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.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
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.
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.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
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,
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:
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.
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.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
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
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.
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,
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)