1

In the middle, not only in the middle of the way

But all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,

On the edge of a grimpen, where there is no secure foothold,

And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,

Risking enchantment.

   T.S. Eliot, East Coker, II.

 

2

Consider, first, the possibility that a theological concept – like that of ‘subsistent relation’ (Aquinas, ST part 1, q. 27, a. 1-5) – could be something other than information. Namely a way: thought must work its way through it, to its limit and finally when the concept “gives in”, your thought arrives at its aim, namely, ineffability.

In this sense the apophatic arrives. As Karen Kilby says: “The apophatic comes not by turning away from the cataphatic but rather through the unstable excess of it.”

It is by observing the paradoxical and strange workings of theological language that we’ll come to appreciate what’s different about its object. These failures of theological language – its gaps and incapacities – are salutary. We do not pay attention to them in order to “fix” the language so as to make it “work”.

 

3

This is to say that theological language succeeds by falling apart. It does not capture its object. It is rather in a constant flux; it is knowing more than knowledge, a process, a movement, an event. It unfolds.

The end is knowing beyond words – not a perfect storehouse of propositionally true statements and univocal concepts.

The end is love.

 

4

Divine mystery is reflected in the inevitable movement of theological concepts toward their limit and undoing. In this way theological language does not describe the divine mystery; it exhibits it.

As such theological language has a distinct shape: words and concepts curve around the gravitational pull of divine ineffability like light and matter curve around a black hole. We cannot observe the black hole itself, but we can observe the curvatures of light around it. So, too, with the cataphatic: we observe its curvatures, its negative shape.

 

5

Lastly, this is not a problem of divine hiddenness: God is not playing hide and seek with us. God is rather God: ineffability, inconceivability and incomprehensibility are proper to God’s being. They are negative expressions of what happens when the human mind meets the infinite depths of the divine being.

This is why theological language succeeds to the extent is falls apart: if God’s essence is ineffable, then language only reaches that essence by falling apart and finally away. Hence, language realises the truth of divine ineffability through its undoing.

 

A sermon preached at St. Clement’s, Oxford, on the 4th Sunday in Lent 2024.

Jh. 12.20-33

Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies,it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

 

 

I

This Sunday is the fifth Sunday in Lent – the Sunday two weeks before Easter and thus the beginning of what in the church calendar is known as ‘the Passiontide’. On this Sunday, many churches cover their images and statues with purple cloths, purple being the colour of penance. This includes crucifixes. On this Sunday, then, at the beginning of Passiontide, Christ – even as crucified – is hidden, our vision occluded.

It is therefore quite interesting that our Gospel passage for today begins with a request to see Jesus.

In a classic Johannine style, Jesus’s answer to this request to see him does not quite align. He does not say, ‘yes, bring those people to me’ nor does he deny their request. It’s almost as if he didn’t really hear the question at all. He says instead: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

So – some Greeks are asking to see Jesus and Jesus’s answer is: “The hour has come for me to be glorified.” How is that connected to the question about seeing Jesus?

Well, glorification, it would seem, implies visibility: now Jesus will be glorified, the light to lighten the Gentiles will become visible to all.

This idea of Christ’s glorification might bring to mind Christ’s transfiguration:  the story about Christ being alone on a mountain with three of his disciples when he is suddenly illuminated with a blinding light, his divine glory revealed.  

Interestingly, though, while all the Synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke – include the story of transfiguration, John’s narrative lacks it. How curious, you might think, especially since John was one of the disciples on the mountain that day.

I think, however, that that leaving out the story of transfiguration is an intentional choice on John’s part. For this seemingly strange choice to leave out the transfiguration, serves his central theological point: in John’s Gospel Christ’s glorification is not the transfiguration on the mountain – and not even his resurrection per se – but rather his crucifixion. When he is lifted up on the cross, for all to see, then the Son of Man will be glorified, his divine identity revealed. Then he will be seen.

This is the moment Jesus referred to earlier when speaking to Nicodemus: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (3.14)

Now the hour has come for him to be “lifted up from the earth”. And when he is lifted up, on the cross, then he will be seen, his divinity revealed – then God is revealed, his glory made visible.

If there ever was a radical theological statement, I think this would be it. Essentially John’s Gospel is saying: if you want to see God, if you want to know him, look to this tortured, humiliated, dying man on the cross. See and behold the glory of God in him.

 

 

II

“The hour has come”, Jesus says, “for the Son of Man to be glorified.” 

The hour has indeed come; for at this point in John’s narrative we are only a few days away from Jesus’s crucifixion and death. This is the hour that has been anticipated throughout John’s Gospel.

While the synoptic Gospels all have three moments when Jesus predicts his own death, John lacks this kind of structure. Instead, in John we get various kinds of references to Jesus’s death throughout his Gospel, all followed – the like Synoptic predictions – by confusion on part of Jesus’s hearers.

For example, earlier in chapter seven Jesus has said, “I will be with you a little while longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will search for me, but you will not find me; where I am, you cannot come.” (7.33-34). Later, in chapter eight, he says: “I am going away, and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” (8.3) In chapter 12, Mary anoints Jesus’s feet and Jesus connects this with the anointing of the dead for burial – a strange kind of funeral rite that takes place before the person in question is actually dead. And he says: “You always have the poor with you, you do not always have me.” (12.8)

Now, Jesus says, the hour has finally come – the night is near, the darkness is about to cover the land. The Son of Man will be lifted up and glorified.

And now that the moment is near, Jesus is suddenly troubled:

“Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”

This, again, seems like a subtle reference to Christ’s transfiguration: in that moment too, a voice spoke from heaven words of approval. Then, on the mountain of transfiguration, the Father spoke the following words: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

So here is John’s version of the transfiguration; here, too, the Father speaks of his love for the Son and so, here too, the intimacy between the Father and the Son is emphasised.

 

 

III

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified”, Jesus says, and then he prays “Father, glorify your name.”

When the Son is glorified, the Father is glorified. When Father is glorified, so is the Son. The Father will honour the one who serves the Son, because the Father and the Son are one. They are together worshipped and glorified.

This unity and intimacy between the Father and the Son means that although the divine nature does not suffer, it is not just some human weakness that is revealed on the cross, some aspects of Christ’s human nature: rather, God’s very being is opened up on the cross, revealed to us.

So the voice, like thunder, reveals the unity and love between the Father and the Son. This voice, Jesus says, “was for your benefit and not mine”. Why? Because the Son already knows that the Father loves him, that they are one. It is us who might be tempted to think otherwise, especially in light of the events which will soon unfold in John’s narrative: the crucifixion and death of the Son, the Son who cries on the cross ‘my God, my God, why did you forsake me?’

Here we are reminded, for our benefit, that nothing can drive the Father and the Son apart, that God is love and this love is stronger than death; it can take death into itself and rise victorious. This is the glory that is revealed to us at the cross: at the cross God is revealed to us as self-sacrificial, death-defeating love.

