A good friend responded to my recent faculty devotion with a brief email saying, succinctly and correctly, "easy for you to say." Naturally I responded at length. Part of my response is below, lightly edited.
I'm more and more convinced of the deeply fallacious nature of our culture's tendency to resort to "easy for you to say"--i.e. to shift attention away from the validity of the claim made and instead focus on whether the person relaying the claim has the right to say it based on their personal situatedness and experience. And in this case, "relaying the claim" is the right phrase, since the claim isn't mine but rather that of Jesus and that of St. Paul, both of whom exchanged privilege for suffering and death.
Do I have their cred (divine and apostolic, respectively)? Of course not. And I am personally much more able to identify with the St. Peter in the courtyard of Caiaphas and especially the apostles fishing out on the sea (who denied the claim of Jesus indirectly--by avoidance and redirection rather than outright rejection) than with the St. Peter who was carried "wither thou wouldest not" at the end of his life. I can more identify with the three disciples snoozing in the Garden of Gethsemane than with their Lord's "not my will but thine be done" on the cross. The demands of Christian love weren't easy for Jesus, and they weren't easy for the apostles.
But what's our job as Christians, if not to present to each other the demands of Jesus? If not to challenge each other to grow in holiness no matter the circumstances? Grace doesn't exist to underwrite or excuse our laziness and complacence. It does not even exist to make us feel better about ourselves as sinners. It exists to transform us "from one degree of glory to another," to raise us from death to life, to fashion us into the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. And, if we let it do its work, it surely will change how we understand ourselves--not as the sinners we once were, but as saints participating in the divine life.
I've long been convinced that Christian leaders (especially priests and pastors, but sometimes also bosses) are almost always wrong to temper their sermons/instructions with "I'm the chief of sinners" or "I really struggle with this myself." What's the point of that stuff? I know it's intended to reflect humility and authenticity, but isn't it basically selfish--to avoid coming across as judgy/preachy?--but what's the purpose of Christian leadership if not to judge rightly and preach truly! And what's the outcome of those disclaimers? Doesn't it just soften the instructions?--as though Jesus never really meant all that stuff in the Sermon of the Mount, as though he was really just exaggerating for effect.
Of course we need wisdom, prudence, and compassion as we call each other to holiness--but (a) there is never a good time to accommodate sin, though there are plenty of times in which a word of correction will only increase sin (so, again, prudence is necessary) and (b) there are simply no circumstances in which the call to love is suspended or abrogated.
Anyone who says otherwise is preaching a different gospel than the gospel of Christ.
Showing posts with label faculty devotions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faculty devotions. Show all posts
Sunday, November 26, 2017
Monday, November 20, 2017
An apostasy that is nearly invisible
When I gave a faculty devotion this past Tuesday on self-sacrifice, I did not then realize that it would be but a pale imitation of Fr. Glenn's beautiful and profound sermon this past Sunday meditating on the final passage of the Gospel According to St. John. The Gospel closes with a fishing trip by seven apostles--a return to the vocation from which Jesus had called them--and then an odd and poignant meal these apostles share with Jesus on the beach.
(In a previous faculty devotion, I reflected on the recurrent centrality of food in the resurrection narratives.)
From Fr. Glenn's sermon:
Read the whole thing.
(In a previous faculty devotion, I reflected on the recurrent centrality of food in the resurrection narratives.)
From Fr. Glenn's sermon:
There is an apostasy that draws no attentions to itself because it is so practical. There is an apostasy that is nearly invisible because it hides out in the open spaces of a man’s or woman’s life. Jesus had promised to make them fishers of men and they, after all this, settled for their old way of life. Is that all there is to it? The destiny of all mankind, of all creation, is in the hands of these few men, and what is their posture toward the Pearl of Great Price? Here is an apostasy that so practical, so obviously essential to life, so self-evident and necessary that it will go unnoticed except when it is brought into the presence Christ and his searching, all-demanding claim upon your life just as it was experienced on the beach that morning as seven Apostles ate breakfast with Jesus. Such is the searching, all-demanding eucharistic presence of Christ that comes to us in worship and in perfect judgment.
...
"Peter do you love me more than these?" I do not for a moment think there is any reason, textually or morally, to think that Jesus was asking Peter whether or not he, Peter, loved him, Jesus, more than any of the other disciples loved him. Not at all. I think our Lord may well have gestured toward the practical gear and hardware of their practical life: their fishing boats, the ropes, the well-tied nets, the gear and tackle, the fresh fire-coal, the strange, speckled, dappled trout. Do you love me more than these? Do you love me more than the practical? Do you love me more than what others say is feasible, than what they say is real life — do you love me more than this ready-made, ready-at-hand way of getting through? Do you love me more than your life?
