Into the Expectation

Something from Dante for Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T07:56:00.002-06:00

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) only met Beatrice twice. The first meeting came in May of 1274 when he was only nine years old and she was eight. She was dressed in soft crimson and wore a girdle about her waist. Dante was overcome with love at first sight and heard in his mind, "Now your bliss has appeared." He frequented places where he could catch a glimpse of her, but she never spoke to him until nine years later. Then one afternoon in 1283 he saw her dressed in white, walking down a street in Florence accompanied by two older women. Beatrice turned and greeted him. Her greeting filled him with such joy that he retreated to his room to think about her. Seven years later, Beatrice died with Dante's love of her unrequited.

Those two meetings and one greeting inspired Dante to write some of the most vivid poetry ever and some of the most profound spiritual reflection of the Christian tradition. His first reflections came in the La Vita Nuova (The New life or Life Renewed) a collection of prose and poetry written over the ten years after the second meeting, years that included Beatrice's death. They culminated in his masterpiece, the Divine Comedy which includes the Inferno, Purgatorio, and the Paradiso.

Dante came to understand that the love Beatrice evoked in him was a means by which he was drawn into the life of God - "the Love that moves the sun, the moon, and the other stars” (Paradiso, XXXIII, 145). Indeed, she seemed an icon and mediation of the renewed, redeemed life found ultimately in that Love. Dante was the great master of the idea that all true love reflects and participates in that one Love revealed in the life and love of Jesus Christ.

Here is Dante's account of his second meeting with Beatrice:

When exactly nine years had passed since this gracious being appeared to me, as I have described, it happened that on the last day of this intervening period this marvel appeared before me again, dressed in purest white, walking between two other women of distinguished bearing, both older than herself. As they walked down the street she turned her eyes toward me where I stood in fear and trembling, and with her ineffable courtesy, which is now rewarded in eternal life, she greeted me; and such was the virtue of her greeting that I seemed to experience the height of bliss. It was exactly the ninth hour of day when she gave me her sweet greeting. As this was the first time she had ever spoken to me, I was filled with such joy that, my senses reeling, I had to withdraw from the sight of others. So I returned to the loneliness of my room and began to think about this gracious person. (Vita Nuova III)

And

Whenever and wherever she appeared, in the hope of receiving her miraculous salutation I felt I had not an enemy in the world. Indeed, I glowed with a flame of charity which moved me to forgive all who had ever injured me; and if at that moment someone had asked me a question, about anything, my only reply would have been: ‘Love’, with a countenance clothed with humility. When she was on the point of bestowing her greeting, a spirit of love, destroying all the other spirits of the senses, drove away the frail spirits of vision and said: ‘Go and pay homage to your lady’; and Love himself remained in their place. Anyone wanting to behold Love could have done so then by watching the quivering of my eyes. And when this most gracious being actually bestowed the saving power of her salutation, I do not say that Love as an intermediary could dim for me such unendurable bliss but, almost by excess of sweetness, his influence was such that my body, which was then utterly given over to his governance, often moved like a heavy, inanimate object. So it is plain that in her greeting resided all my joy, which often exceeded and overflowed my capacity. (Vita Nuova XI)

Here is a poem he wrote about Beatrice:

The power of Love borne in my lady’s eyes
Imparts its grace to all she looks upon;
Men turn to gaze at her when she walks by;
The heart of him she greets is made to quake,
His face to whiten, forcing down his gaze;
He sighs as all his defects flash in mind;
All pride and indignation flee from her.
Help me to honour her, most gracious ladies.
All sweet conception, every humblest thought
blooms in the hearty of the one who hears her speak,
and man is blest at his first sight of her.
The image of her when she starts to smile
breaks out of words, the mind cannot contain it,
a miracle too rich and strange to hold.
(Vita Nuova XXI)

And here is an account of my own beatrician experience:
"Tammy Metzger thinks you're cute" (and so does God)

What is a Merciful Heart?

2012-02-10T18:46:00.001-06:00

If following Jesus isn't making you more merciful, it might not be Jesus you are following.

Jesus said, "But go and learn what this means:'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
- Matthew 9:13
(He was quoting the Old Testament prophet, Hosea - Hosea 6:6).

Here is something from Isaac of Ninevah (died c. 700 AD), also known as Isaac the Syrian:

What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, and for all that exists. By the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful person pour forth tears in abundance. By the strong and vehement mercy that grips such a person’s heart, and by such great compassion, the heart is humbled and one cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in any in creation. For this reason, such a person offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm her or him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner such a person prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in a heart that is in the likeness of God.

The person who is genuinely charitable not only gives charity out of his own possessions, but gladly tolerates injustice from others and forgives them. Whoever lays down his soul for his brother acts generously, rather than the person who demonstrates his generosity by his gifts.

God is not One who requites evil, but who sets evil right.

Paradise is the love of God, wherein is the enjoyment of all blessedness.

The person who lives in love reaps the fruit of life from God, and while yet in this world, even now breathes the air of the resurrection.

In love did God bring the world into existence; in love is God going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of the One who has performed all these things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised.

(Taken from Glory to God in All Things)

Being Immersed in the Story the Bible Tells

2012-02-08T08:26:00.000-06:00

"I more and more find the precious part of each day to be the thirty or forty minutes I spend each morning before breakfast with the Bible. All the rest of the day I am bombarded with the stories that the world is telling about itself. I am more and more skeptical about these stories. As I take time to immerse myself in the story that the Bible tells, my vision is cleared and I see things in another way. I see the day that lies ahead in its place in God’s story."
– Lesslie Newbigin, A Word in Season: Perspectives on Christian World Missions
(h/t Writing in the Dust)

Related: The Story and Other Stories

Radical Centrist Manifesto: Outline

2012-01-13T08:30:00.001-06:00

This is not complete. But, I don't know what complete would look like since it started simply as an attempt to organize some of my thinking. I may add to it occasionally.

Introduction
I. What it is Not,
Part 1: Not Moderate

Part 2, i: Not a Mid-point on a Spectrum

Part 2, ii, Jerome the Ciceronian

II. Centered on Jesus, the Cross and Resurrection,
Part 1: Living in the Center

Part 2: The Story and Other Stories

Part 3: The Way Jesus is

III. Centered in the Body of Christ,
Part 1: Persons in Communion

Part 2, i: Centered in the Creed

Part 2, ii: Centered in the Creed, F. D. Maurice

Part 2, iii: Centered in the Creed, Creedal Minimalism

Part 2, iv: Centered in the Creed, The Least Silly Thing One Can Say (about God)

Part 3: Faithfulness, Loyalty & Allegiance

Addendum: Some Radical Centrists

Thomas Merton

Austin Farrer

Rowan Williams

Faith = Things in Their True Colours

2012-01-10T08:20:00.002-06:00

Austin Farrer (1904-1968) on Faith:

Without the readiness of faith, the evidence of God will not be accepted, or will not convince. This is not to say that faith is put in the place of evidence. What convinces us is not our faith, but the evidence; faith is the subjective condition favourable to the reception of the evidence.

When an unbeliever hears what we have just said, he takes it that faith is an irrational makeweight to turn a scale weighted by reason on the other side. He evidence for God, he thinks, is intrinsically unconvincing; it is made to convince by the introduction of a selfish and infantile prejudice. Faith believes what she wishes to believe. The believer remains unshaken by the accusation. To him, the evidence is intrinsically and of itself convincing, but only under conditions which allow it to be appreciated. Faith supplies the conditions. Seeing is believing; but visible evidence is itself of no force in pitch darkness. If the scene is flooded with cunningly selected rays of multi-coloured light, illumination may provide nothing but illusion. If the scene is lighted with good plain sunlight, it gets a chance to reveal itself.

Saving Belief, p. 22

The evidence of faith is that it convincingly shows us things in their true colours; having once seen man in God, we know that we have seen man as he is; we can never again believe another picture of ourselves, our neighbours, or our destines.

Saving Belief, p. 26

The whole life of Christ was a continual Passion

2012-01-05T08:29:00.000-06:00

On this 12th and last day of Christmas our attention begins to turn toward the life lived by the one whose coming we have been celebrating. Here is something from the great Anglican preacher and poet, John Donne (1572-1631):

The whole life of Christ was a continual Passion; others die martyrs but Christ was born a martyr. He found a Golgotha (where he was crucified) even in Bethlehem. Where he was born; for to his tenderness then the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after, and the manger as uneasy at first as the cross at last. His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas day and his Good Friday are but evening and morning of one and the same day.

- The Showing Forth of Christ, a Christmas Sermon (The Showing Forth of Christ, Sermons of John Donne, selected and edited by Edmund Fuller)

And here is one of Donne's poems exploring a similar theme:

Upon The Annunciation and Passion Falling Upon One Day.
(March 25th, 1608)

Tamely, frail body, abstain to-day; to-day
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.

She sees Him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came, and went away.

She sees Him nothing, twice at once, who’s all;
She sees a Cedar plant itself, and fall;
Her Maker put to making, and the Head
Of life, at once, not yet alive, yet dead.

She sees at once the Virgin Mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha;
Sad and rejoiced she’s seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty, and at scarce fifteen.

At once a Son is promised her, and gone;
Gabriell gives Christ to her, He her to John;
Not fully a mother, She’s in orbity [bereavement];
At once receiver and the legacy.

All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
Th’ abridgement of Christ’s story, which makes one–
As in plain maps, the furthest west is east–
Of th’ angels Ave, and Consummatum est.

How well the Church, God’s Court of Faculties
Deals, in sometimes, and seldom joining these!

As by the self-fix’d Pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which shows where th’other is, and which we say
–Because it strays not far–doth never stray;
So God by His Church, nearest to Him, we know
And stand firm, if we by her motion go;
His Spirit, as His fiery pillar, doth
Leade, and His Church, as cloud; to one end both.

This Church, by letting those days join, hath shown
Death and conception in mankind is one;
Or ’twas in Him the same humility,
That He would be a man, and leave to be;
Or as creation He hath made, as God,
With the last judgement, but one period,
His imitating Spouse would join in one
Manhood’s extremes: He shall come, He is gone;
Or as though one blood drop, which thence did fall,
Accepted, would have served, He yet shed all,
So though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,
Would busy a life, she all this day affords;
This treasure then, in gross, my soul, uplay,
And in my life retail it every day.

Tortured Wonders Restored

2012-01-04T07:27:00.002-06:00

On the 11th day of Christmas, here is something from Tortured Wonders: Christian Spirituality for People, Not Angels by Rodney Clapp:

The Anglican poet George Herbert, in his eloquent way, got it just right. We are together and each of us “once a poor creature” simply lost and self-destructing, yet also “now a wonder” remembered and revisited by the Spirit. We are a wonder tortur’d in space/Betwixt this world and that of grace,” the grace of a new heaven and a new earth, of creation whole in all its parts. Christian spirituality, then, is spirituality for tortured wonders. (p. 23)

. . .

The incarnation acknowledges that the human being is a creature of great value that has been seriously wrecked–but insists that (unlike a wrecked automobile) neither the whole nor any part of it can be rejected or forgotten. Even damaged, bent, and distorted, the human being retains inestimable worth: as a whole and in its parts. (p. 38)

. . .

In Christ God assumes or takes humanity into God’s self. Orthodox Christian spirituality denies that humanity, whatever its powers and aspirations, can save itself from its own wreckage, its own self-destruction. Yet it is true humanity, or humanness, that will be saved. The original creation, though marred in and by sin, will not be tossed away and forgotten, as a potter might trash inferior clay and move onto a new and different clay pit. Nor will God forget about the human project altogether. . . . Humanity will be assumed and resumed, restored to its pristine wholeness and reset on the path to the maturation and fullness of that wholeness. (p. 40)

Tortured Wonders is a fine book on spirituality in light of the Incarnation. That means, among other things, that it takes seriously the essential fact that we are bodies.

Here is the whole poem by George Herbert (1593-1633) from which the title of Clapp's book is taken:

AFFLICTION. (IV)

BROKEN in pieces all asunder,
Lord, hunt me not,
A thing forgot,
Once a poor creature, now a wonder,
A wonder tortured in the space
Betwixt this world and that of grace.

My thoughts are all a case of knives,
Wounding my heart
With scattered smart ;
As wat'ring-pots give flowers their lives.
Nothing their fury can control,
While they do wound and prick my soul.

All my attendants are at strife
Quitting their place
Unto my face :
Nothing performs the task of life :
The elements are let loose to fight,
And while I live, try out their right.

Oh help, my God ! let not their plot
Kill them and me,
And also Thee,
Who art my life : dissolve the knot,
As the sun scatters by his light
All the rebellions of the night.

Then shall those powers which work for grief,
Enter Thy pay,
And day by day
Labour Thy praise and my relief :
With care and courage building me,
Till I reach heav'n, and much more, Thee.

God’s Favor, Joy, and Peace Born in Our Midst

2012-01-03T13:36:00.003-06:00

Today is the 10th day of Christmas. Here is the sermon on
Luke 2:1-20 I preached on Christmas eve:

Imagine someone who knew little or nothing about Christmas trying to make sense of it given the mixed messages in American pop culture. Imagine for example, a Chinese exchange student who has just returned home after one semester here. He has been here for a little over half of December. He has seen lawn decorations. He has heard Christmas music at the mall. Maybe he’s seen a Christmas special or two on television. Let’s imagine his name is “Hu Zher”. How might Hu Zher try to describe the Christmas story to his friends back home who similarly know next to nothing about it? Given the competing stories and images floating around, maybe something like this:

A celestial being appeared on top of a tree to some shepherds announcing the auspicious birth of a boy-child of great destiny. The celestial being was so bright and colorful as to make a deep impression on the shepherds. They immediately cut down a tree and decorated it with lights. Ever since, Christians put trees in their homes as a memorial of this event and the birth of the boy-child, Jesus.

Jesus was born in a stable with a cow, some sheep, a donkey, and a deer with a bright red nose.

The baby Jesus is full of magic and glows. In his presence the animals talk, the deer flies, and piles of snow come to life and dance and sing and play.

Sages from far away came to honor the destiny child. They knelt before him and offered him gifts. The most famous sage who came to kneel before him was from the far north. He wore a fur-lined red suit. He brought a large bag of gifts for the baby Jesus. In return, the baby gives him the red-nosed deer. And ever since, in honor of this event, that sage, Santa Claus, who appears to be something like one of the immortals, roams the earth in December to give gifts to good children.

The baby was born to deliver people from a mean green monster called a Grinch who wanted to steal people’s joy.

Unlike Hu Zher, most of us are able to keep the several competing stories associated with Christmas a little less garbled and confused. But there are other stories that compete for our attention as well at this time of year. The pervasive story of consumption insists that our happiness – and the happiness of those we love – depends on buying and having the right things. More personally, many of us have been given stories about ourselves that might play more loudly this time of year – stories about our own inadequacy, our being unlovable, or our never quite measuring up. These stories can also confound our ability to hear clearly the Christmas story and leave us feeling garbled and confused.

Other things make this season feel garbled and confused. We hear about peace, and love, and the hopes and fears of all the years. But, the frenetic pace of the Christmas rush makes for little peace. We hope things will turn out wonderfully at our Christmas gatherings, but fear they won’t. And often enough, our gatherings remind us of the fragility or brokenness of our relationships, of our love.

I wonder if December isn’t just an intensification or a condensation of the condition of our lives more generally. The story of our lives is full of hopes and fears, of deep yearning for love and peace and joy. But often our lives and the world around us seem as garbled and confused as Hu Zher’s version of the Christmas story.

If we look at the ungarbled version of Jesus’ birth as recorded in the first two chapters of Luke, we have a sort of condensation of the whole gospel. They are a sort of overture of the essential themes that will be played out in the rest of the story of Jesus. This is particularly true of the angelic appearance to the shepherds: “An angel of the Lord stood before the shepherds, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.’” After declaring this good news and sending the shepherds to Bethlehem to see for themselves, the angel is joined by a heavenly choir singing, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" And there we have a summary of the gospel. Through the angel, good news is made known to us that God favors us and has come to us as savior bringing peace and joy.

The first thing the angel says to the shepherds is the first thing God or God’s messenger always says when appearing to humans: “Do not be afraid.” We are finite creatures vulnerable to loss and pain and death. Confusion, fear, and anxiety – real and imagined – are part of our natural condition. At times they seem overwhelming, casting a shadow over our lives. But into the midst of our fear and anxiety, Jesus is born bringing the promise that God is with us in all things to strengthen and encourage and, ultimately, to deliver us from all that we fear. And nothing – nothing – can separate us from the love we know in Jesus. If this story is anything like true we can begin to live beyond fear. Brothers and sisters, hear it clearly tonight and carry it in your hearts forever: Do. Not. Be. Afraid.

But why do you suppose the shepherds were terrified in the first place? Given that they were probably not the most pious characters, maybe they felt the way we feel when we see a police car in our rear view mirror – have I done something wrong? And isn’t that often how we think about God? A cosmic ‘gotcha’ moment would be terrifying. But I wonder if it was something else: the glory of the Lord shown round about them. To be engulfed in the glory of the Lord would mean being engulfed in overwhelming power and goodness. But it would also mean being engulfed in the splendor of unbearable beauty and joy. I suspect Dante has it right when he suggests that being in the presence of those like the angel of the Lord, or in Dante’s case, Beatrice – to be in the presence of those who are saturated with divine glory would undo us. It is the bright, unbearable splendor of God’s beauty, goodness, and joy that overwhelms and terrifies the shepherds. Part of the good news the angel brings is that that beauty, goodness, and joy has been born in Bethlehem and this baby will make it possible for us to bear, and enter fully into, God’s beauty, goodness, and joy.

This is good news to all people. In Jesus, God has shown his favor – his loving, tender, attention. "For God so favored the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). God favors you. God cherishes you. God delights in you. God favors you and desires goodness, joy, and peace for you. Ponder that in your heart. God has demonstrated his favor towards us by being born in the midst of our sin-garbled and confused world as Savior, Messiah, and Lord that we might have life abundantly and eternally. That is good news of great joy for all the people.

This is good news of great joy. Jesus said he came that his joy may be in us, and that our joy may be full (John 15:11). God desires for you to be full of joy – not mere happiness or pleasure, but the deep and abiding sense of well-being knowing that life – your life – is good. With Jesus comes the promise that all that is unjoy in our lives and in the world can be undone.

This is good news of peace. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27). It is telling how often Jesus says “Peace be with you” or “Go in peace” or encourages people to focus on “the things that make for peace” (Luke 19:42). God desires peace for you and for the world – deep and abiding personal peace and contentment of spirit as well as peace between people and the end of violence. With Jesus comes the promise that all that is unpeace in our lives and in the world can be undone.

We will not go too far afield if we understand sin as the attitudes and behaviors in us and in the world that block, deny, or diminish joy and peace from our own selves and from one another. It is to address the unjoy and unpeace of the world, that Jesus was born. In Jesus, God’s favor, joy, and peace are manifest and made available to us. He has come to save us from all that is in us and all that is in the world that keeps us from entering fully into God’s favor.

We are like the shepherds – good news has been brought to us. The scriptures, the saints, and other witnesses are our angels. We can again and again go to the One born in our midst. His favor, joy, and peace can be born in our hearts, shape our lives, and transform our world. If you have never knelt before him, I encourage you tonight to come. If it has been a long time since you knelt before him, I encourage you tonight to come. And may we all, like the shepherds, leave tonight glorifying and praising God for all we have heard and seen. Let us make known what has been told to us. May his light shine in the garbled darkness and confusion of this world.

In the light of this story the stories of our lives become less garbled and confused. In the light of this story, new light shines on all other stories. All good stories reflect something of the light of the good news of great joy contained in this story – including those stories that compete with it this time of year, the stories that confused Hu Zher. For all who have felt like Rudolph – outcasts who have been laughed at, called names, and been excluded from joining in any “reindeer games,” you are welcomed into God’s favor, joy, and peace. For all who have felt frozen, cold, or lifeless, new life is possible. And all that is within us and in the world that blocks, denies, or rejects the favor, joy, and peace of God – all that is Grinch-like – can be transformed. Our hearts can expand threefold and more. Let there be no confusion. This story, the story of the birth of Jesus, is the assurance of God’s favor and the promise that all that is unjoy and unpeace is undone.

And that is good news of great joy for all the people. Merry Christmas.

Transformation from the Inside by Divine Participation

2012-01-02T08:11:00.000-06:00

Something from theoretical physicist and Anglican priest/theologian John Polkinghorne for the 9th day of Christms:

Human redemption comes through divine involvement, and not by an act of divine magic. The incarnation is the narrow point in which the large claim of universal salvific validity stemming from a particular life and death must balance. The human condition is such that it cannot be dealt with simply be an authorized representative (the Hebrew idea of shaliach), however inspired, but it requires actual divine participation. It is therefore essential, if Jesus is Savior, that God is fully present in him throughout. In Athanasius' words, 'He became man that we might become divine,' so that we might share in the life of God and consequently that the life of God might be in him. Yet the Redeemer is not a gnostic Christ imparting the secrets of divine wisdom, who could indeed be a heavenly figure in human disguise. The mystery of our redemption is something altogether deeper than that. It proceeds, not from the outside by illumination, but from the inside by participation. We need transformation, not information.

The Faith of a Physicist, p. 135

The Holy Name

2012-01-01T06:28:00.000-06:00

The 8th day of Christmas, the Feast of the Holy Name:

You shall call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins. (Matthew 1:21)

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11)

Ah! Ah! That wonderful Name! Ah! That delectable Name! This is the Name that is above all names, the Name that is highest of all, without which no one hopes for salvation. This Name is sweet and joyful, giving veritable comfort to the human heart. Verily the Name of Jesus is in my mind a joyous song and heavenly music in my ear, and in my mouth a honeyed sweetness. Wherefore no wonder I love that Name which gives comfort to me in all my anguish. I cannot pray, I cannot meditate, but in sounding the Name of Jesus. I savour no joy that is not mingled with Jesus. Wheresoever I be, wheresoever I sit, whatsoever I do, the thought of the savour of the Name of Jesus never leaves my mind. I have set it in my mind, I have set it as a token upon my heart. What can one lack who desires to love the Name of Jesus unceasingly?

Richard Rolle (1290-1349)

Collect for the Feast of the Holy Name:
Eternal Father, you gave to your incarnate Son the holy name of Jesus to be the sign of our salvation: Plant in every heart, we pray, the love of him who is the Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Book of Common Prayer, 1979, p. 213

The Vulnerable Love of God

2011-12-31T13:23:00.000-06:00

On the 7th day of Christmas, something from William Placher on the vulnerable love of God incarnated in Jesus:

To read the biblical narratives is to encounter a God who is, first of all, love (1 John 4:8). Love involves a willingness to put oneself at risk, and God is in fact vulnerable in love, vulnerable even to great suffering. God’s self-revelation is Jesus Christ, and, as readers encounter him in the biblical stories, he wanders with nowhere to place his head, washes the feet of his disciples like a servant, and suffers and dies on a cross–condemned by the authorities of his time, undergoing great pain, “despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity” (Isaiah 53:3). Just this Jesus is the human face of God, not merely a messenger or a prophet but God’s own self come as self-revelation to humankind. If God becomes human in just this way, moreover, then that tells us something of how we might seek our own fullest humanity–not in quests of power and wealth and fame but in service, solidarity with the despised and rejected, and willingness to be vulnerable in love.

Narratives of a Vulnerable God, p. xiii

Jesus = the very face of God

2011-12-30T08:13:00.003-06:00

We continue to commemorate the mystery of the Incarnation on the 6th day of Christmas:

Scottish theologian Thomas Torrance tells about how, as a young army chaplain, he held the hand of a dying nineteen-year-old soldier, and then, back in Aberdeen as a pastor, visited one of the oldest women in his congregation–and they both asked exactly the same question: “Is God really like Jesus?” And he assured them both, Torrance writes, “that God is indeed really like Jesus, and that there is no unknown God behind the back of Jesus for us to fear; to see Jesus is to see the very face of God."

William Placher, Jesus the Savior, p. 21 (quoting Torrance, Preaching Christ Today, p. 55)

There is a phrase associated with two of the greatest Anglican thinkers of the last generation, Michael Ramsey and John V. Taylor: ‘God is Christlike and in him there is no unChristlikeness at all'. What is seen in Jesus is what God is; what God is is the outpouring and returning of selfless love, which is the very essence of God’s definition, in so far as we can ever speak of a ‘definition’ of the mystery.

Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust, p. 70

It is because of Jesus that we grasp the idea of a God who is entirely out to promote our life and lasting Joy. . . Here is a human life so shot through with the purposes of God, so transparent to the action of God, that people speak of it as God's life 'translated' into another medium. Here God is supremely and uniquely at work.

Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust, p. 57

His secret beauty on our own scale

2011-12-29T06:56:00.001-06:00

On the 5th day of Christmas:

One of the most convicting aspects of Christianity, if we try to see it in terms of our own day, is the contrast between its homely and inconspicuous beginnings and the holy powers it brought into the world. It keeps us in perpetual dread of despising small things, humble people, little groups. The Incarnation means that the Eternal God enters our common human life with all the energy of His creative love, to transform it, to exhibit to us its riches, its unguessed significance; speaking our language, and showing us His secret beauty on our own scale.

- Evelyn Underhill, The School of Charity

God Endured What He Decreed

2011-12-28T09:32:00.001-06:00

The fourth day of Christmas, Holy Innocents, calls to mind these thoughts from Dorothy Sayers and Charles Williams:

Dorothy Sayers:

What does the Church think of Christ? The Church’s answer is categorical and uncompromising, and it is this: That Jesus Bar-Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth, was in fact and in truth, and in the most exact and literal sense of the words, the God “by whom all things were made.” His body and brain were those of a common man; his personality was the personality of God, so far as that personality could be expressed in human terms. He was not a kind of demon pretending to be human; he was in every respect a genuine living man. He was not merely a man so good as to be “like God”—he was God.

Now, this is not just a pious commonplace: it is not a commonplace at all. For what it means is this, among other things: that for whatever reason God chose to make man as he is—limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death—he [God] had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When he was a man, he played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.

- The Greatest Drama Ever Staged, The Whimsical Christian

Charles Williams:

The original act of creation can be believed to be good and charitable; it is credible that Almighty God should deign to create beings to share His Joy. It is credible that he should deign to increase their Joy by creating them with the power of free will so that their joy should be voluntary. It is certain that if they have the power of choosing joy in Him they must have the power of choosing the opposite of joy in Him. . .

He could have willed us not to be after the Fall. He did not. Now the distress of creation is so vehement and prolonged, so tortuous and torturing, that even naturally it is revolting to our sense of justice, much more supernaturally. We are instructed that He contemplates, from His infinite felicities, the agonies of His creation, and deliberately maintains them in it. . . The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together. (Romans 8:22)

This is a creation then that ‘needs’ (let the word be permitted) justifying. The Cross justifies it to this extent at least–that just as He submitted us to His inexorable will, so He submitted Himself to our wills (and therefore to His). He made us; He maintained us in our pain. At least, however, on the Christian showing, He consented to be Himself subject to it. If, obscurely, He would not cease to preserve us in the full horror of existence, at least He shared it. This is the first approach to justice in the whole situation. Whatever He chose He chose fully, for Himself as for us. This is, I think, unique in the theistic religions of the world. I do not remember any other in which the Creator so accepted the terms of His own terms–at least in the limited sense of existence upon this earth. It is true that His life was short. His pain (humanly speaking) comparatively brief. But at least, alone among the gods, He deigned to endure the justice He decreed.

- The Cross (from Charles Williams: Selected Writings, chosen by Anne Ridler)

The Stupendous Theme of Christianity

2011-12-27T08:44:00.001-06:00

For the 3rd day of Christmas, here is some more from E. L. Mascall (1905-1993):

“The stupendous theme [of Christianity is] that God’s ultimate purpose for the human race and for the whole material universe is that they should be taken up into Christ and transformed into a condition of unimaginable glory, and that it is for this that God took our human nature, in which spirit and matter are so mysteriously and intricately interwoven.” The Christian Universe, p. 109

The Humanity of Christ

2011-12-26T09:28:00.001-06:00

For the 2nd day of Christmas, here is something from E. L. Mascall (1905-1993) on the humanity of Christ:

“It was human nature, not a human person, that God the Son united to himself when he became man. Thus, both the state of fallenness and the state of redemption appertain in the first place to the human race as such, and then to individual men and women as members of it; and this does not mean that God is not interested in us as individuals, but that he is interested in us as the kind of individuals we are, namely members of one another.” The Christian Universe, p. 104-105

God contrived to make himself born

2011-12-25T07:43:00.005-06:00

"In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son." Hebrews 1:1-2

"God, being unable to make himself known, contrived to make himself born."
- Paul Claudel (1868-1955), La Rose et le Rosaire, cited in I Believe in God, p. 69

"God does not give us explanations; we do not comprehend the world, and we are not going to. It is, and it remains for us, a confused mystery of bright and dark. God does not give us explanations.; he gives us a Son. Such is the spirit of the angel's message to the shepherds: 'Peace upon earth, good will to men . . . and this shall be the sign unto you: ye shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger.'

