Yesterday I attended the funeral mass of my neighbor, a good man and a worthy deacon in the Roman Catholic Church. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, by the mercy of God, rest in peace and rise in glory.
On the eve of the mass, family and friends gathered at a funeral home to pay their respects, to reminisce, and to pray the rosary. As an Anglican, the rosary is not part of my personal piety as it is for some, though I do include the Hail Mary in my daily prayers. The sustained emphasis on the Blessed Virgin Mary in the rosary is foreign to me, and, frankly, in the conversations following the rosary I heard many more invocations of the Holy Mother than I did of the Lord Jesus; I find that balance a bit skewed. Issues of theology aside though, something profoundly significant is occurring in the rosary; in the veneration of one particular woman — a woman venerated by the angel Gabriel and blessed by the Lord himself — the Church is consecrating womanhood. That is an act of witness to and defiance of a culture that consistently desecrates womanhood: through pornography, through transgenderism, through abortion, through the entertainment industry, through the hyper-sexualization and — Lord, have mercy — the sexual exploitation of young girls, through the insistence that women must sacrifice family for career, and through a thousand other ways. To that, the Roman Catholic Church responds with the rosary, and that is a holy act of rebellion.
I have always thought that Anglicans “do” funerals up right, and I still do. But, there are a few things, perhaps, that we can learn from our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters. Just before the body is borne into the church from the entrance to the nave, the priest or bishop asperges the coffin with holy water, a remembrance and final re-affirmation of baptism: you were born into the Church in the waters of baptism and you die in the bosom of the Church through the waters of baptism. I hope the Church will do that for me when my time comes. Then, as a final act immediately before the dismissal, the coffin is censed to send off a brother or sister accompanied by the prayers of the saints, to send off a brother or sister as a fragrant offering of the Church to God. I hope the Church will do that for me when my time comes.
There were several Latin chants in the mass. As an interested outside observer, it seems to me that the Roman Catholic Church lost much when the Latin mass fell into disfavor; the preservation of these chants is a holy remnant. Two of them were particularly meaningful: the PanisAngelicus sung at Communion and the In Paradisum before the recessional.
PANIS ANGELICUS (St. Thomas Aquinas, English translation)
May the Bread of Angels become bread for mankind; The Bread of Heaven puts all foreshadowings to an end; Oh, thing miraculous! The body of the Lord will nourish the poor, the servile, and the humble. You God, Three In One, we beseech; That You visit us, as we worship You. By Your ways, lead us where we are heading, to the light that You inhabit.
The notion that “the Bread of Heaven puts all foreshadowings to an end,” is sacramental theology at its best. The Eucharist is not a sign pointing toward something else; it is the Something Else.
IN PARADISUM
May the angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs receive you at your arrival and lead you to the holy city Jerusalem. May choirs of angels receive you and with Lazarus, once a poor man, may you have eternal rest.
There is a meme that I actually like: “The Apostle Paul entered heaven to the cheers of those he martyred. That’s how the Gospel works!” Yes, angels and archangels and all the company of heaven leading our brothers and sisters — and one day, please God each of us — into paradise.
What has Jesus been doing all this time? (Amos 2, Ps 119:153-176, John 17)
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In Book 11, Chapter 12 of The Confessions, St. Augustine reflects on this question: What was God doing before he made heaven and earth? He remarks, to start with, that he will not follow the path of another certain person who had answered the question somewhat facetiously along these lines: God was making hell for those who pry into mysteries.
Well, I certainly hope that was not what God was doing, because I am going to pose a similar sounding question: What has Jesus been doing since the Ascension, for these last two millennia?
The Creeds don’t help us much here. Both the Nicene and the Apostles Creed simply say in pretty similar words that following the Ascension, Jesus sat down at the right hand of the Father, and that he will at some unspecified moment in the future return to judge the living and the dead. As for the interim between ascension and judgment — as for what Jesus is doing now — the Creeds provide no details. Sitting at the Father’s right hand implies taking up a position of authority and rule, not merely resting, but no more is said about the nature of Christ’s rule.
When we turn to Scripture, we get a little more information. We could start with John 14:
John 14:1–3 (ESV): 14 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
Jesus is, in this interim, preparing a place for us. There is a lot of sentimental imagery and several campfire meeting hymns inspired by that statement, visions and verses of mansions on a hill and the like almost as if we think of Jesus plying his carpentry skills in heaven; but I think that is too small a thing. Jesus is preparing neither a tiny house or a mansion for us, but rather the Kingdom of God, the renewal of heaven and earth and their ultimate intersection when the New Jerusalem descends from heaven to earth and God and resurrected man finally dwell together. That is the place that Jesus is preparing for us. We are coworkers with him in that; the good and faithful work we do here in his name will become the raw materials he uses to build the Kingdom. St. Paul assures us that no good work we do here and now will be wasted there and then:
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.
We might think of Jesus’ current reign, his current building of the Kingdom, as a meta-task, his overarching occupation; underneath that “umbrella” there are other occupations that contribute to it. Hebrews tells us that Jesus is even now serving as our great High Priest — on our behalf — in the heavenly Holy of Holies. His high priesthood does not consist of the repeated offering of daily sacrifices:
Hebrews 7:27–28 (ESV): 27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. 28 For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.
So, if not to offer sacrifice, what does our High Priest do for us? He provides the way for us to enter the Holy of Holies into God’s presence through him, through the torn curtain that was his body. And, he lives to make intercession for us:
Hebrews 7:23–25 (ESV): 23 The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, 24 but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. 25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
What has Jesus been doing these last two thousand years? He has been making intercession for all of us who draw near to God through him; he has been praying for us and for the Church. It is interesting to note — and this would take more time to explore than we have today — it’s interesting to note that this text doesn’t say that Jesus intercedes on behalf of the world, on behalf of those who don’t know him or who reject him, who don’t seek God. At least in this text, the focus of Jesus’ intercession is on his people, on those who bear his name.
Wouldn’t it be fascinating to know the content of Jesus’ prayers for us? What is on his heart for his people? To some great extent, we can know this, because we get to eavesdrop on one such prayer throughout the whole of John 17. This prayer, which is the culmination of the Upper Room discourse in St. John’s Gospel, is called the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus precisely because Jesus is interceding for us as Hebrews describes it. And we get to listen in.
The immediate context of the prayer is Jesus’ last supper in the Upper Room. Jesus has washed his disciples’ feet. He has predicted his betrayal by one of his own and has foretold Peter’s threefold denial. He has given his disciples the new commandment to love one another as he has loved them. He has identified himself as the way, the truth, and the life and as the true vine. He has promised the coming of the Holy Spirit. And now, knowing what will transpire in the next few hours, over the next three days, Jesus prays, not for himself, but for them and for us.
We can’t consider the entire prayer in detail here and now. We’ll instead peruse the text and select some of its main themes, especially those that focus on Jesus’ high priestly intercession.
John 17:6–11 (ESV): 6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.
