Sarx

This post contains two essays together.

LOVING God: Celebrating the God whose Spirit pervades and whose glory is reflected in all of God’s Creation, including the earth and its ecosystems, the sacred and secular, the Christian and non-Christian, the human and non-human.

And God saw every thing that He had made, and behold, it was very good.
Genesis 1:31a

O sing unto the LORD a new song; sing unto the LORD, all the earth.
Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein; then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice.
Psalm 96:1,11-12.

For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription: ‘To the Unknown God’. Whom therefore ye worship in ignorance, Him I declare unto you.
Acts 17:23

As Christians, we seek to act as righteous stewards of the earth and its ecosystems. We celebrate the reflections of the Creator’s glory in both the sacred and secular, human and non-human, Christian and non-Christian.

We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers act as caring stewards of the earth, and where the presence of the living Christ is celebrated wherever Christ’s spirit manifests itself, transcending all preconceived human categories.

We confess that we have stepped away from this Path when we have ignored our role as stewards of the earth, or have interpreted Scripture in a way that fails to account for the sacredness of the earth or the integrity of its ecosystems. We have further moved away whenever we have claimed that that the glorification and praise of God is limited only to that which is consciously and overtly Christian.

There are, in my reading, two parts to this affirmation. If you will, there is “environmentalism” and then there is “everything else”. But the key point is, I think, “transcending all preconceived human categories.” Right there we have to recognise that we have a tendency to judge, to cut into categories. This affirmation seems to be about not doing that. So, forgive me the need to do this in two essays, one discussing on “environmentalism,” a preconceived human category, as a portion by itself. I’ll get to the “And everything else” in a second essay. I hope I can wrap them up together, back into a unity which is needed by this affirmation.

One of the most common tropes heard in the Converting-to-Orthodoxy (or -to-Catholicism) story is how the previous church - “they” - confused politics with the faith. We usually see this depicted as a lefty issue. The “confusion” is usually found in social justice issues, but we also can see it in responses to environmental issues. The language used is generally perceived as “leftist” and secular instead of Christian, which is some how then projected as “rightist”.

There’s a two-part problem, I think: any time the language of faith is converted to secular language, we risk alienating people who reject secular terms. But also, sadly, some of those people throw the baby out with the bath water: anything that remotely implies those same politics must be tied to the same faithless religion. This is true looking at either “left” or “right” from the opposite point of view. But St Paul would have us overcome those divisions by seeing our commonality in Christ. I forget which writer said it - and thus I don’t know the direct quote - but the paraphrase is: the difference between us and God is *so huge* that when God is present (ie, always) to call attention to a difference between two humans is rude. To stand at the Altar, preparing to offer our gifts, and point out the difference between “us” and “them” is a profound affront to God, who is so vastly beyond us as to make any assumed differences between us irrelevant.

So where do we turn for a balance?

As one opening, a conservative Catholic voice rises in a rant about left-leaning environmentalist politics. The writer concludes, however, noting quite honestly

…[I]n our reaction against liberal incarnations of environmentalism, it is easy to forget that Christians do still have obligations to the natural world… I have an almost kneejerk reaction against anything that smacks of environmentalism, going back to my grade school days and the memories of Earth Day and the Rainforest Rap.

The same writer goes on to turn a rather amazing corner:

…[A] Catholic environmentalism would directly challenge the errors of the flaky environmentalism that was taught to me. We have obligations to the natural world, not because we are equal to the beasts, but because we are above them and assigned to rule over them. We sacrifice some of our own interests, not because we are ordinary, but precisely because we are unique. Christians can make environmentalism make sense.

The comments to that post are filled with bad (and good) examples of “Stewardship”. In all other cases we read the position of man as one of servant leader: emulating Christ. Only a certain right-leaning sort of theology turns that same word, in Genesis, into “Master of all I survey”.

Imagine humanity living in the role of self-sacrificing servant leader to the rest of creation. That is the stewardship of which we must speak. It is all of creation responding to human love in the way that sheep respond to the shepherd: the one who makes his body a door to protect them and his rod a comfort to them. That’s the way we imagine stewardship in all other cases. It is exactly the way it should be here too. It’s not, as some writers seem to imagine, that because of our unique place in creation we must beat it down and trap it, subdue it. Rather, because of our unique - fallen - place in creation it *is* already beaten down and trapped. It is subdues tones that “moan for liberation”. We, restored to our rightful place in Christ, must set about liberating nature, returning all of Creation to its glory. We are restored to our place as Gardeners of Eden and we must restore the Garden that we destroyed - and continue to destroy.

That’s catholic, orthodox environmentalism. The Fathers, I think, would agree.

