More than a Metaphor: Sacraments and Union with Christ
John 14:15-23; 20:19-22
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
August 2, 2009
“We must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us…All that Christ possesses is nothing to us until we grow into one body with him.” – John Calvin, Institutes III.1.1
“Union with Christ…is the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation.”
– John Murray
Too often we have reduced salvation to an external declaration of forgiveness of sins. This emphasis arose in Luther’s work to rescue the Church from a sea of subjectivity in which people’s faith drowned in an unceasing and wearisome effort to see if they had gained enough grace to be able to enter heaven on the Last Day. “No”, said Luther, drawing on Paul’s great witness and Augustine’s great theology, we are ‘justified once for all, and this is in Christ Jesus, by grace through faith.” But don’t miss that little phrase ‘in Christ’ – all of our salvation is in union with Jesus Christ. We are in him, and he is in us, and this is salvation. He is FOR us and he is IN us. Both wings are necessary for flight. This means that he is our head and we are his body, and union with him alone his Church lives.
At their most basic level, the holy mysteries – the ‘sacraments’ – concern our union with Christ. Baptism is about ‘being joined’ to another, just as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10 that the people of the Exodus were ‘baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the Sea’. Baptism is never merely personal, but communal (Often anti-Christian societies are more aware of this than Church members).
Paul goes on to say that after that momentous event these same people ‘ate spiritual food and drank spiritual drink’, and that the source of this nourishment was ‘Christ’, the Rock following them in their journey to the inheritance. From this Paul then exhorts the Corinthians to forsake their idols, seeing that at the Lord’s Table they have a ‘communion’ – there is that word ‘union’ again – in the blood of Christ and the body of Christ. Behind this mystery is the saying of Jesus that if we eat his flesh and drink his blood we shall have eternal life and that those who refuse this supper have no life in themselves. Indeed, the union of believer and Christ Jesus at the Supper is such that Jesus says, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in Me and I in him” (John 6:57).
So sacraments are about union and communion: being spiritually united to Christ and his Church, and then strengthening that life-giving union of being in Christ and Christ in us.. Baptism is the sacrament that initiates this union and the Eucharist is the sacrament that strengthens this union. All of this, as we have learned, is dependent on the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
I. Union and the Holy Spirit – John 14:15-20; 6:56; 1 John 4:13
A. The Spirit – with and in
B. The Spirit – that we may know that we are in Christ and Christ is in us
C. The Spirit and the Sacraments
1. Romans 6:1ff
· WCF 28:1
2. 1 Corinthians 6:15-17
3. Revelation 1:10; Ephesians 2:18
· Hot water in the Chalice
· WCF 29:1
- This is a wholistic union: body, soul, and spirit; the totality of our being is in union with Christ: we are not Gnostics, but saved completely and utterly, body and soul.
- Salvation is not simply a legal declaration extrinsic to us (though it includes this declaration), but is our participation in the very life of God, transforming us into the image of Christ. Salvation is forgiveness and healing, it is justification and sanctification and glorification: 2 Peter 1:4; Romans 8:29-30 (“What God has joined together, let no man separate”)
4. The scope of union with Christ: eternity to eternity, and all in between.
· “Chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world…” – Ephesians 1
· “That Christ may dwell in your hearts…” – Ephesians 3
· “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation…” – 2 Corinthians 5“
· “Found in Christ” – Philippians 3
· “Christ in us the hope of glory…” – Colossians 1
- in Paul, en kyriou, en Christos, en auto – 164 x
II. Union and Communion in the Trinity– John 14:21-23
A. Our union is by the Spirit in Christ with the Father
B. Our heart becomes the home of the Trinity
· Life by the Spirit (Genesis 2 and John 20)
- Only by the in-breathed Spirit are we made alive - personally and congregationally.
III. Union and Life – What does our Union with Christ Mean?
A. That God has Loved us and is Love – Not simply the distant, transcendent ruler or even an omnipresent power. No, God is with, in, and upon us; he has intimately joined us to himself and ourselves to him – eternally.
B. That God the Second Person of the Trinity became Man and remains fully Man and fully God so that humanity might be recovered and glorified. The incarnation is not only our deliverance, but our life and our destiny.
C. That in the waters of Baptism, which Christ has blessed and made holy by entering them and over which the Holy Spirit hovers to bring about new creation, we see the baptized joined into the community of the Church and by God’s grace made alive in the Spirit, born of water and Spirit.
D. That in the Eucharist, the Bread we break and the Cup we drink is a communion in the Body and Blood of Christ, strengthening our union with God and with the Church, nourishing our souls and bodies in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection. We ‘remember’ not only the past but the future as well.
E. Union with Christ means Union with the Church, for the Savior is betrothed not to an isolated individual but to his Bride to be, the Church. The separation of the Church from Christ in much modern preaching is blasphemous and divorces the Bride from the Bridegroom. To be baptized is to be joined to the Church as well as to Christ; to eat at this table is feast upon Christ but to do so as part of the covenant priestly people, to be grain of wheat gathered from the hills to form the one loaf of the body (1 Corinthians 10; and note the prayer of the Didache).
