Disappearing Post

Advice to Bloggers, Don't Title Posts in Greek
This post was originally published on the 19th of December. It's still rather relevant, considering the discussions of Titusonenine presently about a piece by Rev. Mrs. Chloe Breyer in Slate and another article in the Church Times. One commenter suggested the Virgin Birth is what really separates the orthodox and the liberal. I suspect the commenter would be disabused of that notion in his own mind by reading this blog.

The Fourth Sunday of Advent is past. And surely countless sermons on the Annunciation and the Virgin Birth were preached yesterday. I've been trying to write this post for a few weeks now and every time I try, something disastrous happens. So I'll just pray I get somewhere.

Why Do I Need the Virgin Birth?

In church on Sunday and on Reverend Ref's blog, I heard or read two sermons that seek to make Joseph the biological father of Jesus. Considering the preacher at my church has said that the things she says "would make the faculty of Seabury-Western faint" and Ref is a SWTS alum, I will consider the two preachers in question to represent a broad theological swathe of ECUSA. But somehow I don't find the idea of Joseph being Jesus' biological father palatable. I have nothing against Joseph, of course. Joseph, after all, is the exemplar for all stepfathers and adoptive fathers. I believe that he took good care of Jesus and instructed Him in the trade of carpentry (and fled with Him and Mary to Egypt, too). Joseph earned fatherhood. How else can we explain Joseph's actions in Matthew? He was going to break off the engagement quietly? Why was that? This is not to say that the birth narratives aren't ambiguous in calling Joseph Jesus' father. But the ambiguity itself seems to suggest that the Gospel writers, too, doubted as we do. I may have a volume entitled "Biology for Dummies" on my shelf, but I've known the facts and nitty-gritty details of life for about seventeen years. [And I know more biology than that would imply]. And Matthew and Luke would have had little more information than I do about the causal logic relevant to the case. It is sometimes argued that women were seen as "incubators" by the ancients. I believe Aristotle was the most eloquent proponent of this position. But it was not uncontroversial. Some thought that both male and female emitted seed. The fully developed doctrine of homunculi belongs to the 17th century (and Jesuits with microscopes), not to the ancient world.

And the existence of homunculi seems less relevant for Matthew. Matthew likely was an urban Jew. But he would have seen animals mate. Luke was a physician according to tradition. Is it possible his ambiguity comes from his own doubts as a medical scientist? But to describe the process itself, Luke uses "ἐπισκιάσει," a verb more reminiscent of the pillar of cloud that rested on the Tent of Meeting while Israel was in the wilderness than biology. Matthew and Luke knew they were describing something special. But the question remains: Why a virgin birth?

Possible reasons include:

1. "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel" (Isaiah 7:14)
Well, if you've been hanging around a church enough around this time of year, you may have heard that the translators of the Septuagint (the semi-authoritative Greek edition of the Old Testament) may have made a tiny error by translating the Hebrew word for "young woman (no virginity implied)" ( almah ) as parthenos , Greek for "virgin."

Yet there's a counterargument (from Strong of Concordance fame and others). In all other (and later) Greek versions of the Tanakh , almah is translated neanis (no implication of virginity) in all cases. The presumption was that it was done so to prevent Christological interpretations. In the LXX, almah is generally translated neanis with two exceptions: the Matriarch Rebecca as she is about to meet Isaac and the woman of Isaiah 7:14 are called parthenoi . In other words, the translators of the Septuagint seem to have used parthenos emphatically and therefore must have had to deal with the "virgin birth" implications of Isaiah 7:14. Perhaps, there was a tradition...

2. Virgin birth evades infection of Adam by cutting men out of the process. I'm not a big fan of this.

These are good old-fashioned reasons, but I would like to take a different tack and talk about the understanding of the Incarnation provided by the Nicene Creed.

The Nicene Creed has this to say concerning the nature of the Son before the Incarnation:

τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ, τὸν μονογενῆ,
The son of God, the only-begotten
τὸν ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς γεννηθέντα
The one begotten of the Father
πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνων,
Before all ages
φῶς ἐκ φωτός, Θεὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ,
Light from light, true God from true God
γεννηθέντα οὐ ποιηθέντα ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί,
Begotten not made, of the same substance as the Father
διʼ οὗ τὰ πάντα ἐγένετο.
Through Him, all things came into being.

This understanding of God the Son is often called "the cosmic Christ" because the essence of his nature is entwined in the making and enduring of the cosmos. The "begetting" which is emphasized is compared to "light from light." Imagine being at a great distance from two lamps (so as not to violate conservation of energy, I do not claim this is homology). You will perceive the lamps as one light source, essentially concentrated at a point. Now, imagine that the lamps are moved apart slightly. You will perceive the lamps as two barely resolved point sources. But the lamps are of the same substance (light). This is the sense I think the Fathers had, not of God divided, added, multiplied, or subtracted but of an ever-extant God expanded.

Of the Incarnation, the Creed says:

τὸν διʼ ἡμᾶς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους
For us, humans
καὶ διὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν σωτηρίαν
And for our salvation
κατελθόντα ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν
He came down from heaven
καὶ σαρκωθέντα ἐκ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου
And he was enfleshed by the Holy Spirit
καὶ Μαρίας τῆς Παρθένου
And by the Virgin Mary
καὶ ἐνανθρωπήσαντα.
And he became human.

The problem is that the structure of the last three lines does not allow a literal translation, for it has the rhetorical form of an anaphora on καὶ combined with a chiasmus, "σαρκωθέντα ἐκ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου...Μαρίας τῆς Παρθένου...ἐνανθρωπήσαντα." In other words, the Fathers were trying to emphasize the importance of "and" in the Incarnation, drawing a relationship between the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary in which the Holy Spirit was the primary doer of the verb σαρκωθέντα and the Virgin Mary the secondary doer and vice versa with "ἐνανθρωπήσαντα." Thus, it might be better translated: He became incarnate both through the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and likewise (by both the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit) became human.

Therefore, the Nicene Creed contains in its very rhetoric the idea of the synergy between God and the Virgin Mary that is essential to the Incarnation. Let us explore the possible meanings of this synergy:

1. The Incarnate Christ is as a new Creation. In other words, He becomes flesh through the Holy Spirit. Luke's usage is especially appropriate here. The womb of Mary (standing for the waters of the primordial chaos) is overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, just as the Holy Spirit moved over the waters in the beginning of time. Thus, Jesus' birth is a foretaste of baptismal regeneration as well, since Jesus literally is born by water and the Holy Spirit.

2. Jesus, is fully divine and fully human, because his birth comes about by cooperation between God and a human being.

3. Reverend Ref refers to the ancient idea that the Virgin Mary is the Second Eve, saying "Yes" to God when Eve said "Yes" to disobedience to God. The Virgin Mary likewise stands in for her ancestor Adam by agreeing to act as God's vice-regent over nature as represented by her generative organs.

4. Most controversially, the Virgin Birth has some interesting implications for the controversy about Jesus' gender. Many have pointed out before me that Jesus "became a human being" through a woman alone. In other words, His human nature comes from a woman, thus He must be in some sense a woman. In order to take another look at this, let us consider the major theological justification for ambiguity about the Virgin Birth. God did promise to raise up a descendant of David as Messiah etc. Luke and Matthew are clear about the necessary genealogies. For some purposes, Jesus must have been Joseph's son. Thus, I am inclined to believe that Joseph was Jesus' biological father contrary to the order of nature. Thus, if you could go back in time and do genetic tests, I suspect they would reveal that Joseph was Jesus' father. I also am fairly sure Jesus would be revealed to be male (as far as biology could ascertain). Yet I do not think it coincidence that God became incarnate by cooperation with a woman betrothed to a man of the lineage of David. For Creation, as Dionysius Areopagites saith, is chiefly instituted by yearning. And what would be the yearning of a woman betrothed to a man pregnant with a child not fertilized by his sperm? Well, I think it's quite likely that she would yearn to give Joseph a son that would look as much like him as possible, so he would not have to raise a stranger. Or just as Dido desired "a little Aeneas," Mary yearned to create a little version of her chief loves: God and Joseph. This is something many women want. And nature often favors this desire. But through synergy with the Holy Spirit, Mary made it possible, though nature would prevent it.

Thus, Jesus might have been biologically a man and "son of David," so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, the circumstances of his birth also make him a female. Does this, too, fulfill the Scriptures? I think so. For we know Jesus to be the second Adam and thus Jesus must share somewhat in the nature of the primal androgyne. And there's also the problem that two of the required sacrificial victims of the Temple worship must be female (most others need to be male). Thus, for a full replacement of the bloody sacrifices of the Old Covenant, Jesus, the victim and priest of the Bloodless Sacrifice, would have to be both male and female.

QEDL

The preacher I heard on Sunday described Luke's account as poetry, and I admit that I have de-emphasized the beauty and wonder of the Incarnation in favor for speculations about mechanics. It's wretched that I have to do this. But I do feel that it is important to say that there was an actual Virgin Birth. Two major themes define my theology: Christ as the surprising consummation of the ritual and moral systems of signs and actions of the Old Covenant; and Christ and the Church as a foretaste of the glorious consummation of being that lies beyond time and knowledge, when "[the saints] shall rule on earth" and "God shall be all in all." And these themes are bridged by the Cross and the Empty Tomb. But without a Virgin Birth, it seems that the Incarnation falls by the wayside. The Nativity just becomes a first step to the Cross, as the carol puts it, "Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume, Breathes a life of gathering gloom; Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, Sealed in a stone-cold tomb." Better that it be a foretaste of theosis or of synergy in the work of reconciliation.

In lieu of the closing prayer of the Holy Brothers, I would like to put here the great "Proclamation of Christmas" in the Roman Martyrology (which is sung every year at one of my former parishes).

The twenty-fifth day of December.

In the 5199th year of the creation of the world, from the time when God in the
beginning created the heavens and the earth;
the 2957th year after the flood;
the 2050th year from the birth of Abraham;
the 1510th year from Moses and the going forth of the people of Israel from Egypt;
the 1032nd year from David's being anointed king;
in the 65th week according to the prophecy of Daniel;
in the 194th Olympiad;
the 752nd year from the foundation of the city of Rome;
the 42nd year of the reign of Octavian Augustus;
the whole world being at peace;
in the 6th age of the world,

JESUS CHRIST the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father, desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming, being conceived by the Holy Spirit, and nine months having passed since his conception,
was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary, being made flesh.

