holy cross / easter 6 / april 27 2008

John 15.1-8: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser…” etc.

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

“…apart from me you can do nothing” but “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.”

In another Gospel passage, Matthew (17), Jesus says: “I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, `Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.” And in last week’s Gospel lesson, the Lord said:

“Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

Today’s reading is the corollary of such passages: “apart from me you can do nothing” but “if you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.”

Clearly the Lord teaches that those who have faith in him can do anything. But in today’s reading we find that the opposite is also true: apart from Christ, you can do nothing.

Here again is an uncomfortable teaching. And its very likely not merely the inability to do anything that rattles us. The most uncomfortable facet of the Lord’s teaching lies behind both of these related teachings: In Christ, anything is possible; and apart from Christ, nothing is possible.

The most audacious fact here is Jesus Christ himself. Jesus sets himself up as the wellspring of all power: its his proclamation of himself that is so scandalous, the outrageous claim that he is the source of all ability, all potential – he’s not even saying that he is the source of all power TO DO GOOD – that might be understandable. Rather he says: “apart from me you can do NOTHING.”

The key to understanding this saying is in the Lord’s words about the vine and the branches: “As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit…”

Jesus proclaims himself to be the source of all life, the main body of the plant through which the branches are nourished, from which life-giving liquids are directed and delivered, through which the nutrients course out to the dependent shoots. And when we are fed by Christ, receptive to what he delivers to us, when we soak up his doctrine, when we are nourished by his body and blood, then we become fruitful – we are enabled to act in such a way that others may in turn receive nourishment from us.

But without him, we are like branches cut off from the main plant – unable to sustain ourselves, disconnected from the roots and without any means of nourishment. We lie there seemingly alive for a time, but ultimately and necessarily dry, withered – lifeless refuse, to brittle to be useful, fit only for kindling.

This is hard, but it is the implied by Jesus being the true life, and truly the source of all life. And this is why the most important thing is Christ himself: why he proclaims himself, why we must seek him, hold to him, look to him for guidance, for strength, for nourishment – not because he punishes us for not seeking him, but because apart from him we can do nothing – apart from him there are only shadows and illusions that lead to NOTHING.

In Deuteronomy God said to the Children of Israel: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live” (Deut. 30.19). This injunction comes to fruition in Christ. Our choice must be for him: because to choose him is to choose life and blessing. And the choice of anything other than him is ultimately the choice of cursing and death.

We get a taste of such separation from Christ in those moments when we indulge our feelings of despair, or hopelessness, or anger, or ennui, or dissipation, or whatever. When we willfully act without Christ as our frame of reference; when we use ourselves up in the pursuit of anything apart from Christ – whatever it is: money, relationships, happiness, even church. Apart from Christ, there’s nothing, and it leads only to more nothing. And this is why its critical for us to form an intentional habit of SEEKING – to spend time daily in prayer, looking with our hearts and our minds, with our INNER BEING – looking for Christ… reading the Gospels, turning over its tropes in our minds, always asking ourselves the Lord’s meaning by this phrase or that, why too we must often avail ourselves of the sacraments – because the Lord has promised to meet us there. “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.”

My favorite philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, once said: “What is eternal and important is often hidden from a man by an impenetrable veil. He knows: there’s something under there, but he cannot see it. The veil reflects the daylight” (Culture and Value, 80). It is not always easy to EXPERIENCE Christ at work in us, to FEEL his word abiding in us, his presence making all things possible. But that’s why patient and persistent ABIDING is necessary: As the prophet Isaiah said: “they who WAIT FOR THE LORD shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40.31).

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.”

One of my favorite stories from the “Sayings of the Desert Fathers” is the following:

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, 'Abba as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace, and, as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?' Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.'”

That’s the difference. Apart from Christ, you can do NOTHING. Saying the office, a little fasting, a little prayer and meditation, not bothering anyone, trying to be good… its all NOTHING apart from Christ. But if you ABIDE in Christ, and if his words abide in you, you can become all flame… you can do ANYTHING.

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

catholicism 101 -- part 8

CATHOLICISM 101

(The outline of this series is taken from Father Vernon Staley’s book The Catholic Religion.)

Church of the Holy Cross
April 13, 2008

Part 8
Christian Duty: Christian Belief

- Christian Duty

• We have seen that we are promised salvation, and that salvation comes to us by supernatural grace, and that the Catholic Church is the covenanted sphere of grace, the domain within which grace is operative, and where the truth is proclaimed and taught.