There are several points here that form the core of Jesus’ intercession and that are repeated throughout his prayer. First, there is a distinction to be made, one that I mentioned earlier. There is the world on one hand and there those who have received the word of God as the truth and have believed in Jesus on the other hand. It is only for the latter group — and, as we will learn, for those who will follow after them in the truth — that Jesus prays. This doesn’t mean that Jesus has no love for the world; his crucifixion in the next few hours is testimony to his universal love. But, there are strangers and there are sons and daughters; there are next door neighbors and there are family members. There is a different level intimacy and care for those to whom we belong and who belong in turn to us versus those who have not yet made our acquaintance or who have chosen not to accept our offer of hospitality. And so Jesus prays here for his own, but not for the world. What is his desire for them? That they may persevere in faithfulness and that they may be one with one another as the Son is one with the Father.
These two intercessions make sense, don’t they, given what the disciples will experience in the coming hours and days and years. As Peter will soon learn, the pressure to deny Jesus will be intense, and it will only increase throughout their lives. Church Tradition tells us that ten of the eleven Apostles for whom Jesus prayed here remained faithful under persecution and martyrdom: faithful unto death. The remaining one, John, suffered hardship and exile and remained faithful throughout his life. Persecution and apostasy was one danger. But another challenge was just as great: schism. Jesus had already seen the danger in the argument over who would be greatest among them, an argument that could have split the disciples into warring factions. So, who will lead when Jesus is gone? Will the others vie for leadership and leave when not selected for it? Will they be one in the faith, each teaching the pure truth as Jesus had given it to them or will heresies arise? What will happen when the group moves from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and the uttermost parts of the world, when Jews and Gentiles come clashing together in the fledgling Church? A prayer that they may be one is a tall order as the history of the Church shows. The Great Schism between the Eastern and Western churches in 1054 A.D., the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, the proliferation of Protestant denominations from then to now, the creation of our own ACNA: no matter how we justify these as necessary separations to restore or preserve the faith, we cannot in good conscience see them as answers to Jesus’ prayer for unity. In fact, we have a prayer in the BCP 2019 that acknowledges our failure in this area.
The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Let us pray.
O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace to take to heart the grave dangers we are in through our many divisions. Deliver your Church from all enmity and prejudice, and everything that hinders us from godly union. As there is one Body and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so make us all to be of one heart and of one mind, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and love, that with one voice we may give you praise; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God in everlasting glory. Amen.
We keep praying and working that Jesus’ own intercession for us — for the unity of his disciples — might yet be answered. To see how important this prayer for unity was to Jesus, just scan the remaining text of the prayer to see it repeatedly emphasized:
John 17:20–23 (ESV): 20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
How important is our unity? It is the witness to the world that the Father sent the Son. Our love for one another is witness to the love between the Father and the Son. Our disunity strikes against the credibility of our witness. I can only imagine that Jesus is still interceding for our unity, still praying for it as our great high priest.
I will mention just one more aspect of this prayer. We are still in a fallen world. Though our enemy has been defeated he has not yet been banished. He still stalks and strikes; he still harasses and wounds. And he is wiser far and stronger than we; we cannot withstand him alone. So, Jesus prays for us:
John 17:15 (ESV): 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.
When evil seems so near, so virulent, so strong, take heart: Jesus is praying for you — that you will not fall, that you will not be overcome, that you will not be a casualty of the great spiritual battle in which we are all engaged.
What has Jesus been doing for the last two millennia? Not preparing hell for those who ask such impertinent questions, but rather praying for his beloved brothers and sisters — for you and me and for all the faithful who came before and may come after: that we may persevere in faithfulness, that we may be one as the Father and the Son are one, that we may be victorious over the evil one. Amen.
Transcription and Sacrament (Prov 9:1-6, Ps 147, Eph 5:3-14, John 6:53-59)
Jesus said:
56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him…58 whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Listen to a great, expansive orchestral or choral work. Recall one even now, a personal favorite; hear it again in your memory: the lush strings, the emphatic percussion, the soaring brass, the haunting woodwinds. Now let the human voices add their color: the melodic sopranos cascading downward through the alto and tenor ranges until reaching the thundering basses which seem to ground the work on the pillars of the earth. Envision the great concert hall around you, designed perfectly for both visual and acoustic beauty. Or perhaps you are listening in a cathedral whose vaulted ceiling beckons you heavenward as modern day sons and daughters of Asaph offer their psalms of praise.
It is possible to take such a vast composition and transcribe it for humbler instrumentation and fewer voices. The Theme from Jupiter, the music for that glorious hymn O God Beyond All Praising, by Gustav Holst, meant for full orchestra, can be, and has been, transcribed for a single instrument; it can be played beautifully on the organ, a very expressive instrument in its own right. An organ, even a cathedral pipe organ, is not not an orchestra, of course, but its various ranks and stops are reminiscent of flutes and trumpets, of strings and voices. But, we can go even further. It is possible to transcribe Jupiter for solo classical guitar. Each step in this transcription process — from orchestra to organ to guitar — is an attenuation, not exactly a diminishment of original glory, but an accommodation of it to more limited instruments and faculties. Those who play the transcriptions — the church organist or the amateur guitarist in his den — do not mind, perhaps do not even notice the attenuation because they are caught up in the wonder of participation in that great music. And here is a profound mystery: the condescension of the music in transcription leads to the exaltation, to the lifting up, of the musician. And the musician knows it; he is playing a greatly simplified arrangement, yes, but he isplayingthat music. He is playing the great music that stirs his heart, and with the ears of his heart he hears the orchestra as he plays; he is caught up into the reality and wonder of it all. He has entered an enchanted concert hall which is larger on the inside than on the outside.
Something very like this process of transcription is going on whenever God makes himself known to man. There is, there must be, an attenuation, an accommodation, of the divine to the human, if the human is to survive the encounter. God wishes to reveal his glory to Moses in Midian, but Moses cannot bear it. So, God “transcribes” his glory — light unapproachable — into flame which does not consume and firelight which does not blind. At the burning bush Moses participates in the glory of God insofar as he can bear it. At the intersection of the divine and human, things are not always what they seem; things are not merely what they seem; things are very often more than what they seem. Meaning floods mere observation as the waters cover the sea. But — here is the wonder of it all — in taking off his shoes and bowing down before the bush, before God’s glory transcribed in the bush, Moses participates in the divine. He is taken up into it; he is elevated by the divine condescension. Let your mind roam through the pages of Scripture; you will find such divine “transcription” hiding everywhere there in plain sight in narrative and covenant and law and prophets and, of course, supremely in the Gospels.
St. John’s Gospel, especially, abounds with such divine transcription. So, it is rich and complex, difficult and rewarding, on another spiritual and intellectual level entirely than the synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Very little in St. John’s Gospel lies on the surface; you have to plumb the depths, plunge in headlong to find its meaning. Things are not always what the seem; things are not merely what they seem; things are very often more than what they seem.
1In 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 1:1-5, ESV throughout).
Here is the truth. This Word — this λογος — is the very expression of God, is God himself: creator of all things, life of all things, light for all men. And then comes the great divine “transcription.”
