How wondrous are your works, O Lord: In wisdom have you wrought them all!

God’s action restores us to the universe. It’s less about the importance of mankind than it is about God. We’re the lump in the gravy, the pea under the mattress. Or, at least, one of them…

NE Serious Problem with all modern lectionaries is that they tend to skip verses in the middle of the reading. Today’s Samuel passage from the RCL for the Last Sunday of Advent, Year B is one such place. (Lest someone blame this on “the liberals” in ECUSA, this is the Revised Common Lectionary, shared by a lot of Protestants and the Romans as well.)

The reading says,

Moreover the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.

If you take a look at the complete passage, you’ll see that there’s a lot there. The part skipped makes it clear (depending on your biases) that this promise given to David is about his son, Solomon, or that, maybe, it was written on commission for Solomon – making it look like he was greater than his father. Either way, it’s hard to see this as purely a messianic prophecy.

What I want to look at is not the idea that this “everlasting house” is about Jesus, but rather that God doesn’t seem to like houses at all for himself. Instead he wants to dwell with his people: and this makes him very like Jesus.

In his words to David, God seems to say, “Who are you to build me a house? I’ve never asked for it. And since the day we left Egypt – together, let me add – I and my people have been together, out in the fields, living in tents. Houses are for Rich People like kings and such. I’m not one of them. You, I took up from the field and made great, so you get a house: but I don’t need one.” The reading as parsed has God promising to build a house for David and sounds a lot like God reminding David that death takes all mortals and they go to their “long house”. “You are mortal and when you die, I’ll build you a house. I am immortal and I don’t need a house at all.”

The Megalynarion for St. Basil’s Liturgy praises Mary as the one in whom God dwelt.

In thee rejoiceth, O full of grace, all creation, the angelic hosts and the race of men. O hallowed temple and supersensual paradise, glory of Virgins, of whom God was incarnate and became a little child, even our God who is before all the ages; for he made thy body a throne, and thy womb he made more spacious than the heavens. In thee rejoiceth, O full of grace, all creation, glory to thee.

The “womb more spacious than the heavens” is an image I like. God picks for his house the womb of Mary. The walls of his garden are her arms. For the fountain in his forecourt, he picks the breast of the virgin. He replaces the rustle of angels’ wings with a mother’s gentle kisses.

God’s incarnation in Jesus for us is perhaps the most important and unique aspect of Christianity. I say “perhaps” because I know some folks struggle to make sense of Jesus without this aspect. But for me, Christianity doesn’t make sense unless Jesus is God.

Here’s the most important, radical, revolutionary thing about Christianity: God has a navel. I don’t know if it was an “inney” or an “outey”. But he has one. More than that, he’s got a penis: and God is a he. In fact, God is one specific man, born in one specific place, among one specific people – although in a melting pot of about many cultures. Surrounding God was Egyptian, Roman, Alexandrian (Ptolemaic), Silk Road, Persian, Fertile Crescent Babylonian, and 5 or 6 that called them selves “Jewish” or “Hebrew”.

More than that, God had diapers. God also probably ran around half-naked urinating and defecating on the ground while adults might have looked and giggled in either embarrassment or parental joy as the child grew up. God had a neighbourhood. God had an older half-brother – and therefore probably suffered from some bullying and maybe even fights like, “Dad loved my mother more than yours.” God had grandparents who spoiled him. God had a mother who doted on him. God had a Dad who – according to one version – was not too highly respected in his community (as a man who worked with his hands). According to another version God’s Dad was quite well respected. God went through puberty and, I have no doubt, suffered from embarrassing erections under his robe, girls flirted with him, and his voice cracked. God had acne and, after a while, back hair.

And for all of this I love him even more, just in the writing of it.

God – as with the Israelites of David’s day – doesn’t need fine temples. he needs only human hands to hold him, human lives to dwell among, human houses (tents) to live in.

God seeks us out on this level of communion to pull us up to him. God comes to our world to bring us to his. God enters a womb that all who are born from such may pass to heaven.

I love him more just in the writing of it.

The menu below is replicated in the sidebar, It will be there until I move the entire series over to the Essay Page.

