First Blessings

I pass along the following book excerpt not intending to aggrandize priests — though certainly to encourage them — but rather to exalt Christ and to exhort my brothers and sisters in Christ to treasure, through participation, the Sacraments (Mysteries) of the Church. The author contrasts Orthodox elders (like St. Paisios), who often have charismatic, wonder-working gifts, with average parish priests and wonders, what good is a priest by comparison. His answer follows:

Initially, I would look at the priests of the Church with doubts and suspicion. “Father Paisios is a saint and has many spiritual gifts,” I would tell myself, “but what kind of spiritual power does an average, overweight parish priest have? Can he really grant spiritual gifts like the elder, or is he in fact an entirely lesser person?” The answers to these questions were given me in time, when I once received Holy Communion amidst a large crowd in an average parish church.

I had fasted, gone to Confession, and said my prayers before Communion as usual, but this time, when the priest placed Holy Communion in my mouth, I felt Christ Himself flooding my entire being, body and soul. Christ the Creator united Himself more intimately and more deeply with me, the work of His hands, than is possible for two people in this world to be united. People are physically separated by the boundaries of their own skin. Even an embryo is separated from its mother by the wall of its newly forming skin. Christ, however, became one with me on a deeper level, in a unique union. His Blood literally merged with my blood; His body literally was fused to my body, so that my hands, my feet, my eyes, and all the other parts of my body had become members of the Body of Christ.

His heartwarming peace pervaded my entire soul, making it leap for joy in a state of wonder. After the passage of so many centuries — and after I had committed so many sins — Christ God ineffably condescended to come and palpably dwell within me, making me for a short while a God-bearer. I was in awe at His manifest presence in my mind, soul, and body. It was beyond my comprehension how this took place, but I knew then that such a union with Christ was possible and always would be.

I was so moved that I was no longer about to remain standing. So, I went to my place, where I tried to hold back the sweet tears of joy at being one with Christ, Whose great love had bridged the ontological gap separating divine and human nature. Nearly two thousand years ago, our sweetest Lord Jesus declared, He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him. And lo, on this day, my union with God was the personal, yet unfathomable, fulfillment of those words. And once more, Christ tells us for all time why He condescends to be united with us in the Mystery: Whoso eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. Looking towards the last day and eternal life, Christ loves us so much that He gave us this great offering, because He desires for us to become like Him even in His divinity, living with Him for all eternity.

An all-consuming love for all of us, in every generation, led God the Word to become man, to call us His friends and brethren, to open the way towards theosis with His Resurrection, and to freely and bountifully offer Himself to us at every Divine Liturgy. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever, as perfect God wrought all things in perfection. That is, Christ brought to completion the work of man’s salvation once and for all, so that there would be no need for supplements, corrections, or adjustments with the passage of time. The life-giving and effective Mysteries that Christ instituted have been present in the Church for two thousand years, granting eternal life to the faithful. And, at the last day, those who recognized this life-giving path but neglected to follow it will be without defense.

This experience made me realize the truth of the Church’s teachings: Christ is the Head of the Church, the Fountain of her life, and the Center of her sacramental worship. With the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Church was gathered under the auspices of the Apostles whom Christ had sanctified to be the ministers of His Mysteries. Through ordination to the priesthood, this special blessing to celebrate the Mysteries of Christ was passed down to the priests of the Church from generation to generation without break or interruption.

A priest can celebrate the Mysteries of the Diving Liturgy without being a saint, but a saint who is not a priest cannot do so. Elder Paisios, for example, who was not a priest, could not celebrate the Mysteries of Christ, even if he could work a thousand miracles. He would bend his holy neck under the priest’s stole for the Mystery of Confession, and would wait with yearning for the priest to celebrate the Divine Liturgy so that he could commune. Like a nursing child receiving life from his mother’s milk, so the elder received life from the divine grace of the Mysteries of the Church, the mother of all Christians (Dionysios Farasiotis, The Gurus, the Young Man, and Elder Paisios, St, Herman of Alaska Brotherhood (2008), pp. 288-290).

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

Last Sunday of Epiphany: Transfiguration
(1 Kings 19:9-18, Psalm 27, 2 Peter 1:13-21, Mark 9:2-9)

Mark 9:2 (ESV): 2 And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It’s really very simple; I don’t know why some people find this so confusing. This is calendar year 2024. But, the liturgical year actually started with Advent 2023 in December last. So, take 2023, divide it by 3 — always by three — and note the mathematical remainder. Certainly you remember remainders from long division? For the year 2023, the remainder is 1, which corresponds to lectionary year B. And that, obviously, means that St. Mark is the appointed Gospel for this year. Got it? It’s really very simple — if you are a liturgist and a mathematician.

There is a three-year cycle in the Eucharistic Lectionary: year A is the year of St. Matthew’s Gospel; year B, St. Mark’s, and year C, St. Luke’s. Then the cycle begins again: St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, every three years. “But wait,” some of you might be thinking: three years, four Gospels. What about the Gospel according to St. John? Is it so unimportant that no year is devoted to it? No: entirely to the contrary. St. John’s Gospel is so important that the Church refuses to restrict its reading to a single year; portions of it are read across all three years. The three synoptic Gospels — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — recount events in Jesus’ life and ministry; the Gospel according to St. John reflects deeply on those events and provides a theological commentary on their meaning. That is an oversimplification — Saints Matthew, Mark, and Luke are fine theologians themselves and their Gospels are certainly reflective — but, in broad strokes the characterization is true. St. John is, after all, called The Theologian.

Today, we read and ponder the account of Jesus’ Transfiguration according to St. Mark. Let’s hear a portion of it again:

Mark 9:2–8 (ESV): 2 And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. 5 And Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 6 For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7 And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” 8 And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.

St. Mark here mentions an unearthly radiance and whiteness, particularly of Jesus’ clothes. What are we to make of this? St. John does not record this event; there is no parallel account in his Gospel. But, he does tell us what it means and how we are to understand it. Listen to this commentary from his Prologue:

John 1:1–5 (ESV): 1 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.

John 1:14 (ESV): 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

St. John writes of light coming into the world, light that St. Mark pictures visually as unearthly radiance and whiteness. But, St. John tells us precisely what that light is: glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth — the glory of God, the glory of the Word who was in the beginning with God, who was and is God, and has become flesh. As St. Paul says:

2 Corinthians 4:6 (ESV): 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ: that is what St. John — and St. Paul —says the disciples saw on the Mount of Transfiguration. St. John should know; he was there.

Glory: kavod in the Hebrew Old Testament, doxa in the Greek New Testament. But, regardless of language, what is it — what is glory? Linguistically, the words connote weightiness/gravitas, dignity, honor, splendor, brightness. Yes, all of these apply to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; all apply to what the disciples witnessed in the transfiguration. But, St. John would have us to understand glory as far more than this.