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 (John 1:14).
Yes, we have seen his glory, but attenuated, “hidden” in the form of man, the second person of the Trinity transcribed and “played” on a human instrument: fully God and fully man as the Creeds proclaim, but accommodated to human sensibilities. Look at Jesus and what do you see? A Galilean of the peasant class, an erstwhile carpenter, an itinerant rabbi, a worker of miracles or else a charlatan depending on your point of view, a savior or a threat. But things are not what they seem, St. John insists; things are very much more than what they seem.
Follow St. John’s account and go to Cana, to a wedding there. When the wine runs out, Jesus has the servants fill water jars with water and then draw some water out. One would expect to find water in the ladle, but things are not always what they seem. It is not water, but more than water; it is now wine. And the surprised master of the feast expects it to be inferior wine, but things are not always what they seem; it is the good wine, the best of wines.
Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well in Sychar. What does she see? Only a weary Jewish man, albeit a very strange and forward one who breaches social convention to ask her for a drink, who dares to engage her in conversation. It seems as if the dialogue centers around water, but things are not always what they seem. She is speaking of water, surely; he is speaking of the Holy Spirit and of eternal life. The conversation would be almost farcical if it were not so important. This woman — an outcast to her own village and a dog to Jews — has a moment of insight when she perceives a higher level of meaning in Jesus than her eyes see: “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet,” she says. Better, but not yet there. No, the tired, thirsty Jew sitting by the well asking her for water and offering her living water is the Messiah. Things are not always what they seem; things are not merely what they seem; things are very often more than what they seem. That is even true about the Samaritan woman herself. She seems to be a discarded woman with a checkered past, but the Church has named her Photini and canonized her as Saint Photini, whose name means “the luminous one.” Things are not always what they seem.
We come now to the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel: the feeding of the five thousand, the interlude of Jesus walking on the water, the Bread of Life discourse — all of it wonderful and disturbing and confusing for those who saw these things and heard these words. Last week’s lectionary reading ended with Jesus saying:
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh (John 6:51).
The first part of that statement is perhaps confusing, but not so disturbing; it can be taken as metaphor: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” Bread, sustenance, life: all that is clear enough metaphorically speaking. Those who follow Jesus find his words, his presence, his way to be their sustenance and life, just like with bread. That is really no different than hearing someone like Yo Yo Ma say, “Music is my life,” or a poet saying, “Poetry is as needful to me as breathing.” We get it.
But, Jesus goes further: “And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Listen to this part of the discourse again as if for the first time and allow yourself to be scandalized:
53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever (John 6:53-58).
The language used here is very concrete, very physical language, not poetic or metaphorical at all; the eating and feeding is more akin to animals hunkered around a carcass growling than to genteel ladies gathered for cucumber sandwiches at afternoon tea. As you will see in next week’s Gospel selection, it was highly offensive language to the Jews, the grossest, the vilest infraction of the dietary law imaginable, reminiscent of the depravity of starvation and cannibalism during the siege of Jerusalem. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you,” means just what it says; no softening of our Lord’s words will do.
But, what are we to make of them? As the Jews asked in that moment so we ask now, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Well, the answer lies not in metaphorical language but in sacramental reality. And that brings us back around again to the notion of transcription. When God acted in these last days to make himself known to man, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us: a transcription, an attenuation, an accommodation to our human sensibilities so that we might see and hear and touch God without being incinerated by his glory, so that man might participate with the divine. And as glorious as that was, it was not yet enough for God. Remember St. John’s prologue: in the Word was life, and the Word became flesh. Life, eternal life, our life resides in the flesh of the Word incarnate, Jesus. In God’s economy, it is not enough that man gaze upon the divine life in the person of Jesus; God intends for man to have that divine life within himself, to participate fully in the life of the Trinity. But how? As Fr. Thomas noted so well last week, we are what we eat. We take life into ourselves by eating and drinking. So God transcribes himself yet again: the Word becomes flesh and blood; the flesh becomes bread, and the blood become wine. This is the first movement of the Eucharist, God accommodating himself to our humanity that we might participate in his life, God made manifest and truly present as and in bread and wine.
19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:19-20).
I may be running roughshod over a thousand nuances and caveats and quibbles of Eucharistic theology here, but I’m not overly concerned about that just now; there is time to deal with all that later if need be. For now, just let the wonder of it wash over you! The God who called all things into being, the God in whom all things consist, that God in the Person of the Word became flesh to dwell among us; to make himself known to us; to manifest the divine, eternal life to us; to die for us in order to free us from death, sin, and the powers of darkness; to rise again that we might live with him. That God became flesh and that flesh became bread and we eat that bread and drink that wine so that we might have his divine life within us, so that we might be drawn up into and participate in the life of the Trinity. In the Gospel, things are not always what they seem; things are not merely what they seem; things are very often more than what they seem.
I mentioned the first movement of the Eucharist in which Jesus’ body and blood are transcribed to us as bread and wine. But, there is another essential movement when we enter that enchanted room — the Upper Room — the room that is far larger on the inside than on the outside, when the meaning of the bread and wine is made manifest as the priest says and the Spirit moves:
We celebrate the memorial of our redemption, O Father, in this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and we offer you these gifts. Sanctify them by your Word and Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of your Son Jesus Christ. Sanctify us also, that we may worthily receive this holy Sacrament, and be made one body with him, that he may dwell in us and we in him (BCP 2019, pp. 133-134).
The Word became flesh. The flesh became bread and wine. The bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. We take and bless bread and wine. We feast on Christ himself, on his flesh and blood, just as he said to the Jews, so that we might have life in ourselves. It is the same sacramental mystery of transcription that St. John Chrysostom extols so eloquently in his Paschal Homily. Speaking of Jesus’ arrival into hell following the crucifixion, St. John Chrysostom says:
It took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.
We take bread and wine and meet God face to face. We take the stuff of earth and encounter heaven. We take that which is seen, and that which is unseen falls upon us bringing life.
Some of the great Eucharistic debates of the Protestant Reformation and the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation seem to me to be a grand and costly exercise in missing the point. The real point of it all was expressed perfectly not by a theologian but by the American novelist Flannery O’Conner. As the story goes, O’Conner, while still a young, aspiring author was invited to a dinner party hosted by an accomplished writer and attended by other well-known authors. The host saw that O’Conner was intimidated by the group and tried to draw her out of herself and into the conversation. Knowing that O’Conner was a Catholic, the host made a comment about the beautiful literary symbolism of the Eucharist, to which O’Conner replied, “If it’s just a symbol, to hell with it.” That, brothers and sisters, is perhaps the best Eucharistic theology in so few words that I have ever seen. I might not cross the street in the rain for a symbolic meal of bread and wine, but I will stake my life on the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God attenuates himself, accommodates himself to our humanity in the Sacraments so that we might truly participate in the divine life of the Trinity. This is not symbol or metaphor; it is sacramental reality, the most “real thing” you will do this day or any day. And that makes the Words of Institution in the liturgy the holiest words you will ever hear. Bishop Robert Barron argues that the second most important set of words in the Eucharist is the dismissal, which we have in various forms:
Let us go forth in the Name of Christ.