 

 

IV

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

The hours has now come, Jesus says, for God to be revealed. After this Jesus goes on to explain, he says: “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

This death that Jesus will die, will be a strange kind of death: it’s a fruitful death, death which brings life. Jesus’s death will defeat death itself, it will be a death destroying death.

Already, then, on this fifth Sunday in Lent, we reach toward Easter. In his Easter sermon Saint John Chrysostom writes of this strange, life-giving death:

Isaiah foretold this when he said,
“You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below.”
Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.
Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.

 

Here in John’s Chrysostom’s Easter sermon, we are back to this idea of vision: hell took what it saw – Christ’s human body – and it was overcome by what it did not see – Christ’s divine nature. And so, hell is destroyed, death itself dies.

In John’s Gospel, too, this theme of vision and blindness, seeing and not seeing, light and darkness, is prominent; it runs through the whole of John’s narrative.

Christ’s will be lifted up on the cross and glorified but who will be able to see his glory? Who will be able to recognize him – who will be able to see God in this Crucified, suffering man who “has no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Ish. 53.2)?

“I came into this world for judgement”, Jesus said to the blind man he healed and the Pharisees that questioned him, “I came into this world for judgement that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” (10.39)

 

 

V

As I mentioned earlier, this weekend many churches cover all their images and statues. The visual effect of this is quite striking and if you have the chance, I would recommend visiting one of these churches during the next two weeks, for example the Church of St. Mary Magdalen’s on Magdalen Street.

The covering of all images and statues reminds us of our lack of vision. It reminds us that that seeing the glory of God in Christ is not a straightforward matter, and that we should not simply assume that we already see. We might be blind.

It also reminds us of Christ’s odd glory: that precisely as his divinity is most ‘hidden’ – as he submits himself to mockery, torture and death – then it is most revealed.

As the purple cloths hide what we would otherwise see, as they block our vision, they remind us to draw deeper, into the unseen. They invite us to dwell in the unseen – and to see differently, to see with spiritual vision.

This is one of the Passiontide themes: seeing “God’s wisdom, secret and hidden” (1Cr. 2.7) in Christ as the Spirit of God reveals it to us.

Jesus invites us into this hidden glory, his own death and life. He says: “Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be.” Previously in the Gospel of John, Jesus has repeated several times that where he is going, we cannot follow him. The cross is, first and foremost, his alone: only he can carry it, only he can destroy death and overcome hell.

But now he says: where I am, my servant also will be. Now he also invites us in, reminding us that we are – through baptism – united with him in his death and resurrection. His life is ours and through being united with his life, we are brought into God’s own Trinitarian life.

“My Father will honor the one who serves me.”

The death-defeating love between the Father and the Son, this love revealed on the cross as God’s own glory, is extended to us. From all eternity the Father is pouring himself out in love, generating the Son; from all eternity the Son is pouring himself back to the Father in love through the Spirit who is the eternal movement of love between them. This is the creative, fruitful love which defeats death. Into this eternal dance of love, the Trinitarian God invites us.

The call to ‘lose our lives’ so as to keep it for eternal life, is an invitation into this divine life of love.

Hence, the call to take up our cross and join Christ in his death, is a call to deeper life, the life of love that is our happiness. It a call to a fruitful death. “The thief”, Jesus said (10.10), “only comes to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly.”

We see, then, that there is a double meaning to these words of Jesus: “When I am lifted from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” He will be lifted up ‘on the cross’, yes, but he will also be lifted up ‘from the grave’. In both, he will draw us to himself. We will all know him, from least to the greatest.

It is by joining Christ in his death and resurrection that we learn to see him as the Lord of Glory even – and especially – on the cross. This vision of Christ’s glory, then, is not something that can be realised from the distance, abstractly or theoretically. It has to be lived because seeing here is relational: it is knowing, it is love, it is an invitation to go deeper, into the unseen.

If you go to one of these churches where images are covered during Passiontide, if you go there to see what’s hidden, you might find yourself frustrated by the paradox: we want to see what’s behind the cover. This frustration of the eye, of the desire to see, is also a kind death. But this death is not a death to be feared, but rather a death to dwell on and stay with.

For “now the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified”.

Let the hiddenness of the images, remind you that even when we do not see, know or understand, Christ is present, he is with us, drawing us to himself. Join the crowds in Jerusalem – expectant, confused, frustrated, struggling to see – and let this Lord of Glory show you the way. Let him show you that with him death is the way to life abundant.

 

                                

This a draft of a brief talk I gave at Oriel College Metaphysical Club on 23rd of November 2023. 

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Captive Andromache by Lord Frederic Leighton (ca. 1888). The painting depicts Andromache, the wife of Hector, whose husband and children were killed in the Trojan War and who herself was taken as a captive to a foreign land.

 

Many of you might have heard of the doctrine of transcendentals, the thought being there – roughly – that goodness, unity, beauty and truth are universal properties of being itself, i.e. properties which cut across all categories of being so that to the extend something is that thing has truth, unity, beauty and goodness in its own manner. Whilst the doctrine itself is probably best considered a Mediaeval development, thinking along these lines goes back all the way to Plato and Aristotle.

I’m not going to offer here some kind of theory of transcendentals, though, because I don’t know that much about it. Instead, I thought I’d try and think a little further about how this kind of metaphysical connection between truth and beauty could become visible to us in our experience of art. These thoughts I’m about to present, then, do not necessarily depend on something like the doctrine of transcendentals being true, but they do represent some ways in which such a doctrine, if it was true, could appear to us on a phenomenological level.

Let’s presume then – somewhat controversially, at least in the context of modern philosophy of art – that at least some art gives us access to truth by exhibiting or conveying beauty because beauty and truth are connected. Thus, from now on, I’m just going to assume that at least the kind of ‘art’ I’m talking about here, has this intrinsic connection to beauty and that connection to beauty gives it its “truth-eliciting” power. I’m also going to be talking about the visual arts mostly, especially painting – although similar things could potentially be said about other art forms. When I say that visual arts like paintings can elicit truths by virtue of their beauty, then, I’m not just talking about pretty things that are nice to look at. Beauty should be understood here as something complex, perhaps at times even harrowing and dark, but nevertheless as something that awakens desire and which absorbs, fusing our thought to the sensory object.

Now, to ask the question how art can give rise to an apprehension of truth, we need to first inquire as to the character of the kind of truth we’re after. What kind of truth does art give us access to? First, I think it’s quite clear that the sort of truth art elicits isn’t just some narrowly understood propositional truth or conceptual knowledge. I think some persons, especially those logically and analytically minded, tend to think of that kind of truth as the only “real truth” and thereby they have a hard time making sense of the claim that art can elicit truth – they expect that to mean that art somehow gives us distinct propositional or conceptual knowledge, some kind of knowledge that.