• But obviously mere passive membership in the Church is not sufficient. Rather, as in 1 Timothy 6.12, the journey toward salvation demands certain things of us. It demands 1) the “good confession” and 2) “the good fight of the faith” (1 Tim. 6.12). Not just any old confession or fight will do. They must be “the good confession” and “the good fight of the faith”.

• What is necessary, in other words, are the two inseparable and interpenetrating realities of 1) faith, and 2) works. We must BELIEVE rightly, and DO rightly.

• In Part 7 we saw that Baptism is the first act of faith, and that by it we are brought into the Church, incorporated into the mystical Body of Christ (the Church), and the possibility of salvation / restoration / healing / fulfillment was thereby opened to us.

• In Baptism we promised several things (in the baptismal promises, BCP p. 302ff).

• We renounced: Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God, all the evil powers of this world, and all sinful desires. (In short: the world, the flesh, and the devil.)

• We promised that we turned to Jesus Christ, put our trust in his grace and love, and that we would follow and obey Jesus as Lord.

• (If we were very young, these promised were made in our name and on our behalf.)

• In short we promised to:

• Avoid evil,

• Believe the truth,

• Do what is right.

• This is the essence of Christian Duty, which encompasses the domains of faith and works; belief and action; doctrine and devotion; etc.

• Now we will consider the first of these two spheres: Belief.

- Christian Belief

• We don’t make up the faith as we go along. We are not the inventors of Christianity. God is. “The Lord has founded Zion” (Isaiah 14.32), and “…I will build my Church” (Matt. 16.18), etc.

• So Christian duty with respect to BELIEF is to seek and to believe what God has revealed, without questioning – to accept it on God’s authority, because he is God and he has revealed it. Anything else is horrendously presumptuous.

• “Not questioning” does not preclude the seeking for reasons; this is in fact enjoined upon us (“Be prepared to give a defense…” etc. (1 Peter 3.15). But it does mean FIRST deciding that God HAS revealed himself, and then seeking his revelation.

• Right belief is also important because what you believe informs what you will DO. We are less likely to DO the right thing without BELIEVING the right thing. For example: all else being equal, a person who believes that murder is permissible is more likely, prima facie, actually to COMMIT (to DO) murder than a person who believes that murder is impermissible. So believing correctly is important. St. Jude writes, first urging his hearers to “to contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” and then to “build yourselves up on your most holy faith” (vv 3 and 20). If we are to build on faith, then it is important that our faith be solid (extending the construction metaphor – our faith is our foundation).

• Revelation 14.12 defines the saints as those “who keep the commandments of God [ACTION] and the faith of Jesus [BELIEF]”.

• So… Q: what ARE we to believe?

• A: the catholic faith.

• Q: where is it?

• A: First, its in the “Catholic Creeds” - the Apostles’ Creed, and the Nicene Creed.

• The word “Creed” comes from the Latin word “credo” which means “I believe.” This is the first word of both the Apostles’ and the Nicene Creeds. The Greek word for “creed” is σύμβολον which originally meant half of a broken thing which, when placed with the other half of the broken thing, would serve to verify the bearer’s identity. It thus came by extension to mean a password or watchword. And the term came to be applied to the creeds because they were watchwords of belonging to the Christian community of faith. If you can affirm THIS, then your belief is recognizably that of the Christian communities’ – the creed was the formula by which a Christian could make himself known to fellow Christians.

• The use of the creeds by Christians began very early – before the books of the New Testament were written. Many see a reference to very early Christian creeds in St. Paul’s writings:

• “The saying…” (1 Tim. 1.15, 1 Tim. 4.9, 2 Tim. 2.11, Titus 1.9, Titus 3.8).

• “…the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith…" (2 Tim. 1.13).

• “…what has been entrusted…” (1 Tim. 6.20, 2 Tim. 1.12).

• This way of speaking fits the pattern of use which we know creeds had in the early centuries of the Church – namely they were “entrusted” to catechumens to be learned by heart (they were not written down), in the days immediately prior to their Baptism at Easter.

• In the first few centuries of the Church, there came to be broad agreement on certain “patterns of sound words” and “sayings” that expressed well and succinctly the content of the Christian faith – and which thus serve well as watchwords for members of the Christian community and those who were coming into it. For the next few weeks we will look at: 1) the Apostles’ Creed, and 2) The Nicene Creed.

holy cross / easter 4 / april 13 2008

John 10.1-10 “I am the door…” etc.