1. Introduction
   • Salvation
2. Eucharist
   • From the Inside Out
   • Party!
3. Incarnation
   • God and Man
   • Becoming Flesh
   • This Dirty World
4. Trinity
   • 3:1::1:3
5. Unwinding the Labyrinth
   • Part 1
   • Part 2
   • Part 3 – Invitation: Taste and see
     
     • Intro
     • Can a hand say to a foot
     • Fear
     • Faith 1
     • Faith 2
     • Faith 3
     • Faith 4 (a summation of the three)
     • Love

When Jesus said that we are to Love God and our Neighbour he wasn’t setting out two different commands: but the same one in two modes. The scripture says humanity (in the plural sense, not each individual per se) was created in God’s image. The Greek word used in the Septuagint (the OT Scriptures known to the Early Christians) is “ikon”. And Icons occupy a very special place in traditional Christian teaching: these are not just pictures or statues. The church teaches that since God has become man (in Jesus) we may now depict his image. God’s actions might be shown in the person, life and teaching of Jesus and these scenes might also be recreated in artistic form. The honour paid to the type (picture) passes to the prototype.

The incarnation restores humanity’s connection to God. The icon may be damaged in each of us, but it is blessed, it is real. The honour I pay to you – an icon of the living God – passes to God. Likewise the dishonour I pay to you passes to God. Since the incarnation, loving my neighbour is loving God. The Gospel underscores this with the parable of the sheep and the goats – “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me…” St John underscores it teaching us that we can not love God, whom no one has seen, if we do not love our neighbour whom we do see daily, moment by moment, on the Subway, driving next to us on the freeway, sitting next to us in the theatre, taking too much time to write a check in the grocery store, stumbling around our garden drunk at 3:00AM after a frat party, stopping us on the street to pitch a hustle and hit us up for fifty cents: who the hell knew that God could be so damned annoying? And smelly? Dirty? Needy?

St Benedict says that when a stranger comes to the guest house he should be greeted by a prostration as if he, himself, were Christ. Because he is. Personally, I find it much harder to remember that my family member, spouse, coworker, boss, or fellow parishioner is also God. Strangers are kind of easy compared to familiars. That’s God there, demanding me to try a little harder or get fired, that’s God there asking me to mow the lawn, that’s God there, voting the wrong way on Vestry, that’s God there getting a raise that should have gone to me.

Regardless of who we love as God, it is the incarnation that breaks down the barriers that divide us from one another.

The Trinity is God-as-Communion. The Incarnation is God-as-Communion reaching out to form humans into the same communion. The Eucharist is God-as-communion in each of us being communion between us.

Sticking to the hypothetical history written earlier: the Eucharist, the community eating together was the first way the community came to see itself as the body of Christ. Eating together was a radical act of equalization. Everyone was in this together – there were no boundaries between in and out, clean and unclean, us and them. SHowing up at the table was a mark that God had called you to the table. But even then, there was trouble: the sharing of food, the earliest covered-dish suppers, quickly changed to an all-you-can-eat festival of gluttony. The early church changed the focus to symbolic foods – bread and wine – and shortly thereafter the feeding of each other lost the import and the eating together of the symbolic foods was the sign.

I’m ok with this history – and I’ve no need to go backwards in time and “restore what we used to do” because I think the symbolic foods keep enough of their theology of feeding each other: provided we do actually feed each other. Personally, I rather like the covered-dish supper that obscures the “mystery” part of communion. But we can get to that in a minute.

It is the feeding of each other with the bread and wine, which we label the Body and Blood of Christ, that makes us who we are. The Eucharist is the meal that consumes us. We are, therein, transubstantiated. You are what you eat, as the saying goes, but in this case, “you are whom you feed.” We refer to the Eucharist as a sacrifice to God which, after blessing, we promptly offer to our neighbour (that is, to God). The Eucharist – provided we go through the motions of feeding each other – becomes at least equally (if not mostly) about the giving away of the Holy Mysteries rather than the reception of them. When I attend Eucharist with you, it is not so important that I eat the bread and drink the wine as it is that I offer the bread and the wine to you. The reverse is also true: it is the reception of the elements from the hand of my neighbour – that is God – that is as important, indeed, more important, than the elements themselves.

