Sunday, April 5, 2020
A Reflection on a Palm Sunday Hymn
Ride on! Ride on! in majesty, the winged squadron of the sky
Look down with sad and wondering eyes, to see the approaching sacrifice.
Ride on! Ride on! in majesty, thy last and fiercest strife is nigh.
The Father on his sapphire throne, expects his own anointed Son. ~Milman, 1820
Three years ago, I had the pleasure of rehearsing the hymn that includes these verses with a class of seminarians who had a deep affection for poetry and theology. The reaction of one, imprinted indelibly on my mind, was tears at these two verses. It isn’t surprising-I’ve had the same reaction. One of a good hymn’s greatest traits, is its ability to speak of objective events without injecting the author’s subjective opinions of the event. There is no “I” or “Me” anywhere in this hymn. And yet, at the same time, it is suffused with deeply moving imagery, poetry, and devotion.
A few thoughts on these stanzas: the irony of the shared opening line must be embraced. The majesty is not what we would imagine. Rather than a glorious steed, the Davidic King, the one who had just raised Lazarus from the dead, approaches on the lowliest of animals. As long prophesied, he comes on an ass, meek and lowly. Some degree of mystery, a lingering sense that something was not quite right, must have overshadowed this otherwise joyous occasion. This is attested by the author’s reflection on the angel armies, the entire heavenly host gazing upon this spectacle with sadness and wonder. Wonder, because as the scriptures teach, the angels look upon the mysteries of salvation without full comprehension. (I Pet.1:12) Yet here, sadness too. The angelic band senses the inconsistency of His Majesty’s beast and the clamors of “Hosanna!”. An awareness exists that this scene will rapidly transition from celebration to crucifixion. This reality awakens sadness in the messengers of God as they realize the divine scheme’s most critical moments have arrived. And the author keenly grasps the precise reason for Christ’s entry into Jerusalem-he comes as sacrifice. More on this momentarily.
The idea that there was a “last strife” indicates this isn’t the first contest for Christ and the powers of darkness. And indeed, the fasting and temptation in the wilderness, the challenges by the Jewish elite, and other events in Christ’s life could all be counted as strife. But here, hell will summon all its powers. One last, grand effort is launched-a battle the devil seemingly wins, though we know in the words of Chrysostom that “hell took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took that which was seen, and was overcome by what was unseen.” Imagine, only one Warrior could prevail in this encounter-humanity united to Divinity in the Person of Jesus Christ. Hell would have succeeded in any other fight. But not with the Word made Flesh. No mistake should be made, however, it was a fierce strife. And no other power could be summoned to wrestle with sin and death-but Life himself. And that is why the verse ends with the glorious line “the Father...expects his own anointed Son.”
But this battle would not be waged with conventional weapons. A meek and lowly servant-a willing victim- fights with a love that could not be overcome. There are numerous interpretive lenses through which we can examine the atonement. But the chief one, and the one to which all other must be subservient, is that Christ is sacrifice. He willingly lays down his life. The Father does not execute him. Neither does Pilate or the rabble. It is a free offering which both fulfills and supersedes every other sacrifice made within the walls of the temple. The words of Jesus’ cousin and forerunner “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” are apt. Watch as the Lord, strong and mighty, the King of Glory rides to the everlasting doors armed with divine love to freely give himself.
Reflecting on these themes, tears seem an appropriate response.
Friday, March 13, 2020
Thoughts from Screwtape
My Dear Wormwood,
With great pleasure, I received your last message indicating the fear your patient felt at the ongoing international calamity. Indeed, the censors of Hell have been filled with the aroma of human panic. Such delights, you must know, enchant Our Father’s heart. My admonishment to you is to continue feeding this fear. Be sure that you entice him to check his social media accounts. It makes little difference whether he reads a news report, cynical conspiracy, or a witty meme-the thing is to keep the source of fear before his eyes. When his mind turns toward work, family, friends, or especially to our Enemy, slip into his conscience a reminder of what could happen. In fact, this is the key: the Enemy desires the humans to be concerned with what they do. Your job is to focus the patient’s attention on how things may turn out. The present circumstances should help with this.
While times of great turmoil gladden our souls and human dread is our sacrament, I must warn you that such seasons can give rise to an awful specter. I can barely write it: humans considering their own mortality. Ah! Perish the thought! Slybucks and his research team have invested ages in perfecting the art of distraction. Most of our patients are buried in so many layers of them, that even if one is lost, we still have them firmly under our control. But even our best tempters have, at times, been thwarted by patients contemplating death. When it forces itself before their eyes, they begin to grapple with their priorities, order their affections, and fly to the protection of the Enemy. For reasons we have not yet discerned, He always receives them.
Wormwood, scattered reports have reached my desk which concern me. Mind you, there is time to work these developments in our favor, but you must act swiftly. The cancellation of sporting events, closing of schools, and social-distancing are giving your patient time for silence and reflection. It is precisely this scenario which could undermine all of your efforts. Instead of letting him use this time wisely, you must engender in him feelings of sadness for the toys he has lost. Lead him to wonder when he will have them again. A double pleasure! Not only will you distract him from the thoughts which would lead him to the Enemy but you will have him dwelling on distractions he cannot have. In his disappointment and despair, bring his attention again to his worst fears. His misery will be your amusement now and his soul ours forever.
Your affectionate Uncle,
Screwtape
With great pleasure, I received your last message indicating the fear your patient felt at the ongoing international calamity. Indeed, the censors of Hell have been filled with the aroma of human panic. Such delights, you must know, enchant Our Father’s heart. My admonishment to you is to continue feeding this fear. Be sure that you entice him to check his social media accounts. It makes little difference whether he reads a news report, cynical conspiracy, or a witty meme-the thing is to keep the source of fear before his eyes. When his mind turns toward work, family, friends, or especially to our Enemy, slip into his conscience a reminder of what could happen. In fact, this is the key: the Enemy desires the humans to be concerned with what they do. Your job is to focus the patient’s attention on how things may turn out. The present circumstances should help with this.
While times of great turmoil gladden our souls and human dread is our sacrament, I must warn you that such seasons can give rise to an awful specter. I can barely write it: humans considering their own mortality. Ah! Perish the thought! Slybucks and his research team have invested ages in perfecting the art of distraction. Most of our patients are buried in so many layers of them, that even if one is lost, we still have them firmly under our control. But even our best tempters have, at times, been thwarted by patients contemplating death. When it forces itself before their eyes, they begin to grapple with their priorities, order their affections, and fly to the protection of the Enemy. For reasons we have not yet discerned, He always receives them.
Wormwood, scattered reports have reached my desk which concern me. Mind you, there is time to work these developments in our favor, but you must act swiftly. The cancellation of sporting events, closing of schools, and social-distancing are giving your patient time for silence and reflection. It is precisely this scenario which could undermine all of your efforts. Instead of letting him use this time wisely, you must engender in him feelings of sadness for the toys he has lost. Lead him to wonder when he will have them again. A double pleasure! Not only will you distract him from the thoughts which would lead him to the Enemy but you will have him dwelling on distractions he cannot have. In his disappointment and despair, bring his attention again to his worst fears. His misery will be your amusement now and his soul ours forever.
Your affectionate Uncle,
Screwtape
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Why Do We Study the Ancients?
Catherine asked me to address you all today on the topic of studying ancient cultures which is no small task and I will say upfront that there are a number of answers to this question which I will probably not even touch. The question is broad; but before I begin, let me say that I’m answering this question with two things in mind: 1.) that this is an objection that might be raised by a well-meaning Christian who thinks the Bible and a little American history are sufficient curriculum for a young believer. 2.) That the definition of “ancient” encompasses pre-Christian societies such as Greece and Rome.
The first reason we study the ancients is that the Bible is not the complete source of all Truth. I think that Christians are often prone to making the mistake that when it comes to questions of theology, philosophy, ethics, or anything you might study which isn’t related to our narrow definitions of math and science, the Bible is the starting and finishing place. What I’d like to suggest is that while we hold the Bible to be completely true, it is not the only source of Truth. We have the great privilege of special revelation through Jesus Christ and the Scriptures. But there is another path toward God, what we call natural revelation-that which can be discerned by examining nature and by virtue of being created in the Image of God. Because this is what the ancients relied on solely, they became awfully good at discerning Truth without having any special knowledge of what, or more specifically, who Truth was. Using the Light of Reason alone, the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and other Pagans bequeathed to us a lively tradition of literature which explores the Truths of God, Humanity, Nature and so on.
For instance, let us consider Virgil. He was born some seventy years before Christ and is considered the foremost poet of Ancient Rome. Writing one of Western Civilization’s five great epic poems will earn you that distinction. But though he would be rightly famous for the Aeneid’s composition, it is another of his works, the Eclogues to which I’d like to direct your attention. In the 4th eclogue, Virgil discusses a boy who will usher in a golden age of peace; an age marked by lions who will no longer attack herds of sheep; a boy who would take away the world’s guilt; a boy who converses with the gods. Many of the church’s theologians regarded Virgil’s words as prophetic of Jesus’ coming-and indeed, the words of the poem certainly hearken back to the prophecy of Isaiah. It is for this reason that Dante chose Virgil as his guide through Hell and Purgatory. With that in mind, it seems reasonable to believe that we ought to examine Virgil’s other works for wisdom. That is why our 10th graders read the Aeneid.
It shouldn’t surprise us that an ancient pagan has things to teach Christians. Not only are they guided by reason, but if we accept the biblical account, we are all descendants of Noah. It is not long after the flood waters recede that men decided to build a tower that would reach to the heavens. It was here that men were scattered and their languages confused. Yet, while confused, would they not have carried with them the same oral tradition as those who were dispersed in another direction? The oral tradition which would have featured the Creation of God, the Judgement of God, and the Mercy of God? And so it is that cultures the world around are infused with elements of Truth that shine through the musings of their philosophers and poets.
Now, I briefly summarized the contents of Virgil’s eclogue as a way of showing the Messianic character of some pre-Christian writing. One might object though, it sounds like passages in the Bible already-why do we need to add anything? Well what about virtues that are latent in Scripture which are more fully expounded in other literature?
One such virtue, which repeatedly leaps off the pages of Homer’s Odyssey, continually inspires conversation and questions among my Great Books students. It is the virtue of Xenia-that is Hospitality. In the Odyssey it is not uncommon to read about a guest arriving at someone’s home and being offered dinner, entertainment, lodging, various gifts, and ultimately, conveyance to their next location. In some cases, this is done without even asking for the name of the recipient. Why is such grace extended? Overall, it seems that levels of mutual trust were much higher. This leads naturally to a conversation on what has eroded trust. The overarching answer to this question is “fear”. Whereas the Homeric characters are seen welcoming the stranger into their midst (with several notable exceptions) the modern American Christian shies away from the unfamiliar on the off chance they may encounter a serial murderer or rapist.
In the time the Odyssey was written, extending hospitality was not only expected by Zeus and the travelling stranger, but it was an opportunity for the host to sow goodwill. In an age where hotels were not as prevalent as they are today, any sort of trip required dependence on hospitality. Under this system, it is difficult to imagine a scenario where the pilgrim would be refused since the host would count on the reciprocation of his kindness at a later time. It is equally difficult to see why the guest would commit a crime knowing that he would not be welcomed on future trips, thus prohibiting said trips. I don’t think I have to spell out for you the modern political issues that Homer is addressing-and I won’t since I have no desire for half the room to hate me when I’m finished speaking.
But I think Christians would do well to learn from the unfettered hospitality of the Ancient Greeks. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews echoes the sentiments of Homer when he writes“be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” This is certainly a broad call to a more hospitable existence, but it is nowhere near as well fleshed our as the Odyssey. And so, I reiterate, the Bible is completely true, but by far, not the only source of Truth and that is a central reason we read and study ancient cultures and literature.
A second reason I would like to posit is because the New Testament, particularly St. Paul’s letters, use the language of Plato and Aristotle. If Platonism and Aristotelianism undergird the writings of Paul, we should certainly be familiar with their ramifications for doing theology. And again, this should not surprise us, remember, what we sometimes refer to as “books of the New Testament” are mostly letters to specific regions-many of them, Corinth for example, in Greece, the place where Plato and Aristotle would be widely accepted and where, if St. Paul wanted to make an impact, he would have to speak “Greek”. One of the initial places we can see this is in the first letter to the Corinithians. “Since by man came death by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die,even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Paul, on first blush, denies the existence of the will and its corollary doctrine of Hell. Christ’s coming has made everyone alive whether they want to be or not. But this seeming difficulty is very easy to resolve if you understand Paul is speaking Plato. One of the integral themes in Platonic writing is the existence of Forms. The shortest way to summarize what these are is to consider beauty. Mountains and oceans may both be said to be beautiful even though they are obviously different. They are beautiful according to Plato, because they reflect or participate in a universal form of Beauty. Why does this matter for Theology? When Paul writes to the Corinthians-he uses humanity as a universal. As all of humanity is corrupted by the Fall of Adam, so too all of it is restored by the Perfect and True Form of Humanity-namely Christ. This is not universalism in the sense that all men are automatically going to heaven-but it rules out any notion that Christ’s death and resurrection are not sufficient for all-precisely because we are all linked together by the universal of humanity.