The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.



Amen.

Happy Anniversary, Gentlemen

I decided to look at recent updates to Louis Crew's fine collection of materials related to the life of ECUSA, "Do Justice." Crew linked to a rather remarkable biography of two guys who met at Trinity College in 1955 and celebrated their 50th anniversary (at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine) this year. It's a story of love, family, and faith over the last fifty years. And it contains some very wise advice about the dynamics of fratrimony (and matrimony). Warning: It contains some New England snobbery, which is characteristic of some people from my ancestral diocese. On the other hand, Episcopal churches south of South of the Border can be as they describe. But so can churches north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

O King of the Nations, both Their Desire and Their Cornerstone, who makes each thing one. Come and save mankind, whom you formed from the dust.

Reasonable Service

It's been a busy week on the Greater Anglican blogosphere. Or at least the little corners I visit. Scotist has been regaling us with his thoughts on the catechism and on the Prayer of Humble Access. I remain unconvinced that Atonement Theory is an utterly and irredeemably bad thing, since my theology is strongly driven by Christ as sacrificial victim (and victor). Gaunilo is done his exams and is moving onto some research (as am I, but I'm a climatologist after all). Geekboi has found new love, making me mildly envious. Joe and Karen have been instilling hope of generous Anglican orthodoxy in the wake of the unpleasantness. And Lutherpunk has gone into a frenzy of buying liturgical resources from the Continuum. Even Rev. Canon Dr. Harmon has been posting more "No Comment"'s and "From the Do Not Take Yourself Seriously Department"'s. Now if only the gracious mercies of Christ would keep *C and C in unity and freedom from scandal, Kizzy (filia Anastasiae of In Saecula Saeculorum) in the toddler analog of the peace which passeth all understanding, and Derek from the dual perils of transit strikes and ice storms, the Holy Brothers could sleep in peace themselves. Two days until the O Antiphons!

And Now For Something Completely Different

Last night, I finished the last volume of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle , The System of the World . These are splendid books: fine companions to my obsession with the Scientific Revolution and even better than Pears' An Instance of the Fingerpost , because Stephenson mixes in a little fantasy. The end of the book is spectacular, containing two wonderful epigraphs:

The first is Romans 12:1, "I beseech you, Brethren, by the Mercies of God, that you present your bodies a Living Sacrifice, Holy, Acceptable unto God; which is your Reasonable Service ( logike latria in Greek)." It prefaces a character's visit to Newgate Prison's chapel as a prisoner condemned to death for High Treason. The service of the day involves the Ordinary of Newgate preaching the message of Salvation with a coffin lying on the altar. When I look back at the Anglican past, I shudder sometimes at the very directness of the Church of England being used as an organ of the State, "The Powers Spiritual of the Realm" as Stephenson puts it. But in an age where the sword of justice was uncommonly sharp and so many were shown no mercy, the Church of England earnestly promoted Christian hope. The character in question has been told all his life of the evil of Anglican worship and finds the descriptions of the Dissenters he hung out with as a boy were correct but he does not share their judgements entirely.

The second is the speech of the Bell-Man of St. Sepulchre's (appropriately enough) to those condemned to die at Tyburn,

"All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor Sinners, who now are going to their Death, for whom this great Bell doth toll. You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears; ask Mercy of the Lord for the Salvation of your souls through the Merits, Death, and Passion of Jesus Christ, who now sits on the right Hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently return unto Him. Lord have Mercy upon you! Christ have Mercy upon you!"

We are told that St. Sepulchre used to be near the edge of the city and would be the last church people passed in former generations before reaching the execution grounds of Smithfield and Tyburn. The name of the church (i.e. Holy Sepulchre) should remind us that the closest of all flesh to Christ are those condemned to die. The innocent among them are most like Christ. The guilty (whether repentant or unrepentant) are like the two thieves condemned at his side. Christ shed his Blood so we and no one else ever would have excuse for the vengeance of blood. Thus, I usually think of Christ's Atonement not as sacrifice to God but as a sacrifice to primal necessity, as a sacrifice to all our lusts for vengeance and for power. Christ died for our sins, because of our sins, and to our sins. So when Tookie Williams came to that chamber in San Quentin, I hope that he thought to himself, "Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingly power."

Jack Shaftoe, the condemned traitor of The System of the World , most interestingly muses on repentance thus:

But, in all seriousness, he thinks he might have repented. Something happened there, in truth. A sort of porticullis clanged down, severing the long, bad part of his life from a shorter and better part of it. It is all bound up, somehow, in that procedure of eating the coin of bread. But there is a powerful point to that rite, and he reckons it has something to do with a joining together, a sharing with everyone else who's ever accepted payment in that coinage, God's Legal Tender. In sum, Jack feels strangely one with all of Christendom this morning -- which is not by any means a familiar way for him to feel -- and Christendom seems to reciprocate those tender feelings, for all of it has turned out to see him off."

Stephenson is obsessed with money, especially as far as money is a medium of relationship between supposedly unrelated people. Money becomes a force tending toward social equality in Stephenson's Baroque world. A trend that even continues into the modern era in his earlier novels. For a condemned prisoner, money is a means toward decent treatment and even an easier death. Jack is condemned as a traitor for being a false coiner. Sometimes called the King of the Vagabonds, Jack's crime makes him a counterfeit king that falsifies a key means whereby the populace is joined to the Crown. False coining is a deep usurpation of the royal prerogative and thus was appropriately considered treason: an understanding Stephenson expounds upon implicitly throughout this book, juxtaposing Jack's execution with the Trial of the Pyx taking place across town and Jack's sentencing with the Coronation of King George I.

But Stephenson has surprising theological insight by thinking about currency as a medium of relationship and seeing Panis as Nummus. (You could go in very strange directions from here.) The Eucharist is not just about God's abundant love for us but also a sharing in the joyful love of God of Christians throughout the ages. It is an act of love from them which we, too, reciprocate, adding unceasingly to the infinite love of God. As Captain Sacrament would say, Jesus, "the image of the invisible God, is not my personal savior. Thankfully, He has saved many others whom I seek to know and be known by through Him. And this is a comfort, for there are few burdens that are not known to the communion of saints. For since they are a kingdoms of priests from all the peoples of the earth (and more, I suspect), the very fullness of humanity is seen in the Body of Christ. And to those who seek Christ earnestly, know that they're all rooting for you.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life to the honor and glory of our only Mediator and Advocate Jesus Christ with the Father and the Holy Ghost, world without end.

He Was Cut Off From the Land of the Living: A Reflection for the Scotist

Scotist has a recent piece on the debate about Open Communion (or Communion Without Baptism (CWOB)). To my surprise, he is a strong proponent of CWOB and he has been debating strenuously on Pontifications in support of that position, causing folks like Father Jim Tucker to bang their heads against the keyboard. Now I am sure that I live fairly near to the center of the CWOB movement in ECUSA, so if I were as incensed about CWOB as some, I would have a serious head injury. I also know of a variety of "good" arguments from the Scriptures for CWOB, but I have been surprised never to hear any of these arguments expounded by anyone who promotes CWOB. Thus, I must conclude that the motives behind CWOB are related to "inclusivity" run amok or the obsession with "seeker sensitivity." Scotist is the only proponent of CWOB who seems to be seriously theologizing CWOB. If you were to ask me what we should do about CWOB, I would recommend sharing blessed bread among the assembly and communing the catechumens in milk and honey. But no one asks me.

Rather than argue against Scotist, which would be tiresome and strain our patience for one another during this holy season, I rather would like to focus on the subject that is at the heart of Scotist's arguments: The Baptism of the Apostles.

Aristotelian and Euripedean Drama

Comparing Aristotelian and Euripidean drama, I am faced with the question of which model is superior. In an earlier essay, I determined that Aristotelian drama is designed to aid the functioning of civil society. Hence, Aristotelian drama is, by effect, politicized. Therefore, Aristotelian drama must be structured to bring the audience from the identification of a political problem to its solution. Such a structure is built easily from the causality, ideal characters, and episodic situations of Aristotelian drama. Yet its politicization makes Aristotelian drama a special case of drama. Euripidean drama, on the other hand, is characterized by interrupted causality, repetition with a difference (déjà vu), character development over long periods of time, and extraneous problems of plot that are resolved after long periods of time. In other words, Aristotelian drama is what commonly is considered art, and Euripidean drama does an excellent job of approximating what is commonly called life. Neither is superior to the other, since they both provide a path to a different and equally important form of imitation. Within different artistic media and within individual works of art, the debate between the Aristotelian and Euripidean models provides much power to the thematic arguments of artistic works. For indeed, these models do not simply aid arguments about the boundaries between art and life, which is an issue of solely artistic interest, but the combination of Aristotelian drama’s civic value and Euripidean drama’s individual focus allows them to depict the most difficult conflicts between human beings and their societies.

["Beginning As Is Unnatural: Examining An Alternative Model to Aristotelian Drama" -- Caelius (2001)]

One of the great exegetical quests of Christianity has been the search for the harmony of the Gospels. We want these accounts to wrap up into a neat little package, whereby we can explain why John discusses foot-washing rather than the Eucharist as instituted at the Last Supper and other sundry matters. In later years, we have invoked the different ritual practices of communities and noticed the existence of multiple apostolic theologies. When I see the Gospels, I approach them slightly differently, they are in themselves harmonies, seeking to make the very Euripedean life of Jesus Christ come into Aristotelian focus. Jesus came and dwelt among us. He lived a life, but because through Him all things were made and are in the process of restoration, everything He did was suffused with meaning and in His every action meaning was suffused. John realized this, I think, for he says, "There is much else that Jesus did. If it were to be recorded in detail, I suppose the world could not hold the books that would be written."