God’s glory is his self-revelation of goodness, truth, and beauty, of holiness and power, of divine love. It is not the very essence of God as he is known only to himself within and among the Trinity. But this glory is God’s self-revelation of himself to us insofar as we can receive and withstand it. God’s glory in the Transfiguration is hymned in the Church with these words:

You were transfigured upon the mount, O Christ our God, and your disciples, insofar as they could bear, beheld Your glory (Kontakion of the Transfiguration).

It is not for nothing that in the traditional icons of the Transfiguration the disciples are flat on their faces before the glory of the Lord. Only insofar as they could bear, they beheld the glory of Christ our God. As Fleming Rutledge expresses it:

[Glory] is [God’s] radiant revelation of himself, an emanation of his attributes that humans can receive only by faith. It is his outgoing, self-revelation perceived by disciples as dazzling radiance, yes — but more importantly still, as absolute power (Fleming Rutledge, Epiphany: The Season of Glory, InterVarsity Press (2023), p. 21).

And one falls on one’s face in the presence of absolute power, of power that called creation into being with but a word. That is what the three disciples saw in the Transfiguration, and they saw it revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. Not so very much later, Philip, who was not on the Mount, who did not see this glory said to Jesus:

John 14:8b-9a (ESV): 8…”Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

Yes, that is the message of the Transfiguration. The unearthly radiance and whiteness of the Transfiguration is the glory of God the Father in the face of God the Son — of the Son who from that moment of transfiguration sets his face steadfastly toward Jerusalem to reveal God’s glory in a manner beyond our understanding: the glory of God in the face and body of a betrayed, denied, shamed, beaten, crucified — dead and buried — rejected King of the Jews. The Transfiguration and the Crucifixion are the bookends of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and the entire narrative arc of Scripture — the redemptive plan of God — unfolds between them.

In this narrative arc of Scripture, the glory of God acts powerfully to accomplish three purposes, more than three, really, but three which come together in Jesus on the mountain. The glory of God (1) breaks out to destroy, (2) breaks in to purify, and (3) breaks through to transfigure.

In the Lord of Spirits podcast, the hosts speak, not infrequently, of “death by holiness,” seen many times in the Old Testament and occasionally in the New Testament. Simply put, a recalcitrant, unrepentant sinner — one who adamantly and rebelliously refuses to return to the Lord — risks destruction by the Lord’s glory, a glory that breaks out to destroy.

Adam and Eve were exiled from Eden, not so much as punishment — though that element is present, too — but for their protection. Due to their rebellion, they could no longer safely dwell in the presence of God’s glory.

Later, God appeared on Sinai to give the Law.

Exodus 19:21–25 (ESV): 21 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to the Lord to look and many of them perish. 22 Also let the priests who come near to the Lord consecrate themselves, lest the Lord break out against them.” 23 And Moses said to the Lord, “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for you yourself warned us, saying, ‘Set limits around the mountain and consecrate it.’ ” 24 And the Lord said to him, “Go down, and come up bringing Aaron with you. But do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the Lord, lest he break out against them.” 25 So Moses went down to the people and told them.

Further on in the narrative, Aaron’s own sons — priests — were destroyed by the glory of the Lord.

Leviticus 10:1–3 (ESV): 10 Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. 2 And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. 3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’ ” And Aaron held his peace.

This theme runs throughout the prophets, not least Amos.

Amos 5:6–7 (ESV): 6  Seek the Lord and live,
lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph,
and it devour, with none to quench it for Bethel,

7  O you who turn justice to wormwood
and cast down righteousness to the earth!

We could multiply examples throughout the Old Testament narrative. In the New Testament, there is Paul’s warning about partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ in an unworthy manner: by so doing many of the Corinthians had become weak and ill, and many had died (rf 1 Cor 11:27ff). And there is the strange account of Ananias and Sapphira, struck dead by God for lying to the Holy Spirit.

These are sobering and cautionary tales for those who dare come into the presence of God’s glory unworthily, God’s glory that, in some such cases, breaks out to destroy.

But the glory of God also breaks in to purify as we see in Isaiah’s encounter with the Lord.

Isaiah 6:1–7 (ESV): 6 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”

4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

Here the purifying glory of the Lord is mediated to Isaiah by a seraph, a throne guardian angel. The name says so much: seraphim, the burning ones. These holy servants of God who stand in his presence are burning with the fire of his glory even though they cover their eyes with their wings. Is it any wonder that Isaiah cries out that he is undone in his sinfulness — Woe is me! — because he has seen the King, the Lord of hosts? While his sin might indeed merit “death by holiness,” his repentance brings instead purification by glory.

The same is true generations before when the Lord, I Am That I Am, first appears to Moses.

Exodus 3:1–6 (ESV): 3 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. 3 And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” 4 When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Moses is not destroyed, but, like Isaiah yet to come, he is purified and commissioned.

Much later still in the Biblical narrative, the fisherman Peter falls at Jesus’ knees in his boat having seen the glory of God revealed in the miraculous draft of fishes, and he pleads, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (rf Luke 5:1 ff). But, Jesus has other ideas. Glory breaks in to purify the repentant, and then sends them on mission.

And, lastly, the glory of the Lord breaks through to transfigure. Moses entered the glory of the Lord in the tent of meeting and he was transfigured for a time; his face became so radiant with the glory of God, “that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of the glory” (rf Ex 34:35, 2 Cor 3:7). And, drawing upon this St. Paul says:

2 Corinthians 3:17–18 (ESV): 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

As we behold the glory of the Lord in the face of Christ, we, too, are being transfigured — transformed into the very likeness of his glory.

Yes, in the great redemptive narrative arc of Scripture the glory of God (1) breaks out to destroy, (2) breaks in to purify, and (3) breaks through to transfigure. And these energies of the glory of God come rushing together on the mount as Jesus is transfigured — revealed to be the very glory of God — before Peter, James, and John.

The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ — the glory seen on the Mount of Transfiguration and on Mount Calvary — breaks out to destroy not the sinner, but sin itself. It comes to shine the light on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace — to end exile and illumine the way home.

The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ — the glory seen on the Mount of Transfiguration and on Mount Calvary — breaks in to purify so that the words spoken on the Mount of Beatitudes might be true of us: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Mt 5:8).

The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ — the glory seen on the Mount of Transfiguration and on Mount Calvary — breaks through to transfigure. Once we were dead in trespasses and sin, once we followed the fallen powers, once we were slaves to the passions of the flesh, but now through Christ — through the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ — we have been seated with Christ in the heavenly places, transfigured from slaves to sons and daughters of God (rf Gal 2:1 ff). Now, through Jesus, we may come boldly before the throne of grace, into the presence of the glory of God (rf Heb 4:16).

This is what we, in our best moments, long for and hope for and pray for. It is something we should never take lightly or for granted. Lord, let your glory break out to destroy every last vestige of sin in us. Lord, let your glory break in to purify us of every defiling remnant of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Lord, let your glory break through to transfigure us into the image of your Son.