Friday, July 31, 2009
Giant Surprise and Football's First Mention
The SF Giants lead in the NL Wildcard race - and no one saw that coming when the season opened. The Dodgers salted away the division a long time ago, but the G-men are still in the hunt for October, along with the team that comes up short in the Central, the Braves, and fellow Western Division rival Rockies. The Cubs and Cards will probably go down to the wire in the Central. With just a third of the season to go, it should be a very compelling race all over the league. The Phillies and Dodgers are in the drivers seat as favorites for the NL title, whatever the outcomes elsewhere, but the post-season doesn't always reward division winners or the team with the best overall record. Once October gets here, its a new season, with the hot team, rather than the best team, usually winning.
Over in the AL, lets all hope the Rangers can catch the Angels. They could. I don't see how they catch a wildcard birth over either the Red Sox or Yankees. Will the Tigers hold on, or will the White Sox and Twins make a big move. The Sox have a lot of weapons, and could get there.
Speaking as a Cubs fan (to put this in perspective), is Albert Pujols simply the greatest player of our time, and - perhaps - of all time? We won't know about the latter for awhile, but he is a pure delight to watch. Amazing. If he stays healthy - and free of steroid tainting - he may be the greatest to ever step onto the diamond.
Brett Favre. There, I said the name that must not be mentioned. Lets hope the next time we hear his name it is followed simply by "....was elected to the Hall of Fame today...." rather than some wacky comeback story.
Big 12 Media days: Lovin the Longhorns. Its all about October and a game against the team from the other side of the river. If the Horns are injury free, it could be another very special season in Austin leading to the National Title game - which they should have been playing in last year as well.
Whew! Feels good to have football back in the discussion.
Over in the AL, lets all hope the Rangers can catch the Angels. They could. I don't see how they catch a wildcard birth over either the Red Sox or Yankees. Will the Tigers hold on, or will the White Sox and Twins make a big move. The Sox have a lot of weapons, and could get there.
Speaking as a Cubs fan (to put this in perspective), is Albert Pujols simply the greatest player of our time, and - perhaps - of all time? We won't know about the latter for awhile, but he is a pure delight to watch. Amazing. If he stays healthy - and free of steroid tainting - he may be the greatest to ever step onto the diamond.
Brett Favre. There, I said the name that must not be mentioned. Lets hope the next time we hear his name it is followed simply by "....was elected to the Hall of Fame today...." rather than some wacky comeback story.
Big 12 Media days: Lovin the Longhorns. Its all about October and a game against the team from the other side of the river. If the Horns are injury free, it could be another very special season in Austin leading to the National Title game - which they should have been playing in last year as well.
Whew! Feels good to have football back in the discussion.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
A Poem, by Langston Hughes
Mother to Son:
"Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair."
Langston Hughes
"Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair."
Cambridge Lecture Two: Music and Love
Cambridge Lecture Two: Music and Love
Dr Alexander Lingus
Dr Lingus is the founder and conductor of Capella Romana, a Camdridge University Musicologist, and scholar of the history of Byzantine Music.
From ancient Greek lyric to our own day, love and music have a deep association. Music is a vehicle for presenting texts which deal with love, but more than a mere vehicle for transmission, I suggest, there is an ontological connection between music and love. One need only ponder the origin of the very word ‘music’, derived as it is from ‘muse’ – in other words, from ancient times, there is recognition of a union/connection between music and the divine. The Orpheus myth is quite plain about this, but within the Christian tradition, our doxological orientation makes plain the mutual love between man and God, who is called Love.
In the fourth century BC Plato identified the elements of music as arithmos, harmonia and logos. These found expression in hymns, lament, and paeons, hymns in particular being prayers to the gods. As an aside we should note that these elements might also find expression in dance. In fact, the ancient Olympic games included a musical component. Plato however was concerned about musical expression in his own time degenerating into something in which the masses were ‘possessed by a frantic and unhallowed lust for pleasure.’, which he said was due to a confusion in forms. Thus music must also have a sense of ethos to it in addition to the aforementioned qualities.
In the Republic music finds expression within the ‘ideal state’ in terms of education. This if also how literature was taught, or, in a certain way, the mythology-history of the culture: the story was told by music and chant. To ‘do’ literature meant being skilled on a lyre!
(Cassidy here inserts: For Augustine, known for his dependence on Platonic thought (however much he may have sought to distance himself from that influence), De Musica shows the very highly developed idea of music finding its origin, not in the harmony of spheres per se, but in the harmony of the intra-trinitarian relations. Music, proceeding from God, ‘leads to’ theology – not cool analysis in the modern sense of the term, but rather flaming piety, love for God. As Boethius would then later note, as Pickstock as recently written about, any change in music means a change in culture and community. Just seems incredible, given Zizioulos on the Trinity and Love-Being-Community, that Augustine would be ignored. He is not persona non grata in ALL Orthodox circles after all!)
