It is natural, I suppose, to grow reflective about the priesthood as one’s ordination anniversary approaches. To guide my meditations this year, I have chosen to re-read The Rule of Benedict and specifically the commentary on it by Sr. Joan Chittister. It is organized for daily reading, three times through in a given year. When I say I chose it, that is not quite right. I found recently that I needed to refer to a section in the Rule to guide me in a pastoral matter, and, having found the appropriate section, the thought occurred to me rather spontaneously that it might be good to read through the entire Rule just now. The Rule chose me in this instance; that is the limit of my Calvinism. Sometimes things choose us, or rather sometimes we simply become aware that God has chosen some thing for us.
I find the reading for this day speaks beautifully of the priesthood. Why am I a priest? For my salvation. Why am I a priest? I was the tenth sheep; read on and you will understand. What follows is from Sr. Joan.
Jan. 14 — May 15 — Sept. 14
The prioress and abbot must always remember what they are and remember what they are called, aware that more will be expected of one to whom more has been entrusted. They must know what a difficult and demanding burden they have undertaken: directing souls and serving a variety of temperaments, coaxing, reproving, and encouraging them as appropriate. They must so accommodate and adapt themselves to each one’s character and intelligence that they will not only keep the flock entrusted to their care from dwindling, but will rejoice in the increase of a good flock.
There are some interesting distinctions made in this paragraph. The abbot and prioress are to remember what they are and what they are called. What they and every other leader are is painfully clear: they are people just like everybody else in the monastery. They are not royalty. They are not potentates. They are only people who also struggle and fail just like the people they lead.
But what they are and what they are called — abbot, abbess, spiritual father, spiritual mother — are not unrelated. They are not called to be either lawgivers or camp counselors. They are not expected to be either rigid moralists or group activity directors. They are to be directors of souls who serve the group by “coaxing, reproving, and encouraging” it — by prodding and pressing and persuading it — to struggle as they have struggled to grow in depth, in sincerity, and in holiness, to grow despite weaknesses, to grow beyond weaknesses.
Abbots or prioresses of Benedictine monasteries, then, parents and supervisors and officials and bishops everywhere who set out to live a Benedictine spirituality, are to keep clearly in mind their own weak souls and dark minds and fragile hearts when they touch the souls and minds and hearts of others.
But there is another side to the question as well. It is not easy for honest people who hold their own failures in their praying hands to question behavior in anyone else. “There but for the grace of God go I,” John Bradford said at the sight of the condemned on their way to execution. Aware of what I myself am capable of doing, how can I possibly censure or disparage or reprimand or reproach anyone else? On the other hand, Benedict reminds us, how can those who know that conversion is possible, who have been called to midwife the spiritual life, for this generation and the next, do less?
The Hasidim tell a story that abbots and prioresses, mothers and fathers, teachers and directors may understand best. Certainly Benedict did:
When in his sixtieth year after the death of the Kotzker, the Gerer accepted election as leader of the Kotzker Hasidim, the rabbi said: “I should ask myself: ‘Why have I deserved to become the leader of thousands of good people?’ I know that I am not more learned or more pious than others. The only reason why I accept the appointment is because so many good and true people have proclaimed me to be their leader. We find that a cattle-breeder in Palestine during the days when the Temple stood was enjoined by our Torah (Lev. 27:32) to drive newborn cattle or sheep into an enclosure single file. When they went to the enclosure, they were all of the same station, but when over the tenth one the owner pronounced the words: ‘consecrated unto the Lord,’ it was set aside for holier purposes. In the same fashion when the Jews pronounce some to be holier than their fellows, they become in truth consecrated persons.”
Once chosen, it is their weakness itself that becomes the anchor, the insight, the humility, and the gift of an abbot or prioress, a pope or a priest, a parent or a director. But only if they themselves embrace it. It is a lesson for leaders everywhere who either fear to lead because they know their own weaknesses or who lead defensively because they fear that others know their weaknesses. It is a lesson for parents who remember their own troubles as children. It is a lesson for husbands and wives who cannot own the weaknesses that plague their marriage. We must each strive for the ideal and we must encourage others to strive with us, not because we ourselves are not weak but because knowing our own weaknesses and admitting them we can with great confidence teach trust in the God who watches with patience our puny efforts and our foolish failures (Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages, Crossroad (1998), pp. 43-45).
I heard Fr. Stephen Freeman reference the book “Enlargement of the Heart,” by Elder Zacharias of Essex in a talk posted on YouTube. He spoke highly of the elder and, apparently, the book is something of an Orthodox classic on the spiritual thought of Saints Silouan and Sophrony. So I did what one does; I searched for it on Amazon. Now, here is where things get interesting and telling. As soon as I had typed in “enla,” — I didn’t even get to finish the word — Amazon had a whole laundry list of suggestions for me, all of them involving enhanced male sexual performance pills, gels, creams, oils and who knows what else; I was embarrassed to look further. Now, I want to assure you that these suggestions were not based upon my personal past Amazon searches, but upon the search histories and purchases of nameless hoardes, on advertising dollars, and on some proprietary Amazonian algorithm. I want to enlarge my heart; Amazon apparently wants me to want to enlarge something else entirely. They want to enlarge their profit.
Now, this could be passed off as humorous, I guess, but I think it is not. When I have spoken of the actors in this farcical search — me, other consumers, the advertisers, Amazon software engineers — I have left out one who lurks in the shadows: the satan. This ancient adversary wants me to enlarge not my heart but my passions: pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust. It is not clear to me that anger and avarice are involved in this search, though clearly the other deadly thoughts are. And he uses culture and technology as his agents of temptation. Our culture is sexually obsessed and confused to an unparalleled degree. The notion of voluntary celibacy and chastity/faithfulness are incomprehensible. To be a man is to be sexually virile. And, ironically, to be a man is also to be androgynous or effeminate. To be a woman is to be sexually desirable. And, ironically, to be a woman is to be indistinguishable from a man. To be either is to choose, not to be given a sexual identity from birth but to construct it whole cloth. We think that is freedom. It is slavery. And while there are, I suppose, redemptive uses for social media, its de facto purpose, spiritually speaking, is to stoke the passions. If the satan is the father of lies, one of his offspring is social media. It is not only lies, but child sacrifice that is on offer. Is there anyone who doubts any longer that social media is wounding and killing our children? But, apparently we stand helpless to say no. That is the nature of the passions; they render us passive.
I downloaded a sample of the book for my kindle. I wonder if Elder Zacharias has ever searched for his book on Amazon, and if his results were similar to mine.
The conviction was expressed by an Orthodox priest — let’s call him Fr. Michael — whose insight and counsel I respect; the words were spoken as an excursus, as a tangential aside in an unrelated talk. He offered it not quite tongue-in-cheek but with the full knowledge that he was about to “step on some people’s toes.” Then he said with a note of wonder and incredulity in his voice that some people actually attend classes to become spiritual directors, That is not the way spiritual directors are made, he asserted.
Well, that caught my attention since I am an instructor in the St Benedict Center for Spiritual Formation (https://stbenedict-csf.org/) which offers a program in spiritual direction. I do not believe that Fr. Michael was wrong; nor do I believe that he was right. I believe instead that our cultures and languages — East and West — are talking past one another.
In the Orthodox tradition only a spiritual elder, a starets in Russian or a geronta in Greek, is gifted for spiritual direction. These holy men have received a charism, an anointing of the Holy Spirit, that allows them to see into the heart of things and people, to diagnose illnesses of the heart, and to apply the proper spiritual medicine for the cure of souls. These are men who have passed through purification and illumination and have known deification, the unmediated communion with God. And Fr. Michael is right that this gift does not come through classes or academic training. One may ready oneself for it by a life of holiness, a life of worship, a life of unceasing prayer. Even then, there are no guarantees. The Spirit gives gifts as and to whom he wills. Not so many parish priests are, in fact, spiritual elders; startsi and gerontas are generally found in monasteries or living as hermits nearby. And, if the monastic tradition needs justification, that alone is sufficient. Such elders may also be “found” in obscurity, going unnoticed about the normal routines of married or single life: working, raising children, going to church, sitting quietly in nursing homes, and all the while upholding the universe by their prayers. We may not notice them and they will never speak of it, and more’s the pity.
The faithful make pilgrimages to such sites as Mount Athos or Sergiyev Posad to receive just a word from a geronta or starets. And that is part of the difficulty with limiting the scope of spiritual direction to such men, as Fr. Michael insists; they are few, scattered, and largely inaccessible to most who need their spiritual guidance. The need for spiritual direction is great — I daresay most Christians are in need of it — and spiritual directors are so few, vanishingly few if we insist they be only Orthodox elders. And this is where I, with respect, must disagree with Fr. Michael. It is not so much a real disagreement as a clarification of terms. He is correct that no training course reliably produces spiritual elders: startsi and gerontas. He is incorrect to say that one cannot train to be a spiritual director. There is a difference between elder and director, between charism and vocation. While in the East the terms may be synonymous, in the West they are not.
So, how is a spiritual director “trained?” The foundation of classical training is repentance, a life of continual repentance which is a constant turning toward and returning to the Lord Jesus. The Great Tradition — both East and West — speaks of the threefold way: purification, illumination, and unification. Until the heart is purified, one’s vision of God and man is obscured and one cannot see clearly to remove the speck from another’s eye for the plank in one’s own. Such purification involves immersion in the life of the Church: Scripture, Sacraments, prayer, fasting, confession, obedience. Training is primarily formation, and formation is primarily purification. One must recognize, confront, and be substantially healed of one’s own passions before leading another into this battle. One must begin — repeatedly — to cultivate the virtues, the second nature of Christian maturity, through a life of prayer and asceticism by which to put off the deadly thoughts/sins. It is the primary purpose of the spiritual director to point his/her directees unerringly toward Jesus, to pray for and to work for the transformation of his/her directees into the likeness of Christ, the Holy Spirit being the helper and advocate. A director cannot point toward Jesus unless he/she is first oriented toward Jesus. Thus, the first work of a spiritual director is the inward work of the heart — his/her own heart. And that work is never ceasing.
This foundational work of the heart is also accompanied by the transformation of the mind (cf Rom 12:1-2). Right thinking — sound theology — is not sufficient for spiritual direction, but it is essential. Training must focus on the Great Tradition which, according to St. Vincent of Lérins (died c. 445) is “that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all” (Vincent of Lérins, Commonitory). This Tradition is found in the Scriptures, the Creeds (Nicene, Apostles, Athanasian), the Ecumenical Councils, the Church Fathers, the liturgies of the Church, and in the living witness of the Church’s faithful, godly bishops and the flocks they shepherd. A solid grounding in the Scriptures and the consensus fidelium of the Church protects directors and those they direct from unintentional error or prideful heresy and schism.
