Читать книгу The Doctor and the Apostle - Jeffrey A. Nelson - Страница 11

The Doctor’s TARDIS is integral to their ability to do what they do. The name TARDIS is an acronym for Time And Relative Dimension In Space, and, true to its name, it is The Doctor’s ship that has the ability to travel both through time and space. Its blue police box exterior is arguably the most iconic symbol of the show: both fans and non-fans alike may be able to recognize and associate it with Doctor Who, similar to how other vehicles like the Millennium Falcon, USS Enterprise, and a certain modified DeLorean are associated with their own franchises.

Due to its being so critical to The Doctor’s life, the TARDIS is ever present even when it’s not on screen. After all, every adventure into which The Doctor and their companions stumble is due to traveling there through this special ship. And, as will be discussed shortly, some of the TARDIS’s powers give the characters some abilities even when they’re not inside it. It is a part of most episodes even when not featured.

As explained on the show, the TARDIS is a product of Time Lord technology and originated on their home planet of Gallifrey. It is one of many that this civilization has produced, and we occasionally see others at work: The Master has their own that can still disguise itself as various other forms, another renegade Time Lord makes use of numerous TARDIS-like ships in “The War Games,” and companion Clara eventually gets her own that looks like a diner from the outside in the episode “Hell Bent,” as a few examples.

A big part of The First and Second Doctors’ tenures is how the TARDIS had been acquired. The Doctor began traveling after stealing it, which immediately made him a fugitive and outlaw in the eyes of the Time Lords. Near the end of “The War Games” series, The Second Doctor reveals that he’d done so because he’d become bored with life on Gallifrey, and wanted to go and see other parts of the universe and see what positive difference he could make for others.

A point of frustration for The Doctor throughout the show’s history has been how bureaucratic and stingy the Time Lords tend to be with their technology. He accuses them of hoarding what they have for themselves rather than using it to help resolve conflicts and fight the many evil forces throughout time and space that destroy and oppress. The Doctor chooses to break their laws against interference and venture out to make a positive difference instead, which brings consequences for him even as the Time Lords admit that he’s done a lot of good for people thanks to his initial act of theft. During The Third Doctor’s time, this transgression is finally forgiven, allowing him to travel with less secrecy and continue his quest to explore and to give aid to others.

A long-running joke of the series is every new character’s reaction when they first step inside the TARDIS. The outside has the appearance of a blue police box, with certain measurable dimensions of so many feet or meters on each side. But it’s “bigger on the inside,” as many exclaim, with a much larger main control room and sometimes-seen corridors and rooms as well. The Doctor sometimes talks about other places contained within the TARDIS, including rooms for companions to stay in, a wardrobe area, recreational spaces, a library, and even other control rooms that are sometimes used instead of the main one. The perceived limitations of the ship’s outer appearance are offset by its immense inward one.

The reason the TARDIS looks like a police call box is because it became stuck that way. All TARDISes have a “Chameleon Circuit,” which allows them to take different outer forms to blend in with their surroundings. The Master’s TARDIS can still do this, as do others that appear on the show. But during one of The Doctor’s earliest missions, his became broken.

The inside, however, has undergone many alterations over the course of the series. Many of the earliest Doctors had the same basic layout in the inside of their ship, which was a simple white control room, sparsely decorated. The interior of later Doctors’ ships became more personalized and decorative, with most having a darker and larger space illuminated by blue, green, or orange lighting. The inside has been changed nearly every time that The Doctor has changed, and it is hinted that it is by some combination of The Doctor’s preferences and the TARDIS’s own ability that this happens.

The abilities of the TARDIS are not confined to its inside. It has some functions that extend beyond its walls and that aid The Doctor and their companions even when they are far from it. Early in the episode “The Fires of Pompeii,” The Doctor’s companion Donna wonders at how she’s able to read the non-English text on buildings and signs. The Doctor explains that it is thanks to the TARDIS’s translation circuits, which remain connected with its travelers while they walk around. “We’re speaking Latin right now,” The Doctor adds, noting that these translation circuits also apply to speaking and hearing the languages of other earthly nationalities and alien species. The TARDIS can also provide oxygen for its passengers to venture outside in open space or on other planets, albeit usually on a limited basis. It sometimes has provided force fields for protection, and has sometimes sent telepathic messages to The Doctor and others as well.