This is not to deny the power of the Elements of Bread and Wine: the basic foodstuffs of all our cultures. But I think we have evidence that focusing on these two out of the entire meal is a symbolic act, itself. It is intended to make it easier to hospitably share in the feast. Essentially, one who has had just a nibble and a sip has had the whole thing. Come late, come early, but get the symbols. It is as we draw away from that action of hospitality and focus only on the symbols that they get “spooky”.

This is the most exoteric of the “Big Three” doctrines because it is what happens publicly, before the eyes of the world, between us and our neighbour. This is where the rubber meets the road, theologically. This is where the world should point at us and say, “See how they love one another.”

In other words, this is the big failure of Christianity: that we refuse to eat with each other, refuse to make the offering to each other as God’s icon, present and active in the world.

And this is where our salvation starts and ends. Here it is that we find not only our failure, but our glorious wholeness as humans. When we can sit down in love and charity – not only with those who love us, but also with those who hate us, with those whom we or they name our enemies – then we are saved and the kingdom of God is come a little closer.

But not until then.

We are not saved alone. We have only one sign available to us to prove that we are not alone in this world: divine hospitality before others, spreading a table before them in the presence of . Without it all else is useless, all doctrine empty and all rites diabolical.

Salvation then – at least the visible, conscious parts – is exactly this being together, this sharing, this grinding of our rough edges down into smooth edges and the polishing of our facets like stones in a river (or a rock tumbler). But in our world – even more than in Jesus’ day – we are individuals. Jesus, at least, was speaking to a community of people. “The Jews”. They had a tribal identity. “We” was, essentially, the first person pronoun. “Y’all” (by translation) was the important second person. Plurals. The NT words of Jesus are filled with plural nouns rather than singular ones.

This is important – even in the way we read the scriptures. One common issue amongst scholars is the translation of Jesus words that the Kingdom (“of God” or “of Heaven”) is “within you”. I’ve seen it poked about on New Age Groups as often as I’ve seen it on Fundamentalist KJV-Only sites. The general idea is that Jesus is saying God is within me. Isn’t that cool? God is within me! But no: the Greek “you” is really “Y’all” and however you translate the adverb, as “within” or “among”, when you have the second person plural, it can never be understood as “inside me!”

Jesus was, in his day, tearing down the tribal walls between groups of “us” and “them” and throwing God into the undifferentiated mix to create a new human family. 2000 years later we are so individualised that we have to start by tearing down the walls between each other. St Paul wrote “neither Jew nor Greek” speaking in very general, tribal, terms. Very few of us modern, Western folks would understand that language any more. Even the few tribes we have are made up of individuals. We have to start tearing down the walls by saying, “Neither you nor me”. The kingdom of God is Among us. We – not I, not you, but some collective us – are the kingdom of God in ways singular individuals cannot be.

Only later do we confuse this revolutionary idea of communion with “not going to hell”. We understand it as “God and Me and to Hell with Thee.” Like I said, we need to start by letting Jesus tear down the walls between each other.

That’s why salvation starts with Trinity.

Following the general platonic idea that what ever is “good” in humans must reach its maximum in God and whatever is bad in humans must be totally absent from God, the Deity cannot be an “individual” as we understand that. Deity is not a monad. Deity must be in communion in order to be, at all. For this reason I distrust the “Ethical Monotheism” of much liberal, modern Christian theology: even though Ethical Monotheism is a valuable part of other traditions, within a Christian context it’s simply a projection on God of our radical individualism.

The Church Fathers understood mankind to all be of one essence and nature – and that nature in communion with God. To violate that nature was to violate that communion with God and with each other. This was sin. The Fathers understood that to be and to be in communion were the same thing. It is impossible for an individual to be.

At all.

Yet we are all trying to be exactly that. In other words, we are all, each, individually, attempting to sever our bonds of communion, to ram our individual demands and “rights” down each other throats, attempting to make ME MYSELF AND I the model by which I judge you. Notice that I is always capitalised: you never is. Yet in the process of denying your being, of objectifying you the same process bounces back. If you are an object then so am I. The only way to be subjects is to be so together. The only way to be a full person is to be in communion.

So God must be this thing to the Nth degree.