We dare not pray these things lightly. It is an awful thing to see the glory of the Lord, as Scripture attests. We will find ourselves on our faces, which is good and right, but also fearful and humbling. The Anglican poet John Donne captures this so beautifully in his Holy Sonnet XIV:

Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

Mark 9:2 (ESV): 2 And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them.

Amen.

In physics, the n-body problem might be stated — certainly with a great deal of oversimplification — as follows:

Given the initial conditions (instantaneous position, velocity, and time) of a group of n celestial bodies under gravitational forces, predict their orbital characteristics at all future times.

One would think this would be relatively straightforward given the well established laws of Newtonian, and even relativistic, mechanics. One would be wrong. There are, indeed, no exact general solutions for n>2. That is, for as few as three bodies in motion, there is no exact general solution.

A similar difficulty obtains with the traveling salesman problem (TSP):

Given a list of cities and the distances between each pair of cities, what is the shortest possible route that visits each city exactly once and returns to the origin city (Wikipedia)?

For a relatively small number of cities, a calculation of each possible path is feasible and will yield the desired result. But for n cities, where n is a “large” number? Again, there is no general solution.

I mention these two mathematical conundrums only to demonstrate that the world is exceptionally complex and that our knowledge, though vast, soon reaches it limits.

An event occurs, one which is, by general consensus, considered evil, if not morally, then at least in the sense of opposing human flourishing and scandalizing society: a school shooting, a genocide, an act of terrorism, an abuse of innocence, a predatory act of the powerful against the powerless. On a personal level, the event might be the betrayal of a vow or trust, the terminal diagnosis, the end of a relationship. And the question comes: Why? Why did this happen?

It is little comfort but absolutely true to say that any such event is an n-body problem, a TSP. There are simply too many inputs and the relationships among the “bodies” are far too complex to permit an exact solution. A teenager comes out of a recreation center, two car screech to a stop, multiple masked boys jump out of the cars and open fire killing the teenager. Why? The “simple” answer might be that this is another gang-related dispute. But that explains nothing. Why are there gangs in the neighborhood in the first place? Why were guns accessible to teenagers? What could one boy do to others that “merits” murder? Answer any of the questions and you will generate a new question, the question tree branching ad infinitum. There are thousands of inputs to the equation: thousands of individual decisions that careen this way and that, impacting or glancing off other decisions, barely missing others, until the cars’ doors open and the bullets fly. It might have been different had not countless small influences conspired to produce this tragedy. Change any one of the inputs, and the outcome might have been entirely different.

Those who seek to move the question from the cultural/sociological realm to the spiritual one typically mean something different by the question, “Why?” Why? might more nearly mean, Where was God is all this? Given what we know about the character of God as revealed in Jesus Christ, I think we can rightly say that God was in the midst of every one of those countless decisions influencing them toward the good, the Holy Spirit now encouraging, now convicting, but not overriding the will of those who chose. That is my experience, at least. God will conspire to make my sin difficult and costly, to prick my conscience before I sin, to convict me preveniently. But, if I insist, God will leave me to my decision, to my devices, and to my consequences. As much as I might say I would like a world in which God would prevent (stop) me from making a sinful choice and committing an evil action, I cannot quite convince myself that that is true. The wrong that I do, I often do knowingly and willfully. And I do not, in the moment, want to be stopped. It seems that both God and I value my freedom. I do, in my best moments, long for that day when freedom will mean freedom from the passions that make me choose sin. I do not have enough of those best moments.

So, it does no good, it seems, to ask why an evil act occurred: the moral and spiritual world is too complex for either a general or specific solution. And generally, we usually mean something different when we ask, “Why?” any way, something more akin to: Why would God allow this to happen? I have no desire to be pedantic, but I must quibble a bit with the word “allow” as used in the question. If the implication of “allow” is that God simply sat back passively and watched this evil thing happen, then I think the question is flawed. My conviction — and I think the thrust of Scripture — not least the Sermon on the Mount — is that God is always and everywhere actively engaged for the good of all creation, that is, for the redemption and restoration of this fallen world and these fallen people. But, for reasons known to himself and only to himself, God usually chooses to work with fallen people in a fallen world by divine influence and not by divine fiat. God woos us and warns us; he does not usually ravish us or prevent us. Reality is, of course, more complicated than this general principle, but it is, on the whole, true. As we see in the life of the pharaoh, God may harden hearts that have already resolutely resisted him, confirming them in their rebellion. He does raise up peoples for his use, peoples who are willing to be so used — think the Babylonians — and yet holds them accountable when they exceed his mandate. He will and does call/elect people vocationally. All of this is more than mere influence, and yet even here, the individuals and nations made and make their choices.

Blame C. S. Lewis for this post, specifically his book “Miracles.” It has me thinking again of providence and miracles and natural law. Some have a “strong” view of providence which would maintain that every event was decreed in the mind and will of God from before the foundation of the world, that all is developing as indeed it must, even my writing of this and your reading of it. But, that is not the way it seems to me. I seem to have a choice in this decision to write and, indeed, in all the “decisions” of my life; hence, the need to pray for wisdom and discernment. I’m unable to reconcile discernment with the strongest notions of providence. Presbyterians can. I am not a Presbyterian.

My concept of providence is more akin to my time teaching in a secondary mathematics classroom. I knew the ultimate outcome of each lesson and, indeed, of the whole course; these ultimate goals were planned before I ever received my class rolls for the year. I could have scripted all my classes beforehand and could have forbidden any student engagement that might disrupt them: sit still, be quiet, do the assignments. But, for the benefit of the students, I gave them the dignity of real participation. I constantly interacted with the students to prompt appropriate learning and relational engagements. I exercised discipline when necessary to address misbehavior. Granted, some things happened that I didn’t intend and didn’t desire. But, I knew that I could address those adequately and often even turn them to good; I knew that I would reach the goals I had established. The students may not have known — could not have known but for my self-revelation — exactly why everything developed in the classroom the way it did. They had to learn to trust me, to trust that I was acting always for their good. Some learned that; some doubted me. Some flourished, and some, usually by their own choices or by ten thousand choices made in the years before by themselves and others, failed. Such was my providential governing of the classroom: always engaged for the flourishing of the students while allowing them the dignity of real choice and real participation.

That is, by no means, an adequate explanation of providence and even less of why any particular event occurred. But it does, at least for me, align with the notion of a God who is always actively engaged for good, a good which includes the power — for good and ill — of human freedom.

Anglican Diocese of the South
Canon John A. Roop

Clergy Retreat 2024

Mark 6:30–31a (ESV): 30 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.

The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Let us pray.

O God of peace, who hast taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be our strength: By the might of thy Spirit lift us, we pray thee, to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou art God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I start, as is fully appropriate, with the great Appalachian theologian and saint, the blessed Dolly Parton of Sevierville.