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

In today’s reading from the Gospel of St. John, the Lord says something that might be difficult for modern ears to hear. He says “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber…” And later on in the reading he says “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.”

Obviously we are the sheep – those living in the world, who wander around without guidance, confused, and vulnerable, susceptible to the powers of predation at work in the world. Life in the world brings with it the danger of falling prey to the powers, visible and invisible, arrayed against us. And the triumph of the world’s powers, apart from Christ, is manifest in the universal dominion of death – the end of sin’s corrosive influence.

This may sound equivocal, so let me explain what I mean. Our teaching is that physical death is an aberration, an evil introduced into the world by sin – the primal event and action wherein mankind turned away from God – freely and definitely chose not to obey the explicit commandment of God, which God gave for mankind’s own good – so that we might have life and freedom and fulfillment. Our teaching is that mankind was made by God to dwell with him, and by dwelling with him, to have life and fulfillment. And this dwelling-with-God is what mankind rejected, and continually rejects – and the rejection of togetherness-with-God is precisely what sin is. And sin has left us weak, confused, and prone to death, like sheep without a shepherd, wandering around and subject to predation – to thieves, who have come to kill and destroy.

The sheepfold is this togetherness-with-God, the household of God, and Jesus is himself the doorway to the sheepfold, the way by which we may attain togetherness-with-God, because Jesus is the only and eternal Son of God. In the first chapter of St. John’s gospel we read: “No one has ever seen God; the only son, WHO IS IN THE BOSOM OF THE FATHER, HE HAS MADE HIM KNOWN.” Our problem is separation from God – Jesus Christ is the solution because he has a unique, indissoluble, essential, personal, and eternal union with God. As in Ephesians St. Paul writes: “through Jesus Christ we… have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are… MEMBERS OF THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

Christ opens for us the possibility of a mutual and personal indwelling with God, because Christ is in the Father, and the Father is in him. Therefore by being in him, WE find ourselves in the Father, and the Father in us. So in today’s Gospel reading Jesus declares: “I am the door; if anyone enters by me, he will be saved…” Because THROUGH him, we find the sheepfold – togetherness-with-God, the house of the Father.

And this gives content to any number of the Lord’s sayings:

"Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, `Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?”

And:

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.”

Because Jesus is the only and eternal Son of the Father, and because he gives his life for and to us, if we will only have it. So he is TRULY the WAY to the LIFE, which is togetherness-with-God.

A word must be said at this point about people of other faiths. Modern ears hear the Lord saying things like “No one comes to the Father, but by me” – and perhaps we find our generosity a little bit offended. Here is the thing: No one comes to the Father, except by way of the Son – because the Father is not even the Father apart from the Son. His very fatherhood obtains in relation to the Son. But that doesn’t mean, for example, that all Hindus are going to hell. It means that WHOEVER attains togetherness-with-God will find it by way of the door of the sheep, the one who is the way, the truth, and the life – whether they realize it or not. All of us have imperfect conceptions of God. And if our togetherness with God depended on the perfection of our conceptions, we’d all be in serious trouble. Whoever comes to the presence of God does so by way of the only and eternal Son, the Word of God, Jesus Christ. But we should remember that he made the heavens and the earth, and is perfectly capable of working invisibly within the heart of ANY person whatsoever – a Sikh, a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu, even an Episcopalian. But Christ’s ability to lead non-Christians to God does not diminish his status as the one and only door of the sheep.

Now, this leaves the question of HOW. How does one enter the sheepfold? Where does one find the door? One finds the door where the door has promised to be. You find him with in the one, holy, catholic and APOSTOLIC Church, the community of faith and practice founded and governed and taught by Jesus Christ himself, through the Apostles, because Jesus said to the Apostles: “I am with YOU always, even to the close of the age” (Matt. 28.16).

For individuals, this means above all that we must seek Jesus with an open and solicitous heart, purged from ideological self-seeking, and willing to leave everything to follow Christ. It means we must seek him in prayer, every day, and that we must seek to conform our believing, and our LIVING, to the apostolic teaching – which means the Scripture. And it means we must order our lives around the wellsprings of divine power given by Jesus himself to effect our union with him: the sacraments of the Church.

The Lord has promised that such a life of humble seeking will be rewarded by joyful finding, in the realization that the Lord came that we may have life, and have it abundantly.

