Touchy points

After reading this, someone may say: "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" In the last few days we have seen that people are concerned about divorce-annulment-remarriage among the clergy, and about contraception. Fr. Kirby and Ed Pacht have weighed in on the first of these issues, and I want to weigh in here. This post will address the first, and in a day or two I will really get myself into deep doo-doo by, once again, addressing the second.

Divorced and remarried clergy

It is a fact of life that a couple can be invalidly married in the eyes of God. I chose those words carefully, because in the absence of bigamy they are married in the eyes of the state and of society, and that is a legal fact. Indeed, if such a couple later is determined to have had a marriage that was, by the standards of the Church and her Lord, null, the children are by no means bastards. They are legitimate, because the marriage was a legal fact, and the Church does not declare otherwise.

To most Protestants marriage never gets beyond the legal definition, and therefore they have no conception of annulments. Unfortunately, this is also somewhat true in the minds of many of the Orthodox, although the real teaching of Orthodoxy on this matter is impossible to determine, and has different versions in different places. By many in Catholic churches of the west, both Roman and Anglican, the notion of annulment is badly misunderstood.

Like Fr. John Hollister, I dislike the word "annulment." He is right, and as he stated in a comment: "I would go just one step further and relegate the term 'annulment' to the rubbish bin, replacing it with 'declaration of nullity'. Using 'annulment' too often suggests erroneously to the uninstructed that the Church is arrogating to itself the authority to undo something which Our Lord Himself had previously done."

Here we need to turn to the scriptures:

The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. Matt.9:1-9

(If anyone doubts how seriously Anglicans have taken these words, he needs to look at the Church of England in the year 1936, when the king was forced to choose between a divorced fiancee and his crown. In the final analysis, it all boiled down to one constitutional issue: The king was going to excommunicate himself upon marrying Wallice Warfield Simpson.)

The fact that a man and woman exchange vows which result in the work of God makes marriage a sacrament for Christians. This is not even debatable unless we presume (as many do) to redefine the correct meaning of the word "sacrament." The result of a man being joined to his wife creates a divine response, that is, Form, Matter and Intention result in a condition for which the Lord used the words, "What therefore God hath joined together." Therefore, if the sacrament was not valid, the Church may decree nullity. But, it cannot annul in a proactive sense, as if changing reality. Despite the attempt by one Gene Robinson of the Episcopal "Church" to create such a thing, there is no sacrament of separation and divorce. Bishops cannot annul marriages that are valid; they may investigate to see if a marriage was invalid, and make a judgment based on the facts.

The most common reason given is a lack of Intention. However, to use the words of Jesus, quoted above, called the Matthean Exception, in a loose and simplistic manner, is not justified. The Lord did not refer to isolated acts of adultery that might follow a valid marriage, but to a marriage that is itself "fornication." That is, that it is no marriage in the eyes of God. An isolated act, even as grievous as adultery, does not mean that the marriage was invalid, but rather that it was violated and trust was betrayed. Only a pattern of such behavior could demonstrate that one party never had the right Intention to make the marriage valid. (In cases I am aware of, where some Roman Catholic bishops have used deficiency of Form as their reason, their annulments have been null, not the marriage. Such false annulments are a disgrace.)

The question about Decrees of Nullity is not whether the Church may make such judgments, but rather can that authority be abused? The obvious answer is yes. In the matter of the clergy, we are faced with a more complicated problem. I cannot help but feel compassion for John, who asks a very honest question:"All this...which disturbs this poor layman as I may have to make a decision somebody because one of these men could end up theoretically as my bishop (or yours) by the stroke of another bishop's pen. If we have struggled and sacrificed for 30 years only to produce divorced bishops we are in no position to criticize our neighbors and that raises the question 'what the h... are we all doing here?' Why not have stayed in ECUSA?"

Let us assume that someone ends up with a bishop who was divorced, found to be free of impediment by a Decree of Nullity, and remarried. Let us add the complication, theoretically (theoretically, as I am not aware of any real life case I can condemn with confidence or evidence) that his remarriage is rightly a scandal, and that everyone can see through the case as a sham annulment to justify adultery.

Here we would have two related problems. The first problem has to do with sacramental validity. On that subject, the teaching of the Church is very clear, that a sacrament is not rendered invalid because of an unworthy minister. To teach otherwise is to fall into the heresy of Donatism. When St. Paul warned St. Timothy, "Lay hands suddenly on no man," (I Tim. 5:22) and when he listed the character requirements for postulency (I Tim 3, and Tit. 1:5-11), it is quite obvious that he never questioned the validity of unworthy men should they become ordained. Rather, he instructed Timothy on how to avoid the creation of a monster; a real life minister (be he deacon, priest or bishop) who ought never to have been ordained, partly because that ordination is real, and indelible. The Church would have to apply the remedy of discipline, but such cases always leave wounds and scars. The bottom line regarding sacraments is stated in Article XXVI. Of the unworthiness of the Ministers, which hinders not the effect of the Sacraments.

Although in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good, and sometime the evil have chief authority in the ministration of the word and sacraments; yet forasmuch as they do not the same in their own name, but in Christ's, and do minister by His commission and authority, we may use their ministry both in hearing the word of God and in the receiving of the sacraments. Neither is the effect of Christ's ordinance taken away by their wickedness, nor the grace of God's gifts diminished from such as by faith and rightly do receive the sacraments ministered unto them, which be effectual because of Christ's institution and promise, although they be ministered by evil men.

Nevertheless it appertaineth to the discipline of the Church that inquiry be made of evil ministers, and that they be accused by those that have knowledge of their offences; and finally, being found guilty by just judgement, be deposed.

But, this does not answer the real cry I hear in John's question.

The extra weight that is rightly placed on our backs as clergymen is there because, in addition to our sacramental role, our manner of life before the world and before the Church could destroy our credibility and therefore take away our ability to teach. Worse, our lives, as publicly known, might even teach error, and they may do so to the peril of souls. And, they may send a false message despite our doctrinal orthodoxy. That is the message of the third chapter of St. Paul's first Epistle to St. Timothy. When St. Paul says that a man who desires the office of a bishop must be "apt to teach," the context indicates that his public reputation must not destroy his ability to represent Christ. Otherwise, he cannot teach effectively, partly because he has lost all moral authority.

Perhaps the Anglicans of fifty years ago might seem severe today. After all, at that time any divorce at all in a man's past, or that of his wife, was enough to render ordained ministry beyond his reach anywhere in the entire Anglican Communion. This may have had more to do with community standards than with actual morality. Should a man be considered unfit for ordination because of a marriage that fell apart many years earlier, perhaps even before his conversion, and that was really and truly not a valid marriage? On the other hand, what does fairness have to do with it? Is this life of ordained ministry supposed to be fair? Can it be fair?

I have no authority to pontificate, but neither can I give my hearty approval to everything that may go on in bodies that are associated with, or even part of, the Continuing Church jurisdictions. But, I would hope that more consideration be given to the basic cry that is in John's question than merely a legal and technical one, even one that is theologically accurate. What John wants from all of us in the ordained ministry is an example to follow, and one that children can learn from. He wants an example that commands the respect of Christians in other churches and also of unbelievers. It is a matter of compassion and of responsibility that we hear that cry, and that we not seek to defend ourselves rather than caring for the sheep. And, yes, perhaps some of the men in ordained ministry should ask themselves if their life is a scandal, whether the answer is fair or not.

Divorce and Annulment

(A bit of housekeeping here. The "Suffragans" thread has become rather unwieldy and diffuse. Questions have been raised regarding divorce, annulment, and remarriage among the clergy. It is becoming increasingly difficult to comment in a thread that bounces between so many different and difficult issues. Both Fr. Hart and I are preparing submissions relating to this area, and Fr. Kirby just added a comment on another aspect of it. Rather than continuing to wrestle with such an overcomplicated thread, I've moved Fr. Kirby's comment on to this separate thread, along with a couple of comments it drew. We are still holding comments by John and Fr, Wells, both of which Fr, Hart intends to address.) ---ed pacht

This, from our Father Matthew Kirby:

While Fr Hart is planning to have a "DAR" thread in the near future, I do not feel it is appropriate for me to wait till then to make some important points.