A Son is better han an explanation. The explanation of our deaths leaves us no less dead than we were, but a Son gives us a life in which to live."
- Austin Farrer, Christmas sermon, A Faith of Our Own, p. 34

". . . but we see Jesus . . ." Hebrews 2:9

It is because of Jesus that we grasp the idea of a God who is entirely out to promote our life and lasting Joy. . . Here is a human life so shot through with the purposes of God, so transparent to the action of God, that people speak of it as God's life 'translated' into another medium. Here God is supremely and uniquely at work. - Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust, p. 57

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. . . The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God."
- Gospel of John 1:1-12

"The mystery of the humanity of Christ, that He sunk Himself into our flesh, is beyond all human understanding." - Martin Luther, Table Talk

"If the thing happened, it was the central event in the history of the world." - C. S. Lewis, Miracles, chapter 14, par. 2

The promise of our quickening

2011-12-23T09:25:00.001-06:00

A poem by Scott Cairns:

Christmas Green
Just now the earth recalls His stunning visitation. Now
the earth and scattered habitants attend to what is possible:
that He of a morning entered this, our meagered circumstance,
and so relit the fuse igniting life in them,
igniting life in all the dim surround.
And look, the earth adopts a kindly affect. Look,
we almost see our long estrangement from it overcome.
The air is scented with the prayer of pines, the earth is softened
for our brief embrace, the fuse continues bearing to all elements
a curative despite the grave, and here within our winter this,
the rising pulse, bears still the promise of our quickening.

Scott Cairns. Compass of Affection: Poems New and Selected (Brewster, Mass: Paraclete Press, 2006 pp.136.)

At the back of our own heart

2011-12-22T09:51:00.003-06:00

Some thoughts on Christmas from G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936):

No other birth of a god or childhood of a sage seems to us to be Christmas or anything like Christmas. It is either too cold or too frivolous, or too formal and classical, or too simple and savage, or too occult and complicated. Not one of us, whatever his opinions, would ever go to such a scene with the sense that he was going home. He might admire it because it was poetical, or because it was philosophical, or any number of other things in separation; but not because it was itself. The truth is that there is a quite peculiar and individual character about the hold of this story on human nature; it is not in its psychological substance at all like a mere legend or the life of a great man. . . . It does not exactly work outwards, adventurously, to the wonders to be found at the ends of the earth. It is rather something that surprises us from behind, from the hidden and personal part of our being. . . .It is rather as if a man had found an inner room in the very heart of his own house, which he had never suspected; and seen a light from within. It is as if he found something at the back of his own heart that betrayed him into goodness.

- The Everlasting Man

Greetings, favored one!

2011-12-17T11:49:00.006-06:00

"Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." Can you imagine what it would be like to have a messenger of God show up in your room and speak these words to you? (Luke 1:26-38)

I love this painting of the Annunciation by 20th century African-American painter, Henry Ossawa Tanner. I especially like the way the angel Gabriel is represented. Rather than a man with wings, here we have a beam of light. It has about it something of the eerie mystery that I expect comes with such an encounter with the Holy. It reminds me of the way C. S. Lewis represents angelic beings in Out of the Silent Planet (writing after Tanner painted, but as far as I know unaware of this painting). Except that in Lewis’ telling, the “eldila” appear slightly off-center - but this is because it is our world that is askew being bent by sin.

I also appreciate that Mary looks more like a young Mediterranean peasant girl than in most renditions. There is a gritty realism to it. She looks like maybe Gabriel woke her up to greet her in God’s name. Her bed is unmade. And she really looks like she is perplexed and pondering what sort of greeting this might be.

And what a greeting it is: "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." What an affirmation of God’s care and delight. Insignificant though she might have been considered in her society, God notices and cares. However unimportant she might have thought herself to be, God delights in her. God favors her. It is the word we all long to hear.

But there is more to God’s favor than affirmation. When the God Mary knew through the stories of her people favors someone, it involves a call. God favored Abraham. God favored Moses. God favored David. God favored the people of Israel. The affirmation in every case was accompanied by a call to participate in God's mission. And so it is with Mary. No wonder she pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

And the part she was being called to play in God’s mission of redemption was daunting indeed. Which is why the other part of the initial greeting is just as important as the affirmation and call of God’s favor: “The Lord is with you." Much is being given to Mary and much is being asked of her. But the one who has favored her is also with her to give her strength to see it through. And nothing will be impossible with God. The angel continues, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”

Still, the angel – along with angels, archangels and all the company of heaven – awaits her reply. Will she dare to receive this word in her heart? Will she dare to conceive this Word in her womb? With Mary’s response, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word" human willingness is freely united with the will of God. Perhaps Tanner is right to have Gabriel beaming perpendicular. Perhaps in this one moment, in this room, with the response of this young woman, hope and history rhyme, heaven and earth are in sync, and the world is unbent. And the Baby she will bear will be the Unbent One, perfectly embodying the peace and joy of God’s favor.

The story doesn’t end there of course. Mary’s role in the story will get complicated. There will be confusion and heartache. But, the Lord will be with her along with God’s favor.

And so it is with us. Mary is considered the prototypical disciple – the elder sister of all believers. If she is, then we should be able to hear the word she heard as being spoken to us as well. What if we knew ourselves to be addressed every morning with,
"Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you" and "Do not be afraid for you have found favor with God.”? If what Christians believe about Mary’s son is true, then that is precisely what God is saying to you and to me each day. Whatever else the voices around us or within us are saying or not saying, God has declared his favor toward us in being made flesh. In spite of the bentness, in spite of sin and brokenness, God is with us and has addressed all that is bent in the world and in us.

As with Mary, God’s favor toward us is also a call to mission – to love God and to love and care for one another, to be bearers of forgiveness and healing. And, as with Mary, all the angels in heaven rejoice when we respond, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."

Indiana Beats Kentucky, the Magnificat &Turning the Corner

2011-12-13T19:07:00.003-06:00

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent, 12/11/11
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11, Canticle 15 (the Magnificat),
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24, John 1:6-8, 19-28

Today we are wearing rose colored vestments because it is “Gaudate” Sunday, the traditional name for the third Sunday in Advent. Gaudate is Latin for “rejoice!” [put on Indiana University cap] And there was much rejoicing in the Gunter household last night as the unranked and unheralded Indiana University basketball team upset the # 1 ranked University of Kentucky. There was much cheering and shouting and dancing in front of our television.

You need to know a little bit of the context to understand why this is such a big deal and how I think it can help us understand what is going on in the Magnificat we hear read moments ago. First of all you need to know that in the state of Indiana basketball is the closest thing to religion outside of church. And even that distinction gets blurred. More particularly, you need to know that my Alma mater, Indiana University which has a proud basketball heritage has fallen on hard times. A few years ago we had a coach who broke some recruiting rules and was fired. The result was the disintegration of the program. The program seemed lost and hopeless. A new coach was hired, but the last three years have been hard. We have won a total of 28 games in those three years when you might hope to win about that many in one year. You also need to know that Kentucky is one of our archest of arch rivals. And we have only won two of the last fourteen games against them and haven’t won at all for eight years. You also need to know that Leslie’s brother-in-law attended Kentucky – so every year for a long time I have had to endure the inevitable post game phone call in which he rubbed it in again and again.

So, when Indiana got the ball back with five seconds to go and trailing by two points, it looked like things might continue as usual. Instead, an Indiana player dribbled the ball down the court, drove toward the basket, stopped and tossed the ball back to another player. Then, as time was about to expire, that player shot the ball at the basket from beyond the three-point line. The buzzer sounded. And the ball swished through the basket for the win! Incredible! There was indeed much rejoicing throughout Hoosierland.

This one victory doesn’t mean my team will win the championship this year. There are losses and disappointments ahead. But there is new hope that a championship is in our future. Defeating Kentucky was a sign that we have turned the corner.

And I think that gets at something like the exuberant joy in Mary’s song. Mary lived in a time when it seemed Israel was lost and hopeless. Ruled by a corrupt and ruthless king who in turn was a servant and toady of the Roman Empire, Israel was on a long losing streak. And there was a sense that the people were not only oppressed politically and economically but confounded spiritually as well. But, now, Mary knows that the baby she carries in her womb is the evidence that God has remembered his promise of mercy. Israel will be delivered. Things will not continue as usual. The corner has been turned. And she rejoices. My joy at Indiana's improbable three-pointer-at-the-buzzer victory is but a slight hint at the overwhelming joy that evoked Mary's song.

Mary's song, the Magnificat, is overflowing with gratitude and expectation. It is also steeped in the spirit of the Old Testament. In the Magnificat we see that before she was the grace-full Mother of God, Mary was a faithful daughter of Israel. She sings in harmony with other prophetic women of Israel – Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Judith.

And it's the same tune as the other Hebrew prophets and sages. It is in continuity with the passage from Isaiah 61 which we read this morning in which the prophet promises good news to the oppressed, the binding up of the brokenhearted, liberty and release, the proclamation of the year of the LORD's favor, and comfort to all who mourn.

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.”

“He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,”

God has remembered his promise of mercy. Repudiated are the proud, the mighty, and the rich who have hoarded power and wealth at the expense of others’ access to the goods of life. Exalted are the lowly and the hungry, the poor, and the powerless.

This is the song Mary sang to her cousin Elizabeth. And I expect she sang and taught variations of this song to her children. Is it any wonder that her son (stepson?), James, urged that “religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”? (James 1:27)

And Jesus, while the Son of God, was also the son of Mary. And his preaching and teaching echoes with the same themes that inspired his mother. His inaugural sermon in Nazareth is on Isaiah 61. Jesus read the passage, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." (Luke 4:18-21).

Jesus says it is the poor in spirit and the meek – the lowly – who will be blessed. Another time he says that it is the poor, the hungry, and those who mourn who are blessed. And he warns the proud and powerful of woe coming their way. Our most fundamental problem is spiritual. And Jesus came to address that. But our spiritual problem gets played out in political, social, and economic realities. Jesus, like Mary, addresses those as well.

Jesus challenges us to receive him in our hearts as Mary received him in her womb. Jesus challenges us to choose whether or not we will become, like Mary, lowly in spirit. Jesus challenges us to decide whether or not we will side with those who are lowly and with those who hunger.

The baby Mary bears will fulfill God’s promise of mercy and scatter all that is contrary to that mercy. And so she rejoices and sings. It will get more complicated. She will experience confusion, disappointment, and heartache as her son grows up and is eventually tortured and killed by the mighty. But she knows that with his coming the corner has been turned for Israel and salvation has begun. Since his coming the world has experienced much confusion, disappointment, and heartache. But we know that with his coming the corner has been turned for the world and salvation has begun. And, personally, each of us will, from time to time, experience confusion, disappointment, and heartache. But we know that with his coming the corner has been turned for us and salvation has begun. We know that God's program for us and for the world is not lost or hopless. It is pregnant with promise. And so, with Mary, we can sing,
"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant."

Time Keeps on Slippin' into the Future

2011-12-07T11:39:00.005-06:00

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent, 12/4/11
Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13, 2 Peter 3:8-15a, Mark 1:1-8

[Singing (but probably not very well)] “Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’, into the future.”

I’ve been thinking about this pop song by the Steve Miller Band from my college days in the 1970’s. It’s a pretty decent Advent song. In Advent we remember that we are in between times – between the coming of Jesus which we will celebrate during Christmas and his return in the future. As Advent people we are shaped by what God has done in the past and oriented toward what God has promised to do in the future.

Time is slipping into the future and it is a future full of promise. It is God’s promise of a new heaven and a new earth. That is the promise of the prophets, especially Isaiah:

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. . . . They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. - Isaiah 11:6&9

And he will destroy on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death for ever, and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth; for the LORD has spoken. It will be said on that day, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. - Isaiah 25:7-9

For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. . . . The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the LORD. - Isaiah 65:17-25

And it is the promise at the end of the Book of Revelation:

Revelation 21:1-5
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away." And he who sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new.

Revelation 22:2-3
through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There shall no more be anything accursed,

The promise God has given us, the promise we celebrate in Advent, is not pie in the sky by and by when we die. It is not that we will some day escape earth and go to some other place where bodies and creation are no more. Christianity is not about escaping this material world – a world God created and declared good – Christianity is about God making all things new, it is about transfiguration and transformation. It is about this creation renewed into a new heaven and a new earth.

The resurrection of Jesus is the promise that, whatever our fate after we die between now and then, in the end we will likewise be resurrected on the last day to live forever in a new earth in which heaven and earth have become one and the glory of the Lord covers the earth like the waters cover the sea. When Jesus taught us to pray,
“Thy Kingdom Come,
Thy will be done,
on earth
as it is in heaven”
That is what he meant. In that prayer we claim and anticipate the promise that time is slipping into the promised future of God when heaven and earth are made one.

Which brings us to this morning’s lesson from 2 Peter (2 Peter 3:8-15a).

The early followers of Jesus understood that with his resurrection the kingdom of God had been inaugurated. But, they had expected that meant that the fullness of the kingdom result soon after. But it didn’t. The letter of Peter counters that concern by zooming back and reminding us of the big picture, “Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” God’s promise is sure and Jesus is the first fruits of that promise, but God measures time differently than we do. By God’s reckoning, 2011 is just early dawn of the third day.

The author goes on to point out that, “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you.” Our God is a patient God. The season of Advent encourages us to practice a corresponding godly passionate patience.

God is patient, “not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” Repent of what? Of all that contradicts the promise of all that is out of place in the new heaven and new earth – all violence, greed, dishonesty and deceit;
all idolatry, unfaithfulness, envy, and enmity;
all disharmony and all that contradicts the gospel that is peace and life,
all that is not love.

Time keeps on slipping into the future and “the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.” This imagery calls to mind (mine anyway) the process of refining silver. Silver ore is full of things that are not silver. In the process of refinement, the ore is put in a crucible and dissolved with fire. Then all dross and impurity is removed. The silver is the same, but it is made new. And so it will be with the new heaven and the new earth.

It is good to be pure silver. But I suspect the ore does not appreciate the heat. Nor does readily part with the dross it considers its own. But, as Paul warns us, “each man's work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” (1 Corinthians 3:13-15)

Everything that is done will be disclosed and all that contradicts the purpose of God’s new creation will be dissolved. “Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

Only God can bring about the new heaven and new earth. We can only live in faithful anticipation of the “Day of the Lord.” As we await the new heaven and new earth what sort of people should we be? People of holiness and godliness – which means people living like Jesus. We live waiting with eager anticipation and hastening the coming of the day of God. We allow the Holy Spirit to shape our lives and our life together such that the righteousness of the new heaven and new earth is at home here and now.

When mercy and truth meet
the righteousness of the new heaven and new earth is at home.

When righteousness and peace kiss
the righteousness of the new creation is at home.

When there is forgiveness and reconciliation
the righteousness of the new heaven and new earth is at home.

When there is healing, repair, or restoration
the righteousness of the new heaven and new earth is at home.

When justice, freedom, and peace are advanced
the righteousness of the new heaven and new earth is at home.

When the goods of this creation are made more available to more people
the righteousness of the new heaven and new earth is at home.

When this creation is tended with care
the righteousness of the new heaven and new earth is at home.

In every act of nurturing and mentoring
the righteousness of the new heaven and new earth is at home.

In every act of creativity
the righteousness of the new heaven and new earth is at home.

In every act of generosity
the righteousness of the new heaven and new earth is at home.

In every act of kindness
the righteousness of the new heaven and new earth is at home.

In every act of love
the righteousness of the new heaven and new earth is at home.

Such anticipations of the new heaven and new earth will last forever. All else will be dissolved.

German theologian, Jurgen Moltmann wrote,

Heaven and earth are waiting to become God's house, for everything created has been made for love. God's Spirit is in them all and throws them open for God's future. God finds no rest until everything he has created has returned home to him, like the prodigal son in the parable

This means that God is still restless in history until the world becomes his sanctuary and he can enter into all things and find a home there. (Jesus Christ for Today's World, p. 133)

Time keeps on slipping into the future.

“Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.”

Second Coming, Parousia, and Rapture

2011-12-02T21:54:00.005-06:00

In an ealier post of a passage from the Catechetical Lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem was this phrase, "we shall go out with the angels to meet the Lord and cry out in adoration: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." The phrase caught my eye because I had just something about this in N. T. Wright's book, Surprised by Hope.

In the religious circles I grew up in there was lots of emphasis on “End Times” and a particular understanding of what it meant to believe in the Second Coming of Christ. I remember seeing wall charts that had the chronology of the Last Days with descriptions of the events leading up to and immediately following Jesus’ return. It was assumed that his “return” meant that those who belonged to him and were ready would be caught up into the air, rescued from this world which would be destroyed, and removed to heaven. And it was clear that you were in trouble if you weren’t ready. We sang songs like “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” and worried about being left behind when true Christians were caught up in the rapture. It is a way of understanding things that has a potent hold on the imaginations of many Christians in America. I am convinced it is a mistaken understanding.

In an essay that can be found online, Wright takes on the popular notion of "rapture" as an escape of the redeemed from this world:

The American obsession with the second coming of Jesus — especially with distorted interpretations of it — continues unabated. Seen from my side of the Atlantic, the phenomenal success of the Left Behind books appears puzzling, even bizarre[1]. Few in the U.K. hold the belief on which the popular series of novels is based: that there will be a literal “rapture” in which believers will be snatched up to heaven, leaving empty cars crashing on freeways and kids coming home from school only to find that their parents have been taken to be with Jesus while they have been “left behind.” This pseudo-theological version of Home Alone has reportedly frightened many children into some kind of (distorted) faith.

This dramatic end-time scenario is based (wrongly, as we shall see) on Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, where he writes: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God. The dead in Christ will rise first; then we, who are left alive, will be snatched up with them on clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). (Farewell to the Rapture)

In Surprised by Hope, Wright fleshes out why he thinks Rapture theology is mistaken:

Scholars and simple folk alike can be lead astray by the use of a single word to refer to something when the word in its original setting means both more and less than the use to which it is subsequently put. In this case the word in question is the Greek word parousia. This is usually translated "coming," but literally means "presence"- that is, presence as oppose to absence.

Wright points out that at the time the New Testament was written, parousia had two meanings in non-Christian discourse. One was "the mysterious presence of a god or divinity, particularly when the power of this god was revealed in healing." (Surprised by Hope, p. 128)

The other meaning

emerges when a person of high rank makes a visit to a subject state, particularly when a king or emperor visits a colony or province. The word for such a visit is royal presence: in Greek, parousia.

. . . .

Suppose [Paul and other early Christians] wanted to say that the Jesus who had been raised from the dead and exalted to God’s right hand was the rightful Lord of the world, the Emperor before all other emperors would shake in their shoes and bow their knees in fear and wonder. And suppose they wanted to say that, just as Caesar might one day visit a colony like Philippi or Thessalonica or Corinth (the normally absent but ruling emperor appearing and ruling in person), so the absent but ruling Lord of the world would one day appear and rule in person within this world, with all the consequences that would result. The natural words to use for this would be parousia. (p. 129)

Wright continues

When Paul speaks of “meeting” the Lord “in the air,” the point is precisely not – as in the popular rapture theology – that the saved believers would stay up in the air somewhere, away from earth. The point is that, having gone out to meet their returning Lord, they will escort him royally into his domain, that is, back to the place they have come from. (p. 133)

And that seems much more likely to have been Cyril's meaning. In fact, aside from being biblically suspect, it is extremely rare to find anything like the rapture theology that has so shaped the imaginations of many American Christians expressed in the early or medieval church. It does not become widespread until after 1800 and even then, as Wright indicates, only in certain segments of Americam Christianiy. It hardly represents classic Christian teaching. And it tends to obsure, if not outright deny another basic aspect of classic Christianity that Cyril also alludes to: the hope that "the created world will be made new."

Next: Heaven and earth made new
Previous: Cyril & Wright on Judgment

Cyril & Wright on Judgment

2011-12-01T14:43:00.008-06:00

I've been thinking about the last post on Cyril on the Twofold Coming of Christ. Three things intrigue me about the passage given that I am just about finished with N. T. Wright's, Surprised by Hope.

1. Cyril's affirmation that "he (the returning Lord) will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead."

2. Cyril's phrase, "we shall go out with the angels to meet the Lord and cry out in adoration: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" which has implications for he understood the second coming.

3. Cyril's expectation that "the created world will be made new."

I'm going to post something about each of these over the next few days with reference to the writing of N. T. Wright whose approach strikes some as novel but which is actually not just biblical, but consistent with theologians of the early church like Cyril.

Judgment: The idea of judgment is unpopular with contemporary Americans. It is unpopular in general, but particularly when it comes to the idea that God might judge us. It must be admitted that that is partly do to some bad teaching and preaching in churches in which God has been portrayed as angry and vindictive, prepared to destroy the world and send many people to hell imagined as a sort of eternal torture chamber. I do think that is bad teaching and preaching. Still, that God (or Jesus, the Son) judges is a basic article of Christian belief. We do affirm in the Creed that he will come to judge the living and the dead. Note though, that in the Bible, God's pending judgment is usually longed for as good news. And if we think about it, some sort of judgment is necessary. As Wright writes,

Judgment is necessary – unless we are to conclude, absurdly that nothing much is wrong or, blasphemously, that God doesn’t mind very much.
. . . .

God is utterly committed to set the world right in the end. This doctrine, like that of resurrection itself, is held firmly in place by the belief in God as creator, on the one side, and belief in his goodness, on the other. And that setting right must necessarily involve the elimination of all that distorts God’s good and lovely creation and in particular all that defaces his image-bearing human creatures. . . . There will be no barbed wire in the kingdom of God. And those whose whole being has become dependent upon barbed wire will have no place there either.

For “barbed wire,” of course, read whichever catalog of awfulnesses you prefer: genocide, nuclear bombs, child prostitution, the arrogance of empire, the commidification of souls, the idolization of race. (Surprised by Hope, p. 179)

In the Bible,

all the future judgment is highlighted as good news, not bad. Why so? It is good news, first, because the one through whom God’s justice will finally sweep the world is not a hard-hearted, arrogant, or vengeful tyrant but rather the Man of Sorrows, who is acquainted with grief; the Jesus who loved sinners and died for them; the Messiah who took the world’s judgment upon himself on the cross. Of course, this also means that he is uniquely place to judge the systems and rulers that have carved up the world between them, and the New Testament points this out here and there. Surprised by Hope, p. 141)

How doe we put all that together? With fear and trembling and great caution. We should beware the "cheerful double dogmatism . . . both of the person who knows exactly who is and who isn't 'going to hell' and of the universalist who is absolutely certain that there is no such place." (p. 177). It is also possible to acknowledge God's judgment without getting lost in naively literalistic images of the eternal, pain-filled fires of hell.

I find this intriguing from Cyril, "Look, the Lord almighty will come, and who will endure the day of his entry, or who will stand in his sight? Because he comes like a refiner’s fire, a fuller’s herb, and he will sit refining and cleansing." Might that be a way of understanding the judgment Christ brings - refining and cleansing? Each person? Creation? History? If so, we might note that however unpleasant to the ore, the process of refining is neither permanent nor the point. The point is purification.

I've attempted to make sense of this elsewhere with the idea of "hopeful universalism". Though I should note that N. T. Wright explicitly rejects that idea, I still think it has merit - if we avoid false confidence and complacency.

In any event, it is a good thing in Advent to take stock of the barbed wire in our lives and ask ourselves if our lives - body, mind, heart, and soul - are hospitable to the Prince of Peace whose advent we anticipate.

Next: Second Coming, Parousia, and Rapture

Cyril on the Twofold Coming of Christ

2011-11-28T14:44:00.001-06:00

A little something from Cyril of Jerusalem (313-386) for Advent:

We do not preach only one coming of Christ, but a second as well, much more glorious than the first. The first coming was marked by patience; the second will bring the crown of a divine kingdom.

In general, whatever relates to our Lord Jesus Christ has two aspects. There is a birth from God before the ages, and a birth from a virgin at the fullness of time. There is a hidden coming, like that of rain on fleece, and a coming before all eyes, still in the future.

At the first coming he was wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger. At his second coming he will be clothed in light as in a garment. In the first coming he endured the cross, despising the shame; in the second coming he will be in glory, escorted by an army of angels.

We look then beyond the first coming and await the second. At the first coming we said: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. At the second we shall say it again; we shall go out with the angels to meet the Lord and cry out in adoration: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

The Saviour will not come to be judged again, but to judge those by whom he was judged. At his own judgement he was silent; then he will address those who committed the outrages against him when they crucified him and will remind them: You did these things, and I was silent.

His first coming was to fulfil his plan of love, to teach men by gentle persuasion. This time, whether men like it or not, they will be subjects of his kingdom by necessity.

The prophet Malachi speaks of the two comings. And the Lord whom you seek will come suddenly to his temple: that is one coming.

Again he says of another coming: Look, the Lord almighty will come, and who will endure the day of his entry, or who will stand in his sight? Because he comes like a refiner’s fire, a fuller’s herb, and he will sit refining and cleansing.

These two comings are also referred to by Paul in writing to Titus: The grace of God the Saviour has appeared to all men, instructing us to put aside impiety and worldly desires and live temperately, uprightly, and religiously in this present age, waiting for the joyful hope, the appearance of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Notice how he speaks of a first coming for which he gives thanks, and a second, the one we still await.

That is why the faith we profess has been handed on to you in these words: He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

Our Lord Jesus Christ will therefore come from heaven. He will come at the end of the world, in glory, at the last day. For there will be an end to this world, and the created world will be made new.

-- Catechetical Lecture XV

Christ the King

2011-11-18T08:23:00.000-06:00

It is good to remember with some regularity that when God contemplates the USA it is unlikely that the cockles of the divine heart are warmed any more than when contemplating, say, Latvia, Thailand, or Tunisia. And probably no less.

Christ the King Sunday is a good time for such a reminder

Radical Centrist Manifesto X
Centered in the Body of Christ,
Part 3: Faithfulness, Loyalty & Allegiance

[Some of what follows has appeared elsewhere on this blog, but I want to include it in this series on Radical Centrism]

This Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King. Claiming that Jesus Christ is King is pretty radical. And it is a claim that raises questions about where our true loyalties lie.

I once saw a woman wearing a t-shirt that I found disturbing and very telling. It was a white t-shirt that had JESUSAVES written across the front. I believe he does. But that was not the only message on the shirt. All the letters were blue except for those in the middle - USA - which were red. [A similar shirt is here] It was a telling icon of the confused syncretism of many Christians in America. Who saves? Jesus? The USA? Or, are the two so emotionally entwined in our imaginations that we can't tell the difference? It is an illustration of Stanley Hauerwas' assertion that for many Americans, the nation is their true church. For many Americans, America is the social body to which their ultimate allegiance is pledged regardless of what religious affiliation they formally claim.

Patriotism might not always be idolatry. A distinction must be made, however, between holding dear or celebrating the particular culture and history of a place/people and the sort of nationalistic exceptionalism that too often gets expressed. Even if patriotism is not always idolatrous, Christians should be wary of its appeal and suspicious of those who appeal to it to shepherd them in one direction or another. If Jesus Christ is the King, Christians need to beware of the temptation to confuse that King with other entities, including Uncle Sam, who would claim the kind of loyalty and emotional attachment that belongs to him alone. If Christ is King, do we have any business pledging allegiance to anything or anyone else?

My point is not that America is bad – at least no more than most other powers of this world. Stanley Kubrick once said, "The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes." One can find examples of America falling in there somewhere. As one can with every nation. On the other hand, anti-Americanism can also become an idol.

There are plenty of reasons for someone living in America to be grateful. And America has also done quite a bit of good in the world. But there are reasons for people in just about every country of the world to be grateful for their land, history and culture. And every nation, tribe, and people, also has things in its history and character. There is something distinctive about every country, but none is “exceptional” in the sense of being beyond the normal ambiguities of this world.