The Jewish write Philo clearly demonstrates that Jewish aesthetics and worship is best expressed in terms of ‘sacred feast’, all interspersed with and followed by antiphonal singing. Dancing, again, and spontaneous song come into play likewise. He describes musical expression within this Jewish context as ‘drinking the pure wine of the love of the God’. Is this an equivalent to the harmonious joining of voices in eroticism found in the Bacchanalian feasts? No, except in the sense that both are religious in nature, with the former being set within the holy and the latter set within what can be described as ‘mere cultic sexuality’.
The music of the very early Christian tradition is rather hidden from us, the veil only lifting in the fourth century where we find certain texts which deal with the ‘agape feasts’. Yet we should bear in mind that by the fourth century Egyptian monks/aesthetics had adopted and memorized the entire Psalter for liturgy and contemplation. This points back to a rich usage of the Psalms in early Christian worship, and this is hardly surprising given Paul’s injunction to sing with Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.Clearly music embraced and surrounded the charisms of the Eucharist. This is reflected in the very earliest antiphonal responses between Priest, Deacon, and Congregation (offering a refrain).
St Basil saw Scripture as ‘spiritual medicine’, and held that the Psalms summed up all of Scripture. In his work he suggested that music ‘sweetened’ the Scriptures so that doctrine could be more readily consumed (an early version of a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!), adding, “The singing of Psalms brings love.” Thus congregational singing is an actualization of love and serves to ‘restrain the disorder of emotion and thought’. He exhorts us to ‘use better music to achieve better ends.’
Evagrius noted that what he called ‘demonic songs’ moved the soul toward ‘phantasm’ but that Psalm singing moved the soul to contemplate God, beauty, and to cultivate ‘calm desire’.
Gregory of Nyssa wrote that David mixed melody with the virtues of philosophy so ‘ that nature might be healed’. For Gregory, ‘doxological singing’ promoted love, willingness, and zeal for human beings are constituted as musical instruments. That is a fascinating observation, the more so if we stop to ask in what ways this is a reflection in us of the imago dei.
Chrysostom wrote that Psalm singing taught the soul to love wisdom.
In the seventh century hymns are added to the Psalter and, with regard to love, speak of three objects or kinds of love:
Love for God
Love for the Theotokos (Mother of God)
Love shown by the martyrs.
Interestingly, that final ‘love’, the love of the martyrs for God, is often described as intensified eros. The Oralogian has 300 references to agape, but 10 with eros as well. There are references to the disfigured/disordered dimension of eros, especially in the Matins for Holy Wednesday (‘eros hanartios’), and, it should be further noted, that in Byzantine liturgy the ‘tone’ of the chant changes when ‘sin’ is mentioned.
Unfortunately, we do not have many of the most ancient tones; in St Symeon the New Theologian we find lyric but no tunes. A similar pattern is true of the mid-medieval period, though with Hildegard von Bingen we find both lyric and tune – and these are truly extraordinary. This begins as well a new use of the Song of Sons in reference to a Marian interpretation of the text, especially in a plain chant, Palestinian use.
With Cartesian and Kantian revolution we find music reduced to ‘a play on the emotions’; there is a dimension of the metaphysical, primarily reserved for opera, but the idea of ‘text’ – or ‘ethos’ – is disappearing as normative. Music is no longer held to be the semantics of the soul but a super-semantic event beyond language.
Thus we need to keep asking of music, ‘where are the words/’ The presentation fo music without words, upon which one imposes one’s own ‘meaning’ is a thoroughly post-modern notion that will chime in well in our times. Could it be argued that this is a musical apophaticism of sorts? Perhaps – yet in Scripture music is always related to revelation which is both mystery but also within the bounds of clarity to be believed. The idea that ‘if we can’t understand it, it must be good’ is not a welcome addition to the Christian mind. This was certainly the direction of Liszt and of early Wagner (in the end, Wagner ‘got religion’ and sought to re-integrate Christian Faith – albeit a very truncated version of the Faith – into his music).
A more thoroughly Christian approach to the music alone spectrum would be Mahler’s Third Symphony. Mahler saw music as an ‘unmediated contact with the divine’, and this is inadequate though not antagonistic in essence to the ancient tradition. In this symphony, Summer appears and we ‘hear’ what the flowers tell us. There is a progression in the voices throughout the work – next we hear what the animals tell us, and then what man tells us. Finally, we hear what the angels tell us and what Love tells us.
Music today is largely reduced to manipulation. Composers like Taverner, who converted to Orthodoxy, have sought to recover for Westerners the sacredness of life expressed in music, and the texts of Herbert, think of ‘Love bade me welcome’, show that there is hope for better days ahead as we contemplate the ancient beauty called Love and adore our God in, with, and through music.
Cassidy makes one last comment: I know this was lecture from an Orthodox musicologist and from within that tradition - and it was very, very informative. BUT, I still would have liked to have had Ambrose and Augustine dealt with at least in passing, together with the rise of Organ in the West, and Bach's remarkable contribution to ecclesiastical music.
Dr Alexander Lingus
Dr Lingus is the founder and conductor of Capella Romana, a Camdridge University Musicologist, and scholar of the history of Byzantine Music.