1. As long as the bishops concerned have valid annulments of any previous marriage, they have in fact only been sacramentally married once, and the claims that the scriptural demand that bishops have only one wife has been violated and that merely "serial" monogamy has obtained (and thus effective polygamy has been committed) are false. That, after all is what an annulment means: the earlier marriage never was one in the full and proper sense. Therefore, strictly speaking, we are not talking of those divorced and remarried (DAR) but invalidly married, this being annulled, then really married for the first time (IMARM?).

2. The quite separate question of whether it is fitting for these men to be bishops is more challenging. But it is a matter of prudential judgement. There is no definitive teaching on the matter. Even Fr Hart suggests a possible exception to the common-sense rule that whatever even seems to undermine the sanctity of marriage should not be tolerated in the clergy. This shows that each case might need consideration on its merits. Given that the details necessary for that will probably not be available to most of us, we should certainly be wary of leaping to condemn any Continuing jurisdiction that has a "IMARM" bishop.

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY

Icon by Monastery Icons.

Romans 12:6-16a
Mark 1:1-11

The season of Epiphany gives us pictures of Christ that are meant to help us understand the revelation of who He is. Look at an icon of this event, and you get a glimpse of the meaning of this Gospel passage. The Son stands in the water, the Spirit appears in form as of a dove and lights upon Him, and the Father’s voice comes from above. This clear revelation of God is why we should think of today as a companion Sunday to Trinity Sunday. It is why the Orthodox Church sees this scene from the Gospels as the most significant Theophany, for which they name this season.

About thirty years ago I heard a man preach that when the Father spoke the words, “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” that this was somehow necessary in order to meet the psychological need of Jesus, a word of approbation from the Father that, as the preacher’s words still ring in my memory, “His Son needed.” I do not know where people get these ideas, but they do not find them in the pages of scripture. The idea that we can understand Jesus Christ in psychological terms that are based upon the normal condition of fallen sinful people, who need healing or affirmation because of the brokenness of their lives, is a short route to heresy. We must not try to get into the mind of Jesus Christ as if He were subject to the problems that sinful people have. His understanding of His mission is not a subject for that kind of analysis.

Another idea that was popular for many years is that Jesus was suddenly aware of who He was, and of His unique relationship to the Father, because of the voice from heaven and this whole spiritual experience. This interpretation comes from the idea that He was drawn to hear the preaching of John the Baptist, and underwent some sort of personal epiphany akin to religious conversion, the kind that takes place when revivalists preach. According to this interpretation, he emerged from the water a new man, suddenly filled with divine purpose. Again, this would require that we imagine a Jesus who came to John in order to be forgiven his own sins, because John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. But, the thought of Jesus having sins of which to repent is heresy. He is without sin.

We need to think according to the actual revelation that is recorded here in the scriptures, and free our minds from wrong ideas. For, the simple fact is, nothing that Jesus did in His public ministry had anything to do with meeting a supposed need of His own. Everything was for our sakes, like the hymn says- “for us baptized, for us He bore his holy fast and hungered sore.” That wonderful hymn begins each line of most verses with those two words, “for us.”

“For us He prayed, For us He taught, For us His daily works he wrought…For us to wicked men betrayed…For us he rose from death again.” What happened here at the River Jordan did not happen because the Son needed the Father’s affirmation, and it is was not some personal epiphany that changed His life. He knew already exactly who He was, and of His unique relationship to the Father, having expressed it to Joseph and Mary in the temple many years earlier when he was a child twelve years old. He asked them why they had looked for Him when they ought to have known that he would be in His Father’s house.

Jesus went to the River Jordan in order to begin His public ministry, to appear to the people of Israel, and to be proclaimed by John the Baptist as the Son of God. The baptism itself serves as a prelude to the crucifixion that He, for us, later would endure unto death. For here, standing with sinners in the waters of the Jordan, He is willingly taking on the sins of the whole world for the first time, letting Himself be identified with sinners and with their sins, remaining Himself guiltless, completely holy, and the only person among all of the human race about Whom the Father would say that He, God, is well pleased. God loves the fallen sinful children of men; but He is not well pleased with any of them in their Fallen state. Only His Son, free from sin, was pleasing to God; and here we see him entering the waters of the Jordan to begin his identification with our sins, a voluntary identification that would culminate on the cross. In John’s Gospel it is after this epiphany, this epiphany to John the Baptist and the people gathered, that the Baptist proclaims “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.”

I remember another strange idea that was expressed in my hearing, only this time it was from a layman. According to this fellow, there was some point when Jesus complained in response to the demands of a crowd that he was only one man, and they were asking too much from him. I do not know what movie this man saw, or what silly story he once heard from a well-meaning relative while growing up, or what dream he dreamt. I pointed out to him that nothing of the sort ever happened; that the Gospels record no such thing. Jesus fed thousands of people with five loaves and two fishes, rose people from the dead, walked on water, healed everyone who came to Him, and never once complained about anything, except for how little faith people have. He did not work within the confines of His human nature, but from within His eternal Godhead as the Son eternally begotten of the Father. He did not diminish His Divine nature, but rather he raised human nature. He did not reveal what is possible for a good man, but what is possible with God. The human nature that he took into His Divine Person as God the Son was a complete human nature; but the Person of Jesus the man was that of God the Son.

The voice from Heaven, and the appearance like that of a dove, all centered upon Jesus in the River Jordan, did not come for His sake. It did not meet some need that He had. It was for the sake of those who stood upon the bank of the river, those who saw and heard. It was for the sake of all of us who have learned about this epiphany, this revelation of the Trinity, that full and perfect name of God that later would be spoken by Christ after he rose from the dead; the name of “The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.” Here is a revelation of God, and of the mysterious relationship that has existed from all eternity, about which we have no right to speculate, hidden and veiled except for glimpses of revelation meant to aid us in our salvation. At no point was the Son alone, for the Father was always with Him, and the Holy Spirit remained upon Him.

The other people came to the Baptist confessing their sins. But, about this man the Father made a confession, that He was well pleased. The others came out of need. Jesus was there to meet our needs, especially the deepest need of all, to be reconciled to God; to know Him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Others came to lay down their sins; Jesus was there to take up the sins they laid down, and to carry them to Calvary where they would be nailed to the cross with Him. The others came to lay down their burdens; Jesus was there to take up their burdens. “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53: 4-6).”

The Holy Spirit appears as a dove. Now, this is a different kind of manifestation than the physical presence of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. The Holy Spirit is appearing in a vision granted to everyone there; His appearing is in a symbolic way, that is to say, it is a Divine writing of iconography in the very heavens. The appearance of a dove is a symbol, and the message is that God’s wrath is over and done. This is the Christmas message of the angel who appeared and spoke to the shepherds of “peace on earth, goodwill towards men.” Not among men, but towards men. We are reminded of the story of Noah, who sent out the dove, which returned with an olive branch in its mouth to reveal that the waters of God’s wrath had abated from off the earth. Noah later offered a sacrifice after he left the ark, and God promised not to destroy man, and hung up His bow, His rainbow, as a pledge. The meaning is this: By appearing as a dove that descended upon Jesus, the Holy Spirit signified to us that Christ is the peace offering that reconciles us to God. This too, just like the very baptism itself, points to our redemption by Christ’s full and complete offering of Himself on the cross.

And, to the ear came the audible voice of the Father, telling us of His pleasure in the Son. This is more than simply His approval of Christ’s holy life. It is the eternal love within the Trinity, wherein God delights in being God, where each of the Persons delights in the perfection and worthiness of the other two Persons. ..we know this is true, but our speaking of it cannot do justice to the reality as we shall begin to know it when the risen Christ returns in glory. For now, we see the significance in the Father’s words, telling us not only of His Son’s worthiness and holiness, but telling us this in contrast to the pleasure He cannot take in the fallen state of every other human being who was there. Here too we understand why this voice was heard at the Lord’s baptism. As Jesus Christ identified Himself with sinful mankind, the other Persons of the Godhead told us Who He is, and why He is Himself without sin, but standing in for us to save us. The Father speaks of His Son Who always pleases Him, telling us not only that He remains holy and without spot or stain of sin, but even more; that He is the Son Who throughout eternity and before all worlds gives delight to the Father in that Divine love that is beyond our comprehension.

We see the Trinity in this report of the Lord’s baptism that day. The vision of the Holy Spirit was for our sake; the voice of the Father was for our sake. Here we see and hear the Trinity with eyes and ears, and we see also that only in Jesus Christ and His offering of Himself do we have salvation from sin and death. And, we can say, from all this, that the revelation of the Trinity tells us, in the words of Saint John the Apostle, “God is love.”

