A transformed community...

When we gather around the table and break the bread together, we are transformed not only individually but also as community. We, people from different ages and races, with different backgrounds and histories, become one body. As Paul says: "As there is one loaf, so we, although there are many of us, are one single body, for we all share in the one loaf" (1 Corinthians 10:17).

Not only as individuals but also as community we become the living Christ, taken, blessed, broken, and given to the world. As one body, we become a living witness of God's immense desire to bring all peoples and nations together as the one family of God.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

I have been groping around these last couple of days trying to find words for what Nouwen has nailed here. This is what I was trying to say!

In community (slight return)

Whenever we come together around the table, take bread, bless it, break it, and give it to one another saying: “The Body of Christ,” we know that Jesus is among us. He is among us not as a vague memory of a person who lived long ago but as a real, life-giving presence that transforms us. By eating the Body of Christ, we become the living Christ and we are enabled to discover our own chosenness and blessedness, acknowledge our brokenness, and trust that all we live we live for others. Thus we, like Jesus himself, become food for the world.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

I’ve been thinking a lot about this whole question of the Eucharistic community that is the church, the Body of Christ. Sue, of the blogger of Discombobula, left a long and interesting comment on my post In Community, where she speaks of “the giant mass of people who have departed out of Sunday morning meetings”, and of the online community that has formed among so many of them. She mentions the state of being for a time “out in the backside of the desert”—and how she hopes that “those times serve their purpose also in enabling us to better live in community once we return.”

I’m sure Sue is right, those times are, at least potentially, means to grow and change and heal and draw closer to God, so that we are better able to rejoin the Body when we do eventually return. But still I do fear for people living, through choice, necessity or persecution, outside of a Eucharistic community. I don’t think I could do it myself, not for long, anyway. Without that “real, life-giving presence” I would shrivel up like a lopped branch left out in the sun. The world-wide web doesn’t do this “real, life-giving presence” thing, any more than the radio did, back in the days when lonely, housebound people would turn to the BBC Prayer for the Day and Sunday Worship for their church.

I don’t know. I wonder why this bothers me so much… all I do know is that there are wise, wonderful Christians out there in the inter-tubes who don’t seem to be a part of this thing I find so vital for my life and breath, and I do worry about them, pray for them, fear for them, too. With the turmoil the church seems to be intent on digging itself into in the early years of the 21st century, the situation is not, by itself, going to get any better. I feel we need, all of us, without and within the churches, to be thinking and talking about all this far more than we do.

Oh, I know plenty does get written, but it’s all too often written from one side or another of battle-lines (“You must go to church or you’ll fall away and be damned!” vs. “All churches are crap—abusive, institutionalised gangs of hypocrites!”) which will never do any of us any good. We need to talk gently, in love; we need to pray for each other, weep with each other… and see what God is truly doing, in the only place he really does things, in our hearts.

In community…

To open ourselves to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit is to enter a new relationship with God.

It is a relationship not just with the Father but also with Jesus and with His Spirit. It is a relationship not just between us and God, but between us and everyone else who surrenders to the Father, acknowledges Jesus as Lord, and receives the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is the relationship which we find in community. It is the igniting of the explosion which goes on to this day.

Richard Rohr, from Great Themes of Scripture: New Testament, p. 91

Community. Even if God calls us to a life of prayer in solitude, community—the condition of being part of the Body of Christ, caught up in the holy and terrible life of the Trinity—is essentially who we are as Christians. The Desert Fathers and Mothers lived in loose communities or sketes; the medieval anchoress or anchorite, like Julian of Norwich, lived in a cell or “anchorhold” built against the wall of their local church, with a window into the church and another onto the street; the Orthodox poustiniks of Russia were attached to the village and its church near which they lived.

I pray that in these troubled times, especially in the worldwide Anglican Communion, none of us will ever forget this. We cannot live alone; members of any living body, if severed, do not live a wild and fruitful life: they die and rot. I cannot bear to think of my sisters and brothers like that. We must remain in community even when it hurts, even when we cannot for the life of us think what we’re doing there—only as part of a Eucharistic community can the life-blood of Christ, bearing the oxygen of the Spirit, flow freely in our veins.

Without one plea…

Our worthiness is given to us, like our DNA, like our genes. We were created in “the image and likeness of God.” That was resolved in the first chapter of the Bible (Genesis 1:26)! But not many unpackaged that for us—in its immense and life changing implications.

