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This Sunday begins the new Christian year as the first Sunday of Advent. Christians historically have not celebrated "new year" with great vigor. I don't think that this is an accident. Christians have a sense of time, not established by "natural cycles" of planetary trips around a sun, but by God's past, present, and future activity in Jesus Christ. The Christian year focuses on our living, as Augustine said, in "the times between the times." The Christian calendar orders life according to "the mystery of our faith" that we confess in the Eucharistic prayer: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again, or what we experience in simaltaneous presence of the past, present, and future life in Christ in the elements of the body and blood of Christ at the Lord's Supper. In all the ways that really matter, we live in the same "year" as the apostle Paul, Irenaeus, St. Benedict, St. Francis, John Wesley, Phineas Bresee -- the time when God has already defeated sin, death, and Satan in Jesus Christ and called us to participate in the future time now, even surrounded by the death throes of death, awaiting the restoration of all things in Christ. This age is not our time -- our time has come, and our time is coming. Therefore, the life we live we live by the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.

Advent thus begins with looking to the end and calling us to this end now. Unfortunately in American Christianity arising out of certain 19th century movements, Protestant evangelical Christians have understood "end" in a strictly chronological sense -- thus such things as The Left Behind series speak of the "end" without ever really speaking as Christians of the "end." Scriptures do speak of an end chronologically in the return of Christ -- a realistic "eschatology" that uses lots of different imagery to describe the indescribable in the coming of the fullness of God's kingdom in Christ on earth as it is in heaven as a divine gift, not a human accomplishment. Yet Scriptures speak of the "end" chronologically to emphasize the importance of our experiencing the "end" as the full accomplishment of God's Spirit working in our lives to the fullness of God's purposes for us. Given the uncertainty of the chronological "end", let us focus on the "end" of fully participating in God's life through Christ in the Spirit today.

Zechariah 14:4-9

The Zecahriah passage looks towards a divine revelation in Jerusalem, accompanied by God's saints or holy ones. Jerusalem also serves as a type, a spiritual figure, of the life of the church. Notice the "direction" of the passage -- it is in the coming of God as king to the world with the saints to fully establish God's reign rather than the removal of the saints from the world as the world falls apart. The literal imagery holds a spiritual meaning in its very concrete imagery. What does the fullness of the reign of God look like? What would it be to experience this? Is this kingdom accomplished by human activity? What is the role of God in the continued life amidst creation in this new Jerusalem?

Luke 21:25-31

Let's turn to the Gospel reading next. Whereas the Zecharian passages uses Jerusalem imagery, Jesus in Luke uses wider, cosmological language. The coming of God as king is now revealed to be the coming of the "son of man" -- as described in Daniel 7. The imagery again is real and traumatic. Yet what is the instruction that Jesus gives to his disciples? Why? What is the fullness of redemption? Is the nearness of the kingdom something that the disciples bring about? Is the kingdom built or received? What is the difference and importance of this?

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

If the OT and Gospel readings focus on the coming and nature of the end in creation, the Epistle reading speaks to the life of the church awaiting the coming "end" of creation brought about as a gift by God. Notice Paul's thankfulness (eucharista) for the congregation because of God's faithfulness to them and their faithfulness to God. Does Paul believe that this congregation is the "perfect" congregation, with no needs? What is the nature of the need that Paul wants to fulfill by coming to them personnally?

The first part of the passage is important because it sets the tone for the second part of the passage -- Paul's prayer for the church in this time between the times. How is the congregation to live between the first and second comings of Jesus Christ? Yet as Paul looks forward to the "end", the "coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints," what is the particular thing for which he prays? What is God's end for each on of our lives in light of the coming "end" of the kingdom in Christ's return? Why is this end important? How does Paul's exhortation amidst the present life of the congregation relate to his prayer for each one of the believers at the end of the passage? How does personal holiness accomplish the end of one's life in light of the coming? Notice that this holiness is not a human accomplishment, but a gift of God by the Spirit -- just like the kingdom.

If holiness is the goal of human life, of course this raises the question of what holiness is. This is worthy of much attention and prayer and discernment. Two dangers need avoided: one is a "laundry list" of what holiness looks like that results in a personal or political moralism; the second is a relativistic view of holiness that defines it through the eye's of the beholder -- not God. I am convinced that holiness is God's Spirit that forms our characters and habits into the fullness of the image of God for which God created us, an image that we see in its fullness in Jesus Christ, and through him, the lives of the saints, maybe some famous, but largely invisible to the world. Perhaps you can share at the time speaking of your encounter with "holy" persons as a means of beginning a discernment of the proper end that God calls us to in this time between the times.