Paul also uses Aristotle. Aristotle is famous for talking about the “ends” of things. The most familiar example is that of the acorn. Built into the Acorn is the potential for an oak tree. It is the telos or the purpose of the acorn’s existence. Aristotle would jump from that to discussing humanity. We too have an end or purpose toward which we are striving. Paul latches on to this idea and language in his Epistle to the Ephesians. “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”
What he means is that man has a telos, an end, or a purpose. Our destiny is comformity to the image of God and adoption into the family of Jesus Christ-that is our final Cause, our end. The predestination Paul speaks of is sometimes mis-interpreted to mean the inclusion of some and rejection of others-as some being chosen and others not. It would make sense if you didn’t see the Aristotelian language to interpret it this way. But knowing that Paul is aping Aristotle, we conclude that predestination has more to do with the end for which we were created than it does with God picking favorites
In all, we study the Ancients to better know Christ, to better understand how we ought to live, and finally, to better comprehend theology. Knowing this, the Scriptures are sufficient for our salvation, but superbly supplemented by other sources and traditions.
The first reason we study the ancients is that the Bible is not the complete source of all Truth. I think that Christians are often prone to making the mistake that when it comes to questions of theology, philosophy, ethics, or anything you might study which isn’t related to our narrow definitions of math and science, the Bible is the starting and finishing place. What I’d like to suggest is that while we hold the Bible to be completely true, it is not the only source of Truth. We have the great privilege of special revelation through Jesus Christ and the Scriptures. But there is another path toward God, what we call natural revelation-that which can be discerned by examining nature and by virtue of being created in the Image of God. Because this is what the ancients relied on solely, they became awfully good at discerning Truth without having any special knowledge of what, or more specifically, who Truth was. Using the Light of Reason alone, the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and other Pagans bequeathed to us a lively tradition of literature which explores the Truths of God, Humanity, Nature and so on.
For instance, let us consider Virgil. He was born some seventy years before Christ and is considered the foremost poet of Ancient Rome. Writing one of Western Civilization’s five great epic poems will earn you that distinction. But though he would be rightly famous for the Aeneid’s composition, it is another of his works, the Eclogues to which I’d like to direct your attention. In the 4th eclogue, Virgil discusses a boy who will usher in a golden age of peace; an age marked by lions who will no longer attack herds of sheep; a boy who would take away the world’s guilt; a boy who converses with the gods. Many of the church’s theologians regarded Virgil’s words as prophetic of Jesus’ coming-and indeed, the words of the poem certainly hearken back to the prophecy of Isaiah. It is for this reason that Dante chose Virgil as his guide through Hell and Purgatory. With that in mind, it seems reasonable to believe that we ought to examine Virgil’s other works for wisdom. That is why our 10th graders read the Aeneid.
It shouldn’t surprise us that an ancient pagan has things to teach Christians. Not only are they guided by reason, but if we accept the biblical account, we are all descendants of Noah. It is not long after the flood waters recede that men decided to build a tower that would reach to the heavens. It was here that men were scattered and their languages confused. Yet, while confused, would they not have carried with them the same oral tradition as those who were dispersed in another direction? The oral tradition which would have featured the Creation of God, the Judgement of God, and the Mercy of God? And so it is that cultures the world around are infused with elements of Truth that shine through the musings of their philosophers and poets.
Now, I briefly summarized the contents of Virgil’s eclogue as a way of showing the Messianic character of some pre-Christian writing. One might object though, it sounds like passages in the Bible already-why do we need to add anything? Well what about virtues that are latent in Scripture which are more fully expounded in other literature?
One such virtue, which repeatedly leaps off the pages of Homer’s Odyssey, continually inspires conversation and questions among my Great Books students. It is the virtue of Xenia-that is Hospitality. In the Odyssey it is not uncommon to read about a guest arriving at someone’s home and being offered dinner, entertainment, lodging, various gifts, and ultimately, conveyance to their next location. In some cases, this is done without even asking for the name of the recipient. Why is such grace extended? Overall, it seems that levels of mutual trust were much higher. This leads naturally to a conversation on what has eroded trust. The overarching answer to this question is “fear”. Whereas the Homeric characters are seen welcoming the stranger into their midst (with several notable exceptions) the modern American Christian shies away from the unfamiliar on the off chance they may encounter a serial murderer or rapist.
In the time the Odyssey was written, extending hospitality was not only expected by Zeus and the travelling stranger, but it was an opportunity for the host to sow goodwill. In an age where hotels were not as prevalent as they are today, any sort of trip required dependence on hospitality. Under this system, it is difficult to imagine a scenario where the pilgrim would be refused since the host would count on the reciprocation of his kindness at a later time. It is equally difficult to see why the guest would commit a crime knowing that he would not be welcomed on future trips, thus prohibiting said trips. I don’t think I have to spell out for you the modern political issues that Homer is addressing-and I won’t since I have no desire for half the room to hate me when I’m finished speaking.
But I think Christians would do well to learn from the unfettered hospitality of the Ancient Greeks. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews echoes the sentiments of Homer when he writes“be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” This is certainly a broad call to a more hospitable existence, but it is nowhere near as well fleshed our as the Odyssey. And so, I reiterate, the Bible is completely true, but by far, not the only source of Truth and that is a central reason we read and study ancient cultures and literature.
A second reason I would like to posit is because the New Testament, particularly St. Paul’s letters, use the language of Plato and Aristotle. If Platonism and Aristotelianism undergird the writings of Paul, we should certainly be familiar with their ramifications for doing theology. And again, this should not surprise us, remember, what we sometimes refer to as “books of the New Testament” are mostly letters to specific regions-many of them, Corinth for example, in Greece, the place where Plato and Aristotle would be widely accepted and where, if St. Paul wanted to make an impact, he would have to speak “Greek”. One of the initial places we can see this is in the first letter to the Corinithians. “Since by man came death by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die,even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Paul, on first blush, denies the existence of the will and its corollary doctrine of Hell. Christ’s coming has made everyone alive whether they want to be or not. But this seeming difficulty is very easy to resolve if you understand Paul is speaking Plato. One of the integral themes in Platonic writing is the existence of Forms. The shortest way to summarize what these are is to consider beauty. Mountains and oceans may both be said to be beautiful even though they are obviously different. They are beautiful according to Plato, because they reflect or participate in a universal form of Beauty. Why does this matter for Theology? When Paul writes to the Corinthians-he uses humanity as a universal. As all of humanity is corrupted by the Fall of Adam, so too all of it is restored by the Perfect and True Form of Humanity-namely Christ. This is not universalism in the sense that all men are automatically going to heaven-but it rules out any notion that Christ’s death and resurrection are not sufficient for all-precisely because we are all linked together by the universal of humanity.
Paul also uses Aristotle. Aristotle is famous for talking about the “ends” of things. The most familiar example is that of the acorn. Built into the Acorn is the potential for an oak tree. It is the telos or the purpose of the acorn’s existence. Aristotle would jump from that to discussing humanity. We too have an end or purpose toward which we are striving. Paul latches on to this idea and language in his Epistle to the Ephesians. “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”
What he means is that man has a telos, an end, or a purpose. Our destiny is comformity to the image of God and adoption into the family of Jesus Christ-that is our final Cause, our end. The predestination Paul speaks of is sometimes mis-interpreted to mean the inclusion of some and rejection of others-as some being chosen and others not. It would make sense if you didn’t see the Aristotelian language to interpret it this way. But knowing that Paul is aping Aristotle, we conclude that predestination has more to do with the end for which we were created than it does with God picking favorites
In all, we study the Ancients to better know Christ, to better understand how we ought to live, and finally, to better comprehend theology. Knowing this, the Scriptures are sufficient for our salvation, but superbly supplemented by other sources and traditions.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Sermon for 1st Sunday after Christmas/St. John the Evangelist
Sermon for the 1st Sunday after Christmas/St. John the Evangelist
Billy Jenkins
Today, the church celebrates the feast of St. John the Evangelist. Which of course means, our readings, despite being the first Sunday after Christmas, do not sound particularly Christmassy. But that’s alright, we still have occasion to speak of the events of Christmas today. For the reason St. John’s feast is the 3rd day of Christmas is because he spent much time elaborating on the themes of light in darkness and that the Light of the world was the Incarnate Son of God. The Word, the 2nd person of the Trinity, took to himself a body and became God in the Flesh.
I hope all of you have taken some time to be lost in the wonder of this mystery over the last few days. I know for me it takes some effort; the seminary classes I teach spend a good amount of time talking about the Incarnation and I’m quite positive I could bore you to tears with some of the tedious thoughts that surrounded the person of Jesus Christ in the earliest church. But it’s more than that; I struggle because this idea that God came down at Christmas and was born of a Virgin in a stable has been so engrained in me that I take it for granted. I’d like us to consider a couple of thoughts; first, from C.S Lewis. In his book, Miracles, he spoke of the grand miracle being the Incarnation of the Divine Word. And he wrote, to get your mind wrapped around this event consider this analogy: God becoming man, is like one of us deigning to take on the existence of a slug. Think about that: a slimy, gross slug-small, living under wood and rocks. A creature I think many of us look at and either don’t think twice about, or who give a short and succinct exposition of our feelings by saying “ew”! And so, the Incarnation is a great condescension. We should reflect on that.
But it’s more than the humility of God’s Son. It’s also a mystery as to how it even took place. How does one who is eternal step into time? Micah’s prophecy tells us that his goings have been of old and that he is from everlasting. How does this work? Furthermore, this is the God who made everything, and as its Maker, exists outside of all his creation. We sing this somewhat regularly at communion “whom all the world could not contain”. And yet, he takes on the limits of space which is common to all men. To use the theological term, God becomes circumscribed in the person of Jesus, he takes boundaries to himself. Again, how is that even possible? I won’t pretend that I can explain it-but I want us all to marvel at this. We may not understand the “how” but with the blessed Mother, we too can ponder all these things in our heart.”
In reflecting on God becoming man, it is not only his humility and the mystery of it all, it is the wonder of God establishing a way for men to return to him. I would like to stitch together several passages to help make this point. One of my favorite verses of Scripture is from Isaiah 40, where the prophet wrote “the Glory of the Lord of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” Perhaps, on the surface, this verse does not strike you as odd. But I have to imagine that any Jew who heard or read what Isaiah had to say would have been shocked. After all, this privilege of seeing God’s glory was not accorded to Moses, the man who stands next to Abraham as the two pillars of Jewish tradition. Do you remember that story? It comes from the end of Exodus 33. It is filled with anthropomorphic figures of speech to describe Jehovah, it is dark, it is mysterious and terrible. Listen to these verses:
And he (moses) said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.
19 And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.
20 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
21 And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:
22 And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:
23 And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.
Moses, the meekest man on the earth, by all accounts deserving, if any man were, to see the glory of God, was forbidden. He was able to see a little bit of the back end of it, but the sheer weight and luminosity of God’s glory would have killed him according to verse 20. While this is certainly true and the clearest understanding of the text, I want to suggest that there is also an element of timing involved in God’s decision. First, St. John clearly teaches in his first epistle that there will come a time in the age to come, that men will see God “as he is”. At that time, the Glory of God will not be too much a burden for us to bear, but we will revel in it. Set free completely from sin, we will no longer feel the piercing of his holy eyes. That is why heaven has long been described in the church as the “beatific vision”, to behold the face of God. That is what we long for. But must we wait for death to attain the vision of God?
We return again to our Old Testament reading; “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” When is it that this glory will be seen? Does Isaiah say at death? Recall the verses that immediately preceded it: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the highway a desert for our God.” We’ve just concluded the season of Advent where we see this passage featured in the gospel and call to worship. We know this is the voice of John the Baptizer. So if we read this passage carefully we can determine that, after the Baptist, those of low estate would be lifted up, those who esteemed themselves highly would be made low, and those who were crooked and rough would be straightened and smooth by the call to repentance. And after this had been done, the glory of God would be revealed. Well what did John prophesy? Yes, he was a prophet in the sense of calling the people to repentance. But he also pointed ahead to something, or in this case, someone. We read just a week ago the words “there stands one among you whose shoe I’m unworthy to unloose.” When Isaiah said the “glory of the Lord shall be revealed” on the heels of John the Baptist, he meant Christ. Christ is the glory of the Lord. This is why on Christmas day we read that great verse from Hebrews 1 the Son is “the brightness [or radiance] of the Father’s glory”.
But as clear as the author of Hebrews may be, this passage is trumped, as it were, by the Gospel for Christmas day. What our beloved St. John teaches us at the end of his prologue is this: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John teaches his readers that we have seen the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ. That which Moses was blocked from seeing, that which Isaiah some five hundred years later said would in the future be revealed,is manifested forth in the child of Bethlehem.
Friends, you should wonder at our Lord’s humility; you should stand amazed in contemplation of the mystery of the incarnation; but I urge you to step beyond this and consider that Isaiah says all flesh will see the Glory of the Lord revealed. In the older covenant, not even Moses, who shared intimate communion with God in the mountain, not even Moses, was able to see this glory. But we have that right! In taking humanity unto himself, God has made a way of access for us to the glory of the Father which we in our fallen state cannot behold. That is an enormous part of the beauty of living in the newer covenant.
You might ask, and fairly so, what’s the big deal? So God in his mercy chooses in the fullness of time to show his glory in a way he had previously not, why does that matter? I think the key to understanding this lies in Jehovah’s answer to Moses upon Moses’ request to see God’s glory. The Lord answered him “I will make all my goodness pass before thee.” Shortly thereafter, the Lord hides him because he can’t see this goodness. The puritan commentator Matthew Henry explicitly states, “the goodness of God is his glory.” Which means that the child in the manger is God’s goodness. And this makes perfect sense; in Exodus 33:19 as the Lord describes the goodness that will pass before Moses, he says “I will be gracious to those whom I will be gracious and I will show mercy on those whom I show mercy.” In other words, goodness of God is the grace and mercy which saves us. While the older covenant had rituals which looked ahead to the coming of the Messiah, God’s glory, or goodness, were not yet fully revealed. Beloved, in the Christmas seasons, we rejoice that that which the holy seers and prophets saw not, has been revealed to us.