Tumble outta bed and I stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
And yawn and stretch and try to come to life

Jump in the shower and the blood starts pumpin’
Out on the street, the traffic starts jumpin’
The folks like me on the job from 9 to 5

Workin’ 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin’
Barely gettin’ by, it’s all takin’ and no givin’
They just use your mind
And they never give you credit
It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it (9 to 5, Dolly Parton)

If these lyrics were part of Scripture, a canticle, let’s say, they would conclude with the refrain: There was morning and there was evening, just another day. The day starts when the alarm jars us awake, when we stumble out of bed, when we, beyond our power to resist, begin thinking about all those 9 to 5 tasks that await us during the day, that lay claim to us during the day. The day ends when we stumble home, spent from spending our hours and our days and our lives putting money in the boss-man’s wallet. We eat a bite, watch some “reality TV” and then tumble into bed until the next morning’s alarm.

Of course, this doesn’t apply to any of us here. We are holy; we are deacons and priests and — dare I say — bishops all about God’s work. No 9 to 5 for us. Our alarm rings at 4:30 and we stumble out of bed, shower quickly, grab a cup of coffee on our way out of the door to meet a parishioner at the hospital at 5:30, to pray with him, to anoint him before a serious surgery, and to wait several hours with his worried wife until the surgeon brings news: please God, good news. Then we head to church — to the office — because, well, because there is a sermon to be written; there is a bulletin to be prepared, proofed, and printed; there is a lesson to be developed; there is meeting with a parishioner and an evening meeting with the vestry, and, and, and. There are even prayers to be said — if we get around to them. And all of this has to be done early this week because there is a clergy retreat. The day ends when we stumble home, spent from doing good and holy things for the glory of God and for the welfare of his people, an answer to the prayer For Vocations To Ordained Ministry:

Inspire them to spend and be spent for the sake of the Gospel, and make them holy and loving servants and shepherds of the flock for whom you shed your most precious blood (BCP 2019, p. 650; see also 2 Cor 12:15a).

Is it any wonder that the service of Compline must remind us daily of the words of our Lord?

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Mt 11:28-30, BCP 2019, p. 61).

Isn’t it interesting — and insidious — how our culture has remade the day and, by doing so, has enslaved us to this 9 to 5 mentality, to this production mentality, even sometimes those of us who are busy with God’s work? Our culture tells us the day starts when we stumble out of bed and pump ourselves up to be human doings, sometimes forgetting that we are instead human beings.

But, from the beginning it was not so. There is no 9 to 5 refrain in the creation account in Genesis, but rather a very different chorus altogether: And there was evening and there was morning, the first day; and there was evening and there was morning, the second day — and so on through the six days of creation, evening and morning making a day. From the moment God called Adam into being, the rhythm of man’s day was evening and morning: not 9 to 5, but 5 to 9, as it were. Man’s day begins with him laying aside his productive activity, his working and keeping of the Garden, his exercise of dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the livestock and even the creeping things. Man’s day begins when his work ceases. Man’s day begins when he takes his rest, “carefree in the care of God,” as J. B. Phillips says it so beautifully. That means that the proper daily rhythm for man begins with rest, begins with commending the productivity of creation to the Creator, begins with resting while God works, begins with trusting God to keep the world turning on its axis without man’s assistance. Rest is an act that acknowledges the proper relationship between creature and Creator, an act of humble recognition that all does not depend on us, an act of trust that God actually knows what he’s doing and doesn’t need our advice or our assistance. It is also a refusal to root our identity in what we do, in our expertise, in our productivity. It is a realization — often a painful but ultimately holy one — that our work is not indispensable. Rest is an act of repentance and faith. The 9 to 5 mentality, the start of the day with the morning and with productive activity, is a consequence of the fall. We, who perhaps know the creation story best, are not immune from that fallen daily rhythm, are we?

There is a story about Pope John XXIII that I have always appreciated and tried to imitate, though mostly in vain. As I remember it a friend said something like this to the Pope, “With all the troubles in the Church and all the burdens on you, I suppose you have trouble sleeping at night.” “On no,” the Pope replied. “Each night at bedtime I say the same prayer: Lord it’s late and I’m tired. I’m going to bed. It’s your Church; take care of it.” And that’s the right daily rhythm and conviction. Our day begins in the evening when we rest and commend all creation — and yes, even the Church, even our parishes — to God’s care. When we rise in the morning, we look around to see what God has been up to through the night and we come alongside as his fellow worker to join in — non-anxiously — to do the work he has given us to do this day.

There will be much to do on many days, of course. But the proper rhythm reminds us that all things do not depend on us and that God is at work with us and for us even when we are mindlessly unaware. God’s work is as prevenient as his grace. You see:

Mark 4:26–29 (ESV): “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. 28 The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

He sleeps and rises, night and day. There was evening and morning, the rhythm of the day, the rhythm of rest and work.

And it is not just the daily rhythm that is a casualty of the fall, but the weekly rhythm, as well. Prince Rogers Nelson, Prince of Purple Rain fame, recognized the problem in his song popularized by the Bangles:

Six o’clock already
I was just in the middle of a dream
I was kissin’ Valentino
By a crystal-blue, Italian stream

But I can’t be late
‘Cause then I guess I just won’t get paid
These are the days
When you wish your bed was already made

It’s just another manic Monday (Woah, woah)
I wish it was Sunday (Woah, woah)
‘Cause that’s my fun day (Woah, woah, woah, woah)
My I don’t have to run day (Woah, woah)
It’s just another manic Monday (Prince Rogers Nelson, Manic Monday)

When does the week start? Well, according to calendarr.com:

Monday is the first day of the week according to international standards for the representation of dates and time, ISO 8601 (www.calendarr.com/united-states/first-day-of-the-week/, accessed 01/28/2024).

Ohhh – ISO 8601: the International Organization for Standardization has spoken. So let it be written; so let it be done — Monday it is. And, the Bangles remind us that it is not just Monday, but another manic Monday. So, the ISO and the Bangles would have us know beyond doubt that our weekly rhythm starts with work and mania. Work as toil — metaphorical sweat-of-the-brow work — is a consequence, some might say a curse, of the fall. And mania? It is a mental and behavioral disorder, a sickness that stems, if not from personal sin, then certainly from ancestral/original sin. And that is the way we are to start our week?

No. We start our week, the ISO and the Bangles notwithstanding, with the Lord’s Day: the first day of the week, the teleological fulfillment of the Sabbath in which rest, worship, thanksgiving, and joy — the opposite of mania — are the order of the Day. And so it has always been in the Church, as the Didache says:

14. On the Lord’s own day, assemble in common to break bread and offer thanks; but first confess your sins, so that your sacrifice may be pure. 2 However, no one quarreling with his brother may join your meeting until they are reconciled; your sacrifice must not be defiled. 3 For here we have the saying of the Lord: In every place and time offer me a pure sacrifice; for I am a mighty King, says the Lord; and my name spreads terror among the nations (Didache, James Kleist (trans.), Newman Press, Logos (2022)).