Have a wonderful time together!

Posted by johnwright at 9:18 AM | Comments (1)

The United States government has declared tomorrow "Thanksgiving Day" -- and I am thankful to take a little break from the arduous fall through which we have moved. It is my understanding that Bible Studies won't be meeting this week -- after I missed blogging for them last week because of the duress of my schedule. I wanted to take opportunity to reflect some on the Christian Thanksgiving -- the Eucharist or Lord's Supper -- which the United State's Thanksgiving both parodies yet points to.

I am reading the Eastern Orthodox theologian, John Zizioulas, Being as Communion, as part of a project with a student that also involved Henri de Lubac, Catholicism, and Jean Rousseau, The Social Contract. We are exploring how the concepts of "individual" and "community" relate to each other depending upon one's politics and concept of God and beings -- in sum, how liberalism and classical Christian orthodoxy differ. It seems to me that contemporary individualism and communitarianism are two sides of the same coin in which individual and community are seen as oppositions in which one must overcome the other. Christianity has a truthful understanding of the relationship between the individual and community that refuses this dichotomy: "you (pl) are the body of Christ and individually members of it."

Zizioulas attempts to return to an early Christian understanding of the church and the Eucharist -- he is part of the Eastern Orthodox ressourcement, and thus has interesting parallels to Henri de Lubac's work. He wants to point to "the decisive importance of the eucharist in ecclesiology" (p. 20). He argues that "the celebration of the eucharist by the primitive Church was . . . both the manifestation and the realization of the Church. Its celebration on Sunday . . . as well as all its liturgical content testified that during the eucharist, the Church did not live only by the memory of the historical fact -- the Last Supper and the earthly life of Christ, including the cross and the resurrection--but it accomplished an eschatological act. It was in the eucharist that the Church would contemplate her eschatological nature, would taste the very life of the Holy Trinity; in other words she would realize man's true being as image of God's own being" (pp. 20-21). Zizoulas says nothing here that is not found in the Church of the Nazarene's call to the table: "This is a memorial of Christ's death and suffering and a token of his coming again; Remember that we are one, at one table, with the Lord." The Christian thanksgiving feast is God's gift to the baptized to participate by faith in the whole drama of God's redemption in Christ by the Holy Spirit, lived out as part of a particular/catholic congregation in the world today. As Zizoulas states, "the eucharist had the unique privilege of reuniting in one whole, in one unique experience, the work of Christ and that of the Holy Spirit. It expressed the eschatological vision through historical realities by combining in the ecclesial life the institutional with the charismatic elements" (p. 21).

Very importantly, he argues that "the eucharist was not the act of a pre-existing Church; it was an event constitutive of the being of the Church, enabling the Church to be. The eucharist constituted the Church's being" (p. 21). As de Lubac argued, the eucharist makes the church -- thanksgiving to God the Father for the gift of the Son through the power of the Holy Spirit in which we participate in the body and blood of Jesus to our souls comfort and joy. Christ's historical, present, and future reality come together to form a gathered people into the body of Christ in witness to the world as a foretaste of the eternal spiritual reality that is to come.

If the eucharist is not "the act of a pre-existing Church" but an event in which the church is made, then important practical implications follow. At the level of catholicity, we understand the importance of Christian ecumenical dialogue to overcome the exclusion from the table that prohibits the church catholic from being truly catholic today -- the contemporary fragmentation of the body of Christ that has grown so deep that the present body of Christ does not witness adequately to the future body of Christ that will be apparent in Christ's coming. Ironically, it seems to me that much of this fragmentation is today completely unnecessary, but fed instead by institutional inertia and sociological and historical differences that no longer pertain, or at least, are no longer insurmountable. Without a common Eucharist, God cannot constitute the church catholic in its local congregations, nor can the local congregations fully witness to the church catholic.

At a local level, Zizoulas reminds us of the importance of the Eucharist (Christian thanksgiving) to make a particular congregation the body of Christ through participation in it by faith. Congregations that refuse to practice the Eucharist regularly will eventually lose their present witness as part of the present body of Christ constituted by God because they sever themselves from the historical body of Christ and the future body of Christ, becoming isolated in a present that cannot nuture and sustain them.