And that pronoun, “us” is interesting. In the limited vision God gave Moses, he made one thing absolutely clear: his grace and mercy would remain partially shrouded and would extend only as far as God deemed it should go, namely Israel. But Isaiah foresaw that “all flesh would see it”. When the Word took flesh to himself, the fullness of God’s plan was revealed. The limitation of salvation to the house of Israel would be blown wide open as the Gentiles would be welcomed in to the fold. Friends, we must eschew any sense of self-importance and deserving. The holiest man of the Israelites was denied what the most common of all Gentiles has now seen.
One of the unfortunately neglected saints in the Christmas season is Simeon. The end of Luke chapter 2 tells us that he was a holy man who was promised that he would not taste of death until he saw the Lord’s Christ. He lived in the Temple and when Mary and Joseph brought him, Simeon sang the most lovely of songs. “Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word. For my eyes have seen they salvation.” Simeon looked upon the newborn and saw the salvation of God; which is to say he saw the goodness of God; which is to say, he saw the glory of God. And he knew Isaiah’s prophecy: which is why his song continues with the theme that Christ would be a “light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel.” Simeon knew all flesh would be able to see what he saw.
In a little while, we will sing again the carol of Charles Wesley, Hark! The Herald. And we will sing that magnificent line “Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, Hail! The incarnate Deity.” The glory which St. John labored to explain , the glory now available for all men to behold, is there in the Christ child. O come, let us adore him. Alleluia. Amen.
Billy Jenkins
Today, the church celebrates the feast of St. John the Evangelist. Which of course means, our readings, despite being the first Sunday after Christmas, do not sound particularly Christmassy. But that’s alright, we still have occasion to speak of the events of Christmas today. For the reason St. John’s feast is the 3rd day of Christmas is because he spent much time elaborating on the themes of light in darkness and that the Light of the world was the Incarnate Son of God. The Word, the 2nd person of the Trinity, took to himself a body and became God in the Flesh.
I hope all of you have taken some time to be lost in the wonder of this mystery over the last few days. I know for me it takes some effort; the seminary classes I teach spend a good amount of time talking about the Incarnation and I’m quite positive I could bore you to tears with some of the tedious thoughts that surrounded the person of Jesus Christ in the earliest church. But it’s more than that; I struggle because this idea that God came down at Christmas and was born of a Virgin in a stable has been so engrained in me that I take it for granted. I’d like us to consider a couple of thoughts; first, from C.S Lewis. In his book, Miracles, he spoke of the grand miracle being the Incarnation of the Divine Word. And he wrote, to get your mind wrapped around this event consider this analogy: God becoming man, is like one of us deigning to take on the existence of a slug. Think about that: a slimy, gross slug-small, living under wood and rocks. A creature I think many of us look at and either don’t think twice about, or who give a short and succinct exposition of our feelings by saying “ew”! And so, the Incarnation is a great condescension. We should reflect on that.
But it’s more than the humility of God’s Son. It’s also a mystery as to how it even took place. How does one who is eternal step into time? Micah’s prophecy tells us that his goings have been of old and that he is from everlasting. How does this work? Furthermore, this is the God who made everything, and as its Maker, exists outside of all his creation. We sing this somewhat regularly at communion “whom all the world could not contain”. And yet, he takes on the limits of space which is common to all men. To use the theological term, God becomes circumscribed in the person of Jesus, he takes boundaries to himself. Again, how is that even possible? I won’t pretend that I can explain it-but I want us all to marvel at this. We may not understand the “how” but with the blessed Mother, we too can ponder all these things in our heart.”
In reflecting on God becoming man, it is not only his humility and the mystery of it all, it is the wonder of God establishing a way for men to return to him. I would like to stitch together several passages to help make this point. One of my favorite verses of Scripture is from Isaiah 40, where the prophet wrote “the Glory of the Lord of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” Perhaps, on the surface, this verse does not strike you as odd. But I have to imagine that any Jew who heard or read what Isaiah had to say would have been shocked. After all, this privilege of seeing God’s glory was not accorded to Moses, the man who stands next to Abraham as the two pillars of Jewish tradition. Do you remember that story? It comes from the end of Exodus 33. It is filled with anthropomorphic figures of speech to describe Jehovah, it is dark, it is mysterious and terrible. Listen to these verses:
And he (moses) said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.
19 And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.
20 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
21 And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:
22 And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:
23 And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.
Moses, the meekest man on the earth, by all accounts deserving, if any man were, to see the glory of God, was forbidden. He was able to see a little bit of the back end of it, but the sheer weight and luminosity of God’s glory would have killed him according to verse 20. While this is certainly true and the clearest understanding of the text, I want to suggest that there is also an element of timing involved in God’s decision. First, St. John clearly teaches in his first epistle that there will come a time in the age to come, that men will see God “as he is”. At that time, the Glory of God will not be too much a burden for us to bear, but we will revel in it. Set free completely from sin, we will no longer feel the piercing of his holy eyes. That is why heaven has long been described in the church as the “beatific vision”, to behold the face of God. That is what we long for. But must we wait for death to attain the vision of God?
We return again to our Old Testament reading; “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” When is it that this glory will be seen? Does Isaiah say at death? Recall the verses that immediately preceded it: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the highway a desert for our God.” We’ve just concluded the season of Advent where we see this passage featured in the gospel and call to worship. We know this is the voice of John the Baptizer. So if we read this passage carefully we can determine that, after the Baptist, those of low estate would be lifted up, those who esteemed themselves highly would be made low, and those who were crooked and rough would be straightened and smooth by the call to repentance. And after this had been done, the glory of God would be revealed. Well what did John prophesy? Yes, he was a prophet in the sense of calling the people to repentance. But he also pointed ahead to something, or in this case, someone. We read just a week ago the words “there stands one among you whose shoe I’m unworthy to unloose.” When Isaiah said the “glory of the Lord shall be revealed” on the heels of John the Baptist, he meant Christ. Christ is the glory of the Lord. This is why on Christmas day we read that great verse from Hebrews 1 the Son is “the brightness [or radiance] of the Father’s glory”.
But as clear as the author of Hebrews may be, this passage is trumped, as it were, by the Gospel for Christmas day. What our beloved St. John teaches us at the end of his prologue is this: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John teaches his readers that we have seen the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ. That which Moses was blocked from seeing, that which Isaiah some five hundred years later said would in the future be revealed,is manifested forth in the child of Bethlehem.
Friends, you should wonder at our Lord’s humility; you should stand amazed in contemplation of the mystery of the incarnation; but I urge you to step beyond this and consider that Isaiah says all flesh will see the Glory of the Lord revealed. In the older covenant, not even Moses, who shared intimate communion with God in the mountain, not even Moses, was able to see this glory. But we have that right! In taking humanity unto himself, God has made a way of access for us to the glory of the Father which we in our fallen state cannot behold. That is an enormous part of the beauty of living in the newer covenant.
You might ask, and fairly so, what’s the big deal? So God in his mercy chooses in the fullness of time to show his glory in a way he had previously not, why does that matter? I think the key to understanding this lies in Jehovah’s answer to Moses upon Moses’ request to see God’s glory. The Lord answered him “I will make all my goodness pass before thee.” Shortly thereafter, the Lord hides him because he can’t see this goodness. The puritan commentator Matthew Henry explicitly states, “the goodness of God is his glory.” Which means that the child in the manger is God’s goodness. And this makes perfect sense; in Exodus 33:19 as the Lord describes the goodness that will pass before Moses, he says “I will be gracious to those whom I will be gracious and I will show mercy on those whom I show mercy.” In other words, goodness of God is the grace and mercy which saves us. While the older covenant had rituals which looked ahead to the coming of the Messiah, God’s glory, or goodness, were not yet fully revealed. Beloved, in the Christmas seasons, we rejoice that that which the holy seers and prophets saw not, has been revealed to us.
And that pronoun, “us” is interesting. In the limited vision God gave Moses, he made one thing absolutely clear: his grace and mercy would remain partially shrouded and would extend only as far as God deemed it should go, namely Israel. But Isaiah foresaw that “all flesh would see it”. When the Word took flesh to himself, the fullness of God’s plan was revealed. The limitation of salvation to the house of Israel would be blown wide open as the Gentiles would be welcomed in to the fold. Friends, we must eschew any sense of self-importance and deserving. The holiest man of the Israelites was denied what the most common of all Gentiles has now seen.
One of the unfortunately neglected saints in the Christmas season is Simeon. The end of Luke chapter 2 tells us that he was a holy man who was promised that he would not taste of death until he saw the Lord’s Christ. He lived in the Temple and when Mary and Joseph brought him, Simeon sang the most lovely of songs. “Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word. For my eyes have seen they salvation.” Simeon looked upon the newborn and saw the salvation of God; which is to say he saw the goodness of God; which is to say, he saw the glory of God. And he knew Isaiah’s prophecy: which is why his song continues with the theme that Christ would be a “light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel.” Simeon knew all flesh would be able to see what he saw.
In a little while, we will sing again the carol of Charles Wesley, Hark! The Herald. And we will sing that magnificent line “Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, Hail! The incarnate Deity.” The glory which St. John labored to explain , the glory now available for all men to behold, is there in the Christ child. O come, let us adore him. Alleluia. Amen.
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Why Classical Music Is Unpopular
This week, a colleague of mine summarized the work a portion of Joseph Pieper’s work “Leisure: The Basis of Culture” with the words “for the ancients…true and pure leisure is attained the moment we no longer have to work to conform our mind to truth, our will to goodness, and our emotions to beauty.” The implication in this statement is that our minds, wills, and emotions are not always naturally inclined toward the Transcendentals. In the place of truth, goodness, and beauty we gravitate toward lesser things. These lesser things may participate to some degree in truth, goodness, and beauty, but not in their fullness. What is it that that causes us to accept that which is less than ideal and substitute it with something less?
Perhaps one reason for this is that we often choose the simple over the more complex. This is not to say that simplicity is not sometimes to be preferred. Indeed, I have found it to be so. A Robert Frost poem and one by T.S. Eliot each have their place and I love both. And while my goal is not to demean Frost, he is, objectively speaking, much easier to understand on first blush than Eliot is. T.S, Eliot requires you to read, reread, and read again in order to even begin broaching the depth of his thoughts. The complexity of Ash Wednesday dwarfs that of the Road Not Taken. As such, it requires time, effort, and thought to appreciate its subtleties. My argument is that we are often not willing to give these and that that is particularly true in the realm of music.
Flipping through my radio stations is sometimes an exercise in futility. Rhyming phrases devoid of meaning, strong sexual overtones, or thoughtless drivel are common. These are then set to oft repeated chord structures, boring instrumentation, and melodies which lack creativity. Before I go further, allow me to say that this is not intended as a blanket condemnation of modern music. I’m more than happy to listen to Bastille’s Pompeii, I own Celine Dion’s greatest hits CD, and I’ve been known to say or sing “Turn Down for What” when I am excited about something. Musically and lyrically, however, these songs pale in comparison to what we broadly call “Classical” music. Yet, love for classical music appears from all my experience to be at an all time low. Why? As hinted at above, learning to love classical music requires time, effort, and thought. It is rarely easy listening. But I would argue that acquiring the musical knowledge necessary to enjoying this music and immersion in it will, in time, produce a deep love for its beauty which you will not always have to strive for; it will become natural.
Structure is important to classical music. And it isn’t as simple as “Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Key Change-Final Chorus” There are Rondos, Sonata Form, A-B Form, Theme and Variation and several other prominent forms which classical music takes. Understanding which you are listening to can help you organize in your mind what you are hearing. If you are listening to choral music, recognizing the process of text painting will enlighten your understanding. This does require study of historical musical trends and of basic music fundamentals, but again, appreciating the beauty present in this music takes time and effort. For instance, in Beethoven’s Mass in C in the Credo, three E-flat chords, each dotted-half notes, precede the line “Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine” that is “God of God, Light of Light”. The phrase is one which helps explain the Divinity of Christ. It is thus a reference to the truth that while God is one, he is also more than one, that is, he is Three Persons. Three chords, each three beats, one note in each measure, perfectly conveys the idea, through the music, that God is Three and yet One. Further, the fact that Beethoven used E-Flat is significant. For Beethoven it is the key of royalty. The Eroica symphony, dedicated to Napolean, was written in E-Flat. The Emperor Piano Concerto is written in E-Flat. This seemingly innocuous transition between phrases in the Creed is teeming with symbolism. It is a musical painting of the text. But gleaning this means years of study. In addition to learning various structures and text painting, one should also study the differences between homophonic and polyphonic music, the nationalism of Romantic music, and so many other aspects.