But living life means living out of order and out of logic. Life is a non-linear system. One of the more interesting themes of art is considering the consequences of waking up five minutes earlier or five minutes later. Your entire life could change. Being Jesus I suppose did not mean avoiding non-linearity, for such was the fullness of His human nature and the affection of God for the created order that He could do nothing else but live in that way. Being Jesus, however, meant seeking glorification in all times and seasons, a passion for being Immanuel in all things. That is why the man was born blind after all. Looking across time, we can imagine that the man was born blind according to the order of nature. But Jesus sees in the non-linearity of life the need for Himself. There can be no true harmony of the Gospels, because they are searches for harmony in themselves. The analogy between Jesus and the Holy Scriptures is quite important here, because the Torah, the Prophets, the Histories, the Epistles, and Revelation are likewise searches for harmony in the Oral Torah, the history of Israel, and the life of Jesus and the Church. Text cannot fully encompass life, so it seeks Aristotelian causality in the Euripidean mess of our lives.

And thus Jesus did not live the drama of Aristotle with each action following after another in time and space, like dominoes set into motion. Instead, He acted at the necessary instant As AKMA quotes Maurice de la Taille, "He placed Himself in the order of signs." Surely, He did. And because He placed Himself in the order of signs in the midst of human life, He let the world flow over Him and through Him that He might reveal Himself to it. He very rarely tried to control events, but drew events around Him that He might be glorified.

But when his disciples looked back at His life in the wake of the Ascension and what followed (and what came before), they were as children learning their letters. The Evangelists show that the disciples were poor readers of Jesus. And through the Holy Spirit, they improved. And because the ekklesia was a body politic, they sought to understand Jesus in normative ways, unconscously or consciously intuiting Aristotelian norms, not because Aristotle created them out of nothingness, but because Aristotle gave a name to many of the ways we organize the non-linearity of all things: the dancing photons that come to our eyes and the vibrating pressure waves that beat against our eats and all else from which the proof of our senses becomes the proof of geometry or the proof of law. Thus, when the Scotist seeks to look at the Last Supper and normative for present Eucharistic practice, he repeats the action of the Apostles and the Fathers. For norm comes from the Latin norma , cognate with the Greek gnomon the carpenter's rule that itself is connected with nous and nomos , knowledge and law. I often have wondered what Jesus drew in the sand when the woman caught in adultery was brought before him.

“What is anything but gnosis? The story of the adulterous woman is gnosis. To write in the sand is but the means of a geometer or a carpenter with his square, as of old. The word gnomic, barely used in the English language, derives from gnomon, the carpenter’s squares in which Pythagoras first saw the beauty that was number. To have Christ draw in the sand is to compare him to Pythagoras, a mystic mathematician. Yet why do we object? Is it not written, Where were you when the foundations of the earth were laid?"

[Caelius, Katabasis (2003)]

Well, as you can see, I have my suspicions. Thus, I cannot see much justification for deriving normative practice from the apparent causality of what Jesus Himself did. The order that underlies normative practice does not cohere with how Jesus acted. Normative practice is a consequence of our finitude and the necessities of being a Church Militant sojourning in the earthly city. We do not live into the full being of God that would allow us to act meaningfully (from a cosmic perspective) according to modes of Euripedean drama. This, I think, is why the Eastern Church tends to act both normatively and economically, because they recognize that law is good but imperfect.

The question of course arises. How are we to live if Jesus is not normative? Note I did not say that Jesus' actions are not normative. I said their causality cannot be inferred to be normative. When Jesus placed Himself into the order of signs, He opened up the possibility that He could reveal many things in a single action. Thus, Jesus is the she-goat offered for the involuntary transgression of Israel, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do" and the red heifer whose ashes purify us from the pollution of the grave. But likewise He is the yearling male who opened the virgin's womb (as John of Damascus put it) and became our Passover lamb. He is both the offering to Azazel and the offering to the Lord at Yom Kippur. He is the victim and He is the priest. He is the shewbread covered with frankincense. Through signs, He can cross all boundaries and break all chains. Through signs, He can appear to us to contradict Himself. But all of these signs are individually normative, because they are in accordance with the teloi that the Church has inferred for Christ. For us, Christ may become all things that are supremely fitting and accomplish those things that we believe were necessary. Thus, when we search for what is normative, we do not seek to imitate how Christ acted but why Christ acted in a fullness that must transcend time and space and our Aristotelian assumptions about causality.

Israel Circumcised from Egypt
"When Israel was a youth, I loved him; out of Egypt I called my son" (Hosea 11:1).

Exodus 4 tells us that the Lord told Moses to leave Midian and return to Egypt, now that those who sought vengeance for his murder of the overseer were dead, and the Lord further said,

"While you are on the way back to Egypt, keep in mind all the portents I have given you power to show. You are to display these before Pharaoh, but I shall make him obstinate and he will not let the people go. Then tell Pharaoh that these are the words of the Lord: Israel is my firstborn son. I tell you, let my son go to worship me. Should you refuse to let him go, I shall kill your firstborn son. On the journey, while they were encamped for the night, the Lord met Moses and would have killed him but Zipporah picked up a sharp flint, cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' genitals with it, saying 'You are my blood-bridegroom.' So the Lord let Moses alone. It was on that occasion she said, 'Blood-bridegroom by circumcision.' "

(Exodus 4:19-26).

It's quite an interesting story that appears at verse 24, isn't it? My Oxonian commentators suspect that it is an independent tradition, because it really doesn't make sense that the Lord is trying to kill Moses. But why was it inserted here? It doesn't make any logical sense. And yet it does. Because it is the prologue to the liberation of Israel from Egypt, in which the plagues "make a distinction between Israel and Egypt." The editors saw a melody in the stories of the Passover. By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they saw this melody, even though the number of plagues doesn't work out (there should be eight or nine, not ten, since circumcision takes place on the eighth day). The liberation of Israel from Egypt is at its heart a circumcision narrative. Goshen is cut off from the plagues. the cattle of Egypt are slain, the cattle of Israel survive. The doors of Israel are marked with the blood of a young male and the Angel of Death passes over. Israel is brought through the Red Sea with unmoistened foot while the chariots and horses of Pharaoh are cut off from them. Unfortunately, since much of the signifying context is lost to history, it is impossible to interpret in its fullness (why did the Midianites circumcise?). But I'll try.

I would argue that the idea of Israel as a circumcised people is central to Israel's self-understanding until the present day. It is said in the Law that certain offenders are killed but others are merely "cut off," they are exiled from the assembly and from society as a foreskin from a young male. Israel is indeed continuously circumcised by dietary practices and other legal traditions, so that there is perpetually a distinction between Israel and the nations. But at the root of circumcision lies an ancient action whereby the blood and the foreskin of one's firstborn son (the firstborn element is not essential in normative practice. Jews circumcise all males. But it is essential to this case) has the power to vanquish death and seal a form of marital union greater than that sealed by sexual congress alone. And it is this action that lies at the heart of the Passover. Thus, it should be no surprise to anyone that in Hosea, Israel is not merely son but also bride, "I shall betroth you to myself, making you faithful, and you will know the Lord" (Hosea 2:20). Circumcision is inextricable from the sacral marriage. And thus the earthly prototype of the heavenly marriage banquet only could be the Passover Seder.

Simultaneous Sacraments

In the death and resurrection narratives, the Euripidean flow of life requires that the Apostles receive two sacraments nearly simultaneously: Baptism-Chrismation and Holy Eucharist.

1. Baptism-Chrismation: "Because we have died with Christ, we also believe we will live with Him." In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus says that the disciples will abandon him to fulfill the words of Zechariah 13:7, "Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered." And Zechariah says further, "It will happen throughout the land that two-thirds of the people will be struck down and die, while one third of them will be left there. Then I shall pass this third through the fire. I will refine them as silver is refined and assay them as gold is assayed. They will invoke me by my name..." On one hand, it is necessary that Christ be circumcised from Israel, cut off from the people and despised and rejected of men. He is the Passover victim, after all. He is the bloody foreskin that seals the sacral marriage. On the other hand, the disciples, too, die as He dies, cutting themselves off from the assembly of the true God by abandoning Him and refusing to join Him in death. But they, too, share his grief and mourn his sufferings and death. And in one sense, for them and perhaps for us, their baptisms are somehow incomplete until their deaths because they did not embrace the full measure of His death. But they are restored to Him at his rising, and He breathes and says to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit." If Christ is the Life they rejected, His Life is restored to them in the essence of life: the breath of God. And thus the baptism of repentance begun in them in John and strengthened through Christ's death is completed in the appearance of the resurrected Christ among the Apostles.

2. Holy Eucharist. People have been saying some fairly bizarre things about the Last Supper on Pontifications. But in this particular argument, we only need to understand the Last Supper as a formal and ritual offering of Jesus as the Passover victim within the walls of the city, done through the media of bread and wine, in order to point to the actual offering of Himself to the authorities outside the city in Gethsemane and to death at Golgotha. There a variety of very odd things about this action. But the key moment is the explication of the wine, "This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, shed for many." The blood of Israel's covenant was the blood of the Passover lamb and the blood of the circumcision. In the Euripedean flow of life, causality must by necessity be either interrupted or extended. The Eucharist cannot be instituted in a moment. It must be instituted over time by actions in the midst of complex politics and ritual frameworks to do what is necessary, i.e., that Christ offer Himself for the reconciliation of the worlds to God. Nor can the Apostles be baptized in a moment, because the essence of baptism cannot exist outside of the presence of the risen Christ. The Sacraments were instituted by process, but once those things by which they were instituted are accomplished, it is possible to refine their Euripedean complexity to the ordered causality of Aristotelian actions. Thus the actions that frame both Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist are simultaneous, because these sacraments are essential to one another.