There are, however, ways of knowing other than propositional or conceptual, such as experiential knowledge or knowledge how. Some think it’s that kind of knowledge art elicits, and maybe it indeed does sometimes. More importantly, though, I think art can engender an apprehension of truth that’s deeper than experiential knowledge and knowledge how, an apprehension of truth that is non-conceptual and perhaps also non-inferential. Art yields the kind of understanding that is often somewhat intractable, difficult to express in words, but which nevertheless is significant to how we view the world. Just because this knowledge or understanding cannot be expressed in neat propositions doesn’t mean it isn’t real. In fact, I think we have reasons to believe that many of the most important ‘truths’ about ourselves and our world are like that, sometimes because they are deeply emotionally-toned and relationally embedded: a person might, for example, give some propositional expression to the thought that they love their best friend, but what that love really is, what one knows about it, is hardly something which can ever be given full expression. Knowing that kind of love is a mode of being perhaps even more than it is a mode of thinking.  

Art can be a form of access to these kinds of intractable, emotionally toned, non-conceptual truths about ourselves and the world around us. For example, my looking at Lord Frederic Leighton’s Captive Andromache can give me an access into deeper understanding about loss, longing and isolation and therefore a deeper understanding of the human condition as such. I can feel this understanding, this knowledge, emerging as I look at the painting even though I don’t have any explicit thoughts as I look at it. However, the fact that often the truths art elicits elude conceptual characterization isn’t because there’s nothing there to be known, as some might argue. Rather, it’s because there’s too much. Art, then, allows an encounter with that which cannot be said and yet somehow finds expression through it.

Second, then, we might want to ask why art should give rise to this kind of non-conceptual, intractable knowledge, that is, what it is that makes art so well-fitted for the task of eliciting this type of intractable knowledge. More specifically, we might want to ask why beauty is central to our coming to apprehend these sorts of truths. What exactly is the connection between my coming to understand something about, say, human longing through Captive Andromache and the beauty of the painting? In other words, why should the beauty of the painting be central to my coming to acquire this kind of understanding through it? Couldn’t I explain the painting’s truth-eliciting power simply, say, in terms of the emotional impact of its depiction of Andromache? I can’t give you a full account here, of course, but here’s an idea: there’s something inexhaustible about beauty and about aesthetic objects which exhibit it. Desire for beauty, as Elaine Scarry says, is not like most other desires in that it’s not co-terminable with its object. You eat a good meal and it just so happens that your desire for a good meal ends with your meal: you desire terminates there. Not so with beauty: it goes on and on and on, taking our desire with it.

As such beauty is expansive; we experience this expansiveness in the way aesthetic objects absorb our attention, inviting slow thought, a kind of non-controlling “letting appear” of the thing we’re looking at. In this expansiveness, thought can be freed from its usual constraints. We are free to explore and discover unexpected connections between things, to take creative turns. In its expansiveness beauty shows forth also the depths of the world we inhabit, and the inexhaustible quality of experiences like loss and longing. It is beauty, therefore, which arrests my attention and calls forth my understanding to grapple with Andromache and the true depths of her longing.  

Because beauty is expansive in this way, it also invites us to pay attention to that which is beyond our grasp, that which cannot be pinned down in propositional formulations or exhausted through conceptual analysis, the desire which carries our minds with it toward the yet unknown, unseen. Something beyond the concrete particular. Beauty says that the profound depth of Andromache’s longing points beyond itself to something even deeper. In this expansiveness beauty teases reason, sometimes finally frustrating it, opening the door for that which is beyond it. As beauty breaks open reason’s self-enclosed circle, it brings in what’s new and strange, perhaps even mysterious.

Thirdly, having asked about what kind of truths art can elicit and why it is so apt to do so, we might want to ask more specifically how art yields this kind of encounter with intractable truths, how does it connect us with deeper truths about ourselves and the world around us. Again, I won’t attempt an exhaustive account but here are two thoughts, inspired by two thinkers.

First, Mark Rothko. He says that “a picture is a revelation, an unexpected and unprecedented resolution of an eternally familiar need”. In looking at a painting there is this sense of return and resolution: something familiar returns as transformed. Sometimes this transformation feels like clarity: the familiar becomes illuminated as art sheds its obscure light on it, returning our thoughts to ourselves with a new-found lucidity. As a consequence, one sees in a new way. This might be because aesthetic contemplation invites and teaches a different kind of attention, as Bence Nanay has argued, the kind of distributed attention which looks at things not with a specific practical or cognitive aim in mind, but more leisurely, lingering contemplative, open to the surprising and the unexpected. This aesthetic attentiveness, gets carried over: other things as well, and not simply the aesthetic object, can appear in a new light. The familiar becomes a revelation.

The second thought is from John Dewey, the famous pragmatist philosopher. He says (and this is a slightly longer quote): “A work of art elicits and accentuates the quality of being a whole and of belonging to the larger, all-inclusive whole which is the universe in which we live. This fact, I think, is the explanation of that feeling of exquisite intelligibility and clarity we have in the presence of an object that is experienced with esthetic intensity. It explains also the religious feeling that accompanies aesthetic perception. We are, as it were, introduced into a world beyond this world which is nonetheless the deeper reality of the world in which we live in our ordinary experience.”

In many ways Dewey suggests the same sort of insight I already expressed earlier with respect to that shorter quote from Rothko. He brings in an important additional element though which also connects with my earlier thought about beauty’s inexhaustibility and expansiveness: it’s not just that aesthetic attention allows familiar things to appear to us with a new-found salience and clarity but it also transforms our sense of the context in which those things appear. They now appear as being part of a larger, intelligible whole, a deeper world beyond our world which nonetheless is the truth about our world of ordinary experience. Art works which exhibit beauty make this whole available to the viewer in, as it were, ‘spatially condensed manner’ by virtue of their ‘harmonious wholeness’ which is like a microcosmic image of the world.

Lastly, let me say something about how knowledge of God comes into all this. First, art can be important for our coming to know the God who dwells in inaccessible light, whose bright darkness cannot be comprehended because it “trains” our minds and hearts to appreciate and approach the mysterious, it points to the limits of human reason and how, beyond those limits lies not nonsense but Truth so Real and Intelligible that it is known not in reasoning, not in language as in a mirror, but in a union of love, the joining of thought and its object. Second, in its inexhaustibility, the unending way we desire it, Beauty points to the transcendent end of human desire: the God who is Beauty itself.