Moreover, believers who refuse to participate in the Eucharist, those who refuse to give thanks for God's gift of Christ in the Spirit, because of their moral dissatisfaction with the life of a congregation, mistakenly assert that the church constitutes the Eucharist. The kingdom does not come about through God's gift, but instead arises from human activity in the present age. They thereby call into question God's past, present, and future redemptive work in Christ, ironically cutting themselves off from participating in this redemption at its very core. By making the church a strictly charismatic reality -- a reality of the Spirit's work today -- they de-legitimate the church's institutional life -- the life that comes from that ordered by Christ. To work for a present/future separates one from the past/present future. Such teaching and practice asserts that a valid Eucharist arises out of human works, rather than the gift of God's reconciling work in Christ in the past, participated in the present, for the fullness of God's redemption of all creation in the future. In excommunicating others by refusal to participate in the common life in Christ, except for reasons of personal penance, such practice denies that God constitutes us together as one church in anticipation of the future. Such well-meaning but misguided teaching turns the Eucharist into a type of protest activitism rather than learning to live life out from the very thankfulness that comes by faith that God the Father has wrought our future salvation through the past work of Christ through the present work of the Spirit.

To remember that the Christian thanksgiving is the Eucharist and that the Eucharist is the Christian thanksgiving, re-frames our whole life. We learn what really to give thanks for -- that God has created and redeemed us, and called us to live and enjoy God forever and ever, thus giving reason to give thanks for all of God's gifts today. Through such thanksgiving, the Spirit can re-form us into a holy people as holy persons, living joyfully even amidst the fallen sinfulness of the present age, a people of faith, hope, and love of God and neighbor.

Always have a joyous Eucharist!

Posted by johnwright at 9:15 AM | Comments (4)

Obviously the OT reading and the Gospel reading hang together by the character of nameless widows. Rather than moralizing the behavior of these widows, it might be helpful to read the texts from the perspective of what they are doing. Of course, when we are talking about widows, we are talking then, as now, a group that lives a very precarious economic life. Minimal income, minimal protection from intruders, very vulnerable in every way, especially to males and larger institutions -- we must remember this as we approach this passage.

I guess that the status of a widow comes to me in light of my Grandma Bridenbaugh. She was widowed before I was born; I remember when about 8 someone broke into her isolated farm house and beat her up and left her for dead, and her life subsequent life in a small Ohio town. Perhaps you have stories of the vulnerabilities of widows that you have known in your life that might help us understand the social background to these stories so that we might hear the offense of these readings.

1 Kings 17:8-1

Given your discussion above, discuss the social status of the widow from Zarephath. Given this social condition, what do you think of God's instructions to Elijah -- and Elijah's willingness to follow it through. What do you think of Elijah's demands? We need to understand as well that at this time, Elijah is a refugee, an immigrant, an Israelite that has had to leave his land because of political oppression who has no family or cultural claim on the woman. How does Elijah talk to her initially? Does God tell Elijah that he will provide for her over time? From the perspective of the "right now", what does God's instruction and Elijah's demand feel like? To whom is God sending Elijah for support during his exile?

Mark 12:38-44

Notice the sayings of Jesus that begin the reading. Who do the Pharisees abuse in order to gain their honor? Yet what is happening in the treasury of the temple? Why would Jesus commend the widow in the Temple? What is the Temple offering doing to her? What does this say about Jesus' concept of justice and economics?

We might (meaning, I might) be offended at what these passages suggest about the economics that these passages suggest about the widow. Why? What must we presuppose to make sense of these passages? What makes the widows admirable, persons to imitate, not fools? What does this suggest about economics, the poor, giving, and God?

Maybe you can conclude the night by reading the Hebrews passage. It has its own beauty:

Hebrews 9:24-28
Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Posted by johnwright at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)

By Thursday nights I'm usually pretty exhausted from the bulk of my teaching and activities. So last night I went home and laid on my mat in front of my bed and read articles by George Lindbeck that had come in earlier in the day from other libraries. Interestingly, there is an essay on Aquinas that brings out his use of "illumination" language argued for by Milbank and Pickstock -- and puts Aquinas within an Augustinian tradition. One senses an early movement towards an "Augustinian Thomism" already here.