From the beginning, the TARDIS has also displayed its own personality and preferences. As mentioned, this sometimes manifests in its changing the inner appearance. But The Doctor often refers to it as a living entity. The Doctor sometimes talks to it affectionately, at other times argues with it, and interprets its feelings toward other characters. In the 1996 movie, The Doctor takes note of how it seems to be reacting to Grace, noting that it likes her. In “Utopia,” Captain Jack Harkness clings to the outside of the TARDIS as it travels, and The Doctor later comments that it was trying to shake him off. In “The Husbands of River Song,” a Christmas episode, The Doctor yells at the TARDIS for trying to cheer him up by putting holographic reindeer antlers on his head. When The Doctor finally reunites with the TARDIS after being separated for a while in “The Ghost Monument,” she expresses how much she has missed and loves it, then shows admiration for its redecoration efforts once she steps inside.

The TARDIS has a rare opportunity to talk back during the episode “The Doctor’s Wife,” where early on its energy leaves the console of the ship and inhabits the body of a woman. In this form, the TARDIS is able to predict the future and provide insight for what it has been like to travel with The Doctor over the centuries.

At numerous points, she and The Doctor talk about what their time together has been like from her perspective. This includes looking back on when they first got together, where the TARDIS hints that not only did she allow herself to be stolen, but she also stole him, allowing them both to run away. Later on, The Doctor yells at her for being unreliable and often taking him to places where he doesn’t want to go, to which she responds that she has actually been taking him where he needs to go instead. Before the soul of the TARDIS returns to the box, she says two things she’s always wanted to say. The first is “Hello, Doctor.” The second is “I love you.”

The TARDIS is much more than a time machine and a spaceship. It is, in its way, a living being that helps steer The Doctor along certain paths, showing an intuition for what they need. It has opinions and feelings for the characters that ride inside. It remains connected to its passengers and provides assistance even when they’re not onboard. It endows its inhabitants with what they need both inside and outside its walls. It is much more than it appears, bigger on the inside in more ways than one.

The Moveable Church

As much credit as we may give to Paul for helping establish the Christian movement in its earliest years, he did not always have the most cordial relationship with his contemporaries. He was regularly at odds with other leaders and with some within some faith communities for reasons related to theology, inclusion, structure, or just basic personality differences.

The primary issue that shows up in his letters is what we could call “the Gentile question.” There were many at the Jesus Movement’s founding who believed that to become a follower of Jesus meant following the Mosaic law, which included men becoming circumcised. As this movement began within Judaism, they saw the keeping of established traditions, customs, and commandments as still having a place in this new community.

Paul, however, saw expanding the movement beyond these boundaries as being essential to his sense of call. He describes this at the beginning of his letter to the Galatians:

You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus. (Galatians 1:13–17)

At the beginning of this passage, Paul couches his experience in his life in Judaism. Having had his transformative moment that has led to his newfound sense of purpose, he doesn’t divorce himself from what came before so much as describe it as a new direction within it. The “earlier life in Judaism” that he references is his opposition to and persecution of the church; he describes it as a sign of his dedication and devotion to his faith, which he does more than once in his letters.

When he mentions the revelation from God that he has received, he makes no differentiation between the God he previously knew as part of his Jewish faith and some new separate God who sent Jesus. Rather, it is the same God who has given a new understanding of how Jesus is related to what he knew before. In the same sense, he states that God has given him a new purpose: to advance the church’s mission rather than try to stop it.

Krister Stendahl points out that when Paul describes his new direction, it is never as from one faith to another, what we typically might call a conversion. Rather, Paul presents it as a new calling within the same faith. As illustrated in this passage from Galatians, he believes that God has given him a new assignment: to preach to non-Jewish believers and fully welcome them as part of the church without requiring them to pass through the standard points that his faith would usually require.1

Unfortunately for Paul, not everyone was immediately onboard with his calling. As he mentions in Galatians 1, he did not confer with other apostles of the early church, but instead immediately set about his mission. Eventually, however, he did travel to meet with them, and it could have gone better:

Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up in response to a revelation. Then I laid before them (though only in a private meeting with the acknowledged leaders) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure that I was not running, or had not run, in vain. But even Titus, who was with me, was not compelled to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. But because of false believers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might enslave us—we did not submit to them even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might always remain with you. And from those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders (what they actually were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those leaders contributed nothing to me. On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter making him an apostle to the circumcised also worked through me in sending me to the Gentiles), and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do. (Galatians 2:1–10)

Jerusalem was a headquarters of sorts for the Jesus Movement, with notable leaders such as Peter, James, and John among those who would have been there for this meeting. Paul says that he finally acquiesced to such a meeting after having a revelation of his own to do so. This, along with what he says later about the other apostles’ authority (“what they actually were makes no difference . . . God shows no partiality”), suggests that he may have been content to continue with his own sense of calling and ministry, but wanted to achieve some semblance of endorsement and unity with the larger movement.