Quod Erat Demonstrandum, Lupa

Gaunilo suggests the English version of the title as the ending to theological essays, probably not muddles like what I have just written. But I realize at this point it may be rather difficult to determine what the point of this all is. So let's summarize, I reject CWBO, because it makes the mysteries of Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist incomprehensible to one another. At the very heart of Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist lies the truth at in order to be in relationship with someone, we must cut ourselves off from the things in us that will inhibit that relationship. Moreover, relationship depends on sharing. When we enter into Baptism, we put away the former things of our life, as Abraham broke his father's idols, so do renounce the chains that keep us from turning into the love of God. And thereby the seed of Grace is planted within us as we enter those waters, where we not only cut ourselves off from those former things and embrace the death that is their telos , we share the grief of God for the sins of the world and the powers of darkness that slew him. We share His pain. We enter into the first labor of a young woman in Bethlehem Ephrata. We enter into a circumcision in that same city. We enter into the labor of the renovation of the worlds and are cut off from our people and the circumstances of the first birth. We are despised and rejected through our participation in Christ in those waters. And emerging from those waters, we share His joy and are reborn and are chrismated by oil that gives unto us the Holy Spirit, the essence of new life. And from that moment, we join the sacral marriage, putting flesh and blood of God's Beloved Son within us to seal the sacral marriage between Christ and the Church between us all and God. To invite all to that table without considering whether they have died with Christ and intend to live with Him is an empty thing. I don't think it's the horrid and unbelievable thing others do. But I fear that it means nothing.

Yet economy enters. Because baptism is but an Aristotelian approximation of actual dying and rising with Christ, it is possible in extremely limited cases for communion of the unbaptized to be valid. It is the Tradition of the Church that those who have suffered for the faith, though unbaptized, are baptized by their blood. But otherwise, I am very wary of CWOB. I do suspect that all who sense they are dead to sin and long for Christ, though formally unbaptized, have begun the action of baptism and commune meaningfully as the Apostles did, because I believe I have seen the fruits of redemption in such people. But all of this is economy.

And I don't find this position exclusionary as others do, because the Church in its fullness must be exclusionary. To be the people of God requires suffering and purification. On this, the Biblical witness is uncompromising. What Jesus demonstrated was not inclusion, but that there was no such thing as permanent exclusion. He ate with sinners and tax collectors, because Israel regarded them as foreskin, cut off forever from the people by their great wickedness, though their wickedness was no greater than any in Israel and perhaps less. Jesus Himself became foreskin and thus was glorified to show the error of that position, not because He sought to erase all distinction between the sacred and the profane, but because He needed to reveal that Israel was firstborn not an only child. By creating distinctions between themselves and the nations, between cleanness and uncleanness, they had set the wrong boundaries between right and wrong, between those included and excluded. The royal house of priests would be bought by blood from every tribe, language, and nation as Israel was bought by the blood of Egypt and yearling lambs. As Desmond Tutu preached recently, "Jesus did not say, ‘I if I be lifted up I will draw some’, Jesus said, ‘If I be lifted up I will draw all, all, all, all, all. Black, white, yellow, rich, poor, clever, not so clever, beautiful, not so beautiful. It’s one of the most radical things. All, all, all, all, all, all, all, all. All belong. Gay, lesbian, so-called straight. All, all are meant to be held in this incredible embrace that will not let us go. All." Yet even in this vision of a prophetic man, we still must be drawn and we still must seek Him who embraces us in the sacral marriage of the Eucharistic feast.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may live joyfully in the embrace of Him who is coming to rescue us from the desolation of Zion and the wilderness of our hearts.

Has Anyone Seen This?

J-Tron over at the Propaganda Box cites "Frankly Unfriendly Catholics." Brian McKinlay of Not Too Much asks why the FUC Wit's robes are being held up. You can tell that I was not raised by Anglo-Catholics (or at least ones who could be so to their heart's desire) by the fact that I do not know what the whole business of the Subdeacon and Deacon holding the Celebrant's cope is about. I have seen it at places like St. Clement's in Philly or Ascension in Chicago. The likely purpose as far as I can tell is to leave the Celebrant's hands free...but I'm not quite sure why his hands need to be free. Catholic web sites seem to emphasize the need to hold back the cope when the Celebrant's hands bear a monstrance.

In my search for the answer to this question, I found this interesting site , apparently illustrating a Directory of Ceremonial. Has anyone seen this before? Do they know anything about the Alcuin Society? I note that one of the more interesting features of these pictures is that the Sursum Corda is said to the people. In Anglo-Catholic parishes that generally face east I am not used to seeing that. This piece from the same site is also interesting as well , though I think the author of the piece would faint at the private lives of a typical acolyte pool in ECUSA these days.

You will not believe the wacky things I found in Google looking for an explanation of this. My favorite is this Theosophistic neo-alchemical Cartesian physical (?) approach to Eucharistic theology . I think works like this result from an overly enthusiastic anthropology. But I mainly cite it for sake of wackiness.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may render all thanksgiving to God for all of his benefits to you and all mankind.

+M. Thomas Shaw's Attitude Toward Economy

Kendall Harmon+ says read it carefully . You should. Beware of electing monks to the episcopate. They just might be faithful shepherds of the sheep.

Yes, Folks, There's Going To Be A Rant

With this great cloud of witnesses around us, therefore we, too, must throw off every encumbrance, and the sin that all too readily restricts us, and run with resolution the race which lies ahead of us, our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. (Hebrews 12)

Why Am I Here?

It's been a rough week. I've been driven to some very dark places spiritually. I have deprived myself of a lot of sleep in both labor and anxiety. One person in particular probably might think I am a jerk. It's no surprise to me that I fall short of the glory of God, but do I have to be so far? But today, there is much reason for me to be hopeful in the short term. I love what I do too much not to fight to continue to do it.

But sometimes, I wonder why I am here. I mean here the small version of the question. My existence stems from a Yearning of a perfect being to create and be in relationship with His Creation and the continuing participation of many in that action. Before me were countless generations unnumbered who honored love and the call of nature to create life in the context of relationship. And in my own time, I see the little love that made me in the love my parents have for me, a little flickering in the fire of the unconditional love of God.

The question I continually pose is why I am here in Pasadena, CA in this year. As to my own flourishing, I imagine myself in State College, PA or Providence, RI just as easily. But I do not belong to myself. And every time I desire not to be here, I feel driven by the Spirit of God to remain here. It is a terrible thing to be in the hands of the Living God. And yet there is a leap of faith I make when I say things like this, "Just because you feel it doesn't mean it's there" (Radiohead).

But that's neither here nor there. The purpose of God will be revealed in the fullness of time. And maybe in ten years, I will look back in pleasure at the remembrance of even these things. (By the way, I keep listening over and over again to BBC Choral Evensong this week. It's been very appropriate for the week, especially the Epistle.)

The Board Is Set, the Pieces are Moving

I do not know if you, gentle readers, have been following the amazing turn of events in the Anglican Communion over the last 24 hours. I do not think it hyperbole to suggest that the schism we have feared is beginning to shine its light. But it is not my business to analyze these events. You can read Scotist or Preludium.

Choose This Day

A video by this name has appeared on the Internet, sickening Father Jake. I watched it and learned that I played a very small role in its production. The circumstances of this are known to God, me, Rev. Dr. Canon Kendall Harmon+, and any enterprising reader of Titusonenine and this blog. I am ashamed to have participated in any way in the production of this. My small role was an act driven by charity and the desire for verity. My love has turned to a cup of bitterness in my mouth. This may not make anyone feel better, but the Every Voice Network will be sending a lovely video around the church sometime soon that will serve partly as a counterweight to the pernicious tone of the video. Frankly, I don't agree with the general content of either video, but I am glad to say that the Every Voice Network video at least avoids praise band music in the soundtrack.

Itisthelesbigays

Nelson Mandela in his excellent autobiography tells a few stories about the chaplains who visited him and his fellows in prison on Robbens Island. Of course, these chaplains were heavily vetted by the authorities and usually were clergy of the Dutch Reformed Church, who has since repented of its Erastian heterodoxy in support of groot apartheid . Mandela recalls one chaplain who said in a sermon that whenever something went wrong in the lives of Blacks, they said a phrase in Xhosa that means, "It is the whites." He actually slurred it a bit. Mandela and his fellows laughed at the pronunciation and objected to the critique. But Mandela did appreciate the sentiment, noting that it was good to point out that we have to take responsibility for the direction of things and not blame other people for the troubles you have caused for yourself.

Watching "Choose This Day," it occurred to me that part of its critique was valid. I usually lay off my own present community in this blog, but I made up a suitable euphemism for it some time ago. And honestly, I need to speak truth somewhere before I speak truth to power. *Christopher knows well that there have been canonical deficiencies in the principal Eucharists at ILEOS (it's a Latin acronym). (They even do Rite I deficiently and don't renounce Satan at Baptism). What I didn't explain was that I joined the church in the summer when the problems were small and the gist of innovation seemed to be a restoration of tradition. (They even said the Creed with anthropopesantein Since the Rector returned, we have not said the Nicene Creed, the Confession of Sin, and had more than two readings from any of the Holy Scriptures outside of the Gospels. During the summer, we omitted the Old Testament lesson one Sunday. It was a certain passage from Isaiah concerning eunuchs. Do you know how much I would have loved to preach a sermon on that passage to a congregation full of wounded men and women and proclaim liberty to the captives (and not in the God in the little itty bitty box I made in woodshop sense in Reverend Ref)? I forget what the sermon was about that day.

My sources also tell me that the Rector has been expressing a desire to rewrite the Creeds to the new member classes. What justifies this? What do we know about God now that contradicts the Creeds? Surely, he is not appealing to science. I read today an excerpt from something written by Father George Coyne S.J., the head of the Vatican Observatory, who has more right than most to opine on the relation between religion and science,

"If they respect the results of modern science, and indeed the best of modern biblical research, religious believers must move away from the notion of a dictator God or a designer God, a Newtonian God who made the universe as a watch that ticks along regularly."


"God in his infinite freedom continuously creates a world that reflects that freedom at all levels of the evolutionary process to greater and greater complexity," he wrote. "He is not continually intervening, but rather allows, participates, loves."

This is the language of Neoplatonism and even the Holy Scriptures. I wish to confuse no one. Neoplatonism is not Christianity. But Neoplatonism is a language of interface between sacred doctrine and "secular" truth. Neoplatonism is the finest way I think Christians have found to deal with the world of ideas outside the Body and use it to discern the verity of the Body. And the Creeds are strongly infused by Neoplatonism. It is very hard to go outside Neoplatonism and convincingly proclaim, "All truth is God's truth," because Neoplatonism is the basis of our notions of absolute truth. Richard Kew recently writes of the nihilism of postmodernism and deconstruction. And he is right. We slowly are building the western mind on a foundation as sure as the village of St. John Vianney in Quebec. Verily, I tell you that nothing remains of that village. It was built on sand and it was swallowed in sand during the space of one night. But I do think the end of Neoplatonism will be what the rabbis of the Kabbalah longed for and the alchemists worked toward: the reconciliation of God with wisdom. This is not the entire reconciling work of Christ, but I believe it is a big part. (And, yes, I still am trying to figure out what the Rabbis meant... Maybe, Hugo Schwyzer can tell me...)