This training of the mind also includes aspects of “spiritual psychotherapy” — not therapy in the modern clinical sense, but in the ancient sense of applications of spiritual curatives to the disordered soul, the recognition and treatment of the illnesses of the heart: ignorance of God, forgetfulness of God, hardness of heart. The director learns to identify the symptoms of these illnesses, the deadly thoughts: pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust. It is not enough to diagnose spiritual illnesses; the directors learn to treat them with the “medicines” available to and through the Church.
The Rule of St. Benedict, which is foundational for the ethos of St Benedict’s Center, begins with an injunction to listen. That, too, is a skill that directors must develop continually: the ability to listen to oneself, to the directee, and, most importantly, to the Holy Spirit in all the ways the Spirit communicates. Listening leads to questions, and questioning is another art/skill that directors learn.
Finally, I will mention discernment of spirits as developed and communicated most clearly by Ignatius of Loyola (died 1556) in his Spiritual Exercises: becoming aware of the spiritual dimension of life and the spiritual powers that draw one toward one path or another. Directors help their directees listen to their lives to notice the influence of the good spirit or the evil spirit, to be attentive to the consolations and desolations that accompany states of life and courses of action, to battle the often subtle strategies of the evil spirit and to embrace the encouragement of the good spirit.
All this training — and more aspects of it than I have mentioned — comprises a vocation of spiritual direction for which one can be trained. It is not the same as the charism of eldership. In the West we distinguish between acquired virtues and infused virtues. One can acquire/learn, through practice, such virtues as prudence (wisdom), justice, fortitude, and temperance. But other virtues, the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love are gifts of God, infused. While we may pray for them and nurture them if given, we cannot acquire them by dint of our own effort. By analogy, the art of spiritual direction may be acquired; eldership is only infused.
It is proper to long for and to pray for the presence of a starets or geronta in one’s life. But, until such an elder appears, God might just provide a well-trained spiritual director. Thanks be to God.
“I don’t need to go to church to worship God. I can worship him just as well — maybe even better — by myself out in nature: in the mountains, at the beach, anywhere at all. It’s not about religion; it’s about relationship.”
You’ve heard this, or something like it, haven’t you? It has a ring of truth to it because most of us have had very deep emotional experiences in such places, and, for some of us, those experiences have lifted our hearts to God in praise and worship. St. Ignatius might call those experiences moments of consolation, gifts of God that should be accepted gratefully. But it is a mistake to generalize those experiences, to make them in any sense normative and so to diminish the importance of formal, communal worship in a space consecrated to God for just such a purpose.
I was reminded of this during Morning Prayer through the Old Testament lesson appointed for 11 May, Deuteronomy 12. Here is a portion of the lesson:
Deuteronomy 12:1–14 (ESV): The Lord’s Chosen Place of Worship
12 “These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. 2 You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. 3 You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. 4 You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. 5 But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, 6 and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. 7 And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.
8 “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, 9 for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you. 10 But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, 11 then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord. 12 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. 13 Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place that you see, 14 but at the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you.
As Israel prepares to enter and possess the land that God has promised them, God warns them that they are not to worship him in the same way the indigenous tribes worship their gods: on the mountains and hills, and under every green tree — anywhere and everywhere they please. Instead, God himself will choose the place — the one place — where his people are to worship him through burnt offerings and sacrifices, through tithes and contributions, through vow and freewill offerings, and through feasting before the LORD. God specifies when, where, and how he is to be worshipped by his people, lest everyone goes astray and does what is right in his own eyes. By God’s command, you must go to the tabernacle at the appointed times with the appointed sacrifices and/or offerings to worship him in the way he has commanded. Pitting religion against relationship is a modern heresy, as is elevating the individual — and individual preference — above the community.
Well, that’s the Old Testament. Surely, everything changed when Jesus came? No.
Acts 2:42–47 (ESV): The Fellowship of the Believers
42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Just as Israel’s worship had a place and pattern commanded by God, so, too, with Christian worship. The pattern is fourfold: the apostles’ teaching (the Word), the fellowship (life together), the breaking of bread (the Eucharist/Communion), and the prayers (liturgy). These first Christians met in the Temple; they were, after all, Jews and the Temple was the appointed place for Jewish worship. And, before dedicated church buildings were constructed, they met in homes for the observance of the uniquely Christian aspects of worship. But, the point is, they came together for worship in a dedicated place using the form that God had given them through the apostles. As the writer of Hebrews exhorts:
Hebrews 10:23–25 (ESV): 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
“I don’t need to go to church to worship God. I can worship him just as well — maybe even better — by myself out in nature: in the mountains, at the beach, anywhere at all. It’s not about religion; it’s about relationship.”
That is a hard sell in light of Scripture (Old and New Testaments) and the Great Tradition of the Church.
Now, please note that what I’ve said is not a critique of those who long to worship in church with God’s people, but who, through age, infirmity, or other exigent circumstances cannot. But it is an exhortation to those who could gather for worship but choose not to do. God specifies where and how he is to be worshipped; we, individually, do not.
Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord (Acts 1:1-11, Psalm 47, Ephesians 1:15-23, Luke 24:44-53)
Backwards and Forwards: A Reflection on Ascension and the Day of Atonement
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It is typical and proper on the Feast of the Ascension to focus on the enthronement of our Lord Jesus in “the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Eph 1:20b-21). But, that is not the only theme of Ascension. There is a less familiar one, but no less important one, that I’d like to bring to the fore this evening.
In my former life as a mathematics teacher I often gave my algebra and calculus students this two-fold bit of advice when they were struggling with a problem.
First, go back to the beginning. It is possible that you made some minor error early on that has now cascaded into a major road block. If you start over, you may well either catch the error before it grows or else not make it at all the second time through. Or, it may be that you need to go back to the beginning of the chapter and review the earlier material, the prerequisite knowledge for this section and this problem. In either case, the way forward may actually involve going back to the beginning.
Second, look forward to the ending. Check with BoB, which was our acronym for Back of Book (BoB). That is where the answers to the odd numbered problems were found. Sometimes the form of the solution will give you a hint to the method of solution, or will at least suggest something else you might try. Some students excelled at this “reverse engineering” process. We just called it working backwards from the answers. Whatever you call it, the method is the same: look forward toward the ending.
So, here was my advice in a nutshell:
When lost in the middle, go back to the beginning, and look forward to the ending.
It was good, sound mathematical pedagogy, and I think it has broader applications, say to theology and interpretation of Scripture. Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a Biblical text — maybe in the heart of Romans (probably chapters 9 through 11) or somewhere in the tall weeds of Revelation — only to realize that you are utterly baffled or, perhaps a little better, just a bit confused about how this passage fits into the larger whole. Then, my advice to you is the same as to my mathematics students:
When lost in the middle, go back to the beginning, and look forward to the ending.
Now, I would like to show you how this principle works in practice, using a passage from the Gospel according to St. John, a passage in which Jesus is speaking to his disciples on the night he was betrayed.
John 16:4b–11 (ESV): “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. 5 But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
This passage may not confuse you, but it puzzled me for quite some time and left me with questions:
How could it possibly be to the disciples’ advantage, or to mine and yours, or to anyone’s that Jesus goes away?
What does Jesus mean when he says the Holy Spirit will not (perhaps cannot?) come until he ascends to his Father? How and why is the Ascension related to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit?
This seems to be a timely passage for us to tackle just now since it relates to this day’s observance of the Ascension (Jesus going away) and to Pentecost (the coming of the Holy Spirit) ten days hence. We’ll try our two-fold strategy on it:
When lost in the middle, go back to the beginning, and look forward to the ending.
All right: back to the beginning, in this case all the way back to the beginning of all things, to the creation story. Whatever else we might observe about the creation account in Genesis 1:1-2:3, it has the repetitive, progressive structure of a great liturgy: And God said…and there was…evening and morning…it was good, repeated six times all the while progressing toward the penultimate event, the creation of man, male and female. Those who study such Ancient Near Eastern texts tell us that this creation account has the structure of a temple dedication liturgy. It presents God’s creation of the universe, and particularly of the earth, the Garden, and man as the construction and dedication of a temple, nearing completion on the sixth day when God’s image bearers — not idols of wood or stone, but image-bearing humans — are placed in the temple and animated with the breath of God. It culminates on the seventh day when the high God takes up his residence in the holy place. Now, let’s get this because it’s central to all that follows: this temple, and particularly this holy place, was to be where God uniquely dwelt with his people. That was the purpose of the temple of creation — to be the dwelling place of God with his people. That’s the beginning.
Now, let’s look forward to the ending — to the end of the record, though not the end of the eternal story.
Revelation 21:1–4 (ESV): 1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
As in the beginning, so at the end. The first heaven and earth that God had created as a temple in which to dwell with his image bearing humans has passed away. But there is a new — a renewed — heaven and earth and a new Jerusalem which lies at their intersection. And it, not the Garden, is the final dwelling place of God with man. God’s purpose has remained constant from beginning to end: to dwell with his holy people. So much for those poor souls — Sartre and his existentialist devotees, and the new atheist sons and daughters of Hitchens and Dawkins — all those poor souls who say life has no meaning and the world has no purpose. The purpose, the telos, of all creation is to be the dwelling place of God with his people. And the human purpose is to dwell with God as his holy people.
The story of the whole of Scripture is of how God, in his providence, takes man from the Garden to New Jerusalem, from the beginning to the end. It is a long, winding, and sometimes torturous tale, and I’ll mention just a few of the most important milestones along the way.
The first woman was tempted and deceived by the father of lies, the ancient serpent, and the first man embraced her deception along with her. And by that action they forfeited the God-given holiness that allowed them to dwell in the holy place with God. The result was exile away from the presence of God. Call it punishment, if you will, but it was also protection. Sinful man cannot dwell in the presence of the holy God and live. That is the great conundrum that runs throughout Scripture: God created man to dwell with him as his holy people, but because man squandered his holiness he cannot dwell in the presence of God.
Adam and Eve are now exiled into a chaotic world, a hostile world in which their descendants will be born not into holiness, but into sin and slavery and alienation from one another and from God. And the human species, created to be holy image bearers, spirals downward into corruption, unable any longer to bear the presence of God.
So, what is God to do? He doesn’t abandon his purpose to have a holy people among whom to dwell; rather, he starts anew, a second creation (actually a third, if we count the flood). He calls a man, Abram, his wife, Sarai, and a few family members to form the nucleus of a new people, who will be for him a holy people, a kingdom of priests among whom he will live — a holy enclave in the midst of a fallen world. And, he will use this people as agents of holiness, to make God known, and ultimately through whom to purify the whole world so that God might once again dwell with humans.