Yet one essay really stood out to me from 1970, "The Future of Dialogue: Pluralism or an Eventual Synthesis of Doctrine" from a book called Christian Action and Openness to the World. One senses here a difference already emerging that Lindbeck noticed in moving out of the 60's. He sensed the increasing irrelevance of classical Christian convictions for the life of the church already occuring in the light of commitment to a "secular ecumenism" which sees doctrine as an unnecessary hindrance to what really matters -- "What counts is Christian participation in revolutionary action or, if one insists on being theological, how to talk about God in a secular age" (p. 39). Yet he insists upon the practical importance to doctrinal dialogue for the future of the church -- a future that is coming upon us much quicker now. Ashe wrote, "Because activism, theological pluralism and the speed of change are now increasing, they assume that it will always be so. But most processes, whether physical, psychological, or social, are incapable of infinite extension. At some point they must stop or reverse themselves" (p. 39).

Lindbeck writes that "anti-doctrinalism will reverse itself, I suspect, when Constantinian mass Christianity finally collapses and is replaced by a Christian diaspora" (p. 39). Lindbeck saw accurately the demise of American mainline Christianity in the United States, although he did not see it replaced by the Constantinian rise of the evangelical American right. This coalition, however, may be trembling -- Frank Schaeffer, son of Francis Shaeffer, wrote an editorial this week speaking about how he was turning in his Republican Party Card. A recent book on the "faith-based programs" spoke how evangelicals heard themselves ridiculed by Karl Rove et al. The unfortunate fall of Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, with admitted "indiscretions" that are still "coming out" will make this Constantinian coalition shake even more. American evangelicalism has built itself in the past 25 years through a Constantinian alliance. If it falls, there will be a rapid secularization of the US; mega-churches will tremble; churches that existed to chaplain American exceptionalism will find out that American exceptionalism doesn't really need them. NPR this morning asked, "Will the Republican base, evangelicals, come out next Tuesday?"

If this evangelical Constantinian coalition falls, the church will find itself in the diaspora existence that has happened within mainline Protestants who nevertheless yearn for their old Constantinian days of influence. But a return to a Constantinian "activism" and "pluralism" represented by the old mainline churches and their bureaucracies and educational institutions will not be an option.

Thus the importance of "sectarian" movements. But they have their own problems. Lindbeck rightly states that "Small groups are particularly susceptible to all kinds of distortions. They need to be linked together in local and regional bodies. But these bodies, if they themselves are small minorities without special cultural prestige, are also particularly vulnerable to alien pressures" (p. 41). One can see this in the history of the Church of the Nazarene in the 20th century merely by looking at some strange statements in the doctrines in the Manual.

Invoking pre-Constantinian Christianity, he also rightly notes that "the many Christian groups in the Empire which did not emphasize unity, which were isolated and fragmented, tended to disappear one by one even in the early centuries before the power of the state was brought to bear against them. Only the catholic or ecumenical Christians -- i.e., those who stressed universality and unity--persisted and prevailed" (p. 41).

But a problem: "the groups which have the most sectarian intensity and therefore the greatest potential for survival in unpleasantly minority situations are in our day generally anti-ecumenical" (p. 41). The future "belongs to those groups, however small or unfashionable they may be at the moment, which take doctrine seriously. And it is only by breaking down the dogmatic barriers between them in a way which does not destroy their concern with correct belief that the future will be ecumenical" (pp. 41-2). Lindbeck looked to a future of highly committed persons to the Christian faith in the present, but saw that simultaneously, it must also see itself as connected to the past and the future transmission of the faith in concert with a commitment to universality and unity.

I think that Lindbeck is spot on, and even predictive of where we are living -- and will increasingly live in the coming years. As Lindbeck noted, "while the theologians of the great tradition were devoted to making the faith relevant and meaninful, they were not in the least concerned about whether this made it more palatable. Often, indeed, they sharpened the offense of the cross by transforming Christian claims from peripheral archaisms into contemporary realities. They insisted that Christ is the Lord of all and therefore cannot be confined to the sphere of private piety and explicitly religious practices. . . . On the other side, however, it is also true that one does not effectively acknowledge Christ as Lord if one is unconcerned about the church and its worship and its structures. . . . This was clearly recognized by the theologians we have mentioned. For them, religion was both intense and all-embracing, and therefore highly suitable for a minority diaspora" (p. 50).