So when "Choose This Day" tells me that words like salvation, grace, and redemption have changed their meanings in ECUSA, I can tell you in all honesty that I see what they mean. ILEOS proclaims the radically inclusive love of Christ, but I believe that God loves us far too much to let us shoot ourselves in the foot spiritually. If you criticize the present powers of this world and then are unwilling to repent before God of your own complicity in their wickedness, what use is that? If you invite all to eat and drink "the bread and wine made holy" but do not proclaim the story and the relationships made incarnate in that action through the Nicene Creed, what use is that? If you preach about what Jesus would have thought about X and Y, it is very hard to agree with you without looking at the rest of the text that points to Him.

A Reiteration of the Literary Theology

Plato in Book II of Republic argues that myths of gods coming to Earth is false. His prime objection is ontological. What is high and uplifted in the intelligibles will not mix with what is base. We know this to be false. It happened in the Incarnation in the deepest reversal of the ontology possible. The Greeks knew arete , but it took them some time to understand kenosis.

I tell this story because it is the key to my understanding of the Incarnation and the entire work of God in creation as the fulfillment of deep aesthetic yearnings. (C.S. Lewis discovered the same thing somewhere in the vicinity of a zoo.) Because we are from God and will return to Him, the very essence of our nature longs to return into the River, the water flowing from the side of the Temple, the Precious Blood of Jesus, the divine love life of the Trinity. The deepest essence of our being seeks the story that makes this possible. And this story is of Him who was before all worlds, but came among us in the fullness of our nature, was crucified, died, and was buried, rising again to life and victory that will come to fullness when God is all in all and time is closed in unceasing praise to the Yearner whose Yearning is complete and knows a wholeness beyond all wholeness comprehensible that was not possible before the worlds came to be. We and all things are the issue of the love of God. The last words of Christ are, "It is finished" or as Jack Miles posits, "Done."

"Choose This Day" tells us that the Bible is God's masterpiece. But I say to you that the Bible merely describes God's masterpiece, which is all things moving in space and time to the ends desired by the will of God. Thus, the literary theologian reads this story in the light of Aristotle's Poetics in which the work of God is an action complete in itself that organizes the sensible in the relationships of the intelligibles for all to see. Plato cannot imagine the Forms crashing into the world. They do so and do so continually. I refer to the Big Story as the chief action. But every big action is made up of little actions in which we, too, participate. And so, the literary theologian recognizes something very important, the content of the chief action is universal in scope and accessibility. The yearning for God is possesed by all creation, who praise God in their obedience to natural law, "All you winds and waters, praise the Lord." But the Bible views the chief action in terms appropriate for the Near East, for Hellenes and Hellenized Jews. Plato in Phaedrus posits speeches designed for the particular souls of the hearers. Thus, the Old Testament is written for the Jewish soul and the New Testament for the Greek soul. But a Greek soul is a human soul, after all. We are not so very apart. So if you want to learn your Bible, you might want some Aristotle and the Greek poets...

The literary theologian, however, realizes the world is fallen. The physicists talk about broken symmetries: quantities once conserved and relationships that once existed. The literary theologian sees broken symmetries in two major cases. First, one is biased by the method to see the Fall as breaking the symmetry between morals and aesthetics. In the beginning, to look good was literally to be good. And to take shame in your appearance was the first sign of sin. In God's eyes, the distinction doesn't matter. The Scriptures tell us that we see outward appearances and God sees the heart. We look good to God when we are good. He still loves us, though, even if we are hideous. And yet the literary theologian sees many distinctions we make as false: symmetries we have broken. We divide mind from matter, order from substance, the intelligibles from the sensibles. And when we do so, we say this to all things as John Milbank says, "God shall not have this." Many dualisms divide the world into God and not God. But all things participate in God by virtue of their being. Yet I should note that some distinctions are not false because they imply relationships. But a dualism that does not imply relationship is likely false.

And as God acts, we, too, are called to act. And some of these actions were ordained by Christ or by Tradition. We call these Sacraments, wherein God brings a greater fullness of the order of the intelligibles to the substance of the sensibles, not to change sensible to intelligible but to make the sensibles and the intelligibles more and inexorably one until they are unity and God is all in all. In my more lucid moments, I often refer to the telos of this, the process that achieves it, and the fundamental symmetry that underlies it as "the Hypostasis of the world." And when we act in concert with God in this way, we are not forcing God's hand or manipulating the universe, as the alchemists thought, but merely continuing and joining in the work God would do if we were not faithful. Our cooperation with God is but a bonus to his joy and delight in what He has made. Such joy cannot be diminished but only accentuated. Thus, when the literary theologian looks at morals especially in the context of human sexuality, he wants to know the relation of our sexuality and the non-sexual dimensions of intimate relationship to the work of God. This particular literary theologian has found it a better approach than focusing on what conduct will please or displease God. Because honestly, such questions lead one to ask what conduct will not displease God. And in my limited experience, that is a bad question. We always should seek the approbation of God and seek in our inadequacy to do Him good. God ought to be treated by the Golden Rule, not the Silver, for God is analogous to our neighbor.

Fratrimony and the Work of God

The Apostle tells us in Ephesians (KJV)

"5:1 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;

5:2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

5:3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;

5:4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.

5:5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

5:6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

5:7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them.

5:8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now [are ye] light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

5:9 (For the fruit of the Spirit [is] in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)

5:10 Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.

5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove [them].

5:12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.

5:13 But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.

5:14 Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

5:15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

5:16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

5:17 Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord [is].

5:18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;

5:19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

5:20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;

5:21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

5:22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.

5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.

5:24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so [let] the wives [be] to their own husbands in every thing.

5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

5:27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

5:28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.

5:29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:

5:30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

5:31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.

5:32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

5:33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife [see] that she reverence [her] husband "

I give the chapter in full, but the key part is 22ff. The Apostle poses matrimony as somehow analogous to the relationship between Christ and the Church. This is the traditional explanation for the sacramental quality of matrimony. Now, I understand that many find the view of matrimony expressed here as difficult. But there's nothing wrong with matrimony that can't be fixed by Christ-like love of husband for wife and Church (at its best)-like love of wife for husband. Nor does the Apostle pull the analogy out of thin air. Jesus often poses the Kingdom of God in terms of a wedding feast. Thus, matrimony by pointing to the mystical union of Christ and the Church that shall be fulfilled in the fullness of time is a living example in the sensible world of the deep order of the intelligibles. Marriage can be a little Creation. Marriage can be a little Crucifixion and Resurrection. Marriage even can be a little Eschaton, as Paul suggests. Marriage is a little flicker in the chief action. Marriage really can be a way to incarnate Christ more fully in the world. I'm fairly sure that I will know whom to marry when I find someone as enthusiastic for that view of matrimony as I am. But I don't meet many women like that.

Fratrimony and sororimony are very difficult to understand. Scotist has trouble. I have trouble. *Christopher, I suspect, sees some small glimmers of what he is doing once in a while. I'm not surprised that Kendall Harmon+ has trouble. As best as I can understand it, matrimony points to the union of one form of broken symmetry, that between God (in Christ) and us. Thus, it is a union of heterogenous people, forms, and substances. With fratrimony and sororimony, I have that that Isaiah passage, Jesus' talk about eunuchs, and the farewell addresses in the Gospel of John, point me toward saying that fratrimony and sororimony point to the mystical union of the Body itself. Both are a union of homogenous entities in some sense if God and man are the dualism, but it's more complicated. The unity of the Body is not possible through the flesh. The unity between Christ and the Church is related to us dying with Christ and being raised with Him, making the union easy to see from a carnal perspective. But honestly, the unity between the members of the Church is highly debatable even today. Thus, fratrimony and sororimony is difficult to talk about. There is a strange relation between debates about eccesiology and same-sex unions. I didn't understand why the issues were so closely connected and why this issue might break the visible unity of the church until I started thinking about the theology behind adelphopoesis. The controversies are symmetric in the intelligibles. Because I understand the unity of the Body in terms of joint participation in bath and meal (as *Christopher puts the ordinances in the most basic terms) that tends toward theosis, it's fairly simple for me to imagine a form of union that is according to the spirit rather than the flesh. If you have a different ecclesiological model, you might have more trouble.

And when I say "according to the spirit rather than the flesh," I suspect that people get very confused. The Apostle helps us in Ephesians 5 by seeing the unity of the church in terms of mutual submission of one to another. We are further told that the saints are to avoid scandal and gossip. He says other things... But the last two points are important. The unity of the church requires mutual kenosis that produces a unity of will that tends toward the mind of Christ. Thus, if fratrimony and sororimony point to the unity of the Church, the union has to be one of equals. In the ancient understanding of the sexes that is constantly striving with Christian considerations in Paul's work, men and women are not equals. Thus, unity according to the spirit implies the mystical unity of the Church that is only fully expressed in kenosis . The talk about scandal has resonance in some of the adelphopoesis ceremonies. Some read this part of the liturgy as talking about the sex. But I don't think that's the entire meaning or the primary one. Such a prayer really says, "Be the Church." Can one be the Church sexually? It has taken me a long time to get to this point, but it's fairly clear that if I am part of the Body through Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist, I am joined in the Body with all who communicate (note the usage...). Thus, homosexual intimacy can be understood Eucharistically just as heterosexual intimacy can be understood Eucharistically and eschatologically. The two models don't contradict one another.

*Christopher points us to the icon of Sergius and Bacchus in which Christ is seen as a head between two saints. The Passion of these saints explains fratrimony beautifully in many ways but this most of all. Their persecutors see Sergius and Bacchus as effeminate because of their Christianity and potentially because of their relationship, dressing them as women to humiliate them. Yet in fratrimony at least, men become a woman. And yet Sergius and Bacchus suffer manfully (if I can use that term) for the faith. They prove themselves to be their persecutors' ideal or stereotype of manhood by the suffering they endure. Christ is their Head, for they embody the Church, a strong and powerful woman worthy to be called Beloved.