From ancient Greek lyric to our own day, love and music have a deep association. Music is a vehicle for presenting texts which deal with love, but more than a mere vehicle for transmission, I suggest, there is an ontological connection between music and love. One need only ponder the origin of the very word ‘music’, derived as it is from ‘muse’ – in other words, from ancient times, there is recognition of a union/connection between music and the divine. The Orpheus myth is quite plain about this, but within the Christian tradition, our doxological orientation makes plain the mutual love between man and God, who is called Love.
In the fourth century BC Plato identified the elements of music as arithmos, harmonia and logos. These found expression in hymns, lament, and paeons, hymns in particular being prayers to the gods. As an aside we should note that these elements might also find expression in dance. In fact, the ancient Olympic games included a musical component. Plato however was concerned about musical expression in his own time degenerating into something in which the masses were ‘possessed by a frantic and unhallowed lust for pleasure.’, which he said was due to a confusion in forms. Thus music must also have a sense of ethos to it in addition to the aforementioned qualities.
In the Republic music finds expression within the ‘ideal state’ in terms of education. This if also how literature was taught, or, in a certain way, the mythology-history of the culture: the story was told by music and chant. To ‘do’ literature meant being skilled on a lyre!
(Cassidy here inserts: For Augustine, known for his dependence on Platonic thought (however much he may have sought to distance himself from that influence), De Musica shows the very highly developed idea of music finding its origin, not in the harmony of spheres per se, but in the harmony of the intra-trinitarian relations. Music, proceeding from God, ‘leads to’ theology – not cool analysis in the modern sense of the term, but rather flaming piety, love for God. As Boethius would then later note, as Pickstock as recently written about, any change in music means a change in culture and community. Just seems incredible, given Zizioulos on the Trinity and Love-Being-Community, that Augustine would be ignored. He is not persona non grata in ALL Orthodox circles after all!)
The Jewish write Philo clearly demonstrates that Jewish aesthetics and worship is best expressed in terms of ‘sacred feast’, all interspersed with and followed by antiphonal singing. Dancing, again, and spontaneous song come into play likewise. He describes musical expression within this Jewish context as ‘drinking the pure wine of the love of the God’. Is this an equivalent to the harmonious joining of voices in eroticism found in the Bacchanalian feasts? No, except in the sense that both are religious in nature, with the former being set within the holy and the latter set within what can be described as ‘mere cultic sexuality’.
The music of the very early Christian tradition is rather hidden from us, the veil only lifting in the fourth century where we find certain texts which deal with the ‘agape feasts’. Yet we should bear in mind that by the fourth century Egyptian monks/aesthetics had adopted and memorized the entire Psalter for liturgy and contemplation. This points back to a rich usage of the Psalms in early Christian worship, and this is hardly surprising given Paul’s injunction to sing with Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.Clearly music embraced and surrounded the charisms of the Eucharist. This is reflected in the very earliest antiphonal responses between Priest, Deacon, and Congregation (offering a refrain).
St Basil saw Scripture as ‘spiritual medicine’, and held that the Psalms summed up all of Scripture. In his work he suggested that music ‘sweetened’ the Scriptures so that doctrine could be more readily consumed (an early version of a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!), adding, “The singing of Psalms brings love.” Thus congregational singing is an actualization of love and serves to ‘restrain the disorder of emotion and thought’. He exhorts us to ‘use better music to achieve better ends.’
Evagrius noted that what he called ‘demonic songs’ moved the soul toward ‘phantasm’ but that Psalm singing moved the soul to contemplate God, beauty, and to cultivate ‘calm desire’.
Gregory of Nyssa wrote that David mixed melody with the virtues of philosophy so ‘ that nature might be healed’. For Gregory, ‘doxological singing’ promoted love, willingness, and zeal for human beings are constituted as musical instruments. That is a fascinating observation, the more so if we stop to ask in what ways this is a reflection in us of the imago dei.
Chrysostom wrote that Psalm singing taught the soul to love wisdom.
In the seventh century hymns are added to the Psalter and, with regard to love, speak of three objects or kinds of love:
Love for God
Love for the Theotokos (Mother of God)
Love shown by the martyrs.
Interestingly, that final ‘love’, the love of the martyrs for God, is often described as intensified eros. The Oralogian has 300 references to agape, but 10 with eros as well. There are references to the disfigured/disordered dimension of eros, especially in the Matins for Holy Wednesday (‘eros hanartios’), and, it should be further noted, that in Byzantine liturgy the ‘tone’ of the chant changes when ‘sin’ is mentioned.
Unfortunately, we do not have many of the most ancient tones; in St Symeon the New Theologian we find lyric but no tunes. A similar pattern is true of the mid-medieval period, though with Hildegard von Bingen we find both lyric and tune – and these are truly extraordinary. This begins as well a new use of the Song of Sons in reference to a Marian interpretation of the text, especially in a plain chant, Palestinian use.