All these reformers have come along, thinking they are renewing Christianity, but unless they go to the mystical level, they never really do. Protestantism didn’t really reform Catholic Christianity, unless it moved to the mystical level. It was just another kind of worthiness contest: prove you made “a personal decision for Jesus.” Or perhaps being against gay marriage and abortion are the worthiness contests today. It is all back on you to do it right. It is not trust in God, it is trust in ourselves to get it right. It is still “works righteousness” as the Lutherans and others called it. Works righteousness is the only thing the ego can understand, and low level awareness will always find another way to prove that I am worthy. It cannot receive radical grace…

Grace is always a humiliation for the ego. Salvation is always a defeat for the ego; because I want to feel, “I’ve done something to accomplish this, haven’t I?” That’s the only way the ego feels satisfied and competent.

At some point, we must realize that salvation is absolutely, objectively, metaphysically, universally a FREE GIFT, and all we can do is RECEIVE IT. It’s free for the taking, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with being worthy of it.

We are all unworthy. If receiving the Eucharist depends on worthiness, no one would be in line, including the presiding clergy, Archbishops and Popes. Why do we waste time trying to prove that I’m better than you, I’m higher than you, I’m holier than you, I understand better than you, I’m purer than you? Don’t even go there! Just surrender to grace, which will feel like a kind of death. And it is!

Richard Rohr, adapted from The Cosmic Christ (talks on CD - disc 1)

This rings very true to me… for so many years I struggled with the need to feel “satisfied and competent”, not realising that to the extent that I met this need in myself, to that same extent I resisted the work of grace in my own heart.

So often in the church we perpetuate this, putting “tests of orthodoxy” (or of liberalism!) in the way of people who are simply looking for God. We must stop it. If as ordinary Christians we can’t stop it happening around us, then at least we can refuse to do it ourselves, and we can reach out in love and acceptance to those who are rejected and marginalised—even if that means we are rejected and marginalised ourselves. That doesn’t matter. Jesus knew this would happen, and he knew that this rejection was itself one of the gates into the Kingdom (Matthew 5.10-11)

Being Broken...

Jesus was broken on the cross. He lived his suffering and death not as an evil to avoid at all costs, but as a mission to embrace. We too are broken. We live with broken bodies, broken hearts, broken minds or broken spirits. We suffer from broken relationships.

How can we live our brokenness? Jesus invites us to embrace our brokenness as he embraced the cross and live it as part of our mission. He asks us not to reject our brokenness as a curse from God that reminds us of our sinfulness but to accept it and put it under God's blessing for our purification and sanctification. Thus our brokenness can become a gateway to new life.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

This, surely, is the very heart of the lived Gospel of Christ. Our own brokenness becomes not only a gateway to new life, but a source of life for others: those we meet, those we pray for, those we forgive. Only being broken can the bread become Eucharist.

Hanging on...

Jesus is the Blessed One. When Jesus was baptised in the Jordan river a voice came from heaven saying: "You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you" (Mark 1:11). This was the blessing that sustained Jesus during his life. Whatever happened to him - praise or blame - he clung to his blessing; he always remembered that he was the favourite child of God.

Jesus came into the world to share that blessing with us. He came to open our ears to the voice that also says to us, "You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter, my favour rests on you ." When we can hear that voice, trust in it, and always remember it, especially during dark times, we can live our lives as God's blessed children and find the strength to share that blessing with others.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

Clinging to the blessing through thick and thin, good and bad... how I long for this simplicity of trust! But how on earth can this be done?

I don't know how it works for anyone else, but for me, instinctively, it's about clinging to the Cross. Literally. When I am praying to hang on, by the skin of my teeth as it feels, then I do physically hang onto my little olive-wood holding cross.

I've tried to think what might be happening here, spiritually or theologically. I know it's very crudely expressed, but it seems to me that perhaps when we "cling to the Cross" we are in our hearts acknowledging that it is only through Jesus' death on the Cross that we are saved; and no one and nothing can break his hold on us through the Cross.

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand.

(John 10.27-29)

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, 'For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.'

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Romans 8.31-39)

John Keble's Poem, Ascension Day

Ascension Day

Soft cloud, that while the breeze of May
Chants her glad matins in the leafy arch,
Draw'st thy bright veil across the heavenly way
Meet pavement for an angel's glorious march:

My soul is envious of mine eye,
That it should soar and glide with thee so fast,
The while my grovelling thoughts half buried lie,
Or lawless roam around this earthly waste.

Chains of my heart, avaunt I say -
I will arise, and in the strength of love
Pursue the bright track ere it fade away,
My Saviour's pathway to His home above.

Sure, when I reach the point where earth
Melts into nothing from th' uncumbered sight,
Heaven will o'ercome th' attraction of my birth.
And I shall sink in yonder sea of light:

Till resting by th' incarnate LORD,
Once bleeding, now triumphant for my sake,
I mark Him, how by seraph hosts adored,
He to earth's lowest cares is still awake.