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
Let us go forth into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.
You have seen the Word become flesh. You have seen the flesh and blood become bread and wine. You have feasted upon the bread and wine become flesh and blood. You have been filled with the divine life of the Trinity. Now, get out of here! Go forth in the Name of Christ. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. Go forth into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit to do the work that God has give you to do. Participating in the divine life of the Trinity means loving what God loves and doing what God is doing, and all of that out there in the world. And in doing this, you become a transcription of God: the Holy Spirit playing divine music on a human instrument.
Jesus said:
56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him…58 whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.
Amen.
Notes:
To explore the notion of transcription or attenuation further, see the essay Transposition in the collection of essays by C. S. Lewis entitled The Weight of Glory.
I suppose I should begin with a “trigger warning:” what follows is entirely political, though I write not primarily as a citizen but rather as a priest. I write because I feel the need to, though I also write with fear and trembling. No one has asked me what I think about the election in my vocation as a priest, and no one is obligated to read this reflection. I do not speak for any of my ecclesiastical brothers or superiors nor for my parish or diocese ; in fact, some (perhaps many) will certainly disagree vehemently with my convictions. Such is the nature and risk of faith in a time of civic confusion and distress. We each seek the wisdom of Scripture and Tradition, we each pray and fast, we each use all the spiritual “tools” of discernment we have, and we each stumble forward into the fog trusting that the Lord can use our very imperfect understanding and obedience to his glory.
The Wisdom Literature in Scripture and in the Judeo-Christian Tradition lays before us two ways, the way of life and the way of death, the way of blessing and the way of curse, with the intent that we choose life and blessing. We often do not. But, we cannot say we have not been warned in history and law and proverb and psalm and prophecy and parable.
Scripture and Tradition teach us to chose rightly between good and evil. In his Spiritual Exercises and Rules for Discernment, St. Ignatius of Loyola teaches us to choose prudently between greater good and lesser good or, perhaps, to chose which of equal goods God might wish to bless in our lives. What sometimes seems lacking in Scripture and Tradition is clear teaching on how to choose between bad and bad, discernment in those times when we are presented with two evils, on how to deal with Woody Allen’s assessment of our cultural moment (presciently made several decades ago):
“More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”
This seems to be the choice facing us as the Presidential election looms: despair and utter hopelessness or else total extinction. I am not overly prone to hyperbole, so the actual situation is likely worse.
On the one hand, we have Donald Trump. Let’s consider Mr. Trump in light of the scriptural two ways tradition.
The Way of the Flesh
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, 20 sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal 5:19-21, ESV throughout).
The Way of the Spirit
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Gal 5:22-24).
A similar comparison is made in Colossians.
The Earthly Way
5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another (Col 3:5-9a).
The Spiritual Way
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful (Col 3:12-15).
Judge for yourself which way Donald Trump has chosen, but as for me, I see in him no evidence of any fruit of the Spirit.
On the other hand we have Vice President Harris who is now apparently the standard bearer for a modern day cult of Molech which champions the penultimate idolatry of near total human autonomy leading inexorably to the child sacrifice she euphemistically calls “a woman’s right to chose” or “women’s reproductive rights” and to the idolatrous ritual mutilation of bodies young and old through gender “reassignment” therapy. It is not that she defends such rights as tragically unfortunate but allowed by the Constitution; no, she actively promotes them as positive goods which should be enshrined in law.
Despair and utter hopelessness or else extinction: how do we even pray for the wisdom to choose? How can we choose prudently, how can we choose Christianly when both choices are worse than foolish, when both choice are anti-Christian?
I do not see a way for a Christian to vote for Donald Trump qua Donald Trump, that is, to vote for him precisely because he fails to exhibit any of the fruit of the Spirit. “What we need in the White House is a liar, a sexually immoral, angry, jealous, divisive man,” is not a Christian sentiment. It is nonetheless possible to vote for Mr. Trump in spite of these things, if one determines through prayer and prudential judgment that the Republican platform — on the whole — aligns more nearly with Christian moral teaching than does the Democratic platform: not for the moral failings of the candidate, but in spite of them. Frankly, what concerns me most is the cult-like embrace of Donald Trump by many Evangelical Christians, the too-ready acceptance of Trump precisely because he is Trump, the “Trump will be Trump” wink and smile endorsement by those who think and hope that Trump will use the ways of the world to bring about the Kingdom of God. Vote for him if you choose, but surely with prayer, fasting, and lament that it has come to this.
I do not see a way for a Christian to vote for Kamala Harris qua Kamala Harris, that is, to vote for her precisely because she champions abortion and anti-godly anthropology. It is nonetheless possible to vote for Vice President Harris in spite of these things, if one determines through prayer and prudential judgment that the Democratic platform — on the whole — aligns more nearly with Christian moral teaching than does the Republican platform: not for the abhorrent convictions of the candidate, but in spite of them. Frankly, what concerns me most is the all-too-ready embrace of Harris by many social-activist, culturally imprisoned Christians who have replaced the struggle for obedience and holiness with the demand for self-invention. Vote for Harris if you choose, but surely in sackcloth and ashes, with personal and national repentance that it has come to this.
In other words, my concern has far less to do with what either candidate might do to the country and far more with the seduction each has for the Church and the great damage that has already been done and will surely yet be done to the Church’s witness.
There is another option. Here I refer not to a third party candidate, though some will choose that route. No, the option I have in mind is to fast from voting, to determine that the evil of each candidate or party is so grave that one simply cannot be complicit in it by voting. I state this as my personal conviction informed by Scripture: it is not a Christian duty to vote. It is our Christian duty to seek the welfare of the city/country where we are in exile (Jer 29:4 ff). And we certainly are sojourners and exiles in the United States (1 Pe 2:11); we are resident aliens whose citizenship is in heaven (Phil 3:20). It is our Christian duty to pray for governmental authorities (1 Tim 2:1-2), primarily that they might leave us alone to lead godly lives. It is our Christian duty to be subject to such authorities (1 Pe 2:13-17) to the extent we can within our primary obedience to God. But, it is not our Christian duty to vote. Sometimes one must simply say to modern day Nebuchadnezzars that he will not bow down to the idol when the music plays and that no seven-times hotter furnace can coerce him to do so. Sometimes one has to relinquish the notion that one’s vote is so important, so determinative of the future that everything depends on it — chariots and horses instead of the name of the Lord (Ps 20:7). Sometimes one must “clutch one’s pearl (vote)” and not cast it before the swine of either party. Refusing to be complicit in evil is a powerful form of Christian witness.
Here is what I know with great certainty: many of my good Christian brothers and sisters — with prayer and reflection — will vote for Donald Trump, and many of my good Christian brothers and sisters — with equal prayer and reflection — will vote for Kamala Harris. And I love all such brothers and sisters. I also know this: the Kingdom of God will not come through this or any election. Jesus is Lord; Caesar — in whatever persona he or she appears, to whatever party he or she belongs — is not. Come, Lord Jesus, come.