When we see God as a Monad, we are left trying to be monads ourselves. We are left furthering our own damnation, our own division, our own destruction.

Each act of tearing away is sin. Each act of denial of communion, each act of rupture in the Divine Agape is a sin. We are torn away – from God and from each other. The Christian myth understands that Humanity at it’s inception in the mind of God was seen in communion with God. The Life that is God was passing in and through all. But we walked away from this. And it’s damn nigh impossible to return. God had to extend the offer again.

This is Incarnation.

Now, follow this: the purpose of collective humanity is collective communion with God and each other yet we have violated that communion, not once for all time, but over and over again. We do so even by our increasing sense of “individuality”, each act of greed and failure of altruism is a violation of this inter-human and divine-human communion. we, as individuals, are dead. So life had to come to us. But not as a divine blood offering to make peace with God’s honour that we had violated, not as some replacement accepting the divine lash in our place. Life had to come to us: Salvation – wholeness – begins to be restored at the Moment Mary says Yes to God’s message. Remember though: all humanity is one. Once God becomes a human, all humans share in that connexion. All.

Yes, it’s possible to walk away from that connexion, but not with any sense of finality: for God is now and will be for all future times a human being. God has entered time and put a divine stop to the walking away: for now, walking in love towards any human is a walking in love towards this divine being that is one of us.

Incarnation is important because it is forever. Jesus can be seen as just a good teacher, but he’s kind of meaningless as such – be the topic of his teaching morals, political revolution or even just religious (Jewish) reform. Lewis has shown that once we say “just a teacher” we have to edit out all the Gospel bits where Jesus is clearly a nut case claiming to be God. No good teacher is a nut case. We can certainly see those passages as the community’s understanding of Jesus rather than claims of Jesus himself. But is there a reason to distinguish between those two very ancient points of view?n The earliest Christians did not think so. I don’t think we need to, either.

Not only does it do away with the division between God and us, but Incarnation also does away with that damned division between “spiritual” and everything else.

This is eternally precious to us, because we too live ordinary lives, and the fact that the Lord lived such a life, sanctifies everything: from the difficulty, to waking in the morning, to the daily cares and labors of life. From now on, no one has the right to say that life is pointless because one has to cook, clean or wash. Such were the labors of the Mother of God; such was the daily work of her Divine Son. This means that there is nothing insignificant in our daily labors and chores.
Fr. Alexander Men

There is no way to say “I have a sacred job, you have a secular one.” There is no way to say “My job is unimportant to the Church.” All things become divine actions because God is now one of us.

We will pick this up with Eucharist and a conclusion next time.

This is eternally precious to us, because we too live ordinary lives, and the fact that the Lord lived such a life, sanctifies everything: from the difficulty, to waking in the morning, to the daily cares and labors of life. From now on, no one has the right to say that life is pointless because one has to cook, clean or wash. Such were the labors of the Mother of God; such was the daily work of her Divine Son. This means that there is nothing insignificant in our daily labors and chores.
Fr. Alexander Men

There are pages and pages of text written about the Trinity. There is a feast day (Trinity Sunday) in the Western Rite, the texts for which are filled with Doctrinal Formulas; there are hymns and prayers in the East each one richer than the last used on many feast days. All the Creeds of the church address the topic, most especially the one called Athanasian.

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith;
Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.
For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.
The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated.
The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.
The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.
And yet they are not three eternals but one eternal.
As also there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensible, but one uncreated and one incomprehensible.
So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty.
And yet they are not three almighties, but one almighty.

It continues on in that vein in seemingly incomprehensible language about “not three of ___ but only one ___” and dictating very specific doctrines about the relationship of the three, “He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity”. I don’t think so: Trinity is a statement about how we understand God and how we understand God to be working out our salvation. It is not, however, something everyone must grasp in order to be saved.