The sun and every vassal star,
All space, beyond the soar of angel wings,
Wait on His word: and yet He stays His car
For every sigh a contrite suppliant brings.

He listens to the silent tear
For all the anthems of the boundless sky -
And shall our dreams of music bar our ear
To His soul-piercing voice for ever nigh?

Nay, gracious Saviour--but as now
Our thoughts have traced Thee to Thy glory-throne
So help us evermore with thee to bow
Where human sorrow breathes her lowly moan.

We must not stand to gaze too long,
Though on unfolding Heaven our gaze we bend
Where lost behind the bright angelic throng
We see CHRIST'S entering triumph slow ascend.

No fear but we shall soon behold,
Faster than now it fades, that gleam revive,
When issuing from his cloud of fiery gold
Our wasted frames feel the true sun, and live.

Then shall we see Thee as Thou art,
For ever fixed in no unfruitful gaze,
But such as lifts the new-created heart,
Age after age, in worthier love and praise.

John Keble

[with thanks to PoemHunter.com.]

(Today the Church of England remembers John Keble, Tractarian, scholar and poet, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and Vicar of Hursley, Hampshire, 1835 until his death in 1866.)

Going colourblind...

"I need to show the world to get together, to sit on one foundation, to share things, black and white. We have to go, like, colourblind, because we are one."

Gali, from the Yolngu clans of Arnhem Land - read Sue's extraordinary Discombobula post here. Go on, click, now - you'll be glad you did!

Those who love God...

Jesus is taken by God or, better, chosen by God. Jesus is the Chosen One. From all eternity God has chosen his most precious Child to become the saviour of the world. Being chosen expresses a special relationship, being known and loved in a unique way, being singled out. In our society our being chosen always implies that others are not chosen. But this is not true for God. God chooses his Son to reveal to us our chosenness.

In the Kingdom of God there is no competition or rivalry. The Son of God shares his chosenness with us. In the Kingdom of God each person is precious and unique, and each person has been given eyes to see the chosenness of others and rejoice in it.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

This makes a lot of sense to me in the context of thinking about the doctrine of election. I am no theologian, but I have noticed that the question of election and predestination has caused countless controversies and accusations of heresy over the years, not to mention causing acute distress and confusion in ordinary Christians - me included, at times in the past!

In many ways for me the resolution is to be found in the last verses of Romans 8 - but I'll let Andy Wilkes take over here. He puts it much better than I could!

If we return to Romans 8 we see, from verse 28 onwards, that those people who are called by God are, in fact, 'those who love God' and that they are called to be 'a large family.' This large family, the 'multitude of nations' which God promised Abraham, is necessarily a diverse one, a mixed bunch, who like any large family includes those who we don't quite get on with. God's people are like brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and distant cousins, who are as diverse as any other cross section of human beings. But we are one family and like any extended family this includes people who we don't really like and who are very different from ourselves.

Are we prepared to acknowledge and embrace that diversity? Are we prepared to be part of this family? It would seem from recent headlines that many are not.

The good news of the Gospel is that all are being called into a covenant relationship with God, to be part of this one family whose task it is to build up the Kingdom of God, which is both for now and in the future. God continues to call us today. In fact, he loved us before we loved him, even to the extent that in Jesus Christ he died for us, way before we were even a twinkle. That surely is the doctrine of Election.

from Some Thoughts on Election

Utterly good news!

When the crucifixion of Jesus is dramatized in the Gospels, we have this very interesting image of the tearing of the temple veil from top to bottom. Now the word for temple is fanum. Everything outside the temple was pro fanum. (Hence we get our word “profane.”) There was “the holy” and it was distinguished from “the unholy.” The tearing of the temple veil from top to bottom is saying that division of life is over. Everything is now potentially the fanum, the holy, the temple. There is nothing that is not spiritual. There is nothing to which God is not available and given, which is the core meaning of the Incarnation. Matter and Spirit are forever shown to be united in Jesus. He is himself the temple, and we are also the temple, and all creation is the temple. As Thomas Merton said, “the gate of heaven is everywhere”!

After 2,000 years of Christianity, most of Christianity still hasn’t gotten that point. We still live with purity codes, debt codes, worthiness systems, and exclusionary policies to protect ourselves from the “profane.” The bottom line meaning of the “forgiveness of sin” is that God even uses evil, failure, and sin to bring us to God. What utterly good news!

Richard Rohr, adapted from The Cosmic Christ (CD#1)