Clicking the Ruby Slippers

As I blogged a while ago, reading Dom Gregory Dix’ Jew and Greek, I was confused and surprised by his dual assertions that:

A) When meeting Gentiles, Jewish ideas about Jesus’ divine power needed to be expressly stated by assertions of Jesus’ divinity.
B) Nothing much changed as the Church evolved from a sect of Judaism to a mostly-Gentile movement.

But it makes sense, from a cultural standpoint. Even today, we hear about Rabbis who are especially holy and maybe even the Messiah. But we never hear of Jews saying Rabbi X is the Son of God and God Incarnate. Such concepts arise from Gentiles and from a Gentile reading of the Old Testament (and, specifically, from a Gentile reading of a Greek Translation of the Old Testament). Here is the original post on the topic from 2007. Read the discussion and you’ll find a link to part II. I’m most thankful to Fr E, William Tighe and Chris Jones for profound contributions to that discussion. (Rereading it for this post was a sheer joy!)

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It’s Jesus’ Fault!

The Archbishop of Genoa and President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, said this week the impossibility of divorced and remarried Catholics receiving Communion “does not depend on an external disposition but rather comes from the interior of the sacrament of the Eucharist itself, the sacrament of the perennial unity between the love of Christ and humanity.”

I rather like that. The problem isn’t in the sinners who have done this thing: rather it’s in the bread and the wine. They told us we can’t give communion to you when we asked ‘em. Which I find odd: because Jesus gave communion to Judas - who had already sold him away.

This is the problem I have with all the traditions of men impinging on the gospel: it’s not that they are there - they will always be there! It’s that we imagine we can know more than Jesus and the Twelve even here. The traditions of our communities are important. But we confuse them with the Gospel at every turn.

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Prots & D. I. V. O. R. C. E.

Several readers of these pages have made comments about Protestant attitudes to divorces and non-hetero forms of sexuality.

I confess that, while not seeing a causal relation, I have bought their historical argument. Until now.

Bishop Alan posts on Tradition, Ancient and Modern:

Interestingly enough, before the roaring twenties the marriage of divorcees was actually mandatory in the Church of England. Banning it was an attempt to stem the growing tide of divorce after the first world war.

Yes, that’s the 1920s.

While I well know about RC teaching on Divorce, I know that the Orthodox are better about it. I’ll pick my own “oldest church”, thanks. Here’s another example of how our Modern Conservatives have confused life in the 1950s Sitcom, Leave it to Beaver, with what life is all about.

Rick Fabian on Celebration Ad Orientem

I love this paragraph from Worship at St Gregory’s. I’m sure it’s exactly what B16 and others have in mind when urging a departure from the innovation of celebration Versus Populum. I post it here because it might get missed in the middle of my series of postings from his book. I’m sure some, at least, will enjoy the ironic support.

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The table’s flat side is the liturgical “west” side: thus the Presider faces the same way throughout the service, at bema and table alike, effectively orientating the whole gathering in the same direction as the service progresses from “west to east.” L. Bouyer, in Liturgy and Architecture (1967) argues that Jews and early Christians orientated their worship spaces toward a focus beyond the building - facing the temple sacrifices or the rising sun, just as mosques, which derive from Jewish and Christian buildings, face Mecca - and that orientation is crucial for liturgical action and design. Bouyer opposes the current fashion for standing the Presider beyond the table, facing the people (versus populum or “westward” celebration) as a misinformed historical fancy that wrecks the orientation of ancient worship. Since adopting our present “eastward” arrangement, I notice that “westward” arrangements elsewhere do not kill orientation, but rather focus it disconcertingly on the president’s person - as indeed apsidal thrones were meant to do, when the military governor or magistrate sat there. By contrast, our plan puts the clergy among the people, to lead rather than confront them, and orientates the whole assembly toward the chief symbols in the building.

Hospitality

This Sunday’s (yesterday’s) reading from the Revised Common Lectionary (for Proper 6, Year A) included the passage recounting “The Hospitality of Abraham.”

The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant.

While Christians evolved a reading of this story that has the Lord having supper with Abraham and Sarah, the Jewish reading sees a break: The Lord appeared… and while Abraham was in communion with God, these three guys showed up (angels, according to later Jewish understanding).

The point of the Hebrew text is Abraham’s hospitality to these strangers was such that even being wrapped up in communion with God would not prevent him from serving lunch to strangers on the street.

In this, the Jewish understanding is rather like the Desert Fathers who said even if one is at prayer, one should go to the door if a brother calls. They said this citing John - how can you love God whom you do not see, if you fail to love your brother whom you do not see?

But they could have cited Moses.

Sermon’s Discernment (Pt 3)

In part three, we wonder what priest is at all if priest is not the lone eucharistic wonder-working member of the congregation, or (in the Orthodox understanding) the only channel in the congregation through which God might work eucharistic wonders.
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Another sermon…

Persons in the pew actually take notes during this man’s sermons…

You are who you eat with:

What is more powerful and influential in creating social change than laws or money but is rarely, if ever, used?

What is the public and communal equivalent of sexual intimacy between couples?

What is the single most powerful bonding experience that we can engage in as families or friends or social cohorts like a church?

Sermon’s Discernment (Pt 2)

What is ordination?

