incarnation.2

to commemorate st. john of damascus i read dom gregory dix's the image and likeness of god which contained these wise words:

"it would not be an adequate expression of the truth to suppose that, in the actual circumstances of [jesus'] life, there was first to be an incarnation and then a redemption followed. rather there is a redemption by incarnation, or perhaps better still, a redeeming incanration. (pp. 39-39

the joys of the flesh

we forget the wonderful mysteries of incarnation to our considerable danger. especially in the west the church as tended to focus on the cross, as if this were the moment of redemption. but it is the incarnation that starts the process, as we note with our own bodies in the long tradition of bowing or kneeeling at the words in the creed, "incarnate of the holy spirit." jesus died because he was born. he died on a cross between two theives because this is the way our institutions, deluded by their own understanding of power, always respond to truth.

and the church has tended to follow augustine in his continuing manichaeism, and to be secuded by the brilliance of the platonists, in relegating the flesh to a place of unsalvageable evil.

john o'donahue in anam cara puts it very well: "religion has often presented the body as a source of evil, ambiguity, lust, and seduction. this is utterly false and irrelevent. the body is sacred. the origin of much of this negative thinking is a false interpretation of greek philosophy. the greeks were beautiful thinkers precisely because of the emphasis they placed on the divine. the divine haunted them, and they endeavoured in language and concept to echo the divine and fine some mirror for its presence. they were acutely aware of the gravity of the body and how it seemed to drag the divine too much toward the earth. they misconceived this attraction to the earth and saw in it a conflict with the world of the divine. they had no conception of the incarnation, in inkling of the resurrection." (p. 46)

lo, he comes, with clouds descending

today in the east, and in the celtic tradition, preparation begins for the feast of the nativity, the incarnation, christmas. call it advent, call it st. martin's fast, call it the nativity lent. as we read in the daily office from joel, we are called to "rend our hearts, not our garments."

of course for many of us the feast that approaches is the great american overspending consumer day. we are not concerned with rending our garments, but in buying new ones. once again it seems appropriate, as the prince of peace is closer than when we first believed, to lament, "oh that they knew the things that make for peace."

but it is also an opportunity for us to consider whether we might come to know the things that make for peace. where to begin? with the beatitudes, of course, recognizing that there is, as jim forest has so well written, a ladder of the beatitudes. we are only able to become peacemakers if we are also willing to start with our poverty of spirit. forty days is hardly long enough. but it is certainly long enough to begin.

all hallows day

coming up quickly is one of my favourite holidays, and the fifthteenth anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood: all saints day, or all hallows in the olde language, remembered by most of us these days i'm afraid only in the rather banal activities of the hallmark holiday of halloween.

but even halloween remembers the glory of the day, it being one of the major feasts which is still celebrated in the ancient hebrew (and celtic) manner beginning with the evening. (see the first chapter of genesis: "the evening and the morning were the . . . day.")

unfortunately each year there is a silly struggle between rather fundamentalist christians and neo-pagans about who "owns" the holiday. the fundies saying that the feast should not be celebrated by christians because it is pagan, the pagans claiming the catholics (hated fairly evenly by both sides) have "stolen" it. as if we all inhabited different planets, as if we could, as we so easily assume we do, create the creator according to our own principles.

but of course our understanding of creation and creator are closely linked, and that is why i find the longevity of this holiday so fascinating and exciting. everyone finds it one of the "thin spaces." here at the turn of the year, whether that year begins in september (for the orthodox) or on the first of november (for the celtic crew) or with the first sunday of advent (for the western church), is a time when the veil, the difference between kairos and chronos, even the space between augustine's city of man and city of god, is very small.

and it is a wonderful fulfillment and reminder of the gift of the holy spirit that we celebrate just six months away at pentecost. these two days, pentecost and all saints, are the antipodal feasts of the holy spirit, of the breath of the universe, of the wind which blows where it will, sanctifying "all sorts and conditions of men" (and women), often as much to their surprise as anyone else's. and it is a time for all of the rest of us to be reminded that we should "not dream it, be it." when else do so many wonderful paths of our fumbling seeking after the holy cross so wondrously?

earth momma vs. queen of heaven

we have just celebrated, or are about to celebrate if one is on the old calendar, a feast the official recognition of which by pius xii c. g. jung called the most important spiritual event of the twentieth century: the dormition of the theotokos or the assumption of the blessed virgin mary.

it is one of my favourite days of the year. because one of my favourite sentences in the gospel according to luke is "mary treasured all of these things, and pondered them in her heart." (2:19) (perhaps it's where her son got the idea that "wherever your treasure is, there you will find your heart." (matthew 6:20)) for me the day was a time of treasuring my friends, of sharing coffee and lunch, letters and postcards.

butsurrounding this feast of the blessdd virgin are as complicated a group of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs as one can find about any person (or about any idea, as some think of her not so much as a person as a principle or a concept. i was struck by this way of thinking last week when a good friend asked me what i thought of the concept of wisdom. i don't think of wisdom as a concept, but as a person). at one extreme are my pagan friends who claim that the church has somehow "stolen" the great mother, pointing for instance to ancient depictions of isis and osiris as some sort of proof of the theft. and there are other, rather evangelical sorts, who find any marian devotions to be pagan idolatry.

this complication, this controversy, is a way, i think, that we can begin to understand some of the complications of thoughts and feelings and beliefs that the church tried to resolve at nicea. this is important because nicea is controversial all over again following the hooplay around the da vinci code .

