Some theological odds and ends

I know I haven't posted much recently - busy. And likely to be so to the end of March, not that I'm saying I won't post. Just don't hold your breath.

But do go check out Kim Fabricius' 10 Theses on the Holy Spirit at Faith & Theology; especially note numbers 6 and 10. (Hat tip to Alistair.) Good stuff from an estimable theological thinker.

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Also from Alistair, a quotation from Rowan Williams:

Scripture and tradition require to be read in a way that brings out their
strangeness, their non-obvious and non-contemporary qualities, in order that
they may be read both freshly and truthfully from one generation to another.
They need to be made more difficult before we can accurately grasp their
simplicities…. And this ‘making difficult’, this confession that what the gospel
says in Scripture and tradition does not instantly and effortlessly make sense,
is perhaps one of the most fundamental tasks for theology.

(Alistair himself got it from Faith & Theology, so it's really the whole circle of life thing...or something.)

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Also, there is a lot good out there on the whole "Jesus and family tomb" questions. You'll find alot of it at Mark Goodacre's weblog, which will point you towards other great resources, too.

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I had an experience a little while ago of finally reading Colin Gunton and thinking to myself 'why did no one tell me about this guy?! This is great!' Of course, that wasn't completely true. Others had told me, or held forth on his worth - not least Andy Goodliff - and I was simply heedless. And although I found much great, I also think he is limited in some unfortunate ways. I once said to Andy that I would say how I think he is, but this is not that post. I've had a very similar experience recently. But let me back up.

I root for the Chicago Cubs, and for England in international test cricket - I know all about self-loathing. But Calvin takes it to new depths. I have been reading Calvin's Institutes over Lent, along with some friends. There are hints and glimmers of real insight and brilliance. There is also some really wretchedly awful bits. And a lot of banal truth in-between. But he's not who I've 'discovered'.

As a respite from Calvin, to some degree, I have been reading Jurgen Moltmann, namely his Trinity and the Kingdom of God. Before this, I had read extracts from The Crucified God, and on that basis, well, let's just say I wasn't a fan. But Trinity and the Kingdom has completely changed my outlook on him. Why didn't anyone tell me about him before?

That's not to say I am now somehow a 'Moltmannian'. As with Gunton, I find him limited in ways. But he is intensely hopeful, and makes some very interesting moves. Much, much better than Calvin: even if, like Gunton, he works broadly within he same tradition.

Glory, Holiness and the Spirit

Holiness and love are not precursors of (conditions for) the glory of God; the glory of God implies the process of perfection that the Holy Spirit brings. God's glory brings holiness. Which begins to show the coincidence of the Holy Spirit and the glory of God.

Or as St. Basil put it: The Holy Spirit is God's glory.

Or, from a slightly different perspective, God's grace and God's glory imply each other.

Filled not with spirits but with the Spirit (Sermon for Proper 15B)

A sermon preached by the Rev. Jason A. Fout

20 August 2006, Proper 15 B

at Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Chicago, IL

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

It seems that there is no end of things to worry about these days. We hear of new threats of terrorism. Even as plots are foiled, we grow more suspicious of others and odd behavior can set us instantly on edge. Despite a tenuous peace, further combat in the Mid East seems imminent, with the inevitable cost in noncombatants and the impact it makes around the globe. The conflict in Iraq drags on as its costs, human and otherwise, soar. The five year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks looms. And keeping in mind the attack not far from here this summer, violence and racial tensions here in Chicago exert their influence on us, too, heightening our anxieties.

Or when we consider our church in the wake of general convention, there isn’t the same cost in terms of lives certainly, but some have felt our disagreements so deeply they have walked away from the table and might at times feel hesitant to name us as brothers and sisters in Christ. Although we might not agree with them, we still feel the loss of them and the distance between us.

And perhaps some of us find ourselves upset by the wedding last month of Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock – whether this upset is out of dashed personal hopes or fear that they might reproduce, I refuse to speculate.

But seriously, it seems that there is no end of things in the world to cause us worry, anxiety, and fear. And a big part of what makes these events so worrying is a feature common to them all: we have no control over them.

Continue reading Filled not with spirits but with the Spirit

When we find ourselves in situations which have such a high cost, and we have no control over them, there are two common responses. One is to withdraw from the situation by giving up, by just losing all control and trying to escape. The other response, especially when the anxiety is as close as a family member or a situation at work, is to use as much power as possible to try to reassert control. We might say that we are caught between losing ourselves on the one hand and using ourselves to dominate on the other, between losing control and clinging to control at all costs.

Interestingly, the readings we heard for today give us some resources, as Christians, for how to deal with this bind.

First, let’s turn to something Paul says in his letter to the church at Ephesus. He says ‘Do not get drunk with wine…but be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ Again, as I said last week, it might be easy to read Paul here as engaged in cheap moralizing, as if he were saying ‘shame on you! Drinking is bad! You should stop.’ But Paul isn’t just giving free advice; he is suggesting something far deeper and more important than that.