The revelation of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, the Trinity, is a necessary part of our salvation. It is not about abstract and difficult theology, but about how God, who is Love, saves us from sin and death and promises to raise us up in His Son. He has made Himself known in our world- not perfectly understood, but known. What was revealed that day at the River Jordan was a revelation to every human being except Jesus, who alone already knew.

UECNA Suffragans

Fr. David Straw asked if I would post this press release. I find it newsworthy due to the participation of three distinct jurisdictions of our woeful divided Continuing Anglican movement. May this herald a movement toward true unity of Catholic Anglicans.

ed pacht
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The United Episcopal Church of North America (UECNA) consecrated three new suffragan bishops on January 10th 2009. The three men were elected by the lay and clergy representatives at the UECNA’s recent triennial Synod in October of 2008. Participating in the consecrations were the Most Rev. Stephen C. Reber, Sr. the Archbishop and Presiding Bishop of the UECNA as well as the Rt. Rev. D. Presley Hutchens, Bishop Ordinary of the Anglican Catholic Church’s Diocese of New Orleans, and the Rt. Rev. Dr. William Wiygul, Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese of the Southern States of the Anglican Province of Christ the King.

Consecrated bishop were the Rev. Peter D. Robinson, Rector of St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Prescott AZ, the Rev. Harry Samuel Seamans, Rector of St. Thomas Church, Mountain Home, AR, and the Rev. Wesley L. Nolden, II, Priest-in-Charge of Trinity Anglican Church, Evansville, IN. The service was held in St. Louis, MO with over 140 in attendance and occurred only two miles from the site of the signing of the Affirmation of St. Louis. The consecration of these bishops emphasizes the growing positive cooperation between the three jurisdictions which have had intercommunion agreements since 2007. The three new suffragan bishops will not only work for Archbishop Reber, but will be available to assist diocesan bishops in the other two jurisdictions should the need arise. The approval of Archbishop Reber will be required as well as either Archbishop Haverland, or Archbishop Provence depending upon the jurisdiction requesting the assistance.

Swim the Thames without me

A year ago I wrote a post called Swim the Tiber without me, and I stand by everything I said. Here I have written the title Swim the Thames without me. This is not referring to the patrimony of Anglicanism, for I remain Anglican by conviction. Rather, it is about that large church body, or organization of churches, called the Anglican Communion. The fact that we have ACC churches in England itself demonstrates that even the seat of Anglicanism, and its historic home, have fallen away. They need the Continuum even there.

The link we provide to The Affirmation of St. Louis is the ACC link, simply because I posted it, and that is the jurisdiction to which I belong. It could as well have been the ACA link, or the UEC link, or the APCK link. Because I have posted the ACC link, you will find that it contains an additional remark that was not in the original. Nonetheless, I believe we all agree with the content of said additional remark. After the place where the Affirmation stated, in the original, "We affirm our continued relations of communion with the See of Canterbury and all faithful parts of the Anglican Communion," the following comment appears: "[Note: Because of the action of General Synod of the Church of England, Parliament, and the Royal Assent, the College of Bishops of the Anglican Catholic Church is obliged no longer to count the See of Canterbury as a faithful part of the Anglican Communion.]"

Near the end of 2007 I was approached with an offer, in fact I was almost drafted really, to be prepared to take over as editor of The Christian Challenge from Auburn Traycik, who has always done a fine job with that publication. And, even though the magazine continued to have an impressive subscription list, near the end of 2008 it could no longer afford to publish. Nonetheless, my duties near the end of 2007 and going into much of 2008, required that I research and stay on top of all the news of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion (and that I know everything I can about our Anglican Continuum). Not only did I read the news; I wrote it. Much of it was, frankly, torture. The news about the official Anglican Communion, including my coverage of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was never good. The constant law suits by the Litigator in Chief of the Episcopal "Church"-or Presiding "Bishop"- was really sickening stuff. It was like a nightmare in which one is strapped to a chair and forced to watch soap operas. "I'll talk, I'll talk! I can't take it anymore!"

It is relevant to the time that we remind ourselves of the mission we have as Continuing Anglicans. It is especially relevant because of the growth of the Common Cause Partnership led by Bp. Robert Duncan into a separate Anglican Province, seeking recognition from Canterbury. Some of the bishops in this movement have my respect, especially the three FiF/NA bishops. We all know that their actions led to Realignment with the Province of the Southern Cone. And, I alone, of all the reporters, wrote that Bishop Jack Iker had identified the original cause of Realignment as the issue of women's ordination, not the newer heresy of homosexualism; not that they accepted that newer heresy. They did not. Nonetheless, whether the Stand Firm people like it or not, it was women's ordination that led to realignment, and that was clearly stated in an October address given by Bishop Iker at a FiF gathering in England.

But, where has Realignment led so far? Archbishop Venables of the Province of the Southern Cone made no move to stop one of the first Realigner bishops, the Canadian Bishop Donald Harvey, from "ordaining" a woman to the priesthood. The silence is clear: This shall be allowed to continue. It has been problem enough that the FiF bishops have never understood why women cannot be ordained to the diaconate; and now they are in communion with a bishop who goes even further on the road of heresy. It has been uncovered that even back in the 1970s, the clever undercurrent of "gay" activists promoted women's ordination every way they could, and that was in order to lead to the present situation. In a sense, the "gay" activists understood something about Holy Orders that many so-called orthodox Anglicans have missed: That is, that it is one sacrament. Also, they seem to have understood the sacramental system and its interdependence: That is, if the sex (I refuse to say "gender") of an individual does not matter in one sacrament (ordination) why should it matter in another (matrimony)? This applies even where secular laws require that the true "intention" be cloaked with the word "blessing." (After all, in the sacrament of Matrimony, blessing the union is what the Church does. How stupid do they think we are?)

This continues to infect the best of the well-meaning "orthodox" Canterbury Anglicans. They allow the one, and in time must accept the other, and imitate the very practices they seek to avoid. It also shows that their use of the word "orthodox" has a slippery definition, adjusting itself to the latest crisis as something merely comparable to the worst of the worst, making the better of the worst seem godly and true relatively speaking. This is reactive and false orthodoxy, since proactive and genuine orthodoxy is consistent with Christ and the Apostles, and can neither be relative nor subject to change. We need to love and pray for the GAFCON and CCP folks, and to have faith that God can reveal the fullness of truth to them, inasmuch as prayers that are uttered apart from faith and charity have no hope of ascending before the throne of God as the incense. This new North American Province is full of people who need our prayers, and wherever possible such patient dialogue as our theologians and bishops may have opportunity to engage them in. And, that need is because of the infection of modern heresies that they have never renounced, because have never fully renounced them.

I remain Anglican by conviction, believing it the best way to be a Christian. And, the Anglican Communion once gave us right doctrine and practice; and we hold that doctrine and practice to carry it into the future. We must do so in this state of separation, that is, without them. In no way is that something we may afford to do without charity and hope for their conversion and return; but in no way can we afford to forget the causes that have impelled our separation.

The Problem with St. Skip

A recent comment made me think of this old article of mine.

“The Problem with St. Skip” first appeared in the April, 2003 issue of Touchstone, a Journal of mere Christianity.

Robert Hart on True Humility

In 1976, when I was eighteen and voting for the first time, a friend of mine the same age told me to vote for Jerry Brown because “if he is President, he won’t live in the White House. He’ll just be a regular guy.” That seemed wrong to me then, and at my current age I see that it is because Mr. Brown was letting his own self-importance diminish the dignity of the office he sought.

Oh yes, his seemed like down-to-earth, “regular guy” humility. But it was a statement of egotism beyond simple pride or vanity. Mr. Brown was making himself more important than the office of President of the United States, to the point where he would change the customs and traditions of the American people. Not respecting the people or honoring those who had served before him, he would belittle the office itself.

How much worse is it, then, when one is speaking of a higher and nobler office than the Presidency? Yet a kind of priest exists who does this very thing. “You don’t have to call me Father. All my friends call me Skip.” This is said with the characteristic humility of which he is characteristically proud.

A Regular Guy

Yes, he is just a regular guy and is always very quick to say so. It was this sort who once inflicted clown Masses on innocent people. It is terrible conceit to pretend that one is being very lowly by putting down his office rather than by humbling himself. In sermons and conversations he will remind everyone just how much he really is only a regular guy. He will downplay the significance of theological education and of ordination.