Being centered in Jesus Christ and claiming him as King and Lord means pledging our allegiance to “another country”. We are citizens of heaven and of the kingdom of God (Philippians 3:20, Ephesians 2:9). Where our true citizenship lies is a question both the religious right and the religious left in America tend to get wrong. Baptism is our naturalization into a nationality other than that into which we are born (1 Peter 2:9). The creed is our pledge of allegiance. And Eucharist is the characteristic privilege and responsibility of citizenship that shapes us as a people and calls us to live as members of the body of Christ with each other and in the world. As William Cavanaugh writes in Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ:

In the Eucharist one is fellow citizen not of other present “Chileans” [or Americans] but of other members of the body of Christ, past, present and future. The Christian wanders among the earthly nations on the way to her eternal patria, the Kingdom of God. The Eucharist makes clear, however, that this Kingdom does not simply stand outside of history, nor is heaven simply a goal for the individual to achieve at death. Under the sign of the Eucharist the Kingdom becomes present in history through Christ the heavenly High Priest. In the Eucharist the heavens are opened, and the church of all times and places is gathered around the altar. p. 224

The Church is a body of people who are citizens of another country centered in Jesus Christ and his kingdom. That Christians all too often subsume Christianity under other loyalties does not negate the responsibility to seek to get our loyalty (that to which we are faithful) straight. What Christians can do about that is remember that Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords and be free of undue concern with the principalities and powers knowing that Christ has triumphed over them (Colossians 2:15). Christians have another King and should beware of giving their heart and loyalty to any other principality, power, or nation.

Austin Farrer, Radical Centrist

2011-11-11T09:12:00.001-06:00

Austin Farrer (1904–1968) was one of the most brilliant and original British theologians of the previous century. Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, has described Farrer as “possibly the greatest Anglican mind of the twentieth century.” He was a friend of J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, and C. S. Lewis. Farrer took the last sacraments to Lewis before his death and preached at his funeral. He wrote scholarly books on theology, but also more popular and devotional books. His collections of sermons are edifying. He should be more widely read than he is. He is another theologian who cannot be easily identified as either "conservative" or "liberal" but undeniably centered in Jesus Christ.

The following is from a wonderful little book of reflection on the Apostles' Creed, Lord I Believe: Suggestions for Turning the Creed into Prayer:

Though God be in me, yet without the creed to guide me, I should know neither how to call upon God, nor on what God to call. God may be the very sap of my growth and substance of my action; but the tree has grown so crooked and is so deformed and cankered in its parts, that I should be at a loss to distinguish the divine power among the misuse of power given. Were I to worship God as the principle of my life, I should merely worship myself under another name with all my good and evil. Lord I Believe, p. 14

Thomas Merton, Radical Centrist

2011-11-04T10:00:00.001-05:00

Here is the meaning of faith in the New Testament, and in the early history of the Church: the willingness to sacrifice every other value other than the basic value of truth and life in Christ. Christian faith in the full sense of the word, is not just the acceptance of “truths about” Christ. It is not just acquiescence in the story of Christ with its moral and spiritual implications. It is not merely the decision to put into practice, to some extent at least, the teachings of Christ. All these forms of acceptance are compatible with an acquiescence in what is “not Christ.” It is quite possible to “believe in Christ,” in the sense of mentally accepting the truth that he lived on earth, died, and rose from the dead, and yet still live “in the flesh,” according to the standards of a greedy, violent, unjust and corrupt society, without noticing any real contradiction in one’s life.

But the real meaning of faith is the rejection of everything that is not Christ in order that all life, all truth, all hope, all reality may be sought and found “in Christ.”
- Thomas Merton, Life and Holiness, p. 99-100

Loving Your Neighbor in an Age of Compassion Fatigue

2011-10-27T11:25:00.002-05:00

It has been a rough ten years. Last month we marked the anniversary of the attacks of 9/11. Subsequently we saw the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. We have been assaulted by images of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. There was the Indian Ocean Tsunami. And massive earthquakes in Haiti, Pakistan, China. More recently, there was the earthquake and tsunami in Japan with the resulting damage to nuclear facilities. Many of us have watched many of these events unfold before our eyes either live or nearly live. In addition to all of this, over the last three years or so, we have been confronted with a global and national – not to mention, personal – financial crisis.

Add on the stories we each know of family neighbors, friends, and fellow church members who are struggling with disease, family issues, or work difficulties, etc. and it all starts to feel overwhelming.

Even if you are not in the midst of such troubles yourself, knowing about them can become a cumulative burden on your spirit.

I wonder if this isn’t a main contributing factor to the sense I get from talking to people that many of us feel harassed by life.

Information technology and social networking mean we are more connected than ever to the rest of the world. This means we are aware of more pain, suffering, and disappointment than ever.

It takes a toll. I wonder id our whole society isn’t experiencing a mild form of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Or more accurately, perhaps, the related condition of “compassion fatigue”. Compassion fatigue has traditionally been associated with people in the helping professions – doctors, nurses, therapists, police officers, social workers, etc. But, with the increased connectivity and access to images and information, I think it has become more generalized.

The symptoms are:
•disturbed sleep
•intrusive thoughts (unwelcome involuntary thoughts, images, or unpleasant ideas that may become obsessions, are upsetting or distressing, and can be difficult to manage or eliminate)
•irritability
•outbursts of anger
•impatience
•hyper-vigilance (constant scanning of the environment for threats)
•and a desire to avoid people who we know are hurting or who you know will disturb your equilibrium.

Sound familiar? I suspect many of us have experienced several of these over the last few years. And they seem pervasive in our society. I suspect that this explains in part the increased polarization we see all around us. It also explains the pervasive cynicism, anger, and hopelessness.

Some researchers have suggested that all of this leads to a sort of “psychic numbness” that diminishes our ability to engage those around us and the world with compassion. We are tempted to resort to a hunker down mentality and become insular or to throw up our hands in resignation that nothing can change for the good.

And yet, as Christians, we must resist this tendency even as we acknowledge its reality and power. In his summary of the Law, Jesus enjoins us to, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” That is a call to compassion, a call to care. If there is such a thing as compassion fatigue, we need to avoid it or deal with it.

Let us first of all admit that loving our neighbor is not always easy. Not just because some neighbors are hard to love, but be cause of the nature of love itself. To love someone means to make ourselves available to them –available to their hopes and joys, their need and their fear. That also means we make ourselves vulnerable to their hurt and sorrow. That is the inevitable consequence of love. As C. S. Lewis wrote in The Four Loves:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one. . . . It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

The cumulative effect of that vulnerability is what leads to compassion fatigue.

How do we avoid becoming weary or cynical or withdrawing into our own small private worlds? How do we continue to be available and vulnerable in love toward our neighbor in an age of compassion fatigue?

• I suggest it begins with the first commandment – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart mind and soul.” When we orient everything in our heart, mind, and life toward God who is working all for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28) the hard realities in our lives and the world around us are put in perspective. We love God first of all because God is worthy of love. But, because we are made for that love, orienting our lives toward the love at the heart of it all is the foundation of our health and strength.

• Make it a priority to carve out time each day for plant yourself next to streams of living water as the psalmist encourages us this morning (Psalm 1). That means pray. Certainly pray about the things that concern you. But I encourage you to practice the prayer of silence. Be still and know that the Lord is God (Psalm 46:10). Listen for the still small voice of God. Calm and quiet your soul, like a child quieted at its mother's breast (Psalm 131:2)

• And don’t just pray alone. Do not neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, but come to worship where we reorient ourselves toward God and encourage one another” (Hebrews 10:25).

• Keep Sabbath. Take extended time to rest and focus your attention on God. Try this, on Sundays, do not watch the news, do not go on the internet, and rest from the worries of the world. God will continue to tend the world while you rest. Do something restorative – read, walk in the woods, exercise, knit, make something, etc. Some researchers suggest that our capacity for compassion is finite and will become depleted if not restored.

• Acknowledge your own vulnerability. You are a limited, finite creature. You are not God. Only God, who is love, can be infinitely available and vulnerable in love. Some researchers suggest that our capacity for compassion is limited and can become drained. You cannot give all of yourself all the time to everyone. And sometimes it is OK and necessary to step back for a time. Know when you’ve had enough.

• Remember that God bears it all and bears it with you. You are not alone. Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." The burden is light because he bears it with you.

• Do what you can and trust the rest to God. Focus your care. Again this is part of accepting our creatureliness. We cannot do everything everywhere. So it helps to decide what we can do and focus on that. Our involvement with the Sudan is an example of this. We cannot address all the needs of the world or even I the Sudan. But, God has placed the people of Renk and Maban in out path and we can do some things for them. And doing that allows us to trust God to rise up others to care for Haiti, Japan, or elsewhere. Doing something somewhere also frees us from despairing of feeling helpless. This is true locally and personally as well. If we are careful not to take on more than we can manage, we can manage, with God’s help, what we are called to take on. In doing so, we can still remain open to People and situations that aren’t already on our radar while discerning what we are called to do and letting go of the rest.

• Find someone to talk to about the hard stuff but who will encourage you. “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). “Bear one another’s burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:1).

• Don’t dwell on the negative. Don’t allow yourself to get in a rut of rehearsing all that is bad in the world or the wrongs that have been done to you. “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things (Philippians 4:8).

• End each day naming the good – in your own life and in the world. Give thanks to God for three things. “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

Jesus enjoins us to love our neighbor as ourselves. That is difficult and perilous thing as we make ourselves available and vulnerable to caring in a world full of tragedy and disappointment. But, by the grace of Christ’s Spirit working in us and through us we can continue to love our neighbor even in an age of compassion fatigue.

Love your neighbor

2011-10-20T08:43:00.000-05:00

"The Christian path is a slow and often painful schooling under the tutelage of Christ, as we learn to welcome the nearness of one neighbor after another."
p. 34

Jesus said, "`You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Matthew 22:27-40

"We belong to Jesus completely, in body as well as spirit, because he has become our neighbor through his own radical availability, even at the price of his own life: 'You were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body' (1 Corinthians 6:20). But if we belong to Jesus, then we also belong to one another: we cannot have Jesus as our neighbor without also having each other. The Christian task, then, is to find the appropriate ways to live out the fact that we do not belong to ourselves alone. The Christian life is shaped by this challenge and to address it is to devote oneself to the 'affairs of the Lord' (1 Corinthians 7:22)." p. 50

"Our availability to one another can be very frightening, even in the light of the gospel. But we find our help in Jesus, who is God’s yes to our nearness and its sanctification. We profess belief in a savior who drew near to us and suffered the abuses to which that nearness exposed him. The purpose of the Incarnation was not to rescue us from nearness or from the body, but to set our nearness right. Through the Incarnation the Word of God has become our neighbor. As our neighbor, Jesus reveals to us what nearness looks like when it is not corrupted by sin, and bestows on everyone who receives him the experience of a redeemed and justified nearness. We are encouraged by this experience to begin, not naively yet with hope, to embrace our nearness with one another." p. 31

Except for the passage from Matthew, the quotes are from Christian Households: The Sanctification of Nearness by Thomas Breidenthal (now Bishop of Southern Ohio)

C. S. Lewis on Roman Catholicism & Anglicanism

2011-10-14T20:07:00.003-05:00

A couple of years ago, the Pope proposed an "Anglican Ordinariate" (Anglicanorum Coetibus) making it easier for disaffected Episcopalians to become Roman Catholic by allowing such "converts" to maintain some Anglican forms of worship. At the time, someone asked me, somewhat tongue in cheek, if I was considering taking the pope up on his offer. I replied that I wasn't, because, among other things, I could not accept some of the Roman church's recent theological innovations, e.g., the Immaculate Conception of Mary (1854), Papal Infallibility (1870), and the Assumption of Mary (1950). Of course, this was intentionally impish given that the Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Communion more generally, has sometimes been accused of theological innovation. There is much that I appreciate about Roman Catholicism and have benefited greatly from reading R. C. scholars, theologians, and writers on prayer and spirituality. And, frustrated as I am sometimes with some tendencies in the Episcopal Church, it has its attractions. Still, there are parts of the package I cannot bring myself to accept. I am in many ways a catholic minded Anglican. But, there is more than one way to be catholic.

I was thinking about this as I read an entry on Anglican vs. Roman ways of being "catholic" at The Curates Desk, a fine blog by Fr. Robert Hendrickson of Christ Church, New Haven, Connecticut.

I was also reminded of this letter from C. S. Lewis to a correspondent enquiring about his views of the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church (I have spelled out some words Lewis abbreviated):

My position about the Churches can best be made plain by an imaginary example. Suppose I want to find out the correct interpretation of Plato’s teaching. What I am most confident in accepting is that interpretation which is common to all Platonists down all the centuries: What Aristotle and the Renaissance scholars and Paul Elmer More agree on I take to be true Platonism. Any purely modern views which claim to have discovered for the first time what Plato meant and say that everyone from Aristotle down has misunderstood him I reject out of hand.

But there is something else I would also reject. If there were an ancient Platonic Society existing at Athens and claiming to be the exclusive trustees of P’s meaning, I should approach them with great respect. But if I found that their teaching in many ways was curiously unlike his actual text and unlike what ancient interpreters said, and in some cases could not be traced back to within 1000 years of his time, I should reject these exclusive claims: while still needing, of course, to take any particular thing they thought on its merits.

I do the same with Christianity. What is certain is the vast mass of doctrine which I find agreed on by scripture, the Fathers, the Middle Ages, modern Roman Catholics, modern Protestants. That is true ‘catholic’ doctrine. Mere ‘modernism’ I reject at once.

The Roman Church where it differs from this universal tradition and specifically from apostolic Christianity I reject. Thus their theology about the B. V. M. [Blessed Virgin Mary] I reject because it seems utterly foreign to the New Testament: where indeed the words ‘Blessed is the womb that bore thee’ receive a rejoinder pointing in exactly the opposite direction. Their papalism seems equally foreign to the attitude of St. Paul towards St. Peter in the epistles. The doctrine of Transubstantiation insists in defining in a way which the New Testament seems to me not to countenance. In a word, the whole set-up of modern Romanism seems to me to be as much a provincial or local variation from the central, ancient tradition as any particular Protestant sect is. I must therefore reject their claims: though this does not mean rejecting particular things they way.

. . .

Hooker (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity) is to me the great formulation of Anglicanism. But the great point is that in one sense there is no such thing as Anglicanism. What we are committed to believe is whatever can be proved from Scripture. On that issue there is room for endless progress.

From a letter to Lyman Stebbins, May 8, 19454 in The Collected letters of C. S. Lewis, Vol 2. (the recipient become R.C. anyway)

I mostly agree with Lewis. His approach is my default position. But, I wonder if it is altogether possible or desirable for a church to avoid all innovation or development in theological or biblical understanding. Lewis himself notoriously rejected the idea of one innovation, the ordination of women, which I accept as a faithful extension of the gospel. And this is something the Roman church rejects as well.

Perhaps the question is not simply whether or not innovation is faithful, but which innovations are faithful, how is their faithfulness discerned, how are they adopted once discerned, and where does the authority lie to do so? The Roman Catholic Church has some relatively clear answers to those questions. The lack of clear answers to those questions is straining the "bonds of affection" in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

If Necessary Use Words

2011-10-04T14:29:00.003-05:00

Today is the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the much-loved, but often sentimentalized and misrepresented saint. The phrase, "Preach the gospel everywhere; if necessary use words," is often ascribed to Francis. It's a popular phrase. The problem is, there is no eveidence Francis said it.

Of course the wisdom of that particular saying does not depend upon its source. And I do not think it is without wisdom. Many of us have been on the receiving end of words spoken in the name of the gospel by someone whose life or attitude did not "preach" the gospel. Our lives must bear witness to the good news of Jesus before our words about that good news can make any sense. But to suggest that the gospel can be preached without ever using words is deceptive. We ought to be able to tell the Story that makes the story of our lives make sense. That requires words as well as actions.

If we use this saying attributed to St. Francis as an excuse to never speak words of the gospel to others, it is rather like saying, as one wag has it, "Feed the hungry; if necessary use food."

And if we attribute only this saying to Francis, we will misrepresent the fact that he, himself, actually used words -- and used them boldly -- to preach the gospel.

Here is a story from the life of Francis of Assisi (emphasis mine):

The people of Gubbio, a town north of Assisi, were troubled by a huge wolf that attacked not only animals but people, so that the men had to arm themselves before going outside the town walls. They felt as if Gubbio were under siege.

Francis decided to help, though the local people, fearing for his life, tried to dissuade him. What chance could an unarmed man have against a wild animal with no conscience? But according to the Fioretti, the principal collection of stories of the saint’s life,

Francis placed his hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, master of all creatures. Protected neither by shield or helmet, only arming himself with the sign of the Cross, he bravely set out of the town with his companion, putting his faith in the Lord who makes those who believe in him walk without injury on an asp… and trample not merely on a wolf but even a lion and a dragon.

Some local peasants followed the two brothers, keeping a safe distance. Finally the wolf saw Francis and came running, as if to attack him. The story continues:

The saint made the sign of the Cross, and the power of God… stopped the wolf, making it slow down and close its cruel mouth. Then Francis called to it, “Brother Wolf, in the name of Jesus Christ, I order you not to hurt me or anyone.”

The wolf then came close to Francis, lowered its head and then lay down at his feet as though it had become a lamb. Francis then censured the wolf for its former cruelties, especially for killing human beings made in the image of God, thus making a whole town into its deadly enemy.

“But, Brother Wolf, I want to make peace between you and them, so that they will not be harmed by you any more, and after they have forgiven you your past crimes, neither men nor dogs will pursue you anymore.”

The wolf responded with gestures of submission “showing that it willingly accepted what the saint had said and would observe it.”

Francis promised the wolf that the people of Gubbio would henceforth “give you food every day as long as you shall live, so that you will never again suffer hunger.” In return, the wolf had to give up attacking both animal and man. “And as Saint Francis held out his hand to receive the pledge, the wolf also raised its front paw and meekly and gently put it in Saint Francis’s hand as a sign that it had given its pledge.”

Francis led the wolf back into Gubbio, where the people of the town met them in the market square. Here Francis preached a sermon in which he said calamities were permitted by God because of our sins and that the fires of hell are far worse than the jaws of a wolf, which can only kill the body. He called on the people to do penance in order to be “free from the wolf in this world and from the devouring fire of hell in the next world.” He assured them that the wolf standing at his side would now live in peace with them, but that they were obliged to feed him every day. He pledged himself as “bondsman for Brother Wolf.”

(as told by Jim Forest in The Ladder of the Beatitudes, p. 116-117)

Holiness and the Spiral Dance of the Liturgy

2011-09-28T06:42:00.011-05:00

Over at Haligweorc, Derek Olsen poses some interesting questions. He writes, "In the Hebrew Bible, worship is intimately related to encountering the holiness of God and its potentially lethal consequences. Not only can worshiping the wrong way (Numbers 16) or wearing the wrong clothes at worship (Exodus 28:1-43) get you killed, merely touching holy things even for a good purpose can get you killed too (2 Samuel 6:6-7)."

"The biblical text contains a strong sense of holiness as a tangible power—a potentially deadly power. As has been written here before, early medieval Christianity also nurtured a strong sense of holiness as tangible power no doubt drawn from these biblical texts."

Olsen asks these questions:

"What do we do with it? I think most often we dismiss these narratives and write them off as either 1) primitive perspectives reflecting a view of God we don’t believe in any more, or 2) manipulative texts written by a privileged group who use tales of divine punishment as a means of bolstering their own hegemony."

"Are those the only two options? Should we expect more from our encounters with holiness?"

I think these are good questions. My response is that 1) and 2) are not the only two options. Nor do I think they are particularly good ones. As Derek implies we should expect something more from encounters with holiness than I suspect we typically do. But just what should we expect from such an encounter?

I don't know. And that is why it is so unnerving. Among other things, God's holiness is about the otherness of the divine. It is an otherness that confounds all our efforts to make God useful for our personal or public agendas. It is an otherness that confounds our every presumption. It is an otherness that also confounds our tendency to create domesticated idols of God. As C. S. Lewis famously wrote of Aslan, God is good, but not tame. In fact it is the absolute goodness of God that is another wild, unpredictable, unnerving aspect of God's holiness. What I do expect from ecountering the holiness of God is transformation. Indeed, only transformation will make any of us able to bear it.

Whatever we make of the passages from the Old Testament referenced above, they remind us that God is not our heavenly buddy. Nor is God a warm, fuzzy, spiritual affirmation of our perceptions of our own inherent swellness. When we encounter the holiness of God we encounter an awe-full Power, Goodness, and Beauty. Over and over again in the biblical record those who encounter it respond with fear. We do well not to take it lightly.

And it is not only about being sinners in the hands of an angry God. Our sinfulness does make us unable to bear the presence of the Good. But, also, fragile as we are, we cannot endure the presence of the Power. And, weak as we are, the glory and splendor of the Beauty is unbearable. I suspect that even without the problem of sin, we would have to be transfigured just to bear the Beauty of God. I think Dante is onto something in the Paradiso. Beatrice, now among the blessed, has been transformed and "transhumanized" by grace and incorporated into the presence of God. She has been "inGodded". Because she now has taken on some of the glory, she withholds her smile from Dante because the sheer, awesome beauty and joy of it would burn him to a heap of ashes. But Beatrice also represents the promise that we too can be transfigured to bear and enjoy the holy presence of God.

To be sure, as the author of Hebrews assures us, in Jesus we have a High Priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, and one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. So, we can with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:15-16). But the same author also warns, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31) and says, "let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:28-29).

Here is something I have posted before about how the liturgy recognizes this:

It is sometimes suggested that since the Eucharistic table is God’s table it is not for us to decide who can participate. But, given the logic of the liturgy, one might more reasonably suggest, that because it is God’s table, we should not be glib in our own participation nor in inviting others to participate. Indeed, one might wonder if an open invitation is not more presumptuous in its certainty of our own adequate knowledge and goodness, or at the very least, that it presumes a particularly cheap grace. It suggests a notion of God that is altogether domesticated and sentimental.

Annie Dillard famously warns against presuming that God is tame:

“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake someday and take offense, or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return.”
- Teaching a Stone to Talk

If, as we often claim, we “believe what we pray” (lex orandi, lex credendi – the rule of prayer is the rule of belief), we would do well to attend to the logic of the liturgy which suggests a certain caution in coming to the Lord’s Table. As Moses drew near to the strange sight of the burning bush, he was commanded to remove his sandals for he was on holy ground. Just so, symbolically as we move through the Eucharistic liturgy, we stop periodically to remind ourselves that we are approaching holy ground and that doing so is an awesome thing. The One into whose presence we are coming is awe-inspiring and, while not wholly unknown, remains a mystery beyond our comprehension. We are aware that in our ignorance, we are like children playing with nitroglycerine. We are also aware of our failure to live lives of love and truth and trust, and thus of the distance between us and God. As noted before, the Exhortation found before the Rite of Holy Communion found in the Book of Common Prayer warns against coming to the Eucharistic table unprepared.

The liturgy is like an elaborate spiral dance in which we symbolically circle around and around the altar drawing closer and closer to the great mystery of the Eucharist. At intervals along this spiral dance, we stop to "take of our sandals" and acknowledge our ignorance and sinfulness. And we ask for God’s mercy as we proceed deeper into the holy mystery. In the Collect for Purity, we ask God to cleanse the thoughts of out hearts that we may perfectly love God and worthily magnify his holy Name. And we dance a little closer. Then we sing the Gloria, the Kyrie, or the Trisagion; each of which asks again for God’s mercy. And we dance a little closer. After hearing God’s word read and proclaimed, we confess our sins against God and our neighbor and receive the promise of God’s forgiveness. We exchange the peace, recognizing that we cannot go to the altar of the Prince of Peace unless we are being and making peace. And we dance a little closer. In the Sanctus we declare that we know that the one in whose presence we are is holy. And we dance a little closer. Before the breaking of the bread, we say the Lord’s Prayer in which we again ask for forgiveness. And we dance a little closer. Again and again, we acknowledge that we do not really know what we are up to, that the One with whom we are dealing is holy, and that we are ignorant, sinful and broken people in need of mercy. By God’s amazing grace we are invited and encouraged to “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). But that confidence is born in baptism and is not the same as presumption. Our liturgy reminds us that we are all always in need of mercy if we are to gather in the Presence.

As "stewards of the mysteries of God", it is indeed the Church's vocation to see that those who come to those mysteries are sufficiently aware of what they are doing and assure that they are prepared through initiation into those mysteries via baptism.

More on Forgiveness from Charles Williams

2011-09-19T14:42:00.001-05:00

Last week I posted an extened quote from Charles Williams' essay on The Forgivenss of Sins. I like Williams. Reading him regularly conjures the feeling of Christmas. Here are two more quotes from the same essay, which can be found here.

Forgivenesss is not normally a thrilling or an exciting thing. The metaphor which our Lord used has a particular aptness--it is the taking up, the carrying, the Cross, not the being crucified: it is the intolerable weight of the duty, and not its agony, which defeats us--'the weight of glory'. p. 192-193

. . . .

Many reconciliations have unfortunateley broken down because both parties have come prepared to forgive and unprepared to be forgiven. Instruction is as badly needed in this as in many other less vital things; that holy light which we call humility has an exact power of illumnination all its own. p. 193

Heroic Sanctity of Forgiveness

2011-09-14T06:54:00.001-05:00

Heroic sanctity is required perhaps to forgive, but not to forgive is ordinary sin. There is no alternative; the greatness of the injury cannot supply that. It becomes–an excuse? No, a temptation: the greater the injury, the greater the temptation; the more excusable the sin, the no less sin.

The injury done to many in this kind of war is greater than the injury done to one in private, but the result, from a Christian point of view, cannot be other. That must be, everywhere and always, the renewal of love.
- Charles Williams.

Charles Williams (1886-1945) was a member of the Inklings, the literary discussion group that included J. R.R. Tolkien and C. S Lewis. He is a favorite of mine (see here). He was an editor and author of several strange but wonderful “supernatural thrillers”. He was also a lay theologian – mostly self-taught, idiosyncratic, but orthodox. He wrote several theological books and essays. His writing style is not always easy to follow, but what he has to say is almost always wise, evocative, and worth the trouble.

The following is from a book he wrote, On Forgiveness of Sins, which he dedicated to the Inklings. It was originally part of a series of books that included The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis. It was published in 1942, in the thick of World War II. The point he makes is no less challenging or pertinent for Christians today:

Forgiveness of all injuries is demanded of the Christian because of the nature of our Lord, and it is demanded entirely. The phrase ‘things that cannot be forgiven’ is therefore to him intellectually meaningless. But it may in fact mean a good deal all the same. It is true that few of us are, fortunately, in a position to understand that meaning; no injuries of which the forgiveness seem unbelievable have ever been done to us. But probably there are at the present moment more persons alive in Europe than for many generations to whom such injuries have been done. . . . The massacres, the tortures, and the slavery, which have appeared in Europe of late that have impressed themselves upon us. In the ruined homes of Rotterdam–or indeed of England–among the oppressed thousands of Poland, there are those to whom the phrase ‘things that cannot be forgiven’ has fearful meaning. Must they nevertheless be forgiven? They must. Must vengeance, must even resentment, be put off? It must. There is certainly a distinction between the desire for private vengeance and the execution of public justice. But there is no excuse for concealing private vengeance under the disguise of public justice. . . .The injury done to many in this kind of war is greater than the injury done to one in private, but the result, from a Christian point of view, cannot be other. That must be, everywhere and always, the renewal of love. But in such states as we are now considering, that renewal means little less than heroic sanctity. It is upon such heroic sanctities that the Church depends–depends in the sense that they are the rule, its energy, and its great examples. . .

Heroic sanctity is required perhaps to forgive, but not to forgive is ordinary sin. There is no alternative; the greatness of the injury cannot supply that. It becomes–an excuse? No, a temptation: the greater the injury, the greater the temptation; the more excusable the sin, the no less sin.

He Came Down From Heaven and Forgiveness of Sin, p. 165-167

Creedal Minimalism

2011-09-09T16:54:00.007-05:00

No reference is made to the Devil or devils is included in any Christian Creeds, and it is quite possible to be a Christian without believing in them. I do believe such things exist, but that is my own affair. C. S. Lewis, Answers to Questions on Christianity in God in the Dock, p. 56

Radical Centrist Manifesto IX. Centered in the Body of Christ,
Part 2: Centered in the Creed, iii

Given what has come before in this series, it should be clear that I take being centered in the Creeds to be essential. I am wary of those who would replace the Creed with their own “vague, indefinite religious apprehensions” or their own not-so-vague religious apprehensions. I agree with the great Anglican bishop, Charles Gore (1852-1932), that we should be “conspicuously orthodox on the great fundamentals of the Trinity and the Incarnation” and “accept the ecumenical councils as criteria of heresy" (Roman Catholic Claims).