Finally, fratrimony and sororimony seem to point to the unity of the Trinity as well. Marilyn McCord Adams has written on this to the distress of many conservatives. But I do think the idea is fairly ancient. If the relevant parts of John mean what I think they do, there is something Trinitarian going on. I do not pretend to understand it. I will need to continue thinking. Again, so much of the talk about same-sex unions gets confused with debates about the Trinity and the Incarnation. I believe that this is another symmetry in the intelligibles. It's not obvious. The Rector is heterodox and so is the Dean of TESM (Pontificator makes a good case), yet they stand on opposite sides of the same-sex union debate. So that's what I have to say on that. Maybe, the Scotist can contribute further.

A Table in the Wilderness

*Christopher rightly notes that not all of the old liturgies for adelphopoesis place it in the context of Holy Eucharist. It seems wrong in my mind to separate imitatio from the means of what is imitated in an action. But *Christopher is right to point out that the altar is fenced to queerkind in San Joaquin. What is to be done? Part of me has visions of France in 1300. Imagine two men finding each other and saying quiet vows to one another, then attending Mass together. An astute observer would know what was happening, but it wouldn't be obvious. (I only use this example because there are more obvious examples in the same place and era).

But not everyone can be in the closet and most everyone should not be in the closet. Everything hidden shall be revealed says the Scriptures and Venantius Honorius Fortunatus says, "No one will remain unpunished." How does one live in the light when the visible Church rejects you?

Now normally I would not be a promoter of lay presidency, because I see the liturgy of the Church as a continuation of the Temple worship. Thus, I see the clerical priesthood as a continuation of the Priests and Levites. They have been set apart to continue in that Temple worship in concert with Christ. But I also recall what the author of Hebrews says concerning Melchizedek and Christ. Melchizedek has no mother, no father, and exists outside of time as King of proto-Jerusalem, as king of Salem (Peace), as priest of God Most High, the one among the baalim of the Canaanites who was true and very God. For indeed God Most High only could have been the One who we worship, the father of lights and spirits. And the Book of Genesis tells us that Melchizedek was first to offer unbloody sacrifice of "food and wine" in the valley of Sheveh now called Kedron and gave benediction to him.

The Book of Hebrews tells us that the priesthood of Melchizedek was an eternal priesthood just like that of Christ, who as the preacher of Hebrews points out, was sprung from Judah not Levi. Moreover, the Church long has seen the Eucharistic feast as pointed to by the shewbread offering mandated in the Law. Thus, the next time anyone tells you it's not all right to take Communion more than once a month, point them to the shewbread on which frankincense was sprinkled like the body of the dead anointed to be an offering and fragrant sacrifice to God Most High. Indeed, the sacrifice of Melchizedek was the ritual and likely historical forerunner of the shewbread. And we are told that it was changed every Sabbath and the priests ate of it, the most holy of holy gifts (Leviticus 24).

Thus, Melchizedek outside of the sanctuary of the proto-Temple instituted one more action brought to completeness in Christ Jesus. And he did so in the Valley of Kedron. Now the burden of Scriptural interpretation and Holy Tradition says that Christ was crucified on the other side of Jerusalem, perhaps in the vicinity of Moriah, where Abraham offered Isaac. The arguments rage as to the exact location. But we also know something happened in an upper room closer to the Kedron side of Jerusalem. "The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” And on the very same night, he went into Gethsemane in the Valley of Kedron and offered Himself into the hands of the powers and principalities of this world.

So I am asked again: Can God set a table in the wilderness? Can God be present in his Body and Blood in the presence of those merely priests of Melchizedek? Is it right for lay people to perform the Eucharist without a priest? I think you will understand now why I believe in the communion of the baptized, not open communion not closed communion but a communion of all those washed in the Flood flowing outside of the Temple that is the Blood of the Lamb and the laving of the Spirit. For in baptism, we are made priests of Melchizedek. We share in that eternal priesthood. In recognition of the perfection of the bloody sacrifice in Christ Jesus, we retain spiritual sons of Aaron among us to continue the Temple worship among us and add further coherence to the story the Church is. But in extremis , I tell you that it does not matter whether you worship on Zion or Gerizim. Melchizedek offered in spirit and in truth. Jesus offered Himself in spirit and in truth. But again, I tell you it all is founded on living not in the closet but in the wilderness outside the camp, whether in Israel or elsewhere. The stones are rejected by the builders and thus they must renew the fundaments of all things upon the chief cornerstone. The original action of Christ's Sacrifice was an exceptional thing. Unbloody sacrifice in the wilderness is likewise exceptional.

YAAA (Yet Another Anglican Acronym)

Derek of haligweorc has indicated the desire to found some sort of organization. I suspect he's joking. But honestly, the schism is here and the controversies that really brought it have not been settled. There has to be some sort of renewal in ECUSA. Now I lean to the Neoplatonist Benedictine spirituality side of renewal. And I suspect there are like-minded folks around who do, too. Unfortunately, I have very little time, bound as I am to my lab bench. But I see a need to make conspiratorial memos about fun and Christ-serving things, "We will petition the Minister of the parish of which we are a member for the recitation of the Athanasian Creed on Trinity Sunday." Bwahaha!

Choose This Day

"See I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity. I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day; I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life- if you and your offspring would live." (Deuteronomy 30).

"But if it does not please you to serve the Lord, choose here and now whom you will serve: the gods whom your forefathers served beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But I and my family will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15).

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray for the benediction of God Most High upon the Church entire in the fullness of space and time and give their blessing and thanksgiving to God Most High, who has redeemed them from the hands of their enemy, sin, through the offering of His Son Jesus Christ. .

Extract from the Proceedings of the Synod of Farquahar, 3072

Having read *Christopher's recent post at Bending the Rule, the Archivist of the Monastery immersed himself in the Library and pulled this file. Here is the relevant excerpt. Oh, enjoy the theological science fiction, folks, come on. I figure this might be more enjoyable than me saying anything...

(Translatus anglice Ex Actis Synodis Omnium Mundorum Sub Tenura CCLXIII ad Farquaharem)

...Some among the presbyters, deacons, and laity of Diocese of Nova California under the English jurisdiction came before the Holy Synod and petitioned for relief under ancient canons regarding the conflict of the customs of the Fathers. Specifically, they asked, "It is not permitted by the canons of our provinces nor the civil law to perform the Rite of Adelphopoesis that is lawful for you according to the most ancient canons. But we would not contemn the authority of the Fathers, though divided, nor contemn the mystery of the rite. Moreover, we would not contemn the dignity of those called to the unity among two spiritual brothers or sisters. Therefore, we implore and supplicate thee, Thou All-Holiness and Ye Holy Synod, to grant us all relief, to wit, how shall the rite be performed when it is canonically and civilly invalid in a jurisdiction? His All-Holiness accepted the supplication and stated he would consult with Synod and answer the supplication on the morrow.

[...]

Finally, His All-Holiness, the Patriarch of All Space, asked the Holy Synod for the authority to sit in the chair of his office, though physically translated, so that he might give a reply to the supplication from the Diocese of Nova California under the English jurisdiction and that it might have further authority according to the ancient canons. The Holy Synod gave their assent in the usual form. His All-Holiness sat in his chair and said,

"We thank the delegation from Nova California for their courage in this matter, since it is canonically forbidden for them to supplicate this See. The question is very difficult, but we are guided by ancient authorities. On one hand, we have the view of Vicarius Salarius in the era of the Translation of our See, who cites ancient tradition of the English jurisdiction that the church may give benediction to any covenant under the civil law similar to matrimony. On the other hand, we read in the same era that the Bishop of Massachusetts forbade the rite, though the civil law permitted the covenant, for the sake of economy.

"Yet it is clear that the rite was performed in the Undivided and even the Half-Divided Church, though neither civil nor canon law gave it any explicit status. In some places, the rite was inferred to be canonically and civilly forbidden as it is presently in the English jurisdiction. But we read that where it was canonically lawful, it was performed in the presence of a priest, who gave benediction as in the case of matrimony."

"Thus, we must reason and answer from first principles. Adelphopoesis is like matrimony and the consecratory vows in that the role of the Church in administration is unusual. Normally, the sacramental officiant in Holy Orders administers the sacrament in the name and person of Christ, acknowledging the work of God that is done through his voice and the contact of his hands. Moreover, all sacraments must be seen as simultaneously instantaneous and perpetual, since they are acts in small periods of time pointing to the perpetual intercession of Christ for us before the mercy seat. But in Holy Communion and Holy Baptism, we usually emphasize instantaneity. The sacramentality is related to the conditions of the instant. No one can marginalize Holy Baptism or Holy Eucharist validly received. There is some controversy among the Fathers whether this extends to other sacraments. But that is not important. What is important is that the ministers of matrimony, adelphopoesis, and monastic vows (normally called fratrimony in this jurisdiction and hereafter) are the ones yoked.
In the first case, we have the authority of the Angelic Doctor. In the third case, we have the authority of Hippolytus Romanus, who states that 'no one lays hands on a consecrated [person], he or she is consecrated by the vow.' "

"But what of the second case? Spinator argues that matrimony and fratrimony are both primal actions. The terminology of primal action is a bit obscure, but it refers to verities of the natural law confirmed by the Divine Word. Spinator cites the example of the rite in the Ash Wednesday Liturgy in which ashes are imposed and it is said, 'Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.' He claims that this is a primal action, since it is true according to the natural law that our flesh comes from the elements and will return to them at death. And since it is primal, he claims it is prior to the priestly office. Thus, he says that the Church only has the power to declare a primal action in the name of God, and though declaration generally is done by priests, it may be done by anyone else, being not a direct result of the Incarnate work of Christ. But he says that the consensus of the Church is that primal actions be recognized among two or three. Thus, he opines that primal and unitive actions be performed by two and witnessed by a third and preferably a fourth. For as it is written, 'That is why a man leaves his father and mother and attaches himself to his wife, and the two become one.' For since father and mother witness the departure, he reasons there are two witnesses.