He lets them know that the office he holds does not make him all that special—the office, that is. His “humility” extends to reminding the people that he is not any smarter or holier than they are, whether they need such reminding or not. By this he means, by all that can be observed of his actions, that he has no special calling or authority by virtue of ordination to the sacred ministry.

Perhaps this seems at first glance like the real article, genuine humility, so much so that in the minds of some people, he deserves canonization for it. To them he is St. Skip, and they will not hear a bad word about him.

There can be no genuine “in your face” humility, because true humility requires that one take the attitude of a servant. We cannot help but think of the great Christological passage in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, and that he began the passage with the words, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” The humility of a servant, in the Christian mind, is not self-centered and abrasive, but obedient to the Father’s will; and it includes the death of the cross.

On the other hand, the conceited version of “humility” is a challenge, by which a man hopes to assert himself in a contest of who can be the greatest at being the least. And in true 1960s style, anyone who can win that contest will have succeeded in toppling the powers that be, redesigning the social order, and becoming great at being insignificant.

So we must ask just what St. Skip is really doing by humbling the ministry and thereby exalting himself. What he is doing is promoting egalitarianism and diminishing Christ. He reverses John the Baptist’s statement and says (by his actions and sometimes in his words), “He must decrease, and I must increase. I’m the one in touch with the feelings and needs of today.”

Earthen Vessels

He does not believe the church’s teaching—throughout all of its ages—that the ministry is not a human institution but a divine one. The gifts given in ordination do not come from the men who ordain but from the Holy Spirit working through them. The ordained ministry is (in Catholic terms) an icon of Jesus Christ himself, a living sacrament. No wonder St. Paul asks, “And who is sufficient for such a task?” He also says, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”

Indeed, the apostle was a truly humble man. He never imagined that he himself was anything but a servant, and in that mind he was able to speak of the exalted office and the glorious gifts God had given to him. In that mind he could surrender to the death of martyrdom, entrusting the Church to God. He never diminished his apostolic office or spoke of it with less than great respect, for he never confused that office and its gifts with himself, the “chief of sinners.”

But our buddy St. Skip is of a different mind altogether.

He wants to teach old stick-in-the-mud traditionalists a lesson. Our priorities are wrong and centered on having power. Is it any wonder that we oppress women and homosexuals? That we cannot change with the times? It is obvious, is it not, that we are guarding our position and privilege quite jealously.

But not him. He doesn’t want power. He doesn’t want to tell other people what to do. He is the one giving everybody a break. He is allowed to change all the rules himself and tear down every tradition that stands in the way of progress. He has the right to challenge God’s commandments and reject any of the church’s teachings that make people feel oppressed and unaffirmed. He can disregard the Bible and the ecumenical councils, spurn canon law, and despise the plain meaning of the Creeds if he feels he needs to for “pastoral” reasons.

He is a very, very “humble” man who wants no power for himself—except that of completely rewriting the Christian Tradition. No pope ever claimed such power, but of course the popes were all guarding the position and privilege. St. Skip’s brand of “humility” gives him the right to hold ultimate power, even over God. It is only out of “humility” that he relaxes the laws and commandments when his pastoral wisdom gives him sufficient cause to be soft and flexible, for he is too “humble” to speak and act dogmatically, in a firm and authoritative manner. He that humbleth the ministry exalteth himself.

If He Were Humble

If he were truly humble, he would not reject the dignity of the priestly office, for he would know that it is not about him, but about Christ. He would be glad when people called him Father, for it is God they are honoring by “saluting the uniform” he is so unworthy to wear.

He would know that people, when entering a church, are saying, in effect, “Sirs, we would see Jesus,” and would stop saying, “Look at me,” through his immoderately extroverted behavior. He would faithfully preach the message of Christ, handed down by the Church over her generations, instead of a message of his own, no matter how much more popular and in line with the current trends his own message may be.

He would celebrate the sacraments and preach the Word by subsuming his own personality into the larger world of Christ and his ministry, and without theatrical interpretation. If he were humble, the ministry would retain its full majesty, against which he himself is ever inadequate, and into which he is willing to disappear that Christ may appear to all.

First Sunday after the Epiphany

Making customized use of the same material, this Sunday my sermon will be somewhat of a farewell to St. Andrew's (though probably not a final farewell, since my move should be about a month from now), and also a sermon that speaks to the immediate need of a church that has lost its building and must relocate, beginning a new chapter rather than closing the book. Therefore, for readers of The Continuum, I am offering this re-run.

Romans 12:1-5
Luke 2: 41-52

What brings all of these scriptures together for this day is the collect, asking for perception and knowledge of God’s will, and for the grace and power to be faithful to it. The collect reminds me very much of what St. Paul said was his prayer for the Church of the Colossian Christians:

“For this cause also, since the day we heard of it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord, unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might according to His glorious power...” (Col. 1: 9-11)

The passages we have heard this day all speak of the mystical charism, the gift, of wisdom by which we know the will of God, and of the grace God gives us to carry it out. The wisdom that we receive is, in a very mysterious way, coming to us from the Person of Christ our Lord, mediated to us by the Holy Ghost. It is the wisdom that the world does not know, for it does not know God. By this wisdom we know God, and we know His will for us.

Now, that sounds pretty heady and possibly not even very sober. Yet it is very practical.

Before talking about the practical side however, let us look very seriously at what we see in the twelve-year old Jesus, as Luke tells the story. To begin with, He knew Who He was, and He knew the Father. For some reason contemporary commentators have imagined, since some time about the middle of the 20th Century, that Jesus suddenly became aware of His identity when He was baptized, and the heavens opened, the Spirit came upon Him, and the Father spoke. How they come up with this I cannot understand, for the manifestation of each Person of the Trinity was a revelation given to John the Baptist, and to all who stood by at the banks of the Jordan. But, nothing new was revealed that day to Jesus.

No indeed, for here we see Him quite aware of Who He is at the tender age of twelve. His wisdom is greater than that of all of the Doctors of the Law, and all they can do is marvel at Him. I have heard preachers get this all wrong too, and think that He was getting ahead of Himself, and needed to be “put in His place” by Mary and Joseph. Again, not so. This is a revelation given to us in scripture of the simple fact that this human child, this boy, was at the same time God, One with the Father. He had taken human nature, alien as every created nature is to His Divine Uncreated Person, so that He could become Man, while yet, as St Athanasius tells us, filling the heavens as the Eternal Son of the Father. He did not “empty Himself” of Divine Nature, as some bad theologians have twisted the marvelous Christological passage from Philippians chapter two to mean, but rather, as it says in Psalm 113:5:

“Who is like unto the LORD our God, that hath His dwelling so high, and yet humbleth Himself to behold the things that are in heaven and earth!”

Yes, He would go back to Nazareth and be obedient to Mary and to Joseph, for He came in the form of a servant, and was obedient, obedient even to the death of the cross. He came in humility, laying aside His glory. The self-emptying spoken of by St. Paul meant just this very thing, that while always equal to the Father, He humbled Himself and did the Father’s will.

To do the Father’s will required knowledge of that will, and it required wisdom that cannot come from human origin, especially not from fallen and sinful men. The phrase “about My Father’s business” is also translated “in My Father’s house.” In other words, “why were you looking anywhere but here? Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?” Both being in the temple, and then going back with them to be obedient, were all part of His journey to the cross, as He came to do the Father’s will, not His own.

I want to be very careful at this point not to fall into Palagian heresy, and teach as many moderns do, that Jesus is our example, and that if He could do it so can we; the old “pull yourself up by your bootstrap.” This is not the message. No we cannot do it, we cannot pull ourselves up by our bootstrap, and we cannot even follow His example. If we could, we would not be miserable offenders as the Prayer Book has us confess, and that the Bible certifies us indeed to be. Our first father sinned, and we are born with all three strikes already called. True religion does not teach that life is a test. It teaches that life is a shipwreck. We need a Saviour, and no one less than God will do, while also our Saviour must be a Man like us to pull us out of the curse of sin and death. No. That Jesus did it perfectly does not mean that we can do the same. It means, in fact, that we cannot. For though fully Man from the nature of His Virgin Mother, He never ceased to be God, eternally begotten of the Father. This is the Gospel: That God himself came to save us.