But, I am also wary of over-definition beyond that. If the Creed is the fundamental and central summary of the faith, then other things are less fundamental and less central. I am suspicious of the tendency among some to elevate almost their every conviction and pious opinion to “creedal” status. We want to avoid an "unrestrained development of the individual judgment which becomes eccentric and lawless just because it is unrestrained." But we should also avoid "a dogmatism that crushes instead of quickening the reason of the individual, making it purely passive and acquiescent." (Gore, Roman Catholic Claims).

In fact, I am something of a creedal minimalist.

One cannot reduce Christian faithfulness to just believing and living the Creed with integrity. Gore also said, “There are, indeed, features in the common faith, such as the belief in atonement, in sacramental grace, in the inspiration of Scripture, which are only slightly or by implication touched on in these formulas of faith; but at least in what they contain they represent what has been universal Christianity” (The Permanent Creed and the Christian Idea of Sin). Still, it becomes problematic when we try to make one or another understanding of atonement or sacramental grace or inspiration of scripture, etc., definitive. The Church of the ecumenical councils did not presume to define such things with exactness and neither should we. Which is not the same thing as saying they do not matter.

The Creedal outline is at the center. Other Church teaching and discipline radiate out from that center in concentric circles of importance. We will have disagreements about how near the center this or that might be. But, let us debate with passionate patience and humility, taking into account that we all only see as though through a glass darkly.

This does not mean that all disagreements are equal or that all beliefs on matters beyond the Creed are acceptable. I am not shy about weighing in on such things and others. Still, questions, new interpretations of scripture or tradition, and proposed rethinking of various matters of faith will arise among the Church's members. More than we like to believe, much of our interpretations of scripture and tradition can only be provisional. This side of the kingdom they will be incompletely understood, let alone lived. It is part of the Church's vocation in every generation to wrestle reasonably, in the light of scripture and tradition, with whatever questions arise and discern the range of faithful disagreement.

The church - every church - has always had to balance unity and plurality. Perhaps it goes back to a more basic challenge to be both catholic and one while also seeking to be apostolic and holy. In any event, any community has to find its balance while seeking to honor each. While easy appeals to diversity and inclusivity can be cheap and even deceptive, it is also true that the Anglican tradition has typically chosen to error, if it does, on the side of plurality. It is one of the things I find appealing - if sometimes frustrating as well - about the Anglican way.

On any number of issues, I would love to have all Christians (or all Anglicans, or all Episcopalians, or all members of St. Barnabas) agree with my conclusions about what is and is not most faithful. I am inclined for example to agree with Lewis in the quote above. But, as a radical centrist, I am willing to live, even if uncomfortably, with considerable disagreement – and disagreement is inevitable – even on things that I think are fairly near the center as long the disagreement is anchored in the Creed and an honest engagement with scripture and tradition.

No doubt there are problems with such an approach (and I would truly appreciate folk pointing them out). It makes for less clarity and means that fewer things are settled. But the history of division in the body of Christ is also problematic and compromises our witness to the gospel as much as any lack of clarity on theological and moral particulars does.

The great Anglican bishop, Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) – one who saw the devastation over-certainty and over-definition can do to the church and its witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ – wrote a treatise, (Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying) in which he pointed out the difficulty of perfect consensus on interpretation of scripture and tradition and argued for the legitimacy of any church that subscribed to the Creed. He was arguing for such liberty within the context of what should be allowed to be legal within the boundaries of the state rather than within the particular body of the Church of England. But, I think it is consistent with the Anglican tradition to expect a basic creedal fidelity while allowing considerable liberty beyond that.

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Not a Hobby

2011-09-06T07:40:00.005-05:00

This is the sermon I preached ten years ago on September 9, 2001. The sermon I preached on the Sunday after the attacks of 9/11 is here.

Not a Hobby
St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Glen Ellyn, Illinois
Luke 14:25-33

It was a tough week for religion in the news. On Monday, another Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in an attempt to maim or kill others. Then, there were Protestants verbally harassing and stoning little Catholic girls on their way to school in Northern Ireland. The Taliban Islamic government of Afghanistan was also in the news bringing some relief workers to trial, accusing them of seeking to spread Christianity. And then yesterday, we heard about rioting in Nigeria between Moslems and Christians in which at least 50 people have been killed so far.

It makes you wonder if you want to have anything to do with religion or “god stuff” if it’s that problematic. Maybe those who say that religion has done more harm than good in history are right after all.

I’m wondering because in this morning’s gospel Jesus calls us to a radical kind of loyalty. What kind of loyalty is he calling us to? To God? What kind of “god”? No doubt each situation is more complicated than this, but in one way or another in the past week we have seen people kill or attempt some sort of violence in the name of God. Or, at least, loyalty to an idea about “god” was involved.

Is it right to do such things, to kill or be killed in the name of God? The question sounds preposterous to us. One reason, it sounds preposterous to us is because in western society we have become immunized to the power of faith. Culturally, and all too often, personally, we tend to think of religion as a sort of hobby, one step above stamp collecting or bird watching. Some people are into stamp collecting. Some people are into bird watching. Some people are into Christianity. Others are into Buddhism or something else. But it is all more or less a matter of private preference, a hobby. Certainly, it is nothing you would kill someone over, nothing you would risk dying for. Don’t those people in Palestine and Northern Ireland and Nigeria and Afghanistan and everywhere else get that? Don’t they understand this is not a matter of life and death?

Or is it? Is it wrong to kill or die in the name of God? The more I thought about it this week, the more it occurred to me that it is actually a rather interesting question. I’m not sure the answer is altogether obvious. If "god" is the ultimate reality, the ultimate and final good, what else would be worth killing or dying for? If I won’t kill or die in the name of “god”, why would I kill or die for the sake of something less? If not for “god”, why for country? What about ideology, justice, or freedom? Or, as Jesus questions so offensively this morning, family?

For whom or what are we willing to kill? For whom or what are we willing to die? What is worth the ultimate sacrifice of my own life or the responsibility for taking someone else’s? To what or to whom do I pledge such allegiance? If we can answer that set of questions we will get pretty close to what “god” really is for us. Whatever it is to which I am willing to give over that kind of allegiance or loyalty, that kind of sacrifice, is my “god” whether or not I call it religion.

Is it O.K. to kill in the name of God? Ultimately, it depends on what “god” we are talking about, what "god" we are seeking to follow and please. To what or to whom do I pledge such allegiance?

Since their inception, nations and governments have demanded the ultimate sacrifice from their citizens. When your nation says "Go to this place and kill these people", you are expected to obey – to kill and to risk being killed. Others have done the same in the name of abstract ideas such as justice and freedom. More often than not, a varnish of god-talk is added to all of these to lend legitimacy.

I don’t know if the suicide bomber did what he did for “god” or country, or justice, or revenge, or some combination of these. I don’t know enough about Islam to know how he might have thought what he did was pleasing to Allah. I know that not all Moslems would agree with him.

I do know a little bit about Jesus. Following Jesus rules that kind of thing out. You don’t have to be an absolute pacifist to read Jesus and find that his way is not the way of violence. It is hard to justify killing in the name of the one who said, “Turn the other cheek.” It is hard to justify killing in the name of the one who said, “Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.” His is not the way of retribution. His is not the way of meanness. Whatever else the Protestants who were hurling invective and stones at the little Catholic girls thought they were doing, they were not following the way of Jesus.

Though, tragically, it has been done; killing in the name of Jesus and the God we know through Jesus is an oxymoron. To die in the name of Jesus and the God we know through him is a different matter. In fact, that is the point. When he says, “Count the cost. Decide now whether or not you are going to be able to finish the building,” that’s what he has in mind. Following Jesus into the heart of God is no hobby.

In this morning’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and he knows what is in store for him there. He is on a mission, but it is a mission that he knows ends only one way. It ends in his death. He is on his way to Jerusalem, the center of power – political and religious power – and he intends to throw a wrench in the works. He intends to throw a wrench in the usual way of things, the way of intimidation and oppression, the way of coercion, the way of control, the way of violence. More than throw a wrench into the works, Jesus intends to be the wrench in the works to upset the usual machinery of violence and bondage. Ultimately, he came to free us from fundamental bondage of sin and death. But his croos is also a challenge to the myriad ways sin and death are manifest in this world and a call to resist them.

To those who are following him, he lays out his agenda pretty clearly. “If you think you are following me in some sort of victorious parade in which we are going to march into Jerusalem, take things over, kick the Romans out, and set the temple worship straight, you’ve got the wrong guy. If you want to follow me into Jerusalem, take up the cross and follow me. Take up the cross and prepare to die.” To follow Jesus is to follow him in that mission, the mission to upset the usual way of things – the way of things we see on the nightly news and in the morning paper.

Sometimes that might mean actual martyrdom. There have been places and times when people have literally died for the sake of that mission. There are people in the world now for whom that is a day-to-day possibility. But for most of us, most of the time, it is the daily martyrdom of dying to self and learning to live in love for the other. That, too, is taking up our cross and following Jesus.

There is only one cross. Sometimes people talk about “their cross to bear” as if each of us had his or her own individual cross. “I have this problematic child and she is my cross to bear.” Or, “I have this illness and that is my cross to bear.” Or, “I am in this relationship where I am being abused and that is my cross to bear.” That is a misappropriation of what Jesus is calling us to. Taking up your cross and following Jesus is not resigning yourself to being abused and trapped in a situation beyond your control. It is a call to servanthood not servitude. Taking up the cross of Christ is choosing freely to follow him in his mission of resistance, his mission of proclaiming mercy and grace. There is only one cross, and it is the cross of Christ. Ultimately, he bears that cross with us. He is on the cross with us and before us.

Jesus challenges us to put all other loyalties in the context of his mission, all other loyalties in the context of the cross. When Christians marry, they marry with that mission in mind. Marriage is one place and one way we can serve the mission. We can learn to love. We can learn to give totally of ourselves. We can create space where the stranger is welcome and generosity is given. If we choose to be single, we choose to be single for the same reason, because sometimes being single is the best way to serve the mission. If we choose to have children that, too, is not something that just happens. That’s something we do because having children is a way of witnessing to the mission, to the kingdom, and to raise up new disciples, new witnesses. All loyalties – families, friends, nation – are redefined in the context of that ultimate loyalty to the way of Jesus, the way of the cross.

Jesus does not say "focus on the family;" he says "focus on the cross." And there are no precious moments on the way of the cross. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The cross of Christ destroyed the equation that religion equals happiness.” That might be overstating the case just a bit. As we sang in the opening hymn (483), the cross is also our life and our health. It is the way of grace, the way of joy. But certainly the call to take up our cross destroys the equation that religion - at least religion that is true to Christ - equals sentimentality and nostalgia. It also destroyed the equation that religion is compatible with the way of violence and control.

The way of the cross is the way of Jesus and it is the way to which he calls us. It is the way of dying to self and living toward the other. It is the way of servanthood. It is the way of reaching out to the stranger, of proclaiming God’s favor, God’s mercy. Those of us who have experienced that mercy are called to embody it to those who do not yet know it. We are called to be the peace of Christ, not just to pass it, but to be it. We are called to be people of forgiveness, people who know how to love our enemy, people who know what it means to welcome the stranger. Protestants welcome Catholics. Catholics welcome Protestants. Christians welcome Jews. Christians love and welcome Moslems.

We are called to a life of resolute kindness and peace. It is the way of the cross. It is the way of Christ. It is a call to resist all that says "no" to the goodness of God’s creation and to the worth of each person. It is a call to be, in ways small and great, wrenches in the usual way of things, to break up the machinery of the way things usually go. It is a call to creatively and effectively disrupt the cycle of violence. It is a call to live lives of gentleness, kindness, peace, and justice in a world of violence and hate. It is a kind of martyrdom. It is not a hobby.

N. T. Wright on the Enduring Mission of the Church

2011-08-29T14:17:00.000-05:00

New Testament scholar and erstwhile Bishop of Durham, N. T. Wright has written an article for The Spectator, a British news magazine. Some of what he writes here is peculiar to the Church of England. But most of it is also true of the Episcopal Church - and other churches as well. Here are a couple of excerpts (the whole article can be found here):

Check out the volunteers in the prison, in the hospice, in charity shops. It’s remarkable how many of them are practising Christians. They aren’t volunteering because the government has told them we can’t afford to pay for such work any more. They do it because of Jesus. Often they aren’t very articulate about this. They just find, in their bones, that they need and want to help, especially when things are really dire. But if you trace this awareness to its source, you’ll find, as often as not, that the lines lead back to a parish church or near equivalent, to the regular reading of the Bible, to the life of prayer and sacrament and fellowship. To the regular saying and singing of prayers and hymns that announce, however surprising or shocking it may be to our sceptical world, that God is God, that Jesus is Lord, that the Holy Spirit is alive and well and active in a community near you.

Despite two centuries of being told the opposite, in fact, the Church can’t help itself. Secular modernism still likes to pretend that the world runs itself, and that ‘religion’ has to do with private spirituality and otherworldly hope. The Church — not least those who want to create a ‘pure’ type of Christianity, and look either to Rome or to a ‘biblical’ sect to provide it — has often colluded with this secularist shrinking of the task. But the genuinely biblical vision, rooted in the four gospels, is of God already being king of the world, through the victory of Jesus. ‘All authority in heaven and on earth,’ said Jesus, ‘has been given to me.’ And on earth. The Church exists to demonstrate what that means.

It exists, in other words, to do and be for the world what Jesus had been for his contemporaries: to bring healing and hope, to rescue people trapped in their own folly and sin, to straighten out the distorted pictures of reality that every age manages to produce, and to enable people to live by, and in, God’s true reality. It exists not to rescue people from the world but to rescue them for the world: to see lives transformed by the gospel so that people can discover a new depth and resonance of what it means to be human, precisely by looking beyond themselves to God, to the beauties and glories of his creation, and to their neighbours, particularly those in need. The Church does this through liturgy and laughter; through music and drug-rehabilitation programmes; through prayer and protest marches; through preaching and campaigning; through soaking itself in the Bible and immersing itself in the needs of the world. When God wants to change the world, he doesn’t send in the tanks (as many, including many critics, think he should). He sends in the meek; and by the time the world realises what’s going on, the meek have set up clinics and schools, taught people to read and to sing, and given them a hope, meaning and purpose which secular modernism (which gave us, after all, Passchendaele and Auschwitz as well as modern medicine and space travel) has failed to provide.

Saying that Jesus is now in charge, still more that the church is the agent of this project, has been rubbished for generations. The litany is familiar, though interestingly limited and repetitive: crusades, the Inquisition, witch-burning and so on. No church worth its salt will deny that it has made huge mistakes. We still say ‘forgive us our trespasses’ every day, only wishing that others would join us in this penitence. But the reason the anti-Christian brigade point out the Church’s failures is that, just as in Marxist totalitarianism the state replaces God, making it atheist de jure and not simply de facto, so in secular democracy the state attempts to replace the Church. That is why the Church is pushed to the margins, told to mind its own spiritual business and not to get involved in international debt or the treatment of asylum-seekers. As we survey the result — crooked politicians, bent coppers, bloated bankers, spying journalists — it may be time for the church to be more humbly confident in getting on with its proper vocation, leading the way in the true Big Society, bringing healing and hope at every level.

. . .

Away from the pressure groups and the single-issue fanatics, the Church has a massive local strength on which we must build.

To do this, it must do the core tasks well. The only way to resist being squeezed into the tired old mould of modernism or the nihilistic anything-goes world of postmodernism is through that strange combination of worship and prayer on the one hand, and biblically based theology on the other, for which the Church of England has, historically, an excellent track record. Only when the Church is constantly refreshed in these ways will it be able to discern which of the agendas that infatuate today’s world are true gospel imperatives and which are a snare and a delusion. (For a start, a biblical theology would have a lot more to say about money and power than about sex, important though that is too.) The next generation of church leaders will need to be on their toes to articulate a vision of human community which our pragmatic, short-term politicians have all but forgotten, and to know how to speak the truth to power in a way for which our prurient, sniggering journalism provides a ghastly parody. I sometimes suspect that the pressure, from some politicians and some journalists, for the Church to retreat to the sidelines is because both know, deep down, that the Church — and especially, despite everything, the Church of England — still has the ability to speak the truth and shame the devil.

None of this, of course, provides the answer to the questions about women bishops, or gay clergy, or the Anglican Communion, or how to relate to our Muslim neighbours. But if you put the hard questions in the centre of the picture, everything else gets distorted. Let’s take a deep breath and remind ourselves of our real focus: the kingdom of God, the lordship of Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Then, as Jesus himself nearly said, everything else will fall into perspective. At its best — and there is a lot of the ‘best’ out there — this is what the Church of England is all about.

The Least Silly Thing One Can Say (about God)

2011-08-26T08:29:00.003-05:00

Rowan Williams answering "Can Finite Human Beings Say True Things About an Infinite God?"

Radical Centrist Manifesto VIII
III. Centered in the Body of Christ,
Part 2: Centered in the Creed, iv

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A Living Sacrifice

2011-08-22T16:08:00.004-05:00

Yesterday’s sermon (Romans 12:1-8, Matthew 16:13-20):

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters . . .” When we are reading scripture and come across a “therefore” we should stop and ask, “What is the ‘therefore’ there for?” And it is important that we do just that as we look at this lesson from Romans 12. What has gone before to set up Paul’s therefore? In the first eleven chapters of Romans Paul has been, in various ways, writing about the amazing grace and inscrutable mercy of God. More specifically, for the last three chapters Paul has been contemplating the relationship of the people of Israel to the good news of Jesus Christ – Jesus the Messiah – which the Jews have for the most part rejected even as more and more gentiles accept it. Paul ends that contemplation with an exultant reveling in the mysterious, persistent mercy God makes available to all.

And it is because of that mind-boggling mercy that Paul says "therefore" – “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Given God’s mercy, we should respond by presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice.

But, what does that look like? To begin with, the rest of Romans 12 is one of Paul’s attempts to explain what it looks like. We will look at the rest of Romans 12 next week. This morning I want to offer an example of one whose life was a living sacrifice and, indeed, was the kind of rock Jesus is talking about in the Gospel against which the very gates of Hades cannot prevail. It’s the story of Maria Yudina, a great Russian pianist and a friend of composer Dimitri Shostakovich.

The following is from The Ladder of the Beatitudes by Jim Forest which I have been reading as part of my morning devotions:

It was Maria Yudina’s fate to live through the Russian revolution and its aftermath, seeing many of her dearest friends and colleagues disappear into the Gulag. A fearless Christian, she wore a cross visibly even while teaching or performing in public – an affirmation of belief at a time when the price of a display of religious faith could be one’s work, one’s freedom, even one’s life. She lived an ascetic life, wearing no cosmetics, spending little on herself, and dressing simply. “I had the impression that Yudina wore the same black dress during her entire long life, it was so worn and soiled,” said Shostakovich.(50)[this and other references are from Testimony:The Memoirs of Shostakovich, Solomon Volkov, ed.]

For Maria Yudina, music was a way of proclaiming her faith in a period when presses were more carefully policed than pianos. “Yudina saw music in a mystical light. For instance, she saw Bach’s Goldberg Variations as a series of illustrations to the Holy Bible,” said Shostakovich. “She always played as though she were giving a sermon.”(51)

She not only performed piano works but paused during concerts to read the poetry of such writers as Boris Pasternak, who were unable to publish at the time.

She was notorious among friends for her inability to keep anything of value for herself. “She came to see me once,” Shostakovich recalled, “and said that she was living in a miserable little room where she could neither work nor rest. So I signed a petition, I went to see various bureaucrats, I asked a lot of people to help, I took up a lot of people’s time. With great difficulty we got an apartment for Yudina. You would think that everything was fine and that life could go on. A short time later she came to me again and asked for help in obtaining an apartment for herself. ‘What? But we got an apartment for you. What do you need another one for?’ ‘I gave the apartment away to a poor old woman.’”(52)

Shostakovich heard that friends had made a loan to Yudina of five rubles. “I broke a window in my room, it’s drafty and so cold, I can’t live like that,” she had told them. “Naturally, they gave her the money—it was winter. A while later they visited her, and it was as cold in her room as it was outside and the broken window was stuffed with a rag. ‘How can this be, Maria Veniaminovna? We gave you money to fix the window.’ And she replied, ‘I gave it for the needs of the church’”(53)

Shostakovich, who regarded religion as superstition, didn’t approve. “The church may have various needs,” he protested, “but the clergy doesn’t sit around in the cold, after all, with broken windows. Self-denial should have a rational limit.” He accused her of behaving like a yurodivye, the Russian word for a holy fool, a form of sanctity in the eyes of the church.

Her public profession of faith was not without cost. Despite her genius as a musician, from time to time she was banned from concert halls and not once in her life was she allowed to travel outside Russia. Shostakovich remembered:

Her religious position was under constant . . . attack (at the music school in Leningrad). Once [some officials] rushed into Yudina’s class and demanded of Yudina: “Do you believe in God?” She replied in the affirmative. “Was she promoting religious propaganda among her students?” She replied that the Constitution didn’t forbid it. A few days later a transcript of the conversation made by “an unknown person” appeared in a Leningrad paper, which also printed a caricature—Yudina in nun’s robes surrounded by kneeling students. And the caption was something about preachers appearing at the Conservatoire. . . Naturally, Yudina was dismissed after that.(54)

From time to time she all but signed her own death warrant. Perhaps the most remarkable story in Shostakovich’s memoir concerns one such incident:

In his final years, Stalin seemed more and more like a madman, and I think his superstition grew. The “Leader and Teacher” sat locked up in one of his many dachas, amusing himself in bizarre ways. . . . [He] didn’t let anyone in to see him for days at a time. He listened to the radio a lot. Once Stalin called the Radio committee . . . and asked if they had a record of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, which had been heard on the radio the day before. “Played by Yudina,” he added. They told Stalin that of course they had it. Actually, there was no record, the concert has been live. But they were afraid to say no to Stalin, no one ever knew what the consequences might be. A human life meant nothing to him. All you could do was agree, submit, be a yes-man, a yes-man to a madman.

Stalin demanded that they send the record with Yudina’s performance of the Mozart to his dacha. The committee panicked, but they had to do something. They called in Yudina and an orchestra and recorded that night. Everyone was shaking with fright, except for Yudina, naturally. But, she was a special case, that one, the ocean was only knee-deep for her.

Yudina later told me that they had to send the conductor home, he was so scared he couldn’t think. They called another conductor who trembled and got everything mixed up, confusing the orchestra. Only a third conductor was in any shape to finish the recording.

I think this is a unique event in the history of recording-I mean, changing conductors three times in one night. Anyway, the record was ready by morning. They made one single copy in record time and sent it to Stalin. Now that was a record. A record in yes-ing.

Soon after, Yudina received an envelope with twenty thousand rubles. She was told it came on the express orders of Stalin. Then she wrote him a letter. I know about this letter from her, I know that the story seems improbable. Yudina had many quirks, but I can say this – she never lied. I’m certain that her story is true. Yudina wrote something like this in her letter: “I thank you, Joseph Vissarionovich, for your aid. I will pray for you day and night and ask the Lord to forgive your great sins before the people and the country. The Lord is merciful and He’ll forgive you. I gave the money to the church that I attend."

And Yudina sent this suicidal letter to Stalin. He read it and didn’t say a word, they expected at least a twitch of the eyebrow. Naturally, the order to arrest Yudina was prepared and the slightest grimace would have been enough to wipe away the last traces of her. But Stalin was silent and set the letter aside in silence. The anticipated movement of the eyebrows didn’t come. Nothing happened to Yudina. They say that her recording of the Mozart was on the record player when the “Leader and Teacher” was found dead in his dacha. It was the last thing he had listened to.(55)

Shostakovich found Yudina’s open display of belief foolish, yet one senses within his complaints both envy and awe. In a time of heart-stopping fear, here was someone as fearless as St. George before the dragon, someone who preferred giving away her few rubles to repairing her own broken window, who “published” with her own voice the poems of banned writers, who dared to tell Stalin he was not beyond God’s mercy and forgiveness. She had a large and pure heart. No wonder her grave in Moscow has been a place of pilgrimage ever since her death.
[The Ladder of the Beatitudes by Jim Forest, p. 99-103]

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Creed and Mystery

2011-08-19T20:50:00.001-05:00

O inexpressible mystery and unheard paradox: the Invisible is seen, the Intangible is touched, the Eternal Word becomes accessible to our speech, the Timeless steps into time, the Son of God becomes the Son of Man. – Gregory of Nyssa

No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the Splendor of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the One. When I think of any One of the Three I think of him as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking escapes me. – Gregory of Nazianzuz

Radical Centrist Manifesto VIII
III. Centered in the Body of Christ,
Part 2: Centered in the Creed, iii

I suspect some folk have difficulty with the Creed because it feels too definite and thus intrudes on a sense of mystery. But, I suggest the Creeds actually “preserve” the mystery from domestication while focusing our attention on the mystery within the context of revelation.

It is true that the Creed is the outline of a story which, as I've pointed out before, calls other stories into question - while not closing off the very real possibility of God's being present in those stories. As we’ve seen before, whether it is this story or another, whether or not we are conscious of the story that shapes us, there is no escaping this.

It is also true that the Creed serves as our Pledge of Allegiance – to the faith of the Church, to the Church’s Lord, and its members one to another. And this declaration of loyalty/faithfulness will call into question all other loyalties.

Both of these will be stumbling blocks to those of us shaped by certain modern assumptions.

But, that is not because the Creed reduces mystery. The Creeds focus us on mystery within the context of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. There is plenty of mystery and much escapes our understanding. But, we are not left with nothing but guessing about God. The Creeds began as baptismal formulae and through baptism we are invited into the mystery of a God who is One, yet Threefold. We are invited into the mystery of a God who does not remain aloof, but became one with humanity and the dusty world through the Incarnation - for us and for our salvation. We are invited into the mystery of Jesus Christ who is, in a mystery beyond our comprehending, both human and divine. We are invited into the mystery of the forgiveness of sin. And so on.

Rather than constraining mystery, the Creeds, particularly the Nicene Creed, were conceived as means to preserve that mystery from the tendency to domesticate Christian faith in one way or another to make it less paradoxical or more intellectually comfortable. That is one way to understand the various heresies rejected by the Church. It was the heretics who in fact presumed to know more about the mystery of God than is prudent, not those who defended what came to be known as the “catholic” faith summarized in the Creeds. It was the heretics, not the orthodox, who insisted on resolving paradoxes like the Incarnation and the Triune character of the Godhead. The Creed is the Christian way into the the mystery of God.

Believing the Creed doesn’t mean that now we fully understand God - not by a long shot. It’s just that, as Rowan Williams has said, given what we know through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, this is the least silly language for God we have. So, while we can say it with some confidence, it is good, even at our most confident, to say it with humility, maybe even trepidation. And we do well to take care in claiming we know too well what we mean when we say we believe it or what the implications are. God remains an awesome mystery even given God's gift of revealing something of the mystery through Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit.

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What is more grievous than the sin of condemning one's neighbour?