This plan proceeds by fits and starts over centuries, through generations of Patriarchs until we reach Moses and a new chapter in the story of Israel. From the original old couple, Abraham and Sarah, God’s people have grown to six hundred thousand men, besides women and children. It is now time for God to dwell among them. On Sinai, God gives Moses a vision of the heavenly tabernacle and commands him to build an earthly counterpart in which God’s presence will reside, in the Holy of Holies of the tabernacle, between the outstretched wings of the cherubim, over the mercy seat. And God gives Moses a Law by which to purify his people so that God may dwell among them: not regulations only, but rituals of sacrifice to atone for sins committed, in order to restore holiness.
At the heart of this Law, as the greatest act of purification for the restoration of holiness, lies the Day of Atonement. Though sacrifices for the people’s sin are offered daily, sin leaves a residue, a taint, that contaminates the ark of the covenant with its mercy seat, the Holy of Holies, the Holy Place, the altar and its utensils, the tabernacle and its court, the people, the entire encampment, and ultimately the land promised to Abraham. And that must be addressed once each year, once every year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement when the high priest takes the blood of a goat behind the veil of the Holy of Holies, into the very presence of God, and sprinkles the blood on the mercy seat to make atonement for it, to purify it. The high priest then works his way outward purifying the entire tabernacle complex and the people and the land with the blood of the goat so that God can dwell among them for another year. Unless the High Priest enters the Holy of Holies with the blood of the goat, there is no purification and God cannot dwell among his people. The alternatives are exile or death, and there is little difference between the two. It is important to remember that this ritual purifies Israel only, not the nations of the world; God dwells in the midst of Israel only, and not among the nations of the world. Not yet, at any rate, though God will promise through the prophets that one day, through the seed of Abraham, the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea (see Hab 2:14).
Let’s pause a moment to get our bearings.
In our quest to understand St. John’s challenging text about the Ascension, we have gone back to the beginning, and we have looked forward to the end. Now, perhaps, we can plunge into the heart of it.
On the day of resurrection, Jesus greets Mary Magdalene at the tomb and says to her:
John 20:17 (ESV): “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”
May I paraphrase Jesus’ words?
“Don’t hold on to me, now; we both still have work to do. Your task is to proclaim my resurrection to my other disciples. My task can only be completed when I ascend to the Father.”
And what is Jesus’ task? From our look backwards, we know. It is the great and final Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, not to purify Israel only, but to make atonement for the sin of the whole world, as Hebrews tells us:
Hebrews 9:11–14 (ESV): 11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Hebrews 9:24–26 (ESV): 24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
Christ our Great High Priest ascended into heaven to enter the Holy of Holies — into the very presence of God the Father Almighty — to purify forever those who are his and to sanctify the whole world, so that God — in the person of the Holy Spirit — might be set loose in the world to dwell among his people at last. As St. John writes:
1 John 2:2 (ESV): 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
It is too small a thing for the Great High Priest to purify an ark or a tent or a temple or a nation or a plot of land in the Middle East. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. The God who created his image bearers so that he might dwell among them, will now, at last dwell among people from every family, language, people, and nation. Now all peoples may be included among his holy people. Now his holy presence is not limited to one place, but is everywhere present filling all things. Now, it is not only our Great High Priest who may come into the Holy of Holies one day each year, but also us:
Hebrews 10:19–23 (ESV): 19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
That is the good news of the Ascension: the world purified so that God, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, may dwell with his holy people — all his holy people — wherever they may be found, and so that his holy people — all this holy people — may enter into his presence without fear.
Was it to the disciples’ advantage, or to yours and mine, or to anyone’s that Jesus went away in the Ascension? Oh, yes; for in his Ascension, Jesus purified the world.
And what has all this to do with the coming of the Holy Spirit? The descent of the Holy Spirit is the firstfruits of God dwelling with his holy people at last, made possible by the final Day of Atonement. It is a foretaste of the new Jerusalem in which God will be all and in all.
What are we to say to all this? Psalm 47 gives us words:
1 O clap your hands together, all you peoples; O cry aloud unto God with shouts of joy.
2 For the LORD Most High is to be feared; he is the great King over all the earth.
6 O sing praises, sing praises unto our God; O sing praises, sing praises unto our King.
7 For God is the King of all the earth; think upon his mighty acts and praise him with a song (BCP 2019, pp. 328-329).
The Problem of Suffering: A Reflection on 1 Peter 5 (1 Peter 5, Ps 18:1-20, Luke 6:1-19)
1 Peter 4:16 (ESV): 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The problem of suffering is often presented as a particularly Christian problem, and I suppose it is in this limited sense: if you are not a Christian you do not have to explain the presence of suffering or find meaning in it or justify how belief in an all-powerful, all-good, all-loving God is consistent with the presence of almost unimaginable suffering in the world. Suffering is just part of life — natural — and while you have to learn to manage it, there really is nothing to explain, no meaning to be found, and no god to justify in the face of painful evidence to the contrary. The world manages, but doesn’t explain suffering.
If you are a hedonist, your management philosophy is straightforward: maximize pleasure and minimize suffering. There is nothing good in suffering and nothing noble in bearing up under it. Avoidance is the ideal. The only problem with that approach is its impossibility. Sooner or later, suffering comes for us all, and we can no longer avoid it. Ironically, the very act of seeking to maximize pleasure often produces the very suffering it seeks to avoid. Seek the pleasant oblivion of alcohol and wake up with a hangover. Do that often, and become enslaved to drink.
The stoics among us have another approach, along the lines of Bobby McFerrin’s song Don’t Worry Be Happy. Since you have no control over when, where, and how suffering might come, there is no use in worrying about it. Live life to the full, put suffering out of mind, and deal with suffering if and as it comes. And, when it comes, the best approach is the classic British “stiff upper lip” or “Keep calm and carry on.” The way to manage suffering is to put it out of mind until it comes, and to bear it with dignity when it comes.
Another option, this one characteristic of Buddhism, is simply to deny the objective/external reality of suffering. Suffering is not “out there;” instead, suffering is an internal problem, an illusion born of human attachments. Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, realized this in his moment of enlightenment and expressed it his Four Noble Truths:
1. All of life is suffering.
2. The cause of suffering is craving.
3. The end of suffering is getting rid of craving and grasping.
4. The method to use in overcoming suffering is the Eightfold Path.
We need not seriously consider the Eightfold Path; unless you are a Buddhist the notion that suffering is merely an illusion is all blue smoke and mirrors, nice on paper, but useless where the rubber meets the road. That said, I would not want to dismiss too quickly the Buddha’s conviction that the end of suffering is getting rid of craving and grasping. I would want to baptize the idea, to infuse it with Christian meaning, but I would not want to dismiss it out of hand. Clinging to the wrong things can produce a kind of suffering.
I am certain that I have caricatured all these non-Christian suffering management strategies. Since I don’t share them, I am not expert on them, and I don’t have much sympathy for them. Even though we do not fully understand or share them, modern Christianity sometimes does have leanings toward each of these errant views. Like hedonists, we often try to avoid suffering or at least to minimize it, and I suppose there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But, it must not be avoided at all costs. And, sometimes, it must be positively embraced. Like stoics, we too often put suffering out of sight and out of mind until it hits us like a ton of bricks and we find ourselves unprepared for it. We shouldn’t borrow trouble; Jesus tells us not to be anxious about tomorrow. But, we also should not be spiritually unprepared for suffering when it comes. Like Buddhists, we sometimes very piously pretend that suffering is an illusion. In the face of real tragedy we smile and say, or someone smiles at us and says, “God is good, all the time. And all the time, God is good.” And while that is true in some sense, it is hard to mouth it through tears.
Suffering is a human reality common to us all, Christians and non-Christians alike. But, there is a uniquely Christian way of understanding it. And, there is also a kind of suffering that is uniquely Christian, a suffering that comes to us by virtue of being Christian: forgiving instead of taking revenge, sharing the burden of the world in prayer and service, ridicule or rejection for bearing the name of Christ, alienation from friends and family, financial or physical hardships. It wasn’t hyperbole when Jesus said that whoever would be his disciple must take up his cross daily and follow him. The cross, as a Christian symbol, doesn’t just point backward to Jesus, but proclaims an ever-present reality for all who bear his name, and that reality includes suffering.
So, how do — or how should — Christians deal with suffering? That question is implicit throughout St. Peter’s first letter, not least in the immediate prologue to the text appointed for us in the Daily Office and then throughout the appointed text itself.
1 Peter 4:12 (ESV): 12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
One of the great differences between first century and twenty-first century Christianity is the expectation of suffering: they did; we seem not to. The early Christians seemed to take suffering — and especially suffering for being a Christian — as a given; it was almost certain to happen sooner or later. We, in the West, think of suffering for being a Christian as an aberration, as something that may happen elsewhere or in another time, but not here, not now, not to us. So, we are shocked when it comes and uncertain how to handle it theologically and practically. We have lost the emphasis that, in baptism, the Church is making not just saints, but martyrs. So, Peter reminds us that suffering is nothing surprising; the near exemption from Christian suffering that we have had historically in the modern Western world is the exception, not the norm. Don’t be surprised; suffering as a Christian is nothing strange. Don’t be surprised; be prepared.
1 Peter 4:1-16 (ESV): 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.
St. Peter also insists that the suffering we bear for Christ is the suffering we bear with Christ; it is our share, our portion, our participation in Christ’s sufferings. And Christ’s suffering was redemptive. It was the prelude to glory. Even more than that, in a great paradox and mystery, Christ was glorified in and through his suffering. His glory was not just on the far side of suffering, though it certainly was there, too; it was also manifest in his suffering. On the night of Jesus’ betrayal, just after Judas had left the Upper Room to arrange for Jesus’ arrest:
John 13:31 (ESV): 31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.
In and through betrayal, arrest, denials, trials, beatings, mocking, crucifixion, and death, Jesus was manifesting the glory of God. Amidst shame, Jesus was glorified. You know that one of the characteristics of crucifixion — and a source of great suffering in it — was the shame heaped upon the victim: paraded through the streets as a criminal, stripped naked, staked out on a cross for public viewing, body left to decay on the cross and to feed the scavengers. It was shameful to the victim, to the family, to the community. The same is true with all our suffering for Christ; it is an attempt by the powers to shame the one who bears the name of Christ. St. Peter absolutely rejects that notion and turns it on its head.