So then, am I saying to give up and live in sin? Admit defeat and then “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die?” As St. Paul answered this question, God forbid. Well, here is the punch line to all that I just said, and it was written by St. Athanasius: “God became man that man might become Divine.” In case that sounds scarey, St Peter said the same in his Second Epistle, by God’s promises “...that ye might be partakers of the Divine Nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust (II Pet. 1: 4).” The doctrine of Deification, which is the Catholic doctrine common to the Church Universal, is not that people can be gods in a any literal sense; but, rather, that because God has become human, He gives grace for us to be adopted as children of God. The destiny of those who know God is to be transformed, and to be glorified, to be given true life and immortality. As C. S. Lewis put it, to be changed into a creature so glorious, that if you were to behold such a one now, you would be tempted to fall down and worship.

But, all of this is grace, that is, a gift. It is given because we are in Christ, and He is the True Son of the Father. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is (I John 3: 2).” Because He has come into the world, and taken our nature, and taken our death which He did not deserve, and has passed through death into life, we can live. And the life we are given is not of this world, but is the life of Christ Who is One with the Father and the Holy Ghost. This is the change we are given, and our partaking of the Divine Nature.

Now are we the sons of God. So then, how shall we live? We have not the power to live like sons of God within ourselves, or by our own effort. What we have is the Holy Ghost Who is given to us, Who abides in us. Now, what is the practical side which I have promised to speak about? Indeed, I seem to have gotten as far away from practicality as possible- or have I? Is it not practical to learn to depend upon God, upon His Spirit Who abides with us? How? By what steps?

By the steps given to us in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans just as we have heard it this day. In light of God’s mercies, we must know that we no longer belong to ourselves, but to the One Who paid for us by His very life-blood, the pouring out of His soul upon the cross of death. In light of that unspeakable mercy, we give ourselves as living sacrifices to God. No, we will not be perfect. Anyone who has had a heady conversion experience, no matter how mystical and indeed real, soon learns that he is still a sinner. No, we cannot be perfect, but we can humble ourselves and practice obedience. That is what a living sacrifice does: He carries his own cross daily and follows the Son of Man. Jesus did not carry the cross only on that one Friday, but every day; for He lived always to do the will of the Father Who sent Him. Unlike Him, we will not be perfect, we will not be a sinless sacrifice. All we can do is practice obedience, however imperfectly we practice it. But, the sins of a living sacrifice are those which he discovers within himself; that is, they are not done willfully and deliberately. If we choose to do wrong, we are not living sacrifices- something to consider before saying “amen” to the Eucharistic prayer in which “we offer our selves, our souls and bodies...”

This offering of ourselves to God is our “reasonable service.” In the original Greek it is our logika latre’ia (λογικv λατρεία). Literally, our “logical liturgy.” That is, a liturgy, a service, and one that is logical, reasonable, quite in keeping with wisdom. The Liturgy we offer to God this day must be in the proper sense a very real collect of our lives; for the whole life of each one of us should be itself a liturgy, with every part having its place as an offering of worship to God. Is all that we do done to the glory of God? In the last chapter of Zechariah, we see that even the washing bowls will be inscribed with the words “Holiness unto the LORD.”

Lastly, this means that our minds must be renewed, so that we are not conformed to this world. “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.” Remember this definition of how the expression “the world” is often used in the New Testament. It does not know Christ, and so to it we must not conform. Christians are supposed to be non-conformists. The renewing of our minds transforms us so that we are able to do His will. This is practical. If we are too lazy to employ our minds, to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the scriptures in light of the teaching of the Church, we will not be thinking of doing God’s will.

And, I would suggest that God’s will, for most of us, is not a mystery veiled in thick darkness. Rather, faced with the realities of life, if we are thinking about what it means to live a life that is offered to God, and are thus renewing our minds by His word, the way to do His will should be clear to us. Sometimes it will require effort to recognize that each moment of life has its own calling and purpose; other times a path opens before us that we must choose, not because it is easy, or because it is a way to find what we imagine to be happiness. No. It will be because it is the way that we know, in light of our Christian minds and our consciences, to be the way that is right.

It is not for us to choose the times in which we live, but, as Gandalf said to Frodo: “All we can do is decide what to do with the time that is given to us.” It may be quite hard for us to see the time and place in which we find ourselves as the place of God’s call upon us; and yet, often it is that when life is most ordinary and even mundane, we are faced with those choices, opportunities and even inconveniences that are, in fact, the time and place to know and do the will of the Father.

What we can do is possible not because of our cleverness in knowing His will, but because we are in Christ, and given His wisdom: The same wisdom of the twelve-year old Boy Who knew Who He was, where He belonged, and what was the will of His Father.

Now unto God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed, as is most justly due, all might, majesty, dominion, power and glory, now and forever. Amen.

Pastoral priesthood

Recently I posted a section from the book A Theological Introduction to The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, by E.J. Bicknell, where he defended the validity of Anglican orders against the polemics of Rome. Although this one little section of his book is not as long or comprehensive as Saepius Officio (1897), nor as long as Dom Gregory Dix's The Question of Anglican Orders, Letters to a Layman (1944), it is perhaps more useful due both to its brevity, and to how thoroughly, despite its brevity, Bicknell proved the Anglican case against the Roman position. He left not a stone unturned. If you have not read it, I suggest clicking on the link, and reading it carefully, perhaps doing so now before coming back to this post.

For purposes of instruction to Anglicans, in addition to the confidence Bicknell's treatment bolsters in the validity of our sacraments (especially to those who have been either confused or damaged in conscience by the misinformation and bad reasoning of Apostolicae Curae, 1896, about which Bull we have written much on this blog), we have in Bicknell's work a very important statement about the nature of the priesthood. Here is the part we shall focus on for our present purpose.

In order to defend the the action of the Church of England we must go back to first principles. Here, as elsewhere, the Church of England desired to return to antiquity. She appealed against one-sided and perverted medieval ideas to Scripture and primitive tradition. In the later Middle Ages the function of offering the Eucharistic sacrifice had assumed such undue prominence in the popular idea of the priesthood, that there was serious danger of forgetting the ministry of the Word and the pastoral work that belong essentially to the Office. The Reformers rightly desired to recall men to a fuller and better-proportioned view of the ministry. Accordingly, in the Ordinal the comparatively late addition of the 'porrectio intrumentorum' and the singling out of the sacrificial function of the priesthood were omitted. This did not mean that the Church of England in any sense intended to institute, as it were, a new order. The preface to the Ordinal, composed in 1550 and continued in 1552, makes it as clear as human language is able to make it, that she intended to continue those orders which had been in the Church from the days of the Apostles, namely Bishops, Priests and Deacons, in the same sense as they had always existed. When we turn to Scripture we find no stress laid upon the authority given to ministers to celebrate the Eucharist. It is preposterous to suppose that our Lord chose or ordained the Apostles chiefly or primarily to offer the Eucharistic sacrifice. In S. Paul's address to the presbyter-bishops * of Ephesus, the stress is laid on the faithful preaching of the Word and the care of the flock (Acts 20.28-31). In the Pastoral Epistles, in the choice of presbyters the emphasis is laid on the possession of qualities of character which are needed for pastoral supervision and teaching (I Tim3.1-7, cp. 5.17, Tit 1.7-9). So S. Peter places in the forefront of the duty of presbyters the general oversight of the flock (I Pet. 5.1-4). In such passages as these there is no explicit mention of the Eucharist. No one can doubt that it was the centre of Christian worship on every Lord's Day, nor that any one of the presbyter-bishops had authority, if need be, to preside. But when we compare the New Testament picture of the presbyters with the modern Roman idea of the priest, we feel the centre of gravity has shifted. So, too, in the early Church, the power to celebrate the Eucharist is not the predominant mark of the presbyter. It is not isolated from his other functions. It is not singled out for special mention in primitive ordinals. It was only during the Middle Ages and as a result of a one-sided view of the sacrifice of the Eucharist that an equally one-sided view of the office of priesthood came to be held. At the Reformation the Church of England of set purpose returned to the primitive conception of the ministry...

So, then, our real quarrel with the Church of Rome is, at bottom, about the meaning of the priesthood and of the Eucharistic sacrifice. We contend that Roman teaching on both is so out of proportion as to be almost untrue. If the Church of Rome chooses to say that we do not intend to make priests exactly in her sense of the word, we are not concerned to deny it. We are content to make priests in accordance with the ministry of the New Testament and the Primitive Church.