With Cartesian and Kantian revolution we find music reduced to ‘a play on the emotions’; there is a dimension of the metaphysical, primarily reserved for opera, but the idea of ‘text’ – or ‘ethos’ – is disappearing as normative. Music is no longer held to be the semantics of the soul but a super-semantic event beyond language.
Thus we need to keep asking of music, ‘where are the words/’ The presentation fo music without words, upon which one imposes one’s own ‘meaning’ is a thoroughly post-modern notion that will chime in well in our times. Could it be argued that this is a musical apophaticism of sorts? Perhaps – yet in Scripture music is always related to revelation which is both mystery but also within the bounds of clarity to be believed. The idea that ‘if we can’t understand it, it must be good’ is not a welcome addition to the Christian mind. This was certainly the direction of Liszt and of early Wagner (in the end, Wagner ‘got religion’ and sought to re-integrate Christian Faith – albeit a very truncated version of the Faith – into his music).
A more thoroughly Christian approach to the music alone spectrum would be Mahler’s Third Symphony. Mahler saw music as an ‘unmediated contact with the divine’, and this is inadequate though not antagonistic in essence to the ancient tradition. In this symphony, Summer appears and we ‘hear’ what the flowers tell us. There is a progression in the voices throughout the work – next we hear what the animals tell us, and then what man tells us. Finally, we hear what the angels tell us and what Love tells us.
Music today is largely reduced to manipulation. Composers like Taverner, who converted to Orthodoxy, have sought to recover for Westerners the sacredness of life expressed in music, and the texts of Herbert, think of ‘Love bade me welcome’, show that there is hope for better days ahead as we contemplate the ancient beauty called Love and adore our God in, with, and through music.
Cassidy makes one last comment: I know this was lecture from an Orthodox musicologist and from within that tradition - and it was very, very informative. BUT, I still would have liked to have had Ambrose and Augustine dealt with at least in passing, together with the rise of Organ in the West, and Bach's remarkable contribution to ecclesiastical music.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Fr James Kenna - Everlasting be His Memory
Fr James Kenna, founder of the St Sophia Orthodox Mission church (Antiochian) in Dripping Springs, died Sunday in a one car accident on highway 45. Fr. Kenna started the parish after he 'retired' and was instrumental in the inception of several congregations throughout the Hill Country, serving for many years in Austin. He was very kind and gracious to me in our discussions on Orthodox theology, and his funeral tomorrow will no doubt be attended by many, many mourners. His departure is a loss for the entire community and not just for the Orthodox faithful here.
May Christ receive thee, who hath called thee, and into the bosom of Abraham may the angels conduct thee; Receive his soul, and present him in the sight of the Most High; Rest eternal grant unto him O Lord. Let light perpetual shine upon him.
Orthodox Funeral Prayer
May Christ receive thee, who hath called thee, and into the bosom of Abraham may the angels conduct thee; Receive his soul, and present him in the sight of the Most High; Rest eternal grant unto him O Lord. Let light perpetual shine upon him.
Orthodox Funeral Prayer
Monday, July 27, 2009
Cambridge Lecture One - Dr Marcus Plested
Over the next week or so I'll post some of the notes I took down during the superb lectures on 'Love' that John Roberson and I attended at the Cambridge University Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies earlier this month. The first is from Dr. Marcus Plested (D Phil. Oxford), and was entitled 'A Many Splendored Thing'. This was an introductory lecture to series, giving a brief overview of themes to be explored. The lectures included 'Music and Love' (Dr. Alexander Lingus), 'The Song of Songs' (Dr. Christine Frost), 'Love in Chaucer and Shakespeare' (Dr. David Frost), 'Love and God' (Fr. Michael Harper), 'The Holy Trinity as Model of Mutual Love', and 'Love in CS Lewis and Charles Williams' (Metropolitan Kallistos - known to many as Timothy Ware), 'Love in Maximus and Augustine' (Fr/Professor Andrew Louth), "Love as Necessity for Heremeneutics' (Dr Sebastian Brock), 'Wounded by Love - the History of the Interpretation of Song of Solomon' (Dr Marcus Plested), 'The Bridegroom of Our Souls: Wedding Imagery in Scripture and its Use in the Syrian Tradition' (Dr. Sebastian Brock), 'God is Love' (Archimandrite Zacharias of the Monastery of St John the Baptist), and 'The Monastery as School of Love' (Sister Magdalene of the Monastery of St John the Baptist).
It was a full week.
Most every night, after lectures, vespers, and dinner, I headed out to either The Eagle or The Mitre with three others for late night discussions of theology, church history, and inter-dnominational decisions on who among us was truly a heretic, all over cigars and exceedingly good beer. These discussions included then a Presbyterian Pastor from Texas, an Irish Anglican Pastor from Dublin, a Lutheran Pastor from Iceland, and an Antiochian Orthodox Priest. If you say all of that out loud and add '...walked into a pub...' you have the beginnings of a very good joke. We did laugh a lot, but those late-night discussions were as helpful as the lectures in many ways and I am thankful for the fellowship with those men.
OK, on the lecture one:
Quote of the day: "Love only ceases to be a demon when it ceases to be a god."