Eph. 4.17-24 / 15th Sunday after Trinity / St. Clement’s, Oxford

17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. 20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

17Τοῦτο οὖν λέγω καὶ μαρτύρομαι ἐν κυρίῳ, μηκέτι ὑμᾶς περιπατεῖν καθὼς καὶ τὰ ἔθνη περιπατεῖ ἐν ματαιότητι τοῦ νοὸς αὐτῶν, 18ἐσκοτωμένοι τῇ διανοίᾳ ὄντες, ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ θεοῦ, διὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τὴν οὖσαν ἐν αὐτοῖς, διὰ τὴν πώρωσιν τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν, 19οἵτινες ἀπηλγηκότες ἑαυτοὺς παρέδωκαν τῇ ἀσελγείᾳ εἰς ἐργασίαν ἀκαθαρσίας πάσης ἐν πλεονεξίᾳ. 20ὑμεῖς δὲ οὐχ οὕτως ἐμάθετε τὸν Χριστόν, 21εἴ γε αὐτὸν ἠκούσατε καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ ἐδιδάχθητε, καθώς ἐστιν ἀλήθεια ἐν τῷ Ἰησοῦ, 22ἀποθέσθαιὑμᾶς κατὰ τὴν προτέραν ἀναστροφὴν τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν φθειρόμενον κατὰ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας τῆς ἀπάτης, 23ἀνανεοῦσθαι δὲ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ νοὸς ὑμῶν, 24καὶ ἐνδύσασθαι τὸν καινὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν κατὰ θεὸν κτισθέντα ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ ὁσιότητι τῆς ἀληθείας.

Let me give you a little story – entirely fictional, of course. Say you’re living together with other people, and you’ve got a new housemate who has a habit which annoys you. Say, for example, that they keep the bathroom floor rug hanging on the side of the bathtub rather than on the floor. This, for whatever reason, produces irrational irritation in you, maybe because the idea of having a rug and not keeping it on the floor doesn’t make sense to you. So, you are presented with a choice: get irritated, raise the matter with your housemate, maybe have your way, have what you wanted – that is, the rug on the floor – or just leave it and let your housemate have their way.

Now, you might think, if there ever was a banal moral dilemma this would be it: what could it really matter, in the great scheme of your or your housemate’s life, whether the rug is kept on the floor or not?

Well, I’d like to argue, that it could, in fact, matter more than we tend to think: I’d like to argue that in this story you, in fact, would be presented with a dizzyingly significant moral choice between merely getting what you happen to immediately want (the rug on the floor) or becoming ‘a new self, created to be like God in the true righteousness and holiness’.

Now, perhaps you think I’m being slightly hyperbolic, but – to my defense – I’m not alone in my hyperbole this Sunday morning. You see, I think that Paul is doing the same thing with his depiction of all non-Christians as being ‘darkened in their understanding’, ‘ignorant, ‘hard heartened’, ‘indulging in every kind of impurity’, and ‘full of greed’.

Indeed, we might even be slightly offended by such language, we might think that Paul was being a little too black-and-white, a little fundamentalist. Or maybe it was just different back then, he wasn’t aware of all the finer shades of grey we modern, tolerant people know about. For surely we all know many decent, good non-Christians.

And I think Paul did too. He lived in a very pluralistic culture, after all, interacted with all sorts of people. Why, then, such hyperbolic juxtapositions? Such stark contrasts between light and darkness, ignorance and understanding, deceit and truth, rugs on the floor and not on the floor?

I think it might be because sometimes we need them. Sometimes we need the stark contrasts, a little bit of hyperbole, to remind us again of the fact that life is a serious moral adventure where our choices matter. Even choices as banal as to where the bathroom floor rug should be kept.

Now, we might of course miss the point of Paul’s hyperbole. We might think that the most important contrast here is between ‘us’ Christians and ‘those’ others. This text, however, is not an invitation to go around Oxford this coming week like the Pharisee from Jesus’s parable, thanking God that we are not ‘like other people – robbers, evildoers, adulterers’. In fact, such sense of self-satisfaction is the opposite of what this text is getting at.

I think, you see, that the most relevant contrast is found not between us and others but within each of us – between a self and a self. It’s the contrast between ‘our former way of life’ – ‘the old self’ – and our new way of life learned through Christ, the new self formed to his image.

While words like ‘old’ and ‘new’ suggest a temporal contrast – a contrast between now and then, what we used to be and what we are now – I’d like us to also consider that perhaps the central contrast is between the selves we are and the selves we could be.

The selves we could be – the person I could be – extends into two directions. First, there is the self whose heart is hardened, who is ‘alienated from the life of God’, darkened in her understanding, so ignorant as to be almost incapable of truth. Then there’s the other self, ‘created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness’, the self set free by the truth, the flourishing self.

As you can see, this is quite serious indeed, these possibilities of my becoming. Perhaps serious enough to merit some hyperbole, some stark contrasts, and broad strokes.

Thus, also my somewhat hyperbolic story about the dizzying moral significance of the bathroom floor rug. For this formation, this becoming, this choice between two possible selves, abides in the ordinary and the banal. It’s the stuff of bathroom rugs on the side of a bathtub.

And now, here’s the catch: desire is what draws me toward either self. Desire is formative. Like a magnet it moves us toward what we see as good and in so doing it shapes our lives, our selves. We become what we love.

There can be a formation of the self through desire that is aimed at what is truly good. In so doing, I can become the image of what I love, I can become like my beloved, like God in true righteousness and holiness, his image disclosed in me through transformation.

There can also a formation of the self through desire that is not aimed at true goods, futile love. I can spend my life and energy on things not quite worthy of my love – or things not quite worthy of all the love I give them. This will result in a kind of counter-formation of the self, or deformation of the self. The end product is a life spent in futility, as Paul says.

One way to put this is to say that we can love lesser goods as our highest good. If I love something as my highest good, I love it like my happiness depends on it: if I only get this thing, then I will be happy, content, satisfied, at peace.

St. Thomas Aquinas offers what I think is quite a good list of false candidates for our greatest good: money, honour, power, fame, and pleasure. (Summa Theologiae, II-I, q. 2, a 1-8). It is possible for us to seek these things as our true happiness, as the final rest of our restless hearts or to love these more than we should love better things.

It’s not wrong to love something as our highest good – only we need to love what truly is the highest good as our highest good. In other words, we need to know the truth about the things we love. According to traditional Christian understanding this highest good is God. This the truth we were taught in Jesus: that our true happiness, our very best good, is to be taken into God’s own Triune life, know him who is Love, be formed into his likeness by living in love. That is our calling.

There’s a connection, then, between desire and truth, as Paul indicates: the old self is ‘corrupted by its deceitful desires’ because it is ‘darkened in its understanding, separated from the life of God because of ignorance’. The old self doesn’t know the truth about the things it loves – it spends its love on things not entirely worthy of its love, it thinks that pleasure, money, honour, power or fame will make it happy.

Our desire for these sorts of goods can be very strong – and if left unchecked potentially destructive. At the very least, desires not ordered rightly toward true goods make for chaotic lives. Hence, we need to train our desires. The desert fathers and other such saints from the church’s history advise us that for such a training, asceticism is needed. Intentional denial of something we immediately want so that our desires can be directed toward higher ends. In other words, fasting and things like that, yes, but also more ordinary intentionality about when to pursue what we in the moment happen to want – such as the placement of the bathroom floor rug where I’d like it to be.