“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” C. S. Lewis
I have long struggled with this all-or-nothing dichotomy of Lewis’s: not with the logic of it, but with the truth of it.
“If a dog is a banana and a banana is a cat, then a dog is a cat” is a valid logical syllogism, but it is hardly true. The form of the argument is flawless but the premises are false and lead to a false conclusion. The error is not in logic, but in truth, and it is clear enough to see. The problem with Lewis’s dictum is more difficult to spot. Both premises are true; St Paul agrees with them in his magisterial reflection on the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15). But, Lewis’ conclusion is clearly wrong in truth; there are those — and many of those — for whom Christianity is, at best, moderately important. I know because — Lord, have mercy — I am one of them. This class of people should not be, but we are, though most of us would not willingly claim membership in the class.
Now I was interested to discover that not even Lewis really agreed with his dictum as his essay Three Kinds of Men clearly shows:
There are three kinds of people in the world. The first class is of those who live simply for their own sake and pleasure, regarding Man and Nature as so much raw material to be cut up into whatever shape may serve them. In the second class are those who acknowledge some other claim upon them — the will of God, the categorical imperative, or the good of society — and honestly try to pursue their own interests no further than this claim will allow. They try to surrender to the higher claim as much as it demands, like men paying a tax, but hope, like other taxpayers, that what is left over will be enough for them to live on. Their life is divided, like a soldier’s or a schoolboy’s life, into time ‘on parade’ and ‘off parade’, ‘in school’ and ‘out of school’. But the third class is of those who can say like St Paul that for them ‘to live is Christ’. These people have got rid of the tiresome business of adjusting the rival claims of Self and God by the simple expedient of rejecting the claims of Self altogether. The old egoistic will has been turned round, reconditioned, and made into a new thing. The will of Christ no longer limits theirs; it is theirs. All their time, in belonging to Him, belongs also to them, for they are His.
And because there are three classes, any merely twofold division of the world into good and bad is disastrous. It overlooks the fact that the members of the second class (to which most of us belong) are always and necessarily unhappy. The tax which moral conscience levies on our desires does not in fact leave us enough to live on. As long as we are in this class we must either feel guilt because we have not paid the tax or penury because we have. The Christian doctrine that there is no ‘salvation’ by works done according to the moral law is a fact of daily experience. Back or on we must go. But there is no going on simply by our own efforts. If the new Self, the new Will, does not come at His own good pleasure to be born in us, we cannot produce Him synthetically.
The price of Christ is something, in a way, much easier than moral effort — it is to want Him. It is true that the wanting itself would be beyond our power but for one fact. The world is so built that, to help us desert our own satisfactions, they desert us. War and trouble and finally old age take from us one by one all those things that the natural Self hoped for at its setting out. Begging is our only wisdom, and want in the end makes it easier for us to be beggars. Even on those terms the Mercy will receive us (C. S. Lewis (Walter Hooper, ed.), Three Kinds of Men, Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays, Harper Collins (2017), pp. 13-15).
Three kinds of men: (1) those who live entirely for their own sakes, (2) those who live entirely for Christ, and (3) the tertium quid of those who live grudgingly in between, living for self as much as possible while yielding to Christ as little as “necessary,” in other words, those for whom Christianity is of no importance, those for whom it is of ultimate importance, and those for whom it is moderately important.
There is an irony in this spiritual taxonomy. Only those clearly in one of the classes are likely to self-identify with that class: those for whom Christianity — and even the claims of natural law — is of no importance, those “who live for their own sake and pleasure.” They will often lie to others — they will try to lie to others — about their membership, but the truth is clear for all to see, and they know it. The group for whom Christianity is moderately important is more likely to self-identify with the “ultimate importance” class. And the saints, those for whom Christ is truly of ultimate importance, place themselves in the lowest of classes; St Paul called himself the chief of sinners.
Now, let me challenge Lewis a bit further. I believe the class who considers Christianity to be only moderately important is the largest class of all. And, it is the class to which the entirety of the New Testament was written. It is the class of which the Church is primarily comprised. It is the class that St Paul routinely — and non-ironically — called saints. If you doubt this, read I and II Corinthians and then re-read Lewis’s essay; the members of that church clearly acknowledged Christ’s claim on them but tried to pursue their own self interests as far as the limits of that claim allowed, and, in the case of the Corinthians, far beyond what that claim allowed. And yet they were saints, the beloved of God, the very stuff of whom the Kingdom of God is made. That is the great mystery of grace, that God considers as of ultimate importance those who consider him only moderately important, that Mercy will receive us even on those terms.
Psalm 78: A Psalm of Generations (Nehemiah 10, Psalm 78:1-18, John 6:1-21)
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
5 He made a covenant with Jacob, and gave Israel a law,* which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, 6 That their posterity might know it,* and the children which were yet unborn (Ps 78:5,6).
The older I get, the more kindly disposed I grow toward my father and his generation. I find myself thinking to myself and even saying to my daughter, “They did the best they knew how to do in their time. There were no instruction manuals, and they were just making it up as they went, building the airplane while they were flying it.” My assessment of my forefathers has not always been so gracious. Perhaps it is now because I have seen how difficult, how complex even an ordinary and relatively “easy” life really is. Perhaps, more selfishly, my judgment is more gracious now because I hope my daughter will one day judge me generously and tell my grandchildren — should I be so blessed — that their foolish old granddad did the best he knew how and that they should think of him kindly.
It is not always true, of course, that an individual or a generation does that, does the best he or it knows how. There are instruction manuals, at least those written on the heart. There are some things that we cannot not know are wrong. In my father’s generation Jim Crow laws were wrong, and white Southerners knew or should have known; there is no excuse for not knowing. In my generation the profiteering of corporations — like the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma — and their commodification of human bodies and souls is wrong and they know it or should know it. The mutilation of bodies through abortion, nothing short of murder, and “gender affirming” medical abuse are wrong and politicians know it or should know it. The accumulating of crippling national debt, which we will bequeath to our children, the selfish monopolizing of natural resources by first world nations, the industrial poisoning of land and sea and air — all of these are wrong and America knows it or should know it. It simply may not do to be too generous to our forefathers — or to our own generation for that matter — lest we fail to learn from their mistakes. Praise them for their virtues, yes, but do not excuse them or sentimentalize them in their vices. Judge with both both mercy and righteousness, with tenderness and clear-eyed discernment.
Psalm 78 is a psalm of generations: of forefathers, the generations before; of fathers, the generation now; and of children, the generations present and yet to come. It calls for the fathers to take their place in the middle of the generations, to look backwards and to judge their forefathers rightly and soberly for the sake of the children, the generations looking forward: the present looking to the past that it might instruct the future.