2011-07-26T15:58:00.005-05:00

"What is more grievous than the sin of condemning one's neighbour? What else is so hateful and alienating to God? And yet a person comes to this great evil through something seemingly unimportant - from allowing himself a small censure of his neighbour. For when this is allowed the mind begins to leave its own sins without attention and notice the sins of its neighbour. And this leads to gossip, reproaches, speaking evil and, finally, pernicious condemnation. Yet nothing angers God more, nothing despoils a person and leads so surely to perdition as fault-finding, speaking evil and condemning one's neighbour." Paragraph 34

"At times we not only condemn but bring our neighbor into contempt. For it is one thing to condemn, and another to bring into contempt. To bring into contempt means when a person not only condemns but also despises another, scorns him and turns away from him as from an abomination. This is worse than condemnation and much more pernicious." Para. 38

"Those who want to be saved pay no attention to the failings of their neighbours, but always look for their own and make progress" Para. 39

- Directions on Spiritual Training by Dorotheus of Gaza (6th century)

Hopeful Universalism of Macrina (and her little brother Gregory of Nyssa)

2011-07-19T10:09:00.002-05:00

Today is the feast day of Macrina (330-379), older sister and theological/spiritual mentor of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa, two of the most formative theologians and leaders of the early church. In his book, On the Soul and the Resurrection, Gregory recounts a dialogue with Macrina in which he asks her a series of questions about the nature of the soul and the resurrection and related things. It might be that Gregory uses Macrina as a literary device to convey his own thoughts similar to the way Plato sometimes uses Socrates in his dialogues. Or maybe this really conveys things he learned directly from Macrina. In any event his respect for her is clear. Towards the end of On the Soul and the Resurrection, Macrina says this:

To evaluate the way a person has lived, the judge would need to examine all these factors: how he endured suffering, dishonor, disease, old age, maturity, youth, wealth, and poverty; how through each of these situations he ran the course of the life allotted to him either well or badly; and whether he became able to receive many good things or many evil things in a long lifetime or did not reach even the beginning of either good or evil, ceasing to live when his mind was not yet fully developed. But when God brings our nature back to the first state of man by the resurrection, it would be pointless to mention such matters and to suppose that the power of God is hindered from this goal by such obstructions.

He has one goal: when the whole fullness of our nature has been perfected in each man, some straightway even in this life purified from evil, others healed hereafter through fire for the appropriate length of time, and others ignorant of the experience equally of good and of evil in the life here, God intends to set before everyone the participation of the good things in Him, which the Scripture says eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor thought attained.

This is nothing else, according to my judgment, but to be in God Himself; for the good which is beyond hearing, sight, and heart would be that very thing which surpasses everything. But the difference between a life of virtue and a life of wickedness will appear hereafter chiefly in allowing us to participate earlier or later in the blessedness which we hope for. The duration of the healing process will undoubtedly be in proportion to the measure of evil which has entered each person. This process of healing the soul would consist of cleansing it from evil. This cannot be accomplished without pain, as we have discussed previously.

- On the Soul and the Resurrection, pp. 115-116

Note that Macrina and Gregory are not soft on the reality of death and judgment - this cannot accomplished without pain. There is still good reason to take our own piety with utmost seriousness and to invite others to participate now in "the blessedness which we hope for."

They do seem, however, to understand The Judgment as having more to do with purgation and healing than final eternal punishment and torture. It is unclear whether or not they believed it is possible that some souls might hold out eternally against blessedness. But, they seem convinced that God, in his relentless love, will never give up on anyone - even beyond death and forever.

This hopeful universalism is quite different from an "all-y, all-y in come free" complacent universalism. I find it appealing.

See: Where is Your Precious? (on Judgement & Hell)

F. D. Maurice on the Creed

2011-07-15T10:46:00.003-05:00

“All superstition, all priestcraft, in its worst and most evil sense -- we cannot repeat this proposition too often, or put it in too many shapes -- has its root in vague, indefinite religious apprehensions; not resting upon the knowledge and confession of a Being who is not our image, but who has declared Himself to us that we might receive His image”

Radical Centrist Manifesto VIII
III. Centered in the Body of Christ,
Part 2: Centered in the Creed, ii

Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872) was one of the great (some have argued he was the greatest) Anglican theologians of the 19th century. Maurice (pronounced like Morris) critiqued the usual church factions of his day and was seen as suspect by each of them as a result. He was hardly a conservative. He was accused of being a universalist. He was an early proponent of "Christian Socialism" which also made him suspect to both "unsocial Christians" and "unChristian socialists."

But he was also critical of liberal theology: “Every hope I had for human culture, for the reconciliation of opposing schools, for blessings to mankind, was based on theology. What sympathy then could I have with the Liberal Party, which was emphatically anti-theological, which was ready to tolerate all opinion in theology only because people could know nothing about it?"

In our own era of church factionalism, I appreciate Maurice's ability cut across party lines to engage appreciatively and critically with just about everyone. One might say he was something of a radical centrist.

The following is from a sermon of Maurice's on the significance of the Creed:

Let us understand this well, brethren, for it is very important in reference to notions that are current in the present day. If there is to be a religion of trust, and not of slavish cowardly fear, that religion must have a Revelation, the revelation of a Name for its basis. A religion which creates its own object cannot be one of trust. I cannot rest upon that which I feel and know that I have made for myself. I cannot trust in that which I look upon as a form of my own mind or a projection from it. . . Neither can I trust in any shadowy, impalpable essence, or in any Soul of the world. If this be the God I worship, my worship will be one of doubt and distrust, whenever it is at all sincere. If I do not seek all strange, monstrous means of propitiating the unknown Being, it is only because I am altogether uncertain whether he is real enough for such services. . . All superstition, all priestcraft, in its worst and most evil sense -- we cannot repeat this proposition too often, or put it in too many shapes -- has its root in vague, indefinite religious apprehensions; not resting upon the knowledge and confession of a Being who is not our image, but who has declared Himself to us that we might receive His image . . .

But the question -- How is He a Father, how do I know He is? cannot be evaded. The Church had no wish to evade it. She acknowledged that something more was implied in the Revelation of a Father than His Name; that there must be some one to reveal Him. She proclaimed the Name of His only-begotten Son, our Lord. She says that He revealed Himself as he Son of God by being conceived of the Holy Ghost our Lord, by being born of the Virgin Mary, by suffering our death, our burial, by going down into the Hell we tremble to think of; by facing all our enemies visible and invisible, all that we actually know we must meet, all that our imagination dreams of; that He rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven, and sat down on the right of the Father, and will come again to judge the quick and the dead.

If God be absolute, eternal love, as St, Augustine makes the Catechist affirm, how has he shewn it? Has it come forth, or is it all hidden in his own nature? Has it come forth to some other creature, or to man? Has it met him where he needs to be met or somewhere else? Has it encountered the actual woes of mankind, or only those which affect a particular set of men? Has it been found mightier than these, or has it sunk under them? Has this love been cheerfully entertained, or did it encounter ingratitude? Was the ingratitude too strong for the love, or the love for the ingratitude? Is the victory for all times, or only for that time? Is He who you say is our Lord really our Lord? Does He reign over us? Will he leave all things just as they are, or set them right at last? These questions have a claim to be answered; that is no Gospel to humanity which does not answer them; the Christian Church said, 'This is the answer' . . . And again, supposing the words be true, all we have to do is to proclaim them and live upon them. He who has sent us into the world for that end can prove them. Those that know His Name will trust in Him, and so they find that He has not deceived them.

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Centered in the Creed

2011-07-08T18:22:00.015-05:00

Radical Centrist Manifesto VII
III. Centered in the Body of Christ,
Part 2: Centered in the Creed

"The Apostles' Creed [is] the Baptismal Symbol and the Nicene Creed [is] the sufficient statement of the Christian faith." Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral (1979 Book of Common Prayer, p. 877)

The Christian creed enunciates a powerful and provocative understanding of the world, one that ought to scandalize a world that runs on the accepted truths of Modernity. There is something in the creed to offend virtually every contemporary sensibility. At the same time it communicates a compelling vision of the world’s destiny and humanity’s role that challenges the accustomed idolatries and the weary platitudes of current worldly wisdom. p. 7

The creed provides the boundaries of Christian belief and therefore of the Christian community. p. 49-50
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why it Matters

As a Radical Christian Centrist, I seek to be centered in the Creed (by which I mean both the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed). I am wary of attempts make that Creed more palatable to this or that contemporary intellectual fashion.

1. But, isn't one's faith about one's relationship with the living God and with God's children. Can’t we just say Love God and love your neighbor and leave it at that?

We can, I suppose, if we already think we know something about these things before we get to the Creed. "God" is a meaningless word until it is given meaning. To say "Just love God with your whole heart mind and soul" only begs the question "Who, or what, is this 'god' I am to love and what does it mean to love this 'god'?” As for loving neighbors (let alone enemies), why should I? And in what way? Why is it so hard to do? And, for that matter, what does it mean to be human? And what kind of a world do we live in? Any answer to those questions takes us into the realm of belief and doctrine. The Creed is the basic Christian answer to those questions. You might prefer other answers or make up your own, but you cannot talk about “god”, “love”, or “human beings” without some sort of belief system, i.e., a creed.

It is inadequate to appeal to a simplistic pietism, whether in its more conservative or more liberal versions, that says "Don't bother me with doctrine, just give me Jesus". We have no access to Jesus other than the Gospels which are soaked in interpretation (doctrine) of who Jesus is and why it matters. And the creeds are the Christian guide to understanding God in light of Jesus.

2. Can’t we just worship God without getting hung up with the Creed?

Again, that presumes some knowledge (creed) about God and what it means to worship.

In any event, within my Episcopal/Anglican tradition, getting rid of or ignoring the Creed would not resolve things for those who don’t like it. The rest of the liturgy is rife with the same story and the same imagery.

Further, the Creed and worship are integrally related:

Nicene Christianity has also understood orthodoxy in a richer and deeper sense: as right praise. To be orthodox is to strive to stand rightly with others before the mystery of the true God. To be orthodox is to join with a community of faith in adoration of God’s dora (glory), which already casts light on the day when God will finally make everything right. Belief is never correct when it becomes nothing more than a political mechanism to ensure the unity of an institution. Belief is right only when it points us in the right direction: to glorification of the true God, who promises not to give us a secret wisdom, but to be graciously present to us, even and especially where our vision and knowledge are weak.
John Burgess, Going Creedless

3. But isn’t the language of the Creed poetic, rich in metaphors?

Quite so. And we should always remember that lest we begin to think we have comprehended God who is always beyond our comprehending. In fact, you'd have a hard time finding a theologian of the early church who did not say the same. They were not so naive as moderns often suppose. Over and over again, the early theologians remind us that all our language for God is stammering. All images must be held lightly. And yet those same theologians also affirm that we must speak of God because God has spoken a Word to us – in history. Thus, while we can only speak metaphorically about God’s nature, we can bear witness to God’s action. "The impossibility has become a possibility by the boundless excellence of the grace of God," is how Origen put it.

Because it is about God, much of the Creed is metaphorical. Because it is about the God revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus much of it is not metaphorical, but historical (i.e., everything from “became incarnate” through “he rose again”). That has always been the scandal of Christianity to the philosophers and Gnostics (ancient and contemporary) who want to keep God safely on the side of the metaphorical (protecting God or themselves?). But, Christians confess an historical virgin birth to an historical Mary of an historical infleshment of God who died an historical death under an historical Pontius Pilate, but lives again through an historical resurrection leaving behind an historical empty tomb – all "for us and for our salvation".

The Creed is part poetry, part prose. Indeed, one might say that in the incarnation, God (ultimately hidden in Metaphor) has become prosaic in order to turn all to poetry. Trying to keep them strictly separate or make it all one or the other always gets us into trouble.

To say that our language about God’s essence is metaphorical is a theological truism. To conclude that therefore all metaphors are only human creations or that all metaphors are more or less equal are assumptions and theological falsehoods. To say that all language about God acting in history, e.g., the virginal conception, the incarnation, and the bodily resurrection as historical, physical events, is metaphorical and only true in some spiritual sense is to try to be more spiritual than the God we know though Jesus has deigned to be. The God we know through Jesus and the creeds is a God who is prepared to get down and dirty in the material world to address the very literal, tragic mess we have made of ourselves, others, and the world.

4. But, I read or heard somewhere that the root meaning of credo is to “give the heart” so intellectual assent is not the point.

To say that the root meaning of credo is to “give the heart” and reduce its meaning to only that is like saying that every time Richard Dawkins says, “Good bye,” he really means, “God be with ye.” However helpful it might be in adding color to our understanding, the meaning of words and phrases are not reducible to their roots. The meanings of words evolve. What did credo mean to those who used it in the 4th century? One need only look at the historical development of the creeds to know that they were meant to delineate right belief from wrong belief as well as to shape the direction of the heart.

Both are necessary. You cannot give your heart to something without some knowledge or belief about that to which you are giving your heart. And you cannot truly come to know something without giving your heart to it. Love and knowledge go together. You are not supposed to be able to say it with integtity if you find it incredible (a related word). The very reason for trying to shift the meaning of credo from intellectual assent is self-contradictory in as much as it is based on the conclusion that some aspects of the creed are not intellectually credible.

Reducing of the creeds to “matters of the heart” regardless of their intellectual meaning tailors them to the heritage of a naïve romanticism. It is an odd thing to do for those who (as many Episcopalians love to do) pride themselves on being in the “thinking person’s church”.

5. Can’t I just say the creed as an indication that I am seeking God and meaning as best I can within a tradition that has this particular historical linguistic heritage?

Continuing to say the words of the creeds without intellectual assent and meaning them in the common sense warps language. Either we mean it or we don’t. Or we stretch the meaning of words beyond all logic. What if we used the same approach to language with the marriage vows? Can I have an affair and then tell my wife she needs to get over her unsophisticated, literalistic interpretation of “forsaking all others”?

6. That doesn’t leave much room for doubt.

The issue is not about doubt or judging those who struggle with this or that aspect of the Creed. I have no problem with honest struggle with the Creed – historical or otherwise. I have my share, though as I've said elsewhere, there are implications of the Creed that I struggle with more than things like the virgin birth or bodily resurrection. Thankfully it is not up to us to believe this or that bit of the Creed on our own - as we sometimes pray, "regard not our sins, but the faith of your Church" (1979 Book of Common Prayer, p. 395). Sometimes others believe for us. In spite of any personal struggle, the Creed is the standard of Church teaching. At the very least, it is what Christians aspire to believe and conform their lives to – however inadequately.

One thing I do object to is when official teachers and leaders of the Church go beyond doubting and publically reject the Creed of the Church. Why should anyone consider us credible - again, a related word - if our preaching and teaching contradict the rest of what we say in worship? Or if all we have to offer is doubt and more questions? The latter is almost always a power move that hides the real answers those who claim to be about questions are actually peddling.

Doubts, whether about orthodoxy or orthopraxy, arise when one way of understanding how the world works and how God engages the world comes into conflict with another. But that cuts both ways. Questioning the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection, for example, is unsettling to one way of understanding things. Believing them is unsettling to others.

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Related:

Virginal Conception and Other Preposterous Things

John Updike on the Apostles' Creed

Dorotheos and the Wheel of Love

2011-07-06T14:01:00.003-05:00

Dorotheos of Gaza (d. 620) is one of my favorite teachers from the early church. I have blogged a bit about him before. Here is the ending of a sermon Dorotheos preached On Refusal to Judge our Neighbor:

Each one according to his means should take care to be at one with everyone else, for the more one is united to his neighbor the more he is united to God.

And now I give you an example from the Fathers. Suppose we were to take a compass and insert the point and draw an outline of a circle. The centre point is the same distance from any point on the circumference. Now concentrate your minds on what is to be said! Let us consider that this circle is the world and that God himself is the centre; the straight lines drawn from the circumference to the centre are the lives of men. To the extent that the saints enter into the things of the spirit, they desire to come near to God; and in proportion to their progress in the things of the spirit, they do indeed come close to God and to their neighbor. The closer they are to God, the closer they become to one another; and the closer they are to one another the closer they become to God.

Now consider in the same context the question of separation; for when they stand away from God and turn to external things, it is clear that the more they recede and become distant from God, the more they become distant from one another. See! This is the very nature of love. The more we are turned away from and do not love God, the greater the distance that separates us from our neighbor. If we were to love God more, we should be closer to God, and through love of him we should be more united in love to our neighbor; and the more we are united to our neighbor the more we are united to God.

May God make us worthy to listen to what is fitting for us and do it. For in the measure that we pay attention and take care to carry out what we hear, God will always enlighten us and make us understand his will.

Discourses & Syaings, Desert Humor & Humility, p. 138-139

I recommend the whole book which is full opf wisdom, encouragement, and challenge. I have found Dorotheos’ image of the wheel to be particularly fruitful and inspiring. It helps me understand Jesus’ Summary of the Law –"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it: You shall love you neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." (Mathew 22:37-40). It helps me understand the church as the school of that twofold love.

I wonder if one way to measure our faithfulness – our prayer, our worship, our thoughts, our speech, our actions, etc. – might be to assess whether they move us further along the line toward the centre of that wheel. If what we are about does not move us closer to God/neighbor and neighbor/God maybe we should be about something else.

Other related posts:

Basil the Great on Whose Feet Will You Wash?

Seraphim of Sarov and the Burden of One Another

Individuals or Persons in Communion?

2011-07-01T17:38:00.010-05:00

Radical Centrist Manifesto VI
III. Centered in the Body of Christ, Part 1: Persons in Communion

In an earlier post in this series I pointed out that American conservatives and liberals/progressives have more in common than usually assumed given their shared heritage in Classic Liberalism. Both, in their way, are attached to individualism.

Politically, this gets played out differently as each focuses on different ways in which the individual should be unrestrained, or minimally restrained, by responsibilities for and accountabilities to others beyond those the individual volunteers to recognize. Both appeal to the state as the provider of individual rights and the protector of the individual over against other social bodies. Thus, both collude in the notion that the individual is the basic human unit and the state is the ultimate social body.

Within the church, this gets played out as each, in its way gives priority of the individual over the communion of the church. Some conservatives tend to focus on individual salvation in ways that minimize any other gospel concerns and ignore the interrelated nature of humanity and creation. In such an approach the church serves primarily as the place individuals go to get their respective relationships with Jesus reinforced, but the church, as the body of Christ, is basically nonessential.

Although they tend not to talk about individual salvation, many liberal/progressives reinforce the ideology of individualism by inviting individuals “wherever they are in their (individual) journey of faith” to the Eucharist regardless of baptism. In this approach, the church is also nonessential, becoming just one place where individuals can go to get their idiosyncratic spiritual needs addressed – a sort of public spiritual restaurant where individuals come and go.

During the last eight years or so, during the turmoil in the Anglican/Episcopal Church, I have heard both conservatives and liberal/progressives dismiss ecclesiology (the lived theology of the church) as a secondary (at best) concern. Both those who have pursued schism and those who have provoked it dismiss a robust understanding of the church as unnecessary for understanding soteriology (theology of salvation) or for achieving justice, peace, or other this-worldly endeavors as (defined with or without the church’s scripture or tradition).

For both, the church is basically a free association of individuals with little real commitment, loyalty, responsibility, or accountability. Thus, we have individual “church shopping”, individual congregations shopping for the province that suits them, schism within the Episcopal Church, and a rejection of mutual accountability in the Anglican Communion. And we participate in and reinforce a culture in which few loyalties or vows endure.

For both, the church becomes “no people” (Hosea 1:9). But, if we are radically centered on Jesus, we will be centered in the community he started with his disciples. The God we know through Israel and Jesus is a God who all calls and forms those who were no people to be a people (1 Peter 2:9-10) in covenant with himself and one another. The church – the physical, historical, institutional reality – is that people.

Thus to be Christ-centered is to be church-centered. We will recognize the interconnectedness of salvation and the necessity of being incorporated into and belonging to the church in order to fully live into that salvation.

We will respect the dignity of every human being. But, we will train ourselves to think of human beings in terms of persons-formed-in-communion as opposed to free, isolatable individuals - persons with whom we are inherently connected, whose burden we are to bear (Galatians 6:2), whose feet we are to wash (John 13). For more on this distinction see this: Person vs Individual

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Rather than go on to write more of what I've already written elsewhere on this, here are some other posts where I have tried to explain the necessity of the church and its members as a communion of persons:

Charged With the Holy Spirit

ONE, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church

Whose Feet Will You Wash?

Baptized into Eucharist

Jesus is the Way & the Way Jesus is

2011-06-24T23:40:00.005-05:00

Radical Centrist Manifesto V
II. Centered on Jesus, Part 3: The Way Jesus is

It is not enough to affirm Jesus as the Way. We must also tend to the way Jesus is. Among other things that way is the way of life and peace. “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:6). It is harder to get around Jesus' nonviolence and that of his earliest followers than some would like.

Jesus’ birth was heralded with the hope of peace: "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" Luke 2:14

He notoriously commanded his followers: "But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt." (Luke 6:27-29)

When he approached Jerusalem, he wept over it, saying, "If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes” Luke 19:41-42

To his followers he said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” John 14:2

And his follower and apostle, Paul, seems to have taken the message to heart:

"Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known." Romans 3:15-17

Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. No, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Romans 12:17-18

To live the way Jesus is toward the center where Jesus is means to follow the example of the Self-emptying One (Philippians 2) who died for us even while we were enemies of God (Romans 5:10) and even prayed for those who were killing him :“Father forgive them, for they no not what they do.” (Luke 13:34) Have you ever wondered if that prayer was answered? Or did the Father ignore the Son?

We can dare to live into this way because we believe Jesus when he said, “And I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!"(John 16:23) If he has conquered the world we do not need to. Nor do we need to live in fear or retaliation.

The peace of Jesus is inner peace. If we really believe that he has conquered the world and that he is with us always, we can receive his spirit of peace, letting go of the inner agitation of worry, defensiveness, and anger and, instead, cultivating the fruit of peace in our life.

But it is not just inner peace, it is interpersonal and relational, it is public and political. It is the meek and merciful who are blessed. It is the peacemakers who are children of God.

Thus all forms of violence – in thought, word, and deed – are out of place in the center with Jesus. Our thoughts about and toward others should be of peace, our words and actions should reflect peace. And in the world generally we should be about peace.

Does that mean absolute non-violence? I am persuaded that particpation in violence moves us away from the center. But even if we were to decide that some kinds of violence are necessary and justifiable for Christians, I think we should be much more critical of appeals to violence (Here is the sermon I preached just before the invasion of Iraq: Taking Up the Cross in a Time of War). And we should be distrustful of the appeal violence has to our imaginations.

But war is not the only kind of violence. If the mind set against God participates in death, the mind set on the spirit is about life and peace. I am persuaded that that means a consistent ethic of life and peace (See Consistent Life) that seeks to live counter the culture of death: war, the death penalty, euthanasia, abortion, and other realities like racism and poverty that diminish the life and peace of persons.

Another thing that Conservatives and Liberals/Progressives have in common is the peace they have made with violence. Both, in their way, are enamored with the idea that violence is necessary and redemptive. The NRA (National Rifle Association) and NARAL (National Abortion Rights League) have more in common than just some initials. Both believe in the right of individuals to resort to violence against an unwelcome intruder. Both defend the sacrifice of some for the sake of others. But, if Jesus has offered the perfect sacrifice then we do not need to continue to sacrifice one another (See No More Sacrifices).

That is not an easy way. It is the way of the cross. It is the way Jesus is.

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The Squatting Demon of Notre Dame

2011-06-21T10:37:00.002-05:00

I don't have much in the way of profound comment on this picture. I'm posting it here because I think it is interesting and fun. It is a picture I took of part of the Last Judgment scene on the main portal of Notre Dame de Paris. It was probably sculpted some time in the first half of the 13th century.

It is a picture of a demon squatting over a bishop and a king. The two earthly worthies are among the damned and this is their fate. The demon, squatting with her hands on her knees, appears to be about to urinate (at least) on their heads as they look up in dismay. It is quite funny actually. It would have originally been painted in bright colors and must have made quite am impression on folk as they entered the cathedral for worship. I imagine commoners got a kick out of seeing the powers-that-be tweaked in this way.

A few thoughts:
1. This counters what I think is probably a common impression that the medieval church was humorless. There is humor here, even at the churches expense.
2. Even as part of this magnificent, inspiring place of worship, it was thought humor was appropriate - including the awesome and fearful tableau of the Last Judgment.
3. Presumably the bishop had to approve this.
4. Even in the stratified, hierarchical world of the Middle Ages, it was accepted that all were equal in the sight of God and equally subject to divine scrutiny and judgment.
5. Bishops and other church officials along with kings and other nobility would have been reminded regularly that their authority was held in trust and subject to scrutiny.
6. It must have been particularly gratifying for commoners to be reminded that those who lorded it over them in this life would be called to account in the next.
7. Thus, those in power could, in theory anyway, be held accountable in this life.
8. It is no less true today that those who have been entrusted with authority - ecclesial or political or otherwise - should remember that they are accountable. There is a Judge who judges all. Who knows if that means you might end up with a grotesque, laughing demon squatting over your head. But, I wouldn't take the judgment lightly.

The Story and Other Stories

2011-06-17T11:40:00.008-05:00

Radical Centrist Manifesto IV
II. Centered on Jesus, Part 2: The Story and Other Stories

Lesslie Newbigin was a missionary and bishop in South India. He is a favorite of mine. In describing his experience in evangelizing people of other faiths, Newbigin said, "I approach them by saying I would like to tell you my beautiful stories about God and I would like for you to tell me your beautiful stories about God." It is a wonderful approach exhibiting a welcome humility, generosity and hospitality. It acknowledges that whatever beautiful truth we think we have to offer the world; we are bound to find beauty and truth elsewhere.

There is indeed beauty and truth elsewhere. I have read and reread the Damapada and the Tao te Ching. I've read the Analects of Confucius and the Bhagavad Gita. I have learned much from Buddhist authors like Thic Nhat Hahn, Ajahn Chah, and Sharon Salzberg. I sometimes pray using a Christianized version of metta meditation. As for beautiful stories, I've particularly enjoyed Journey into the West featuring the impetuous Monkey along with the Ramayana and Mahabharata and others. I confess I have not read the whole Koran. I have, however, spoken in person and exchanged beautiful stories with Moslems (what I said in one of those instances is here). I have been inspired, informed and edified by many of these beautiful stories. I believe that the Holy Spirit sings in and through many of them. Listening carefully and respectfully to their wisdom can be edifying.

It is tempting to leave it at that. It is tempting to claim that all these stories along with the ones Lesslie Newbigin told about Jesus and Christianity are equally beautiful and equally true. It is a popular approach. Among some who identify as "progressive" it is something of a shibboleth. But it does not actually work. I have written elsewhere about The Impossibility of Religious Pluralism. When we try to claim all stories are equally beautiful, we are just ignoring the fact that we actually have in the back of our minds another overarching story that incorporates all those lesser stories and that we consider even more beautiful. We use our own overarching story to measure the relative beauty and truth of other stories. There is no escaping this.

I know we have been told that we live in an age in which there are no metanarratives. I do not believe it. Everyone lives by some metanarrative. I doubt it is even true that there are no longer public metanarratives that we hold in common. I suspect we have just become less conscious of the metanarratives by which we live. And that is a problem.

Christians believe that all creation is part a central beautiful story spoken by a three-personed God who is love. This story centers on the self-emptying incarnation of God in the person of Jesus. Christians believe that to be the most true and most beautiful story. All other beautiful stories participate more or less in that story and are measured by it. It was always Lesslie Newbigin's hope that in exchanging beautiful stories others would be persuaded to see this and make the story of Jesus their own.

Christians should not embrace an exclusive, hermetically sealed version of truth that can learn from no one else. Christians would do well to look more carefully at the beauty of other stories and be open to learning from them. But still we claim that the story of Jesus Christ is at the center of all. He is the Way, the Truth, the Life. We claim - humbly, reverently, and gently if we are to be true to the story - that Jesus (as interpreted by scripture, the creeds, and the lives of the saints) remains Lord and the measure of all other stories.

That is not just the case with other "religious" stories. It includes the beautiful stories we are told by Wall Street, Madison Avenue and the Pentagon. It includes the beautiful stories of America and every other nation-state that would claim our ultimate loyalty. It also includes the beautiful stories we tell ourselves to justify ourselves or to affirm our own prejudices. Accepting the idea that all stories are equal, actually serves the purposes these other powers and keeps them off the hook.

Let us be prepared to see the beauty in all stories. But let's not kid ourselves or others that we believe all stories are equally beautiful and equally true or that we do not ourselves have a story that we live by and believe to be more beautiful and true. Christians centered on Jesus Christ should not be embarrassed to claim that we have a story to live and to share - the most eautiful story of all.

Adendum:
I came across the following related quotation from Newbigin:

I more and more find the precious part of each day to be the thirty or forty minutes I spend each morning before breakfast with the Bible. All the rest of the day I am bombarded with the stories that the world is telling about itself. I am more and more skeptical about these stories. As I take time to immerse myself in the story that the Bible tells, my vision is cleared and I see things in another way. I see the day that lies ahead in its place in God’s story.

A Word in Season: Perspectives on Christian World Missions
(h/t Writing in the Dust)

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Related: Beyond Velcro and Teflon, there is a Shepherd

The Trinity and Hildegarde's Vision of the Man in Sapphire Blue

2011-06-14T17:54:00.006-05:00

The picture on the home page of this blog is a representation of a vision recounted by the remarkable Hildegarde of Bingen (1098-1179) which reveals something of God while maintaining something of the mystery. It is my favorite image of the Trinity. At first it is an aesthetic attraction. The deep blue is beautiful and peaceful. The radiating circles of orange and lavender focus the eye on the figure, but then also to draw the eye back out.