This is why the preaching of the gospel -- with strong calls to repentance and faith; the celebration of the sacraments -- with joy and gladness and vitality; and deep engagement in the works of mercy in friendship with the poor for everyone's sanctification, must all stay together. We must allow any grounds for our life as Christians and the church outside the faith given to the saints itself, although we can always find wisdom in others whose work might look the same. We must also engage in conversations and friendships to sustain the catholicity of our faith -- in word and deed -- particularly with others who are willing to accept their role as diaspora within an evangelical, catholic, and orthodox faith. It is why I think that it is indispensable that evangelical Protestants who distance themselves from the American Constantinianism of the left and the right must engage in friendship, common prayer and task, with contemporary post-Vatican II renewal movements within Roman Catholicism. We have much to offer and much to learn.

And if Professor Lindbeck is correct, there is much at stake for the future witness of the church that goes far beyond us.

Posted by johnwright at 8:39 AM | Comments (3)

November 1 is All Saints Day. The Book of Common Prayer lectionary gives us an opportunity to reflect upon our faith in Christ through the witness of the saints this Sunday. The saints are disruptive, because they remind us that holy living really is possible; God's grace is sufficient. The Scriptures this weekend help us to see the difference between genuine holiness and glitz; sanctity from a temporary cultural construction. While the lives of the saints all bear the mark of their particular historical and cultural context, it is amazing how similar nonetheless the lives of the saints look -- not least because they all participate deeply in embodying the sayings and activities of Jesus as revealed in the gospels.

All Saints Day as recognizes the otherwise unnoticed saints for the church at large -- those who in their own way, the Spirit brings forth a depth of holiness in their lives that leaves a visible trace in the world. That is not to explain away or repress idiosyncracies or personal characteristics; it is to see that through these idiosyncracies, God uses their lives to call all of us to greater devotion and faithfulness. Maybe before starting, you could share the story of some of these "nameless saints" that God has used to bring forth faithfulness in your life.

Psalm 149

We do not read from deutero-canonical material when we gather, so we will read Psalm 149 this week. It is a joyful song, that calls for Israel to sustain its uniqueness among the nations. Given the Gospel reading, it is clear that we must interpret the language of violence in this passage spiritually. Given our context as ones bound to love our enemies, what is the "two-edged sword" and the enemies we need it for?

Ephesians 1:11--23

The Christian Scripture have an underlying structure that we read in our Ephesians passage: it is what God has done in Christ in which we already participate by grace through faith -- what is often called "the indicative" -- what God already has done in Christ. From this "indicative," an exhortation arises -- a command, what is often called, "the imperative." This is our response to God that arises from our participation in God through Christ by the Spirit -- the bodily involvement and ethical obligations that arise from living fully out of what God has already done. As you read through the passage, maybe you can divide between the "already's" in the passage and the yet to do.

In the context of this already and not yet, what prayers for us does the passage record. Why is it important for us to remember the hpoe to which we have been called? Why would the passage have this arise out of commendation of the love towards all the saints? Who is Christ throughout the passage?

Luke 6:20-36

I find it fascinating that All Saints Day uses the Sermon on the Mount/Plain for the Gospel reading on this day. From what NT scholarship tells us, this collection of the teachings of Jesus was the earliest collection of sayings collected and written down by the early church. It seems to have been connected as a whole very, very early, and to have been used for instruction of those who had come into the church. It seems to represent a concise summary of the essential teachings of Jesus as his followers remembered them in order to pass down to those who followed after him.

The first verses speak of the "upside-down kingdom" of the rich and poor. If you notice, this is not a command, but a description of what actually has happened and will happen in the kingdom of God when it comes in its fullness. You notice the reversal that is to come in socio-economic terms.

Yet it does not come through violence. The kingdom is a kingdom of justice, but a justice that does not require violence, but accepting the consequences of their non-conformity with the social world around them.

Why is it so important to have the kingdom for the poor announced at the same time as non-retaliation, non-violence as response? What is relationship between participation in a kingdom in which the poor are bless and yet comes into the world without violence? Why is mercy so important?

How is it that the saints that you mentioned at the beginning embodied mercy? What does it require to live the sermon on the plain?

Have a wonderful evening as you celebrate the lives of the saints who have gone before us!

Posted by johnwright at 3:41 PM | Comments (1)