Contrast this with those whom he calls “false believers,” who were also present, likely a group arguing for the full conversion of Gentiles via circumcision, who were bringing accusations against him. Paul had no interest in their approval, although they were making trouble for him nonetheless. Any challenges or complications to his being seen as an authority among the other apostles necessitated this meeting. Whatever he could do to eliminate some of the questions about his apostleship to the Gentiles, he was glad to do it.

In Galatians as a whole, a large issue for his writing is again to push back against what was contrary to his proclamation. Recounting this meeting was one way of easing any concerns about this, and to show that his message is fully in line with and accepted by the apostles in Jerusalem. They could have limited or prevented this, insisting instead on a more unified or regulated approach according to what they’d already established, but instead recognized the movement of God in Paul’s life and the importance of his work to their larger mission.

And so near the end of this passage he notes that Peter, James, and John—whom he is sure to name-drop as “acknowledged pillars”—recognized the grace of God at work in his ministry and agreed to his extension of what they were already doing in other pockets of people around the larger region. Hopefully this would help shore up any doubts that the Galatians had, given the potential influence of other competing messages trying to discredit Paul’s standing among them.

The book of Acts mentions that Paul’s trade was tentmaking. In Acts 18, he meets two fellow members of his trade, named Priscilla (sometimes Prisca) and Aquila, and the three of them work alongside each other both in their business and in their proclaiming of the gospel. Paul also mentions this couple as beloved friends and coworkers in his letter to the Romans, an important byproduct first established by his plying his trade.

This would also have allowed Paul to move around from city to city to set up shop during working hours, and then proclaim and debate his message about Jesus in the public square when he was finished for the day. At least at the beginning of his ministry, Paul’s business provided an entry point for his larger calling.

Paul also alludes to his trade in 1 Thessalonians 2:9, where he reminds them of the labor he undertook while he was with them: “we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.” Paul’s making of tents provided a context for his ministry, but also very much his livelihood. In 1 Thessalonians, he was very concerned with not wanting to burden this community with an extra stretching of their resources, so he earned his own way instead.

The other part of the strategy of Paul and others toward proclaiming their message about Jesus would have been the conversion of entire households. In numerous places in his letters, Paul refers to the heads of households or to the church within a person’s house, showing that the home was an early core building block for the Jesus Movement. In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul mentions Chloe’s “people,” who would have been members of her house, as well as baptizing the household of Stephanas. In Romans 16, he sends greetings to the households of Aristobulus and Narcissus, among other believers. In Philippians 4:22, he mentions the household of Caesar. The letter to Philemon includes a greeting to the church in his house in verse 2.

The house would not just have been the basic family unit, as we are accustomed to thinking of it today. It also would have included extended family, slaves, hired workers, and sometimes fellow tradespeople who were staying with them.2 As the head of the house went, so too would everyone else staying under the roof.

This had numerous implications for the early church. First, it gave its evangelistic mission a certain character and focus, as proclaiming to the head of the house would have an effect on everyone else for whom they were responsible. Second, it helped the early church organize itself and care for one another just by giving an extra dimension and reason for the people already looking after each other to continue doing so in a new way. And finally, it would entail these house churches becoming networked with one another for purposes such as occasional larger gatherings of worship, teaching, and fellowship, and supporting one another as others had need. This was not the only strategy employed by Paul and others, but it was an essential one.

Paul’s sense of call to proclaim Jesus to the Gentiles involved quite a bit of travel to different and diverse communities around a large region of the world. It pushed and expanded boundaries that had been set by the establishment. It had a certain renegade aspect to it in the eyes of those who preferred a narrower and more rigid approach and focus. Its organization was more portable, structured by a network of houses and individuals rather than a larger regulatory meeting space that oversaw its members more closely.

For Paul, the church is a living thing, with a nimble quality and many moving parts to it than could possibly be controlled. Its soul was the power and grace of God, which many humans have tried to fence in to their own frustration. But its soul is also the people themselves: those who received the good news about Jesus and would contribute to its ongoing life in the world, allowing it to give its hearers what they need rather than what we’d prefer.