The image is dynamic. There is a sense of movement. It is difficult to tell if the circles are radiating from the figure or, in some sense, moving toward and into him. Perhaps it is possible for it to be both. The Sapphire figure seems to be coming toward us. The whole effect makes the picture pleasant to look at.

The Man in Sapphire Blue has an attraction that goes beyond the blueness. The figure has an aura of compassion. The eyes are large and somewhat sad. The hands are offered open in a sort of invitation as if for an embrace, beckoning us to enter with him into the mystery. Hildegarde, like other medieval people of deep prayer – both male and female – refers to the “embrace of God’s maternal love.” There is tenderness in that phrase that matches the face and posture of the figure.

The Man of Sapphire is Jesus. In this a vision of the Trinitarian mystery, Jesus Christ is the focus. The flame and light as the Father and Spirit, though they encircle and draw attention to Christ, are in the background. While Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father, he becomes the prism through which we know the Father. And while Jesus is full of the Spirit, that Spirit is most fully known to us as the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

In the vision, the Sapphire Christ hangs down from the background circle of light which represents the Father – the “font of divinity” according to the Eastern Orthodox tradition. It is as if Jesus, the Son, is in the womb of the Father. Proceeding from center of the background circle of the Father is another circle, orange like fire, which Hildegarde identifies as the Holy Spirit.

Deborah Vess suggests:

The circles are superimposed on a square, which has four corners, and is, therefore, reminiscent of the earth itself. Also, squares provide a feeling of stability. The union of the circle and square, a common motif in many cultures, represents that harmony of heaven and earth. As Christ is in the center, the suggestion here is that Christ unites heaven and earth -- he was fully divine, but also fully human. [This can be found here].

The vision reveals something of the mystery of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as we have come to know God in the light of Jesus Christ. But what God is like beyond that remains a mystery.

More on the Trinity:

The Friendship Dance

The Threefold all-kindly

Radical Centrist Manifesto III

2011-06-10T19:29:00.006-05:00

II. Centered on Jesus, the Cross and Resurrection, Part 1

At the center is the cross which stands as God’s great and fundamental challenge to all our usual ways of thinking and believing.

As a centrist, I hope to live at the center in the shadow of the cross knowing that the shadow is cast by the light of the resurrection.

I have written before o the significance of the cross and Jesus’ sacrifice there. I have also written on the significance of the resurrection (empty tomb and all) and why it matters. These are central. If you want to try to get around them or domesticate them one way or another to fit a different way of seeing the world, God bless you, but you are working from a different center.

Living in the shadow of the cross means being centered in Jesus – the only Son of God, the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, the Messiah – sent by God to free us from the power of sin, so that we might be restored to “harmony with God, within ourselves, with our neighbors, and with all creation” (BCP p. 849). Jesus presents the world with challenges some of which I identified in the first post of this series. But, he also presents us with promises:

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." – Matthew 11:29

"If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." John 8:31-32

"These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." – John 15:11

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." – John 14:27

"I came that they may have life, and have it to the full. – John 10:10

I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live." John 11:25

"Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." – Matthew 18:20

I want to sink my spirit into the center of Jesus’ rest, anticipating the eternal Sabbath – a sabbath rest which, according to Maximus the Confessor is “a quieting of the movement of passions” (the agitations of the spirit related to the seven deadly sins - pride, enmity, envy, etc.).

I want to sink my spirit into the center of Jesus’ truth – truth about God and the world, the truth about humanity and the truth (good, bad, ugly and beautiful) about me.

I want to sink my spirit into the center of Jesus’ freedom – freedom from fear, anxiousness, impatience, vexation, the passions of sin. And freedom for love.

I want to sink my spirit into the center of Jesus’ joy so it permeates my being. I want to smuggle that joy into the world.

I want to sink my spirit into the center of Jesus’ peace – deep inner peace and equilibrium. Living out of that center, I want to live as a peacemaker.

I want to sink my spirit into the center of Jesus' life that my life might be full - may his Spirit heal me of whatever in me gets in the way of that fullness. And may my life be caught up in his life which is transfigured and eternal. And may I seek the fullness and flourishing of the life of others.

I want to sink my spirit into the center of Jesus’ resurrection – to live knowing that “our death is already behind us, and our resurrection before us" as Ephrem of Edessa has it, and to live now into the expectation of the new creation inaugurated in Jesus trusting that the fullness of its realization is in his trustworthy hands.

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." John 14:-2

I want to practice disciplines that will develop habits of thinking and being that will draw me deeper into that center which is Jesus Christ. Most everything else is peripheral.

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Ephrem of Edessa (the Syrian) on Paradise

2011-06-08T17:26:00.003-05:00

Before Lothlorien or Perelandra, there was Ephrem's vision of Paradise:

1. In the world there is struggle,
in Eden, a crown of glory.
At our resurrection
both earth and heaven will God renew,
liberating all creatures,
granting them paschal joy, along with us.
Upon our mother Earth, along with us,
did he lay disgrace
when he laid on her, with the sinner, the curse;
so, together with the just, will he bless her too;
this nursing mother, along with her children,
shall He who is Good renew.

Response: Blessed is He who, in his Paradise,
gives joy to our gloom

2. The evil one mixed his cup,
proffering its bitterness to all;
in everyone’s path, he set his snares,
for everyone has he spread out his net;
he has caused tares to spring up
in order to choke the good seed.
But in His glorious Paradise
He who is Good
Will sweeten their bitter trials,
Their crowns he will make great;
because they have borne their crosses
He will escort them into Eden.

3. Should you wish
to climb a tree,
with its lower branches
it will provide steps before your feet,
eager to make you recline
in its bosom above,
on the couch of its upper branches.
So arranged is the surface of these branches,
bent low and cupped
–while yet dense with flowers–
that they serve as a protective womb
for whoever rests there.

4. Who has ever beheld such a banquet
in the very bosom of a tree,
with fruit of every savor
ranged for the hand to pluck?
Each type of fruit in due sequence approaches,
Each awaiting its turn:
fruit to eat,
and fruit to quench the thirst;
to rinse the hands there is dew,
and leaves to dry them after
–a treasure store that lacks nothing,
Whose Lord is rich in all things.

5. Around the trees the air is limpid
as the saints recline;
below them are blossoms,
above them fruit;
fruits serve as their sky,
flowers as their earth.
Who has ever heard
or seen
a cloud of fruits providing shade
for the head,
or a garment of flowers
spread out beneath the feet?

6. Such is the flowing brook of delights
that, as one tree takes leave of you,
the next one beckons you;
all of them rejoice
that you should partake of the fruit of one
and suck the juice of another,
wash and cleanse yourself
in the dew of yet a third;
anoint yourself with the resin of one
and breath another’s fragrance,
listen to the song of still another.
Blessed is He who gave joy to Adam.
[from hymn IX of Hymns on Paradise, p. 136-138]

More numerous and glorious
than the stars
in the sky that we behold
are the blossoms of that land,
and the frgrance which exhales from it
through divine Grace
is like a physician
sent to heal the ills
of a land that is under a curse;
by its healing breath it cures
the sickness that entered in
through the serpent.
[hymn XI, v. 9]

Ephrem of Edessa (also known as "the Syrian") lived from around 306 to 373 and was one of the great theologians and hymn writers of the early church. He wrote in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic (the languge Jesus spoke), and thus is not nearly as well-known in the western church as he should be. His Hymnns on Paradise is a cycle of 15 hymns ranging in length from 11 to 31 verses (think of that next time you are tempted to complain about singing all the verses of a hymn in church).

I enjoy the imagery in the verses above and there are more like them in the cycle of hymns. And note that for Ephrem Paradise is not an escape from this world and physical reality. Rather, it is heaven and earth along with us renewed in paschal joy.

For the colors of Paradise are full of joy,
its scents most wonderful,
its beauties most desirable,
and its delicacies glorious.
[hymn IV, v. 7]

Jerome the Ciceronian

2011-06-06T14:07:00.000-05:00

In a letter, Jerome (347-420) recounted a vision he had in which he was revealed to be kidding himself about his true loyalties:

Suddenly I was caught up in the spirit and dragged before the judgment seat of the Judge; and here the light was so bright, and those who stood around were so radiant, that I cast myself upon the ground and did not dare to look up. Asked who and what I was I replied: "I am a Christian." But He who presided said: "You lie; you are a follower of Cicero and not of Christ. For 'where your treasure is, there will thy heart be also.'" LETTER XXII. TO EUSTOCHIUM

This is similar to the point I was making in what I posted on Friday. I was particularly reminded of it when I read this piece on Ayn Rand and Jesus by Stephen Prothero this morning. Prothero might be overly-simplistic, but he still makes a good point.

And I came across this by church historian, Mark Noll, which makes a similar point to the one I was making on Friday:

To aim at being a biblical Christian above all else means that self-identity must come from Christian faith and not American citizenship. It means that we are first Christians, and only then capitalists, socialists, or defenders of a mixed economy. It means that we will be Christians who happen to be Republican or Democrats, rather than Democrats or Republicans who happen to be Christians. The faith will loom larger than support for social security, welfare reform, farmer relief, anti-abortion legislation, or a nuclear freeze. It is unlikely that anyone can fully succeed in setting so rigorously the demands of faith before other allegiances, but it is nonetheless the place to begin.
h/t:Musings of a Hard-lining Moderate

Radical Centrist Manifesto II

2011-06-03T18:47:00.007-05:00

I. What it is Not, Part 2: Not a Mid-point on a Spectrum

To be a radical centrist is not to try to locate oneself at some mid-point of an imagined right-left spectrum. The idea of such a spectrum is itself an idol that creates a sort of conceptual trap.

To ask if Jesus (and Christianity in general) is more compatible with American Conservativism or American Progressivism is like asking in China if Christianity is more compatible with Confucianism or Taoism.

The truth is there are ad hoc similarities between Christianity and both Taoism and Confucianism. A Christian who converts from either of those might look back and say; “Now I know what that means in the light of Christ” or “Oh, I need to change my mind and behavior if I want to conform to Jesus.” In the end, Taoism and Confucianism have a lot more in common with one another as varieties of the Chinese heritage than either of them has with Christianity as such which operates under a different logic.

The same is true for the socio-political ideologies of Conservatism and Progressivism which shape the way their adherents engage the world and others in ways analogous to faith. Rooted in Classical Western Liberalism (which is why I am using "progressive" rather then the more common "liberal" to identify one of it's sub-traditions), both tend toward

* A fetishizing of the individual as autonomous

* A fetishizing of the modern nation-state as the fundamental and ultimate socio-political reality to which final allegience is given.

* An infatuation with the notion of abstractions, e.g., justice, freedom, reason etc, as universally accessible and independent of traditions.

Given these similarities, from a Christ-centered perspective, ideological Conservatism and ideological Progressivism do not so much occupy opposite poles of a spectrum as they are more like points on contiguous sections of a dart board more or less removed from the center.

To be clear, the point here is not that the heritage of Classical Western Liberalism is altogether bad, whether in its conservative or progressive manifestations. Doubtless there is good in that heritage (the break down of a fixed class system and the realizing of the equality of women come to mind) just as, from a Christian perspective, there is good in Taoism and Confucianism.

It is also true that even centered Christians will have sympathies one way or another. But, we need to be wary of investing too much emotional energy or loyalty in political parties, movements, and ideologies lest our allegiance to them compromise our allegiance to Christ and inhibit our ability to love our neighbor.

If we are not suspicious of these loyalties, we will again and again fall into the trap of trying to fit Jesus and Christianity into those loyalties. The result is a fractured and compromised Church with no witness. The religious right seeks to make God, Jesus, and Christianity safe for conservative values. The religious left (which is much more common in the Episcopal Church) seeks to make God, Jesus, and Christianity safe for progressive values. The one ends up playing servile chaplain to the red states while the other plays servile chaplain to the blue states. In their utter conformity, neither has a truly prophetic witness centered in what God has done and is doing through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Because both are content to repeat the prejudices of this world, neither is able to bear witness to the new creation.

A radical Christian centrism will engage Conservatism and Progressivism both critically - wary of being drawn off center - and sympathetically - seeking such ad hoc congruities as might be found. But it will not accept a view of the world in which they are poles on a spectrum along which Christians must place themselves.

Follow-up post: Jerome the Ciceronian

Previous - Next

Related posts:

liberal donuts & conservative cupcakes

Idolatry of a Certain Sort?

Next Week: So, what might it be?

Why the Biblical Food Laws?

2011-06-01T13:14:00.000-05:00

I'm reading Holiness in Israel by John G. Gammie and came across this which I find interesting:

Perhaps the earliest extrabiblical defense of the Hebraic food laws is found in the Letter of Aristeas (c. 150 B.C.E.). The letter, or apology, puts forward a stunningly appealing reason for the biblical food laws: (1) that edible creatures must have cloven hooves teaches that humans must be discriminating, that is, they should exercise reason and sound judgment; (2) chewing the cud is a symbol of memory and the importance of recollection; and (3) that predatory animals are prohibited teaches clearly how violence is to be eschewed and nonviolence embraced. (Letter of Aristeas, par. 136-69) - Holiness in Israel, p. 11

A Radical Centrist Manifesto I

2011-05-27T19:41:00.004-05:00

Introduction

Once, while sitting in the back of a class in seminary, I turned to a friend and said, “I’m a radical centrist.” At the time I was mostly just amused by the oxymoronic irony of the phrase. But, upon reflection, I have come to appreciate the term. Properly understood, being a radical centrist might actually be a good thing. One could make the case that that is part of the genius of the Anglican tradition (though, I’d suggest there are ways in which we haven’t always been radical enough). I think the church where I get to be the rector/pastor has tried to embody a sort of radical centrist community (though, again, we could probably be more radical).

I propose to attempt a sketch of what it might mean for a Christian to be a radical centrist beginning today and on subsequent Fridays.

I. What it is Not, Part 1: Not Moderate

Radical Centrist is not the same as “moderate.” I confess that I am congenitally cautious. Thus I find moderation in and of itself an attractive idea. It can be a short-coming for sure. But I am also convinced that there can be nothing moderate about following the one who said things like:

"If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” - Mark 8:34

“But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,”
- Matthew 5:44

“For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” - Matthew 7:14

“He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.” - Matthew 10:39

“To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from him who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.” - Luke 6:29

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." - Mark 10:25

“But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” - Matthew 5:28

“But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, "You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire.”
- Matthew 5:22

"Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery." - Mark 10”11-12

"If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” - Luke 14:26

“So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” - Luke 14:33

“He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.” - John 3:36

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you;” - John 6:53

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” - John 14:6

"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." - John 13:34-35

To be a radical centrist means being centered on Jesus and taking seriously the radical challenge of his whole life and teaching. It also means being suspicious of attempts to rationalize or interpret away that challenge in any of the particulars in order to make Jesus safe. And it means being honest about one’s own failure to live into his radical challenge. There’s nothing very moderate about any of that.

Next week: Something else it is not

Grace = the First and Last Word

2011-05-24T20:10:00.001-05:00

For Christians,
The first word is grace
The last word is grace
And every day along the way is grace, grace, grace

I was reminded of this last week as I drove from Chicago to California. I was listening to a lecture series on Augustine of Hippo, that great theologian of grace, and then to a U2 CD that included the song below.

Grace is God's favor extended toward us, unearned and undeserved. Grace is the invitation extended by Jesus (and made possible by his life, death, and resurrection) to enter into the irresistible and penetrating light of God's love. And more, it is the gift of God's own Spirit working in us enabling us to RSVP. Still more, grace is the promise of the Holy Spirit working in us to bring about a radical transformation through forgiveness, healing, and the infusion of God's own love such that we may become partakers of the divine nature.

In an interview, Bono of the rock band, U2 had this to say about grace:

Bono: You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics; in physical laws every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “as you sow, so you will reap” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff.

Assayas: I’d be interested to hear that.

Bono: That’s between me and God. But I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I’d be in deep shit. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.

— The Poached Egg: Bono Interview: Grace Over Karma

Grace
She takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name

Grace
It's a name for a girl
It's also a thought that changed the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything

Grace, she's got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She's got the time to talk
She travels outside of karma
She travels outside of karma
When she goes to work
You can hear her strings
Grace finds beauty in everything

Grace, she carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl in perfect condition

What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

C. S. Lewis and the World's Last Night

2011-05-22T12:02:00.001-05:00

In light of the recent mistaken prediction of the world's end, I commend C. S. Lewis' essay, The World's Last Night. Here is an excerpt from the last paragraph of that essay:

"I do not find that pictures of physical catastrophe – that sign in the clouds, those heavens rolled up like a scroll – help one so much as the naked idea of Judgment. We cannot always be excited. We can, perhaps, train ourselves even now to ask more and more often how the thing we are saying or doing (or failing to do) at the each moment will look when the irresistible light streams in upon it; that light which is so different from the light of this world – and yet, even now, we know just enough to take it into account."

Beyond Velcro and Teflon, there is a Shepherd

2011-05-17T07:46:00.003-05:00

When we are confronted with the mystery that is God we tend to make one of two common mistakes. Both are ways we try to avoid coming to grips with the mystery and to avoid the mystery coming to grips with us.

The first mistake is to presume mastery over the mystery. It is to believe that we have God somehow captured, somehow defined, such that when we say “God” we think we know exactly what we are talking about. We presume that every name and definition we throw at God sticks. It is as if God is made of Velcro. It is the way of various fundamentalisms. And it is rooted in fear. It is an attempt protect ourselves from the ambiguity of mystery by building walls of certainty.

But, there is no such certainty. God is not made of Velcro. Not every name, every image, every definition, no matter how good, that we throw at God sticks. And God is always more than and, in a profound way, other than, all our images and definitions and names for God.

If all images and definitions of God fall short, perhaps it is better to say that all the names for God are off the mark and no one really knows. Perhaps if we take the mystery seriously we should acknowledge that we do not know all that much about God. Perhaps we should accept that all names, images, and words for God are more or less right and more or less wrong. This has in fact become a popular approach. Some people stop using the word “God” because even that is too definite. It has become fashionable in some circles to refer to the “Sacred” or the “Holy.” One popular writer suggests that what we call “God” is the “something more” about reality. In this understanding all of the particular names and ways of understanding the divine are more or less equal human attempts to address the mystery. We throw names, words, and definitions at the mystery, but none of them sticks. It is as if God is made of Teflon.

But there are problems with the Teflon understanding. For one thing it surrenders too much to agnosticism which leaves us knowing nothing about the mystery. But, it also masks a desire to prevent the mystery from having any mastery over us. When people say they don’t care what you name God, what they usually seem to mean is, “I don’t care what you name God, as long as the God you name supports and endorses those things that I consider most important. I don’t care if you name God “Allah”, or “Yahweh”, or “Vishnu”, as long as the God you name supports what I hold most dear and considers obvious what I consider obvious, and reprehensible what I consider reprehensible.

Another problem with the Tephlon approach is that it leaves us in charge of the ambiguity. We tend to find ambiguity where it is convenient – in those areas that don’t mean much to us. If God is Teflon and no name sticks we are left with the prejudices we have picked up elsewhere. God-talk becomes merely a way to give our biases extra gravitas. Thus, as with the Velcro understanding, speaking as though God is made of Teflon is, in its own way, also a kind of hiding. If God is all ambiguity, then none of my most firmly held values or prejudices are challenged. My political and cultural assumptions are safe. My ideological prejudices are unassailable. It is possible to hide from the mystery behind walls of certainty. It is also possible to hide in a fog of ambiguity.

If the mystery at the heart of it all is not Velcro or Teflon, what might be a better understanding? What if, out of the mystery, God has made a gate in our walls and come searching for us in our fog to call us out and lead us deeper into the mystery? We might then have some direction and some knowledge, but we would not pretend to have mastery over the mystery. God does not give us certainty. God does not leave us guessing. God gives us Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

It is important to remember that God is mystery. An attitude of humility is essential and all of our knowing is partial. But, Christians believe God has not remained utterly unknown. If Jesus is the Good Shepherd, then we begin to have some idea of the paths we should follow. If the Good Shepherd laid down his life for us, we ought to lay down our lives for one another. We will not demand the lives of others to protect own security or way of life. We will understand the world’s goods as things to be shared. We have some idea of what it means for us to love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And that will reassure our hearts.

If Jesus is the Good Shepherd we are faced with a decision. Do we risk following him into the mystery or not? We live in a society in which to choose one way over others and suggest it is nearer the truth is offensive. But, there is really no escaping it. Sooner or later, we choose something or someone, some principal or ideology, to shepherd our thoughts and actions – whether we name it “God” or “the Sacred” or “Spirit” or something else. Choosing Jesus, and claiming Jesus as the Good Shepherd, is no more presumptuous or arbitrary than choosing any other idea to shape our lives. And following Jesus as the Good Shepherd does lead to some conclusions about the nature of the mystery of God. The Church has summarized those conclusions in the Creeds. At the heart of the Creeds is Jesus who calls us by name and calls us to follow. That call is a challenge to all our usual ways of thinking and being. We cannot hide in ambiguity and fill the mystery with our own definitions. If we want to be led along right pathways through the valley of the shadow of death, there is no better shepherd than Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

Still, if we follow Jesus out of the fog of ambiguity he does not lead us behind walls of certainty. God remains a mystery, neither Velcro nor Teflon. What we are offered is humble confidence. If Jesus is the Good Shepherd, we can have confidence that, following him, we are headed in the right direction. He will lead us to still water and green pasture.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, has come to us from the Mystery at the heart of it all to lead us back, ever more deeply into that Mystery. The Good Shepherd does not come to grant us the security of certainty. Nor does the Good Shepherd allow us to avoid the risk choosing. But, the Good Shepherd does call us to lie down in green pastures and leads us beside still waters. The Good Shepherd does lead us along right pathways for his Name’s sake. Jesus comes to us and calls, “Come out, come out, wherever you are. Come out from behind your walls. Come out of the fog. Follow me into the open country faith. It is for us to decide whether or not we will follow.

C. S. Lewis on Praying for One's Enemies

2011-05-05T08:22:00.001-05:00

The practical problem about charity (in one’s prayer) is very hard work, isn’t it? When you pray for Hitler and Stalin how do you actually teach yourself to make the prayer real? The two things that help me are (a) A continual grasp of the idea that one is only joining one’s feeble little voice to the perpetual intercession of Christ who died for these very men. (b) A recollection, as firm as I can make it, of all one’s own cruelty; which might have blossomed under different conditions into something terrible. You and I are not at bottom so different from these ghastly creatures.

Letter to Dom Bede Griffiths, 16 Apr 1940

Lost Coins

2011-05-03T07:07:00.002-05:00

Given the news that Osama bin Laden was killed on Sunday, I reread the sermon I preached the Sunday after 9/11/01. The scriptures appointed for that Sunday were
Exodus 32:1,7-14
Psalm 51:1-18
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10.
The basic message still seems relevant in light of this week's developments:

In the wake of last Tuesday’s terrorist attack, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were quoted in the papers as saying that the blame lays partly on the moral bankruptcy of America. You know the usual suspects: feminists, homosexuals, secular humanists, abortionists. Others have been pointing out that America does not have completely innocent hands in the world. To the extent that the United States has propped up oppressive and unjust systems around the world, it is no surprise that some people strike back. This point of view has its own list of usual suspects. I wonder if both of these responses don’t spring from the same impulse. It is the desire to distance ourselves from the evil and the horror that unfolded before our eyes this week.

We see this same impulse at work at some point during every presidential administration. As soon as the current president gets into some trouble, bumper stickers show up saying, “Don’t blame me; I voted for (the other guy).” Don’t blame me; I voted for Dole. Don’t blame me; I voted for Gore. A similar thing seems to be happening here. Don’t blame me; I’m not a homosexual or an abortionist. Don’t blame me; I’ve been speaking out against America’s injustices for a long time. Don’t blame me; I’m a pacifist. Don’t blame me; I’m not a terrorist. Don’t blame me; I’m an American. We want desperately to distance ourselves from the deeds of September 11th. We desire to draw lines over which we can step so we can be among those who are righteous and innocent. We can then point across the line at those who are guilty, unrighteous, evildoers. We come up with a list of suspects and assign responsibility. But that desire to distance ourselves from the sinners is the desire of the Pharisee. We should know better.

For all the horror, the shock, and the enormity of Tuesday, the deep evil of it, Christians of all people should not to be surprised. After all, we believe that the deepest mystery of the world is played out during Holy Week: the Passion, the cross. We know that the human situation is desperate. We know that we are lost. There is no distancing ourselves from the disaster of human history, the disaster of current events. We are all members of the human race, not just sharing in the tragedy of human history with those who are suffering victims, but also sharing in the guilt of humanity, which is capable of such evil. We share the human stain. To be human is to be implicated. We are all suspect.

In Psalm 51, we are faced with this hard truth, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving kindness. In your great compassion blot out my offenses. Wash me through and through from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sins, for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. And so you are justified when you speak, and upright in your judgment. Indeed, I have been wicked from my birth, a sinner from my mother’s womb.” Hard words to hear. It sounds like original sin, the idea that from our birth, something is not quite right. It is not a pleasant idea and one that we want to deny. But, it remains the invisible elephant in the living room of human history and human society. Too be sure, we are created in the image of God and are therefore glorious creatures, capable of great good. We’ve seen that as well in the last week. But Christians know the sobering truth that being created in the image of God is not the only thing that unites us. We are all bound together as a race that has made a mess of things. The radical nature of sin, to which the doctrine of original sin points, means that each of us is born into that mess and each of us bears the stain. Each of us is the lost coin. I am the lost coin. Much as I want to separate myself, there is no escaping the uncomfortable realization that, however much I try to wash my hands, like Lady MacBeth and Pilate before me, the stain remains.

There are no lines we can draw that make us innocent and “them” guilty. That does not let those who planned and executed the evil on Tuesday off the hook. They are guilty of a heinous act. There should be an accounting. But we should be wary of self-righteousness and the impulse for revenge. The line that separates good from evil, light from darkness, righteousness from unrighteousness, is not a line that we can draw such that we end up on the right side. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who knew what it was to experience injustice, wrote, “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, not between political parties either, not between ethnic groups, but right through every human heart and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of hearts there remains an unuprooted small corner of evil.” We all like sheep are gone astray. Each of us is the lost coin. It is not hard to see that in the case of Osama Bin Laden and the terrorists. But, the psalm calls for us to look carefully into our own heart to see our own share in the stain.

Each of us is the lost coin. I am the lost coin. You are the lost coin. The homosexuals and abortionists are the lost coin. The most ardent militarists are the lost coin. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are the lost coin. The people buried in the rubble; each one, a lost coin. Indeed, the whole world is the lost coin. That is the deep and disturbing truth that we know.

But praise God! We know a still deeper truth. As the Pharisees were amazed and offended to see, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” If the reality we live is the valley of the shadow of death, we know that God has entered into that valley. We, as individuals, as a nation, as a species, are not left to our own devices. As 1Timothy says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Sinners like me. Sinners like you. Sinners like us all. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them. God, like the woman in Jesus’ parable, lights the lamp, sweeps the house, and searches carefully until she finds what was lost, seeking out the lost coin, seeking out you, seeking out me. Seeking out the lost coins in the rubble. And, hard as it is to fathom right now, seeking out the lost coin that is Osama Bin Laden because God cherishes even that lost coin.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He seeks the lost coin. This does not necessarily mean that we should not seek to stop Osama Bin Laden or to seek an accounting for that which he is apparently responsible. But we do well to remember that we are not the only ones who seek him. And we do well to remember that we are not other than he is. He also is human. He also is created in the image of God. We should be careful how we go about seeking an accounting. God is seeking Osama Bin Laden, too, and God seeks those who are around him. There are innocent people between him and us. We do well to take care.

We are given disturbing word of our condition and joyous news of our deliverance. We in the church are called to proclaim both and to remember that we are in the mess along with everyone else. As a kingdom of priests, we are called, like Moses in the Old Testament lesson, to intercede before God for the whole world. As 1Timothy suggests, we who have received such mercy and know what it is to be found can now become agents of that grace, embodiments of God’s mercy, seekers and healers of the lost. As the church we name injustice and evil, always starting with and remembering our own. We also proclaim the grace of the God who seeks us all. We share the suffering, not alone, but with the one who came to seek the lost, suffered for us, and rose again.