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

holy cross / easter 3 / april 6 2008

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

“O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”

In today’s Gospel reading we hear the much loved story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus to whom the Lord appears. The first thing to notice about this reading is the distance that they are from Jerusalem. The translation of the Bible that we use says that the two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, “about seven miles from Jerusalem.” Saint Bede, the venerable English monk of the 7th century, sees spiritual significance in this distance of seven miles from Jerusalem. St. Bede says:

“…a little over seven miles was the length of the journey which they were walking, who were certain about our Lord’s death and burial, but doubtful concerning his resurrection. For the resurrection which took place AFTER the seventh day of the week, no one doubts is implied in the number eight. The disciples therefore as they walk and converse about the Lord had completed the sixth mile of their [spiritual] journey, for they were grieving that he who had lived blamelessly had come at length even to death, which the Lord underwent on the sixth day. These disciples had also completed the seventh mile of their spiritual journey, because they believed that the Lord indeed rested in the grave. But they had not yet finished the eighth mile of their spiritual journey; because THE GLORY OF THE LORD’S TRIUMPHANT RESURRECTION THEY DID NOT BELIEVE PERFECTLY.”

“The glory of the Lord’s triumphant resurrection they did not believe perfectly.”

This failure to believe perfectly the glory of the Lord’s triumphant resurrection lies as a danger at the center of every Christian’s spiritual life. The disciples on the road to Emmaus knew that the Lord had suffered and died. And when the risen Jesus himself drew near and asked what they were talking about, “they stood still, looking sad.” They don’t recognize Jesus. And one of them, named Cleopas, says: “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And Jesus, almost playfully, asks “What things?” And you can almost hear the confusion and foundering faith in Cleopas’s answer:

What do you mean ‘what things’?! “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since this happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; and they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said; but him they did not see."

This is the same incredulity, the same imperfect faith, we encountered in Thomas in last week’s Gospel lesson. It’s the same imperfect faith we see in all the disciples we find hiding out at the time of the resurrection, despite the fact that the Lord had told them time and time again that “that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matt. 16.21). And it is the same incredulity, the same imperfect faith we find in OURSELVES in those times when we suffer, or when we look into our own hearts and find ourselves irretrievably sinful, when we make up lies about who we are, or what we are, to accommodate our honest belief that the Lord’s passion and death really, in the end, has no power to CHANGE us. So we keep ourselves from living no longer for ourselves, but for him who died and rose for us, and so we wall ourselves off from the Lord’s first gift for those who believe: the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.

Cleopas says “We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel.” There is in this incredulity about the resurrection, more than a hint of suspicion about the Lord’s messianic credentials – an intuition that the Christ, the Messiah, is not the sort of man who can die – let alone who can die the death of a condemned criminal; because the Messiah was, WE thought, was the one who was going to redeem US – and its hard to redeem people if you’re dead and buried.

But beyond this incredulity there is a simple, deadly pessimism, a willing conformity of our expectations to the mandates of [worldly possibilities] telluric modality. The dead just don’t come back to life. Yet this is a central – THE central – tenet of our faith: that THIS man, Jesus of Nazareth, died, and that on the third day after his death he surged out of the tomb, alive.

It is on account of their inability to believe the Lord’s glorious triumph THROUGH DEATH, in his resurrection, that Jesus upbraids these two disciples:

"O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things AND ENTER INTO HIS GLORY?" And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

The resurrection is the counterpoint to the Lord’s suffering and death. The resurrection has no power apart from its being a resurrection FROM THE DEAD. It is the plentitude of the promised spiritualization of human nature – and it is painfully difficult to believe. Yet even in Old Testament times, the prophet Joel had said: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT ON ALL FLESH; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.”

And here is the Lord, raised from the dead, enlivened in his very flesh by the Spirit of God; here is Jesus no longer subject to the natural law of sin’s consequences - of death and decay. Here is the Lord totally given to the government of the spiritual and supernatural (cf. Theophylact). And WE foolish disciples are slow to believe. Its easy enough for us to believe in the natural order of things – in the seemingly inexorable laws of disease, and violence, and corruption, and sinfulness, and death. And its easy to believe that we are beyond being made clean, being made holy, being made ALIVE. Its HARD to believe in the triumph of Jesus Christ over all of that. Yet here he is – if we are willing – triumphant, risen, glorified, ALIVE, opening our minds; here he is, making himself known to us in the breaking of bread.

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