The likelihood of this though is small. For many, the work required to appreciate the beauty is overwhelming and admittedly, it doesn’t happen overnight. But if you have enough patience to immerse yourself in it, and can take the time to learn even some of the background and fundamentals that make up classical music, your appreciation for its depth, quality, and complexity will soar. My oldest son, whose musical tastes are generally not my own (and that’s alright) has, through repeated exposure, come to love the musical/pop opera Les Miserables. This music is not classical, but it is decidedly more complex and intricate than most of what he listens to. I have been listening to Puccini’s La Boheme of late and was listening to it in the car earlier this week with both boys. They’ve heard the section we were listening to before and I could tell, looking in the rear view mirror, that they didn’t mind what they were hearing. Their first choice? I highly doubt it. But one they are beginning to appreciate and even like? Yes. As they get older, I’ll explain to them the details that make these works great. I don’t think full comprehension of their beauty is possible until then. And, until as a culture, we make the commitment to love that which is beautiful and complex, classical music will continue to wane in popularity. But if the effort and study is made, over time beauty will be preferred and listening to and appreciating classical music will truly be an act of leisure.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Baptism: As Illustrated by a Little Story
I was listening to a short portion of a Christian radio program on my way home this evening. It was narrated by a man who sounded vaguely like the narrator in Disney's Charlotte's Web. He relayed a story about a young 1st grader who, as 6 year old's are wont to do, had a bladder accident at his school desk. Fearful of being called out by the approaching teacher, and subsequently humiliated in front of his peers, the boy began to panic internally. A young girl sitting next to him must have noticed him fidgeting. It happened to be show and tell day and the girl had brought her goldfish to class. Knowing that within seconds the teacher would ask what was under the boy's chair, thus potentially ruining the rest of his elementary school experience, the girl dropped her fish bowl between them. The water mixed with the urine, and while the smell must have still been slightly pungent, it destroyed any evidence of the voided bladder. The girl confirmed later that the dropping of the fish bowl was not an accident.
The boy had been saved by water. Water, which you might say, had been poured over his transgressions. I Peter 3 reminds us "Baptism now saves us". The epistle to Titus confirms this teaching when it speaks of the "washing of regeneration." Other passages could be offered in support of the Baptism's effects, but the point here is not an in depth theological discussion. Rather, to point out the obvious. Water cleans things. Whether it be dishes or bodies, that's what water does. The spiritual application is the same: something is being washed. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer leaves no doubt about that which is washed.
Almighty and everlasting God, who of thy great mercy didst save Noah and his family in the Ark from perishing by water, and also didst safely lead the children of Israel thy people through the red Sea, figuring thereby thy holy baptism; and by the baptism of thy well beloved son Jesus Christ in the river Jordan didst sanctify water to the mystical washing away of sin: We beseech thee for thine infinite mercies, that thou wilt mercifully look upon this Child, wash him, and sanctify him with the holy Ghost, that he being delivered from thy Wrath, may be received into the Ark of Christ's Church, and being steadfast in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in Charity may so pass the waves of this troublesome world, that finally he may come to the land of everlasting life, there to reign with thee world without end, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
How it is that physical elements communicate spiritual riches to us is a mystery all its own. Nevertheless, they do. May the story above remind us that the water which came from Christ's side is every bit as much a part of redemption as the blood. And may we take comfort in the Water which initiated us into the Kingdom of God and those other physical elements, Bread and Wine, which help us remain therein.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Detachment, Desire, and Death
My wife and I had a rather long talk with one of our sons about sharing last night. His attachment to certain toys and unwillingness to let others play with them brought this about. Easily, I could write an entire post criticizing him for this and list all of the things we taught him to help other parents struggling with the same thing. It's easy, however, to point out a stingy child and make him an example. What's a little more difficult is looking inward and seeing where you are either stingy or too attached.
God is gracious to his children. When we are too attached to things other than him, he reminds us. On the surface, these reminders may seem like punishments. A piece of technology we love, breaks. The money we were saving (perhaps hoarding) has to be used for a car repair or medical bill. We may view these as chance events or as God exacting revenge on us, but ultimately I think God uses events like these to detach us from things that keep us from him. He does it because he loves us and wants us to love him.
It's only when we have been torn away from the things in this life that we love, that our soul's desire can be properly focused. Insofar as things can die, death needs to take place in order for the true fulfillment of desire to happen.
Today, I was thinking about my own earthly attachments. If I may be so bold, there are few things I'm overly attached to. My computer might be one (which, I suppose, makes this post supremely ironic). But really more than any thing, I'm attached to people. Specifically, I'm attached to my family and a few very close friends. I long for the time I get to spend with these people. I can't wait for the weekends when I actually see my wife, or my parents.
Family and friends are wonderful blessings and I think attachment to them is of a different nature than that of material objects. But they can still keep us from God if we are more attached to them than the One who gave them to us. As I said above, God is gracious to his children. Sometimes death occurs in our families. Ones we love are taken from this earth. We grieve. Not as those who have no hope, but still we grieve. Yet, this can be a time to draw closer to the Lord. All believers will meet again in the Kingdom of Heaven. But we must get there first. This is the beautiful thing about proper priorities. If we put Jesus before everything, we get him and all the other riches of this life in the end. If we prefer even the smallest of trifles to Him, nothing, in the end, is ours.
What is the point of all this? Attachment to anything other than God will not fulfill any of our desires. Our inordinate desires, our attachments, have to be crucified and our souls rightly focused on him who alone can satisfy. Death then leads to life. Sometimes this means something as simple as sharing what is ours (for it is truly only in the act of sharing that anything is ours) or it could be the cessation of breath in a human being we treasured. As painful as loss can be, it may be the removal of an obstacle to heaven.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Rethinking Artificial Contraception
I’ve intentionally titled this lecture what I have to dispel any notions that my plan is to stand before you and condemn anyone who ever has or ever intends to use a contraceptive. While I firmly believe it to be wrong, it is in Anglican thinking one of the areas where the Christian conscience must make a decision to exercise its freedom or to not. What I hope to present to you today is a compelling case for abandoning artificial contraceptives and truly embracing a culture of life. To do so, we will examine relevant scripture on sexuality, the purposes of marriage, and the role artificial contraception has played in promoting the culture of death in which we all live.
From a scriptural perspective, Genesis 1 &2 presents us with a fascinating picture of why men and women were created. “God created man in his own image in the image of God created he him, male and female he created them. And God blessed them and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply.” We were made to be the image bearers of God; to be reflections of the divine. This image entails much that we cannot broach today, but it certainly includes the ability to make choices. Of these wonderful choices we are given to make, the conscious decision of giving oneself wholly to the other ranks very high. Indeed, this is what Genesis 1 demands of us. Adam and Eve were made with the express purpose of giving themselves to each other in order that human life might be perpetuated.
Notice, the propagation of the human race is considered the priority within marriage, even before the broad ideas of companionship or friendship. In Genesis chapter two, we are told that there was a mate found for every creature in the garden, save Adam. It is there that we read the account of God taking the rib from Adam’s side and forming his wife, Eve. This passage has given rise to the oft quoted thought on Eve’s creation “not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near to his heart to be beloved.” Genesis two can be read as both heart-rending and heart-warming; Adam searching helplessly for a mate and, through an act of God, given one. In every way his equal, Eve emerged onto the scene of history to be the helper and lover of Adam.
Yet it has been well said that marriage and conjugal love were instituted for two reasons, babies and bonding. There is an “inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative cannot break, between the unitive and procreative significance” of sex. Genesis one and two support this thesis, but the priority is given to the procreative part of the formulation. In fact, the Book of Common Prayer supports this reading of the opening chapters of Genesis as well. When we read through the liturgy for the Solemnization of Holy Matrimony we find that marriage is not something to be entered into lightly but in deep reverence “duly considering the cause for which Matrimony was ordained. First, it was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his Holy Name.” (BCP 490) Indeed, the ideas of companionship which we are most wont to associate with marriage aren’t even listed until third in the “purposes” section for marriage. As the liturgy indicates, procreation presents us with one of the greatest opportunities for evangelism and expansion of the Kingdom.
The point is very simply this, while the dominion mandate of Genesis 1 does not specifically forbid the use of contraception, it clearly teaches as normative that marriages were made for the creation of children who would grow to love the Lord. We were made male and female to make this a biological possibility. Have you ever wondered why it is that God forbids homosexual unions? It is not because God is a killjoy. It is not because God does not want all people to have companionship. Rather, the most logical explanation for the injunction against homosexuality is that the Lord expects at least the possibility of life with each act of intimacy. This is not to intimate that heterosexual couples using something like the pill are committing the same sin as homosexuals do, rather it is to point out the priority of procreation within the marriage covenant. Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, puts it this way, “Every marriage must be open to the gift of children. Even where the ability to conceive and bear children may be absent, the will to receive children must be present. To demand sexual pleasure without openness to life, is to violate a sacred trust.”
Now as I said, this does not prove that God frowns upon contraceptives, just that procreation should be a significant consideration in marriage. I would like now to transition to a consideration of God’s people as Bride. Whether you consider the prophecy of Hosea or our Lord’s teachings in wedding parables, the Scriptures have established an analogous relationship between matrimony and the salvation that has been brought by Christ. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in St. Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians. After laying out the pattern of Christ as head of the Church and the husband as head of the wife, and the responsibilities this entails for the woman, Paul writes “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.” By his description of marriage as a participation in the love of Christ for the Church, a paradigm has been set up. Christ gave up his own body in order that we, the Bride, may have life. Indeed, that is what we hear each time we come to communion “This is my Body broken and given for you”. And St. John reminds us that this Body is given “for the life of the world.” If our earthly marriages are to be reflections of Christ giving his Body so that humanity might have new life, so too the possibility of life must be present in the conjugal act imitating it. The husband and wife must fully surrender themselves to each other, imitating Christ’s surrender to death in order to bring life. He held nothing back. Husbands and wives should not withhold the ability to create life from each other. Doing so violates the paradigm set up in the Scriptures.
It is also undeniable that the Scriptures present children as a blessing from the Lord. This is not an injunction against contraceptives, but a test of our opinion of children. The Psalmist, depending on your translation, refers to them as “gifts” or a “heritage”. It is truly baffling why we have chosen this area to deny the blessings of God-to turn them away. The Lord calls “happy” the man who has a quiver full of children. I am well aware of the stressfulness that children can cause. Whether it be through stubborn behavior, an increased financial burden, or a lack of space in your home, it seems that being open to children can be anything but a blessing at times. In response to these objections, however, I remind that the same God which calls children “gifts” promises to supply for our every need, and he gives perfect peace to those whose minds are stayed on him. Why then, in light of these promises, should we reject the blessings of God by intentionally trying to frustrate his purposes? Furthermore, since the Lord is ultimately the one who opens and closes the womb, can a couple practicing contraception fully say “we wanted this blessing”, when the contraceptive fails? I know many babies are conceived this way and their parents love them dearly. But without an openness to God’s gift, would not some of the joy of the new life be diminished? Wouldn’t it necessarily be an intrusion, albeit one that ultimately would be welcomed? We should want children.
I hope that, in reflecting on these passages, you have seen that sex between married persons should be open to life. It is here that we have to call to mind the story of Onan. Onan was commanded by his father to go into his brother’s wife, Tamar and conceive a child. But you may recall that during the sexual act, Onan intentionally spilled his seed on the ground. The author informs us that this angered the LORD who slew Onan for his act. Now this is clearly a case where Onan failed to be Tamar’s kinsman redeemer. You can ascribe many sins to Onan here including disobedience and selfishness. But I think it is impossible in the light of other Scripture to see God winking at the act of spilling the seed. This was the thought of John Calvin who wrote in his commentaries on the tenth verse:
I will contend myself with briefly mentioning this, as far as the sense of shame allows to discuss it. It is a horrible thing to pour out seed besides the intercourse of man and woman. Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on the ground, is double horrible. For this means that one quenches the hope of his family, and kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born. This wickedness is now as severely as is possible condemned by the Spirit, through Moses, that Onan, as it were, through a violent and untimely birth, tore away the seed of his brother out the womb, and as cruel as shamefully has thrown on the earth. Moreover he thus has, as much as was in his power, tried to destroy a part of the human race. When a woman in some way drives away the seed out the womb, through aids, then this is rightly seen as an unforgivable crime. Onan was guilty of a similar crime, by defiling the earth with his seed, so that Tamar would not receive a future inheritor.
Calvin is clear even though many have tried to hide his thoughts on this matter. His commentary has been edited in virtually all modern editions, omitting his thinking on verse 10. But no words are minced, Onan did what he could to destroy a human life, which leads well into the next part of our discussion:
Contraception has fostered greatly the culture of death. In his encyclical letter Evangellium Vitae Pope John Paul II, while distinguishing between the evils of birth control and abortion, nevertheless demonstrates how closely they are tied one to another. He asserts that “the pro-abortion culture is especially strong, precisely where the Church’s teaching on contraception is rejected.” The rationale behind his statement is not particularly difficult to figure out. When having children is seen as an evil to prevent, in order that an almost hedonistic life-style can be continued unfettered, what recourse other than abortion is available to those who have been failed by contraceptives?
John Paul II had the advantage of hindsight. He was able to see the havoc wrought by wide-spread acceptance of artificial contraception. One of his predecessors, Paul VI, wrote his encyclical letter entitled Humana Vitae in part as a warning about what would follow a society’s practice of contraception. It would not just be an increase in abortions, though that has certainly proven to be the case. Rather, a general decline in sexual ethics was what he foresaw. How many of his predictions have proven prophetic? Paul VI was clear that this would lead to “marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards.” “Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires.” It would be hard to dispute that these claims are in many cases a reality. Again, you could argue that sexual immorality or abortion can be divorced from a discussion of contraception. Birth control can be safely practiced without falling into any of these grave errors. But it is undeniable that separating sex from procreation has, at the very least, conditioned our cultural mindset away from life and toward sin, and in many cases death.
We’ve discussed the culture of death in terms of abortion only. It extends far beyond that. “Unless we are willing that the responsibility of procreating life should be left to the arbitrary decision of men, we must accept that there are certain limits, beyond which it is wrong to go, to the power of man over his own body and its natural functions—limits, let it be said, which no one, whether as a private individual or as a public authority, can lawfully exceed.” This statement from Humana Vitae is a reminder that once we take control over something we shouldn’t, it is only a matter of time before someone else (the public authority) will wield this same power we’ve taken, over us. It is precisely this topic which C.S. Lewis addresses in his lectures turned book, The Abolition of Man. In speaking on contraception, Lewis writes “Each new power won by man is a power over man.” The freedoms of scientific progress always have a cost. In this case, by dictating who will be born and when, artificial contraception means that we have the power to withhold existence from a future generation. Indeed, the powers that be could bind us to do so. How close does the HHS mandate of the Affordable Care Act come to doing this?