It is here that Bicknell restores for us a fuller and better view of the priesthood than what has been presented many times, including what has been presented among the kind of Anglo-Catholics who have succumbed to the notion that Rome gets to define all things Catholic for us. For some the balance has been lost, and the πρεσβύτερος (presbyteros) has been replaced completely by the sacerdos. This has caused a deficiency in terms of everything else that the elder, that is the presbyter, has been ordained to do. As important as Eucharistic sacrifice is, and as central as it is to the life and worship of the Church, we must not neglect a fully-formed understanding of the role of the Christian priest. Anglicanism knows nothing of "choir priests" who have been ordained only to minister at the altar, and who have no pastoral responsibilities. That is because the "choir priest" is a product of medieval imbalance, and was unknown to the ancient Church.*

It is not that Eucharistic sacrifice is less than completely essential to the role of the priest, but simply that he must develop his full ministry. As Bicknell put it in one of his footnotes: "As we have said, the English word priest by derivation simply means 'presbyter'. But it has acquired the meaning of 'sacerdos'. The Christian presbyter in virtue of his office is a 'priest'. Priesthood is one of his functions." Indeed, the larger emphasis in the ancient Church was on his role as an elder, and his pastoral care for the Church was explained both in scripture and in other early Christian writings, usually by employing the word "rule" (προΐστημι, proïstēmi). This kind of ruling has the Bible for its support. Look at these examples from the New Testament epistles.

"Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine." I Tim. 5:17

"Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you." Heb. 13:17

Though not using the word "rule," the same thing is expressed in this passage: "And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; And to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. And be at peace among yourselves." I Thes. 5:12, 13

In his classic work, Regula Pastoralis (literally, Rule of the Pastors, better known in English by the title, Pastoral Care), Pope St. Gregory the Great (circa 540 to 604) defines the word "rule" as it applies to presbyters. In this book, St. Gregory displayed a better understanding of human psychology than many modern doctors possess, examining repeatedly the attitudes and presumptions people have, and in each case the opposite. He does so in light of the need every person has strictly in light of the Christian doctrine of the Fall. Knowing that sin and death have weakened everyone, creating specific and varying deficiencies of character in just about everybody, Gregory instructs the presbyter in how to meet the needs of those whom he "rules." We learn from this that the rule of pastors in God's church is medicinal, a part of the healing that the Lord provides for his flock. The rule is not a dictatorial or tyrannical or authoritarian position taken as lords over God's people, but a remedial ministry of those who are ordained to be fathers in God's family. "For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?"asks St. Paul, rhetorically (I Tim 3:5).

Both from the ancient writings (that include, above all, scripture) and from ancient ordinals, we see the main emphasis in the office of presbyter as of one who, in this fatherly and kind manner, rules. We see also a very large emphasis on teaching. This is why the kind of priest we do not need is the man who has been thoroughly trained as an expert on liturgy, who knows Ritual Notes backwards and forwards, but possesses neither the theological skill to teach and enlighten, nor the pastoral skill to "rule" as a benevolent father. Yes, attention to liturgy is a very important responsibility; and leading the people in the Eucharistic Sacrifice of the Church must be done with great care and reverence (whether for a congregation that likes it high or low or in between). The sacrament of Holy Communion is, after all, one of those sacraments that is "generally necessary to salvation," and so nothing is more important than celebration and administering the sacrament.

But, the work of the Christian priest does not end there. Indeed, at that point it may just be getting started.
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*In fairness, these days many among the Roman Catholic clergy see the same importance on pastoral ministry that we do.

What is our Message?

I've become very concerned with the seeming negativity of our presentation of such wonderful Good News as we have been given. The following, one of the sermons I've been writing for Sunday Morning and Evening Prayer, seemed important enough to share. Please read it at:

http://poetreaderpacht.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-is-our-message.html

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The Epiphany

Icon by Monastery Icons

Isaiah 60:1-9
Eph 3:1-12
Matt. 2: 1-12

The most radical line to be uttered in the ancient world must have been the first of the Ten Commandments. “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” It was completely out of the ordinary in the days when the peoples of the earth were expected to worship the local deities; in fact, for Israel to believe that their God was the only true God, and all others were vain, was as out of place amid the pagans of antiquity as a fervent expression of Nationalism would be out of place on the floor of the United Nations. To what degree any of the ancient pagans may have thought themselves to be refined and sensitive, the Israelites must have come across as ill mannered. And, since the Law and the prophets of Israel denounced the practices of some of the religions, such as child sacrifice, it was very clear that the Jews simply were not willing to change with the times, and that they were intolerant.

Furthermore, not only was the God of Israel considered to be the one and only true God to His own people, but the only true God at all. The phrase that is translated “before Me” is quite significant. The Hebrew expression is al peni, and it means “in front of my face.” That might not be so bad for a local god that stayed within his boundaries; but this God had been in Chaldea with Abraham, called him into Canaan, went with the family of Israel into Egypt, and took them back to Canaan. Everywhere He went He was the ruler, showing no regard for the customs and religions of the people, and treating their idea of divinity as vain and silly. He judged the gods of Egypt in the plagues, even by putting out the light of their supreme deity, the sun. So, to have no other gods before Him, that is, in front of His face, the face of the God who is everywhere, is to make the judgment that only the people of Israel, believing in the One God who made Heaven and Earth, have the truth.

Syncretism was expected in the ancient world, a polite recognition of the various gods of the different places where nations settled. If nothing else, it was just bad manners to treat any religion as false, any god as a mere idol, and any practice as an abomination. Of course, when it became necessary to save mankind from the worst kind of paganism, the better kind came to the rescue; the Romans defeated the Carthaginian Hannibal whose army fought to spread the madness of child sacrifice everywhere. And, nowhere does this receive treatment that has better insight than in The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton.

But, even the Romans fell short of the Israelite standard, the worship of one and only one God, the maker of all things and judge of all men. They allowed the Jews to worship the God of their fathers only because He was the God of their fathers. They tolerated Jewish intolerance out of respect for its antiquity. But, they persecuted the Christians who converted from among the Gentiles, using the excuse that they were rejecting the gods of their fathers and the worship of Caesar. And, even during the early days of the Christian Church, as recorded in the Book of Acts, the Emperor Claudius sought to banish all Jews from the City of Rome itself. The idea of any religion that could not take an equal place among the devotions to the various gods of the peoples was completely strange to ancient peoples everywhere.

Yet, what we know that the pagans of antiquity did not know, is that the revelation of God to man was a gift and the offer of salvation. Jewish monotheism was intolerant of the gods for the same reason that men of medicine are intolerant of folk remedies. The real trouble with all people everywhere is that two-sided coin of sin and death; so the intolerance of Judaism for idolatry was a necessary first step toward what would become the mission of the Church. Inherent in the first commandment of the Law of Moses is the Great Commission of the Risen Christ. “Thou shalt have no other gods in my presence-before my face” is echoed in the words, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. (Matt. 28: 19, 20).” It is expressed in the words of Saint Peter, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12).” Emmanuel, “in ancient times did give the Law, in cloud and majesty and awe,” and now He stood risen from the dead to authorize the Church to go with His presence to all nations, going everywhere among fallen mankind and with all their gods before His face, to root up, pull down and destroy, and to build and to plant. Jesus Christ, after dying on the cross for the sins of the whole world, gave us our commission. He is the only salvation revealed by the only true God, Whom to know is eternal life (John 17:3).

This is the meaning of the wise men coming from afar to worship Him in His infancy. Any other kind of writing would have told us all about these men; where they came from, how large their company really was, and details about the route they took, and alternative route by which they returned. But, sacred scripture was composed by the Holy Ghost, and the focus in the Gospel of Matthew is on Jesus Himself. Therefore, all these interesting details about the Magi have become the study of modern historians and archeologists uncovering a mystery, because the Gospel had no space to give to such minor issues. It focuses attention on the salvation of God in the person of Jesus, and it tells His story. The Holy family’s flight into Egypt and return to Galilee is given the space that follows, and the three wise men – or Magi – simply disappear back to the place from which they came. But, their significance is not lost.