We have only a small portion of this rather long Psalm appointed for us today, something like an introduction that sets the stage for the whole to follow. It is not a particularly hopeful beginning. Imagine a family gathering — a called meeting and not just an ordinary get-together. The patriarch of the family says, “I’ve called you here today because there are some important things you need to know about this family, some of which will be difficult to hear. But, you need to pay attention, you need to listen carefully, for your own sake and for the sake of your children.” That sounds like serious business, maybe life-and-death business. So, the Psalmist writes:
1 Hear my teaching, O my people;* incline your ears to the words of my mouth. 2 I will open my mouth in a parable;* I will utter dark sayings of old, 3 Which we have heard and known,* and such as our forefathers have told us, 4 That we should not hide them from the children of the generations to come,* but show the honor of the Lord, his mighty and wonderful works that he has done.
I will open my mouth in a parable. When we think of parables, we might resort to that tired “old saw” of a parable as an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. But that reduces and trivializes parables to almost Disney-like entertainment. Parables are more like spears to poke and prod and goad people into action. Parables include many types of wisdom literature which have not only — perhaps not even primarily — heavenly meaning, but very practical earthly, here-and-now, implications. Stories can be parables. Proverbs can be, too, along with riddles and songs and actions, and yes, as in this Psalm, even history. It is a parable if you are to learn from it, to change because of it. It is a parable if it confronts you with truth — often with uncomfortable truth — that demands a response. The parable the Psalmist proposes here is an overview of Israel’s history so that the children do not repeat the errors of the forefathers. This Psalm, and the intent of the Psalmist, is reminiscent of the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana’s dictum, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
I will utter dark sayings of old, the Psalmist writes. Why dark sayings? Because Israel’s history is not a Hallmark Channel movie. It is not goodness and light, but failure and exile. It doesn’t end well; at least it had not resolved well by the time the Psalms were written, edited, and compiled. It was more tragedy than comedy, unfulfilled promises, a story that had lost its way and failed to reach the hoped-for ending. And, to be brutally honest, as the Psalmist will be, that is the fault of their forefathers. Even so, to the forefathers’ credit, they at least had preserved and passed down these cautionary tales in which they were the culprits. They did not hide them from the children or from the generations to come. Instead, they told them and sang them and prayed them to show the honor of the Lord, to recall the mighty and wonderful works he had done.
At the heart of the story, as the greatest of the works of the Lord for Israel, we find these two gifts: the covenant and the Law.
5 He made a covenant with Jacob, and gave Israel a law,* which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, 6 That their posterity might know it,* and the children which were yet unborn;
What is so important about the covenant? The covenant is Israel’s origin story, the declaration that of all the peoples on earth, God has chosen Israel for his own: for his own possession and for his own purpose, to be a holy people, a kingdom of priests, a light to the nations. No covenant, no Israel. And the Law? It is the means through which Israel can be a holy people, the means by which they can be cleansed again and again so that a holy God can dwell in their midst without destroying them in their guilt. It is also the means by which their light shines on the nations; here’s what it looks like to be the holy people of the one, true, holy God. And God’s intent was that both covenant and law be observed by the forefathers and passed down to their children and their children’s children:
7 With the intent that when they came up* they might show it to their children, 8 That they might put their trust in God,* and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments;
Notice how God-focused this is. The purposes of telling these stories, of passing down covenant and Law is that each generation would put its trust in the Lord, that each generation would remember the words of the Lord and so keep his commandments. That is true of our liturgies, as well, isn’t it? Of course, our liturgies are worship; but they are also a means of “traditioning,” of passing down faith and practice to the next generation so that it might trust in God and not forget his work in and through Jesus Christ. Our liturgies are parables in sacred word and sacred action, parables in which we and our children participate. They are parables of covenant and Law, parables of New Covenant and grace. We received them from our forefathers, we participate in them now and preserve them full and intact, and we pass them on to our children.
It was not always so with Israel; this is where the saying turns dark. Recognizing their failures, the Psalmist calls the forefathers to judgment of the sake of the children. It is the Psalmist’s intent that the children keep the covenant and the Law:
9 And not be as their forefathers, a faithless and stubborn generation,* a generation that did not set their heart aright, and whose spirit did not cleave steadfastly to God, 10 Like the children of Ephraim, archers carrying bows,* who turned back in the day of battle. 11 They did not keep the covenant of God,* and would not walk in his law, 12 But forgot what he had done,* and the wonderful works that he had shown them.
What were the sins of the forefathers? They were faithless; in other words, they broke faith with the God who had called them into covenant by going after other gods. Their spirits did not cleave steadfastly to the God who had given them both the covenant and the Law. Faithlessness and idolatry go hand in hand. It is still that way today, though our idols are not always as obvious as Baal and Ashera and Molech. We break faith with God when we worship other higher goods: power, pleasure, possessions, honor, autonomy — the absolute human freedom to make of ourselves what we will.
The forefathers were not only faithless; they were stubborn, as well. When called to repent of their faithlessness, they did not bend the knee but instead stiffened their neck, hence the oft-repeated biblical epithet for Israel, “a stubborn and stiff-necked people.” Repentance is a difficult lesson to learn, not least because we do not see many good examples of it Scripture: stubbornness, yes, but repentance not so much.
Earlier in the Psalm, the writer appealed to the covenant and the Law. Notice how he does so again here to indict the forefathers. They did not keep the covenant of God; they did not walk in his Law. Then he points to an important reason why that might be true: forgetfulness; they forgot what he (God) had done. Orthodox theology identifies several spiritual illnesses of the heart that separate man from God. One of the most serious is forgetfulness. Forgetfulness does not mean that God is absent from the human mind, but rather that he has been displaced from the human heart, that man no longer prays, no longer communes with God. God may be a memory, but not a living presence. The purpose of memory of the mind is to overcome forgetfulness of the heart. So, in the verses that follow, the Psalmist will recount the many mighty acts of God on behalf of Israel not just that Israel might remember its history, but that Israel might remember its God, not just that Israel might know with the mind, but that Israel might love with the heart.
This is the introduction to this Psalm of generations; it sets the stage for all that is to follow. This same Psalm is actually appointed for Sunday, and we will explore it further then, so I need say little more now, except perhaps for this. We have been, are, or will be in all the generations mentioned: I have been a spiritual child; I am now a spiritual father; one day in the not so distant future I will be a spiritual forefather, and then perhaps a memory: please, God, not a cautionary tale. I am standing in the middle of the generations now, looking both ways. It is my place to honor what was noble in the previous generations — and there was much that is noble — and to critique those areas of faithlessness and stubbornness that were there, to learn from both, and to pass on the faith whole and intact to my spiritual children, that they may set their heart aright on God. If I do this, I will pass on a blessing; if I do not, I will pass on a curse. There is a song by Sara Groves that captures this as a modern day psalm; it is called Generations. I would like to close with the lyrics to that song.