1 Peter 4:16 (ESV): 16 Yet is anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.
And then this:
1 Peter 4:19 (ESV): 19 Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
If you are suffering for Christ, it is not that God has forgotten or abandoned you, but rather that you are fully embraced in the will of God. This is difficult to understand and perhaps to accept, but it is essential. If it was the will of God to save the world by entering into its suffering in the person of Jesus Christ, then it is also his will to continue, to work out, the redemption of the world through the suffering of those who bear the name of Christ. Trust that. Trust God. And keep doing good.
Then, St. Peter turns his attention to his fellow elders: bishops, priests:
1 Peter 5:1-5 (ESV): 1 So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. 5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Why single out the elders in a discussion of suffering? If you want to kill a snake, so the saying goes, you cut off its head. If you want to eradicate a movement, you kill its leaders. In times of persecution, the elders — bishops and priests — were the most likely targets, the ones most most likely to suffer. And that may be why St. Peter here reminds them of the gravitas of their office, of the need to be examples to the flock as Christ was an example to them, and of the reality that an unfading crown of glory lies on the far side of suffering.
And then to everyone, St. Peter says:
1 Peter 5:6-11 (ESV): 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 11 To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
There are three agents in this mystery of suffering: God, who allows suffering and who will bring you through it, and who will restore, strengthen, establish, and exalt you; you, the one who is suffering and who must be sober-minded and watchful; and the devil who seeks to exploit the suffering to your destruction. We have already spoken a bit about God, so let’s address the other spiritual agent, the devil. What is his role or purpose in suffering? He prowls around, looking for chinks in your armor, looking for breaches in the wall of faith, practice, and trust that he can exploit. He intimidates and frightens — or at least tries to — with his roaring. And the third agent — us: how are we to respond? Not by cowering or hunkering down, but by resisting in all the ways the Spirit enables and the Church gives us: by prayer and fasting, by repentance and confession, by Scripture and liturgy and psalmody, by the Sacraments, by the cultivation of the virtues, by assembling with the saints and by remembering and praying for those saints far from us who are experiencing the same — and often greater — suffering. There is great comfort, I think, in knowing that we are not alone in suffering.
And then St. Peter assures us of the one truth above all others that makes us able to endure suffering: God is sovereign now and ever. Our suffering is not outside the bounds of God’s will or dominion, which means that it has purpose and meaning and that it is intended for and will redound to our good.
There is really no place in our secular Western culture for suffering. Our goal is to avoid it, put it out of sight and mind, and eliminate it. As Orthodox priest Fr. Stephen Freeman says, the ultimate way to eliminate suffering is to eliminate the one suffering. This elderly person is suffering; in our mercy we will euthanize him. This baby will be born with a mental or physical disability that will include a certain amount of suffering — as we envision it — not just for the child but for the parents whose lives this child will complicate; in our mercy we will abort the baby. Death is preferable to suffering, particularly if the suffering is mine and the death is someone else’s. So our culture believes.
But that is not the mind and example of Christ, nor the way of the Church, as St. Peter knew it and taught it:
1 Peter 4:12–13 (ESV): 12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, who willingly embraced the shame and suffering of the cross for our sake and for our salvation: Grant us so faithfully to follow you that, when by God’s providence we, too, endure suffering for your Name’s sake, we may rejoice to share your sufferings, and endure with hope until your glory is revealed; who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
After co-facilitating another excellent three-day cohort gathering of those training in spiritual direction with the St Benedict Center for Spiritual Formation (https://stbenedict-csf.org/), I am relaxing this afternoon with an iced coffee and one of my favorite books: “A Place of Healing for the Soul: Patmos.” As the book nears its end, the author has made his way from atheist to Orthodox Christian. In a few of the final chapters he seeks to describe the fundamental differences between Eastern and Western Christianity. I appreciate the simplicity and humor of these words:
In my experience, really committed Protestants tend to think of themselves as “saved” because they have accepted Jesus; Roman Catholics, on the other hand, see themselves as “sinners” in need of weekly absolution. Orthodox just think themselves luck.
There is, it seems to me, enough of the living truth in each of the three Churches to bring its members to Christ. Just as each has enough of fallen humanity to give the Holy Spirit a hard time (Peter France, A Place of Healing for the Soul: Patmos, Atlantic Monthly Press (2002), p. 168).
Despite being English, the author doesn’t specifically address the Anglican Church, perhaps because he sees it as Protestant or perhaps because, as in most things Anglican, there is no firm consensus on this issue. And for me? I agree with Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, of blessed memory. I “have been saved” through baptismal regeneration. I “am being saved” through participation in the Sacraments and the faith and life of the Church. I hope finally “to be saved” solely by the grace and mercy of the one who loves me and gave himself for me. If that can be described as “luck,” then I am lucky indeed. I think it is grace.
Apostles Anglican Church Fr. John A. Roop Canon Theologian, Anglican Diocese of the South
God’s Providence For Such A Time As This A presentation for Women of the Word
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. Let us pray.
I. For the Universal Church O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen (BCP 2019, p, 646).
Introduction: Things Too Wonderful For Me
Scripture recounts history, codifies law, sings songs, quotes proverbs, unveils prophecies, tells parables, reveals God and man in visions and dreams and sermons and conversations in all the various events of human lives and societies that span over a millennium. Then, from these histories, laws, songs, prophecies, parables, and revelations we — collectively and individually — formulate doctrines to answer our questions and satisfy our curiosity. The process of doing this assumes — wrongly, I think — that the truth, that what is really essential, is not the history, law, song itself, but rather some abstract notion contained in and separable from the form in which it appears. Jesus did not really need to give us the parable of the Good Samaritan, for example; he could simply have said, “Everyone is your neighbor,” because that is the truth, the essence, the real meaning of the parable. The story was just a container for the truth, and we can dispense with the container once we have the truth. And though we act that way, we know it is not really true. The message and the form in which it is given are inseparably joined.
A famous choreographer and dancer once premiered a piece. She was asked afterwards by reporters what the piece meant, to which she replied along these lines: If I could explain it in words, I need not have danced it. The dance was irreducible to mere words; it was not a container for some essential truth. The dance was the truth. In the same way, the history, law, prophecies, parables, etc., are not mere containers of some truth, they are the truth as revealed by God and experienced by God’s people.
Even so, we all practice this kind of reductionism when reading Scripture, knowing that it robs us of much of the richness of God’s revelation. We all practice it when we think about and talk about Scripture; the only alternative is simply to quote Scripture — the whole of it in fact, so that we leave nothing out. And, that is not feasible. So, we select and abstract.
Then, having abstracted from what Scripture actually says to get these nuggets of immutable truth — let’s call them doctrines — we try to systematize these doctrines into a grand, sweeping theology in which each piece fits together with jigsaw puzzle perfection to make a perfectly clear and pleasing picture of God, man, and creation. Some attempts to do this are better than others. Some leave puzzle pieces lying on the table; some force pieces to fit where the do not really belong; some seem to borrow pieces from other puzzles and distort the picture. None of the attempts are entirely successful.
I mention this because it is what we will be doing today. You have asked me to speak to you about the providence of God. But Scripture does not present us a systematic theology in which the doctrine of providence is perfectly spelled out. Instead, Scripture gives us history in which we see God working, sometimes with gentle love and sometimes with tough love. It gives us law by which God orders the life of his people and in which we see part of God’s will. It gives us songs and proverbs that extol God’s loving care in creation and in the lives of his people. It gives us sermons — think of the Sermon on the Mount — that challenge us to trust in the father-like provision of God. And from all of these things, we will attempt to build a doctrine of providence that fits with other doctrines into a grand theology. We will fail. But, if the effort causes us to love and trust God more thoroughly and deeply, it will be a holy failure and well worth our time.
One other caveat is important before we begin. I strive always to speak with the Church when I speak for the church. I have no desire to say anything novel or to give you my opinion about a theological matter. I want to tell you what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. On some things — the content of the Creeds, for example — I can do that because the Church has spoken with one voice. Providence is another matter entirely; the Church has not and does not speak with one voice on the details of this doctrine. While there are some basic notions of providence on which seemingly all, or at least most Christians agree, Calvinists do not view providence in the same way as the Orthodox or the Roman Catholics do. To complicate matters even further for us, the formularies that present Anglican doctrine do not provide a robust doctrine of providence. For that reason, Anglicans span the spectrum from Calvinism to near open theism. For the sake of full disclosure, I like to think I am a middle-of-the-road Anglican with no real sympathy for either end of the providential spectrum.
With all that in place, perhaps we should move now toward a working description — if not a precise definition — of providence.
St. Andrews Theological Dictionary offers this:
Providence refers to the benevolent oversight, provision, and purpose of God in directing the natural world, the flow of history, and the circumstances of each individual life.
I might simplify that a bit for our purposes:
Providence refers to God’s wise, good, and loving governance of creation, history, and individual lives as he shepherds all things toward his ultimate purpose.
Providence assumes that God is present and active in creation, in history, and in human lives and that all things are moving toward the fulfillment of his purpose. Even events that seem random — and may have an element of randomness in them, in fact — are nonetheless incorporated into God’s wise, good, and loving governance of all things and promote, or at least do not thwart, his purpose.
Being the heirs of the Enlightenment, we immediately want to know how God’s providence “works.” How is God active? How does he shepherd all things toward the accomplishment of his purpose? How does human free will fit into this, or is everything predetermined from the foundations of the world? What about evil: how does that fit with God’s providence to accomplish his will?
Here it is good to pause, and to listen to St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) in his own writing about providence:
Above all, we must not be overly inquisitive, either at the outset or afterwards (John Chrysostom, On the Providence of God, St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood (2021), p. 77).
Or, perhaps we should pray Psalm 131:
1 O Lᴏʀᴅ, I am not haughty; * I have no proud looks.
2 I do not occupy myself with great matters, * or with things that are too high for me.
3 But I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child upon his mother’s breast; * so is my soul quieted within me.
4 O Israel, trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ * from this time forth for evermore (BCP 2019, p. 447).
None of this is intended to dissuade us from considering the topic, but it is a reminder to do so humbly, tentatively, and to trust in God even when we get no satisfying answers to our questions. It is a reminder of our fellowship with Job who, at the end of God’s self-revelation, said:
Job 42:2–6 (ESV): 2 “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3 ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 4 ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ 5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; 6 therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
With all these cautions in place, let us begin.
Agents of Providence: Part 1 — Creation
There is no better place to begin than in the beginning, with the creation accounts as found in Genesis and the prologue of St. John’s Gospel.