Oscar Romero wrote, “For the church, the many abuses of human life, liberty and dignity are a heartfelt suffering. The church, entrusted with earth’s glory, believes that each person is the creator’s image and that everyone who tramples it offends God. As the holy defender of God’s rights and of God’s images the church must cry out. It takes as spittle on its face, as lashes on its back, as the cross in its passion all that human beings suffer. Even though they be unbelievers, they suffer as God’s images. There is no dichotomy between humans and God’s image. Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being abuses God’s image and the church takes as its own that cross, that martyrdom.” Let’s speak out against injustice and violence. Let’s pay careful attention to our own contribution to injustice and violence. Let’s seek justice and peace. Let’s resist evil. But let us always remember that we too are the lost coin. And remember, there is one who welcomes sinners and eats with them.

Karl Barth on the Resurrection

2011-04-28T09:07:00.000-05:00

"The New Testament is speaking about an event in time and space. It must not be overlooked that in this event we have to do on the one hand with the telos, the culminating point of the previously recorded concrete history of the life and suffering and death of Jesus Christ which attained its end in his resurrection, and on the other with the beginning of the equally concrete history of faith in him . . . Since the presupposition and the consequence of the Easter message of the New Testament are of this nature, it would be senseless to deny that this message, does at least treat of an event in time and space. It would be senseless to suppose that it is really trying to speak of the non-spatial and timeless being of certain general truths, orders, and relationships, clothing what it really wanted to say in the poetical form of narrative. . . We therefore presuppose agreements that a sound exegesis cannot idealise, symbolize or allegorise, but has to reckon with the fact that the New Testament was here speaking of an event that really happened, as it did when it spoke earlier of the life and death of Jesus Christ which proceeded it and later of the formation of the community that followed it."
(Church Dogmatics IV, 1, 336-339. The Verdict of the Father)

Holy Eucatastrophe!

2011-04-25T11:41:00.002-05:00

The Easter Sunday sermon (John 20:1-18) I preached yesterday:

The three-point shot at the buzzer that wins the game. The “Hail Mary” pass, caught against all odds for the winning touchdown. The game-winning grand slam homerun in the bottom of the ninth inning. The improbable go ahead goal at the end of the match. The sudden event in a movie or a novel by which tragedy is just barely avoided and all ends well. We find such sudden turns of fortune exciting and deeply satisfying – at least when it’s our team sinking the three-pointer.

J. R. R. Tolkien coined the word eucatastrophe to describe such phenomena in mythology and literature. A catastrophe is a sudden overturn of things for the worse. A eucatastrophe is a sudden turn of events resulting in unexpected well-being. Eucatastrophe, according to Tolkien, provokes "a catch of breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, a piercing glimpse of joy and the heart's desire."

It is just such a eucatastrophe we celebrate in Easter. Indeed, Easter is the eucatastrophe par excellence. In the midst of the seeming tragedy of human history, God intervenes to overturn the usual way of sin, brokenness, and death. Tolkien said that the Incarnation was the eucatastophe of history and the Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the Incarnation.

This doesn’t mean that catastrophe isn’t real. That is what Good Friday is all about. We all know catastrophe. The torture terror and tragedy of this world are real. Disease and death are real. Estrangement and alienation are real. The hurt and heartache of our own lives are real. Christianity does not deny, ignore, or avoid that reality. Still, the promise of the Resurrection is that all the disappointments, failures and tragedies of our lives – physical, relational, moral, financial – are subsumed in that most hope-filled event. The catastrophe of sin and death is real. But, the eucatastrophe of Jesus’ death and resurrection is more real.

Mary Magdalene knew catastrophe. You don’t even have to go with the later, unbiblical tradition that she was a prostitute to understand that. Being human, she knew catastrophe. But, we are told she had been possessed by seven demons. What ever that reality was like, it was personally catastrophic. And then she encountered Jesus who healed her and liberated her. Through Jesus she had new hope, new joy, new life. And then there was the catastrophe of the crucifixion. Jesus was dead. And she thought she was dead too. As if that wasn’t enough, when she went in the morning to his tomb his body was gone. Catastrophe upon catastrophe, what new indignity was this? Was it not enough that they had tortured and executed him, did they have to mistreat his corpse as well?

But, then, she hears her Shepherd call her by name and she experiences an improbable but glorious eucatastrophe of life and hope and joy restored – "a catch of breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, a piercing glimpse of joy and the heart's desire."

Can you imagine how she must have felt? Back to Tolkien, I think there is a scene in The Return of the King, the last of the Lord of the Rings trilogy that might get at how Mary felt.

It involves Samwise Gamgee wakening to the presence of the great wizard, Gandalf. The last time Sam had seen Gandalf was the catastrophe of the wizard’s falling to his death against the Balrog demon in the mines of Moria.

Near the end of the story, when Sam awakes from a deep sleep of exhaustion after the destruction of the One Ring in Mount Doom, Gandalf stands before him alive, robed in white, his face glistening in the sunlight Gandalf greets Sam (imagine Jesus with Mary):

“Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?” (in the gospel, Jesus says, “Mary.”)

But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer.

At last he gasped: “Gandalf! (Rabouni/Teacher!) I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”

“A great shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days without count. It fell upon Sam's ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from bed…

“How do I feel?” he cried.” Well, I don’t know how to say it. I feel, I feel” – he waved his arms in the air – “I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!”

I wonder if Sam ever saw the world the same. I wonder if Mary Magdalene ever saw the world the same. Or did she forever see the world and her life with Easter eyes?

And now she saw eucatastrophe all around her: Every sunrise. Every spring. Every recovery from illness. Every reconciliation of estranged persons. Every act of forgiveness. Every birth. Every rebirth. All were now more then ordinary events. They were signs and anticipations of the day when all that was sad would come untrue. And even the sadness along the way. The disappointments and failures, and griefs. The dying of friends, and her own dying when it came, were now understood in a new light. There was still plenty of catastrophe in the world. Even after hearing Jesus call her name and reveal himself risen from the dead, Mary continued to walk in the valley of the shadow of death. But now that shadow was the shadow of the cross backlit by the brightness of resurrection joy.

This side of the final Eucatastrophe of the kingdom of God and the restoration of all things when everything sad will come untrue. We will suffer many little (and not so little) catastrophes along the way to our final breath. But, “Jesus Christ is raised from the dead trampling down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.”

Because his tomb is empty, our hope is full. We can see the world and our own lives with Easter eyes. As Tolkien wrote, “This story begins and ends in joy.”

No More Sacrifices - the God of Easter and the Death of Death

2011-04-19T15:20:00.003-05:00

Sermon for Easter Morning
Acts 10:34-43, Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 Colossians 3:1-4, John 20:1-18

"If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, 3 for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God."

You have died. You have been raised. Your life is hidden with Christ. You are thus dead to Death and it's power. You are free.

In the death and resurrection of Jesus, Death itself was mortally wounded. Jesus’ death is the death of Death. The great Puritan theologian, John Owen, wrote a book called The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. In the book, John Owen unfolds what it means for us to believe that in the death of Christ the power of Death has been emptied. Death has been emptied of its power over us. The great Anglican poet, John Donne, wrote in his poem Death Be Not Proud a summary of how Christians now live in the light of death because death no longer has power over us. He wrote,“Death be not proud. Though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so. For those whom thou thinkst thou dost overthrow die not, poor death. Nor yet canst thou kill me.” The poem ends with, “One short sleep past, we awake eternally, and death shall be no more. Death, thou shalt die.”

Because we are united with Christ’s death, we too are dead to the power of Death and we are free. Because we know that our life is hidden in the one whose life is more powerful than Death, we are free. Because we know that Christ has hold of us - and Christ will not let go - we are free. We are free from the power of Sin and Death and the Devil. They have no ultimate claim on us. Christ has proven the one sufficient sacrifice. Therefore, the only sacrifice we need to offer God is our own broken spirit and broken, contrite heart and the living sacrifice of love for one another and for God.

Because that is the only sacrifice and worship we need to offer, we need not sacrifice falsely as humans again and again have been inclined to do. In our attempts to appease the powers of Death and suffering, humans have all too often sought to sacrifice others that we might gain some security from the powers of Death.

The idea has a powerful hold on the human imagination. We see it in mythology in the idea that if you sacrifice a virgin to the dragon, perhaps the dragon – a symbol of Death – will not burn and destroy the village. Or, the legends of tossing a virgin (why is it always a young virgin?) into the volcano to appease the gods of the volcano.

But it’s not just human mythology. The hold that idea has on us has been acted out in history. In the Old Testament, time and again God tells Israel, “Do not sacrifice your children the way your neighbors do". The ancient Carthaginians tossed their children into the sacred fire, hoping that in doing so they might appease the gods and buy some time against the Romans. The ancient Aztecs carved out the hearts of their sacrificial victims to feed the gods and to buy themselves some security, making a contract with Death.

But we need to beware lest we pat ourselves on the back and say, “We don’t sacrifice people. We don’t carve out their hearts on some sacrificial altar or toss people into the fire.” I think, if we are honest with ourselves, we need to acknowledge that all too often we have indeed offered up sacrificial victims for our own security and way of life, hoping to stave off the power of Death.

We sacrifice young people when they are asked to offer life and limb in battle on our behalf.

We sacrifice innocent people who are killed in our wars. Estimates in the current war(s) suggest that some 50 to 100 thousand innocent Iraqis and Afghanistanis have just happened to get in the way of our sense of security. We call it collateral damage, but it is human sacrifice for our security.

We sacrifice criminals, hoping that if we kill the killers we might feel a bit more safe. If that worked, Texas would be the safest state in the Union. Even if it worked, we would have to ask ourselves if that sacrifice is the kind of sacrifice we want to offer - especially given the evidence that many truly innocent people have eneded up on death row.

We sacrifice the unwelcome intruder of the womb in abortion.

Whatever its hoped for promise, embryonic stem cell research is the sacrifice of life in order to stave off Death for some others.

More subtley, perhaps, we sacrifice others in an economic system in whch the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and whole parts of the world suffer so the status quo can be maintained.

There is another way, ironically, in which we sometimes worship death. We prove ourselves to fear Death more than we trust the God of life. We worship Death when we make death the one bad thing, the one thing that must be resisted and put off at all cost. We go to extraordinary lengths to make life keep going after its time. I think the Anglican bishops who gathered in Lambeth in 1998 made a helpful distinction. To help someone die, or to cause someone to die, even to remove suffering, is to collude with the powers of death. But given modern technology to extend life indefinitely through artificial means is not the same thing. It is no less “playing God” to keep someone alive by extraordinary means than to let them die by withholding or withdrawing such means. And the time comes, if we know our life is now hidden with Christ in God, when we can, with peace, say, “Enough is enough. Death is not the worst thing that can happen to us or to our loved ones.”

All such recourse to violence against others or ourselves is a false sacrifice and is a particpation in the way of this world which is death and not the Spirit of Jesus Christ which is life and peace (Romans 8:6). But, if Christ has made the one sufficient sacrifice, then we can take shelter at the foot of his cross and lay down our hammer and nails. And we can learn what this means, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13)

Christians who know that the death of Christ was indeed the death of Death are freed from the fear of Death and the myriad ways humans have sought to appease its power. Indeed, Athanasius, the early Christian theologian, claimed that Christians laugh at Death because we know it has been defanged. We know that it has been emptied of its power. We worship the one who was crucified yet lives. Even, though, this side of the kingdom of God we all die; we know that Death has no real power over us. We worship the crucified and risen Lord, the one who has defeated Death, the one in whose life our life is hid. We need not fear or worship the power of Death and we ought not sacrifice others to that fear. Because we know that Christ, crucified and risen, has defeated the power of Death, we need not sacrifice the life of others to protect our own life. The death of Christ was the death of Death. Our lives are now hidden with Christ in God. And we are free.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Loving vs. Infatuation with God

2011-04-16T16:01:00.002-05:00

Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday

I had a friend in college I'll call “Bob”. Bob was drop dead cute. He had big brown puppy eyes and girls just swooned around him. I hated that! And Bob was never without a girlfriend. Bob’s problem was he could never keep a girlfriend for more than a couple of months. Bob would fall "in love" with a girl and he would be absolutely sure that this was the woman for him. Everything about her was perfect. She was pretty. She was bright. She had all the qualities that he was looking for – for a couple months. After a couple of months, about the time something was expected of him, things started to change. Bob started to realize that what he was dealing with was actually another person. She was not just a projection of all his fantasies but actually had her own perspective and her own opinions. She actually had her own way of doing things. She actually had her own expectations. At that point, Bob would break up with her, disillusioned. And then fall in love soon with another girl and start the whole sequence over again. He was continually fascinated with the idea of love, but disillusioned with the reality. Or, better put, he was good at infatuation, not so good at actual love.

I wonder if that isn’t how most of us engage God much of the time. We are in love with the idea of God. We are infatuated with God. We want to welcome God with shouts of “Hosanna. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” But mostly we are really just projecting our own expectations and wishes onto the idea of God. When God turns out to be something other than our preconceived notion of what God is or should be, we must either change or do something to avoid changing. And our Hosannas turn to, “Crucify him!”

[And let’s be clear here: In the passion narratives, when the gospels refer to "the Jews" the Jews are the representatives of all humans and the evil that lies close at hand when we want to do good. (Romans 7).]

It’s not just that Jesus, as the Messiah and the enfleshed presence of God, did not conform to the expectations of his fellow Jews. It’s that Jesus – and the God that Jesus reveals – messes with the usual categories of all of us for what God should be. And Jesus calls into question many things that each of us wants to otherwise assume about what is right and good and true about life.

It’s not just that the Jews expected a Warrior Messiah and got a non-violent, self-sacrificing Messiah instead. It’s that all of us prefer the Lion of Judah to the Lamb of God. All of us want to enlist God in our battles – literally when we go to war, but also our political and other battles.

What we want, I am thinking – what we are infatuated with – is a God we can use for our own comfort and to our own ends. We want a God we can use to prop up our own preconceived notions about what life is all about. We want a God we can use against those who threaten those notions. Indeed, we often want a God we can enlist to beat up our enemies – rhetorically at least, but often enough literally.

But that is precisely where the God we know in Jesus frustrates our infatuation. A God who empties himself is hard to exploit. Certainly hard to use as a stick with which to whack one’s opponents.

Such a God will frustrate all easy certainties about what God is like and what God wants. To believe in such a “humble” God demands humility and circumspection.

To move from infatuation to love requires a willingness to get to know the one we claim to love. It means to be prepared to let go of even our most cherished fantasies of what God is or should be. If the God we claim to love is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Philippians 2 is a good place to start. Becoming deeply familiar with Jesus in each of the four Gospels and the creeds will also be necessary lest we “make up” our own Jesus instead. And it will require that we not gloss over or ignore those things Jesus says and does that challenge our prejudices and assumptions about God and life. And, even then, when we think we know, we will be humble, patient, and circumspect about it. Our shouts of Hosanna must always be tempered by the self-awareness of our own tendency, when the God we know in Jesus does not suit our agenda, to cry, “Crucify him!”

Bono & John Newton on Spiritual Progress

2011-04-08T09:31:00.002-05:00

A little something as Lent roles on:

"I have heard of people having life-changing, miraculous turn-arounds, people set free from addiction after a single prayer, relationships saved when both parties ‘let go, and let God’. But it was not like that for me. For all that 'I was lost, I am found’, it is probably more accurate to say, 'I was really lost, I’m a little less so at the moment'. And then a little less and a little less again. That to me is the spiritual life. The slow reworking and rebooting of a computer at regular intervals, reading the small print of the service manual. It has slowly rebuilt me in a better image. It has taken years though, and it is not over yet."
- Bono of the rock band, U2
U2 BY U2, p. 6

And here are a couple of pertinent quotes from John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace:

"I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am"

"Although my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a mighty Savior."

We fall down and we get up

2011-04-04T11:33:00.001-05:00

Today we begin the second half of Lent. As I rededicate myself to Lenten discipline, and by extension, the discipline of Christian living, I am reminded of how herky-jerky the spiritual path can be. It often seems like a two steps forward/one step back affair. We commit, we fail, and we recommit. We find ourselves returning again and again to some of the same sin. We can become discouraged by our own spiritual intransigence. We are tempted to give up or give in.

It is good to remember that this is - and has always been - standard fair for those seeking to live into holiness. It is also good to remember that our call to live lives of disciplined faithfulness comes within the context of the amazing grace we know in Jesus Christ. That discipline in the context of grace is demonstrated in this story from the early church:

Dorotheos of Gaza was a monk in the sixth century who, among other things, oversaw the infirmary at his monastery. Dorotheos had an assistant whose name was Dosithy. Dosithy was an earnest monk who desired to please Dorotheos and God. But Dossithy sometimes became impatient with his patients and would get angry and abuse them verbally. One time in particular he had done that and after he had gotten over his anger and was convicted of his sin, he began to weep and despair. Some of the other monks went to Dorotheos and told Dorotheos. Dorotheos called Dosithy to him and he asked him what was wrong. Dosithy said, “Father, I have sinned. I have abused my brother.” Dorotheos said, “So, Dosithy, you took it upon yourself to judge your brother? You got angry at your brother and abused him? Did you forget that he is Christ? And, when you cause him to suffer you cause Christ to suffer?” Dosithy, continuing to cry, said, “Yes.” Dorotheos said, “There, there Dosithy. You are forgiven. Get up. Let us begin again from now and let us be more attentive and God will help us.” Dosithy wiped his eyes and went back.

Some time later, Dosithy in tears comes again to Dorotheos and, again, Dorotheos says, “Up now, Dosithy. Get up. Start again. You are forgiven.” And again and again Dosithy fell and Dorotheos said, “Get up. You are forgiven.”
Dorotheos of Gaza: Discourses and Sayings

When asked what about life in the monastery, a monk answered, “We fall down and we get up, we fall down and we get up.”

Bernard of Clairvaux said once, “The difference between the damned and the saved is that everyone, except the damned, gets up and stumbles on.”

Up now! Let us begin from now and let us be more attentive and God will help us.

F. D. Maurice

2011-04-01T10:10:00.002-05:00

Today is the Feast Day of Federick Denison Maurice (1805-1872) who was one of the great Anglican theologians of the 19th century. Maurice (pronounced like Morris) critiqued the usual church factions of his day and was seen as suspect by each of them as a result. He was an early proponent of "Christian Socialism" which also made him suspect to both "unsocial Christians" and "unChristian socialists." In our own era of church factionalism, I find refreshing
Maurice's ability cut across party lines to engage appreciatively and critically with just about everyone.

Whatever one thinks of the possibility of Christian Socialism, Maurice remains among the great "worthies" of the Anglican tradition. Along with the two volumes of his magnus opus, The Kingdom of Christ one of my prize possessions is a volume of his sermons on The Prayer Book and The Lord's Prayer published in 1893. The following quotes are from those books and from here and here:

"I do not see my way further than this: competition is put forth as the law of the universe. That is a lie."

Every hope I had for human culture, for the reconciliation of opposing schools, for blessings to mankind, was based on theology. What sympathy then could I have with the Liberal Party, which was emphatically anti-theological, which was ready to tolerate all opinion in theology only because people could know nothing about it?"

"My great wish is to show you, that the Anglican Church was led, not by reason of any peculiar excellence or glory in the members or teachers of it, but by a course of providential discipline, to put worship and sacraments before views, to make those acts which directly connect man with God the prominent part of their system, -- that which was meant to embody the very form and meaning of Christianity, -- and those verbal distinctions which are necessary to keep the understanding of men from error and confusion, as its accessory and subordinate part."

From The Kingdom of Christ

Our Lord's Sacrifice is not merely a pattern or example of our sacrifices, nor merely the power by which these sacrifices are effected. It must have an entirely distinct character; otherwise it is of no worth as an example or as a power. The Sacrifice of Christ is that, with which alone God can be satisfied, and in the sight of which alone He can contemplate our race. It is, therefore, the only meeting-point of communion with Him. But, this communion being established, it must be by presenting the finished sacrifice before God, that we both bear witness what our position is, and realize the glory of it.--Kingdom of Christ, vol. ii. pp. 91, 93.

We must feel every evil which we call upon others to repent of has its origin and root in us, and that we must repent of it first. Kingdom of Christ, vol. ii. p. 331

From a sermon on the Creed:

Let us understand this well, brethren, for it is very important in reference to notions that are current in the present day. If there is to be a religion of trust, and not of slavish cowardly fear, that religion must have a Revelation, the revelation of a Name for its basis. A religion which creates its own object cannot be one of trust. I cannot rest upon that which I feel and know that I have made for myself. I cannot trust in that which I look upon as a form of my own mind or a projection from it. . . Neither can I trust in any shadowy, impalpable essence, or in any Soul of the world. If this be the God I worship, my worship will be one of doubt and distrust, whenever it is at all sincere. If I do not seek all strange, monstrous means of propitiating the unknown Being, it is only because I am altogether uncertain whether he is real enough for such services. . . All superstition, all priestcraft, in its worst and most evil sense -- we cannot repeat this proposition too often, or put it in too may shapes -- has its root in vague, indefinite religious apprehensions; not resting upon the knowledge and confession of a Being who is not our image, but who has declared Himself to us that we might receive His image . . .

But the question -- How is He a Father, how do I know He is? cannot be evaded. The Church had no wish to evade it. She acknowledged that something more was implied in the Revelation of a Father than His Name; that there must be some one to reveal Him. She proclaimed the Name of His only-begotten Son, our Lord. She says that He revealed Himself as he Son of God by being conceived of the Holy Ghost our Lord, by being born of the Virgin Mary, by suffering our death, our burial, by going down into the Hell we tremble to think of; by facing all our enemies visible and invisible, all that we actually know we must meet, all that our imagination dreams of; that He rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven, and sat down on the right of the Father, and will come again to judge the quick and the dead.

If God be absolute, eternal love, as St, Augustine makes the Catechist affirm, how has he shewn it? Has it come forth, or is it all hidden in his own nature? Has it come forth to some other creature, or to man? Has it met him where he needs to be met or somewhere else? Has it encountered the actual woes of mankind, or only those which affect a particular set of men? Has it been found mightier than these, or has it sunk under them? Has this love been cheerfully entertained, or did it encounter ingratitude? Was the ingratitude too strong for the love, or the love for the ingratitude? Is the victory for all times, or only for that time? Is He who you say is our Lord really our Lord? Does He reign over us? Will he leave all things just as they are, or set them right at last? These questions have a claim to be answered; that is no Gospel to humanity which does not answer them; the Christian Church said, 'This is the answer' . . . And again, supposing the words be true, all we have to do is to proclaim them and live upon them. He who has sent us into the world for that end can prove them. Those that know His Name will trust in Him, and so they find that He has not deceived them. . .

John Donne

2011-03-31T08:58:00.001-05:00

Today is the Feast of John Donne, one of my favorites. Donne was a great poet, priest, and preacher of the 17th century. In case you are unfamiliar with him, here's a taste:

"Confession works as vomit . . . an ease to the spiritual stomach - the conscience."

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."

A Hymn to God the Father

WILT Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;
For I have more.

Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sins their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallow'd in a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;
For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by Thyself that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine as He shines now and heretofore:
And having done that, Thou hast done;
I fear no more.

Sonnet Fourteen

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Death be not proud, though some have called thee

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Rose Sunday

2011-03-30T11:51:00.002-05:00

This Sunday is Rose Sunday, also known as Laetare Sunday or Refreshment Sunday. It is a day of joy in the midst of Lent, a season of mourning and pentitence. The historical background for this sudden joyful note during the penitential season lies in the ancient practice of traditio symboli (the handing over of the "symbol" of the Apostle's Creed to catechumens) on the Wednesday before the fourth Sunday of Lent. By extension the Fourth Sunday of Lent became a day of joy for all Christians. Thus it is a day in which the disciplines of Lent, while not being abandoned altogether, are relaxed.

Pope Innocent III (1216) said in a sermon, "On this Sunday, which marks the middle of Lent, a measure of consoling relaxation is provided so that the faithful may not break down under the severe strain of Lenten fast but may continue to bear the restrictions with a refreshed and easier heart."

As a sign of this refreshment, the clergy often exchange the penitential purple vestments for more festive rose-colored vestments.

Rose Sunday is a reminder that even in Lent we are Easter people and even when we are most aware of our weakness and sin, we are people living under the mercy and in the grace of God.

Michael Ramsey Concerning Unity

2011-03-28T06:51:00.001-05:00

The Church Times, an English church news paper, has published "The Anglican Covenant: a Church Times guide." It provides a collection of essays for and against the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant. It ends with an annotated Covenant which is quite helpful.

This is a nice compliment to the Study Guide to the Anglican Covenant published last month by the Anglican Communion office.

The whole thing puts me in mind of something from Michael Ramsey who was a widely respected theologian and the fondly remembered Archbishop of Canterbury from 1961-1974:

A word about unity. In the seventeenth chapter of St. John it is recorded that Christ prayed for the unity of his disciples. If you are trying to be a Christian, I am sure you are concerned about that. But notice also that, in the same prayer, Christ prayed for his disciples that they become holy, sanctified; and he also prayed that they might learn truth – “sanctify them in the truth.”

Unity, truth, holiness: the three are inseparable. Because of its connection with truth, Christian unity cannot be based on theological vagueness or indifference. And as for holiness, the implication that we are drawn into that togetherness with one another which Christ desires if we are also being drawn into that togetherness with him which is our call to be saints.

Re-union, then, goes with the recovery of truth, and with the reconcecration of lives. Each is urgent in its demands upon us. Neither of these however can be faster than the others; and there is a divine urgency and a divine patience.
(Introducing the Christian Faith, p. 76)

The re-union Ramsey referes to is ecumenism across Chritian traditions, but it seems relevant to nurturing "union" within the Anglican Communion over against the scandal of disunion or schism.

A basic challenge to the unity and faithfulness of any Christian body is how to live together in light of both the divine urgency and the divine patience.

I also wonder if we are able to make the distinction between the classic comprehensiveness of the Anglcian tradition and the "theological vagueness or indifference" against which Ramsey warns.

Repentance

2011-03-24T09:54:00.001-05:00

"Repentance is no more than a passionate intention to know all things after the mode of heaven."
- Charles Williams, He Came Down From Heaven, p. 60

Where is Your Precious? (on Judgement & Hell)

2011-03-18T12:16:00.012-05:00

I planned to post the following (adapted from an old sermon) sometime during Lent well before I heard of Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins and the attendant controversy about it. I haven't read the book so this is not a response, but it does apparently touch on some of the same themes.

Where is Your Precious?

Smeagol was a hobbit. A hobbit is an imaginary creature invented by J. R. R. Tolkien who wrote the “Lord of the Rings”. Short, human-like creatures with hairy feet, hobbits have been described as a cross between a rabbit and an English country gentleman. One day, Smeagol and a friend were fishing in a river. His friend fell into the water and swam or sank to the bottom of the river where he saw a ring, a bright and shiny ring. The friend grabbed the ring, came back to the surface of the river and showed it to Smeagol. It happened to be Smeagol’s birthday and he asked his friend, or rather demanded of his friend, the ring as a birthday present. The friend refused for he had already given Smeagol his birthday present. Smeagol strangled his friend, took the ring and put it on his finger.

It was a magical ring. When he put it on he was invisible. But it was also a cursed ring and it began to warp Smeagol. It warped him so that he began to find the sun too hot and too bright. He took shelter in the caverns of a mountain. When we first meet him in the story he is no longer known as Smeagol, but has been warped into a strange creature called Gollum. Gollum, formerly Smeagol, lives on a small island in the middle of a lake at the dark center of a mountain. There, he eats raw fish and speaks to his ring, which he calls, “My Precious”. Isolated from all other creatures, Gollum is alone. He is alone, that is, except for the ring - his "Precious".

I have wondered if maybe hell is like what happened to Smeagol. God, in His fierce mercy, gives us freedom - freedom to choose our “Precious,” whatever is our Precious - money, possessions, power, prestige, pleasure, etc. - to the bitter end. And beyond. What we choose for our Precious will either mold and shape us into something more beautiful and more human or it will warp us into something much less, like Gollum. That molding or warping continues beyond this life and God will allow us to continue to fall in on ourselves and our precious forever if we choose.

