the Holy Spirit, like a dove descending, came down on him.
Luke 3:21 (TMB)

We know that most NT scholars consider Mark as the first gospel written chronologically and that Mathew and Luke were probably taken from it.

When one compares the synoptic parallels, some startling results are noticed. Of Mark’s 11,025 words, only 132 have no parallel in either Mathew or Luke. Percentage-wise, 97% of Mark’s Gospel is duplicated in Mathew; and 88% is found in Luke. On the other hand, less than 60% of Mathew is duplicated in Mark, and only 47% of Luke is found in Mark.
Daniel B. Wallace, Dallas Theological Seminary
The Synoptic Problem, published June 2, 2004
Bible.org

It appears that Mathew and Luke softened the image of God’s public approval of The Nazarene. The heavens opened up for Jesus in the other two, but in the Gospel of Mark the event is much more dramatic.

The moment he came out of the water, he saw the sky split open and God’s Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him.
Mark 1:10 (TMB)

And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.
Mark 1:10 (NRSV)

We know that John’s Gospel (Johannine) is of course dramatically distinct from the Synoptic Gospels (Mathew, Mark, and Luke). In John the focus is on eternal life and unity with God. It presents us with a much more complicated portrait of Jesus and His message. One thing is clear, however: Jesus came to open up the world to God, a world with no divisions.

It is interesting to compare the teaching in John on love and unity with that in Ephesians. Paul there speaks of God's plan to 'unite all things in him' (i.e. Christ; Eph. 1: 10), and goes on to speak of the church, in which Jew and Gentile are united, as a demonstration of this divine plan of universal unification (3:9, 10); in line with this he urges his readers to live out this unity (4:1ff.). So in John's gospel Jesus' followers are to live in unity as a demonstration to the world of the glory and life of God. They are to live out eternal life now in their relationships with each other. The Johannine and Pauline teaching on this point may be related to the synoptic picture of Jesus' teaching and life: one of the effects of the eschatological kingdom in Jesus' ministry is the breaking down of barriers between men (e.g. Jew and Samaritan). Jesus in his lifetime, and his community afterwards, are (or in the case of the church should be) a living demonstration (or prototype or first fruits) of the unity that God is going to bring completely at the parousia.
“Spirit and Life: Some Reflections on Johannine Theology,” David Wenham Themelios 6.1 (Sept. 1980), Reference Note [10]; biblicalstudies.org.uk

If the NT is the announcement that there is a new deal for humanity, then why are we living out 21st century crusades: The battered environment; unwieldy global economics; modern militarism; increased incarceration of specific populations; technology on the verge of human eclipse; reality shows as morality plays? Where did the message of relief from self-destructive human behavior get lost? Was it on the way to The Cross? From The Cross to the tomb? After the tomb? In the Upper Room; After Jesus appeared to all the disciples? After the Revelation that He was alive? Sixty (60) plus years later when Saul was struck blind, “Saul” became “Paul,” and we see this tiny, Jewish cult grow to eventually embrace the Gentiles. By reading the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books (not accepted into the Protestant canon), we can appreciate how hated Gentiles were by the Jews.

When the Gentiles all around heard that the altar had been rebuilt and the sanctuary dedicated as it was before, they became very angry, and they determined to destroy the descendants of Jacob who lived among them. So they began to kill and destroy among the people. But Judas [Maccabeus] made war on the descendants of Esau in Idumea, at Akrabattene, because they kept lying in wait for Israel. He dealt them a heavy blow and humbled them and despoiled them.
1 Maccabees 5:1-3 (NRSV)

It must have been some kind of new, open culture that these followers of this Galilean practiced because centuries of small world hatred and vengeance washed away as Jesus’ disciples preached.

John, although using very different terminology, is speaking of the same distinctive feature as Paul when he calls Jesus the way, the truth and the life and illustrates this with images of Christ as the bread of life, the light of the world, the gate, the true vine, the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep. Jesus here is evidently not a name which must be constantly on our lips, but the way of lifeʼs truth which must be practised. The truth of Christianity is not something to be ʻcontemplatedʼ, ʻtheorizedʼ, but to be ʻdoneʼ, ʻpracticedʼ. The Christian concept of truth is not —like the Greek—contemplative- theoretical, but operative-practical. It is a truth which is not merely to be sought and found, but to be pursued, made true, verified and tested in truthfulness. A truth which aims at practice, which calls to the way, which bestows and makes possible a new life.
Hans Küng, On Being a Christian (London: Collins, 1977)
p. 410. In “Revelation and Truth in Johannine Theology,”
David J. Hawkin, Department of Religious Studies
Memorial University, Newfoundland, Canada
churchsociety.org/docs/churchman/116/Cman_116_2_Hawkin.pdf

There are 30,000 plus Christian denominations in the world today. With any questioned able to be “googled” at the end of your arm in your hand, why should we care about what’s opened or closed? Those terms don’t mean much anymore in the wide open spaces of the ethereal World Wide Web. In just twenty five (25) years, we have gone from brick-and-mortar/group to two-dimensional/singular learning. We have less reason to physically meet and more time to do more things. And this was supposed to “open up” human experience by giving us more freedom and time. What happens when God gets digitized?

