Proper 16b, St. Alfred's
Proper 16b 2024-08-02 St. Alfred's Church Opening One of the most important books of my college years was titled Either / Or: a fragment of life . It was a foundational text for the emergence of what came to be known as existentialism. It was an important tool f or me to finding a path toward spiritual growth and faith. Ultimately it was important in my decision to embrace the Christian path to -- as I put it -- to follow it as far as its mystical riches could be mined . Maybe a decade later, I was challenged by a different sort of phrase. I encountered theologians who wanted to de-emphasize either / or and argued that Jesus proclaimed something more like both / and . I first heard about the phrase in the context of Jesus's proclamation that the Kingdom of God was at hand . Was the coming Kingdom that Jesus preached already accomplished before or with the resurrection? Or was it still in the future? The New Testament seems to argue both positions. So these teachers made t