“We celebrate the reflections of the Creator’s glory” in nature. Isaac of Nineveh says we have two sets of eyes, spiritual and physical. “With one we see the glory of God hidden in creatures: with the other we contemplate the glory of God’s holy nature when he designs to give us access to the mysteries.”

Maximus the Confessor says, “Wisdom consists in seeing every object in accordance with its true nature, with perfect interior freedom.” And as one Modern Orthodox writer shows us the “true nature” of any object is to point us Godward:

Are you looking at the sun? Then think of him who is the Light of the World, albeit shrouded in darkness. You are looking at the trees and their branches growing green again each spring? Then think of him who, hanging on the wood of the cross, draws everything to himself. You are looking at the rocks and stones? Then think of the stone in the garden that was blocking the entrance to a tomb. That stone was rolled away and since then the door of the sepulchre has never been shut.”
‘A Monk of the Eastern Church’ writing in “Love without Limits.”

“I can not show you God, but I can show you his works”, says St Augustine. “The Universe is the first Bible”, says Oliver Clement. We should no more allow humanity to destroy natural beauty than we should allow iconoclasts to destroy icons. They are the same thing - albeit on different scales and for different uses. We should no more allow the wanton killing of animals (as in drug testing or science experiments) than we should allow the enslavement of human beings. Not because animals are worth more than humans but because, in fact, they - along with all creation - are what we are here to serve.

Yet, having said that, it is important recognise there are possible benefits from such testing, from such uses. The issue is not to navigate in a legal either/or, black and white world: either one where progress is the only best option or one where Luddism is the only possible reply. We must weigh and consider. As on the question of certain foods and certain days, Christians will come to differing responses. Following St Paul, and not judgemental Pharisees, we must seek unity instead. While those on Gospel Side of the altar (that’s the left, for those not familiar with Western Rite terminology) may feel like rejecting scientific progress out of hand - along with those who support it - this is exactly what can not be done. Equally those on the Epistle Side of the altar may feel like excommunicating their hippie brethren, but equally this can not be done. Environmentalism, as a non-religious value, as a “secular” good, can run amuck with the faithful. The goal is unity in Christ and using such secular labels to judge each other is not furthering that unity.

Seeing the image of God and the faith presented in the natural world, we can recognise that at times we have been wrong: insisting on pride of place for the human race instead of on a servant’s humility. St Paul offers us this vision in the 8th chapter of Romans:

The creation waits eagerly for the sons of God to be revealed; for the creation was made subject to frustration - not willingly, but because of the one who subjected it. But it was given a reliable hope that it too would be set free from its bondage to decay and would enjoy the freedom accompanying the glory that God’s children will have. We know that until now, the whole creation has been groaning as with the pains of childbirth; and not only it, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we continue waiting eagerly to be made sons - that is, to have our whole bodies redeemed and set free. (8:19-23)

In his commentary on this passage St John Chrysostom makes it clear that all of creation not only is being tormented - because of human sin - but also will be redeemed, along with humanity. There is too much good in that document to highlight quotes. But I will risk one out of context. (Please! Read the whole thing!)

“That the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption.”
Now what is this creation? Not thyself alone, but that also which is thy inferior, and partaketh not of reason or sense, this too shall be a sharer in thy blessings. For “it shall be freed,” he says, “from the bondage of corruption,” that is, it shall no longer be corruptible, but shall go along with the beauty given to thy body; just as when this became corruptible, that became corruptible also; so now it is made incorruptible, that also shall follow it too. And to show this he proceeds. “Into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” That is, because of their liberty.

When we return to the created order of things we can live as in the following description from Isaac of Nineveh:

The humble man confronts murderous wild beasts. From the moment they see him their savagery is tamed, they approach him as if he were their owner, nodding their heads and licking his hands and feet. They actually scent coming from him the fragrance that Adam breathed forth before the Fall when the came to him in paradise and he gave them their names.

In that restored paradise, possible only by “working out our salvation in fear and trembling”, we will find willing gifts of the needful things from the natural world. They are not ours to take as from the hands of slaves and lesser beings, but they are theirs to share with the rightful stewards of Creation. Yet we have seen from the saints - Francis in the west and Seraphim in the east, to name two - portions of this restored liberty are possible even in this world.

AFFIRMATION 3 reads, in part: We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found… where the presence of the living Christ is celebrated wherever Christ’s spirit manifests itself, transcending all preconceived human categories… We have further moved away whenever we have claimed that that the glorification and praise of God is limited only to that which is consciously and overtly Christian.”