It’s perhaps a common misconception in our somewhat pleasure-focused culture that those who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of their immediate desires  – who, as Paul puts it, ‘give themselves over to sensuality’, whose desire for things like pleasure, power or money is unbridled – somehow experience more intense satisfaction, that they live a life of more vivid pleasures. The ascetic, denying himself needlessly, is the unsatisfied and unhappy one, this culture of pleasure says.

Paul – and the church’s ascetic traditions – disagree, however: giving oneself over to such lesser loves results in loss of sensitivity, not its intensification. You see, desire is like a powerful river flowing within us; we can choose to channel its power toward what’s truly good and in so doing harvest that power toward formation into our true selves, toward what makes for true happiness. Or we can run after whatever in the moment seems best, letting the river of our desire run first this way and then that way, dividing itself into smaller and smaller little streams, less and less powerful and vivid. Ultimately, we can become almost entirely insensitive to true goods, wasting our lives away, running after unreal pleasures.

I have a choice, then, a dizzyingly significant choice even in the most banal situations as to how I channel the power of my desire: do I want the bathroom rug where I’d like it to be or do I embrace this situation as an opportunity for pursuing an even better good – the formation of my self away from selfishness toward God and other human beings in love? I can put away the old self, corrupted by its selfish wantings and loves, and embrace a new life in Christ.

The more we love what’s truly good, the more we let our desire be formed by the truth, the more we will know the good, our sensitivity to what is true and good increases – and so does our pleasure in what is good. The good ordering of desire according to truth results in its purification and finally, clarity of vision. ‘Blessed are pure in heart, for they shall see God.’

I’m presented with the possibility, then, as to how to organise my desires and loves: I can pursue what is truly good according to the truth about the things I want. And in so doing I can become formed into the image of what I love.

Or I can treat my immediate desires themselves as truth about what I need and what I must have to be happy, I can let those desires run my life, and eventually – if things go badly enough – bring it to ruin.  

This formation of the desiring self, the making of our loves, is something God’s Spirit achieves in us, but it also requires training and intentionality on our part. ‘Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit’, as Paul says in Galatians. Since we are ‘blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing’ (Eph. 1.4), ‘destined for adoption as God’s children’ (1.5), let us live that way.

As to how this training of desire and formation of self could happen on a practical level, I have two things in mind for us today.

First, by paying attention to what we give our attention to. As Maximus the Confessor says it: “Where the mind devotes its time it also expands, and where it expands it also turns its desire and love.”(Chapters on Knowledge, 71.) Hence, as Paul says, we should be made new in the attitudes of our minds, giving our attention to what is truly good for us.

Second, and this is connected to attention, we should not ignore what is closest and most immediate but embrace even mundane choices as opportunities for growth. I’ve got a choice, even in the most trivial, between having what I want immediately and some greater good, greater happiness. Also, if I can’t fight my selfish desire even with something as banal and unimportant as where to keep a bathroom rug, how could I ever be ready for the time when more difficult and serious situations call upon me? The moral life, after all, cannot be lived in grand abstractions, in some great ideas about heroic future actions. It must be lived here and now.

Here now and now, then, we have a call: to live for what is truly good, to ‘lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely’ (Hb. 12.1), to begin again a pilgrimage toward that new self, created to be like God in truth and in love. Today we can pursue this call not because in so doing we merit God’s love, as if we were anything but sinners saved by grace, but because in so doing we will be happy.

Ensinnäkin, luulen että suurinta osa ihmisistä ei oikeastaan kiinnosta laisinkaan minkä kirkon jäsen minä olen – ja se on varsin kohtuullista. Ottaen kuitenkin huomioon sen, että olin henkilö, joka omasi Vapaakirkon pastorin valtakirjan ja joka siten oli sitoutunut julkisesti Vapaakirkolliseen elämään ja oppiin, ja jonka siten myös yleisesti tiedettiin olevan kyseisen kirkon jäsen, ajattelin että väärinymmärrysten välttämiseksi lienee paikallaan selventää joitakin asioita.  

Ottaen huomioon ettei tässä kontekstissa oikeastaan ole mahdollista selittää taikka riittävästi kuvata kokemaani syvää sisäistä kokemusta kutsusta anglikaaniseen kirkkoon, en aio tai myöskään erityisesti tahdo sitä yrittää selittää. Sen sijaan, tarjoan joitakin selventäviä huomioita, jotka toivon mukaan myös selventävät niitä mahdollisia syitä, jotka eivät olleet minun syitäni liittyä anglikaaniseen kirkkoon. 

Lienee myös huomionarvoista mainita, että tässä yhteydessä en ole niinkään keskittynyt papin kutsumukseen vaan päätökseeni liittyviä anglikaanikirkkoon “rivijäsenenä”. Mainittakoon kuitenkin, että olen myös prosessissa pappisvihkimyksen suhteen ja toivon mukaan jossakin kohtaa tulevaisuudessa – jos Jumala suo –minut vihitään papiksi anglikaanikirkossa.  

1. En ole tehnyt tätä päätöstä kevein perustein 

Kyseessä ei ole päätös, niin tahtoisin uskoa, joka on tehty kevein perustein taikka ilman riittävää pohdintaa ja itsetutkiskelua. Pyrin esimerkiksi erottamaan pelkästään mieltymyksen tietynlaista liturgiaa ja estetiikkaa kohtaan todellisesta kokemuksesta siitä, että Jumala kutsuu minua anglikaanikirkon jäsenyyteen. Uskoisin, että päätöksessäni ei ole siten kysymys pelkästä mieltymyksestä, vaan aidosta kutsusta.  

Tämä ei ole myöskään päätös, joka on tehty nopeasti: olen pohtinut ja rukoillut asiaa noin kolme ja puoli vuotta. En myöskään ottanut mitään konkreettisia askelia liittymisen suuntaan ennen kuin olin mietiskellyt asiaa itsekseni melkein kolme vuotta. Kuitenkin, ottaen huomioon, että olin yhä henkilö, joka omasi pastorin valtakirjan Vapaakirkossa ja joka oli siten yhä tietyllä tavalla julkisesti sitoutunut siihen, en kokenut olevani täysin vapaa puhumaan asiasta julkisesti (vaikkakin jotkut ystävät ja perheenjäsenet tiesivät asiasta). En tahtonut ajautua tilanteeseen, jossa olisin vuosien ajan ikään kuin kaivanut maata sen kirkollisen yhteisön jalkojen alta, jota olin luvannut palvella kritisoimalla ja kyseenalaistamalla sen perustavia oppeja ja käytäntöjä sisältä käsin. Päätin siten jo heti alussa, että jos päättäisin liittyä anglikaanikirkkoon tekisin päätöksen julkisesti ja selkeästi, mutta siihen asti olisin Suomen kontekstissa sitoutunut Vapaakirkkoon. Siten silloin kun kyse oli tehtävästä, joka liittyi suoranaisesti rooliini Vapaakirkon pastorina tai esimerkiksi opettaessa Teologisessa opistossa, pyrin pitämään kaikkein “ei-vapaakirkollisimmat” näkemykseni erossa tästä roolista. 

