Sarx

Last time, in this series on the “Big Three” (see the menu in the sidebar, there) I wrote about God having flesh. And there was an interesting conversation in the comments afterward. I tired to make it clear that these essay are documenting what I think is needed for Christianity to make sense. I recognise there are other views – with more and with less theology involved. But I’d hope to sit at table with those folks as well. As far as it goes I’m all for Christian Minimalism. These are the things I need. Your mileage may differ. Here’s the promised 3rd essay in the series of Incarnation.

AINT JOHN’S Gospel says, “The Word became Flesh”. Last time I wrote about what that might mean: God having diapers. I want to explain why this doctrine of incarnation is important – not the particulars, to be honest. I don’t think it’s important that Jesus had one or two wills, or what the real meaning of “Fullness of Godhead” dwelling in him might mean.

As I noted in the first essay on this topic, the community came to this discussion over the Eucharist, recounting their memories of Jesus as their shared his teachings and experienced his presence in the breaking of bread and in the fellowship of the community. It’s one thing to say God has become Man and overthrown the social order. It’s a second step to process out what that might imply about God having a navel. The third step in this process is summed up in this line from St. Gregory Nazianzus “That which was not assumed is not healed; but that which is united to God is saved”. (Remember, “healed” and “saved” are the same word in Greek…)
Henceforth there is no division between “sacred” and “Secular”. Jesus represents the “tearing down of the middle wall of partition” as Paul said. Paul was speaking about the division between Jew and Gentile, but he also spoke of no division between salve and free and between male and female. St Paul’s discovery of the radical message of Jesus is also an overthrow of everything Jews knew about God – and an increasing number of Gentiles, too.

To the Jewish mind, God has no flesh, no body. Things of the body, of the flesh, of this world were in most cases subordinate to God and in some cases, “beneath” God – as in “that is beneath him”. To imagine him with hunger, with desires or needs was seen as decidedly beneath God. God was beyond all that. And when we – as mortal humans – experienced those things it was either “just the way the world is” or else a result of God punishing us, or else just our own sins. This view of an ethical, transcendent deity who was beyond all this produced a lot of Good things in the human community. But it also created divisions: most who worshipped the One knew the rest of the world to be meaningless or even evil. This wasn’t part of Judaism originally – it grew up inside it.

Some Jews believed that the reason God had cursed Israel with Roman oppression was because Israel was not Good Enough for redemption. So there grew up a tradition of keeping Jews “pure” from contamination. The contamination arose from any contact with Gentiles. One couldn’t even go into their house. Certain foods were considered “unclean” and, by rabbinical debate, this was expanded. The tradition is called “building a fence around the Torah”. The next step is to build a fence around the fence – and then a fence around the fence around the fence, and so on. The classic example of this is the forbidding of eatting milk and meat together:

This arose from the biblical prohibition of boiling a calf in its mother’s milk – a mark of cruelty to do so. This evolved into avoiding meat and dairy in the same dish, and thence to avoiding having them on the table at the same time. Over time it became avoiding them in the same meal all together. Today pious Jews have different sets of dishes, different shelves in the fridge – or even different refrigerators. Some have totally different kitchens for meat and dairy!

In the process of building fences some Jews developed complex laws around washing hands and the image of physical cleanness fell into the idea of ritual purity. Various bodily functions were considered impure (following ancient tribal superstitions about bodily fluids) and the progression from ritual impurity to actual impurity was quick.

From such ideas it was a logical step to progress to the idea that those who participated in such uncleanness were, themselves, terribly gross, uncivilised barbarians. Ie: Gentiles. Us. And the World. A man willing to eat anything – even pork and shellfish! – would be willing to rape your daughter. A woman willing to walk about in public without her husband’s permission must be a trollop.

This isn’t only an ancient division: it is a living part of Yiddish culture, even today. If you think I’m loopy, go out and buy Born to Kvetch, an excellent book in its own right, but filled with linguistic examples of an attitude of superiority and aloofness. These are valid parts of the Jewish culture although much of Judaism has evolved beyond this understanding. Much of the Jewish spectrum, from “Secular” to “Modern Orthodox” has over come this suspicion of Gentiles and, by extension, of the World. Hyperpious or, “Uberfum” communities, however, still fit this stereotype.

If you have trouble understanding this, imagine the traditional WASPy ideas about the sexuality of Blacks and Hispanics. Those things that we put down, we also make “dirty” (in a racy, libidinous way). The world is dirty. And all dirty things stick together. So we try to stay away. In an older era this meant Jazz or Rock and Roll. It’s also hip-hop and “gangsta” fashion. It’s all a race-based form of “the world is dirty but we must be pure.