Not just another manic Monday but a holy Sunday on which confession is made and absolution given; Sunday on which reconciliation is the order of the day.

And so it has always been in the Church as Justin Martyr says:

And on the day called Sunday all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the Apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then when the reader has finished, the Ruler in a discourse instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all stand up together and offer prayers; and, as we said before, when we have finished the prayer, bread is brought and wine and water, and the Ruler likewise offers up prayers and thanksgivings to the best of his ability, and the people assent, saying the Amen; and the distribution and the partaking of the eucharistized elements is to each, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And those who prosper, and so wish, contribute what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the Ruler, who takes care of the orphans and widows, and those who, on account of sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds, and the strangers who are sojourners among us, and in a word [He] is the guardian of all those in need. But we all hold this common gathering on Sunday, since it is the first day, on which God transforming darkness and matter made the Universe, and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead. For they crucified Him on the day before Saturday, and on the day after Saturday, He appeared to His Apostles and disciples and taught them these things which we have passed on to you also for your consideration (Justin Martyr, First Apology, 67:411-422).

Not just another manic Monday, but a holy Sunday in which we rest from our labor and feast on eucharistized bread and wine — thanksgivinged bread and wine — which is shared with all and taken to those who are absent; a holy Sunday in which provision is made for those in need: orphans and widows, the sick, the destitute, the prisoners. That is how the week starts: with rest and thanksgiving and blessing for all, a holy Lord’s Day weekly rhythm.

We know all of this; we tell our parishioners all of this. But then, to my shame — I confess before you my brothers and sisters — I too often start my days in the morning with my 9 to 5 work mentality, and I start my weeks on Monday, sometimes all too manaically, hurrying to Church for Morning Prayer, staff meeting, various other meetings, sermon or lesson prep, hospital or home visits — all the good and holy work God has blessed me with. And it is all good.

Is it important that the day starts with evening and the week starts on Sunday? I think so, because the calendar — the rhythm of days and weeks and years that make a life — speaks to our identity: as creatures and not as the Creator, as co-workers with God and not as free agents, as sons and daughters of God and not as slaves of this fallen world, as those who can and must rest “carefree in the care of God.” The calendar is a reminder to guard our hearts so that we can be a non-anxious, non-driven, non-compulsive presence in the world and a sane witness to a God who calls his people into restful communion with him. None of this is really about the calendar. All of this is really about the restful heart.

It is far from certain, but I hope and I pray that this retreat will be a detox of sorts for those who need it — and who doesn’t? — a respite and a reset from the 9 to 5 mentality and the Monday morning mania.

Mark 6:30–31a (ESV): 30 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.”

Amen.

SESSION 3: CREEDS

APOSTLES ANGLICAN CHURCH
Fr. John A. Roop

Christian Essentials / Anglican Distinctives
Session 3: Creeds

The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Let us pray.

O God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth,
Have mercy upon us.

O God the Son, Redeemer of the world,
Have mercy upon us.

O God the Holy Spirit, Sanctifier of the faithful,
Have mercy upon us.

O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, one God,
Have mercy upon us.

Now, let’s affirm our faith in the words of the Apostles Creed:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

Introduction
I spent the first four decades of my life in a non-creedal church, a wonderful place and tradition that was instrumental in my spiritual formation, not least my love of Scripture. But, the Creeds were foreign to our faith and practice. It is not only that we did not say the Creeds; we were opposed to Creeds of any kind. We did not know them or use them or even think about them. Our statement about Creeds was simple: No Creed but Christ. It is not that we disagreed with any of the statements in the Apostles Creed, for example; taken one by one, we would have affirmed each. Our refusal to use the Creeds in corporate worship was not a doctrinal issue. It is more that we felt the Creeds were superfluous and possibly divisive. We have Christ. We have the Bible. Why do we need man-made statements of faith not found in Scripture?

How would you answer those objections to the Creeds? Why are the Creeds important?

In a previous session, we spoke of the confession of the Creeds by the ACNA and of the role they play in our commitment to the faith of the one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic Church. The Fundamental Declarations state this:

We confess as proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture the historic faith of the undivided church as declared in the three Catholic Creeds: the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian.

By way of review, let me emphasize three points from this declaration.

First, the Creeds accord fully with Scripture; they seek only to express succinctly the fundamental truths of Scripture — and particularly of the Gospel — and to defend those truths against persistent heresies that plagued the early Church, heresies which are still around today.

Second, the faith expressed in the Creeds is the common “possession” of the undivided Church. In that way, the creedal content serves as a continuing force for unity amidst our current sad divisions and as a touchstone of historical orthodoxy. If a church rejects the contents of the Creeds, then it renounces its claim to be part of the historic church. It is in this sense that the Nicene Creed is also called the Symbol (σύμβολον) of the Faith. As “symbol” is used in that context, it means something like a ticket for admission or a claim check or perhaps better still a token of belonging. You’ve seen heart necklaces where the heart is broken in two top to bottom in a zigzag pattern so that the two pieces fit together? Each person receives one half of the heart as a token of being a member of the special relationship the heart implies. Each piece is a symbol, a token/proof of that belonging, of that membership. The Nicene Creed functions that way in the Church. Those who have it (the Creed) — and by “have it” I mean believe it — belong to the one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic Church; the Creed is their symbol/token of belonging.

Third, there are three Creeds which function as symbols and deposits of the historic faith: the Apostles’ Creed (which Anglicans use as the baptismal and catechetical creed and in daily Morning and Evening Prayer), the Nicene Creed (which Anglicans use as the Eucharistic creed), and the Athanasian Creed (which Anglicans rarely use liturgically, but which functions as the best expression of our understanding of the Trinity). While we consider these three creeds as expressing the faith of the undivided Church, only one of them, The Nicene Creed, is used in both the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman and Anglican) churches. That is why it is called the Symbol of the Faith.

Since the Apostles’ Creed is most frequently used for catechetical instruction in the Western Church, it will be our primary focus, though we will compare it to and contrast it with the Nicene Creed, as well. I will leave the Athanasian Creed for your reading and reflection. Remember that all confirmands are expected to know the Apostles’ Creed: to be able to recite it and to discuss its meaning.

The Apostles’ Creed
The Apostles’ Creed may be found in the BCP on pages 26 and 40 and in the ACNA Catechism on pages 31-32. This Creed is found only in the Western Church: the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, and various Protestant Churches.

Simply looking at the format/structure of the Creed, what do you notice?