Toivon, että tämän seurauksena kellekään ei jää sellainen käsitys, että olisin tarkoituksella johtanut ketään harhaan tai esittänyt olevani jotakin, mitä en ole: niin kauan kuin minulla oli Vapaakirkon pastorin valtakirja vilpitön pyrkimykseni oli siinä roolissa palvella Vapaakirkkoa niin hyvin kuin mahdollista.  

 

2. Kyse ei ole siitä mikä kirkko on “se oikea” 

En päättänyt liittyä anglikaanikirkkoon siksi, että ajattelisin sen olevan kirkon “oikea institutionaalinen muoto” tai se “tosikirkko”. (Ja tämä myös selittänee jotakin niille katolilaisille ystävilleni, joita harmittaa, että en päättänyt saman tien hypätä janan toiseen äärilaitaan ja liittyä roomalais-katolilaiseen kirkkoon.) En myöskään ajattele, että anglikaanikirkko olisi mitenkään erityisen erinomainen institutionaalisten kirkkojen joukossa. Olen hyvin tietoinen anglikaanikirkon epäonnistumisista – niin menneistä kuin nykyisistä. Tästä huolimatta se on se yhteisö, johon kuulun. 

Tämä myös on tietty tapa sanoa, että päätökseni ei perustunut ensisijassa teologisiin tai opillisiin syihin. Ei myöskään ole ollut mitään suurta vedenjakajahetkeä taikka kokemusta, jolloin olisin tehnyt päätöksen muuttaa näkemykseni ja olla “anglikaani”. Enemminkin vuosien myötä teologiset näkemykseni ovat vähitellen muovautuneet ja muuttuneet. Jossakin kohtaa yksinkertaisesti huomasin, että olin anglikaani. Tämä ei kuitenkaan tarkoita, että prosessi ei olisi sisältänyt minkäänlaista tietoista älyllistä pohdintaa. Pitemminkin sitä nimenomaan siivitti kirkkoisien ja historiallisen teologian lisääntynyt lukeminen sekä tutustuminen varhaisen kirkon liturgioihin. Ylenpäätään en näe tarpeelliseksi erottaa “käytönnön” ja “teorian” kautta tapahtuneita prosesseja niin kuin liturgia itsessään ei olisi teologiaa: osiltaan juurikin käytännön osallistuminen anglikaaniseen liturgiaan johti myös teologisten näkemysten muuttumiseen. Lex orandi, lex credendi – rukouksen laki on uskon laki, niin kuin sanotaan. 

 

3. Tämä ei ole päätös, jonka olen tehnyt katkeruudesta tai suuttumuksesta käsin 

Minulla ei ole mitään Vapaakirkkoa vastaan. Kirkkollisena yhteisönä se on ollut minulle hyvä paikka olla ja antanut paljon. Uskoisin, että ilman monien vapaakirkollisten työntekijöiden ja ystävien tukea tuskin olisin siinä pisteessä missä tänään olen. Ja tästä kaikesta olen hyvin kiitollinen Vapaakirkolle ja toivon, että jatkossakin voin pysyä yhteydessä vapaakirkolliseen elämään.  

Lisäksi, siitä huolimatta, että omat näkemykseni saattavat erota tätä nykyä jossain määrin tavanomaisista vapaakirkollisista näkemyksistä, minulla ei ole mitään aikomusta taikka tarvetta yrittää “käännyttää” vapaakirkollisia kristittyjä johonkin toiseen kirkkokuntaan. Vapaakirkkollisuudella perinteenä on oma integriteettinsä osana ‘yhtä, pyhää, katolista [eli yleistä] ja apostolista kirkkoa’. Toivon kaikkea hyvää ja Jumalan runsasta siunausta Vapaakirkon tulevaisuuteen.  

 

On My Decision to Join the Anglican Church: Three Clarifying Notes 

At the risk of being terribly self-indulgent and self-important, here are some notes and explanations regarding my recent decision to join the Anglican church. I realise that this matter probably doesn’t interest most people very much – they couldn’t care less which denomination I’m a member of – and that is very reasonable: do feel free to ignore this entirely. Given, however, the fact that I was a pastor in the Free Evangelical Church of Finland and that it was, therefore, generally known that I’m a member of that denomination and that in some sense I publicly represented it due to having that role, I feel like I own some kind of explanation to those who are confused or who have some questions, and also in the hopes of avoiding any misunderstandings.  

Given that it’s not really possible in this context to explain the deeply felt sense of inward calling that drew me to the Anglican church and made me make the choice I’ve made, I’m not going to attempt to explain it – nor do I actually desire to. Instead, I’ll just clarify what kinds of things did not motivate my decision to join the Anglican church.  

Also, this post is mainly about my decision to join the Anglican church not so much about my decision to seek ordination to the Anglican priesthood. For those who might be interested to know, however, I can tell that I am indeed in the process of discernment and I hope, God willing, that I will be ordained a priest in the Anglican church sometime in the future.  

 

Three Clarifying Notes


1. This is not a Decision Lightly Made  

This is not a decision I’ve made lightly or – so I hope – without due discernment and without considering carefully whether my sense of being drawn into the Anglican church was merely an emotional response to, say, the kind of high Anglican liturgy that delighted me rather than a genuine call from God. That is, whether it was merely a personal preference or indeed a real vocation. Hence, this is something I have been thinking about and praying about for about three years. All these years, I did not discuss the matter very widely, although some of my friends and family did know. At the same time, given that I also held a pastoral license in the Free Evangelical Church and in this sense had made some public commitments to it, I didn’t feel entirely at liberty to discuss my ponderings and wonderings very widely: I decided early on that if I made the decision to join the Anglican communion, I’d do it properly and publicly, and that I wouldn’t spend years sort of indirectly undermining the practices, theological beliefs and spirituality of the free church tradition while still situated within it. Hence, I felt generally that I shouldn’t publicly speak or preach some of my theological views or my questions about my own vocation. This is because I do believe that if one is ‘authorized’ as a minister of a church community, one has certain duties towards that community, to support the kind of distinctive spirituality and practice that is organic to that community and in so doing serve that community’s needs (rather one’s own personal theological preferences). I hope, therefore, that those to whom this comes as a surprise do not feel that they have been somehow duped or even betrayed by me, that I have pretended to be or believe something contrary to my actual views: as long as I still held a pastoral license in the Free Evangelical Church, my sincere intention was to serve the church in that role.  