Scripture warns us that our choices have consequences and there will be judgement. In Hebrews 12:25 there is this stark warning. “How much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns us from heaven?” And, lest we think it’s just some peculiarity of the exhortation to the Hebrews, in the gospels, Jesus warns as well. In Luke 13, Jesus warns, “Strive to enter through the narrow door.” “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The warning of judgment, whether we like it or not, (and I don’t particularly like it) is a part of Jesus’ message. And it shows up repeatedly and in each gospel. It is a mistake to try to make Jesus less offensive by denying that judgment is part of his message. The Jesus of the gospels warns of judgment. We ought not to ignore it or wish it away.

It is also a mistake, however, to take the images of hell too literally. Christians throughout history have managed to understand that the images of heaven in the Bible are metaphorical. Very few Christians die believing that when they awake they will pass through literal pearly gates and walk literal streets of gold and live in literal mansions with a cubicle for each of us. We understand that those images are metaphors pointing to something greater than we can imagine. But somehow Christians have not been able, usually, to see same metaphorical interpretation of hell. We always seem to take the pictures of hell quite literally - a literal lake of fire in which people burn in agony forever and ever if they choose wrongly. We are familiar with those images. Paintings and graphic descriptions have impressed them on our imaginations. The warning is to be taken seriously, but let’s not mistake metaphorical imagery for literal description. If the images of heaven are metaphorical, then so are the images of hell.

A bit of an aside: Such images of hell are not unique to Christianity. Those who say that we should ignore the differences between religions and just get down to that which they all have in common always intrigue me. They ignore the problem that one thing nearly every religion has in common is hell. There are Buddhist paintings of hell that are every bit as graphic and discomforting as anything described by Dante or depicted by Hieronymus Bosch. Such images of hell make God out to be a cosmic torturer.

It is also a mistake to morbidly dwell on hell. In spite of the impression some have given, hell is not the main point of Christianity. Too often the threat of hell has been used to scare people in order to control them. The primary reason for Jesus’ coming was not to scare the hell out of us. The primary reason for Jesus’ coming was to prepare a way or us and to point us towards the kingdom of God. As Charles Williams wrote, "The order of purging is according to the seven deadly sins of the formal tradition of the Church. The Church is not a way for the soul to escape hell but to become heaven; it is virtues rather than sins which we must remember." (The Figure of Beatrice, p. 157)

Still, we should not be complacent about the warning of judgment that we have in scripture. It is a warning that comes from Jesus. It would be a mistake to assume that God is just such a nice guy that he could never really judge us severely. Or that he merely says, “All-y, all-y, in come free!” While it is possible to make too much of hell, it is also possible to make too little. The judgment is real. There is no room for complacency.

Jesus is instructive. Asked a theoretical question in Luke 13 about how many will be saved, Jesus, as is his wont, refused to get into the theoretical or speculative. Instead, Jesus’ answer to the question makes it personal. “Don’t worry about how few or how many make it to heaven. If it ends up that only a few get in, that is God’s business. If it turns out that God, in his incredible grace and mercy, makes a way for all to enter, that also is God’s business.” Jesus says, “You strive to enter through the narrow door.” He makes it personal. Don’t worry about the particulars of what it’s like. Don’t worry about who else is in or out. You strive to enter the narrow door. Choose today who is your Precious. Our choices matter in the short run and in the long run. We can choose wrongly. We can choose that which will warp us. It does matter how we live. It is not a matter of indifference whether we live lives of self-giving love or lives of self-absorption. We can choose our Precious, and in the end God may just allow us to live with whatever has been truly precious to ourselves - eternally. Our choice of what (or who) is our Precious will either mold us or warp us. That molding or warping begins now and continues eternally.

The Christian conviction is that Jesus also matters. Jesus did not come to scare the hell out of us; instead he came to show us what is eternally Precious. Indeed, he came to be our Precious. Our problem is, among other things, that we, in our sinfulness and our ignorance, find it difficult to recognize or receive what is truly Precious. There are many things vying to be our Precious. Jesus comes to break into our willfulness and ignorance and say; “I am your Precious. I am the way to all that is precious.”

But more than just showing us what our Precious is, Jesus frees us to pursue it. Our problem is more profound than just ignorance. We are born addicted, like crack babies, to things that are not our true Precious. Jesus Christ, on the cross and in his resurrection, breaks the bondage of that addiction, frees us to choose our true Precious - to choose him. Jesus is our Precious.

Being a hopeful universalist*, I still hope that (back to the analogy) maybe even Gollum, isolated and alone on the island at the dark and lonely center of the mountain, is not completely abandoned. Perhaps Jesus is still sitting beside him saying, “Smeagol, come back. Repent.” Maybe that’s what it means when we claim Jesus descended into hell. I hope that Dante was wrong when he wrote that over the gates of hell it reads, “Abandon all hope you who enter here.” I wonder if the God we know in Jesus Christ ever completely abandons hope. Is it possible that not even hell is God-forsaken?

The warning is real. The promise is also real. Our hope is real. In Hebrews we read that we have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken and therefore we do not need to be morbidly fearful of hell. We can give thanks. But in reverence and in awe, because we remember that our God is a consuming fire. Our choices matter. Jesus comes to us day by day, comes to us today, and says, “Choose today to enter in through the narrow door. Choose today who is your Precious.”
_______________________
* "Hopeful universalist" is a term I learned from my seminary professor, Charlie Price. It is distinct from what might be called a “simple” or “complacent” universalism. Holding that no one can ultimately end in hell is as presumptuous as presuming to know exactly who ends there. It presumes on God’s freedom to judge. It also denies the glory and awfulness of human freedom. A hopeful universalist, on the other hand, while acknowledging God’s judgement, hopes that, in his relentless love, as demonstrated in Jesus, God never completely abandons the objects of that love. Hopeful universalists in the church’s history would include Clement of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa among the early theologians. More recent examples are C. S. Lewis, Karl Barth, and Hans Urs Von Balthasar.

Scripture support for such a view might include passages such as Psalm 139:7-8, I Corinthians 3:11-15 & 15:22-28, Colossians 1:20, 1 Timothy 2:4, 1 Peter 3:19, 2 Peter 3:9. While these “hopeful” verses point to the wideness of God’s mercy, they do not allow for complacency.

Being by nature born in sinne (or Why Original Sin is a Goodly Doctrine)

2011-03-11T12:08:00.006-06:00

This Sunday, many Episcopalians will recite the Great Litany as part of their worship on the First Sunday of Lent. It is a stark recitation of our failure to live into God's goodness and a pleading for deliverance. It is a reminder that Christianity is a salvation religion: it assumes that there is something dreadfully wrong with us and the world and that we require deliverance from beyond ourselves.

The tendency among some Christians to minimize the radical nature of sin is not very helpful. Nor is it reflective of what Christianity in the Anglican tradition has taught:

Question.
What is the inward and spirituall grace [of baptism]?

Answer.
A death unto sinne, and a new birth unto righteousness: for being by nature born in sinne, and the children of wrath, we are hereby made the children of grace.

That is from the Catechism of the Scottish prayer book of 1637 (the one according to which Samuel Seabury (the first bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States) was ordained and on which ours is based). The same Catechism is found in the 1559 BCP (the Elizabethan Prayer Book used by Her Majesty as well as Lancelot Andrewes, Richard Hooker, John Donne, and others of the formative period of Anglicanism).

And there is A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER by John Donne

William Temple wrote, ". . . reason itself as it exists in us in vitiated. We wrongly estimate the ends of life, and give preference to those which should be subordinate, because they have a stronger appeal to our actual, empirical selves . . . It is the spirit which is evil; it is reason which is perverted; it is aspiration itself which is corrupt." Nature, Man, and God p. 368.

Actually, a sort of good news is hidden in the Christian doctrine of sin - even that "awful" doctrine of original sin. To believe in original sin is to believe that the way things are is not the way things are meant to be. It is to believe that sin is not the truest thing about us. It is to believe that viloence, selfishness, and will to power are not "natural" but aberrations of God's original intent which preceedes our fall into complicity with evil.

While, the philosophical Liberalism of the Enlightenment - from which what we popularly call "liberalism" and "conservatism" are both descended - is notoriously optimistic about human nature, it is actually based in something less than hopeful. As John Milbank points out in Liberality vs Liberalism:

[Liberalism is] based, in a Manichean fashion upon the ontological primacy of evil and violence: at the beginning is the threatened individual, piece of property, or racial terrain. This is not the same as an Augustinian acknowledgment of original sin, perversity and frailty -- a hopeful doctrine, since it affirms that all pervasive evil for which we cannot really account (by saying for example with Rousseau that it is the fault of property or social associations as such) is yet all the same a contingent intrusion upon reality, which can one day be fully overcome through the lure of the truly desirable is transcendent goodness (and that itself, in mode of grace, now aids us). Liberalism instead begins with a disguised naturalisation of original sin as original egotism: our own egotism which we seek to nurture, and still more the egotism of the other against which we need protection.

Original sin is, ironically, a hopeful doctrine because it declares that the way the world is and the way we are is not the way the world or we are meant to be. And we are not stuck with the sinfulness of our egotism, violence, and unlove.

Sin is pervasive, not just around us but in us. As such it is not something for which we only seek forgiveness but something from which we hope to be delivered and healed. The really good news is that God does not only forgive us for our sin, perversity and frailty, but promises to heal and strengthen us. In the prayer of absolution, we ask not only to be forgiven, but strengthened in all goodness. There is no room for cheap grace or moral complacency. We are called to repent and seek to be holy as we live into the promise that God will make us so.

Good Lord, deliver us.

Unconditional Love vs. Love Without Expectation

2011-03-10T08:49:00.000-06:00

Lent, among other things, is a reminder that the unconditional love of God is not the same as love without expectation.

The Fierce, Relentless Love of the Divine She-Bear (Ash Wednesday)

2011-03-04T14:59:00.000-06:00

“We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God . . . . Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation!”
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

If you’ve ever watched The Wild Kingdom or Animal Planet or some equivalent you know that you never want to get between a she-bear and her cub. The she-bear loves the cub. The she-bear desires for the cub to grow to maturity. The she-bear will protect the cub. In dealing with our sin, the God we know through Jesus Christ is like a she-bear dealing with whatever comes between her and her cub. God, like that she-bear, loves each of us, desires our good and opposes anything that comes between us and him. The hard part is that very often what comes between us and God is ourselves, or at least ways of being to which we have grown almost inextricably attached. We can expect that when the Great She-bear comes after that which is between her and the cub, that part of us that is between our true selves and God might be uncomfortable. God’s judgment and God’s fierce love are really two sides of the same coin. God is passionately and relentlessly committed to us. And God is passionately – to the point of anger – opposed to all that comes between him and us. That is judgment.

We say in the Creed that Jesus Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. Jesus comes into the world asking hard questions of what life is about. Where are we headed? To whom or to what are we loyal? How do we treat one another? Do we seek the good of the other, or do we seek to use the other towards whatever good we think is ours? Our answers to those questions matter. We will be judged. But, we also know that the one who will judge has also come as reconciler. Are the two contradictory? I don’t think so. Because we know Jesus as reconciler, we know something of what it means for him to be judge. We know that Jesus knows us better than we even know ourselves. The one who entered fully into the reality of human life knows each of our lives more deeply than we can hope to know ourselves. And, therefore, when he judges he takes into account all factors, all contingencies. We also know that the one who is the judge is passionately and relentlessly committed to us. Jesus, our reconciler, is on our side. His judgments are in that context.

But if he’s passionately and relentlessly committed to us, he is also, like a she-bear, passionately and relentlessly opposed to all that comes between us and the life he calls us to with his Father. That, of course, is what we call sin – anything that comes between us and God. That is where anger and judgment come in. Love that knows no anger is not real love. If you love someone and they are being hurt, you cannot be dispassionate. If God is dispassionate, or merely sad, when parents abuse their children, or when we abuse one another, or when the poor are oppressed, his love doesn’t mean much. God’s love means that he is fiercely opposed to and angered by those things that separate us from his love and from all others who he loves. He promises to deal with what separates us. Jesus will come again to judge.

The question in Lent is, “Are we going to let Jesus – reconciler and judge – have his way with us or are we going to try to have our way with him?” Jesus will come again to judge. I entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation! During this season of Lent, especially tonight on Ash Wednesday when we are reminded that our time is short and we don’t know how short it is, let us commit ourselves anew to offering up to God whatever it is in us that comes between us and him. Let us avail ourselves to the fierce, relentless love of the Divine She-bear.

First Goat, a Fable

2011-02-28T15:25:00.005-06:00

This is the story of First Goat. First Goat lived long ago in the before the before time. He lived there, just north of south and little east of west, with all the other first animals. There were First Dog, First Horse, First Elephant, First Chicken, and all the others. And they all got along. First Rabbit would go for walks with First Fox without any worries because First Rabbit knew that First Fox had a taste for broccoli and not rabbit stew. Even First Mosquito preferred fruit juice.

The world was new. It was so new not everything had happened. And not everything that had happened had happened completely. Things had not yet stuck in their final place. Sometimes the grass would start out green in the morning but turn to purple around noon. It usually turned green again before night – but even night sometimes came early and sometimes came late.
Sometimes the sun rose in the east, but sometimes it rose in the north. Things were still new. They had not stuck.

Some things were so new they had not happened yet at all. One day, the first rain fell. This surprised the first animals. But, they found it refreshing. They were dry, dusty, and dirty. They needed the first bath. As the rain fell on their noses and on their tongues, they became thirsty. The first puddle formed. The animals gathered around it. First Goat was surprised to see the reflection of the beautiful blue sky. The reflection was so clear, the puddle seemed to contain the whole sky.

Suddenly, First Goat remembered his thirst. Afraid the other animals might drink before he did, he pushed them out of the way, butting and kicking. He began to gulp furiously. But remember – everything had not yet stuck. Would you believe First Goat gulped so fast and so hard that he drank up the sky’s reflection right off the puddle? The glue hadn’t dried yet and it came unstuck. And now First Goat was full of the reflection of the sky.

Being full of sky, First Goat became very, very, very hungry. He began to eat and eat and eat. But he could not get full. After all, how can you fill the sky? He ate grass, he ate bark, he even ate bugs – but you can’t fill the sky with grass and bark and bugs. He even ate the wrapper of the first Twinkie – left on the ground by First Litterbug.

No matter what he ate, nothing could fill the emptiness. He tried distracting himself by singing and dancing and playing games with the other animals. But, he was still hungry and the empty sky inside would rumble and thunder. He tried to keep busy. He worked harder and longer. He built the first patio. Still he was hungry. He still contained the empty reflection of the sky.

And so have been all the goats that have come after First Goat. They still eat anything and everything. They still make noise all the time and keep moving, trying to satisfy the empty sky inside.

Humans are like First Goat. We experience a great emptiness, emptiness as big as the sky. We are full of the reflection, not of the sky, but of God. We are hungry – hungry for God. Like First Goat, we sometimes try desperately to fill that hunger with everything but God. We buy more and more stuff. We try to lose ourselves in work. We try to distract ourselves with play and entertainment. We move from place to place and from relationship to relationship. But we remain empty and restless.

As St. Augustine said, we are made for God and our hearts are restless until they rest in him. Our hearts are empty until they are filled with God. Try as we might to fill it with activity, things, or people, only God can fill our infinite emptiness. Activity, things, and people can distract us, can even numb us enough to forget the deep emptiness inside for a while. But they cannot fill us. They cannot satisfy. God created us for himself and God alone can satisfy us.

- The End -

Becoming People of Prayer

2011-02-21T12:39:00.003-06:00

In God’s Companions, Sam Wells, Duke University chaplain, suggests that one thing we hope become is persons congregations whose prayer makes sense.

Wells writes that there are patterns of life that help us become people of prayer. These patterns of life parallel aspects of prayer itself – petition, wonder, confession, gratitude, and silence.

Becoming the kind of person who can make petition to God means becoming incarnate – in other words, we are prodded to discover more about the actual flesh and blood person being prayed for, possibly to get to know them and the particulars of their life, perhaps visit them. It also means acknowledging, in humility, that we are all vulnerable, needy, and unable to rely on ourselves alone. This leads to patience with others when their brokenness or shortcomings are evident.

In a community that knows how to make petition, we learn to make petition of one another, asking “how can I help” and asking for help when we need it. It means embracing our interdependence.

Becoming the kind of person who can wonder at the goodness and mystery of God also means cherishing the splendor of the creation and exulting in our own life as part of creation. It might mean spending time with children for whom the gift of joy and wonder are still fresh.

In a community that knows wonder, we share the wonder and mystery of our own lives – our joys and sorrows, our triumphs and disappointments. It means celebrating together and comforting one another.

Becoming the kind of person who can confess sin to God also means being open to acknowledging patterns in our lives that we would just as soon ignore or deny.

In a community that knows how to confess, members positively seek to discover the ways in which they have wronged one another, never being surprised that misunderstanding, disappointment, and hurt occur, but seeing each instance as a prelude to reconciliation. It means being willing to speak and hear the truth in love.

Becoming the kind of person who can give thanks to God also means paying attention to the goodness in our lives and in the world around us and relishing it. It means understanding our life as a gift to be received rather than a prize to be seized.

In a community that knows how to give thanks, members will carefully consider those things for which they want or need to thank one another and how best to do so genuinely.

Becoming the kind of person who can be silent before God means understanding time as a gift to be shared rather than a commodity to be saved or spent. It means remembering that our time is not really our own, but God’s. It means learning to be still and to listen. It also means learning to be still long enough to listen to one another – listening (and watching) for revelation.

In a community that knows how to be silent, we make space to be silent together and share the intimacy and vulnerability of letting go of the urgency to always find the right word or the right action and resting in nothing but the grace of God.

May our lives make sense of our prayer and our prayer make sense of our lives.

A Little Something for Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T08:10:00.000-06:00

"It is the moral duty of lovers, as they certainly at moments know, to plunge with love into each other's life -- bringing power: power to resist temptation, to reject, to affirm, to purify, to pray."
- Charles Williams, The Figure of Beatrice, p. 204

Williams suggests that this duty is the business of Heaven.

Dance Me to the End of Love - The funniest videos clips are here

How Big is Your Church?

2011-02-09T06:59:00.004-06:00

People sometimes ask me, "How big is your church?" Occasionally I get asked the size of the budget. I rarely get asked questions like:

How faithful is the church you serve?
How generous is your church?
Does it attend to the real problems in the surrounding community?
Does it love and support its children? It’s elderly?
Are strangers welcome?
Are the people there merely nice or do they love with costly, genuine love?
How prayerful is your church?
Does your church worship in spirit and in truth?
Are the members of your church gentle with one another?
Are the members of your church free to be honest? Genuine?
Is there room for brokenness and failure at your church?
Is forgiveness practiced at your church?
Is your church the kind of place that encourages you to believe in God?*

In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus offers the Beatitudes, which might also serve as useful standards by which to measure church.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Is this a church that is poor in spirit? Are people encouraged to let go of the illusion of self-sufficiency and to recognize their own neediness? Most especially their need of God, but also their need of one another?

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Is this a place where mourning happens? Traditionally this has been understood to mean mourning for our own failure and sin. Is this church a place where we are encouraged to mourn our sin individually and corporately? Is repentance practiced? But, is this also a place where people are permitted to mourn the hurt, heartache, hardness of life? Or do we try to slap a smiley face on everything? Is this a place that mourns with those who mourn? Is this a place that mourns the very real suffering in the world around it? Does its mourning provoke action to address the suffering?

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

Is this a church where meekness is encouraged? Gentleness? Is humility, modeled on the self-emptying love of Jesus Christ, typical here?

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

Is this a congregation of people who hunger and thirst for righteousness? Is holiness encouraged and pursued? Is righteousness understood to be about right relationship with God and right relationship with others? Is this a community that knows what the LORD requires: to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.”

Is this a church where mercy is practiced and received? Are we patient with one another? Do we bear one another’s burden? Do we bear the burden of one another? Do we practice the art of forgiveness?

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

Does this church encourage and cultivate such devotion to Christ that our hearts are aligned with his and that every decision is made with the intention of being drawn deeper into his heart?

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Is this a church that knows and lives the art of reconciliation? Do its members seek peace? Do they resist the society's indulgence in anger, resentment, and vengeance? Its fascination with "redemptive" violence? Do its members know themselves to be agents of God’s ministry of reconciliation in the world?

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Though we live in a time and place where real persecution for righteousness' sake is unlikely, are people formed in this church such that they at least seem odd or peculiar to their neighbors because of the way they act, talk, and live? Are members encouraged to go against the flow? To question the status quo? To recognize that what passes for wisdom in this world is often foolishness in the light of God's wisdom?

And is this a church that is engaged with members of the body of Christ who are truly persecuted on Jesus’ account? Does it support and encourage those sister and brothers?

There are lots of ways to assess the health of a church. Most of them have little to do directly with the kinds of things that can be counted, weighed, or measured in the usual sense. Still, a church that is growing in the ways that matter is likely also to grow in the more conventionally measurable ways. Increasing attendance can be nothing more than ecclesial obesity or it can be a sign that the Holy Spirit is moving among the members of a church, birthing new life and drawing new people who desire to be a part of such a community and the resulting love, truth, and joy. A bigger budget doesn’t necessarily indicate spiritual health, but a growing budget can be a reflection a spirit of generosity, commitment, and thanksgiving.

Any church worth its salt of the earth and light of the world ought to be growing in tangible ways precisely because it is growing in the ways that really matter. Let us recommit ourselves to becoming more and more the kind of people and kind of church that can answer "yes" to the above questions. In many ways, the congregation of St. Barnabas does embody many of the above attributes. But, if that is true, we should be inviting everyone we know to come join us and welcome everyone who comes. We really ought not to hide this light under a bushel. But that is next week’s Gospel.

* This list is inspired by a similar one by my friend, the Rev. Steve Ellis, which he wrote for his parish newsletter several years ago.

Rowan Williams

2011-01-31T12:03:00.004-06:00

In the wake of the recent Anglican Communion Primates meeting, Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is being criticized as usual from both conservative and progressive absolutists. What representatives from both seem to want, and have wanted for some time, is for Rowan to either act like a pope (as long as he weighs in on their "side") or, in one way or another, concede to their "side" the moral and structural high ground. But, he does not have - and has been wary of assuming - the kind of authority some want him to exercise on behalf of their position. Rather he has tried to chart a course for the Anglican Communion acts in which constituent members behave as though they recognize the responsibilities of belonging to one another. Not hardline enough for conservatives who want things more narrowly defined and controlled, he is also not loose enough for progressives who seem determined to be bound to nothing but their own, often quite parochial, discernment.

I have not agreed with every move or statement Rowan Williams has made, but there is no one I would rather have serving as Archbishop of Canterbury at this time. Here is something I wrote some time ago that I think might explain why liberal/progressives in particular, but also conservatives, find him frustrating:

Many liberals/progressives have misunderstood Rowan Williams in that they assumed that he thought like them because he had argued for the possibility of rethinking the tradition in matters sexual and was not politically conservative. They were mistaken in at least three ways:

1. The fact that he has reached some conclusions similar to theirs does not mean he shares their Liberal Protestant theological convictions. Given his rather pointed critique of Jack Spong around the time of Lambeth '98, it was clear that his regard for traditional doctrine and discipline was more robust than that of theological liberals. He does not think inclusion as such is an adequate theological paradigm (though this has been mistakenly taken by some conservatives to mean that he believes gays and lesbians must cease being gay or lesbian to be welcome in the church).

It is possible that while he does think there is room for rethinking the traditional rejection of all homosexual behavior, he is put off by the liberal theology of that position's supporters in TEC. I suspect he has felt caught between those with whom he has more in common theologically and those with whom he shares certain social and political conclusions.

2. His catholicism is more than just a preference for a certain style of worship. As a catholic, he seems to believe that the truth is best discerned by the whole Church and is willing to live under that authority even when he seeks to make a case for rethinking certain particulars. The American church's unwillingness to live under that authority and, with patience and forbearance, seek to make a more convincing case and build a consensus is rather different. As a catholic, Williams thinks in terms of truth discerned and lived in community/communion more than generic or absolute principles (disconcerting to both liberal and conservative). And, unlike many liberals, Williams does not see the tradition of the church as a problem to be overcome, but a community in time to which we belong and with which it is possible to dialogue.

It is possible that he thinks the "uncatholic" way TEC has handled things has actually made making the case for rethinking the church's understanding of sexuality harder to get a hearing.

3. He does not seem to think that the case either for or against changing the Church's teaching (including the one he has attempted) is obvious or ironclad. He is thus prepared to listen to critiques of his own arguments and concede that those critiques have merit and must be taken seriously -- an attitude that is all too rare in our polarized context.

It is possible that he is frustrated by the attitude of complacent certitude of both liberals and conservatives - and has been bedeviled by the intransigence and absolutism of both.

As a Liberal Catholic in line with those like Charles Gore, Austin Farrer, and Michael Ramsey, Rowan Williams is too liberal for comfort among conservative Evangelicals and too catholic for comfort among Liberal Protestants. As such, perhaps he is, as much as anything, the heir of F. D. Maurice who in the 19th century critiqued the usual church factions and was seen as suspect by each of them as a result.

I remain an unabashed "Rowanian" and only wish there were more bishops like him in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

ONE, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church

2011-01-25T07:19:00.006-06:00

"We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church" - Nicene Creed

Father, we pray your holy Catholic Church.
That we all might be one.
Book of Common Prayer, p. 387

Given the evident conflict and division, claiming to believe the Church is "one" might be one of the bigger stumbling blocks in the creed.

In his book, The Creed, Luke Timothy Johnson makes the point that the Church's vocation to be "holy" is sometimes in tension with its vocation to be "one" and "catholic". While the tension can be difficult and uncomfortable, in truth they are not separable.

Being a Christian is a matter of believing, becoming, and belonging. It’s the belonging part that modern Christians tend to miss, having drunk deeply from the well of individualism. Belonging to the Church is not a merely spiritual affection. It must be embodied. To be a Christian is not merely to adopt a set of beliefs or behaviors on our own. It is not about abstractions like faith or love or justice or peace or whatever. It is about embodying such things as a community.

Jesus' prayer that his followers be one is thus fundamental to what we are supposed to be as the new community living in his Spirit under the new covenant inaugurated in his death and resurrection. The Church is to be a sign and foretaste of the kingdom of God in which the wound of the Original Schism of sin and brokenness is fully healed. Schism – between humans and God, and humans and humans - is the original sin colorfully depicted as unfolding in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. It is that Schism that Jesus comes to heal. Or as Ephesians has it, it is the barriers and enmity of that schism that he breaks down.

I suggest a fundamental mission of the church is reflected in one of the prayers in the Marriage Rite in the Book of Common Prayer: "Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair.” (BCP p. 429) Splitting the church is a counter-sign that undermines whatever aspect of the gospel it hopes to preserve/advance. The fact that the Church is already broken and in a state of schism does not justify further division, i.e., further false witness.

Schism can be provoked (by the zealous pursuit of holiness - or justice, or whatever reformation/revision someone thinks necessary) as well as pursued (by those who are convinced they - and God - are better served by separating from those with whom they disagree). We have seen plenty of both in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion over the last decade. Both are a participation in the Original Schism of sin.

Being bound to one another, actually learning to love – not the insipid sentimentalism that often goes by that name, but the love typified by the self-emptying way of the cross - is part of our witness to the world. It is hard - the Church is a school of love that is often a school of hard knocks – but it is the more excellent way. This includes speaking truth, offering and receiving correction, etc. It also includes trusting that the Church is the body of Christ and that its destiny, along with ours as members of it, is in God's hands. Part of what it means for the Church to be the light of the world is to actually be the community envisioned in Romans 12, Philippians 2, Ephesians 4, etc.

Thus, while it is encouraging that they have reiterated their commitment to the Anglican Communion, it is still disappointing that some primates are absenting themselves from this week's meeting in Dublin. But, it is also disappopinting that many in the Episcopal Church are so convinced that they know the mind of the Spirit that they are willing to pursue actions that most of the rest of the Anglican Communion has yet to be persuaded are faithful.

An Anglican Covenant makes sense, not because it will settle any given issue once and for all (it won't) but because it just might enable the Anglican Communion to live more fully into the vocation to be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.

Here is something from Charles Gore reflecting on what some early church theologians had to say about schism.

I hope to write reflections on the Church's vocation to be holy, catholic, and apostolic in the future.

liberal donuts & conservative cupcakes

2011-01-21T09:58:00.000-06:00

Neither liberal donuts with Jesus-glaze nor conservative cupcakes with Christian food-coloring should be confused with the Bread of Life which is challenge, comfort, and nourishment to all comers.

A lot of American Christians need to change their diet.