"It is then asked whence cometh the benediction? He argues that the union is primal but the sacrament is not, since the union is prior to the Incarnation but the mystery is only possible after the Incarnation. The declaration recognizes the union and the benediction recognizes its potential sacramentality. Thus, he says of the sacrament that is begun in the instant of benediction but it is completed in Scholastic formula of fidelity and offspring in imitation of the mystery."

"But Spinator says of fratrimony that it, too, is primal. First, he argues that it is of the natural law, for the Angelic Doctor cites Ulpian on the validity of matrimony under the natural law, and Spinator claims fratrimony 'descends' from the relations between the lower creatures just as matrimony does and thus adheres to the principle of Ulpian, if not his words. Then Spinator asserts fratrimony is a primal action by analogy according to the Holy Scriptures. For it is said of Saul that he kept David from the house of Jesse in favor of his own, for he "saw that Jonathan had given his heart to David and had grown to love David as himself' and further that they "made a solemn compact" and gave gifts. He states this is sufficient grounds to call primal action by analogy, since in both matrimony and fratrimony, there is a change of house and unitive act and covenant. And if fratrimony is according to the natural law, if it is analogous, it must be primal. He mentions that the opinion of many are against this, but he maintains this true, citing tradition concerning fratrimony that does not concern us here."

"It is asked again whence cometh the benediction. And Spinator answers that it is like matrimony except that the mystery differs. He states that the mystery of fratrimony lies in the union of believers under Christ as Head, which is not possible according to the flesh alone (for it is impossible biologically for us all to be intimately related) but only is possible through water and the Holy Spirit and through bread and wine made Body and Blood. For indeed the Holy Scriptures say that the Lord on the night before he died prayed, 'May they be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, so also may they be us, that the world may believe that you sent me." And yet no one is sure what is the source of the union among the Trinity, though there are many opinions, but fratrimony likewise points to this mystery so greatly beyond our knowing. But we assert, as the ancient canons assert, that, "We proclaim in the fear of God, our awful Judge, that fratrimony should not be held to contradict matrimony, nor the sex of the officiant be held to contradict any sacrament, for the unity between Christ and the Church only perfects the unity of the Body, the joy of the Trinity all in all is most perfect in the Church Triumphant, and that in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female.'

"But this is but bare answer to your supplication. So we proclaim to you that you are in the desert. Remember that our ancestors were slaves in Egypt and they were brought to freedom through the waters of the Red Sea, while Pharaoh and his army died in the waters. Remember that you all were enslaved to sin and were brought to freedom through the waters of Baptism, while your old nature died in those waters. But also recall that your ancestors tested the Lord at Meribah and reviled God in the Wilderness of Zin, dissenting among themselves and angering their Liberator. So it is with our individual natures, but so it is also with the Church. Therefore, we say to you, you are in the wilderness. You cannot expect the approbation of Church or State for fratrimony. In our view, Moses has brought commandments and found the Church adoring a Golden Calf. And throughout history, the action has been repeated again and again. The Church has offered many things to Azazel and to Moloch, sending it outside the camp to a place of uncleanness away from the Sanctuary.

"But we proclaim to you that Jesus Christ, Our Great High Priest, was sent outside the camp and offered to Azazel by the powers and principalities of the worlds to which we once were enthralled. And though he lay outside the camp, he made transferred the Temple to the temple of His body and lifted up, he drew all to Himself before the horns of the altar not made by human hands, that is in Heaven. He transformed Himself from the offering to Azazel to the offering to God Most High. Therefore, those sent outside the camp should not despair but trust in Christ. And thus we answer your supplication in this way,

"If fratrimony be canonically invalid in any place, those who seek that state should ask friends who share their Baptism to accompany them to a place outside the city, a place of stones and desolation, like Golgotha or Meribah, away from trees or springs, so that their rites not be confused with those of the Canaanites. The liturgy should be the traditional fratrimonial liturgy of authority in this jurisdiction or in the Undivided Church. At the proper moment, the witnesses shall declare the union of the two yoked according to the spirit in the name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity according to the usual formula. As for the benediction, it should happen in this way: The yoked persons shall say the words of blessing together, substituting 'us' for 'you' or 'them.' For in the wilderness, they act in the person of Christ. It cannot be otherwise. But it is suitable that some person known to the couple, who has put himself or herself to the test in contemplation, say to this, 'May the Lord grant all your requests' and make the sign of the Holy and Lifegiving Cross."

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that the stones the builders rejected become living stones of a holy temple by the power and merits of the chief cornerstone, Jesus Christ. Amen

Angloblography

Well, it's been an week both vexing and hopeful for me. I can't remember which blogger (Derek perhaps?) called a few of these past days, "The Goth Triduum"

I remember expressing similar thoughts last year in a sermon,

...the French bishops of long ago did not see the fears and traditions of their flock as a problem. They saw them as an opportunity. What they constructed out of Samhain was a new Triduum, a three day festival analogous to that of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter in which victory over death through Christ would be proclaimed near the close of the Christian year, not by recalling Christ’s glorious death and resurrection but by explaining the consequences of the Paschal mystery for the whole Body of Christ. Indeed, these next three days are a Triduum for the rest of us.

.

Celebration in these parts were subdued. Choral Evensong this week was an Anglican Requiem Mass. Your humble correspondent quietly chanted the Burial Office on All Souls. But, "the fun don't stop." Tomorrow, my present parish celebrates her patronal feast (transferred, of course, ironically as all Episcopal churches do). The headline preacher is ++Desmond Tutu, and the Choir promises the Faure Requiem.

Item the First: Feminarian recently wrote:

I will tell you a secret, the real dream, the ultimate prize: if I could write anything, I would help to write the next revision of the prayer book. Oh! What a treat that would be!! And I could help inclusivise all the language, and write new prayers for hurricanes and clinical depression. And I could write the same-gender marriage ceremony, and a service at the loss of a pet (despite the giggles in Grief class about counseling people on such a topic). And I could find some way to incorporate the new way we see things...the new way we think in windows and icons (computer not byzantine) and blogs. We see the world differently now in my generation, you know.

Anyway, like if I won the lottery, I'd buy my way onto that committee. If I actually stuck out a PhD or the ordination process, I'd do it for that goal. Even right now, when I'm reading Duck and Wilson-Kastner and Ramshaw, I'm seeing how important this all is. It would just be so cool to be part of writing the great play of the liturgy, the drama of dramas.

Well now that is out of the bag, so I will forever question its propriety. As will you.

Does "buy[ing] your way onto that committee" count as simony? I think so. So *Christopher and Derek may have competition... I really don't think one writes liturgy, by the way (at least in the way we use "write" today) I've grown to consider it to be a form of adaptation.

Item the Second: Recently, it was posted on Titusonenine that +Jon Angelor. (or +Jon Los Angeles or even +Jon Bruno) will preach at a Week of Christian Unity event in these scrubby woods. The flogging then began in earnest... One commenter, I think it was Irenaeus (appropriately enough), noted that "Diocese of LA" could be an anagram for Laodicea. Yes, Irenaeus, get on the wagon. Hugo Schwyzer has been saying this since early 2004 . And I am starting to agree...

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may be find some way to heat up to a great temperature so that the Lord does not spit you out of His mouth.

For Your Consideration

Here is the latest report of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music is the organ of General Convention usually charged to evaluate and recommend changes in the liturgy of The Episcopal Church. In other words, any proposed new Book of Common Prayer or Enriching Our Worship etc. goes through them. Those with a good memory for GC2003 also will recall that proposals for rites for the blessing of same-sex unions. Students of liturgy will be interested in the various rites associated with church planting. On p. 214, there is a mention of an International Anglican Liturgical Consultation. Has this been lost in the unpleasantness? But the key page to my mind is p. 211, which summarizes the result of a Congregational Survey.

Here are some tidbits:

1. Episcopalians are now a more Eucharistic people than ever before. When I was little, even our fairly High Church Rector put up with Morning Prayer as the principal Sunday service, once a month. St. John Chrysostom in Chicago celebrates the Eucharist on Sunday fortnightly (I'm not quite sure what the patron would think.) Now, the Holy Eucharist tends to be the principal act of Divine Service on Sunday.

2. There is a strong bimodal distribution in the size frequency of Episcopal congregations. In other words, there are a large number of small parishes in the church and a moderate number of much larger ones, but there aren't that many in the middle. Thus, the typical Episcopal church is small (e.g., St. George's in Bolton in the Diocese of Connecticut), but the typical Episcopalian worships in a large congregation (e.g., St. Mary the Virgin in the Diocese of California.)

3. There are 2-3 services per Sunday.

4. The later in the day, the less traditional the liturgy.

5. Music is very important for the principal Sunday morning services.

6. There is some suggestion that praise and worship bands may appear at Episcopal churches on Saturday and Sunday nights. (But I may be reading too much into things...)

7. The Hymnal is big but so is LEVAS (Lift Every Voice and Sing [good Gospel hymns]) and WLP (Worship, Love, and Praise [no idea]).

8. Service music still is sung by the congregation.

9. Worshippers use prayer books, hymnals, and a leaflet. (So Episcopal juggling is alive and well).

10. People typically stand for the Introit, kneel for most of the Eucharist, and stand for the Dismissal.

11. BCP Lectionary still dominates RCL. [Yes, that RCL really snuck up on me. It's not a bad idea... as long as you read the lessons...]

12. Most Congregations use BCP Prayers of the People. (At my second parish, the intercessions usually were free-floating riffs of one sort or another. The first time I was an intercessor, I weaved the readings of the day (especially the Psalm) into Form VI [I think]. People, especially the more senior intercessors, liked that. I prefer straight Form VI myself (or the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ's Church, Militant and Triumphant (that's the original name, right?) We tended to be more Prayer Book-oriented generally in college. If you have to put on much of the service yourself, you don't waste brainpower on florid prose.

13. "Few Episcopal churches involve volunteers in their liturgy planning team." Well, in some places... Liturgists' meetings were my antidrug!

14. Lay volunteers may not do the planning, but they do the execution. Where else but the church and Cub Scouts do you let 8 year-olds use fire? And who can forget the Altar Guild?

15. Less than 25% of congregational membership attend services on Holy Days that fall on weekdays. (This was easier in college than before, though I often joined the Lutherans on Ash Wednesday.)