Nature
A recurring theme in the Genesis account is God evaluating each day’s creative work with the assessment, “It is good.” Let’s take day 3 as an example:
Genesis 1:11–13 (ESV): 11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
What does God mean when he says the vegetation — the plants and fruit trees — is good? That it is lovely to look at? That the fruit tastes good? That the reality on the ground matches what God had “envisioned?” The Hebrew word translated as good is tov. While tov can mean beautiful or pleasing, the more common connotation — and almost certainly the one intended in Genesis — is functional, fit for the intended purpose. God intended the vegetation to be fecund, capable of reproducing through its seed, self-perpetuating for the good of animals and man who would feed on it. So, God created the vegetation with a purpose in mind and fitted its nature for the fulfillment of that purpose. In that sense it was tov, good.
There is a hint of this in St. John’s prologue when he writes:
John 1:1–5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
The Greek term that is translated as “Word” is logos. It means far more than spoken word. It connotes the reason or logic inherent in something; you even see logos in our word logic. It can mean the character or nature of a thing. It can mean the end or purpose for which something exists. When Christ the Logos of God created all things, he gave each created thing its own logos: its own inherent nature and reason for being, its own goal and created purpose. All creation is infused with logoi, with meaning and purpose and direction. Saying that creation is tov is saying that all creation is imbued with logoi and capable of achieving the various purposes for which God created it. And that means that the entire created order is an agent through which God exercises his providence, his good, wise, loving provision for all things as he shepherds all things toward his ultimate purpose. More about this later.
The entire created order is an agent through which God exercises his providence — his wise, good, loving governance of all things — as he shepherds all things toward his ultimate purpose.
Humans
Continuing with the creation account, we come to the creation of man, male and female, and the commissioning of man for the unique human vocation:
Genesis 1:26–31 (ESV): 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
This is a rich passage; from it I will select just one point pertinent to our topic, though many others could be explored.
Note that God makes man, male and female, in the divine image. What that entails in its fullness, we likely cannot know. But what it connotes here, in this account, is relatively clear; the next sentence offers the explanation: “And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Being made in God’s image entails exercising a delegated dominion and authority over a particular realm. As God is to all creation, so man is to be toward the earth: to rule, steward, and shepherd creation toward God’s intended purpose. Man is to accomplish this purpose by being fruitful and multiplying, by filling the earth and subduing it. This command to subdue the earth is interesting. It implies that, while paradise (Eden) is rightly ordered to accomplish God’s purpose, the rest of the earth is yet to be so, that it is the humans’ work, exercising the delegated authority of God, to bring God’s wise, good, and loving governance to bear to bring the whole earth to its proper purpose. And this means that humans are God’s agents of providence in the world, that God exercises his providence — his wise, good, and loving provision for all things — through his image bearers. The Psalmist wonders at this in Psalm 8:
4 What is man, that you are mindful of him, * the son of man, that you visit him? 5 You made him little lower than the angels, * to crown him with glory and honor. 6 You made him to have dominion over the works of your hands, * and you have put all things in subjection under his feet: 7 All sheep and oxen, * even the beasts of the field, 8 The birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, * and whatsoever walks through the paths of the seas. 9 O Lᴏʀᴅ our Governor, * how excellent is your Name in all the world (BCP 2019!
Notice how the Psalm insists on two complementary truths: the LORD is our Governor, and he has given dominion over the works of his hands to humans.
Humans are God’s agents of providence in the world, i.e., God exercises his providence — his good, wise, and loving governance of all things — through his image bearers.
It is this great truth, the providential vocation of human image bearers, that provides the context for the incarnation. When the first humans compromised their vocation, as we will see later, God did not abandon his intent. Rather, he himself provided the perfect human who incarnated the fullness of the divine image so that God himself in his humanity might be the ultimate human agent of providence. In Jesus, the plans of the sovereign God are not thwarted by the weakness of human flesh.
So far we have seen that God exercises his providence — his wise, good, and loving governance of all things — through creation and through his human image bearers.
Social and Power Structures
God also exercises his providence through human social and power structures — kingdoms, nations, rulers — often by judging them or by using them as instruments of his judgment. Three examples should suffice here: Pharaoh, Babylon, and Cyrus.
Pharaoh
Exodus 9:13–16 (ESV): 13 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 14 For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. 15 For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. 16 But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.
God used Egypt providentially to feed and shelter Israel. Then, when Egypt exceeded its mandate, when it enslaved Israel, God used Pharaoh providentially to demonstrate God’s power over false gods and brutal human empire.
Babylon
Habakkuk 1:1–12 (ESV): 1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw. 2 O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? 3 Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. 4 So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.
This is Habakkuk’s assessment of the corruption of God’s people. He continues, now, with God’s response.
5 “Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. 6 For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own. 7 They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. 8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves; their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. 9 They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. 10 At kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. 11 Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god!” 12 Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.
God used Babylon providentially to reprove and judge Judah, to drive them from the land for their pollution of the land through injustice and idolatry.
Cyrus
Isaiah 45:1–7 (ESV): Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed: 2 “I will go before you and level the exalted places, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron, 3 I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name. 4 For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me. 5 I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, 6 that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. 7 I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.
God used Cyrus providentially — though Cyrus had no idea that he was being used as an instrument of the God of Israel — to return the exiles of Judah to the land when their time of purification was complete.
God uses human social and power structures as his instruments of providence, i.e., God exercises his providence — his wise, good, and loving governance of all things — through social and power structures, even those who are ignorant of him or who act against him. That last point is important. God uses providentially even those powers that are arrayed against him. More about this later.
God uses human social and power structures as his instruments of providence, i.e., God exercises his providence — his wise, good, and loving governance of all things — through social and power structures, even those who act against him.
Angels
Let’s bring this section to a close with one more notion. Thus far we have looked at physical and visible agents of God’s providence: creation, humans, and social and power structures. But, we must not neglect the invisible realm of creation, in particular, the angels. They, too, are agents of providence as Hebrews makes clear:
Hebrews 1:7 (ESV): 7 Of the angels he says,
“He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire.”
Hebrews 1:14 (ESV): 14 Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?
Throughout Scripture, both the Old and New Testaments, we see God exercising his providence through the ministry of angels: protecting and guarding, judging and destroying, rescuing and comforting, revealing and proclaiming.
God uses angels as his agents of providence, i.e., God exercises his providence — his wise, good, and loving governance of all things — through angels who act as his ministering spirits.
Summary
We should pause to summarize what we have found before moving forward. There are two major notions:
1. When we speak of providence, we are referring to God’s wise, good, and loving governance of creation, history, and individual lives as he shepherds all things toward his ultimate purpose.
2. God’s providence is not a unilateral, autocratic action, not something that God does alone. Rather, God has created and empowered providential agents to work on his behalf and with his authority to accomplish his purpose. Those agents include natural elements (plants, animals, seas, etc.), humans, social and power structures, and angels.
Agents of Providence: Part 2 — Fall
The reason we are thinking about providence at all is that something seems to have gone drastically wrong with it. Just as we do not think about the air we breath until is it filled with pollen or smoke, so, too, with providence; when it seems, from our perspective, to be working well, we do not notice it. But, speaking frankly, the world does not seem to be under the wise, good, and loving governance of God. It does not seem to be under any governance that we can discern. Whether that is the case, is yet to be determined. But that something has gone wrong is obvious on the face of it. And Scripture agrees with that assessment.
Previously, we identified four agents of providence: nature, humans, social and power structures, and angels. Something has gone wrong with all these agents. Some have willingly rebelled against God and their God-given agency. Some have been deceived into abandoning the right use of agency. Some have been made unwillingly complicit in rebellion and abandonment. We will look briefly at the “fall” of each of the agents.
Angels
We start with the angelic rebellion.
Revelation 12:7–9 (ESV): 7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
This text is subject to varied interpretations, but the essence of it is clear enough; Satan and a group of angels rebelled against God, were defeated by Michael and the hosts loyal to God, and were thrown out of the heavenly realms to earth. No longer is this part of the heavenly host active agents of God’s providence; rather they scatter, accuse, and deceive the whole world. They are agents not of providence, but of chaos.
Humans and Nature
Notice that in Revelation 12, Satan is called “that ancient serpent” and is described as a deceiver. And that refers us to Genesis 3.
Genesis 3:1–7 (ESV): 3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
St. Paul views Eve’s actions not as an act of rebellion, but rather as a lack of discernment; she was deceived by the Serpent and transgressed (see 1 Tim 2:14). The consequences of this deception and the transgression of both the woman and the man were enormous: the humans were exiled from the presence of God (spiritual death) and deprived of the tree of life (physical death); they forfeited their dominion of creation; and creation itself was cursed to no longer perfectly follow its logoi, its divine purposes. We read that not just in Genesis 3, but also in Romans 8:
Romans 8:19–22 (ESV): 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
Now, humans and nature are no longer perfect agents of God’s providence, but are, at best, compromised in their ability to cooperate with God’s purpose. At worst, they actively oppose it.
Social and Power Structures
The sins of the fathers will be visited upon their children, we are told. And we see it immediately in the Genesis text. Adam and Eve’s first son Cain became a fratricide. Then when God drove Cain away from his presence, deprived him of his agrarian lifestyle, and cursed him to be a wanderer and a fugitive, Cain built a city and named it after his son Enoch (see Gen 4), the first society and power structure. The city quickly became not only a place of culture and technology (e.g., music and metallurgy), but also of violence.
Then comes the tower of Babel account in which people banded together (society) to thwart the purpose of God who had instructed them to disperse and fill the earth. Rather, they chose to create a name for themselves by exercising the power of their technology to construct another city. From here, social and power structures spiraled downward toward rebellion and chaos. When people band together, the societies they produce never perfectly function as agents of God’s providence. In fact, tribes, cities, and nations are most frequently portrayed as agents of violence, idolatry, and chaos in the biblical text, not least Jerusalem. Judah, the Davidic kingdom, failed to be God’s agents of providence and so incurred the judgment of God.
Summary
It is time to summarize again. God, who could have “scripted,” micromanaged, foreordained every single event throughout the whole history of creation, who could have been the sole agent of providence, instead engaged and invited nature, humans, social and power structures, and angels to be his fellow agents of providence, to move that portion of creation within their respective spheres of influence toward his ultimate purpose, to wisely govern in his name and on his behalf. But, angels rebelled, humans were deceived, nature was subjected to futility, and social and power structures sought autonomy. None of these agents of providence fulfilled their purpose, and the results of that are writ large in our world today: demonic spirits still deceive and destroy; humans increasingly ignore God and create idols for themselves and of themselves; nature is out of kilter; and social and power structures seem both ineffective, polarized and, in many cases, brutal. So, the question arises: What does God’s providence look like in such a time as this?