The Church Is Not a Building

In his book Eager to Love, Richard Rohr explores the faith and life of Francis of Assisi, who among other things had a reputation for his connection to and appreciation of God’s creation. As Francis was a monk, the name for his room in the monastery was known as a “cell.” Not to be confused with the cell one may picture related to incarceration, this was simply a modest room where one would sleep, pray, read, and write away from community worship, meals, and chores.

Francis saw all of nature as sacred and as a setting in which to experience God’s presence. For him, one did not need to be in his cell or even in a church to find a connection to God. In fact, he thought it more likely to find that connection out in the world. Rohr quotes him as saying, “Wherever we are, wherever we go, we bring our cell with us. Our brother body is our cell and our soul is the hermit living in the cell. If our soul does not live in peace and solitude within this cell, of what avail is it to live in a man-made cell?”3

Francis invited people to change their concept of encountering God, and one way he did that is by redefining some of the terms by which one considers such things. He changed the definition of a cell from that of a physical room to one’s body, in which one’s soul resides. Likewise, he changed the definition of a monastery from that of a single building to all of creation. We carry our cell with us at all times within the great cathedral of all that God has made, and thus we are constantly presented with the opportunity to receive what God is trying to share with us through it.

For some, it might be quite a radical notion to move from the traditional definitions of church. For many Christians, the word “church” may call to mind a few different things. First, one may use it to describe a Sunday morning worship gathering. When one says they are “going to church,” they typically mean an event held at a certain time of the week where one may sing, pray, and hear a sermon. This leads us to the second image of church that may come to mind for many, that being a particular building to which one travels to experience this event and others related to the life of a congregation that meets there.

Activities and buildings like these carry with them the possibility of impactful experiences and hold deep meaning for millions of people. But in addition to those, Francis invited people to think even bigger: church can be anywhere and happen at any time, because in a sense Christian believers are always carrying it with them.

The TARDIS is an integral part of The Doctor’s adventures. It makes traveling to different times and worlds possible, and not much would happen without it. But The Doctor and their companions rarely remain inside it. After all, what fun is it to go to all these interesting and exciting places if they never actually leave the ship to experience them?

And even once they leave the physical TARDIS, they still carry it with them. An ongoing connection to it allows them to understand the beings that they encounter, and sometimes allows them to breathe and be protected, among other abilities. In that sense, The Doctor and others never really leave it behind.

For Paul, the word “church” could have had a number of possible meanings. It could have referred to the house in which a particular converted family resided, but it also could have meant the extended network of groups and individuals that spanned an entire city. He used it to refer to communities of various sizes, and communities within communities. For Paul, churches ebbed and flowed, expanded and contracted, and moved about the populace whether together for worship and prayer or scattered in daily work or the tasks of service and evangelism.

Both Paul and The Doctor were travelers, going from place to place to check in on or help people as best they could. For either of them, to stay in one spot was to be less effective than they’d like. Their visions were of a larger world or universe that needed what they could give, even beyond the preferences of those who wanted them to submit to more structure and regulation. The Doctor saw Time Lord technology as holding great potential to do good for others and had to defy his superiors to do it. Paul had a personal experience of God that directed him outside the specified bounds of the Jesus Movement to expand its reach, first to the Jerusalem leaders’ chagrin and then to their acceptance.

Many may be so used to thinking about the church as being an activity or a place. One may tend to think of it as having walls, either in the physical sense of a structure with a steeple and stained glass, or in the sense of having defined criteria for who gets to be part of it and who doesn’t. One may prefer these walls because they enjoy participating in keeping them raised against a world that they want to repel. Many others have experienced what it’s like to have a wall placed in their path as they are denied inclusion and acceptance.

The Doctor and Paul see the pitfalls of such walls and actively explore a calling to make them much more permeable. A TARDIS is for traveling, and for leaving in order to see to others’ needs. A church is for inviting more people in to find hope and healing, and for easing burdens rather than adding to them. They are both for active use for the benefit of others, rather than keeping to oneself.

As Francis suggests, our view of how God is present in the world and especially in the lives of hurting people changes when we consider that all the universe is God’s dwelling place. God calls us out of our boxes and buildings to experience the bigger, richer, deeper possibilities for a divine encounter all around. Such boxes and buildings may hold a sacred significance, but we carry that same sacredness at all times, wherever we go.

1. Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles, 7.

2. Meeks, First Urban Christians, 75–76.

3. Rohr, Eager to Love, 47–48.