And, to be certain, we see this problem in Christian communities too: this is why I said in the earlier essay that Christians still get this one wrong. As Father Joseph offers in a sermon I first heard him preach nearly five years ago:

The pendulum may swing otherwise. You’ve seen them: the “Orthodox Taliban.” The man grows long hair and beard, forgets how to smile. The woman covers herself from head to toe — her modesty smothers her dignity. [aka, the "ortho-burqa" - DHR] They both stop bathing. There’s no visible joy in their life. Their wrists are covered with wool knots. They eat only broccoli; tofu is reserved for feast days. They begin shopping for a home — preferably a tent or a lean-to — out in the woods, sans the burden of electricity. These things may not be harmful in and of themselves. Yet oftentimes, when Converts confuse such “asceticism” with Orthodoxy, it can have dire results.

Remember St Gregory of Nazianzus: “That which was not assumed is not healed; but that which is united to God is saved”. That which is united to God… In Jesus, that is not only the “fullness of Godhead” but also the “fullness of humanity”.

Certainly: this is not in particulars. Jesus was a man – not a woman. This doesn’t mean women are not saved (although some have tried to argue it so). What it does mean is that there is nothing impure in humanity of itself. Yes, there are impurities which we pickup as we go along. But Jesus as God-Man is a sign that simply being “anthropos” is not bad.

It’s good.

Anything that is fully human – including all the things we don’t like such as body odour, farts, morning erections, monthly cycles, hormones – anything like that is assumed into the Godhead. It matters not if one is a Jew or a Gentile, a man or a woman. It matters not if one is of any “lower class” or in any way broken. (Would that we all lived up to this ideal – some churches forbid anyone disabled from being clergy.)

Eastern Rite hymns on the incarnation include this line: “Angels marvel to see a human high above them.” That which we are – in our best mode – Jesus is. And this is now assumed into the fullness of Godhood.

Here are some more hymns on the incarnation, from the feast of the Ascension:

When you came to the mount of Olives, O Christ, to fulfil the Father’s good pleasure, the Angels of heaven were amazed and those beneath the earth shuddered in fear; the Disciples stood by trembling with joy as you spoke to them; as a throne a waiting cloud had been prepared opposite them, while heaven opening its gates appeared in beauty, and the earth reveals its hidden vaults, so that Adam’s descent was made known and his ascent again. But your footsteps were raised up, as if by a hand, while your mouth was heard loudly giving a blessing; a cloud received you and heaven took you within. You wrought this great and marvellous work, Lord, for the salvation of our souls.

O God, having renewed in yourself Adam’s nature, which had descended to the lower parts of the earth, you took it up to-day above every rule and authority; as you loved it, so you made it sit with you; as you had compassion on it, so You united it to Yourself; as united with it, so you suffered with it; as not subject to suffering, yet you suffered and glorified it with yourself. But the Bodiless powers were saying: Who is this man of beauty? Not man only, but both God and man, both together they appear. And so the astonished Angels flying in shining robes cried out to the Disciples: Men of Galilee, this Jesus who has gone from you as man and God, will come again as God-man, judge of living and dead, granting the faithful remission of sins and his great mercy.

When you were taken up in glory, Christ God, while your Disciples watched, the clouds received you with your flesh; the gates of heaven were lifted up; the choir of Angels rejoiced with gladness; the higher powers cried out, saying; Lift up our gates, you rulers, and the King of glory will enter. While the Disciples, amazed, were saying: Good Shepherd, do not be parted from us, but send us your all-holy Spirit, to guide and strengthen our souls.

O Lord, when as you are good you had fulfilled the mystery hidden from ages and generations, you came with your Disciples to the mount of Olives, having with you her who bore you, the Maker and Creator of all things; for it was necessary that she who had suffered so greatly as a mother at your passion, should also be filled with joy beyond measure at the glory of your flesh. We too sharing in the joy of your ascent to heaven, O Master, glorify your great mercy which has come to us.

And as Jesus ascends into heaven, in “the glory of [his] flesh” so do we: for the teaching is that “As in Adam all die, so in Christ are all made alive.” All of us. The flesh isn’t fallen: it is restored because God shares it. Beyond that: God knows hunger, loss, sorrow, want, desire. God knows fear, terror, pain. Not in just the theoretical way implied by omniscience, but rather in a personal way, a direct way. God knows what it is to be a refugee, in strange places, arrested, imprisoned. God knows death with a first-person intimacy. And he has triumphed over it. Each of these now becomes not our destruction: but our pathway to salvation.

And so, also the world. St Peter’s vision of eating unclean animals (when God says, “Call nothing I’ve made unclean!”) as well as Paul’s mingling of Jews with Gentiles in the Church are signs of this social revolution. The World is not dirty. We are restored in Jesus.

God-in-Jesus was “like us in every way, but without sin”, ie, without that disconnect that breaks our human communion with God and with each other. Never – until he allowed his own death – did Jesus experience the breakdown of communion that brings us each a thousand little deaths every day.

And the idea of this communion leads us to Trinity – the next set of essays. In the course of three essays about Trinity, I will turn around this walk. As we went from Eucharist to Incarnation, and then to Trinity, I’ll turn around and come back out again discussing God’s connection, God’s world and our salvation.