Providence: Part 3 — Agency or Instrumentality
In spite of the current state of affairs — a state that has existed from the first moment of rebellion against God — here is the Christian conviction: God is still sovereign and is still exercising his providence — his wise, good, and loving governance of all things as he moves them toward his ultimate purpose. On this, I think all Christians — wherever they find themselves on the spectrum of the theology of providence — can agree. And, here I should also say that the advertised title of my presentation today is a bit misleading, though not intentionally so: “God’s Providence For Such A Time As This.” That implies that this time — our time — is in some sense unique, that it is perhaps so dystopian that it calls into question God’s providence more than other times have. But it is not. All time has always been such a time as this: sometimes a bit better or worse in degree, but never different in kind. And God has always been and always will be sovereign. God’s providence has not, does not, and will not fail. Certainly, Jesus’ time was such a time as this, only more so. In Jesus’ time he called out, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” Where is providence in that? And yet, Jesus moved from that anguished question to, “Into your hands, I commend my spirit,” as profound an expression of faith in God’s providence as ever uttered. And, read the Sermon on the Mount; it is a testament to the providence of God:
Matthew 6:25–34 (ESV): 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Read Revelation, which allows for no doubt that the rebellion in the spiritual realm will be defeated, that man will be redeemed, that nature will be renewed, and that social and power structures will find their fulfillment in New Jerusalem in and through the perfect reign of God and of the Lamb. The scroll that only the Lamb is worthy to open is the unveiling and unrolling of history as is moves inexorably toward the fulfillment of God’s purpose, guided every moment by God’s providence. Read the entire Pauline corpus. Throughout, it expresses the conviction that the Church is evidence and agent of God’s providence.
Here is another conviction that I draw from Scripture: God still uses angels, humans, nature, and social and power structures in his good, wise, and loving governance of all things, either as agents of providence or as instruments of providence. Here is the distinction I want to make. An agent of providence is a willing participant, a co-worker with God in his providence. An instrument of providence is a recalcitrant tool that God uses for his purpose in spite of itself. In both cases the agent or the instrument acts with free will and is responsible, and in both cases God uses the action to further his purposes.
Concerning this conviction as it relates specifically to humans, N. T. Wright and Michael Bird write:
Given authority over God’s world, the humans tried to use it for their own advantage. The results were clear: exile from the garden, the Flood, the half-built tower and the confusion of tongues (Genesis 3 – 11). But — and again this points ahead to the paradox of politics — the Creator did not unmake the original purpose…the call to reflect God into his world has clearly not been rescinded. Faced with disaster, God calls a human, Noah, to engineer the immediate rescue operation. He then calls Abraham to be his partner in the slow, painful work of new creation itself. The human vocation is not abrogated: God still desires and intends to work in his world through obedient humans, and he continues to do so even when that obedience is at best patchy (N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, Jesus And The Powers, Zondervan Reflective (2024), p. 46).
Scripture does not provide a robust, detailed, systematic theology of how this works, and it is almost certain that we could not understand it even if it were provided. Instead the Scripture offers us history, law, songs, proverbs, prophecies, parables, visions, dreams, sermons, conversations, all of which exemplify and point toward God’s providence at work in such a time as this. And it invites us — it compels us — to trust in the wisdom, goodness, and love of God that we see in Jesus Christ, and also in the sovereign power that was on display supremely in the death and resurrection of the Lord.
God invited Abram and Sarai to be agents of providence in the creation of a people and a nation through whom God would redeem the world. And then God used other peoples and nations as instruments of providence to reprove and correct his people Israel: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome — all instruments of God’s providence, all acting freely in their in own interests yet being utilized providentially by God and held accountable for their free choices.
Balak, the son of the King of Moab, sent to the prophet Balaam to say about the people of Israel:
Numbers 22:5–6 (ESV): “Behold, a people has come out of Egypt. They cover the face of the earth, and they are dwelling opposite me. 6 Come now, curse this people for me, since they are too mighty for me. Perhaps I shall be able to defeat them and drive them from the land, for I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed.”
But, in the end, God used both Balak and Balaam as instruments of providence to bless Israel, not once, but four times. Men acting freely out of fear and treachery and greed, nonetheless became instruments of providence.
And there were Joseph’s brothers who nearly killed him but who settled finally for selling him into slavery instead. Though it took years to see it, Joseph was finally able to perceive how God had used even their evil deeds as instruments of providence:
Genesis 50:17–21 (ESV): 18 His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” 19 But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. 21 So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
These themes run throughout Scripture: God is sovereign over all and he uses angels, humans, nature, and social and power structures as either agents or instruments of his providence. Willing or unwilling, we are all caught up into the providence of God. We, the Church, have the privilege and responsibility of being agents, and not mere instruments, of God’s providence. That is true and possible because, through the victory of the cross, we are redeemed, renewed image bearers indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit. We then become God’s agents of providence as we pray and worship. We do that as we discern and do God’s will in the world, as we do the work God has given us to do as unto him, for his glory and for the welfare of his people. We do that as we suffer for the sake of Christ, as we unite the “ordinary” suffering of our lives with Christ’s redemptive suffering on the cross, as we share in the suffering of others and provide what comfort and relief we can. We do that as we engage in spiritual warfare, as we work to heal nature, as we strive for holiness in social and power structures through whatever influence God has given us, confident of this:
1 Corinthians 15:58 (ESV): 58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
God never abandoned his intent that his image bearing humans be his agents of providence in the world, being fruitful and bringing order — God’s justice — to all peoples and realms. In Christ, God has defeated the powers that worked to thwart that purpose and has set us free to fulfill our purpose. The Church should be the community in which and through which God’s providence is made most manifest.
Our Time
And now, because I was asked and expected to, I will speak a word about our time, about such a time as this, not because it is special, but because it is ours. I will mention two specific issues that challenge our understanding of God’s providence.
First: we face a presidential election this year. The obvious truth is that one of two deeply flawed candidates will be elected. Donald Trump is an ungodly man who exhibits none of the fruit of the spirit, but rather greed, licentiousness, lies, and self-idolatry. Joe Biden self-identifies as a pious Catholic while opposing the Church’s teaching by actively promoting the in utero murder of children, sinful sexuality, and errant anthropology. Let me be clear: from a Christian perspective — as a standard bearer of the Kingdom of God — neither man is fit to be president and neither has any apparent interest in being the agent of God’s providence. But, one will be elected, and one will be used as an instrument of God’s providence, just as Pontius Pilate was used as an instrument of God’s providence:
John 19:7–11 (ESV): 8 When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. 9 He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” 11 Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.”
God, acting through the free choice of the electorate, will allow one of these candidates a degree of authority for a limited time, and God will use that man as an instrument of his providence, perhaps to bless our nation or perhaps to rebuke and punish it. And God will hold that man accountable for what he does with that authority and that time. We need not wring our hands and wallow in anxiety at the outcome of the election — regardless of who is elected — because God will not be wringing his hands; rather, he will be exercising his sovereignty. This word from N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird expresses the proper perspective:
…just as humans, liberated from sin, can take their rightful place as the royal priesthood, so the structures of governance, the tendons and ligaments of complex human society, are in principle reconciled. God intends that humans should share in running his world, and should be held accountable. Structures through which this happens — though still vulnerable to abuse and distortion — are not automatically evil. On the contrary, they are thus in principle reaffirmed and celebrated. As with everything else in God’s creation, once they stop being worshipped they stop being demonic (N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, Jesus And The Powers, Zondevan Reflective (2024), p. 60).
Second: as of 5 March 2024, over 31,000 people — the vast majority of them Palestinian civilians — had been killed in the Hamas attack on Israel and in Israel’s retaliatory response. Most of Gaza has been destroyed, and, at the time of writing, the humanitarian situation is dire and famine is imminent. The situation has only worsened since then. Let’s be clear: evil men on both sides of the conflict have done this. Self-serving nations in the immediate aftermath of World War II set the stage for this ongoing conflict; social and power structures were complicit then and are still complicit today. It is not hard for those with eyes to see and ears to hear to perceive the demonic at work, not least in the demonizing of each side by the other. It is difficult to identify anyone seeking to be an agent of God’s providence in this, save for those working for and praying for peace and God’s justice to come. And yet, God is sovereign, and in his sovereignty he has allowed evil men a degree of dominion just as he allowed Adam dominion in the Garden. And, as Adam was judged, these men and people and nations will likewise be judged.
What are we to make of this? First and foremost we want the hostages released, the victims on both sides to be made as whole as possible. We want the destruction to cease and we want lasting peace with Godly justice to reign. But, we also want to know what God is up to in the situation. We want to know how this constitutes wise, good, and loving governance. We want to know what good can come from this tragedy that justifies the horrors of the killing on both sides. And, the truth is, the frustrating truth is, we are not given to know; we do not and we likely cannot know now. Whether we ever will know is an open question. We cannot know the details of God’s providence, but we can know — through faith and through the word of God incarnate — the reality of God’s providence. God is sovereign and will use even this great evil, freely chosen by agents of evil for generations, as an instrument of his providence.
We cannot know what God is doing, but we can know what God would have us to do. Acting as agents of providence, we can enter into the pain of the situation by sharing with the suffering ones in our prayers: prayers for wisdom and forgiveness and repentance and peace and justice; prayers that the nations of the world will exert their God-given authority to pressure both sides in the conflict for a cessation of hostility and the establishment of lasting peace with justice; prayers that God will raise up a newer, wiser generation of leaders who will put this generation of children before the last generation of blame and grievance. We can comfort those who grieve. We can support aid organizations who work to alleviate suffering. We can speak prophetically of the Kingdom of God to the power structures of this world. We can disavow the false theology that identifies the current nation of Israel with the chosen people of God, and we can reject the terrorism of Hamas — or of any such group — as a legitimate means of resistance and protest. And we can let the violence in Gaza remind us that there is violence in our own inner city neighborhoods, the hunger in Gaza remind us that poverty and hunger are endemic in our city and state and nation, the injustice in the region remind us that our own legal system is multi-tiered and weighted against the poor, the people of color, the immigrant. And we can work with the skill and authority that God has granted us to alleviate these evils. If we do this, a certain degree of good will have emerged from this evil conflict, and we will have acted as agents of God’s providence.
Summary
St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople and great preacher and writer of the Church, died in exile in 407; his had been a difficult life and a tumultuous episcopacy. Yet, looking back on it, in the midst of the physical, mental, and spiritual burdens of exile, he wrote to his daughter in the faith, the deaconess Olympias, the statement that, more than any other, expressed his confidence in the providence of God: “Glory to God for all things.” It is said that those were also his final words.