Lewis seeks to make plain that taking this power over nature will, in the end, result in natural forces and impulses taking power over men. You see Lewis was concerned about changes in the education models of post WWII England. Believing these changes would usher in a new era of Subjectivism and a rejection of Natural Law, Lewis feared what would govern man in the future. Once the Natural Law was gone, only the aggregation of power would matter. One of these powers was the ability to manipulate future generations. Through selective breeding, a race of men would be born wholly subservient to the generation which had permitted them existence. You see, man would be exercising power over man. This combined with a lack of Objectivity in education, would allow the generation practicing contraception to produce children who were slaves both to the men who allowed them existence and to the impulses of their nature. In short, humanity would be stripped from their posterity. It’s not simply that artificial contraception can lead eventually to a culture of death by abortion. It is all by itself a culture of death because it seeks to prevent life and the life that is eventually allowed is not free, but born a slave.
It seems that everywhere we turn we are confronted with sexual sin. The explosion of pornography, aided by the rise of the internet, the widespread problems of marital infidelity, homosexuality and other aberrations from the biblical norm, all speak of a culture saturated in sex. While there have been some successes, on the whole the Church has failed in responding to this tide. Could it be that the reason we have such trouble countering the sexual revolution is that we have nearly without question, accepted one of its central tenets? The Anglican Church was the first branch of the Church to officially condone the usage of contraceptives at the Lambeth Conference of 1930. I think if we heed the biblical evidence, the tradition of the Church (both Catholic and Reformed) and look at the very clear consequences the contraceptive culture has produced and will continue to produce, we will see that it is high time the Anglican Church and all men of goodwill reconsider and rethink the usage of artificial birth control.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Electoral College Projection
While I've not had time to write as extensively on the election as I did in 2008, I have been following very closely. Below I would like to give my electoral college projections for tonight's election. I will start with the same phrase virtually every journalist has in the last week, I'm not sure who is going to win tonight.
In 2008, my final projection was a "best case scenario" for John McCain, which still had him losing. I couldn't see a way to 270 votes for him. 2012 is very different. I still think Obama is the favorite to pull this out, but Romney created a path for himself in the first debate. Without further ado, here are the projections.
Romney will win comfortably in the heartland, Big Sky country, and the Deep South. He will also claim Arizona and the Tennessee Valley states totaling 191 electoral votes.
Obama will carry the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast (New Hampshire possibly excepted, see below), the west coast, New Mexico, Illinois, and Michigan. Bringing his total number of EV to 217.
Obviously, this makes the road to 270 easier for the president, which is why I think he is still the favorite.
I basically see 10 states in play. I do not buy any chance of a Romney win in Minnesota or Michigan. Nor do I see Obama picking off the 1 electoral vote from Nebraska's Omaha district. Here are my thoughts on the ten states below, with a winner picked in each one.
North Carolina-From the beginning of this election, I thought Indiana and North Carolina would go solidly for the whomever the Republican candidate was. The states were too red in 2004 to support a democrat in a non-wave election. Obama carried both states by less than 1 percent in 2008. However, the president has had some impressive staying power in NC. While he will probably not win here (I think owing to tamped down enthusiasm among young voters at NC's expansive university system) the fact that he made Romney spend time and money here is strategically important. 15 votes for Romney.
Florida-The state that so many predicted would slip the president's way after the Paul Ryan VP pick had other ideas. Florida was again a state that the president did not win definitively in 2008. Just 2.5 percentage points separated he and a very weak candidate, John McCain. Recent polling has been fairly consistent that Obama will lose this big prize.
29 votes to Romney
Virginia-Several weeks ago there was a flurry of articles indicating that the Obama campaign was conceding losses in VA, NC, and FL. This meant a much closer race than prior to the first debate. Romney had a real shot at winning the electoral college. But while Bush won VA in 2008 by 8 percent and it is a traditionally red state, Obama has maintained a narrow advantage in state polling. He has lead in 9 of the last 10 polls of the state...albeit barely. However, that kind of consistency has to mean something. A number of columnists have pointed out to low early voter turnout in democratic strongholds of Northern Virginia. But I think that, while this might be the closest vote in the entire country tonight, Obama wins.
13 Votes for Obama.
That would give Romney a 235-230 vote lead in the electoral college.
New Hampshire-The one Northeast holdout (unless you count PA) is set to go Obama. Romney should be doing better here. This was his firewall in the primaries. He owns a house here. He spends his summers here. But he simply has never been able to close the deal. The polling here again shows a small but consistent lead for the president.
4 votes for Obama
Iowa-This state has been a trap for Romney since 2008 when Mike Huckabee came out of nowhere, upsetting Romney's tremendous organization in the state in the GOP primary. Rick Santorum and Ron Paul again kept him from garnering all of the Iowa delegates in 2012. Along with New Mexico, Iowa was one of the traditional battleground states where everyone knew John McCain never had a chance. The state was Obama's then, I believe it is now also.
6 votes for Obama
Ohio-Much ink has been spilled on the importance of this state. Republicans have never won the presidency without it. The auto bailout seems to have put Obama in position (possibly helped by Romney's 47% comment) to win Ohio. While I thought Catholics in Ohio would turn on Obama (and they have) and that white working class voters might think twice about pulling the lever for Obama, it has not been enough. Like New Hampshire and Virginia, the state is close but I think it's Obama's.
18 votes for Obama
Colorado-This week's polling has shown Obama re-emerging with a very small lead. However, the president's team weeks ago wrote off Colorado as a sure thing. In fact, they seemed less certain of a win here than in any of the southern 3, FL, NC, or Virginia. Some of Romney's rallies here have also been overwhelming. I think Colorado will shift back to the red column for this year.
9 votes to Romney
That would mean a 258-244 lead for the president in the electoral college. IT also means that Romney would have to win both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Wisconsin-I think Romney pulls off the upset here. It's close. Romney's internals, released last night, show him tied with Obama. Paul Ryan represents a democratic district in a democratic state. If he can carry his district, I think Romney wins here. Wisconsin has certainly jerked rightward with Scott Walker winning his recall election and Russ Feingold being booted from the senate. It'll come down to the wire, but I predict a narrow win for Romney.
10 votes for Romney
Nevada-Those afore mentioned Romney internals showed him trailing in Nevada. I'm not aware of any public polling showing Romney ahead and early voting in Clark County, the democratic stronghold has been on pace. The expansive Mormon vote in the state will keep it close, but I think Obama by 5 or 6 in Nevada.
6 votes for Obama
Pennsylvania-Romney has been making a strong effort here in the closing days of this election. The race for these 20 votes has narrowed much in the last two weeks. Most public polling still shows this race as Obama's to lose and the fact that no Republican has won this state in the last 5 elections casts doubt on Romney's hopes. I believe that Romney knows that his chances in Ohio have waned. He needs another state. This seemed like the best shot. I would not be shocked if Romney wins, but I would be surprised.
20 votes for Obama
284-254 in favor of the president is my projection. I will point out, that of the 10 tossup states, I truly feel 100% confident in only North Carolina, Florida, and Nevada. The other 7 states could go either way. If Romney were going to win, the most likely paths would be a narrow win VA combined with a win in either NH or IA. I could actually see that. But I'm sticking with the 284-254 projection.
Let me know your thoughts.
My Personal Thoughts on Voting
I will go to my polling place this morning and I will be voting on questions 4-7 here in Maryland. I will cast my vote for Rob Sobhani, the independent candidate for Senate. And, on the recommendation of my brother, vote to keep our current judges. What I will not be doing though is casting a vote for president.
I've thought a good deal about this and have simply come to the conclusion that there is not a candidate on the ballot worth my vote. This is not because I'm too big of a purist. Many of you who will read this know that I have supported Ron Paul in the last two elections. This was despite the fact that I had disagreements with his positions on legalizing all drugs, prostitution, and his vision of a complete dismantling of all safety nets. (I do think we need to move a LOT closer in that direction, and very soon, for the sake of our economy, but not all the way.)
But one thing I could always say about Ron Paul is this: his platform did not include any grave sins. This is a low bar for a candidate to have to clear, but unfortunately, all four candidates on my ballot include immorality in their party platforms.
Dismissing the Greens, Libertarians, and Democrats is quite easy because of their embrace of abortion rights. See the post below this one if you want to see why I'm adamant about abortion. Barack Obama is also quite easy to ignore because of his appalling failures in Benghazi, and "judge, jury, executioner" mentality in drone strikes...particularly, the one against an American citizen.
Romney is a little different, but equally bad. I will accept at face value his claim that he is now pro-life even though that didn't seem to happen until he decided to run for president. What bothers me about Romney, aside from his serial flip-flopping, is that during the foreign policy debate, there was not a substantive difference with the president. He would continue the same interventionist policies that lead to the consulate attack in Benghazi. If anything, Romney would pursue Obama's policies more harshly. As one commentator noted, Romney's foreign policy was Obama's, just screaming a little louder.
With Iran on the horizon as a potential threat, the last thing I want is another president leading us into a middle eastern war. I fear that with Romney.
So today I vote by abstaining from voting. It's not a waste, as some will say. It's a conscious choice to declare my independence and to say "enough is enough."
Friday, May 4, 2012
The Viability of a Fetus
Abortion is a hotly contested issue in the American political arena. On one side, you have those claiming that an individual's freedom is compromised if access to safe and legal abortions is terminated. On the other, those claiming that the freedom of the individual fetus is compromised if abortion is allowed to take place.
I agree with the latter position and let me explain why. The pro-choice argument is obsessed with a woman's right to do what she wants with her own body. It is not willing, generally speaking, to address the real issue, but satisfied to cloak it in a constitutional debate over personal liberty. The heart of the matter is this: when does life begin? If it begins at conception, you can argue with all of your might that a woman has a right to choose (and, of course, she does!) but not without consequence.
The position of the Scriptures and Church have been consistent-life begins at conception. Thus, any Christian supporting a woman's right to choose without consequence is enabling an act of violence on another human being. There can be little doubt that this is part of the reason our culture is obsessed with war, violent video games, and the like.
But what of non-believers? What if you do not accept the teaching that human life begins at conception? To that argument, I offer this post. All who argue for abortion rights have to come back to the question of viability at some point. Can you abort a child at three months? Five? Seven? What's constitutes life? Having a discernable sex? Lung development? I suppose the pro-choice movement is filled with people who hold to varying beliefs as to when life becomes viable.
But for any who stumble upon this blog who struggle with the question of viability, let me make this point. What infant can get a blanket when she's cold? What two year old is able to fend for himself? What three year old can find food to keep herself from starving? The truth is, a child outside the womb is no less dependent on his/her parents than inside the womb. Thus, if you are going to make an argument for abortion based on the non-viability of a fetus, you must also, in order to be consistent, believe that it is morally unobjectionable for a child to be abandoned or out-rightly murdered by his mother or father.
"Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues that newborns lack the essential characteristics of personhood—"rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness"[20]—and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."[21]
Peter Singer is a beast of a human-perhaps something less than human. But at least he's consistent. He's realized that it is not rational to argue along the lines of viability because the new-born and toddler possess no autonomy.
You may not be willing to accept that life begins at conception. However, arguing at what point life begins opens you to the dreadful possibility that it might be alright to take innocent life outside the womb also.
"Thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech" Lev. 18:21
Friday, March 23, 2012
Could Hell Be Temporary?
I tend to agree with traditional assessments of Hell as being a state of eternal deprivation of God's presence and love. Whether this manifests itself as utter darkness, gnashing of teeth, or fire is actually quite beside the point. There is no greater suffering than to be cut off from the Life himself.
But recently I have pondered a question, dear readers, which I don't believe contradicts what has just been said, but does cast it in a new light.
All but perhaps some Extremist Calvinists would agree that God does not (and cannot) by his nature cast a soul into Hell. God is Love, according to St. John, and is constantly drawing and alluring humanity back to the source of Life, Love Himself. His will is that all would be saved and share the life of the Blessed Trinity. Such a God can't be the cause of a soul's destruction in any way but at the last day, tearfully, consigning to Hell those who rejected his overtures to the last. Even then, the goats will depart into everlasting punishment knowing it was their wickedness and hardness of heart that caused it, not the Righteous Judge.
This brings up the question at the heart of this post: if God doesn't send anyone to Hell, would God actively work to keep someone there? Are all the passages of Scripture which point to Hell being eternal referring only to the place itself? Or to the last state of all who die outside of Christ?
If a man dies in his trespasses, outside of the grace of Christ, Christianity teaches that he will go to hell. But what if was not necessary to abandon all hope upon entrance through the dark gates? What if true contrition could take place? Would God, seeing the sorrow and penitence of a soul he created for communion with himself, turn it away?
It is at this point that one might call to remembrance our Lord's words from Luke's Gospel 16:19-31. There we see the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. As best we can tell, Hell and Abraham's Bosom (a place of rest and peace) were within seeing distance of each other. The Rich Man cried to have Lazarus bring water to cool his burning tongue. But Abraham informs the Rich man that no one can cross the gulf that has been fixed...in either direction. This would seem to nullify any argument on whether Hell might be temporary. But I would postulate that the Rich man was in no way contrite. He desired only relief of pain and not to truly see and serve God.