Is it a setting apart of a person for a job - saying the community gives them the authority to do the work God has gifted them to do?

Or is it the granting of the power to do a job - a job that couldn’t get down otherwise?

In Cam’s sermon from last week he made a point: that anyone can say the prayers. Anyone can stand around and wear funny robes. Anyone can read the Gospel, preach a sermon, pray for a newly married couple.

Process that for a minute: anyone can say those prayers. Jesus said, “whatever you ask in my name.” Not “Whatever you ask - except for certain things I’m going to reserve to a certain class…)

What is priest?

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Sermon’s Discernment (Pt 1)

I’ve been wrestling for the last 2 summers with a shadow that won’t let go of me. It plagued me when I was Orthodox - only going away for a year or so - and continues to hound me. This issue, this shadow, is a sense that I’m called to priesthood. At times it feels very much like George Herbert’s The Collar. So much so, in fact, that in those times when I manage to run far enough away so as to be in a different place, I don’t so much feel “free” as I feel a failure.

When I left ECUSA for Orthodoxy, I ended up in the same place after a few years: wondering if I’d ever stand at the Altar of God, surrounded by his people in prayer. When I expressed this idea to Fr J, he directed me to the St Stephen’s Programme. But then things fell apart and, through first one thing then another, that path closed to me. Then I started going to St Mary’s, Asheville, and - in a reversal - despite my attempts to stay out of leadership roles, I found myself teaching Sunday School and helping the rector make liturgical changes. In fact, despite my best attempts, I usually find myself in positions of liturgical leadership as at every parish where I’ve been a member, Orthodox and ECUSAn. It’s been an ongoing reality in every religious tradition in which I’ve participated as well.

When I moved to Buffalo to be closer to Brodie and to seek a way to make that closeness possible in the long-term, I let all of that go. And, setting my path by two needs - no debt and a savings account - I began life here in the Frozen Tundra. But no sooner than I had shook Bp Michael’s hand did the Shadow find me again. But this time there was a complication.

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All and All Together

The slow online and IRL manifestation of FAITH HOUSE Manhattan is starting to get real interesting.

OUR MISSION: We want to start a new kind of community in which we can discover The Other (individuals or groups other than those we belong to), deepen our personal and corporate journeys, and together participate in repairing the world. In this endeavor we will honor and learn from teachings, practices, and suffering of people from religions, philosophies, and worldviews, different from our own. Instead of isolating ourselves into like-minded groups or melting together into a single-minded organization, we will learn to live together with our differences and in a way that contributes to the wellbeing, peace, joy, and justice in the world. In this endeavor we will always be a courageous, hospitable and learning community.

With all charity - I want to imagine these being Orthodox Jews, Observant Muslims and Pious Christians of some Liturgical Stripe. I can’t imagine it would be so, though. Progressives, outside of certain circles, seem to like lots of talking, not much praying and political (not theological) singing. It seems to fit best with Puritanism rather than Incarnationalism.

Faith House will seek to bring progressive Jews, Christians, Muslims, and spiritual seekers of no faith to become an interfaith community for the good of the world. We have one world and one God. Nothing is impossible. Who can stop God from teaching us how to live together in community?

We envision a vibrant urban faith community to which all are welcome to bring the treasures of their faith. We believe that in this respectful and disarming environment in which we are all learners as well as teachers, the depth, the beauty, and the truthfulness of faith in God will shine and capture the imagination not only of the cynics looking from the outside, but also the imagination of the cynic within each of us

While I’m really sure there is only one God. If he’s not the GOd that promised the Jews a special relationship through divine revelation, nothing on the Jewish side means anything at all. This is helpful to the Christian idea, and only vaguely supportive of the Muslim side - but it is exclusivst to the Jewish side. If he’s not a Trinity of persons, one in essence, one of whom became incarnate into this messy life, had dirty diapers, embarrassing adolescent hard-ons and a specific ethnicity, languages and ancestry, nothing on the Christian side make any sense at all. This is a scandal to the other two traditions. If he’s not the God that channelled the Quran through Mohammed, nothing on the Muslim side means anything at all and this downplays both the other two traditions.

Can God be behind all three traditions, using all of them to reach a majority of humans, each in ways that would be understood? That’s God’s business but he’s certainly got one sick sense of humour: like a parent whispering to each child at bedtime, “I love you better than your sister.” Can all three traditions be only human metaphors by which we reach out to God with no divine input? Sure. But then why bother? Can all three understandings (true or not) work together and lead to a drive to better humanity and the world in which we live? Yes - but not by making pious claims that all our differences are meaningless.

There are ways around this: undoing much of the credalism of Christianity, deconstruction much of the last 2000 years of Rabbinic decrees and incarnating the ultra-transcendent deity.

But will we be left with a recognisable Judaism, Christianity or Islam at the end?

Is that important?

Show me a Torah Scroll, and Iconostasis and a mihrab in the same room, and we can talk. Show me a worship space where prayers, shabbat and mass can all happen (with a minimum of furniture movement) in a community where 1/3 devoutly eats pork (but not during lent) 1/3 devoutly keeps kosher and 1/3 devoutly doesn’t drink. Show me a community that devoutly gives up Friday afternoon right through to Sunday Morning.

Then I’ll think we’re on to something.