Their significance is taken up by Saint Paul in the Epistle we have heard today, about the Jews and Gentiles being made one new man in Christ, the middle wall of division broken down. We, that is those of us whose ancestry is from the Gentiles, are one with the people of Israel through faith in Jesus Christ. A gentile- that is, anybody who is not of Jewish descent- becomes grafted into the heritage of the people of God, made a child of Abraham by faith in Jesus Christ. This is why I have never been impressed by the apologists for women’s “ordination” when they argue that Christ chose only Jews, and so if we do not believe that women can be ordained based upon His example of choosing only men, we should be consistent and logical, and realize that this would mean we should not allow Gentiles to be ordained. The reason their argument does not make sense is contained in the truth revealed to the apostles and prophets, as taught in today’s Epistle: No Christian is a Gentile. When you were baptized you were taken out of your wild Gentile tree, and grafted into the cultivated tree of Israel.

It is a basic understanding of salvation itself, as Isaiah prophesied that the Root of Israel would grow and blossom and fill the earth, the same earth that is to be “filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Isa. 27:6, Hab. 2:14)” that upon being made part of the Church, one becomes a part of the Israel of God. By faith Abraham is our father, the Lord is our God, and there is salvation in none other than His Son (Rom. 4:11, Acts 4:12). All of our beliefs are based firmly upon revelation, and not based on even the best speculations of the wisest of men.

The difference between revelation and imagination is the difference between the true God and every idol. Even the unseen and unfelt idols of the mind, housed in the Arian speculations of Muslims and Unitarians of an unrevealed and lonely brand of monotheism that cannot possess the eternal attribute of love because it is alone, is an idol. A god who cannot be seen, touched, heard and even tasted, is the new kind of idol; for, “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth (John 1:14).” Apart from this revelation of the Wholly Other uncreated God taking our time and space world into His Person; apart from the revelation of this invisible deity found in fashion as a man whose glory is beheld; apart from this unknowable God being known in the Person of the Incarnate Word, there is no salvation. There is no salvation in all of the other gods that men worship before His Face.

We have the Great Commission to spread the knowledge of the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. Thou shalt have no other gods in front of His face, for neither is there salvation in any other. The name of Jesus is given under heaven among men, whereby we must be saved. Each of you, as a member of Christ's Body the Church, is being called to take your part of this great work that Christ gave to His Church from the beginning, of which prophets had spoken from the dawn of history. You can see that as a reason to be excited and motivated. I hope you will.

The Second Sunday after Christmas Day

Isaiah 61:1-3
Matthew 2:19-23

Today's Collect draws our attention to the relationship between the Word made flesh and the word spoken as recorded in scripture.

"Almighty God, who hast poured upon us the new light of thine incarnate Word; Grant that the same light enkindled in our hearts may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

This is very fitting, because the readings appointed for this Second Sunday after Christmas Day remind us very much of this relationship. The living and eternal Word is the subject of the revealed Word of God, made known to Apostles and Prophets, recorded in the scriptures. We all know that the Word, or the Logos, (λόγος), is a title of Christ that speaks of him as an eternal Person, uncreated and one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. This is why the Gospel of John opens with a threefold mention of God.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God."

God is named three times, and this is because John begins right away to teach us about the Trinity. I grow weary of musical and dramatic readings of the prologue of this Gospel that edit out the third mention of God, as if it were redundant. It is not redundant, but necessary. John is saying this: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God (the Father), and the Word was God (the Son). The same was in the beginning with God (the Holy Spirit)." John later records the words of Jesus about the Other Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who "proceedeth from the Father." This is very important, because without the Trinity, the next major theme of John's Gospel would be lost, namely the Incarnation. For, he teaches us that "the Word was God," and then says in v.14,

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."

Only this proper understanding of the double theme of the Gospel of John can help us understand all of its hardest, deepest and most puzzling statements. It is quite obvious that either John was teaching the substance of what later would be named the doctrine of the Trinity; or that he was completely incoherent and a bit mad. Those who cannot see the double theme of the Trinity and the Incarnation in the Gospel of John are forced to conclude that he simply rambled on without any meaning or logic. But, in fact his Gospel is well organized, and that is because it is thematic. Once you acknowledge the plot, so to speak, of the revelation of God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that this revelation is made known because "the Word was made flesh," you can see the logic, the pattern, the scheme, of the book. It is like a fugue by J.S. Bach, with the subject stated, developed and woven throughout every measure.

In fact, once we grasp that the double theme of the Gospel of John is the Trinity and the Incarnation of the Word, we can finally understand that statement of Jesus that so many people have found to be controversial. For us there is no question about the authority of the words that Jesus is recorded as having spoken; for the record comes from an eyewitness, as John reminds us. And, the words are the words of God the Son. I refer to chapter 14:6.

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me"

If we take this to mean that only those who understand the facts about Jesus can be saved from sin and death, then we have the problem of trying to reconcile Christ's words (that he came not to judge the world, but to save the world -Jn. 12:47) with some idea that his coming into the world was to exclude people from salvation and eternal life. If we realize that the entire Gospel of John is about the Trinity and the Incarnation, however, we see at once that God cannot be separated from God, and to know the Son is to know the Father. So, the narration in that 14th chapter continues:

"If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?"

Let us imagine for a moment that we are living in the 13th century in a European city. In the Ghetto a Jewish man prays: "I believe with perfect faith in Messiah's coming, and though he tarry I will wait for him." This prayer would not express faith in Jesus, about whom this man knows next to nothing, and whom he may consider to be a god of the Gentile rulers who oppress his people. But, he has expressed faith in Christ, or Messiah. To the extent that he may have known God, he knew Jesus Christ, even if not by name. On the Last Day, he may see his Messiah, and only then realize that he has been here before. Nonetheless, if this man knew God in his lifetime, it was through Jesus, the Word made flesh. For that ultimate revelation is a fact, and that God cannot be separated from God is also a fact. I do not pretend to know who may or may not have been saved throughout the history of mankind; but I do know that those words spoken by Jesus must be understood in light of the Trinity and the Incarnation.

But, here I am going on about the Gospel of John thanks to the Collect, and our Gospel reading today is from Matthew; and in place of an Epistle we have an Old Testament reading that is quoted in the Gospel of Luke.

In the reading from Matthew is one of the two most enigmatic portions where he quotes the prophets.

"And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene."

Where exactly is that? In fact, I have seen many cases where Bibles with reference columns have pointed to the closest spot, closest to saying this, that the publishers can think of in the Old Testament. I have heard many explanations for why this or that verse is singled out, and all I can say is, it would help if only they knew Hebrew. I will explain this in a moment. But, just to keep you on the edge of your seat with a merciless resort to suspense (beyond even the cruelty that Alfred Hitchcock inflicted on his audiences), I want to look at Matthew's other seemingly far-fetched Old Testament reference (all his other Old Testament references make perfect sense right away). I refer to what comes earlier in the same chapter.

"When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son."

It is from Hosea 11:1. "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." Or, so says the King James Bible. We see "child" and "son" as synonyms. But, not so the Hebrew, which uses the word pronounced na'ar. In modern English we would say "youth" rather than "child." The youth, Israel, and God's Son who is called out of Mizraim, or Egypt, need not be the same. The prophet foretold that like the entire nation of Israel, God's Son would be called to out of the land of Mizraim, or as our English Bibles say, Egypt. In fact, this has everything to do with Christ being a prophet like unto Moses. This comes from the 18th chapter of Deuteronomy:

"The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him...And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him"(15,18,19)

Indeed, the entire episode of saving the infant Jesus from a mad king who ordered the death of the male children, fits that pattern; and it was because of Herod that the holy family was sent by God into Egypt. As Moses came out of Egypt with the people of Israel, yet a youthful nation, God's Son came out of Egypt with the holy family, the chosen of the chosen, the virgin Mary his mother and Joseph his adopted father.

So, where does the Old Testament call the Messiah a Nazarene, now that I plan to relieve you of the suspense? The answer will surprise you. It is in Isaiah 11:1, and it will surprise you because no English translation will carry it.

"And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his root."

Yes, there it is. Now, I did not see that at all until I read this in the Hebrew. The word for "Branch" is nazir. It may be rendered "and a Nazarene shall grow out of his root." As such, it may strike you that Matthew sees even something we may loosely regard as a pun, as having great weight. Jesse is who? The father of David; and so the reference to Jesse is clearly Messianic, foretelling the eternal and peaceful reign of the Lord's Anointed.