The evidence is limited but this passage, while it does not rule out that there could be a contrite person in Hell, does lend itself to the understanding of Hell put forth by C.S. Lewis. Dr. Lewis pointed out that Hell is a door locked from the inside. Those who are there all share what Milton observed as a stronger desire to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. Since that is the case, it appears that the heart in Hell is hardened to an irreversible degree. Thus, the answer to the question of whether or not Hell is temporary has very little to do with whether God would keep someone there, but whether or not any person in such a state could ever want any more than the relief of pain sought by the Rich Man.
The evidence that God would be lenient to the soul in Hell is paltry...only that we know God's essence is Love and that his desire is for all to be saved. But if Hell were to be temporary, I don't believe it would be solely, or even primarily, an act of God which ended it. For if it was the sinful actions of a human which placed him in Hell, it would have to be that soul responding to God's overtures which caused the deliverance of said soul. It is this which seems highly unlikely and why I hold to a more traditional view of Hell.
Any thoughts?
But recently I have pondered a question, dear readers, which I don't believe contradicts what has just been said, but does cast it in a new light.
All but perhaps some Extremist Calvinists would agree that God does not (and cannot) by his nature cast a soul into Hell. God is Love, according to St. John, and is constantly drawing and alluring humanity back to the source of Life, Love Himself. His will is that all would be saved and share the life of the Blessed Trinity. Such a God can't be the cause of a soul's destruction in any way but at the last day, tearfully, consigning to Hell those who rejected his overtures to the last. Even then, the goats will depart into everlasting punishment knowing it was their wickedness and hardness of heart that caused it, not the Righteous Judge.
This brings up the question at the heart of this post: if God doesn't send anyone to Hell, would God actively work to keep someone there? Are all the passages of Scripture which point to Hell being eternal referring only to the place itself? Or to the last state of all who die outside of Christ?
If a man dies in his trespasses, outside of the grace of Christ, Christianity teaches that he will go to hell. But what if was not necessary to abandon all hope upon entrance through the dark gates? What if true contrition could take place? Would God, seeing the sorrow and penitence of a soul he created for communion with himself, turn it away?
It is at this point that one might call to remembrance our Lord's words from Luke's Gospel 16:19-31. There we see the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. As best we can tell, Hell and Abraham's Bosom (a place of rest and peace) were within seeing distance of each other. The Rich Man cried to have Lazarus bring water to cool his burning tongue. But Abraham informs the Rich man that no one can cross the gulf that has been fixed...in either direction. This would seem to nullify any argument on whether Hell might be temporary. But I would postulate that the Rich man was in no way contrite. He desired only relief of pain and not to truly see and serve God.
The evidence is limited but this passage, while it does not rule out that there could be a contrite person in Hell, does lend itself to the understanding of Hell put forth by C.S. Lewis. Dr. Lewis pointed out that Hell is a door locked from the inside. Those who are there all share what Milton observed as a stronger desire to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. Since that is the case, it appears that the heart in Hell is hardened to an irreversible degree. Thus, the answer to the question of whether or not Hell is temporary has very little to do with whether God would keep someone there, but whether or not any person in such a state could ever want any more than the relief of pain sought by the Rich Man.
The evidence that God would be lenient to the soul in Hell is paltry...only that we know God's essence is Love and that his desire is for all to be saved. But if Hell were to be temporary, I don't believe it would be solely, or even primarily, an act of God which ended it. For if it was the sinful actions of a human which placed him in Hell, it would have to be that soul responding to God's overtures which caused the deliverance of said soul. It is this which seems highly unlikely and why I hold to a more traditional view of Hell.
Any thoughts?
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
On Receiving the Word of God for Salvation
There is a classic formulation which says the Liturgy should revolve around the Word and Sacrament. The truth this conveys is important, but I believe obscures a reality I would like to make a bit more transparent. By joining the Word and Sacrament with a conjunction, it makes it sound like they are two different things. To that I would voice strong dissension.
When we participate in the Liturgy, we are being saved by the Word of the Father, Jesus Christ. He is the Word, as St. John clearly teaches. But this salvation is wrought through different means in the course of the service. After our opening hymns and prayers, we proceed immediately to the Word of the Father written. Three lessons of varying lengths are read in our hearing. Why? Therefore, get rid of all filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you that is able to save your soul." (James 1:21) Simply hearing the Word of God has a converting power to it. We need as we journey in this process of conversion, to regularly hear the word.
We must also hear it preached. "It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believed." (I Cor. 1:21) Yes, the Apostle confesses that preaching the divine mysteries can only come out as utter foolishness. But it has pleased God to use this method, this madness, to save people. In our daily walks with Christ, we cannot get away from regularly hearing sermons. Contrary to some opinion, it really doesn't make a difference how long the sermon is. Short and long sermons have their virtues. As long as it is Jesus Christ, and him crucified, that is preached, there the power of conversion exists.
To these points, I don't believe many will object. The Scriptures written and preached are necessary to salvation. Some readers may take exception with the next point. Further, I will depart from the classical formulation given earlier and give a version of it that I think makes clearer the point of the liturgy.
We must not only receive the Word of God written and preached, but the Word of God Incarnate. We need the flesh of Jesus also. Yet, it is not the Word plus his Flesh. Rather, they are different means of receiving the Word. As St. John teaches, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." (John 1) This Word becomes flesh in every liturgy. For as Christ himself said "This is my Body." Further, in John 6 Christ proclaims, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you have no life within you." The Sacrament completes our access to the Word that saves us. When we come to church-we are coming to be saved. Some may say, "I'm already saved." Fair enough-you've begun well. But salvation is something in which me must continue-until the end. Attending mass at least once a week is quite necessary to continue. Because it is only there that we can encounter the Word of the Father in all the fulness which has been ordained.
When we participate in the Liturgy, we are being saved by the Word of the Father, Jesus Christ. He is the Word, as St. John clearly teaches. But this salvation is wrought through different means in the course of the service. After our opening hymns and prayers, we proceed immediately to the Word of the Father written. Three lessons of varying lengths are read in our hearing. Why? Therefore, get rid of all filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you that is able to save your soul." (James 1:21) Simply hearing the Word of God has a converting power to it. We need as we journey in this process of conversion, to regularly hear the word.
We must also hear it preached. "It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believed." (I Cor. 1:21) Yes, the Apostle confesses that preaching the divine mysteries can only come out as utter foolishness. But it has pleased God to use this method, this madness, to save people. In our daily walks with Christ, we cannot get away from regularly hearing sermons. Contrary to some opinion, it really doesn't make a difference how long the sermon is. Short and long sermons have their virtues. As long as it is Jesus Christ, and him crucified, that is preached, there the power of conversion exists.
To these points, I don't believe many will object. The Scriptures written and preached are necessary to salvation. Some readers may take exception with the next point. Further, I will depart from the classical formulation given earlier and give a version of it that I think makes clearer the point of the liturgy.
We must not only receive the Word of God written and preached, but the Word of God Incarnate. We need the flesh of Jesus also. Yet, it is not the Word plus his Flesh. Rather, they are different means of receiving the Word. As St. John teaches, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." (John 1) This Word becomes flesh in every liturgy. For as Christ himself said "This is my Body." Further, in John 6 Christ proclaims, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you have no life within you." The Sacrament completes our access to the Word that saves us. When we come to church-we are coming to be saved. Some may say, "I'm already saved." Fair enough-you've begun well. But salvation is something in which me must continue-until the end. Attending mass at least once a week is quite necessary to continue. Because it is only there that we can encounter the Word of the Father in all the fulness which has been ordained.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
A Christian Response to the Death of Osama Bin Laden
"But I tell you; love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Mt. 5:44
When thinking about what I would write, the concept of loving your enemy was prominent in my mind. But it wasn't until I looked up the passage cited above that I remembered Christ added the addendum "pray for those who persecute you."
Osama bin Laden is responsible for the deaths of many people in the West and from various statements, we can deduce he would not have minded being responsible for more. I don't know if you want to say that he was the face of evil, but he was a mastermind of terrorism. Bin Laden was a bad man. Calling a spade "a spade" is not something to be feared. Indeed, the concept of justice and its execution ought to be celebrated.
But here a crucial distinction needs to be made. Suitable punishment is different from rejoicing in a human's downfall. I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would say "the only peace we have is that he is definitely not in heaven." I sincerely hope that bin Laden met the Divine Mercy in some moment before his judgement. In fact, I prayed for it. Because as Jesus said, we pray for those who persecute us. Further, any Christian who has read these words of Christ needs to be praying for other Christians who are struggling with hatred. We all have sins with which we struggle-judgement of their small-mindedness is not becoming.
But as we pray, it must be noted that we fail at being Christians the moment we celebrate the death of someone who has done us evil. If the commandment given in the sermon on the mount was not enough to drive us to our knees to beg for mercy on bin Laden's soul, the example Christ set certainly should. For it was on his cross, bleeding and dying for the people who betrayed him, that Christ prayed for those who persecuted him. "Father forgive them, they don't know what they are doing."
Violence never breaks the cycle of violence, nor hatred of hatred. I don't mind saying the terrorist got what he deserved, but it is outside the realm of Christianity to be happy that he is dead. And it is bizzarely inhuman to rejoice at the prospect that he is in Hell.
When thinking about what I would write, the concept of loving your enemy was prominent in my mind. But it wasn't until I looked up the passage cited above that I remembered Christ added the addendum "pray for those who persecute you."
Osama bin Laden is responsible for the deaths of many people in the West and from various statements, we can deduce he would not have minded being responsible for more. I don't know if you want to say that he was the face of evil, but he was a mastermind of terrorism. Bin Laden was a bad man. Calling a spade "a spade" is not something to be feared. Indeed, the concept of justice and its execution ought to be celebrated.
But here a crucial distinction needs to be made. Suitable punishment is different from rejoicing in a human's downfall. I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would say "the only peace we have is that he is definitely not in heaven." I sincerely hope that bin Laden met the Divine Mercy in some moment before his judgement. In fact, I prayed for it. Because as Jesus said, we pray for those who persecute us. Further, any Christian who has read these words of Christ needs to be praying for other Christians who are struggling with hatred. We all have sins with which we struggle-judgement of their small-mindedness is not becoming.
But as we pray, it must be noted that we fail at being Christians the moment we celebrate the death of someone who has done us evil. If the commandment given in the sermon on the mount was not enough to drive us to our knees to beg for mercy on bin Laden's soul, the example Christ set certainly should. For it was on his cross, bleeding and dying for the people who betrayed him, that Christ prayed for those who persecuted him. "Father forgive them, they don't know what they are doing."
Violence never breaks the cycle of violence, nor hatred of hatred. I don't mind saying the terrorist got what he deserved, but it is outside the realm of Christianity to be happy that he is dead. And it is bizzarely inhuman to rejoice at the prospect that he is in Hell.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Reason for the Switch
Dear readers,
Hopefully, the change in blog name and appearance hasn't thrown you off terribly. I wanted to give an explanation both theological and personal for the changes you see to this blog.
First, during this Holy Triduum, we rememeber God's love for his people. The sermon I heard last night on this subject was so good. The deacon at St. Mary's preached on "Why like this" as he pointed to the crucifix in the sanctuary. He gave the theological reasons for redemption from sin. But why not another way? His answer was that Jesus wanted to reveal something about himself. So much does God long for us to walk in communion with him that he is willing to the take the utter nastiness and ugliness of human corruption on himself. The crucifixion's severity is directly proportianate to the desire of God that we would again walk with him peacefully in the garden.
To say we are in love with God and God with us has, on the one hand, the sound of flaring teenage hormones. But it isn't that. We are actually in Love; United with the One who embodies love, because he united matter, a body, to his Deity. The Incarnation makes it possible for us to have a true, organic relationship with Jesus. We are grafted into him in a way that cannot be severed as long as we follow him in obedience. We are in Love and Love is in us. Holy Thursday and Good Friday, particularly, drive home the forging of this relationship and God's longing for it to be lasting.
Personally, I've changed the blog name and appearance for several reasons. First and foremost, I hated the layout and coloring of enchantingrelish. I just hadn't had time to change it. Furthermore, I was no longer thrilled with the name. Some of you may have read the post sometime back explaining why I had chosen such a title. But the truth is, while the friend who first introduced me to this quotation from Shakespeare will always be a friend, we are not close. Additionally, I've never been an avid reader of Shakespeare, nor is drama, Medieval English or otherwise, the theme of this blog. The new name reflects better the desire of this blog to help evangelize the web, explore theological, political, and cultural issues, and to provide a stage for conversation about the same.
The name change is also a reminder to myself. Of all the sins that I know afflict me (Lord have mercy) self-pity ranks fairly high. In the Great Divorce, as well as other classics, pity is seen to have two sides. Pity as a weapon and pity as a redemptive force. It was pity to drove Christ to the events we have celebrated and will celebrate in the coming days. It is what should drive Christians to evangelism and social justice. However, the sick beings that we are, we corrupted even this good gift. By "we", in this case, certainly I refer to myself cheifly. We use pity, as C.S. Lewis says, to blackmail the world. We present our own situations as so pitiful that we drag everyone else down to our level. Indeed, we want others to be miserable with us. In a word, we desire Hell and for the world to join us. Too forceful? I don't think so.
I've been particularly upset for a little over a week now (I have gotten over it, by God's grace) about something in my family life. I've not told anyone what-and I won't here. But I felt sympathy and then pity for myself and have refused to let anyone else make me happy. This refusal is participation in what Lewis termed the "passion of pity."
But as Lewis quite ably explains in his book, pity as a weapon can't touch the joy of God's people. "Hell cannot veto Heaven." And so the simple choice is before you and me: either shrink within yourself, wallowing in pity. Or, accept love on God's terms and find true happiness abiding there.