Read the whole thing.
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
St. Paul, Slavery, and Love
What follows is a devotion given to the faculty this morning, in which I gave a provisional/tentative reading of St. Paul's instructions about slavery and their relationship to the biblical picture of love. I would certainly love any feedback or criticism!
I want to talk this morning about St. Paul and the institution of slavery. As an American history teacher, I think often about the Bible and its relationship to slavery, but today it’s especially relevant, since Titus 2 was appointed as a reading in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP). I saw that, and then I saw that today’s blessing in Seeking God’s Face (a shared faculty devotion) comes from the Sermon on the Mount--and I think St. Paul’s instructions to the enslaved are intimately connected to Jesus’ instructions to the persecuted.
St. Paul on slavery might seem to be odd devotional material, but I think the apostle provides great (though certainly troubling) insight into what it means to love on a day-to-day basis.
I want to talk this morning about St. Paul and the institution of slavery. As an American history teacher, I think often about the Bible and its relationship to slavery, but today it’s especially relevant, since Titus 2 was appointed as a reading in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP). I saw that, and then I saw that today’s blessing in Seeking God’s Face (a shared faculty devotion) comes from the Sermon on the Mount--and I think St. Paul’s instructions to the enslaved are intimately connected to Jesus’ instructions to the persecuted.
St. Paul on slavery might seem to be odd devotional material, but I think the apostle provides great (though certainly troubling) insight into what it means to love on a day-to-day basis.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Reigning as Christ
I gave the following as a faculty devotion. It's been edited for posting here.
What we do is consistent with who we are. Each creature does what he is--acts outwardly what he is inwardly. And who we are, Hopkins says--if we are that just man of grace (that man justified, or made just, by grace)--is Christ.
So who are we? Christ. And what does Christ do? Well, he reigns.
“As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame”
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.
What we do is consistent with who we are. Each creature does what he is--acts outwardly what he is inwardly. And who we are, Hopkins says--if we are that just man of grace (that man justified, or made just, by grace)--is Christ.
So who are we? Christ. And what does Christ do? Well, he reigns.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Broiled Fish and Resurrected Bodies
I gave the following as a faculty devotion. It's been slightly edited for posting here. Many of the thoughts stem from E.L. Mascall's Christ, the Christian, and the Church, "Early Traditions and the Origins of Chrsitianity" by N.T. Wright, and Fr. Glenn's recent sermons.
READING: Luke 24:36-43
I find the fish particularly interesting, because it fits in with a series of events in Jesus' ministry connected to food and drink. Think of the turning of the water into wine, feedings of thousands, the Last Supper.
Food is a particularly recurrent feature of the resurrected Jesus. Earlier in Luke 24—just before the account we read—St. Luke tells us of Christ's appearance on the road to Emmaus, during which he breaks bread with the two followers of Christ. On Thursday Sarah will give us a no-doubt brilliant exegesis of Jesus' post-fishing breakfast with some disciples. And here, of course, here we have Jesus snacking on some broiled fish. It says he “ate it before them,” which paints an odd picture to me—Jesus chowing down on fish, everyone staring at him, mouths probably still agape.
These food details interest me, and not just because I like food. Growing up, I interpreted the appearances of Christ between his resurrection and ascension as primarily about proof that he was in fact raised from the dead. That's obviously a huge part of these stories. It wasn't until much later that I started thinking about those appearances in light of the promised and yet-to-come resurrection of the dead.
READING: Luke 24:36-43
As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.The newspaper headline would be: “Resurrected Christ appears in crowded room, eats broiled fish.”
I find the fish particularly interesting, because it fits in with a series of events in Jesus' ministry connected to food and drink. Think of the turning of the water into wine, feedings of thousands, the Last Supper.
Food is a particularly recurrent feature of the resurrected Jesus. Earlier in Luke 24—just before the account we read—St. Luke tells us of Christ's appearance on the road to Emmaus, during which he breaks bread with the two followers of Christ. On Thursday Sarah will give us a no-doubt brilliant exegesis of Jesus' post-fishing breakfast with some disciples. And here, of course, here we have Jesus snacking on some broiled fish. It says he “ate it before them,” which paints an odd picture to me—Jesus chowing down on fish, everyone staring at him, mouths probably still agape.