The comments, we note, are all over the place.

It is asked how one reaches Generation X, Y, or Z. It is very simple: You reach Generation Y by not marketing to us or anyone else. My Roman Catholic friends tend toward the Tridentine Mass but wish they had been instructed to understand it better. I know a few converts to Eastern Orthodoxy. I know evangelicals attracted to a mix of traditional and praise and worship music anchored by solid Bible preaching. I know a girl who basically is attracted to the types of services her grandmother dragged her to when she was little but also appreciates an active community of people her own age. The threads that draw "seekers" my age together is that many of us (Deo gratia not me) are children of divorce. And if we are not children of divorce, we generally have weaker relationships to our extended family and local community than past generations. We are attracted to people and ideas that are anchored in something and long to be as anchored as they are. Thus, we may be sorely disappointed by certain present threads in progressive Christianity. There are a variety of possible anchors, but I think the future of Anglican liturgy and Anglicanism in general lies in being anchored to what has been communicated to us by our spiritual progenitors, not in all things and not at all times but generally.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that thy prayers be set forth in the sight of the Lord Our God as the incense and the lifting up of thy hands be thy evening sacrifice.

++Rowan Cantaur's Lecture on Richard Hooker

Can be found here . I have one quibble with it very early in the lecture, when he suggests that the eternity of the moral law is an issue of absolute debate in the current unpleasantness, but otherwise he gives an excellent preface to Laws .

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may know that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.

Some Short Thoughts on Liturgy

Both Derek of Haligweorc and *Christopher of Bending the Rule have been discussing liturgy lately. They have important perspectives, since they are both academics in communion with the church that have expertise in the history and philosophy of these matters. I look forward to what they have to say. I also recommend a recent piece by Michael Spencer of Internet Monk that looks at similar phenomena from a Low Church perspective (Spencer is a Southern Baptist with Calvinist leanings, so I think it's fair to call him in Low Church if he were transferred into an Anglican context. For instance, much of what he says would be relevant to a Lutheran church I attended last summer.)

But they also have asked for the perspective of intelligent folks of both the lay persuasion in the church sense and the academic sense. Since the closest I get academically to liturgy involves the buoyancy budget of the Red Sea boundary layer (which tells you nothing about proper occasions to sing the Song of Moses), I'll give you a few notes, based on fifteen years as a lector, fourteen years as an usher, fourteen years as an acolyte, nine years as an intercessor, eight years as a chalice bearer, six years as a subdeacon, and five years as a preacher (all of them somewhat discontinuous). (Note: I am 22, and I have reasonably conservative views on liturgy. One way to obstruct the phenomenon discussed in Spencer's article is to prepare older children and teenagers to do "adult" jobs in the liturgy when they're ready and there has been some discernment of their gifts in this area. It makes them part of the tradition. (Frankly, my favorite job relating to liturgy is to cook dinner for folks after Sunday Eucharist. It made me feel like a servant.)

****In English, we go to church services. I occasionally say something called the Office. Lately, I've found it helpful to restore the usage that connects these ideas. What we do at church is Divine Service. This is a usage to amuse Australians, but it has been lost from the mindset of most. So often I hear language that suggests what we do at church is merely done for us. The Eucharist has become "strength for the journey" instead of "Oh, you know, Body and Blood of Christ and all that, participation in the Eschaton, sacrament of the Church. Bagels afterward" (as one of my Orthodox friends puts church). Perhaps, I'm wrong, but there is some important difference there. Now, I could riff on the very word "liturgy" for a while, but let's just say that Aristotle often uses an important form of liturgy as an example, i.e., the arrangement of a big communal and potentially sacrificial banquet. So, yes, there is some suggestion in this that liturgy helps us, but the liturgy of this type is still for the larger community. Liturgy is pro Deo , and to some extent it is pro nobis , but it isn't propter me .

****At first, it's hard to see traditional liturgy in the Bible. Jesus, for instance, did not say (to our knowledge), "Verily, I say unto thee that those who cense the altar shall enter the Kingdom of God before thee." But there a few things I notice Jesus did do that has relevance to liturgy. He read the Scriptures in the synagogue and he preached on the text of the Scriptures. Jesus did not read, "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound" and then discuss for fifteen minutes that great play he saw at Herod's Theater on Thursday night. Now, I cannot say I have been perfectly faithful to completely Biblical preaching in my time. But I do try to make the Lectionary readings central to what I say. Moreover, I look for the harmony in the readings, in whatever way that can be justified. Hence, the Liturgy of the Word is important. Jesus knew His Bible like the back of his hand (and He didn't even own the latest translation by Vandervan). He almost certainly memorized the Law before the age of 12 based on the readings he had heard in the synagogue. We should aim so high. He also instituted Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist. No one has tinkered with the Words of Institution in my hearing, but cave glorificator !

“Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, king of the universe, who has made a distinction between the sacred and the profane, between light and darkness, between Israel and the nations, between the Shabbat and six days of work..”

(from the Havdalah ).

These words are prayed at the end of the evening prayer service that closes Shabbat. (I once went to Havdalah. Very cool, the Messiah could come any time...) Now from what we can tell from the Gospels, Jesus acted very much against the viewpoint of this prayer. He associated with profane people. He healed on the Sabbath. He suggested that God actually could stand the Gentiles. For Jesus, it seems, there was no distinction between the sacred and the profane. But think carefully here. Jesus was God. If God is willing to do these things, it seems to mean that the profane ought to be sanctified by the holy. And that's one way of seeing Jesus, the Man-God made his entire life into Divine Service. He made life into liturgy. And He did it so well that the author of Hebrews can say,

But now Christ has come, high priest of good things already in being. The tent of his priesthood is a greater and more perfect one, not made by human hands, that is, not belonging to this created world, the blood of his sacrifice is to be his own blood; not the blood of goats and calves; and thus he has entered the sanctuary once for all and secured an eternal liberation. If sprinkling the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer consecrates those who have been defiled and restores their ritual purity, how much greater is the power of the blood of Christ; through the eternal Spirit he offered himself without blemish to God. His blood will cleanse our conscience from the deadness of our former ways to serve the living God

(Hebrews 9:11-14).

Hebrews says also of the sacrificial tradition established by the Law, "All this is symbolic, pointing to the present time." Christ did not abolish the sacrifices of the Law, He merely fulfilled them by incorporating their symbolic content into the Verity of His Being. And He, having passed through the heavens, continues in such Verity as He did from Eternity. Thus, the Temple worship really is the model for Christian worship. I mean, the present traditions of Judaism, did not receive Christ as we did, but they still structure their synagogue worship around the Temple worship, transferring animal sacrifices to good works, just dealings, and effluent praise to the Most High, for the Old Testament says that's all God really wanted in the first place. Derek has suggested that monastic liturgy really should be our exemplar. He's exactly right in my opinion. The monastics certainly took Temple worship as their model, problematizing themselves simultaneously as the Levitical choirs of the Temple (under Asaph's direction) and as fellows with the angelic choirs. Thus, Christian liturgy seeks to participate in a Temple worship translated to Heaven in which Christ is once and eternally Our Intercessor and our atoning Sacrifice. As Morning Prayer I quotes Hebrews, "Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us."

So bring on the incense! Well, not quite. I am an Anglican and so believe that a diversity of rites can speak to the same verities. Low Church Anglicans have a strong tradition of Psalm singing that must be holy vengeance for the monastic lands their ancestors stole ;) . One does not need lots of glitter to give God the service due to His Name. Now, Texanglican and I disagree strenuously about this, but worshipping in a whitewashed basement chapel does not suggest lack of reverence (though since his critiques, I aided with certain holy and decorative touches to a chapel where the ciborium-looking thing is a utiility box and there was a sewer pipe in the sacristy), but we said our Psalms antiphonally by half-verses. In other words, the Church is the people not the building (and so with worship).

OK, that's the big stuff. Here's some small stuff.

1. The Book of Common Prayer is an awesome book that is useful every day, not just Sundays. Even Baptists use it (Internet Monk, for instance). But its use must be learned and so it must be taught. There's a great Lenten Adult Education series here... If you are printing your liturgy for good wholesome evangelical reasons, please keep as much of the BCP"s formatting as possible for good wholesome formational reasons.

2. Care about the small stuff but don't sweat it. I still may remember how to light triple candlesticks (though it's against Holy Tradition in some places for me to do so). I also remember being taught by one of my Rectors, "The Gospel candle never burns alone." It's a great system. It has interesting symbolic meaning. And I've seen many people do it the "wrong way." I really think God is served not by our principles itself (which by this time are mostly man-made) but by the fact we believe there should be one. I love American representative democracy, but I enjoy reverencing a High Altar and walking backwards down steps as before an Oriental potentate, because Jesus is my King and so I shall not be slave to any mere man.

3. If you're going to be High Church, watch your ventilation. It's great to introduce people to incense, but if you're in a church not designed for it, you will win yourselves few friends by choking the Low Church senior citizens.

4. Responsory prayers can be great. I love Eucharistic Prayer C of Rite II, because it really involves me in the great power of God and my utter incompetence. But saying the closing portion of the Eucharistic Prayer is a little too much. I am not concelebrating. I cannot do fun hand motions. I am not acting in the person of Christ. I also dislike tag team Eucharistic Prayers for the same reason.

5. Finally, because my pet peeves could go on forever, let me remind everyone of a certain rubric from the BCP (also printed in the front of the Hymnal with the relevant citation from Canon 24), "Hymns referred to in the rubrics of this Book are to be understood as those authorized by this Church. The words of anthems are to be from Holy Scripture, or from this Book [BCP], or from texts congruent with them...[From the Canon] [The minister and persons skilled in music he consults] shall see that music is appropriate to the context in which it is used." As much as I love "Love Alone" by Caedmon's Call, I really don't see where it fits in the liturgy though there is some congruency between the lyrics of the song and the Holy Scriptures. I mean even "Loud, Boiling Test Tubes" (I mean "Earth and All Stars") is an homage to Benedicite Omnia Opera (and thus fits well).

OK, those are my seventy-five dollars.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that thy lips be opened so wide and reverently that they might give such praise to God on earth that the worlds be suffused with them, even to the horns of the altar of the holy city, Jerusalem.