In these holy days, where we are reminded just how great God's love is for us, my choice is to be in love...in Love himself.
Hopefully, the change in blog name and appearance hasn't thrown you off terribly. I wanted to give an explanation both theological and personal for the changes you see to this blog.
First, during this Holy Triduum, we rememeber God's love for his people. The sermon I heard last night on this subject was so good. The deacon at St. Mary's preached on "Why like this" as he pointed to the crucifix in the sanctuary. He gave the theological reasons for redemption from sin. But why not another way? His answer was that Jesus wanted to reveal something about himself. So much does God long for us to walk in communion with him that he is willing to the take the utter nastiness and ugliness of human corruption on himself. The crucifixion's severity is directly proportianate to the desire of God that we would again walk with him peacefully in the garden.
To say we are in love with God and God with us has, on the one hand, the sound of flaring teenage hormones. But it isn't that. We are actually in Love; United with the One who embodies love, because he united matter, a body, to his Deity. The Incarnation makes it possible for us to have a true, organic relationship with Jesus. We are grafted into him in a way that cannot be severed as long as we follow him in obedience. We are in Love and Love is in us. Holy Thursday and Good Friday, particularly, drive home the forging of this relationship and God's longing for it to be lasting.
Personally, I've changed the blog name and appearance for several reasons. First and foremost, I hated the layout and coloring of enchantingrelish. I just hadn't had time to change it. Furthermore, I was no longer thrilled with the name. Some of you may have read the post sometime back explaining why I had chosen such a title. But the truth is, while the friend who first introduced me to this quotation from Shakespeare will always be a friend, we are not close. Additionally, I've never been an avid reader of Shakespeare, nor is drama, Medieval English or otherwise, the theme of this blog. The new name reflects better the desire of this blog to help evangelize the web, explore theological, political, and cultural issues, and to provide a stage for conversation about the same.
The name change is also a reminder to myself. Of all the sins that I know afflict me (Lord have mercy) self-pity ranks fairly high. In the Great Divorce, as well as other classics, pity is seen to have two sides. Pity as a weapon and pity as a redemptive force. It was pity to drove Christ to the events we have celebrated and will celebrate in the coming days. It is what should drive Christians to evangelism and social justice. However, the sick beings that we are, we corrupted even this good gift. By "we", in this case, certainly I refer to myself cheifly. We use pity, as C.S. Lewis says, to blackmail the world. We present our own situations as so pitiful that we drag everyone else down to our level. Indeed, we want others to be miserable with us. In a word, we desire Hell and for the world to join us. Too forceful? I don't think so.
I've been particularly upset for a little over a week now (I have gotten over it, by God's grace) about something in my family life. I've not told anyone what-and I won't here. But I felt sympathy and then pity for myself and have refused to let anyone else make me happy. This refusal is participation in what Lewis termed the "passion of pity."
But as Lewis quite ably explains in his book, pity as a weapon can't touch the joy of God's people. "Hell cannot veto Heaven." And so the simple choice is before you and me: either shrink within yourself, wallowing in pity. Or, accept love on God's terms and find true happiness abiding there.
In these holy days, where we are reminded just how great God's love is for us, my choice is to be in love...in Love himself.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Drop, Drop, Slow Tears
Drop, Drop, slow tears
and bathe the beautous feet.
Which brought from heaven the news
and Prince of Peace.
Cease not wet eyes
his mercies to entreat.
To cry for vengeance
sin doth never cease.
In your deep floods
drown all my faults and fears.
Nor let his eye see sin,
but through my tears.
This hymn for years confused me. Does verse one say that beautous feet brought the Prince of Peace to earth? Whose eye is referred to in verse three and how is that person's eye covered with my tears? It takes a bit of reflection to understand what Phinneas Fletcher, the hymn's author, had in mind.
First of all, in verse one, we are to understand the "which" at the beginning of line three not to reference the "beautous feet", but the "tears". The gospel or the "news" and the one who personified the gospel are brought down from heaven because the world is broken and in tears. It needs the healing of a spiritual physician. Precisely, what Jesus called himself.
Why is the world broken? Why does it need to be healed? Because of the infection of sin. That is what we find attested in verse two. "To cry for vengeance sin doth never cease." While worded strangely, the simple truth conveyed in these words is that sin cries out for the wrath of God. It must be avenged. The only recourse the sinner has is "his mercies to entreat."
Finally, in the last verse, Fletcher really seizes on the idea of water. In order to be healed, we must be cleaned. There is no better agent in the world than water for this task. Spiritually speaking, Christ ordained water for the washing of sins, and the regeneration of souls. We ask for the water Jesus offered the Samaritan woman at the well, to drown all those things wrong with us. And, as we come up out of this water, to be made new.
Nevertheless, we all still sin after our Baptisms, sometimes gravely. Thus, the verse concludes, "Nor let his eye see sin but through my tears." In other words, so great should be our guilt and remorse for continually offending the one who came to save us, that our tears should create a pool of water around us. When the Savior looks at us, his piercing and loving gaze will still see sin, but blurred by the tears surrounding the penitent. For all who ask his forgiveness, the briny liquid of our eyes will be replaced by the purest water of Christ, springing up to eternal life.
and bathe the beautous feet.
Which brought from heaven the news
and Prince of Peace.
Cease not wet eyes
his mercies to entreat.
To cry for vengeance
sin doth never cease.
In your deep floods
drown all my faults and fears.
Nor let his eye see sin,
but through my tears.
This hymn for years confused me. Does verse one say that beautous feet brought the Prince of Peace to earth? Whose eye is referred to in verse three and how is that person's eye covered with my tears? It takes a bit of reflection to understand what Phinneas Fletcher, the hymn's author, had in mind.
First of all, in verse one, we are to understand the "which" at the beginning of line three not to reference the "beautous feet", but the "tears". The gospel or the "news" and the one who personified the gospel are brought down from heaven because the world is broken and in tears. It needs the healing of a spiritual physician. Precisely, what Jesus called himself.
Why is the world broken? Why does it need to be healed? Because of the infection of sin. That is what we find attested in verse two. "To cry for vengeance sin doth never cease." While worded strangely, the simple truth conveyed in these words is that sin cries out for the wrath of God. It must be avenged. The only recourse the sinner has is "his mercies to entreat."
Finally, in the last verse, Fletcher really seizes on the idea of water. In order to be healed, we must be cleaned. There is no better agent in the world than water for this task. Spiritually speaking, Christ ordained water for the washing of sins, and the regeneration of souls. We ask for the water Jesus offered the Samaritan woman at the well, to drown all those things wrong with us. And, as we come up out of this water, to be made new.
Nevertheless, we all still sin after our Baptisms, sometimes gravely. Thus, the verse concludes, "Nor let his eye see sin but through my tears." In other words, so great should be our guilt and remorse for continually offending the one who came to save us, that our tears should create a pool of water around us. When the Savior looks at us, his piercing and loving gaze will still see sin, but blurred by the tears surrounding the penitent. For all who ask his forgiveness, the briny liquid of our eyes will be replaced by the purest water of Christ, springing up to eternal life.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Holy Week Hymns
I expect this week to do some commentary on the great hymns of Passiontide, Holy Week, and beginning next week, Easter. If there are any hymns, dear readers, that you would like to see appear on this list, do let me know.
Today's hymn, by the writer Redhead, is called Go To Dark Gethsemane. The title itself is confusing for those who may not remember what Gethsemane is. It is the garden where Jesus went to pray after he instituted the Eucharist. This is critical to understand. Adam and Even, and all we who sinned in them, impugned the goodness of creation with their act of disobedience in Eden. On the night of his betrayal, Christ was healing the world in the same place it had been wounded-a garden. By his act of obedience, "Nevertheless, not as I will but as thou wilt," (Mt. 26:39) the curse of sin begins to unravel.
The text of the first verse:
Go to dark Gethsemane, ye who feel the tempter's power
Your Redeemer's conflict see, watch with him one bitter hour.
Turn not from his griefs away, learn of Jesus Christ to pray.
The rest of verse one teaches us how to deal with temptation, suffering and a point of doctrine. First, if you are tempted to sin, your best recourse is always prayer. God makes an escape from every temptation. Pray for him to show it to you. In the case of Christ, and this should really move us, the Father showed Jesus the way of escape as he prayed. I'm not saying the Father presented forsaking the cross as a real option. While Jesus may have bulked slightly knowing the amount of suffering that was coming, he knew what he had to do. But undoubtedly, the Father showed him the glory that would come from his crucifixion. And so, suffering is presented to us, not as something to be avoided, but to be embraced. For truly, on this side of heaven, suffering will always accompany the truest acts of love. But those who suffer, in the frailty of our human condition, need compassion. While Adam and Eve represented humanity in Eden, Peter, James, and John represented us in Gethsemane. They did as we would have done. Instead of watching and praying with Jesus, they fell asleep. We are implored by the hymn, not to sleep, but to consider the suffering of others and walk in their shoes with them.
The doctrinal point I mentioned above, is the emphasis on the fact that Christ was indeed human and as such could feel conflict and grief. But this last truth, is illustrated far more clearly in verses two and three.
Follow to the judgement hall, view the Lord of Life arraigned.
O the wormwood and the gall, o the pangs his soul sustained.
Shun not suffering shame or loss, learn from him to bear the cross.
We are beckoned to make the next step of the journey with Christ. From the garden to the praetorium, we watch as the Lord is found guilty of blasphemy and eventually sentenced to brutal flogging and crucifixion. Two things stand out in this verse. First Jesus had a soul-a soul up until now completely devoid of sin. As he begins to feel the weight of the world's sins upon him, what anguish his soul must have endured. The pain we take for granted that we cause ourselves, was all thrust on him at once. It's far from only his body which is hurting.
The last line calls us more poignantly to embrace suffering. Take up your cross and follow Christ carrying his. It is the path of discipleship and it's the way of salvation. Whatever suffering the Lord has given you-it hurts. But it's an opportunity to be united with the suffering Christ. And we are promised, that if we suffer with him, we will also reign with him. (II Tim. 2:12)
Finally, the last verse:
Calvary's mournful mountain climb, there adoring at his feet.
Mark the miracle of time, God's own sacrifice complete.
"It is finished" hear the cry! Learn of Jesus Christ to die.
For the pain and agony he endured, Christ deserves our endless adoration. True, as God, he merited our praise anyway. But now, looking at not only who he is, but what he has done, how can any tongue be silent? How do we do anything less but fall to our knees and thank him for his mercy? For this event, I would argue along with the Incarnation, is the great miracle. Thousands of years of pain and violence wash over the person of Jesus. He takes it all on himself and lets it kill him, for the sake of our salvation. It's an odd thing to say, we must "learn to die". After all, it is something that happens regardless of what we learn. But the point is that we carry our crosses, we are called to crucify our old man and completely to forsake sin. It is death to our old Self and the birth of what we were created to be. Christ endured and embraced death to attain a resurrected body. So too, we must die to ourselves and live for Christ. In so doing, we are united to him and will also at the last day attain resurrected bodies for ourselves, by his mercy.
Today, let us remember suffering is a good thing because it accompanies what St. Paul called the greatest thing: love.
Today's hymn, by the writer Redhead, is called Go To Dark Gethsemane. The title itself is confusing for those who may not remember what Gethsemane is. It is the garden where Jesus went to pray after he instituted the Eucharist. This is critical to understand. Adam and Even, and all we who sinned in them, impugned the goodness of creation with their act of disobedience in Eden. On the night of his betrayal, Christ was healing the world in the same place it had been wounded-a garden. By his act of obedience, "Nevertheless, not as I will but as thou wilt," (Mt. 26:39) the curse of sin begins to unravel.
The text of the first verse:
Go to dark Gethsemane, ye who feel the tempter's power
Your Redeemer's conflict see, watch with him one bitter hour.
Turn not from his griefs away, learn of Jesus Christ to pray.
The rest of verse one teaches us how to deal with temptation, suffering and a point of doctrine. First, if you are tempted to sin, your best recourse is always prayer. God makes an escape from every temptation. Pray for him to show it to you. In the case of Christ, and this should really move us, the Father showed Jesus the way of escape as he prayed. I'm not saying the Father presented forsaking the cross as a real option. While Jesus may have bulked slightly knowing the amount of suffering that was coming, he knew what he had to do. But undoubtedly, the Father showed him the glory that would come from his crucifixion. And so, suffering is presented to us, not as something to be avoided, but to be embraced. For truly, on this side of heaven, suffering will always accompany the truest acts of love. But those who suffer, in the frailty of our human condition, need compassion. While Adam and Eve represented humanity in Eden, Peter, James, and John represented us in Gethsemane. They did as we would have done. Instead of watching and praying with Jesus, they fell asleep. We are implored by the hymn, not to sleep, but to consider the suffering of others and walk in their shoes with them.
The doctrinal point I mentioned above, is the emphasis on the fact that Christ was indeed human and as such could feel conflict and grief. But this last truth, is illustrated far more clearly in verses two and three.
Follow to the judgement hall, view the Lord of Life arraigned.
O the wormwood and the gall, o the pangs his soul sustained.
Shun not suffering shame or loss, learn from him to bear the cross.
We are beckoned to make the next step of the journey with Christ. From the garden to the praetorium, we watch as the Lord is found guilty of blasphemy and eventually sentenced to brutal flogging and crucifixion. Two things stand out in this verse. First Jesus had a soul-a soul up until now completely devoid of sin. As he begins to feel the weight of the world's sins upon him, what anguish his soul must have endured. The pain we take for granted that we cause ourselves, was all thrust on him at once. It's far from only his body which is hurting.