 

2. This Isn’t About Which Church is the Right Church 
I have not decided to join the Anglican church because I believe it’s ‘the one true institutional form of the church’. I don’t, in fact, believe that there is any such ‘one true institutional form of the church’ and I’ve no interest in debating which church is “the right one”. (Which, in a way, is also an answer to those Catholic friends of mine who are disappointed that I didn’t just go all the way, swim the Tiber, and join the Roman Catholic Church.) Nor do I think that the Anglican church is even particularly outstanding amongst the institutional churches: I’m more than aware of the failings – both historical and current – of the Anglican church.  

This is also a way of saying that my decision was not made primarily for theological or doctrinal reasons. Also, there has not been any single moment of radical theological break from the tradition I grew up in. Rather, over the years my theological views have simply shifted, gradually, until at some point I simply noticed that I was, for all practical purposes, an Anglican. This does not mean, however, that the process has been unreflective: it has been, as I said, long-time coming and partly the shift in my views took place because I dived deeper into early Christian fathers and liturgy and historical theology in general. This shift happened in connection with my study of theology and my growing practical familiarity with Anglican worship. Lex orandi, lex credendi, as they say (the law of prayer is the law of believing). In general, I’d like to resist the notion that somehow ‘intellectual processes’ can be separated from practical engagement with a given tradition (as if liturgy was not also theology).  

 

3. This Is not a Decision Made in Anger or Resentment

This is not a decision I’ve made with anger or resentment: I’ve nothing against the Free Evangelical Church of Finland. It has been a very good place for me to be and has given me so much. In many ways, I am where I am today because of the generous help and support of many of its members. And I am so very grateful for my home church for that, and for all the people who’ve helped me and supported me in my journey. I hope that I can stay connected to the Free Evangelical Church of Finland in the future as well.  

I also don’t think, despite my differing views, that the Free Evangelical Church of Finland should become Anglican or Episcopalian or whatever: as a church community it is situated within its own tradition and has an integrity of its own and I hope and pray that it will have many good pastors in the future who will be able to serve it well.

Preached at St. Clement’s, Oxford

Lk. 24.13-35; Acts 14a, 36-41

In today’s Gospel reading we are first introduced to two confused men. They are walking to Emmaus, a town that’s about seven miles from Jerusalem. We don’t know why they’re headed there, but they’re on the road nevertheless, talking with each other about the strange and violent events had been taking place in Jerusalem during Passover. A man called Jesus of Nazareth had been crucified – a man these men had hoped would be the promised Messiah, the one one to redeem Israel. They’d been drawn to this Jesus who had been “prophet mighty in deed and word before God and before all the people”: a powerful, attractive, fascinating character. They’d seen his miracles, heard his words; they’d hoped he’d be God’s promised Messiah who would liberate Israel. 

The Jesus these men had set their hopes on did not ride triumphantly to Jerusalem with his armies, waging a victorious war against the Roman oppressors. Instead, this Jesus of Nazareth had arrived riding on a donkey with a group of mostly uneducated fisher men and a few women – some of whom were of questionable reputation. But perhaps none of this was enough to deter the men of Emmaus road; perhaps Jesus was attractive to them precisely because he was so strange, so unanticipated in his ways.  

But then this Jesus was handed over to the Romans, he surrendered unresisting and the soldiers of the empire turned his kingship into mockery, casting lots over his royal ropes. No golden crown of the king was pressed upon his head in liberated Jerusalem. His crown was made of thorns, his throne was the hard wood of the cross, his triumph his humiliation – and then he died, alongside two criminals, an excruciatingly painful, violent death.  

None of this had been part of the script the disciples of Emmaus had in mind for God’s promised Messiah. Hence, their hope is in past tense: ‘we had hoped’, they say, ‘that he’d be the one who redeem Israel’. But clearly, they seemed to be thinking, crucifixion was proof enough that they had set their hopes on the wrong man – although, to add to their confusion, there has been some bewildering reports from the women of Jesus’s company about an empty grave.  

And now, as they are walking along the road, a stranger draws near them, joins their conversation, asking them about the events of the past few days. And, as it turns out, this stranger is an expert in Hebrew Scriptures and seems to have better understanding than the men of Emmaus of the events he himself was first asking about. Once again, there’s something very attractive about this man; the disciples don’t want to let him go, so that as they finally reach Emmaus they urge him to stay with them for the night, to continue talking.  

The story of Emmaus, I think, has always been one of my favourite resurrection appearances in the Gospels. There’s something playful about Jesus in this story, something wonderful about his gentle approach, “remarkable merely for the absence of clamour” (as R.S. Thomas put it). They way he catches up with them on the road, asking questions he very well knows the answer to – you can almost see the slightly mischievous smile on his face – and they way in which he pretends to be walking ahead when they reach Emmaus, to be going his way, only to be stopped by the men who urge him to stay and how he makes it seem like he allows himself to be persuaded, as if reluctant; there’s something playful about all this.  

It seems like Jesus in this story really has an appreciation for the element of surprise, he relishes the reversal, the turning of grief into exuberant joy, of confusion into clarity and recognition. He’s got something good, something great in store for these friends of his, and he is enjoying giving it to them – it’s almost as if he’s purposely delaying the final reveal, to really savour it.  

There’s something here, I think, about God’s great abilities as a storyteller, as a maker of stories, as the author of creation: he writes the story of creation, and of our lives, with great creativity and care, he has an appreciation for a good plot twist, for the element of surprise and reversal.  

And that’s what the crucifixion and resurrection essentially are: turns in God’s story, surprising, unanticipated turns. And while the crucifixion is truly a violent, horrendous event – a true horror – there’s also a sense in which, especially in this story of Emmaus road, there’s another side to it all, to the horrors of Good Friday and the silent darkness of the Holy Saturday, revealed through the resurrection: the side of triumphant, divine joy. The cross is an act of free love, after all, and not of gloomy necessity: an overflowing self-giving, an exuberant act of victorious generosity.  

Jesus’s playful approach in today’s text points towards this underlying theme of joy, freedom, and generosity in God’s dealings with us – a joy that is not always all-serious, but also has something witty about it, humour-like. He enjoys our company, it seems.  

I’m reminded of C.S. Lewis’s little book Grief Observed which he wrote after the death of his beloved wife. He writes about the darkness of his grief, his doubts and unanswered questions, God’s silence. He says that in the midst of it all, he had this impression of God’s presence – of God’s attentive presence in his grief that is “like the sound of a chuckle in the darkness”.  

‘A chuckle in the darkness’ – one could perhaps easily read this as a kind of indifference of someone who belittles our loss, and who – unbothered by our griefs, impatient with our confusion – has no time for our tears. But it’s not so in the story of Emmaus; here God himself draws out our recognition of him, he is not in any hurry as he catches up with us on the road, gently and playfully pulling the perplexed, disappointed and grief-stricken back into his story, into his joy. He can linger with our grief and loss.  