First, there are three Articles, one dedicated to each Person of the Trinity. This creed, in both its format and content, is trinitarian — perhaps not as explicitly so as the Nicene Creed and certainly not in the level of detail as the Athanasian Creed, but fully and overtly trinitarian nonetheless.

Second, each Article begins with an individual statement of faith: Credo in the original Latin of the Creed and I believe in English. Contrast this with the opening of the three stanzas of the Nicene Creed — a corporate statement of faith: Πιστεύομεν in the original Greek and We believe in English. What might explain the difference between the individual and corporate emphases in the Creeds? Think of how the Creeds are used liturgically: baptism (Apostles’ Creed) versus Eucharist (Nicene Creed). In baptism, one expresses an individual/personal commitment to the corporate faith of the Church. In the Eucharist, the whole Church — on earth and in heaven — proclaims the common faith that brings us together around the table. This is, I believe, a valid theological emphasis. But, to be thorough, I should note that some churches — even the Episcopal Church up through the BCP 1928 — opens the Nicene Creed with I believe, a change to the original text. Personally, I am glad that the ACNA returned to the original corporate language, though some individual still prefer the singular, personal language.

I believe in God…
We start the Creed by saying, “I believe.” What do we mean when we say that? Certainly we mean that we acknowledge the truth of the statements that follow; to believe is to assent intellectually. But, that is not nearly enough as St. James makes clear:

James 2:19–26 (ESV): 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

So, belief has to be more than mere assent to truth, or we are no better than the demons! Belief is a commitment to a life based on and reflecting the truth to which we assent. The Creed, in this sense, functions as a vow; I will live my life in accordance with this faith I express through the Creed. The Creed shouldn’t be said lightly; it is more akin to saying “I do” in marriage than “I love you” while dating.

Let’s approach “I believe” in yet another way, through the notion of fides viva, living faith, as Martin Luther described it. Living faith consists of three essential components: notitia, assensus, and fiducia. Let me give an example of each. Let’s start with a proposition: you say, “God is.” Before I can say that I believe that proposition, I have to make certain I understand it, or understand what you mean by it. So that means you would have to tell me about the nature and character of God in the proposition. There are many concepts of God and I would have to know which one you mean. And then, not to be pedantic, I would also need to know what you mean by “is.” Presumably you mean God exists. But a duck also exists. Are you saying God has the same kind of existence as a duck? Well, you get the picture. Before I can say I believe a proposition, I have to understand it. That’s what we mean by notitia: a conceptual understanding of the notion you propose. Then, once I understand it, I must decide if I agree with it, if I think it is true. I might look at evidence or logic or the expertise and authority of the one making the proposition. But, at some point I must assent to it — agree that it is true — or not. That is assensus. There is one final movement in living faith: fiducia. That may be described as trust or faithfulness toward the proposition, a willingness to pattern my thought and life around it, to take appropriate action based on it. So, living faith involves understanding, assent/acceptance, and trusting action. That is what we mean in the Creed when we say, “I believe:” I understand what is being said, I accept it as true, and I base my life upon it.

What do we claim to believe in first? God — a word always requiring clarification as we have already said. There were many gods when the Creed was written and there are many gods now. To which of these gods do we give our allegiance? To the triune God: the Father, whom no man has seen or can see; the Son who is the perfect image of the Father and who makes the Father known; and the Holy Spirit who is the presence of God within us and within the Church. That understanding of God is what the Creed unpacks for us. It should also be said that this God is also the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: the God who called Israel into being, made a covenant with them to be their God, and worked through Israel to redeem the world. It is important to state this because some people — some Christians — struggle with it and even deny it by making a distinction between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament revealed in Jesus. But there is no distinction to be made: the God of Israel is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the one we affirm in the Creed.

This first Article in the Creed addresses the first Person of the Trinity, God the Father almighty. In what most basic sense is God the Father? He is the creator of heaven and earth. The Nicene Creed expands on that to say that the Father is the “maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, visible and invisible” (BCP 2019, p. 109). Even the Son is eternally begotten of the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father (ibid). The Athanasian Creed goes to great lengths to clarify this:

The Father is made of none,
neither created, nor begotten.

The Son is of the Father alone,
not made, nor created, but begotten.

The Holy Ghost is of the Father and the Son,
neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding (BCP 2019, p. 770).

So, while the Son and the Holy Spirit are co-equal, co-eternal, consubstantial (of one essence) with the Father, they, in some sense, come from the Father: the Son by being begotten, the Holy Spirit by procession. Here, the Creed simply uses Biblical language without trying to define the difference between begotten and proceeding. In fact, one of the great theologians of the Orthodox Church, St. John of Damascus wrote:

We have learned that there is a difference between begetting and procession, but the nature of the difference we in no wise understand” (Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 8-9).

What we can say with certainty, is that the Father is Father by virtue of being the creator of all that was created and by begetting the Son.

But, perhaps more personally and pastorally important, Jesus teaches us to call God the Father “our Father who art in heaven.” We have all had earthly fathers: some good though flawed, some bad, some present, some absent. And we all, despite our differing experiences with fatherhood, have some notion of what a good father should be. Whatever good there may be in human fatherhood is an image-bearing reflection of God the Father almighty. The essence of that might be summarized in the most fundamental characteristic of God: love — willing and in God’s case acting for the good of the other. This Article assures us implicitly that God loves us and that he is always acting for our good and for our salvation. Imagine the opening article of the Creed without the appositive “the Father almighty.” What if it simply said, “I believe in God, creator of heaven and earth”? Then we could only relate to God as creature to Creator, which is vastly different than relating as son or daughter to Father.

I believe in Jesus Christ…
This Article is the most detailed of the three, surely because it is fundamental to the Gospel. It declares Jesus to be both divine, the only Son of God the Father and conceived by God the Holy Spirit, and to be human, born of the Virgin Mary and enduring all the sufferings of human life including death. This Article also roots Jesus and the Gospel in a historical context: not “once upon a time” but during the administration of Pontius Pilate. The Gospel is more than, but not less than, history — events that actually occurred, events which people saw and to which they testified.

The ACNA Catechism has a good discussion of this Article, and I’d like to work through that with you (TBAC, pp. 38-46). The ACNA Catechism, To Be A Christian, may be found online at https://anglicanchurch.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/To-Be-a-Christian.pdf.

I believe in the Holy Spirit…
This Article can initially seem like a catch-all statement; everything important that wasn’t mentioned before gets “dumped” in here. But there is theological rhyme and reason to it. Perhaps I can liken it to prayer and the Persons of the Trinity. The fullest theological understanding of prayer is that we pray to the Father, through the Son, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. That is, it is the Person of the Holy Spirit who draws us up into the life of the Trinity, who is our most immediate, Personal point of contact with the divine; the Holy Spirit is God in us, God animating us and giving us life, individually, yes, but corporately, as well, in the Body of Christ. All of that is part and parcel of this third Article of the Creed.