The last line calls us more poignantly to embrace suffering. Take up your cross and follow Christ carrying his. It is the path of discipleship and it's the way of salvation. Whatever suffering the Lord has given you-it hurts. But it's an opportunity to be united with the suffering Christ. And we are promised, that if we suffer with him, we will also reign with him. (II Tim. 2:12)
Finally, the last verse:
Calvary's mournful mountain climb, there adoring at his feet.
Mark the miracle of time, God's own sacrifice complete.
"It is finished" hear the cry! Learn of Jesus Christ to die.
For the pain and agony he endured, Christ deserves our endless adoration. True, as God, he merited our praise anyway. But now, looking at not only who he is, but what he has done, how can any tongue be silent? How do we do anything less but fall to our knees and thank him for his mercy? For this event, I would argue along with the Incarnation, is the great miracle. Thousands of years of pain and violence wash over the person of Jesus. He takes it all on himself and lets it kill him, for the sake of our salvation. It's an odd thing to say, we must "learn to die". After all, it is something that happens regardless of what we learn. But the point is that we carry our crosses, we are called to crucify our old man and completely to forsake sin. It is death to our old Self and the birth of what we were created to be. Christ endured and embraced death to attain a resurrected body. So too, we must die to ourselves and live for Christ. In so doing, we are united to him and will also at the last day attain resurrected bodies for ourselves, by his mercy.
Today, let us remember suffering is a good thing because it accompanies what St. Paul called the greatest thing: love.
Friday, April 15, 2011
What Does It Take to Get Into the Kingdom?
Today's Gospel reading begs the afore mentioned question. From the twelfth chapter of Mark's Gospel comes the account of a lawyer who asked of the Lord a question about which commandment in the law was greatest. We all know the answer was "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength. And love thy neighbor as thyself." The lawyer then affirms with his own mouth that Jesus had rightly answered his question. (Kind of makes you wonder why he bothered asking...) Than Jesus says the following: "You are not far from the Kingdom of God." I have to believe this man asked why he didn't make the cut-but Mark doesn't record anymore of the conversation.
A couple of thoughts come to mind when reading this verse. First, while ultimately you are either inside the Kingdom or you are not, there are some who are genuiely closer to entering. Their hearts are likely in the right place, though they are just short of something which they need. I wonder if this what Christ would say to those faithful followers of other monotheistic religions-particularly, Judaism and Islam.
The second thought has to do with what is lacking. What did this scribe need? I think the answer is probably fairly simple. It is not enough to know the will and plan of God. It must be done. We can know all the truth in the world, have an enlightened understanding of who God is and what he has done for humanity, and still not respond to this reality. The grace of the Lord is necessary to prepare us and turn our wills in such a way that we seek to not only hear Christ's words, but do them. As St. James charged us, "be not hearers of the word only, but doers." Did this lawyer wholly lack grace? There is no way of telling. I'd be inclined to say that Christ had already begun working in his heart if he possessed the knowledge of the greatest law. But more grace was needed in order for him to live out this great commandment.
How does one attain this grace? It's a tricky question, since grace by defintion is something given, not earned. However, the Scriptures do point out that the recipient of grace clothes himself in humility.
"God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." (I Pet. 5:5)
Applying this passage to the Gospel for today, I believe we can piece together the answer to the question "What does it take to get into the Kingdom?" A realization that we are unable to fully keep the Great Commandment must be first. Humbly recognizing this prepares our hearts to receive grace. Once this grace is received and Christ himself makes his home within us, the commandments, while still difficult to keep, are quite possible. For, as St. Paul wrote, "I can do all things through Christ who strenthens me." (Phil. 4:13) This man seems to come to Jesus with a know-it-all mentality, as noted before. His pride was blocking out the grace necessary to keep the law he knew and probably loved. Our place in the Kingdom is dependant on grace. We do well to remember that it is a danger to participate in any kind of sin that separates us from God's grace.
A couple of thoughts come to mind when reading this verse. First, while ultimately you are either inside the Kingdom or you are not, there are some who are genuiely closer to entering. Their hearts are likely in the right place, though they are just short of something which they need. I wonder if this what Christ would say to those faithful followers of other monotheistic religions-particularly, Judaism and Islam.
The second thought has to do with what is lacking. What did this scribe need? I think the answer is probably fairly simple. It is not enough to know the will and plan of God. It must be done. We can know all the truth in the world, have an enlightened understanding of who God is and what he has done for humanity, and still not respond to this reality. The grace of the Lord is necessary to prepare us and turn our wills in such a way that we seek to not only hear Christ's words, but do them. As St. James charged us, "be not hearers of the word only, but doers." Did this lawyer wholly lack grace? There is no way of telling. I'd be inclined to say that Christ had already begun working in his heart if he possessed the knowledge of the greatest law. But more grace was needed in order for him to live out this great commandment.
How does one attain this grace? It's a tricky question, since grace by defintion is something given, not earned. However, the Scriptures do point out that the recipient of grace clothes himself in humility.
"God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." (I Pet. 5:5)
Applying this passage to the Gospel for today, I believe we can piece together the answer to the question "What does it take to get into the Kingdom?" A realization that we are unable to fully keep the Great Commandment must be first. Humbly recognizing this prepares our hearts to receive grace. Once this grace is received and Christ himself makes his home within us, the commandments, while still difficult to keep, are quite possible. For, as St. Paul wrote, "I can do all things through Christ who strenthens me." (Phil. 4:13) This man seems to come to Jesus with a know-it-all mentality, as noted before. His pride was blocking out the grace necessary to keep the law he knew and probably loved. Our place in the Kingdom is dependant on grace. We do well to remember that it is a danger to participate in any kind of sin that separates us from God's grace.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Penitential Themes
I found myself yesterday mentally hearkening back to a conversation from a few weeks ago on the appointed Gospel for the first Sunday in Advent. In the Anglican tradition, the account of Palm Sunday is read. On first reading, and for me, many subsequent readings over the years, it's confusing. It's Advent! Not Holy Week. What's going on here?
Well, aside from the fact that the Palm Sunday reading is the Triumphal entry of Christ-associated with the resurrection of his dear friend Lazarus, (which lines up well with the themes of Christ returning in glory to raise the dead for judgement), there is another important reason for reading this Gospel. Its ending tells the story of Christ casting out the money-changers from the Temple, saying "My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves." (Lk. 19:46) This matches the collect for the day which reads in part,
"Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility."
You see the season of Advent is much like the our current liturgical season, Lent. They are both penitential times of the year. It is a time for reflection on where we stand in relationship to Christ. What is getting in our way of full communion with the Lord?
The temple was to be the place where people could come and meet God. His presence abided there. St. Paul wrote to the Corinthian Church that their bodies were now also Temples, temples of the Holy Spirit. Thus, if Jesus on his first triumphal entry in Jerusalem saw fit to clean out the garbage from his holy Temple, so too should we. In preparation for his second coming during Advent, and in this holy season of Lent as we prepare to remember and celebrate the week that changed the world, we have to cast out the money changers that are in our souls. Whatever sin, whatever obstacle may be, by God's grace it must be removed in order for our joy to be full in the coming weeks.
Lsatly, we can be confident in this grace being available to us. Christ needed to sanctify his Temple, he calls us to be Temples, but he also likened himself to one. "Destroy this Temple and I will raise it up in three days." (Jn. 2:19) The Jews laughed him to scorn for such a ridiculous statement. They inquired jestingly and mockingly if Jesus knew how long it had taken to build the temple he saw before him. The point is, that as the temple of the Hebrews had been ravaged by the sins of the money changers, so too would Christ's body. Scourged and crucified the wounds of his body, the temple, make it possible for us to keep temples undefiled by sin.
So while I know this is a reflection based on an Advent reading, I think you can see that both Advent and Lent share common themes of repentance enabled by God's grace in Christ.
Well, aside from the fact that the Palm Sunday reading is the Triumphal entry of Christ-associated with the resurrection of his dear friend Lazarus, (which lines up well with the themes of Christ returning in glory to raise the dead for judgement), there is another important reason for reading this Gospel. Its ending tells the story of Christ casting out the money-changers from the Temple, saying "My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves." (Lk. 19:46) This matches the collect for the day which reads in part,
"Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility."
You see the season of Advent is much like the our current liturgical season, Lent. They are both penitential times of the year. It is a time for reflection on where we stand in relationship to Christ. What is getting in our way of full communion with the Lord?
The temple was to be the place where people could come and meet God. His presence abided there. St. Paul wrote to the Corinthian Church that their bodies were now also Temples, temples of the Holy Spirit. Thus, if Jesus on his first triumphal entry in Jerusalem saw fit to clean out the garbage from his holy Temple, so too should we. In preparation for his second coming during Advent, and in this holy season of Lent as we prepare to remember and celebrate the week that changed the world, we have to cast out the money changers that are in our souls. Whatever sin, whatever obstacle may be, by God's grace it must be removed in order for our joy to be full in the coming weeks.
Lsatly, we can be confident in this grace being available to us. Christ needed to sanctify his Temple, he calls us to be Temples, but he also likened himself to one. "Destroy this Temple and I will raise it up in three days." (Jn. 2:19) The Jews laughed him to scorn for such a ridiculous statement. They inquired jestingly and mockingly if Jesus knew how long it had taken to build the temple he saw before him. The point is, that as the temple of the Hebrews had been ravaged by the sins of the money changers, so too would Christ's body. Scourged and crucified the wounds of his body, the temple, make it possible for us to keep temples undefiled by sin.
So while I know this is a reflection based on an Advent reading, I think you can see that both Advent and Lent share common themes of repentance enabled by God's grace in Christ.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Are Funerals for the Living or the Dead?
A friend of mine once said that funerals are only for the living-the implication being that the status of the deceased is fixed. Either they are in heaven, hell, or their soul is sleeping. (This latter option being the theoretical response of a non-Christian.)
Now this, of course, is the position largely of Evangelicals and Protestants. A person has their time on earth to make their decisions and once dead, nothing can be done for them. Roman Catholics believe in the doctrine of Purgatory which says that believers must, and will desire to, endure a period of purification before entering heaven. Because this is the case, in a Roman Requiem, the focus of the mass to pray for the deceased instead of honoring the person's life and legacy. From a Catholic perspective, the verdict is in-at least officially. (Many Catholics would prefer a service at which endless eulogies can be made, much like other Christian churches.)
As an Anglican, what should the response to this be? For whom is the funeral? I want to make two observations. First, the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ's Church-that long prayer that opens the "communion" part of the service and finds its basis in the Didache's example of praying for the whole of Christ's body. In the prayer is written these words: "And we also bless thy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to grant them continual growth in thy love and service and to give us grace to follow their good example."
While the 39 Articles forbid the doctrine of Purgatory to be taught, at the least the 16th century Roman one, clearly the Liturgy upholds that their is still maturing to be done by the dead in Christ. With that in mind, it would seem that Anglicans should stand with traditional Catholicism and say that funerals are indeed for the dead.
Furthermore, I would make a point from experience. I recently made a somewhat sarcastic remark to my bishop (an Anglican) about some of the service music that was picked for a funeral we both attended. He mentioned that "it was what brought the "insert name" comfort in this life." (this is not a direct quotation, only the sense of what he said.) In addition, at that same funeral there were some upset that certain hymns were added to the service which were not requested by the deceased. If the funeral is for the living, why should either of these items matter?
My overall view, in line with the Liturgy and luminaries such as C.S. Lewis and Jeremy Taylor, is that the Funeral is an ideal time to pray for all of the dead in Christ, that they would come to full maturity in the Kingdom of God. But I would also say, that within reason, I see no reason that good words made not be said about the person who has died. The Lord shines in his saints. If that be the case, remembering their good example does not distract from Christ but points to him.
Now this, of course, is the position largely of Evangelicals and Protestants. A person has their time on earth to make their decisions and once dead, nothing can be done for them. Roman Catholics believe in the doctrine of Purgatory which says that believers must, and will desire to, endure a period of purification before entering heaven. Because this is the case, in a Roman Requiem, the focus of the mass to pray for the deceased instead of honoring the person's life and legacy. From a Catholic perspective, the verdict is in-at least officially. (Many Catholics would prefer a service at which endless eulogies can be made, much like other Christian churches.)
As an Anglican, what should the response to this be? For whom is the funeral? I want to make two observations. First, the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ's Church-that long prayer that opens the "communion" part of the service and finds its basis in the Didache's example of praying for the whole of Christ's body. In the prayer is written these words: "And we also bless thy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to grant them continual growth in thy love and service and to give us grace to follow their good example."
While the 39 Articles forbid the doctrine of Purgatory to be taught, at the least the 16th century Roman one, clearly the Liturgy upholds that their is still maturing to be done by the dead in Christ. With that in mind, it would seem that Anglicans should stand with traditional Catholicism and say that funerals are indeed for the dead.
Furthermore, I would make a point from experience. I recently made a somewhat sarcastic remark to my bishop (an Anglican) about some of the service music that was picked for a funeral we both attended. He mentioned that "it was what brought the "insert name" comfort in this life." (this is not a direct quotation, only the sense of what he said.) In addition, at that same funeral there were some upset that certain hymns were added to the service which were not requested by the deceased. If the funeral is for the living, why should either of these items matter?
My overall view, in line with the Liturgy and luminaries such as C.S. Lewis and Jeremy Taylor, is that the Funeral is an ideal time to pray for all of the dead in Christ, that they would come to full maturity in the Kingdom of God. But I would also say, that within reason, I see no reason that good words made not be said about the person who has died. The Lord shines in his saints. If that be the case, remembering their good example does not distract from Christ but points to him.
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