Love, said Charles Williams, has the power to lead us to heaven or to hell. Love, born of the Holy Spirit, and rightly ordered in the human soul, is the path to heaven, coming from God and going back to God. Yet disordered loves can destroy, and, as we shall see throughout the week, it is this juxtaposition of the ordered and the disordered which eventually is foundational to life and destiny. Quite simply this is becasue God is Love. This, as we shall further see, is an affirmation of God as Triune.
Ultimately, with regard to our salvation, we must affirm that God is Love, and that it is God's Love, that saves - not our response to God's love.
The first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God. Yet this love for God is possible only because of God's mercy and kindness bestowed upon us: we love because first God loves us - which is to say that we experience the love of God and respond to this love.
But what is this human response to love? It is not simply emotional or intellectual, nor must we fall prey to the 'head-heart dichotomy' so prevelant in modern Western/Christian thought. We are commanded to love God 'with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength' - thus there is no room for the notion that our love for God is divorced from the way we think or what we do with our bodies, or indeed how we direct emotion and volition. It is a total response - a very Hebrew way of looking at things. This means that love, to use the Greek language, includes eros.
Nietzche said, "Christianity gave Eros poison to drink." Perhaps. But 'Christianity' is not necessarily Biblical and Patristic thought. We will see in Maximus the Confessor, in Ephrem the Syrian, and in Irenaeus how 'eros' is itself holy, part of the creation and therefore 'good', and a dimension of love for God. Nietzche saw Christian Faith as a 'fear of the body', and this Nietzchean influence remains strongly rooted in anti-Christian polemical thought today. A rightly ordered eros is a one of the remedies needed for the modern Church's drift into Gnosticism and even Marcionism.
Gregory of Nyssa wrote that Agape was 'eros intensified'. When reading that I thought of CS Lewis imagery in 'The Great Divoce' where a vice is transformed into a virtue - the picture of the lizard on the shoulder becoming a horse with power and speed when rightly handled.
As Socrates and Phaedo discuss the nature of love, the question of whether passionate or dispassionate love is better arises. "As wolves love lambs, so lovers love their lusts" is the response. But is this sufficient - even for the philosopher? After all, does not 'philosophy' itself mean 'love of wisdom'? Is philosophy dispassionate as a discipline? Are philosophers dispassionate? They may make poor lovers, but they are hardly dispassionate about their work - or the works they critique! No, Socrates is correct to conclude that 'Love is the most blessed of all mysteries.'
In mythology, Poverty and Possession unite to give birth to Eros - 'love has humble origins' as the Seer rightly notes. This is actually quite incisive. It means that love has the power to mediate between gods and humans, which is at least on the right track interms of Christian approaches. Love is the Mediator.
But this love is eros, again 'agape intensified': in this way we might conclude that the fathers 'baptized eros'. Indeed, Augustine's whole life work might well be summarized as a meditation on Love, from his Confessions (Late I came to love Thee...) to his monumental City of God, in which Love of self is so boldly contrasted with the Love of God. Thus 'everything is to be beloved for God's sake', and 'Love, and do what you will.' How can that be? Only of course in terms of a rightly ordered love and loves. Likewise Maximus wrote four of his 'Centuries' on 'Love'. This is a dominant patristic theme.
It was necessary then to speak of the whole of love and the holiness of love - and is so now. In the ancient world, Julian the Apostate condemned the Christians for 'their great hatred of one another'. Could the same be said today of us? Let us prove him wrong.
Love is in crisis in our current society - stripped of its wholistic glory, reduced to mere emotion, its vocabulary vulgarized by a casual use and its neglect in sacred use, and debased my 'mere' sexuality. The Freudian-Marxist diagnosis of humanity's diseased state, though largely discredited as scientific, is nonetheless a warning at least with regard to the human 'sample' those thinkers observed. Yet their atheist assumptions provide no cure, no 'new man', no hope.
Postmodernism offers no meaning or purpose to existence, and in this regard Love speaks boldly as well, granting to fallen humans authentic purpose for now and hope for the eternal - deep calling to deep, God calling out to those in his image to return to his embrace and be healed.
Love then is the author of Faith, and the wellspring of Hope. This is why among the virtues three 'remain' - Faith, Hope, and Love, and the greatest of these is Love.
It was a full week.
Most every night, after lectures, vespers, and dinner, I headed out to either The Eagle or The Mitre with three others for late night discussions of theology, church history, and inter-dnominational decisions on who among us was truly a heretic, all over cigars and exceedingly good beer. These discussions included then a Presbyterian Pastor from Texas, an Irish Anglican Pastor from Dublin, a Lutheran Pastor from Iceland, and an Antiochian Orthodox Priest. If you say all of that out loud and add '...walked into a pub...' you have the beginnings of a very good joke. We did laugh a lot, but those late-night discussions were as helpful as the lectures in many ways and I am thankful for the fellowship with those men.
OK, on the lecture one:
Quote of the day: "Love only ceases to be a demon when it ceases to be a god."