My reason for going on like this about the Old Testament prophecies is explained simply in that passage from the Gospel of Luke in which Jesus reads aloud the Old Testament lesson that we had in place of an Epistle reading. In the 4th chapter of Luke we read:

"And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." (16-21)

The point of all scripture is to reveal Jesus Christ, "for in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." (Colossians 2:9) As St. Augustine put it, "The New is in the Old concealed, the Old is in the New revealed." The Old Testament is about Jesus Christ. Through history, through shadows, through types, and through very direct foretelling in various places, it is all about Jesus Christ. When he rose from the dead, the Lord made this clear:

"And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." (Luke 24:27)

This says "the things in all the scriptures concerning himself," rather than saying, "all the passages of scripture concerning himself." That is because all the scriptures are about him.

"And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me." (Luke 24:44)

No wonder Matthew could seize even upon one word, and realize that it was significant. It is because the revelation of God is not simply a set of teaching, a body of laws, or even a great ideology. The revelation of God is in his Son; and without him we cannot come to the Father. God, who made man in his image and likeness, did so to send his perfect and express image, his exact likeness, his very Son. Jesus Christ himself, not simply facts about him, and not simply his teaching, is the revelation of God come into the world to save us from sin and death.

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."

So, we may repeat our Collect: "Almighty God, who hast poured upon us the new light of thine incarnate Word; Grant that the same light enkindled in our hearts may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

Circumcision of Christ January 1st

Romans 4:8-14
Luke 2:15-21

Back in the 1970s, when I was in my first year in college, I had a run-in with a Philosophy instructor. The older I get, the more I read and the more I learn, the more I know how right I was, and how wrong the instructor was. Now, that is not the normal reflection one makes of his first year of college, and not the normal reflection I make of my undergraduate days in the 1970s when I was a mere boy and a beardless youth (a time my own kids think could not have existed. When I tell them I was once their age, I am not sure they believe me).

Anyway, this Instructor told the class that the ancient Greeks had believed that matter was evil (so far she was somewhat right), and that, in her words, “we see this as part of Christian teaching, that matter is evil.” I did not hesitate to contradict her. I spoke right up: “That is not Christian teaching,” I said. And I was right. She said to me, “Defend that statement.” So, I did. I pointed out that as early as the Book of Genesis, God looks at His creation and says, “It is very good.” I mentioned the sacraments, specifically bringing up baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which use matter for what is holy. I was about to point out the most important part, that Christians believe that God Himself has appeared in the world of matter in what we call the Incarnation, the Christian teaching that God the Son is fully God and fully man in one Person. But, she cut me off, and repeated her assertion that Christians have always believed that matter is evil. "As I was saying..." she went on.

Now that I am a real theologian, and a published one at that, I can add that the entire concept of matter being evil was the worst of ancient Gnostic heresies taught by one Marcion, whom the bishop and martyr Saint Polycarp called “the firstborn of Satan.” I am sure that these names were not familiar to the instructor. To this day I am irked by the fact that standards at that college were so low as to make an instructor out of someone so totally unqualified. And yet, if that unfortunate person had not been presenting herself as someone who is educated, we could have a certain amount of sympathy.

After five centuries of division and confusion among Christians, it is all too true that the heart of the message is missing from what most people think we believe. During this season of Christmas, and particularly this eighth day of Christmas, the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, it is a good time to state some basics about our faith. In particular, what does it mean that God the Son was born into the world as a human being? And, what does it mean about the use of matter in sacraments and in worship in general? It is right that we can see water, incense, the sound of bells and other created things as useful in worship. Our God made a good world, and created things have been sanctified by Christ taking human nature and coming into the world of matter, of space and of time. Eternity and time have met in one Person. For people who object to water, to incense, to bells and to the Real Presence in the Sacrament, I can only ask what they have against Jesus Christ having come in the flesh.

The fact that we believe such a thing, that we believe “the Word was made flesh,” is rather startling, quite a shock when we really take it in for the first time. I recall vividly when I was very young, attending a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, and the Rector of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, a small country church in Maryland, read the opening of the Gospel of Saint John, the appointed Gospel for Christmas. I knew the words already, but as they were read in the context of the Church in that holy service, on that holy night, they hit me like a bolt of lightening. “…the Word was God…And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” A few days later I was walking the family dog, and those words came again. I already believed that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man; but the idea of what that means, once again, was like being struck by lightening. It really is rather a shock, a good shock and happy, to grasp the fact that God the Son has condescended to take our very nature into His eternal and uncreated Person- God equal to the Father and the Holy Ghost.

The very fact that Saint Luke tells us that he was circumcised takes on great significance. Every Jewish boy was circumcised on the eighth day. This is what God commanded Abraham, and what Moses simply continued. But, what does it mean that Jesus Christ was circumcised? What does it tell us about creation and redemption, and God’s love for the human race?

Well, to begin with, as our Collect points out, Jesus Christ would fulfill the Law. For redemption, it reminds us of words from the Epistle to the Hebrews: “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15).” The fact that He fulfilled the Law perfectly, and was Himself without sin is essential to our salvation; the Righteous One being sacrificed as a Lamb without spot, himself pure from all sin, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed (I Pet. 2: 24).” As Isaiah put it, in the 53rd chapter:

“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

The sinless One, like Adam whose sin made the many guilty, has by His obedience unto death as the atoning sacrifice, made the many righteous. In this first shedding of blood by circumcision He begins to obey and to fulfill the whole Law; no one else ever did it perfectly. No one else could. No man in heaven or earth was worthy to open the scroll, says the Book of Revelation, except for the One who was like a Lamb that had been slain, and is called the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

What else does His circumcision tells us? It tells us that we can identify Him as an individual in history. This is very important, indeed essential, to believing that His Incarnation was real and not allegorical. Back in the 1980s, in New York City, one of the “progressive” Episcopal churches in town decided to display a female corpus- that is, the body of a woman- on a crucifix. One of the great errors of our time is the kind of feminism that wants something other than simply equal respect for both men and women, which is a good thing in itself. But this is, instead, that other kind of feminism, the Satanic kind that hates human nature as God created it, and meant it to be. It is the kind that hates life, that makes the sin of abortion, which is the murder of the unborn, into its only “sacrament.” Like the witch in Narnia, it makes it always Winter but never Christmas. A female corpus on the crucifix gets to the heart of error. Jesus Christ, in His sacrifice is transformed into a mere symbol. How backwards from reality.

God is the greatest Reality of all, and we human beings are the image. Jesus Christ in His human nature is the exact image, the express icon of the Father. His Circumcision reminds us of this reality: namely, that He entered real human history. That is, the world, as it really is, received into its created existence the Lord Himself. He was real, and as an individual had marks that made him of the male sex and of Jewish ethnicity, just as we all have these same distinctions of belonging to one of the two sexes, and to our own specific lineage from our ancestors. His sex was male, his ethnicity was Jewish.

It is important that He was male. This is no “accident” of the Incarnation, but rather, part of the plan. It is important that he was Jewish, descended from the Royal line of David. This too was no mere “accident” of the Incarnation, but an essential part of the plan of His Incarnation. Only a man could be our High Priest and represent all of humanity in One Person- as head. Only a Jew from the line of David could be the eternal King whose government and peace will have no end. 1

And, all of this ties into that other fact of His Circumcision, his Name. “And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” Jesus, Y’Shua, is a Hebrew name that means Salvation. As it says in the book of Isaiah:

Ci’ Adonai Shof’tenu

Adonai Mak’ka’kenu

Adonai Malkenu

Hu Yashi-enu

“For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; He is our salvation (Isaiah 33:22).”

Consider the two comings of Jesus Christ as they are revealed through shadows of history in the Old Testament: His first coming as Priest and His second when He will come as King. For today, let us consider the meaning of His circumcision, the first shedding of His blood, and His particular history as a male of the house of David, of the tribe of Judah. This real man in real history has overcome the barriers between us and God. By taking human nature He has overcome the chasm between Creator and creature that separated us from God. As the Lamb of God Who took away the sins of the world in his atoning death, when he offered himself on the cross as the full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, he removed the separation between us as sinners and the Holy God. When He rose from the dead He did away with death that separated us from the Living God, the source and author of all life.

His Name is Jesus. He is our salvation.

1. Isaiah 9:6,7. These two verses reveal a male of Davidic family descent as absolutely necessary attributes of Messiah.