This great saint wrote a treatise on providence entitled On The Providence of God. Among the themes he expounds, two seem to me most pertinent. First, we must not be too inquisitive into the ways of God, for we cannot understand them. Second, we must take a longer few of things than is our wont: a view beyond our time and beyond this world. I would like to close, with an excerpt from his book:
Above all, we must not be overly inquisitive, either at the outset or afterwards. But, if you are so curious and inquisitive, wait for the final outcome and see how things turn out. And do not be thrown into confusion, do not be troubled at the start. When an inexperienced man at first sees a goldsmith melting the gold and mixing it with ashes and chaff — if he does not wait till the end of things— he will think the gold is ruined. And, if a man who has been born and raised on the sea and is completely ignorant of how to care for the land is suddenly moved to the interior of the country, when he sees the wheat that has been stored away and protected behind doors and bars, and kept free from moisture, suddenly brought out by the farmer, scattered, thrown about, lying on the ground before all passersby, and not only not kept free from moisture, but given over to mire and mud without any protection, will he not consider the wheat to be ruined and pass judgment on the farmer who did these things? But this condemnation does not come from the nature of what is done, but from the inexperience and folly of him who is not judging well, casting his ballot immediately at the outset. If he waited for the summer and saw the fields waving, the sickle sharpened, and the wheat that has remained scattered and unprotected and rotted and ruined and given over to the mire now raised up and multiplied, appearing in full bloom, having put away that which is obsolete, set upright with great strength, as though having guards and a watch, raising its stalk up high, delighting the beholder, as well as providing nourishment and great benefit — then he would be highly amazed that, by way of such conditions, the fruit had been brought to such abundance and splendor.
Therefore, you too, O man, especially do not be inquisitive about the common Master of us all. But if you are so contentious and daring as to rage with such madness, then wait for the final outcome of events…. But by outcome I do not mean only the outcome in the present life — for often it will be here, as well — but also that in the life to come. God’s economy [and here we might say God’s providence] is directed toward a single end in each of these lives: our salvation and good repute (John Chrysostom, On the Providence of God, St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood (2021), p. 77-78).
And so, pondering the mystery of God’s providence in this and every time, we say with St. John Chrysostom: Glory to God for all things. Amen.
The Superiority of Jesus: A Reflection on Hebrews 1-7 (Hebrews 7, Psalm 111, Mark 11:1-26)
Collect Almighty God, you gave your only Son to be for us both a sacrifice for sin and an example of godly living: Give us grace thankfully to receive his inestimable benefits, and daily to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In our modern, or post-modern, Western culture we tend to compartmentalize our lives in ways that our pre-modern ancestors couldn’t have imagined. Consider your life as a house. In that house you have lots of rooms: one for family and one for friends; one for work and one for hobbies; one marked personal and one marked public, one for religion and one for politics, and so forth, with every aspect of your life sequestered in its own room, a room with no connecting doors to any other rooms— all aspects of life strictly compartmentalized. Say you decide to marry, a very personal decision. You expect that decision to have no impact on your religion or politics or work; it belongs only to the room marked personal or perhaps family. Or suppose you decide to switch political affiliations, to change parties. Again, you don’t expect that to intersect with religion or family or any other room. Now, I have overstated the case, surely, but the general principle is true: we tend to compartmentalize our lives.
Now, turn the clock back two millennia, to the beginning of the Christian era or to essentially any time before that. Imagine yourself as a first century Jew or Jewish Christian. And, again, consider your life as a house. It would be what is called today an open floor plan only taken to the extremes. There would be no interior walls at all, no rooms, no compartmentalization. Decisions affected your whole life, not just some part of it. There were no separate categories of religion and politics, because what we call religion was part of the whole familial/social contract; it was how every citizen lived in relationship to the powers — earthly and heavenly — and in relation to one another. That is, in large part, why the Roman authorities were so confused and angry that Christians refused to offer incense to the Emperor. It had nothing to do with personal belief, a category that didn’t exist; believe what you will — Rome didn’t care. The offering to the emperor was a social contract; refusing to do it was letting the society, the polis, down. It was a tear in the fabric of communal life. And marriage had nothing to do with love; if that developed fine, if not, fine. Marriage was a social contract that bound entire families together. A marriage contract had vast economic, social, and perhaps political ramifications. I am not overstating the case here; if anything, to the contrary. Life was integrated and non-compartmentalized.
Now, back to first century Judaism. Imagine the implications of a first century Jew becoming a Christian. That would not be merely a private or personal decision; remember that life wasn’t compartmentalized that way. That decision would affect every part of life: who you ate with and socialized with and did business with; who you could marry; where you shopped; who, where, when, and how you worshipped; how you related to the Roman powers; and so on throughout the whole of your life. And not just your life, but the lives of your extended family. Baptism into Christ was not only a spiritual rebirth; it was also a cultural rebirth. It wasn’t just a transfer from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light; it was transfer from one way of being in this world to another way of being. You were truly born again, which meant you died to what had been before. Most of us don’t have that radical sense of disjunction when coming to Christ, so it may be hard for us to appreciate the radical nature of such a change, and the strong pull to return to a way of life that was familiar and comfortable, rich and nourishing. It was a difficult decision for a Jew to become a Christian; it was probably just as difficult on a daily basis to remain a Christian. So much was lost in the transition. Was it a good exchange?
The epistle to the Hebrews, which we have begun reading recently in the Daily Office, was written in large part to deal with that issue: to call these Jewish converts — if we can use that word — to remain steadfast in their decision, and to resist the strong attraction to return to the fold of Judaism. The author’s strategy is to show how all that was so treasured in Judaism is still present to the disciple of Jesus but now in elevated, superior fashion — how Jesus fulfills all that was partial in Judaism, or how Judaism was the signpost that pointed toward Jesus all along.
Let’s start with a very brief resumé of the first six chapters of Hebrews, leading to the reading for today, Hebrews 7.
First, the author acknowledges the importance and validity of the Jewish experience with God throughout history. The message of God in and through Jesus is not discontinuous with that; it is the next and final step of that experience and the ultimate revelation of God to his people and through his people, for the world:
Hebrews 1:1–9 (ESV): 1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say,
“You are my Son, today I have begotten you”?
Or again,
“I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”?
6 And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,
“Let all God’s angels worship him.”
God spoke to our [Jewish] fathers — to the Patriarchs and our ancestors throughout the generations — by prophets: no doubt about that, and no disrespect to that revelation. But now, God has spoken definitively and finally by his Son, the heir of all things, and the creator of all things — the one who reveals God perfectly because he is the exact imprint of God’s divine nature. In Judaism you have the prophets; in Jesus you have the one about whom the prophets spoke, the one true God who spoke through the prophets. The revelation in and through Jesus is superior to the revelation of the prophets.
And then the author speaks of angels. Why angels? It is not simply that angels are spiritual beings in some sense superior to us, but rather that the angels were thought to have played a role in mediation between God and man. The Book of Jubilees, which was written by the second century B.C., was an influential Jewish work well known during the second temple period (post-exile through the destruction of the temple). It was certainly familiar to the New Testament authors and the Church Fathers. It gives further traditions about the Genesis and Exodus accounts. In Jubilees, God does not give the Torah directly to Moses, but rather through the mediation of the angel of presence. The Law came from God, through the mediation of an angel, to man. Now, instead, Jesus is being presented as the only mediator between God and man because he is the only one in whom God and man truly meet in his person. So, the author shows, from the Hebrew Scriptures, that the Son is in all ways superior to the angels; thus, Jesus is superior to the angels — a better mediator. The author summarizes:
Hebrews 2:1–4 (ESV): 2 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, 4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
So much for angels. What of Moses, arguably the most significant figure in Jewish thought and life? Here the author asks his readers to consider the people of God as a house. He writes:
Hebrews 3:1–6 (ESV): 3 Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, 2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. 3 For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. 4 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) 5 Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, 6 but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.
Moses was faithful in God’s house, and should be honored for that. But, he was faithful as a trusted servant is faithful. He didn’t build the house, nor did he own the house; his authority in it was a delegated authority. But Jesus built the house — remember he created all things — and is faithful in that house as a son, as the heir with all the authority that applies. So, as honorable and faithful as Moses was, Jesus is vastly superior to him as a son is superior to a servant.
And now, at last, we come to the topic of today’s reading: the priesthood. The author has shown how Jesus’ mediation of the New Covenant is superior to the angel’s mediation of the Old Covenant. He has shown how Jesus’ faithfulness in the house of God’s people as a Son is superior to Moses’ faithfulness as a servant. Now, he will show how Jesus’ ministry as priest is superior to that of the Levitical priests. In doing this — in maintaining that Jesus’ priesthood is superior —there is one great hurdle to overcome. Do you see it? The priesthood “belongs” — by divine appointment — to the tribe of Levi. But, Jesus is of the tribe of Judah. There is a Catch-22 at play here. Jesus can only be the Messiah, the rightful king and descendant of David, if he belongs to the tribe of Judah. But, if he is the rightful King, it seems that he cannot then also be the rightful High Priest, because he would be of the wrong tribe. How will the author overcome this dilemma? By appealing to a more ancient and fundamental priesthood than that of Levi. Yes, during the Exodus, the tribe of Levi was appointed to bear the priesthood. But, six generations before that — some four hundred and thirty years prior — there was another, more fundamental priesthood, the priesthood of Melchizedek. For a time, the Levitical priesthood existed in parallel with the Melchizedekan priesthood, never in a way to supplant it or replace it, but as a sign pointing toward it. The Levitical priesthood, realized in Aaron and his descendants, always pointed toward the fulfillment of the priesthood in Melchizedek, so that Jesus is indeed the rightful and final high priest.
Here is how the reasoning goes — some of it explicit in Hebrews and some of it more subtle.
The covenant is prior to, and thus more fundamental than, the Law. So, Abraham and covenant have priority over Moses and Law. The priest to whom Abraham submitted, the priest who mediated God to Abraham and Abraham to God, is more fundamental than the priesthood inaugurated through Moses. Here is how the author of Hebrews introduces this notion. He first states that Jesus has become a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Then this:
Hebrews 7:1-3 (ESV): 1 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, 2 and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. 3 He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever.
So, the argument goes like this. Melchizedek — who was not from the tribe of Levi — was a priest four centuries before Aaron and the Levitical priesthood. Abraham tithed to him and received a blessing from him; this shows the superiority not only of Melchizedek over Abraham, but also the superiority of his priesthood over that priesthood which would be appointed to Abraham’s descendants. Not only this, but Melchizedek is a mysterious figure, an eternal figure with neither father nor mother nor genealogy nor death certificate: either an image of Jesus or a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus himself. That is why the author continues:
Hebrews 7:15–19 (ESV): 15 This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, 16 who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. 17 For it is witnessed of him,
“You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.”