In large segments of contemporary culture, the word “religion” has accrued strongly negative connotations. From atheists to evangelicals to New Agers, the associations with empty ritual, hypocrisy, and corrupt power structure condemn the word and many ideas and practices associated with it. While such critique cannot be ignored, positive associations continue to pertain for many people as well. Regional variations, and more than a century’s philosophical and critical predictions to the contrary notwithstanding, the form and content of a wide range of religious traditions continue to attract, inspire, and sustain generations of committed adherents.
“Between God and Google: Reflections on the Technology Project of the Society for the Arts, Religion and Contemporary Culture,” Erling Hope. June 2012, Cross Currents, 62(2)
235-259.

In spite of the abovementioned statement about religious traditions (i.e., Christian denominations), how do we offer the message and hope of openness in Christianity when our digitized culture is so open that there are fewer desired boundaries and distinctions?

But in the Digital Age, where information technology has become so sophisticated and the Internet has made the collection and sharing of information so easy, we are beginning to think of the Self as the sum total of the information we can accumulate about it. Just as the invention of mechanical devices in the renaissance led us to see both the human body and the universe as mechanical systems of gears, fluids, and spheres, so the advances in digital technology are making us see the world and our selves as information structures. We are coming to believe that after we compile all the data there are to be found about our DNA structure, our medical histories, our financial transactions, our affiliations and memberships, our Facebook profiles, our political activities, our demographics, our movements, our emails, the sum total of this information IS the self. Information is no longer a pathway into a mystery: there is no mystery, and the information is all there is.
“Reflections on the Impact of ‘The Digital Revolution’ on Art and Religion.” Rafael Chodos
Ibid. 260-169.

Is the challenge to fight back and retreat to a deeper, personalized relationship with Christ? His earthly ministry was the very definition of open. Is the challenge to embrace this new digital posture toward the Unknown? Is the challenge to hybridize our practice and open ourselves up to the process and not focus so much on the Person? On the brink of 2016 have we become the sum total of our digital profiles? Where is the intimate Personhood of The Christ for us to hold onto if “spirit” can be reduced to a google query? Is it time to close ranks or open the floodgates? Do we even have a choice? For the sake of digital expediency and our fractured attention spans, have we reduced worship to offline, Sunday morning, live stream tidbits? Are we so open now that we never close? More and more people are talking about rationing or even closing their social media accounts like Facebook because it is consuming their time and their attention. How often do we see babies and toddlers handed a phone – even in church – to quiet them down and all you see is the tops of their heads because they are engrossed in a three (3) or four (4) inch screen? Haven’t you noticed how often everybody seems to be looking down and we have become used to seeing the tops of people’s heads and not their faces? How ironic that the associated root word for open is “up.” And where is Jesus in all of this?

“American photographer Eric Pickersgill removed the
smartphones and digital devices from his portraits of
everyday life. The project “Removed” aims to show our
addiction to technology and hyper-connectivity, and
Pickersgill knows that he’s also amongst the addicted.”
Dainius, November 2015
http://www.boredpanda.com/portraits-holding-devices-removed-eric-pickersgill/

“This phantom limb is used as a way of signaling busyness
and unapproachability to strangers while existing as an addictive
force that promotes the splitting of attention between those who
are physically with you and those who are not.”
Ibid.

In our zeal to be open, to be relevant, to capture those who still want to be physically present to worship, to accommodate digital culture, have we closed the door to The Spirit without knowing it? If Jesus, The Nazarene, The One, The Galilean, The Son of GOD chooses to connect with us, are we asynchronously not answering His Text? Then why are we despondent when it feels like GOD the Creator has to be begged to come into Her own temple on His own Sabbath? Can’t you see that text thread on your Smartphone right now?

JESUS: I’ve been trying to reach you. Why haven’t you answered Me?
Me: Umh…I didn’t see Your text until just now…
JESUS: Why didn’t you answer immediately when I sent you the Message?!
Me: I turned the sound off because I was busy and tired…you know…
JESUS: Should I bother trying anymore?
Me: Sure. Why don’t we set up a time that’s convenient for both of us?
JESUS: [Silence]….
Me: Jesus. Jesus?! Jesus!?!?
JESUS: I’ll get back to you…when I AM ready.
Me: Jesus? LORD? Wait…LORD…wait!
JESUS: [Silence]….

Surely, Christ Jesus, You won’t leave us. Surely, You will be there for us. Surely, You will remain open to our cries. It is in Your nature, Your character to always be there. Help us to bow our heads before You, not for a tiny, digital screen. Remind us gently, if You please, to “put away foolish things.” Place in front of us Your wounded, bleeding wrists. Forgive us when we wrap ourselves in 21st century wiring instead of making You our first contact. Drag us to Your feet, if you have to, but just don’t disconnect. Please. You are the only internet service Provider we will ever need.

Be Thou forever our Heavenly ISP.

Come, thou almighty King,
help us thy name to sing;
help us to praise.
Father, all glorious,
o'er all victorious,
come, and reign over us,
Ancient of Days.
Anonymous, Italian Hymn
Published in 1561

Open…from the German offen, associated root word is UP.

Amen.