These food details interest me, and not just because I like food. Growing up, I interpreted the appearances of Christ between his resurrection and ascension as primarily about proof that he was in fact raised from the dead. That's obviously a huge part of these stories. It wasn't until much later that I started thinking about those appearances in light of the promised and yet-to-come resurrection of the dead.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Story and the Church
I gave this as a faculty devotion. In some ways it's a continuation of my earlier two posts on "Teaching History, Confronting Suffering." In other ways, perhaps, it's a response to those posts.
I’m going to start with a passage from The Historian’s Craft, a classic by the French historian Marc Bloch. The book is famously unfinished—unfinished because, in the midst of its composition, its author, who was a member of the French Resistance, was tortured and executed by the Gestapo.
In it Bloch writes, “Christianity is a religion of historians. Other religious systems have been able to found their beliefs and their rites on a mythology nearly outside human time. For sacred books, the Christians have books of history, and their liturgies commemorate, together with episodes from the terrestrial life of a God, the annals of the church and the lives of the saints. Christianity is historical in another and, perhaps, even deeper sense. The destiny of humankind, placed between the Fall and the Judgment, appears to its eyes as a long adventure, of which each life, each individual pilgrimage, is in its turn a reflection. It is in time and, therefore, in history that the drama of Sin and Redemption, the central axis of all Christian thought, is unfolded.”
Indeed, the Christian faith rests wholly upon the historical reality of Christ crucified and Christ risen again. As St. Paul writes, "...if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied."
It matters, in other words, that Christ was actually—historically, physically—resurrected. For if he only served as a good example and the resurrection is only spiritual and non-corporeal, Paul indicated, we're a bunch of fools who deserve pity. It’s the story of Christ’s resurrection that lends our faith the weight of reality.
A bit earlier in the same letter, St. Paul corrects the Corinthian church’s abysmal failures with a story. “For I received from the Lord,” he says, “what I also delivered to you”... and then he tells the story of the Lord's supper. And so, when we take communion, we also tell that story. And retell it, over and over again until he comes again. Our ecumenical creeds, too, are stories. The heftiest portion of the Nicene Creed tells who the Lord Jesus Christ is through story—it tells us he was begotten of his Father before all worlds, that all things were made through him, that for us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man; he was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again...
The four gospels tell—and between the four of them, retell—story after story after story. The Old Testament is filled with books of history—and the books that aren’t historical, strictly speaking, are stuffed with stories too. I could go on and on.
I have spent a good while thinking about what it means to be a people of history—a storied people. I am thinking about this as a Christian first and foremost, but also secondarily as a historian, and now as a teacher of American history at a Christian school.
And I have to admit that I am extraordinarily cautious about the uses to which I put history.
I’m going to start with a passage from The Historian’s Craft, a classic by the French historian Marc Bloch. The book is famously unfinished—unfinished because, in the midst of its composition, its author, who was a member of the French Resistance, was tortured and executed by the Gestapo.
In it Bloch writes, “Christianity is a religion of historians. Other religious systems have been able to found their beliefs and their rites on a mythology nearly outside human time. For sacred books, the Christians have books of history, and their liturgies commemorate, together with episodes from the terrestrial life of a God, the annals of the church and the lives of the saints. Christianity is historical in another and, perhaps, even deeper sense. The destiny of humankind, placed between the Fall and the Judgment, appears to its eyes as a long adventure, of which each life, each individual pilgrimage, is in its turn a reflection. It is in time and, therefore, in history that the drama of Sin and Redemption, the central axis of all Christian thought, is unfolded.”
Indeed, the Christian faith rests wholly upon the historical reality of Christ crucified and Christ risen again. As St. Paul writes, "...if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied."
It matters, in other words, that Christ was actually—historically, physically—resurrected. For if he only served as a good example and the resurrection is only spiritual and non-corporeal, Paul indicated, we're a bunch of fools who deserve pity. It’s the story of Christ’s resurrection that lends our faith the weight of reality.
A bit earlier in the same letter, St. Paul corrects the Corinthian church’s abysmal failures with a story. “For I received from the Lord,” he says, “what I also delivered to you”... and then he tells the story of the Lord's supper. And so, when we take communion, we also tell that story. And retell it, over and over again until he comes again. Our ecumenical creeds, too, are stories. The heftiest portion of the Nicene Creed tells who the Lord Jesus Christ is through story—it tells us he was begotten of his Father before all worlds, that all things were made through him, that for us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man; he was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again...