Love, said Charles Williams, has the power to lead us to heaven or to hell. Love, born of the Holy Spirit, and rightly ordered in the human soul, is the path to heaven, coming from God and going back to God. Yet disordered loves can destroy, and, as we shall see throughout the week, it is this juxtaposition of the ordered and the disordered which eventually is foundational to life and destiny. Quite simply this is becasue God is Love. This, as we shall further see, is an affirmation of God as Triune.
Ultimately, with regard to our salvation, we must affirm that God is Love, and that it is God's Love, that saves - not our response to God's love.
The first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God. Yet this love for God is possible only because of God's mercy and kindness bestowed upon us: we love because first God loves us - which is to say that we experience the love of God and respond to this love.
But what is this human response to love? It is not simply emotional or intellectual, nor must we fall prey to the 'head-heart dichotomy' so prevelant in modern Western/Christian thought. We are commanded to love God 'with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength' - thus there is no room for the notion that our love for God is divorced from the way we think or what we do with our bodies, or indeed how we direct emotion and volition. It is a total response - a very Hebrew way of looking at things. This means that love, to use the Greek language, includes eros.
Nietzche said, "Christianity gave Eros poison to drink." Perhaps. But 'Christianity' is not necessarily Biblical and Patristic thought. We will see in Maximus the Confessor, in Ephrem the Syrian, and in Irenaeus how 'eros' is itself holy, part of the creation and therefore 'good', and a dimension of love for God. Nietzche saw Christian Faith as a 'fear of the body', and this Nietzchean influence remains strongly rooted in anti-Christian polemical thought today. A rightly ordered eros is a one of the remedies needed for the modern Church's drift into Gnosticism and even Marcionism.
Gregory of Nyssa wrote that Agape was 'eros intensified'. When reading that I thought of CS Lewis imagery in 'The Great Divoce' where a vice is transformed into a virtue - the picture of the lizard on the shoulder becoming a horse with power and speed when rightly handled.
As Socrates and Phaedo discuss the nature of love, the question of whether passionate or dispassionate love is better arises. "As wolves love lambs, so lovers love their lusts" is the response. But is this sufficient - even for the philosopher? After all, does not 'philosophy' itself mean 'love of wisdom'? Is philosophy dispassionate as a discipline? Are philosophers dispassionate? They may make poor lovers, but they are hardly dispassionate about their work - or the works they critique! No, Socrates is correct to conclude that 'Love is the most blessed of all mysteries.'
In mythology, Poverty and Possession unite to give birth to Eros - 'love has humble origins' as the Seer rightly notes. This is actually quite incisive. It means that love has the power to mediate between gods and humans, which is at least on the right track interms of Christian approaches. Love is the Mediator.
But this love is eros, again 'agape intensified': in this way we might conclude that the fathers 'baptized eros'. Indeed, Augustine's whole life work might well be summarized as a meditation on Love, from his Confessions (Late I came to love Thee...) to his monumental City of God, in which Love of self is so boldly contrasted with the Love of God. Thus 'everything is to be beloved for God's sake', and 'Love, and do what you will.' How can that be? Only of course in terms of a rightly ordered love and loves. Likewise Maximus wrote four of his 'Centuries' on 'Love'. This is a dominant patristic theme.
It was necessary then to speak of the whole of love and the holiness of love - and is so now. In the ancient world, Julian the Apostate condemned the Christians for 'their great hatred of one another'. Could the same be said today of us? Let us prove him wrong.
Love is in crisis in our current society - stripped of its wholistic glory, reduced to mere emotion, its vocabulary vulgarized by a casual use and its neglect in sacred use, and debased my 'mere' sexuality. The Freudian-Marxist diagnosis of humanity's diseased state, though largely discredited as scientific, is nonetheless a warning at least with regard to the human 'sample' those thinkers observed. Yet their atheist assumptions provide no cure, no 'new man', no hope.
Postmodernism offers no meaning or purpose to existence, and in this regard Love speaks boldly as well, granting to fallen humans authentic purpose for now and hope for the eternal - deep calling to deep, God calling out to those in his image to return to his embrace and be healed.
Love then is the author of Faith, and the wellspring of Hope. This is why among the virtues three 'remain' - Faith, Hope, and Love, and the greatest of these is Love.
The Past, Present, and the Eternal - Wendell Berry
"He was and is no more. And this is part of the great mystery we call time...The past is also present. And this, I think, is part of the greater mystery we call eternity...even the unknown past is part of the present in us, its silence as persistent as a ringing in the ears."