18 For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness 19 (for the law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.
Here, the author quotes the enigmatic psalm of David, Psalm 110, with which Jesus himself baffled the Jewish authorities:
1 The Lᴏʀᴅ said unto my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, * until I make your enemies your footstool.”
2 The Lᴏʀᴅ shall send the scepter of your power out of Zion: * “Rule in the midst of your enemies.”
3 In the day of your power the people, in holy raiment, shall offer you freewill offerings; * from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth belongs to you.
4 The Lᴏʀᴅ has sworn and will not recant: * “You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.”
So, YHWH has appointed Jesus as a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek: Jesus, the last and eternal great high priest, superior in every way to the temporary Levitical high priests.
So, that catches us up with our reading of Hebrews: Jesus, superior to prophets; Jesus, superior to angels; Jesus, superior to Moses; Jesus — the great and eternal Melchizedekan high priest — superior to the Levitical priesthood. That is, in part, why the Jewish Christians should hold on, should remain faithful to Jesus in spite of the difficulties they face and the attractions of their former life.
But what, if anything, does that have to do with us? There is a straight line from the argument of Hebrews to this great truth of our lives: Jesus is superior to everything that we might hold to be good and true and beautiful and worthy, superior to everything that we might be called to relinquish in order to gain him and to be found in him; superior to all that we could ask or imagine. He alone is worthy of our worship and honor and glory; he alone is worthy of our very selves. To exchange everything for Jesus is the most laudable exchange, and one which will enrich us beyond all measure. Amen.
William Law, Priest and Teacher of the Faith (1761) (Philippians 3:7-14, Psalm 1, Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21)
Collect O God, by whose grace your servant William Law, kindled with the flame of your love, became a burning and shining light in your Church: Grant that we may also be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline, and walk before you as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Here at Apostles, and really in the Anglican Church as a whole, we most often observe ecumenical feasts and fasts: holy days and holy men and women recognized by the one holy catholic and Apostolic Church, by the whole Church — Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican together. But, from time to time, we especially acknowledge our own: Anglicans who have exemplified a saintly devotion and service to the Lord and to his Church, who have contributed to the life and growth of the Church in profound ways. The Anglican Church has no mechanism for canonizing saints; but, if we did, these people would be on the list.
William Law (d. 1761) is a such a man, a good, faithful Church of England priest in the 18th century: a school master, a private tutor, the very image of a devout churchman.
Law noticed, in his time, a great disparity between the public and private devotion most people exhibited — church attendance, regularity of prayer, for example — and their manner of life in the world. The question that vexed him was this: Why does religious devotion seem to make so little difference in the Christian’s way of life? Why are religiously devout Christians, those who regularly attend church and say their prayers, so little different in their everyday pursuits and manners than those who exhibit no such religious devotion? That was an 18th century concern, but it seems to me as pertinent now as then, the primary difference being that in the 21st century, Christians have also begun forsaking even religious devotion in increasing numbers. The nones, those with no religious affiliation, represent the fastest growing “religious” demographic in our country. Even so, along with Law, I am concerned that of those who do profess the faith, who do attend church at least somewhat regularly, look so much like their secular counterparts. When I grow honestly introspective, I grow concerned that the Gospel has not made more impact on my manner of being in the world than it has.
In answer to these questions and concerns, and to propose a remedy for the problem, William Law issued a serious call to a devout and holy life. That was the title of the book he wrote in 1728: A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (hereafter Serious Call). It was an influential work, and his was an influential life. Based on his life, teaching, preaching, and writing it is said by some that:
More than any other man, William Law laid the foundations for the religious revival of the eighteenth century, the Evangelical Movement in England, and the Great Awakening in America (Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2000, Church Publishing Incorporated (2001), p. 218).
Law’s great conviction, which he expresses repeatedly in his book, was this simple truth:
If we are to follow Christ, it must be in our common way of spending every day. If we are to live unto God at any time or in any place, we are to live unto him in all times and in all places. If we are to use anything as the gift of God, we are to use everything as his gift (Serious Call).
The practice of religion, Law knew and we know, is more than outward acts of religious piety like attending church and saying grace before meals. As important as those practices are, they alone do not make a person devout. Law writes this:
He therefore is the devout man who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all the parts of his common life parts of piety by doing everything in the name of God and under such rules as are conformable to His glory. The short of the matter is this, either reason and religion prescribe rules and ends to all the ordinary actions of our life, or they do not. If they do, then it is as necessary to govern all our actions by those rules as it is necessary to worship God. For if religion teaches us anything concerning eating and drinking or spending our time and money; if it teaches us how we are to use and contemn the world; if it tells us what tempers we are to have in common life, how we are to be disposed toward all people, how we are to behave toward the sick, the poor, the old, and destitute; if it tells us whom we are to treat with a particular love, whom we are to regard with a particular esteem; if it tells us how we are to treat our enemies, and how we are to mortify and deny ourselves, he must be very weak that can think these parts of religion are not to be observed with as much exactness as any doctrines that relate to prayers (ibid).
In writing this, Law does little more than say amen to the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus says:
Matthew 7:24–27 (ESV): 24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them, Jesus says. And the words he spoke were practical words covering the ordinary affairs of human life, not just that part of life we call “religious.” It was really Jesus who issued a serious call to a devout and holy life. Listen again, now, to William Law:
If contempt of the world and heavenly affection is a necessary temper of Christians, it is necessary that this temper appear in the whole course of their lives, in their manner of using the world, because it can have no place anywhere else. If self-denial be a condition of salvation, all that would be saved must make it a part of their ordinary life. If humility be a Christian duty, then the common life of a Christian is to be a constant course of humility in all its kinds. If poverty of spirit be necessary, it must be the spirit and temper of every day of our lives. If we are to relieve the naked, the sick, and the prisoner, it must be the common charity of our lives, as far as we can render ourselves able to perform it. If we are to love our enemies, we must make our common life a visible exercise and demonstration of that love. If content and thankfulness, if the patient bearing of evil be duties to God, they are the duties of every day and in every circumstance of our life. If we are to be wise and holy as the newborn sons of God, we can no otherwise be so but by renouncing everything that is foolish and vain in every part of our common life. If we are to be in Christ new creatures, we must show that we are so by having new ways of living in the world. If we are to follow Christ, it must be in our common way of spending every day. Thus it is in all the virtues and holy tempers of Christianity; they are not ours unless they be the virtues and tempers of our ordinary life…. If our common life is not a common course of humility, self-denial, renunciation of the world, poverty of spirit, and heavenly affection, we don’t live the lives of Christians (ibid).
So, having established that our devotion is not restricted to worship only but to all the affairs of daily life, Law then explores why most lives are not lived in keeping with the Gospel. Before we hear from Law on this, let me set the stage with an analogy.
I have made — who knows how many — New Year’s resolutions in my life. I can say with a fair degree of confidence that the percentage of those resolutions I’ve kept is fairly close to zero. Does that “ring true” to your experience? Why is that so? Well, the making of New Year’s resolutions is holiday tradition that no one takes very seriously; we all make them and we all joke about not keeping them, and often in the same breath. And really, the kinds of resolutions we make are more like common wishes that real resolutions, more on the order of “Wouldn’t it be nice if…” than “I am committed to …”. I’d like to lose twenty pounds this year. Well, who wouldn’t? I’d like to eat healthier and get in better shape. Check and check. I think it would be helpful to learn a second language. Probably so. But, what is lacking here in all these is an sense of real commitment, any resolution of the will, any plan for making these things happen. In other words, any real intent to amend one’s life. And that’s merely humorous when it comes to New Year’s resolutions, but not so humorous when it comes to living out the Gospel.
It was … intention that made the primitive Christians such eminent instances of piety, that made the goodly fellowship of the Saints and all the glorious army of martyrs and confessors. And if you will here stop and ask yourself why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it. You observe the same Sunday worship that they did; and you are strict in it because it is your full intention to be so. And when you as fully intend to be like them in their ordinary common life, when you intend to please God in all your actions, you will find it as possible as to be strictly exact in the service of the church. And when you have this intention to please God in all your actions as the happiest and best thing in the world, you will find in you as great an aversion to everything that is vain and impertinent in common life, whether of business or pleasure, as you now have to anything that is profane. You will be as fearful of living in any foolish way, either of spending your time or your fortune, as you are now fearful of neglecting the public worship. Now who that wants this general sincere intention can be reckoned a Christian? And yet if it was amongst Christians, it would change the whole face of the world; true piety and exemplary holiness would be as common and visible as buying and selling or any trade in life (ibid, emphasis added).
This is a serious call to a devout and holy life! It is not that we do not know what we should do. It is not that we are unable to do it. It is simply that we do not seriously intend to do it. G. K. Chesterton said something similar in his essay What’s Wrong with the World. He wrote:
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.
Putting the two notions together — Law and Chesterton — we might say that because the Christian ideal is difficult, few fully intend to keep it, and, so, few keep it fully.
Law gives several examples of how this plays out in ordinary lives. This one is typical:
Again, let a tradesman but have this intention and it will make him a saint in his shop; his everyday business will be a course of wise and reasonable actions made holy to God by being done in obedience to His will and pleasure. He will buy and sell and labor and travel, because by so doing he can do some good to himself and others. But then, as nothing can please God but what is wise and reasonable and holy, so he will neither buy, nor sell, nor labor in any other manner, nor to any other end, but such as may be shown to be wise and reasonable and holy. He will therefore consider not what arts, or methods, or application will soonest make him richer and greater than his brethren, or remove him from a shop to a life of state and pleasure; but he will consider what arts, what methods, what application can make worldly business most acceptable to God and make a life of trade a life of holiness, devotion, and piety. This will be the temper and spirit of every tradesman; he cannot stop short of these degrees of piety whenever it is his intention to please God in all his actions, as the best and happiest thing in the world (ibid).
This gives the tenor of Law’s thought, of his serious call to a devout and holy life. I’ll close by emphasizing two ideas from this last quote. The first is this description of a tradesman who fully intends to lead a life pleasing to God: “It will make him a saint in his shop.” And that is the goal, isn’t it: to use whatever situation God has placed one in as the means by which to become a saint. The French novelist Leon Bloy reminds us in his novel The Woman Who Was Poor that:
The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.
The second, and most fundamental of Law’s notions is this: holiness comes only to those whose intention it is to please God in all their actions, as the best and happiest thing in the world. There is no “accidental” holiness, only intentional. And that is a serious call to a devout and holy life. Amen.
First Blessings 