The four gospels tell—and between the four of them, retell—story after story after story. The Old Testament is filled with books of history—and the books that aren’t historical, strictly speaking, are stuffed with stories too. I could go on and on.
I have spent a good while thinking about what it means to be a people of history—a storied people. I am thinking about this as a Christian first and foremost, but also secondarily as a historian, and now as a teacher of American history at a Christian school.
And I have to admit that I am extraordinarily cautious about the uses to which I put history.
Monday, January 23, 2012
A Faculty Devotion
First I'm going to read a few scattered verses from today's readings:
"He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again."
"Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a strong man shouting because of wine."
"In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul. My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you."
There's this songwriter named Dan Bejar who is one of my favorite people in music today. The lyrics I can initially pick out of his songs are invariably compelling, but when I write them down or look them up, I discover that they're basically gibberish--random turns of phrase, words strung together in aesthetically pleasing ways. The more I try to wrestle concrete meaning out of them, the more any kind of sense slip away. When he's asked about it, Bejar says that mining for intellectual meaning from of his lyrics is a mistake. He wants his lyrics to do something rather than mean something, to have an affect rather than to have sense.
As I read today's readings I was struck first of all by their beauty. Then I worked through what they meant. Unlike Bejar's lyrics, Scripture doesn't lose shape when you dissect it. It is dense with meaning. Today's readings are about who God's people are, and you can glean a lot of meaty, compelling meaning from them.
That's part of the marvel of Scripture. You can read it many different ways for many different ends, all valuable.
I grew up in the Navigators ministry. If any of you are familiar with the Navs, they have a strong emphasis on Scripture memory. This is a very good thing, but among the Navs there is sometimes a tendency to emphasize Scripture's didactic role to the exclusion of everything else, to drill into the Bible to extract application, application, and only application.
Given what little I've read of Desiring the Kingdom, I'm probably preaching to the choir, but the power of Scripture’s beauty been on my mind. Along with the Bible’s cognitive worth, I think we should also be cultivating a sense of Scripture's life-giving beauty. So, quickly, I'm going to reread those passages and then close with a prayer from the Book of Common Prayer that's been close to my heart these past few weeks.
"He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again."
"Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a strong man shouting because of wine."
"In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul. My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you."
Let us pray.
Almighty God, heavenly Father, who hast blessed us with the joy and care of children; Give us light and strength so to train them, that they may love whatsoever things are true and pure and lovely and of good report, following the example of their Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
"He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again."
"Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a strong man shouting because of wine."
"In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul. My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you."
There's this songwriter named Dan Bejar who is one of my favorite people in music today. The lyrics I can initially pick out of his songs are invariably compelling, but when I write them down or look them up, I discover that they're basically gibberish--random turns of phrase, words strung together in aesthetically pleasing ways. The more I try to wrestle concrete meaning out of them, the more any kind of sense slip away. When he's asked about it, Bejar says that mining for intellectual meaning from of his lyrics is a mistake. He wants his lyrics to do something rather than mean something, to have an affect rather than to have sense.
As I read today's readings I was struck first of all by their beauty. Then I worked through what they meant. Unlike Bejar's lyrics, Scripture doesn't lose shape when you dissect it. It is dense with meaning. Today's readings are about who God's people are, and you can glean a lot of meaty, compelling meaning from them.
That's part of the marvel of Scripture. You can read it many different ways for many different ends, all valuable.
I grew up in the Navigators ministry. If any of you are familiar with the Navs, they have a strong emphasis on Scripture memory. This is a very good thing, but among the Navs there is sometimes a tendency to emphasize Scripture's didactic role to the exclusion of everything else, to drill into the Bible to extract application, application, and only application.
Given what little I've read of Desiring the Kingdom, I'm probably preaching to the choir, but the power of Scripture’s beauty been on my mind. Along with the Bible’s cognitive worth, I think we should also be cultivating a sense of Scripture's life-giving beauty. So, quickly, I'm going to reread those passages and then close with a prayer from the Book of Common Prayer that's been close to my heart these past few weeks.
"He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again."
"Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a strong man shouting because of wine."
"In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul. My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you."
Let us pray.
Almighty God, heavenly Father, who hast blessed us with the joy and care of children; Give us light and strength so to train them, that they may love whatsoever things are true and pure and lovely and of good report, following the example of their Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)