Drinking to excess can be a way of escape. I think Paul isn’t just saying that getting drunk is a bad thing. I think because it is a way of losing or giving up control, a way of escaping, that Paul is saying that it’s important that we don’t take ourselves out of action; that we don’t despair or give up. That’s not how we are to live as Christians.

So what does he say in response? I think this is the intriguing part. He doesn’t say ‘you people need to avoid demon drink’. This is important, because we can often be tempted in these situations to a kind of moral earnestness, what some would call ‘Puritanism’. We could be tempted to go to some lengths to avoid all drinking, and would work really hard to walk the straight and narrow. But sisters and brothers this would just be seizing control ourselves. Instead of giving up control, we would just be re-asserting it. But these are just two sides of the same coin in what should be a devalued currency. The issue is not, after all, whether we have too much or too little control.

To this dilemma, Paul suggests something quite different. He says, in effect, ‘do not be filled with spirits, but be filled with the Spirit.’

The real irony here is that, to outside observers, at first glance, there might not seem much difference. In the book of Acts, when the Spirit descended at Pentecost and filled the disciples, bystanders poked fun at them, saying that these people were drunk on wine. And Peter had to say to them, ‘No, no. We never drink before noon. This is the Spirit of God poured out. God is here, doing something amazing.’

Or if we return to what Paul is saying, we find that being filled with the Spirit brings joyous singing and effusive gratitude to God. The Spirit doesn’t bring stick-in-the-mud sobriety but joy, pleasure, delight. Being filled with the Spirit, we are no longer left to focus on ourselves and our control – or being out of control. We are drawn into the overflowing love, wisdom and joy of God. And in that, we are transformed. We grow in love for God and others. We grow in wisdom and joy. And how can we help but sing our gratitude to God, who made and sustains each one of us: everything we have and everything we are is pure gift. Being filled with the Holy Spirit changes us, frees us in just these ways.

It would be fairly easy to stop there. But the truth is, when we are no longer preoccupied with ourselves and our control but are freed to love others, we are also freed to bear the burdens and costs of that love.

We simply don’t have the time this morning to do justice to the richness of what Jesus says in the gospel reading about being the bread of life. But I will take a moment to mark one significant aspect. All that he says about being the bread of life, about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, all of this is sacrificial language, about him laying down his life in a way which is able to sustain his followers. This giving of himself gives life to others, but in the process he is consumed.

Friends, he was not blithely unaware of the cost of this process, but he undertook it willingly, for us and for the world, out of a deep and abiding love. And I think as we are filled with the Spirit, we too are able not only to feel the joy and gratitude of that love, but to bear its burdens and costs, too.

Oscar Romero knew something about this.

As Oscar Romero studied for the priesthood in El Salvador, he self-consciously separated himself from other seminarians that were interested in the liberation of the poor and oppressed. It is said that for years he distanced himself from any such activities, quashing “community-based pastoral projects that he felt were too radical” and he unwaveringly defended the status quo. This continued even after he became archbishop of San Salvador, turning a blind eye to state-sponsored terrorism and brutality against the people of that country.* But one day, an activist priest named Rutilio Grande was murdered, along with a little boy and a 72 year-old layman. This was the turning point. Gradually Romero realized that his call as archbishop was not just to protect himself, but to be a shepherd to his people. He was taken up with a passionate, selfless love for them. This meant working for justice, resisting state violence, and publicly denouncing the atrocities committed against the Salvadorans. Romero had started off with certain expectations about a comfortable and conventional life. But in seeing the bodies of these three slain people, seeing Christ there in them, it was as if he was filled with the Holy Spirit for the first time. His expectations, his episcopacy, his life had been shaken up and changed by the Spirit.

In this experience, he was given what must have seemed like new life. Not only that, in his love and passionate commitment to his people, he also gave his life. For his speaking out, he was shot by assailants on March 24, 1980, while he celebrated mass at an altar near his home.

Archbishop Romero knew what it was, in Paul’s terms, to be ‘filled with the Spirit’. He was filled with passionate love for God and others. He no longer needed to be in control, or worried about not being in control. He grew in wisdom, joy, and gratitude. The Holy Spirit freed him from being preoccupied with himself and his own safety. And the Spirit also freed him to bear the burdens and costs of that love.

For Romero, it led him to give his life.

But of course for us, who knows where it will lead? Perhaps as we continue to grow in being filled with the Spirit, it will mean overcoming our fear and becoming a friend to a neighbour or a stranger. Perhaps it will mean talking to someone else about why we sing our gratitude to God, and what Christ means to us. Possibly it would be something like being a blood marrow donor. Or maybe it will be sharing some of our gifts with someone else: tutoring a child or being a companion to someone who is alone. Just where it leads brothers and sisters is not something that I can answer for you, but something we discern in prayer and worship. It might be quite surprising. It will certainly be glorious.