The Apostles’ Creed does not explicitly define the divinity of the Holy Spirit as do the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed; that is, in no small part, why these other creeds are needed. But, the very structure of the Apostles’ Creed implies that the Holy Spirit is one of three divine Persons: one Article for the Father, one for the Son, one for the Holy Spirit.

Let’s turn to the ACNA Catechism, pages 47-55, to review its explanation of this Article.

Summary
The Creeds serve several important purposes.

1. They summarize the most essential, non-negotiable doctrines of the faith. They also provide a convenient outline for evangelization.

2. They clarify some of the doctrines of the faith and refute historical (and ever present) heresies related to those doctrines.

3. They provide a symbol of the common faith that transcends place and time. Essentially, they codify the Vincentian Canon: that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.

AUTHORITY, AUTONOMY, ANARCHY

This follows on from an earlier Facebook post, which will provide helpful context for what follows:

Please look carefully at the meme in the header. The quote purports to be — but is not — from C. S. Lewis. As an aside, be wary of any meme quoting a noted Christian author, perhaps especially Lewis — that does not include a detailed source reference. Treat it as you would an unsolicited email with spelling and grammar errors and a link that you must click immediately.

Now, back to the quote. I ask this of Christians: how does it strike you? It is, at best, sub-Christian anthropology and, at worst, gnostic. One would need more context to be certain. But, presented on its own, it is insufficiently orthodox to be embraced wholesale or even “liked” by Christians on Facebook. And yet many who self-identify as Christians did exactly that — liked it — probably in no small part because of the (false) attribution naming C. S. Lewis.

Rather foolishly, I weighed in on the quote, identifying a few of its deficiencies. This led to some interesting — and for the most part, congenial — discussions. Though I won’t try to reconstruct the meandering trail that led to this topic, one discussion made its way to the pre-existence of souls, the notion that all souls are pre-existent in the spiritual realm and are assigned to a body at conception or at some point before birth. I noted in a comment that this false doctrine was explicitly declared heretical at the Second Council of Constantinople (AD 553) and that the earlier condemnation of one of its teachers, Origen, was confirmed there. And what was the response of my interlocutor when informed that the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls had been formally declared a heresy by the fifth ecumenical council of the Church?

“I do believe in the pre-existence of spirit/soul and seeing (sic) no harm in doing so.”

I’ve heard that called “doubling down.” Perhaps she didn’t believe me? It is easy enough to check out my assertion. So, I can only assume that (1) she did believe me and didn’t care what the Church had determined or (2) she was uncertain of my assertion and didn’t care to determine the truth of it. The latter is willful ignorance. The former is, not precisely heresy, but the willing embrace of a heterodox and heretical doctrine.

There is a third option. She believes that she has the authority and the autonomy to decide such matters for herself regardless of what the Church has decreed. In short, she does not accept the authority of the Church speaking with one voice over nearly two millennia. I once read that the humility of orthodoxy is to remain with the Church unless absolutely convinced that the entire church — all its saints and theologians and faithful — have been wrong for two thousand years: a very high bar of certainty. In contrast, the arrogance of heterodoxy is to replace the consensus fidelium of the Church with one’s private opinion. To reject the authority of the Church and to insist upon one’s own autonomy to define the faith is to embrace theological anarchy.

So, as Anglicans, and specifically as Anglicans in the ACNA, what do we consider the rightful and trustworthy sources of authority in the Church? First this: all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Jesus Christ (rf Mt 28:18). He then exercises that authority through dual agents: Scripture, Bishops, Creeds, and Counsels, all superintended in a manner appropriate to their nature, by the Holy Spirit. (For more on this, see https://firstblessings.blog/2024/01/13/christian-essentials-anglican-distinctives-3/.). These are the authoritative instruments and reliable ways in which truth is prayerfully and prudentially discerned in and by the Church. As orthodox Christians, we do not have the option of saying, “Well, I know what the Church says, but…,” or “I read Scripture in the way,” or “I do believe in the pre-existence of souls and seeing (sic) no harm in doing so.” Regardless of whether you see any harm in doing so, the Church — the whole Church speaking as one — did/does indeed see the harm in doing so, and to keep you safe has declared such doctrine heretical. Your choice is dichotomous: orthodoxy or heterodoxy, autonomy or submission, heresy or faithfulness?

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

Feast of St. Antony of Egypt (17 January 2024)
(1 Peter 5:6-11, Psalm 91, Mark 10:17-21)

Collect
O God, by your Holy Spirit you enabled your servant Antony to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil: Give us grace, with pure hearts and minds, to follow you, the only God; 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 of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Take a moment to read the following Gospel text slowly, reflectively, prayerfully — to immerse yourself in it — not simply because it is an important word from the Lord, but also because it is the beginning of the story I have to tell today, or rather of the story that St. Athanasius has to tell.

Mark 10:17–27 (ESV): 17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’ ” 20 And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” 21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

23 And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” 27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”

What is our response to this account? Maybe a sense of sadness for the rich man — so close to the Kingdom of God but not quite able to grasp it? Maybe a bit of astonishment like the disciples: why should wealth be such an obstacle to eternal life? Maybe a twinge of discomfort realizing how wealthy even the least of us are in comparison with the poverty in our city, state, and nation and the true destitution throughout the third world?

And this raises even more questions: Who are you — who am I — in this story? and What will you — what will I — do, if anything, because I have heard it, not once but twice, today?

Now, I want to lay alongside this Gospel story another one that starts about two centuries later, circa 250. It is the story of Antony as recorded in The Life of Antony, by Saint Athanasius.

1. Antony was an Egyptian by race. His parents were well born and prosperous, and since they were Christians, he also was reared in a Christian manner. When he was a child he lived with his parents, cognizant of little else besides them and his home. As he grew and became a boy, and was advancing in years, he could not bear to learn letters, wishing also to stand apart from friendship with other children. All his yearning, as it has been written of Jacob, was for living, an unaffected person, in his home. Of course he accompanied his parents to the Lord’s house, and as a child he was not frivolous, nor as a youth did he grow contemptuous; rather, he was obedient to his mother and father, and paying attention to the readings, he carefully took to heart what was profitable in them. And although he lived as a child in relative affluence, he did not pester his parents for food of various and luxurious kinds, nor did he seek the pleasures associated with food, but with merely the things he found before him he was satisfied, and he looked for nothing more.

