Sarx

LOVING God: Listening for God’s Word which comes through daily prayer and meditation, through studying the ancient testimonies which we call Scripture, and through attending to God’s present activity in the world;

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly equipped for all good works.
2 Timothy 3:16-17

For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know, even as also I am known.
1 Corinthians 13:12

As Christians, we listen for God’s Word in the living presence of the Holy Spirit, praying every day, and discerning God’s present activity in our world. We also study and revere the ancient records which we call Scripture, recognizing that they have been formed within distinct historical and cultural contexts, yet have been informed by God’s Spirit, which transcends all ages and times. Most of all we seek the meaning of salvation, of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection as it is presented in the Scriptures and discerned in daily life.

We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers engage in daily prayer and meditation, as well as personal and community study and interpretation of Scripture, as central ways God’s continuing voice is discerned in everyday life.

We confess that we have moved away from Christ’s Path when we have claimed that God’s Word is restricted to that which may be contained in a written document, or that either the recording of God’s Word in Scripture, or our interpretation of it, are infallible. Further, we have moved away from the Path when we have allowed the mere fact of Scripture’s fallibility, or our own, to dissuade us from seeking God’s Word in Scripture, prayer, and reflection on daily life.

I’m glad the first two affirmations are the ones they are. As far as I can tell they are the ones I, as an Orthodox Christian, have the most trouble with. Get over these humps and off we go!

This whole affirmation is about the importance of - and at the same time, the insufficiency of - scripture. “We confess that we have moved away from Christ’s Path when we have claimed that God’s Word is restricted to that which may be contained in a written document, or that either the recording of God’s Word in Scripture, or our interpretation of it, are infallible. ”

Indeed, the scripture never refers to itself as God’s word (I stand for correction on that point) - but rather refers to Jesus as God’s word. That’s an important thing: Christ is the Logos. The scripture is writings - gramata or even graphe. So, avoiding “sola scriptura”, where is it that this particular affirmation might take Orthodoxy?

The quote from 2 Timothy draws from me two replies: one is the Standard Orthodox Reply, Removing Your Assumptions™. “Certainly St Paul wasn’t talking about his own letters: the only scriptures Paul knew were the Hebrew Ones (which were in Greek, btw, not Hebrew). What decides what is and what isn’t scripture? It is the Authority of the Church. So, you don’t get to read the scriptures without the Church.”

One might be tempted to accept that. In fact: in the Greek text of verse 15, he refers to the “heira grammata”, the priestly writings, that Timothy has known from his childhood. These (the Old Testament, yes, but also the Rabbinic Commentaries) made him “wise unto salvation”.

But the strongest reply this affirmation draws from me is “is scripture all there is”?

In verse 16 (as quoted by CrossWalk) Paul uses the world “graphe” - not “gramata”. “Pasa graphe” - all writings - are God-breathed. No… it can’t mean that. “All writings God-breathed” or “All writings are God-in-spirited”. Eep. How inclusive is that? Can’t mean that at all. Graphe might even include icons! But beyond that graphe *does* include St Paul talking about his own writings - and, since the Gospels are still in their infancy, graphe includes things like the liturgies that are just begining to be written down. Crosswalk comes close to saying this, “We also study and revere the ancient records which we call Scripture, recognizing that they have been formed within distinct historical and cultural contexts, yet have been informed by God’s Spirit, which transcends all ages and times.” If we go from the position of “Sola Scriptura” outwards, then this cultural context is exactly these other things. But, see this quote from Dom Gregory Dix which Chris posted last November:

We know now, too, that the Apostolic paradosis of practice, like the Apostolic paradosis of doctrine, is something which actually ante-dates the writing of the New Testament documents themselves by some two or three decades. It is presupposed by those documents and referred to more than once as authoritative in them. This paradosis of practice continued to develop in complete freedom from any control by those documents for a century after they were written, before they were collected into a New Testament ‘Canon’ and recognised for the first time as authoritative ‘Scripture’ beside and above the Jewish ‘Scriptures’ of the Old Testament, which alone formed the ‘Bible’ of the Apostolic Church. Now that the history of the Canonisation of the New Testament is better understood, we can begin to shake ourselves free from the sixteenth century — or rather the mediaeval — delusion that primitive Christian Worship and Church Order must have been framed in conscious deference to the precedents of a New Testament which as such did not yet exist.