Having previously written on Environmentalism, this portion - far shorter! - will touch on “everything else” and also aim to tie it all back into a unified whole. I think the main point of this affirmation is, as it says, “transcending all preconceived human categories.” Only because of length have I divided this essay into two: I was not looking to carve it all up into more categories.

Olivier Clement says, “History, including the history of Christianity, is littered with caricatures of God, like so many mental idols which have led people either to cruelty or to atheism. But how, in modern times, after the growth of liberty and the critical spirit, could people have accepted a God who seemed to them worse than themselves, or at least inferior to the highest demands of a conscience secretly nourished by the Gospel?”

That last phrase is critical: “a conscience secretly nourished by the Gospel” is everyone for as St Paul shows us, the wisdom of God is implanted in every heart.

The Church Fathers would have seen that “the presence of the living Christ is celebrated wherever Christ’s spirit manifests itself”. I cited St Justin in my essay on the First Affirmation and I think it’s correct here, as well:

We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word of whom every race of men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them; and among the barbarians, Abraham, and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, and Elias, and many others whose actions and names we now decline to recount, because we know it would be tedious.
Justin Martyr’s First Apology, Chapter 46

“…[T]hose who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists” is a ground-breaking theology. It goes beyond the way the Church reads the Hebrew Scriptures as pointing to Christ and says that, in fact, these persons are members of the Church, even though they did not know it. It reminds me of a conversation I had in February of 1984, sitting on a park bench in NYC. I was sharing with my friend, Paul, about the meaning of “The Christ Event”, by which I felt the universe had been changed: thus allowing for all humanity, even Non-Christians, to come to God because he had first come to them. Forgive the New Agey language of the period, but that is essentially what the Church says.

The Elders of our Faith teach that all creations have their own “logos” or (plural) logoi. Following the logoi, the logic, the pattern of nature brings us to the Logos, the Pattern behind all Patterns. All things lead us to God. It’s not that we can segregate the world into “things without a logos” and “things with a logos”, all things are said to have them.

Now, in our post-modern world, this is even more true as we realise that creation herself is “transcending all preconceived human categories”. As we discover the random chaos that moves through the back alleyways and behind the walls of seemingly ordered creation we realise that our fathers and mothers were more imposing order or imagining order rather than finding it. We can take their teaching and use the Chaos, the Sub-Quantum Physics, the shear joy of Creation’s Dance (more like a Rave than a Waltz) to open ourselves to the mystery that is all of life worshipping its Source.

St Maximus says “Only wonder can comprehend his incomprehensible power.”

The fathers bring us, finally, to a negative understanding - God is not this, God is not that… but even beyond that we must move into something that is neither affirmation nor negation.

The Pseudo-Dionysius offers us, in The Divine names

The mystery that is beyond God himself, the ineffable, that gives its name to everything, is complete affirmation, complete negation, beyond all affirmation and negation.

And then they turn to God as known by his actions - like the Wind that blows where it will, but we do not see it. We only know the wind’s passing because we feel it, or see the leaves or grasses move.

it lives in the seed of tree as it grows
you hear it if you listen to the wind as it blows
it’s there in a river as it flows into the sea
it’s the sound in the soul of a man becoming free

and it lives in the laughter of children at play
and in the blazing sun that gives light to the day
it moves the planets and the stars in the sky
it’s been the mover of mountains since the beginning of time

oh mystery you are alive
i feel you all around
you are the fire in my heart
you are the holy sound
you are all of life
it is to you that i sing
grant that i may feel you
always in everything

and it lives in the waves as they crash upon the beach
i’ve seen it in the gods that men have tried to reach
i feel it in the love that I know we need so much
i know it your smile my love when our hearts do touch

but when i listen deep inside i feel it best of all
like a moon that’s growing white and i listen to your call
and i know you will guide me, i feel it like the tide
rushing through the ocean of my heart: it’s open wide.

oh mystery you are alive
i feel you all around
you are the fire in my heart
you are the holy sound
you are all of life
it is to you that i sing
grant that i may feel you
always in everything

“Mystery”, from Paul Winter’s Missa Gaia

If we can follow the logoi in their mysterious, chaotic dance then they will guide us home.

That “transcending all preconceived human categories” is emulated not only in the natural world but in the world of politics, in the worlds of religion, art and morality. It begins in Christ claiming “my kingdom is not of this world” - and then offering us a higher morality, one beyond even the legalism of the Torah, which is not destroyed, but is fulfilled in Christ’s law of love.

The fulfilment, in Christ’s Law of Love, of everything, everyone: that is what Christianity is. The Greek term “sozo” - often rendered “saved” (etc) means “to make whole”. To save all, to make whole - to make one… We transcend all the divisions we place on ourselves, on each other and draw all to God-ward.