2. He was left alone, after his parents’ death, with one quite young sister. He was about eighteen or even twenty years old, and he was responsible both for the home and his sister. Six months had not passed since the death of his parents when, going to the Lord’s house as usual and gathering his thoughts, he considered while he walked how the apostles, forsaking everything, followed the Savior, and how in Acts some sold what they possessed and took the proceeds and placed them at the feet of the apostles for distribution among those in need, and what great hope is stored up for such people in heaven. He went into the church pondering these things, and just then it happened that the Gospel was being read, and he heard the Lord saying to the rich man, If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. It was is if by God’s design he held the saints in his recollection, and as if the passage were read on his account. Immediately Antony went out from the Lord’s house and gave to the towns people the possessions he had from his forebears (three hundred fertile and very beautiful arourae [approximately an acre of land]), so that they would not disturb him or his sister in the least. And selling all the rest that was portable, when he collected sufficient money, he donated it to the poor, keeping a few things for his sister (Athanasius (Robert Gregg, trans.), The Life Of Antony And The Letter To Marcellinus, Paulist Press (1980), pp.30-31).

Antony heard the same text that we heard this afternoon, but it moved him in a way that it has not yet moved us. Why? He heard the words of Jesus as spoken not just to the rich man, but to himself. The Spirit had already predisposed him to hear the text in this way; as he walked to the Lord’s house he was already pondering his life circumstances — his inheritance, his relationship to the property and his responsibility to his sister — in light of the lives of the saints, the practice of the apostolic church, and the words of Scripture. Then, when he heard in the Gospel the answer to the questions he had been pondering, he was ready to receive it as a word spoken directly to him. Now, there are two important notions that come to us from this: (1) we should always consider the details of our life and circumstances in light of the saints, the Great Tradition of the Church, and the words of Scripture, and (2) we must always be ready to hear the Scripture as God’s word spoken to us and respond accordingly. Now, I need to nuance that last statement a bit. We must approach the whole of Scripture as God’s word spoken for us and for our salvation, and we must always ask for the wisdom of the Spirit and the guidance of the Church in determining what that word to us means. A specific word of Scripture is always for us; that is, there is always meaning in it for us. But, it is not always to us; that is, it is not always determinative for our behavior in the same was as it was for that of the original hearer. I may not be called to sell all that I have and give the proceeds to the poor, or I may be. Only prayer, spiritual discernment, and the teaching of the Church can tell me whether that word is to me. But, I must always examine my relationship with wealth in light of the Gospel imperatives to follow Jesus and to care for the poor; that word is surely for me and for all of us. Let’s continue Antony’s story.

3. But when, entering the Lord’s house once more, he heard in the Gospel the Lord saying, Do not be anxious about tomorrow, he could not remain any longer, but going out he gave those remaining possessions also to the needy. Placing his sister in the charge of respected and trusted virgins, and giving her over to the convent for rearing, he devoted himself from then on to the discipline rather than the household, giving heed to himself and patiently training himself (ibid, pp. 31-32).

This probably seems strange to us, to abandon his responsibilities to his sister. But, it was not an abrogation of his duties, rather a faithful discharge of them. What could be more responsible than to entrust the welfare of his sister to the Church, to ensure that she was raised and formed by faithful women? Again, note the role hearing the Gospel played. This is a common theme throughout Antony’s life; the Gospel is not simply to be heard, but to be followed in the specifics of one’s life.

Antony moved into the Egyptian wilderness where there were already a few holy men living as hermits, seeking a life of complete devotion to God. For some time, Antony sought them out, sought to receive from each some word of instruction.

3. (Continued) At first he also began by remaining in places proximate to his village. And going forth from there, if he heard of some zealous person anywhere, he searched him out like the wise bee. He did not go back to his own place unless he had seen him, and as though receiving from him certain supplies for traveling the road to virtue, he returned. Spending the beginning stages of his discipline in that place, then, he weighed in his thoughts how he would not look back on things of his parents, nor call his relatives to memory. All the desire and all the energy he possessed concerned the exertion of the discipline. He worked with his hands, though, having heard that he who is idle, let him not eat. And he spent what he made partly for bread, and partly on those in need. He prayed constantly, since he learned that it is necessary to pray unceasingly in private. For he paid such close attention to what was read that nothing from the Scripture did he fail to take in — rather he grasped everything, and in him the memory took the place of books (ibid, p.32).

Here are two more vital lessons from Antony’s life: (1) he was humble enough to learn some aspect of faith and practice from any follower of Christ, and (2) he was single minded, relentless, and disciplined in his pursuit of virtue. Whatever command he received from Scripture, he obeyed. Whatever instruction in holiness he received from another he followed as provisions on the path to virtue. He was the exact opposite of the double-minded man that James mentions:

James 1:5–8 (ESV): 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

What is your life — what is my life — about? Toward what destination are you — am I — heading? Antony could easily answer these questions. Leon Bloy wrote this in his book The Woman Who Was Poor:

The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.

That is what Antony’s life was about.

Much of The Life of Antony is devoted to his lifelong battle against the demons; the witness of his power over the devil and his hoard of demons is a treasure of the Church and a great source of instruction and edification. I do not have time to explore that, but I encourage you to read the work for yourself. It is not long, and it is an inspiring text. But I do want you to hear this instruction that Antony gave to his fellow monks/ascetics in the latter years of his life.

30. We need, therefore, to fear God alone, holding them [the demons] in contempt and fearing them not at all. Indeed, the more they do these things, let us all the more exert ourselves in the discipline that opposes them, for a great weapon against them is a just life and trust in God. They are afraid of the ascetics on several counts — for their fasting, the vigils, the prayers, the meekness and gentleness, the contempt for money, the lack of vanity, the humility, the love of the poor, the almsgiving, the freedom from wrath, and most of all for their devotion to Christ. It is for this reason that they do all they do — in order not to have those monks trampling them underfoot. For they know the grace that has been given to the faithful for combat against them by the Savior, in his saying, Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy (ibid, p.54).

Do you — do I — want to thwart the power of the enemy through the grace of Christ? Then the way is clear, St. Antony says: prayer, fasting, vigils, meekness, gentleness, contempt for money, humility, love of the poor, almsgiving, total devotion to Christ. Do these things and the enemy will have no power over you, neither to terrify nor to harm.

Well, there is much more to be said about the life of Antony: about his twenty years spent in isolation from men and in the presence of God; about his seminal role in the growth and development of monasticism; about his support of the confessors and martyrs and his own desire for martyrdom; about his staunch opposition to heretics who threatened the purity of the faith. Antony is one of the towering figures in the Church though he was amongst the humblest of men.

I will close with a portion of Antony’s final words.

91. “I am going the way of the fathers, as it is written, for I see myself being summoned by the Lord. Be watchful and do not destroy your lengthy discipline, but as if you were making a beginning now, strive to preserve your enthusiasm. You know the treacherous demons — you know how savage they are, even though weakened in strength. Therefore, do not fear them, but rather draw inspiration from Christ always, and trust in him. And live as though dying daily, paying heed to yourselves and remembering what you heard from my preaching (ibid, pp. 96-97).

Two last good words of instruction for us: (1) strive to preserve your enthusiasm as if you were making a beginning now, and (2) live as though dying daily.

May Christ be gloried in our lives as he surely was in the life of Antony. Amen.

(The text of The Life of Antony may be found at https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2811.htm).