I can taste the fruit of Eve I’m aware of sickness, death and disease The results of her choices are vast Eve was the first but she wasn’t the last
And if I were honest with myself Had I been standing at that tree My mouth and my hands would be covered with fruit Things I shouldn’t know and things I shouldn’t see
Remind me of this with every decision Generations will reap what I sow I can pass on a curse or a blessing To those I will never know
She taught me to fear the serpent I’m learning the fear myself And all of the things I am capable of In my search for wisdom, acceptance and wealth
And to say that the devil made me do it Is a cop out and a lie The devil can’t make me do anything When I’m calling on Jesus Christ
Remind me of this with every decision Generations will reap what I sow I can pass on a curse or a blessing To those I will never know
To my great, great, great grand daughter Live in peace To my great, great, great grand son Live in peace To my great, great, great grand daughter Live in peace To my great, great, great grand son Live in peace, oh, live in peace
Remind me of this with every decision Generations will reap what I sow I can pass on a curse or a blessing To those I will never know
Oh, remind me Generations will reap what I sow I can pass on a curse or a blessing To those I will never know Oh, I may never know
Today is the one hundredth birthday of St. Paisios the Athonite (d. 1994). I first encountered stories and teachings of this elder of Mount Athos in the book The Mountain of Silence by Kyriacos Markides, which remains, for me, one of the most engaging and accessible introductions to Orthodox spirituality and monastic wisdom available.
Following is the prayer of St. Paisios for the whole world. For Anglicans, it is a wonderful complement to The Great Litany:
Our Lord Jesus Christ, do not desert your servants who at present are away from the Church, but through your love and grace bring everybody close you.
Remember Lord all your servants who are in pain, who are in despair, who are sick, who are poor, who have lost a loved one, who have been wronged, who are by themselves, who have been slandered, who are captives, who are hungry, who are refugees, who have lost their ways, who have been deceived, who are unprotected, who are in prison.
Remember Lord your servants who are suffering from cancer.
Remember Lord your servants who suffer from small but also from serious illnesses and diseases.
Remember Lord your servants who are disabled.
Remember Lord your servants who have psychological problems and diseases.
Remember Lord all of our public servants and help them to govern as Christians.
Remember Lord all the children who come from broken families.
Remember Lord all the broken families and those who have been divorced.
Remember Lord all the orphans of this world and all of those who have lost their significant other.
Remember Lord your servants who are in prison, who declare them as anarchists, who are drug addicts, who have killed, who have stolen, who have committed a crime. Enlighten them and help them to change their ways and come to You.
Remember Lord your servants who are away from their homes and live in a foreign land.
Remember Lord your servants who are travelling today by sea, by air, or by land and protect them.
Remember Lord our Church, our priests, and all the faithful.
Remember Lord our monks and nuns, our abbots and abbesses, our spiritual guides, our brotherhoods and all the monastics from the Holy Mountain and the Holy Land.
Remember Lord your servants who are in the midst of war.
Remember Lord your servants who are being hunted.
Remember Lord your servants who have lost their homes and their jobs.
Remember Lord your servants who are homeless.
Remember Lord all the nations of the world. Keep them in your embrace and cover and protect them from war and evil. Keep our beloved country day and night protected from war and evil.
Remember Lord your servants who have been abandoned and have suffered injustice. Have mercy on families that are going through trying times. Pour your abundant love and mercy upon them.
Remember Lord your servants who suffer from any kind of problems of the body, soul, and mind.
Remember Lord your servants who are in despair, help them and give them peace.
Remember Lord your servants who asked for our prayers.
Remember Lord and all of those who have left this life and grant their souls rest and peace.
Jesus’s teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginalized avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren’t appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we’d like to think (Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God, Dutton (2008), pp. 15-16).
I have no desire to speak ill of the dead, and particularly not of a much-loved brother in Christ like Timothy Keller. And yet when I read this passage today it seemed — and seems — like a tendentious missing of the point, a false representation by someone who should have, and did, know better. Perhaps I am the one missing the point and not Keller; perhaps I am the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son. I would not comment on this passage at all but for the fact that it contains some false and, I think, damaging representations of the church.
Keller’s indictments of the church are (1) that churches do not attract outsiders — the licentious and liberated or the broken and marginalized, (2) that this can only mean that we must not be declaring the message that Jesus did, and (3) that we must be full of elder brothers — conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. I think (1) is mostly true and wholly irrelevant, (2) is mostly false, and (3) understates the truth. I will look at each of these in turn.
If churches do not attract outsiders, might it be because church isn’t designed for outsiders, and that intentionally so? Might it be that a church service is more akin to a family dinner than to a fast food restaurant? Any member of the family is welcomed to invite a guest to the family table and the guest will be truly welcomed; the more the merrier. But, the family does not “cater” to guests, nor is the meal designed for guests. The menu is not planned around guests and the family likely would not be equipped to handle the guest’s food or pet allergies. Much of the conversation would be meaningless to a guest: stories about crazy uncle Bob or the disaster of the family vacation three years ago or Janice’s miraculous recovery. The guest wouldn’t understand the significance of the Fiesta dinnerware. He might think some of the foods strange, and so on. Is any of this cause to critique the institution of the family dinner? Hardly.
How does this apply to church? Church is built around the family’s worship. It is not primarily intended or designed to be an evangelistic event meant to entice and make the licentious and liberated comfortable. Church is designed for the worship of God; for the formation of Christians, which sometimes involves the uncomfortable movement of conviction, repentance, and confession; for the blessing and sending out of God’s people on mission in the world. A licentious and liberated younger brother will feel out of place precisely because he is out of place; he is no longer in the world he knows, but he is on the threshold of the world to come. And that is a good thing. If he doesn’t leave feeling, “That was strange!” then I question whether he has been to an assembly of the saints at all. Now, let’s get this straight. The licentious and liberated guest will be welcomed and loved, but his licentiousness and liberation will not be catered to nor will he be made to feel at home. He is not at home: not yet. But, he has put himself in the crosshairs of the grace of God, and those “elder brothers” might just pursue him like the hounds of heaven down the byways to coffee shops, or restaurants, or family dinners, or Bible studies — to all those places where evangelism should and does take place. He may one day become part of the family. I live in Knoxville, Tennessee, a city whose motto is “Keep Knoxville Scruffy.” I want to live in a church whose motto is “Keep Church Weird.”
Do we declare the message that Jesus did? Well, yes and no. Jesus’ message was directed almost exclusively to Second Temple Jews, a declaration that in and through his life, death, and resurrection God was at last fulfilling the covenants with Israel; at last defeating the unholy trinity of death, sin, and the dominion of the powers; at last becoming King and inaugurating his Kingdom. Jesus spoke this message, e.g., in the Sermon on the Mount, in a host of parables, and in the strange discourses in St. John’s Gospel. He also enacted the message in healings and exorcisms and resurrections and nature miracles. He also claimed, in no uncertain terms, to be God; to have seen him was to have seen the Father with whom he was/is one. Jesus’ message was that he was doing all these things. Our message is that he has done all these things and that the great renewal of all things is yet to happen when he comes again. The “tenses” of his message and our message differ: present (for Jesus) versus past, present, and future for the Church. But, the essence is the same. There is another real difference though. Just as Jesus promised that his disciples would do greater things than he had done, our messages is more expansive than his. He preached to Jews; we preach to the world. He taught a small group of followers; we teach a universal body of the faithful. Jesus rarely addressed a “church” at all, but our teaching and preaching takes place in the context of the Church that his disciples shepherded and served. So, we preach Jesus to the world even as we deal with the messiness of the Church. Jesus tended the root; we manage the vines. But, it is one and the same good news.