(Chris has a longer quote posted.)

I’ve been re-reading John Koenig’s “The Feast of the World’s Redeption” which, in the process of researching the Eucharist in the New Testament, shows the origins of many of the NT writings in the Eucharist itself. As Dom Gregory teaches also, this is the “distinct historical and cultural contexts” in which the NT was formed. Without it you can’t quite get what the scriptures are saying.

This is not intended as a rejection of this Affirmation - but rather as an expansion. The word is the word. Olivier Clement says, “Already in Scripture there is an aspect of Incarnation. Scripture embodies the Word, and the incarnation of the Word completes the transformation into Eucharist of the hearing or reading of the word.

“For true Christian thought is Eucharistic. The Eucharist of the mind - God must be loved with all one’s mind - prepares us for the nuptial encounter of the sacrament. And the sacrament in its turn enlightens the mind.”

Neither, however, am I talking about needing a *specific* teaching about the Eucharistic Presence, or what have you. It can be low or high, it can be mystical or scholastic. It can be as ornate as a Byzantine Pascha or as simple as Didache blessing, But I think we miss the point when we focus on the Bible and Prayer and fail to focus on being fed by God at the table of the Lord - and thus learning to feed each other. St Paul, in fact, says “Prayer and Eucharist”. This is important because deep in my heart I feel that any Progressive, Emergent, Reconstructed or Po-Mo forms of the faith must retain this connection to the feast of Faith - the Feasting of God’s Kingdom. We can start one way or the other - but need both!

Origen says “We are said to drink the blood of Christ not only when we receive it according to the rite of the mysteries, but also when we receive his words, in which life dwells, as he said himself: ‘The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.’”

Another organisation, The Center for Progressive Christianity says in it’s foundational document, “By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus’ name to be a representation of an ancient vision of God’s feast for all peoples.” While the Center caries that forward to an assumption of Open Communion, we don’t need to go there. But we can clearly see the importance they place on the Table Fellowship as part of this progressive faith.

Beyond the Table of the Lord - or rather around it! - we can see gathered a host of fellow Christians from all ages. In addition to feasting with the Divine Host, they are all engaged in the constant Divine commentary on life that begins in the text of the scriptures and feeds out into the life of the Church, through the Church Fathers and Mothers and right up to the local parish pot luck or trapeza luncheon. The Eucharist centres us in Jesus - and allows us to communicate with those who are so centred (and those who are not). We enter into the Kingdom, even momentarily. The Church teaches that in the holy sacrament heaven and earth touch.

But more importantly, from God feeding us proceeds our commitment to Social Justice. We understand the teachings of the scripture not in our head but rather in our hearts illumined by the reception of God. St John Chrysostom says, “Wouldest thou do honor to Christ’s body? Neglect Him not when naked; do not while here thou honorest Him with silken garments, neglect Him perishing without of cold and nakedness. For He that said, ‘This is my body,’ and by His word confirmed the fact, This same said, ‘Ye saw me an hungered, and fed me not;’ and, ‘Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.’ For This indeed needs not coverings, but a pure soul; but that requires much attention.”

St Justin Martyr describes clearly the procession from prayer, to bread and wine to social justice:

Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need.

Again, this is not intended as a refutation of the Second Affirmation, but rather as an expansion of it. However without the Eucharist there is no Church: the community is not called out. This community in prayer, Eucharist and action is the Christian way to “seek the meaning of salvation, of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection as it is presented in the Scriptures and discerned in daily life.” In a position of dialogue with Progressives, it is this place where Orthodoxy is the weakest: she has the prayer and Eucharist down… but social action just doesn’t often happen (at least here in America). Orthodoxy forgets that - as cited in the discussion last time - the questions on the last day will not be about our theology or our liturgical practice, but rather did we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the sick, visit the imprisoned. Many a liberal congregation out there feeds, clothes, comforts and visits. While there are groups within Orthodoxy that might, I don’t yet know of a congregation that does so on the local level, where the rubber meets the road. That’s where it counts and in the end, it may be the only thing that matters.