how can a woman give birth to the messiah, whom we have come to experience as the holy one, as god? also at stake is the historicity of the birth of the messiah, by which i mean that in contrast to what is usually taken for granted by the historical jesus scholars so popular these days, the actual second person of the trinity, god the son, eternally begotten of the father, was indeed born from a virgin woman, mary of galilee, without sexual intercourse. those who find this impossible to accept, like the jesus seminar folks, simply discount it. those who do accept it find it difficult to accept that mary was not herself somehow unique not only in her actions but in her ontology. this difficulty finds expression in the roman catholic church's dogma of the immaculate conception.

it seems helpful to consider what is gained, what ideas are guarded, in both views. if mary is primarily queen of heaven, if she is ontologically different from other women, then she likely gives birth to a jesus whose feet never quite touch the ground. this idea was proposed by the docetists. if she is the earth momma, then she and jesus are completely human. mary, as an ordinary woman, flesh as are we all, gives space for the holy spirit to take on flesh as we all do.

approaching transfiguration

for the churches that use some form of the post-vatican ii three-year lectionery, these past few weeks have been touring the gospel according to mark's amazing chapters starting with jesus' return to his hometown where he "was amazed with their unbelief" and working towards the transfiguration, the readings for sunday. it is, i think, unfortunate that the lectionery doesn't follow all of mark's narrative, which is subtle and packed with meaning. instead, we will read luke's account of the events on mount tabor, and then go to john's sixth chapter to hear what he has to say about the bread that the twelve didn't understand when they were in the boat and jesus had planned to "pass them by."

that walking-on-water account is pivotal to the unfolding of jesus' identity and the disciples' recognizing it. some context: moses and elijah will be with jesus on the mountain; they are the ones who saw the holy one pass by, and recognized him. (one of the meanings of hebrew in hebrew and aramaic is one who passes by: see the gospel of thomas , logion 47). and of course there is that wonderful line in psalm 140 (hebrew 141) which in the septuagint reads "i am alone until i pass by."

limestone

although not much has happened on the old blog these days, much has happened in my life. i've come to the place where limestone is born, the ozark mountains, to try a time as a hermit. ok. hermits don't really have access to computers. a semi-hermit, living on the edge of eureka springs, where there is a library.

why would i do such a thing, leaving the quite cozy community in mild bellingham for a place with extreme weather and ticks and chiggers (and lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!)? because the world is just so very noisy. because the church, at least the public church, has put all its hope in horses, although they are now horses neatly contained in internal combustion engines, with what passes for theology reduced to bumper stickers.

because i wanted to, as the message translates the revelation to st. john, "to listen to the windwords, to hear the spirit blowing through the churches."

so now i'm discipling myself to be less noisy. it's easy to get away from television and cars. now to clear the clutter that lodges within.

pray for me, brothers and sisters, that i might hear.

entering lent

last week i went up to vancouver and visited the bookstore at regent college, where a new industry has emerged around dietrich bonhoeffer. and now most of my friends are talking about lenten reading and stuff, lent being to christianity as christmas is to the mall in terms of commercialization.

my own preparations for lent are being formed mainly within the context of that odd passage in the gospel according to john, chapter 12, vv. 20 ff.: "among those who went up to worship at the festival [i.e., the passover] were some greeks. these approached philip, who came from bethsaida in galilee, and put this request to him, 'sir, we should like to see jesus.'[i love that it is philip they come to, since it will be peter who asks jesus to see the father] jesus' "reply" hardly seems like a reply at all: "now the hours has come for the son of man to be glofiried. in all truth i tell, you, unless a wheat grain falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest. anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. whoever serves me, must follow me, and my servant will be with me wherever i am."

how little i am willing to follow, because of course i know where jesus is going. jerusalem my happy home is happy, and my home, because of calvary and good friday. so i play at being christian, letting myself be distracted by the big issues of today's church, such as whether gay men should be allowed to wear pointy hats and capes. meanwhile, my greed is torturing and maiming and killing people all around the world, and destroying their homes, even while i type this.

can this be the fast the lord requires of me? is this the witness i'm called to be?

did you forget this week

we are just passing the middle of the week of prayer for christian unity, which began with the feast of the confession of st. peter, the 18th. of january, and which ends with the feast of the conversion of st. paul, the 25th. of january. these dates are, i believe, quite significant, and have much to say about how we should be "churching" these days.

first,the confession of st. peter: i was at a coffee shop last week when a friend was discussing the difference between the episcopal church and i'm-not-sure-what-part of the church. he described episcopalians as "more liberal." i did not mention how odd i found that description of a communion which has often been described as the republican party on its knees. but i did suggest that his was a very inadequate and perhaps even anti-evangelical way of talking about the church. the episcopal church, i suggested, has tried to embrace the continuing reforms of the church while maintaining orthodox christology and liturgy. what is important, the readings for the feast of st. peter remind us, is who we say jesus is. this is the experience upon which the church is built.

then, the conversion of st. paul: paul gets knocked off his horse. he has been on his way to damascus to clean up the heretics to proper pharasaic judaism there, a bunch who call themselves something like followers of the way. "why are you persecuting me?" jesus asks him. in this powerful experience of the risen lord the identity of jeshua, the messiah/jesus, the christ is made clear to be found in his body, the church.

what this says to us, i think, is that when we easily get very excited about what seem to be major divisions within the church, and spend a lot of time condemning those parts of the church with which we disagree, we are doing a very good job of misrepresenting christ to those who do not yet know him, of making him seem divided, of reducing what can be a powerful experience, if we do not hide, into a set of intellectual propositions. rather we should open ourselves to the experience of god, who is just as anxious to walk with us in the cool of the evening now as he was with our first parents. and we should listen carefully to who we say christ is, both as we proclaim that experience ourselves, and as our brothers and sisters share their own experiences. this listening, i have come to believe, is one of our most important spiritual tasks.