As I sat down to give this essay it’s first edit, I found a blog post that helps point the way down the path I want to walk. Over at In A Godward Direction, Fr Tobias reminds us this is not a doctrinal discussion:

First of all, I start with the assertion that the Trinity is not a doctrine, but a Person — in fact, three Persons. “Trinity” is the name of the God whom we worship, the God we then know — insofar as we can know God — as Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit — and we get that Name from the liturgy of Baptism: told by Jesus to do it to the ends of the world, not to think about it. We worship before we understand, before we know. Like the Athenians, we worship a God to a large extent unknown — yet faith and grace support our worship even with the partial knowledge we have. God has not left us entirely clueless, as Paul told the Athenians. As Julian reminds us, God gave us as it were an ABC, so that here on earth we can have a little of the knowledge that we will have in full measure in heaven.

The first thing we gather from the Baptismal ordinance is that God is One in Three, a love so powerful it could not exist simply as a singularity but had to be more dynamic — and paradoxical. And so we give our God the name of Trinity, for this is the only way we have to grasp the hem of the transcendent garment. For though there are many doctrines about the Trinity, many unpackings of the meaning of this name, the Trinity God’s-self is not a doctrine to be discussed but a mystery to be contemplated.

In the eastern lexicon the Trinity is a Mystery: not something that we can grasp or define or even begin to categorise. As a jumping off point, I’ll take my disagreement with Fr Tobias’ next (very minor) comment that “Mystery stems from the Greek word for Sacrament“. Sacrament is from a Latin word meaning Oath. Mystery comes from the Greek for “Initiate”. The Latin understanding of “Sacrament” overlaps with but does not entirely parallel the Greek “Mystery”.

Generally, at least to my ear (admitting bias, here), “sacraments” seem smaller than “mysteries”. The Roman denomination (and many others who follow her tradition) has seriously defined all the Sacraments: what happens when, how, why, and even what is “appropriate matter” of the sacraments. There are seven. Period. Although there are Eastern Writers who engage in dubious, Romanesque attempts to categorise and itemise everything, the appropriate Eastern response to “Mystery” is just to say it is so. It’s there, it’s important. It’s real. Definition is impossible. “It’s not a doctrine to be discussed.” More importantly, the mystery of the Trinity functions in our salvation exactly like the Mystery of the Eucharist or the Mystery of the Incarnation – or multiple other mysteries in the Eastern Rite. They are not limited to seven, nor are they very easy to define. God’s use of your neighbour to work out your salvation makes your neighbour a holy mystery, equal to the mass or the Trinity. Unlike the idea of “Sacrament” there is no pretence to understanding “mystery”, our only response is Love and holy awe.

Let’s go from there with our contemplation of this mystery.

Most “progressive” sorts simply admit that they can’t do the math. 1+1+1 does not equal 1. This is stupid and, modernly, rationally, we must just admit we messed up. Boomer-batory “we can do this our way or else throw it out” doesn’t work for me. That may be their truth… but my truth needs more – not less – mystery. I don’t need to be able wrap my brain around it for it to be true.

One way to contemplate this mystery is from a very common standpoint of God as Apotheosis of Human Ideals. If it is important to restore the Human Race to communion, then the Divine Race, if you will, must also experience communion. Further, it must be a communion that was never broken (since God is perfect and we are not) ergo this can not be a simple case of communion with humanity or angels: Communion must be one of like to like. We will discover implications to this later, but for now suffice to say that it is not enough for God to be in Communion with, eg, Abraham. God must be in communion with one like unto godself. Yet Christianity, like its Jewish mother, is radically monotheistic. So it can not be that there is another God for God to be in communion with. As we came to an understanding of Jesus as God-in-flesh, we also came to an understanding of God-not-Jesus doing something as well.

The answer to “why three and not four, two or five” is most like a Monty Python skit. The easiest answer is that three is a magic number (in a way that two is not), so a triangular image of deity seems better than a dyadic one.

Something called “The Holy Spirit” was mentioned in the Jewish Scriptures, the Sayings of Jesus and the Apostolic Memoirs and Letters. This something must either be defined as God or something else. When Judaism met Hellenism, rather like Jesus, there was no other option for the Spirit. It acts like God, it has divine powers, ergo it must be God or a Demigod. And, as with Jesus, it was Christianity’s monotheism that made the Spirit out to be God. And the Spirit seems rather like the perfect triangulation with Jesus and the Father. Sophia/Wisdom is seen as Jesus present and active in the OT world. Wisdom is Female and Jesus is Male: this creates some interesting theology. But the Holy Spirit, as mentioned in the Hebrew texts, is something else. One of the early saints refers to the Spirit and the Son as the Left and Right hand of God the Father.