I don’t know exactly what it looks like, but I can tell you this much: in being filled with the Holy Spirit, we will be freed from our worries, our anxieties and our fear. We will no longer obsess about the need to control, or else the desire to run away. We will grow in love, wisdom, and joy, and we will be taken up in gratitude to God, and freed to love others deeply. And we will be freed to bear the burdens and costs of this love, sometimes in quite surprising ways. All of this won’t take away those things in our world which inspire fear, worry and anxiety; but it will give them all a new meaning, as we are filled with God’s love – a love which casts out fear. Amen.

* From “The Reluctant Conversion of Oscar Romero” in the Mar/Apr issue of Sojourners Magazine. Online at http://www.sojo.net/magazine/index.cfm/action/sojourners/issue/Soj0003/article/000312.html

nothing, something, everything

I heard someone say today: I am nothing, God is everything.

I don't disagree with this, but I do wonder if there is another way of putting it.

I suppose that when I think in such terms, I tends to say something more like:

"I am something, but the something I am -- to the extent that it is good and creditable -- is only because of God." It is God the Holy Spirit working in me so that I might do that which is pleasing in his sight.

Sometimes I hear people say what I wrote in the last sentence, and I think: I know you pretty well. I don't think that if it weren't for the constant, active intervention of the Holy Spirit you'd somehow be an axe murderer or serial adulterer or corporate polluter or something like that. So that seems a dissonant sentence. But I think I've realised that it's true -- it's just that the persons that we have become, who we can think of not being rapists and war criminals, have become who they are through the Holy Spirit. We don't know them apart from who they are in God, and so any speculation about hypotheticals (who we'd be apart from God) might be entertaining pub conversation but is otherwise useless.

In this sense, that I am something (something good and creditable) is true and true of me. But it is not true of me essentially, in some abstraction from the work of God. It is truly mine, but only as it is from God. As in fact, everything that I have as 'me' (i.e. considered as the actual person I am, apart from hypotheticals) is in fact from God. In that way, it also makes sense to say that I am nothing, except as I have from God. Yet, there is an 'I' which can give repent and give praise, an I which is never apart from God, and so it seems to make more sense to say that in God, I am something.

This ''being something" is a gift from God; and a gift calls forth gratitude, humility, and responsibility. This gift calls me out from a false "I" to a true "I" which finds its entire identity in God and works out that identity in loving God and neighbor. Ironically, as it is worked out, the focus becomes far less on the "I" (in a Cartesian or in a modern narcissistic sense) and far more on the O/other.

This should in no way be construed as in any way saying something like "I'm OK, you're OK", which is not merely insipid but dangerous self-delusion. I mean instead to acknowledge the deep reality of sin, but embrace the ongoing work of God. In this way, perhaps, I may take God more seriously than I take either myself or sin. (But God forgive me if it is mere vanity!)

Street Wise: The Other Hand of God

Street Wise is a semiregular posting, featuring a selection of significant quotes and excerpts from something I've been reading.

From The Other Hand of God: The Holy Spirit as Universal Touch and Goal by Kilian McDonnell (Collegeville, MN: Michael Glazier. 2003.)

"[It] is not science which stimulates me to this audacious task [of writing on the Trinity]. I am rather impelled by a fire which burns in my soul. And if I am not successful in coming to my goal? And if I fail in my task? Then what? I will have had the joy of seeking the face of the Lord, of having employed all of my strength, without truce, to run the course, to vex myself, to exhaust myself... I have done what is possible, I have not found [the mystery of the triune God], but I have searched. I have called and he is the one who has not answered." (quoting Richard of St. Victor, p. 27.)

I love the passion in that quotation, and that Richard's theologizing flows out of that, rather than a dull, dry impulse to nail down God and gain exhaustive knowledge of God. I also love the wonderfully provocative statement "I have called and he is the one who has not answered."

"Richard [of St. Victor] is important also because he looks upon the Trinity as the supreme object of contemplation. Nonetheless, he grants that before contemplation comes philosophical speculation. Contemplation coming out of adoration does not dispense one from intellectual rigor. In order to prepare for contemplation, one needs a deep and progressive understanding of the world, the soul, and God. In this he followed his master Hugh of St. Victor, who wrote in a manual for students on the study of the artes and the scriptures: "Learn everything: you will see afterwards that nothing is superfluous and that there is no joy in a knowledge that is cramped and narrow." (p. 27,28)

Heads up, my future students: you will all hear this quotation from Hugh of St. Victor on the first day of class, and quite likely more frequently than that.

"The Trinity is about the personal force of God's love expressing itself in a reaching out beyond the divine Self to touch and transform humanity and creation and lead them back to their place of origin, the Father, in praise and wonder." (p. 115)

(Quoting Gabriel Marcel) "A problem is something which I meet, which I find complete before me, but which I can therefore lay siege to and reduce. But a mystery is something in which I myself am involved, and it can therefore only be thought of as a 'sphere where the distinction between what is in me and what is before me loses its meaning and its initial validity.' A genuine problem is subject to an appropriate technique by the exercise of which it is defined; whereas a mystery, by definition, transcends every conceivable technique." (p.213)