- Wendell Berry (from 'Pray Without Ceasing')
- Wendell Berry (from 'Pray Without Ceasing')
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Weighty Matters
Inspired by the stories of several friends, and fed up with being so blasted fat, and despite my love for all this great food in Austin (Its the best, and I put on thirty pounds since moving here four years ago), I decided last October it was diet or die time. Until then my workouts were consistent but not accomplishing much, and I just kept packing on the pounds - around the waist, not the dumbells! So, on October 9th I weighed in at 271 and started a new approach, new diet, and bought a shirt for my workouts that made me look really fat: it was humiliating and inspiring. I set a long-term goal of 225 with a short-term goal of 255, reaching that by Thanksgiving. No more wheat thins, 2 diet cokes a day tops, then water and lots of it, and no more sports highlights til all hours snacking on whatever was handy while watching. Things slowed down after the new year, though I hit 241 in early March. That was where I plateaued. Then in late April the pounds started coming off with more cardio and lot less calorie intake. I hit the 225 goal the first of June. Since then, even while treating myself to some decadent sweet stuff in Britain (High Tea with clotted cream will be served in heaven, I assure you - and there will be a pub too, with excellent ales), the weight has continued to go down. So Wei San, man of faith and power, I clocked in at 216.8 on July 20. I think 205 may be the right weight. So with eleven more pounds to shed, its off to the "Y". No let up either - keeping it off is the tough part. Hold me accountable friends!
Friday, July 24, 2009
A Very Cool Cassock
Due the extreme heat I stopped wearing my heavy as Pilgrim's burden robe in June. That said, I was not really happy leading in just a suit - even if I was wearing my collar. Just too informal. Ah, then a solution presented itself during my recent trip to Cambridge: a cassock! They're light-weight but formal and meet the liturgical sensibilities I require for such a setting. Early in the week Cathy Collier sent me an email to let me know about a big half price sale at Cokesbury. "Sure", I thought to myself, "But they won't have cassocks, and certainly not one in my size." Nevertheless I ventured over for a look and lo and behold, they had the perfect cassock, half price and ready to go. Outstanding - a providential occurence in a free will Wesleyan supply store. Gotta love it.
I'll be wearing it on Sunday and will be for awhile if the Weather Channel is to be believed. Not that I look as kewl as Keanu in The Matrix - he has the hair. Mind you, my lines are better. And I do have awesome sun glasses as well.
See you Sunday!
I'll be wearing it on Sunday and will be for awhile if the Weather Channel is to be believed. Not that I look as kewl as Keanu in The Matrix - he has the hair. Mind you, my lines are better. And I do have awesome sun glasses as well.
See you Sunday!
Thursday, July 02, 2009
London & Cambridge Bound
Flying to Britain tomorrow for a week of lectures at Cambridge led by Kallistos Ware and Andrew Louth (among others). John Roberson is accompanying me, and I am grateful for his friendship - lets see if I can teach John to drive on the other side of the road!
First stop is London, where we will meet up with Mark Dupere who is over from the Netherlands doing some performances in the UK. I'll give John the drive-by tour of the city and then we're off to see good friends John and Dawn Singleton in Ilford (which is in northeast London). John leads Lifeline Community Church and Ministries, and does just incredible work in third-world relief and missions. I'm preaching there Sunday morning, so do pray for them!
After lunch we're off to Cambridge and check-in at Sidney Sussex College, drinks, and hopefully a jet-lag free night of sleep before lectures begin Monday am. We'll be looking at the nature of God as Love, and the way in which this love is made manifest - and is also perverted - in human relationships. Obviously this is going to involve some heavy-lifting on the Trinity, but there will also be some lectures on CS Lewis' work with regard to love and eros, the Song of Songs, and some discussions of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, Love in the Syriac fathers, and Love in the writings of Augustine of Hippo and Maximus the Confessor. A final session on God as Love and Man as Love should provide an excellent capstone for the week, ending Friday at noon.
I'm not sure how much I'll be able to post from there, but I'll try to get something done so long as I can get the internet connections to work out.
With each day beginning and ending with vespers, combined with the opportunity to gain some quiet time for reflection on the banks of the Cam, it goes without saying that I am trusting and praying for a certain measure of personal renewal as well - 'times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.'
Thanks for your prayers!
First stop is London, where we will meet up with Mark Dupere who is over from the Netherlands doing some performances in the UK. I'll give John the drive-by tour of the city and then we're off to see good friends John and Dawn Singleton in Ilford (which is in northeast London). John leads Lifeline Community Church and Ministries, and does just incredible work in third-world relief and missions. I'm preaching there Sunday morning, so do pray for them!
After lunch we're off to Cambridge and check-in at Sidney Sussex College, drinks, and hopefully a jet-lag free night of sleep before lectures begin Monday am. We'll be looking at the nature of God as Love, and the way in which this love is made manifest - and is also perverted - in human relationships. Obviously this is going to involve some heavy-lifting on the Trinity, but there will also be some lectures on CS Lewis' work with regard to love and eros, the Song of Songs, and some discussions of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, Love in the Syriac fathers, and Love in the writings of Augustine of Hippo and Maximus the Confessor. A final session on God as Love and Man as Love should provide an excellent capstone for the week, ending Friday at noon.
I'm not sure how much I'll be able to post from there, but I'll try to get something done so long as I can get the internet connections to work out.
With each day beginning and ending with vespers, combined with the opportunity to gain some quiet time for reflection on the banks of the Cam, it goes without saying that I am trusting and praying for a certain measure of personal renewal as well - 'times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.'
Thanks for your prayers!
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