I will deal with the charge that the church is full of conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people in short order. The church is much worse than that. The church is a spiritual hospital full of sin-sick patients all of whom are terminally ill but for the miraculous intervention of the Great Physician. The church is a whitewashed sepulcher full of dead men’s bones. The church is the refuge of sinners and hypocrites, all of whom are the beloved of Christ and my dear brothers and sisters. And that is why I am there as the chief of sinners. If you come, I do not think you will change the demographics.
The quote from Keller’s book is just a snippet; reading the whole might change my impression of his impression of the Church. He certainly served the Lord and the Church faithfully, certainly more so than I have done and likely will do, and I have no doubt that he has already heard the words I long one day to hear: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” But such indictments of the Church, even in snippet form, make me uncomfortable. After all, the Church is the bride of Christ. No one likes to be told that his bride is ugly.
A friend posted this meme, a friend who has moved away from Christianity and religion to what I might describe as a “Spiritual Scientism” — my description, not my friend’s. I thought to respond to my friend, but I decided against it; people have a “right” to express themselves without having “interlopers” challenge them. But the notion is so common now, and it sounds so plausible on its face, that some comment does seem merited.
As with most memes, this one is a bit too simplistic. Yes, there is a natural moral law tradition that perhaps transcends religions. And much of it is common to all religions. So, in general, we do not need religion to inculcate the most basic, most general common ethic. It is really this that C. S. Lewis argues in the opening of Mere Christianity, the existence of a universal, internal moral law that we all know and that we all violate. But, things get complicated beyond that. Love your neighbor as yourself, all men are created equal, forgive your enemies and pray for them, are not tenets that emerge from natural law, nor are they common to all religions. The “empathy” to which the meme appeals is neither truly empathy nor even natural moral law. It is the remnant of Christianity; it is that part of the faith that formed the Western culture, including its ethical understanding, and which the secular West has not yet managed to exorcise. Even some virulent atheists as Richard Dawkins are coming to recognize the moral and cultural heritage and value not of religion in general but of Christianity. He now describes himself as a “cultural Christian,” as one who loves hymns and Christmas carols and “sort of feel(s) at home in the Christian ethos” (National Catholic Register). Not that the faith needs to appeal to Dawkins for its defense, but, after the virulence with which he denounced Christianity, it is interesting to hear him say, “So I call myself a cultural Christian, and I think it would be truly dreadful if we substituted any alternative religion.” He is not alone among former and current atheists, some of whom seem to be awakening to the irreducibly and irreplaceable moral and cultural basis of the Western world. None of this stems from some general feeling of empathy. That reverses the proper directionality.
As for what emerges from lack of religion, I would reference the entirety of the 20th century: Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Rwanda, and a host of other secular genocides. Reject religion and empathy is soon lost, too.
Being new to something, even to something you want or need to do, can be disconcerting, particularly if the “something” is personal. That is certainly true in the case of the Reconciliation of Penitents (Confession). From time to time I will have someone contact me to schedule sacramental confession only to have him/her express a certain anxiety about it: “This is my first time at confession, and I don’t really know what to do or what to expect. Can you help me?”
The last time that happened, I wrote a response that I realize might be generally helpful. A part of my response follows:
Your second question is a bit more complex due in part to the Anglican attitude toward confession: All may; some should; none must. In short, we are not Roman Catholics who think some sins — mortal sins — can generally be forgiven only through confession to a priest and the accompanying absolution offered. The Anglican assumption is that Anglicans are confessing their sins daily in the Daily Office, directly to God if the office is done privately, or to God in the presence of a priest who will offer absolution if it is done publicly. For some people — many people, actually — this seems to be enough; they have no further scruples and their consciences are satisfied. But, there are others whose consciences will not be quieted by such a general confession. To these people, the Exhortation makes particular appeal:
If you have come here today [to Holy Communion] with a troubled conscience, and you need help and counsel, come to me, or to some other Priest, and confess your sins, that you may receive godly counsel, direction, and absolution. To do so will both satisfy your conscience and remove any scruples or doubt (BCP 2019, p. 148).
This gives the Anglican rationale for Confession quite well: to satisfy a troubled conscience; to receive spiritual help, counsel, and direction; and to receive sacramental absolution (forgiveness from God administered through the priest). So, if you have offered the general confession in worship but still have a troubled conscience or doubts about whether you have been forgiven, then Confession is for you. If you are struggling with a persistent sin or with temptation before the act and need spiritual counsel about how best to resist the temptation or sin, then Confession is for you. If you are at enmity with another parishioner and need the priest’s help in moving toward reconciliation, then Confession is for you. If you simply need the assurance of forgiveness (absolution) spoken by a person ordained to speak for God in such a matter; then Confession is for you. If you need to unburden yourself of spiritual baggage or a sense of guilt or shame, or if you wish to cleanse yourself prior to a time of special devotion, then…. I think you get the picture.
How you prepare for Confession depends on why you desire it. If there is particular sin or temptation you are dealing with, you simply come prepared to open that up to the confessor. If there is a more generalized sense that perhaps not all is well with your soul, then I would suggest conducting a sort of spiritual inventory before coming to confession:
Pray Psalm 139 and ask the Lord to reveal any hidden matters that need to be disclosed. We think we know ourselves a lot better than we actually do, and we need God’s revelation and perspective.
Take a moral inventory based upon the Ten Commandments, The Sermon on the Mount, and the Summary of the Law. Sit with each of these in prayer for quite awhile and again ask for God to reveal what needs to be brought into the open.
Consider your fidelity to the spiritual disciplines that you know are necessary for growth: regular participation in sacramental worship, prayer, Scripture, almsgiving, service, fasting (if that is part of your discipline), etc. Have you “let any of these slide?”
Assess your fidelity to any vows you have made: baptismal vows, marriage vows, ordination vows — I am writing very generally now, professional commitments, etc.
Take an “anxiety inventory.” What are you anxious about or afraid of? What is holding you back?
Assess your cultivation of the virtues: are you growing in faith, hope, and love?
Check your “attention to God.” Are you living in distraction, or are you spending quantity and quality time with God?
Well, I could go on, but this gives you more than enough to start with, I think — rather like drinking from a firehose. Lastly, I think it would be very helpful to read the introduction to the rite and the rite itself on pages 222-224 of the Book of Common Prayer 2019. If you do not have a hardcopy, you can access it online at http://www.anglicanchurch.net. Under the menu, select MORE, then RESOURCES, then BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.
I hope you find this helpful. I am a Christian and a priest who thinks Confession is central to spiritual formation and growth into Christ-likeness. I will be happy to assist you in any way. Just let me know how you’d like to proceed.
For the sake of full disclosure, having written this out, I think there may be others who could benefit from it. I will likely post the pertinent parts of it, with all identifying material stripped out, of course.
Let me say, in closing, that you will never regret having gone to Confession, but you might well regret not having gone.