Fr Tobias says, correctly, “This is not a doctrine, but a person.” The actual doctrinal debates about Trinity – including the split between east and west over the filioque – are not as important as they might seem. The fullest statement is that God must be in Communion as God wants us to be in Communion. The debates include things like “who is in charge? How is the Spirt related to Jesus and the Father? Is there something to the understanding of Father and Son that needs to be clarified? Is the Spirit the Mother? But if we admit God to be a mystery, it is enough to say God is in communion as he desires us to be.

The Greek debate (for it is not Jewish, as noted above) centres around the use of the words Hypostasis and Ousia. By the 4th century and following Ousia means “essence”. Hypostasis comes to mean person. The Church fathers saw the Godhead as “three “Hyperstases in one Ousia“. In a like manner they saw our human nature as our ousia and each of us is a Hyperstasis within that ousia. Gregory of Nyssa says, “To say that there are ‘many human beings’ is a common abuse of language. Granted there is a plurality of those who share in the same human nature… but in all of them humanity is one.” He goes on to say, “It is not in a part of [human] nature that the image is found but nature in its totality is the image of God.”

God as Trinity is a sign of Human Unity. It is not important that we debate who is above whom: but it is important that we have as our icon of the Holy this Divine Community.

But this is also a deeper Mystery that simply human love. It goes beyond the union of loving spouses: they have another symbolic meaning – and that’s another reason why God as Dyad just won’t work: We need something supra-sexual, something meta-natural, to show us the universal communion which we seek. In that way it’s important, I think, for the early Christians to see the Trinity as “All male” – to avoid the sexual content. Today some writers make much of the homoerotic content of an all-male Godhead, but that wasn’t present to the ancients. The social world was exactly all male. Only men would have been out and about in public. Yes, there was some same-sex eroticism, but it was not “gay” as we understand that term today. An all-male Godhead would have avoided the family and sex images that would have otherwise appeared.

Nowadays I don’t think that content is still culturally restrained. As I noted some critics cite the homoerotic content of an All-Male Godhead. Other’s cite the absence of female energy as an oppressive sign. Some go so far as to imply that it matters not if Jesus is seen as male or female. This I think is a lie: for why see my earlier essays on Jesus being God having importance. But on the other hand I have sung about “The Glory of God our Mothering Father” and also said “Our Mother in Heaven”. These images are not a threat to the doctrine of the Trinity save to some retro-thinking folks who insist on the legalism of the formulae rather than the mystery of the symbol. If you need to have God the Mother or a feminine Holy Spirit, I think that’s cool.

Neither can we merely ascribe functions instead of personal titles. Parent is ok, but it is also cold and clinical in the same way that calling me a “homosexual” is cold and clinical. Mother or Father is important. But we can not say “Creator, Redeemer & Sanctifier” because, for example, it is Jesus who is seen as the Creator in Christianity. “All things were made by him and without him was not anything made.” The Father is only the first mover – the world comes into being through the actions of Spirit and Son. “Redeemer” is a very scary title, I think: that without care can devolve into Jesus as “Payment of our Debts”. Jesus is our Sanctification as the scripture tells us. And it is the Father who sanctifies us by the indwelling Spirit. To attempt to split these roles into names creates a confusion. I’d rather we say, “Begetter, Begotten and Proceeding” As in:

May God the Begetter, the Begotten and the Proceeding one fill our world with his peace in our lives and by our actions.

This is also important because these three Gender-Neutral Terms describe who God is in relation to God as do the traditional titles. The other set, Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, tell who God is only in relation to us. The point of salvation is to make that relationship with us a living reality: but it is not who God is. God has that relationship of persons within godself and seeks it with us. But God does not change to be with us. God remains who God is: the begetter, the begotten and the proceeding one.

One more essay to tie all of this up together – bridging the gap, I hope, between the trinity and us in the incarnation and Eucharist. God is who God is – and now we talk about how God comes to us. The preceding essays are listed there in the sidebar.

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.

F I’m ever asked why I want to be a priest, I hope I can be this eloquent. (Props to Fr T)