Maybe in Jesus’s playful approach, we hear some of this divine chuckle in the darkness. It’s the compassionate chuckle of the one who holds the plot, the creative author of all life who knows he can bring this story of his to a great ending. It’s the joy of the one who, although the plot contains some dark turns, is never overcome by darkness; the one who, in descending into hell, destroys it, who in dying brings about the death of death. The resurrection is the triumph of divine joy and creativity over the forces of darkness, the victory of the great divine Storyteller in turning the story of his creation into one of joy.  

But to be drawn into this divine joy – to this story of God in our lives – is not always simple and straightforward. For the disciples of Emmaus, the crucifixion did not fit into the story they had in mind about the Messiah and while they were astounded at the report of the women who said the grave was empty, they were still confused, their joy was not yet complete.  

Sometimes we lose the plot, we do not recognise the presence of the great Storyteller in our lives, in our world. Sometimes, I reckon, the world can seem to us like its lacks a proper plot – or, if anything, it’s “a tale told by an idiot” (Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, scene 5). Perhaps sometimes, like the men of Emmaus had seen, one confusing, violent event follows another while the voice of the narrator is lost, silenced by the clamour of the crowd that shouts ‘crucify!’

Such heart-breaking turns might invite the tempting thought that maybe there is no story here, perhaps it is indeed all a mindless chaos upon which we impose our feeble meanings, our made-up plots. That the world itself is plotless, without a story, inert matter which we, in our desperate need for meaning and resolution, manipulate the best we can. Certainly, the story of Christ’s resurrection could be seen, by the sceptic, as an attempt at such a manipulation, originating from the need of Jesus’s disciples to find an appropriate ending for the humiliating death of their beloved Master.  

But once again, it is not so on Emmaus road. Here the divine storyteller, the author of all life, meets us. And so, in explaining Scriptures to them, Jesus places these friends of his back into the story, helps them find the plot again. And joy is awakened, ignited like a flame as recognition dawns – ‘were not our hearts burning within us?’

Yet, interestingly, they only fully recognise Jesus as he breaks bread with them, bringing to mind the last supper: it’s the image of his broken body, the memory of his passion and death, that opens their eyes to the reality of resurrection. The joy of God that overcomes the forces of darkness is known in the remembrance of Christ’s suffering. In order to know the plot, including the reversal and the unanticipated light, the beginnings of the final act of the play, the men of Emmaus must return to that inexplicable hour of the Crucifixion, to sit in that darkness “as [when] in a theatre, the lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed” (T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, East Coker, III).  

There’s a kind of two-way movement here, in this act of recognition: they recognise the risen Christ by remembering his passion and death, but they also truly recognise the Crucified One as God’s Messiah only in light of the resurrection. The crucifixion and resurrection illuminate each other. The story only makes sense as a whole.  

Perhaps some of us, like the men of Emmaus, need reminding of the creative power of God, the creativity of the cosmic Novelist who relished the reversal in our lives, who will eventually surprise us as well with his storytelling skills. I do not mean that in this world, on this side of the resurrection, all will be made clear; some of the confusing, broken plots will only be resolved at the final reveal when he comes again. Nevertheless, the risen Christ invites us to orientate ourselves in hope, to slow down our pace a bit, recognise him who appears next to us on the road, to hear that happy chuckle of his.  

We are invited by Jesus himself to be placed back into God’s story, mediated to us by the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures and the sacramental realities of the church. We are invited to be formed by Christ’s story, to immerse ourselves in it, as in baptismal waters, to sink into his death and resurrection, and be transformed. We are invited to view the world itself differently through the lens of God’s Word that is at work in the world, making what it speaks and promises. This is the invitation that also resounds in our second reading today, in Peter’s proclamation, in the invitation to devote ourselves, through conversion and discipleship, to the “the apostle’s teaching” (the hearing of the Gospel, brought to us through Scriptures and the church’s tradition), and “the breaking of bread and the prayers” (that is, the sacramental fellowship of the Christian community). These are transformative, story-making practices.  

We are called to recognise the risen Christ in the breaking of bread as he approaches us again, to note how he catches up with us on the road playfully, gently. He pays attention to us, he is not in any hurry, nor impatient with us – and so he draws us into his joy, into that joy no one can take away.  

Classically theologians have affirmed that the divine being is simple, i.e. utterly one: there are no parts – spatial, temporal, of any kind – in God. God is necessarily and utterly and only himself, identical with his own nature. Also, it follows, that divine attributes all have the same referent: we are not picking out some distinct ‘part’ of God when we speak of his wisdom nor yet another when we discuss his power.  

The critics of simplicity like to point out that this leads us to a conundrum of the following sort: 

Conundrum A 

  1. God is power. 
  2. God is wisdom. 
  3. Therefore, given that there are no parts in God, wisdom is power in God.  

The problem with the conclusion is that if ‘wisdom is power’ in God we do not seem to have a very good grasp of what wisdom and power really mean with respect to God. What is wisdom that is identical with power? What is power that is the same as wisdom?

In addition to this, some (I think it was at least William Alston) have argued that doctrine of simplicity also leads to the following conundrum: 

Conundrum B 

  1. God is his own nature.  
  2. Therefore, nature is God.  

To specify:  

  1. God is identical with his goodness. 
  2. Therefore, goodness is God.  

From this would follow, so the critics say, the unfortunate conclusion that God is not a person but a nature. That is, simplicity would force us to say not only that God is good but that goodness is God. And this, of course, would go against the Christian thinking that God is not ‘a thing’ or ‘a nature’ but a living, active, personal being. 

I recently heard an interesting paper given by Nicholas E. Lombardo, O.P., at Campion Seminar at Oxford titled The Grammar of Divinity: A Genealogy of Confused Thinking About the Divine Essence in Western Trinitarian Theology. I think his argument concerning Trinitarian grammar can be applied to simplicity to solve the conundrums just introduced.  

First, note Frege’s famous distinction between objects and concepts. Objects, to put it simply, pick out things in the world, they are logically complete by themselves. Examples of objects include: the White House, Venus, cat, pencil. God is also an object in this logical sense. Objects can relate to concepts but they do not need to. Concepts, to put it simply again, are properties of objects and to mean something they need an object. (Hence, I say ‘wide’ and you ask ‘wide what?’) Concepts are parasitic on objects, if you like. Concepts include things like: wide, thick, red, and Trinitarian. However, some words can be used both as objects and as concepts, such as the word planet which can be both an object and a concept but is most properly logically considered a concept (there is, in actuality, no such thing in the universe as ‘a planet’ but only collections of matter [Venus, Mars, Jupiter] designated as such).  

Following this, note also Frege’s crucial insight with regards to the word ‘is’, namely, that there are two kinds of ‘is’: the ‘is’ of predication and the ‘is’ of identification. Consider: 

  1. The barn is red. 
  2. The evening star is planet Venus.  

Sentence (8) is a matter of predication ’is’: a concept (red) is predicated of an object (barn). These cannot change places: it does not follow from (8) that ‘red is barn’. Sentence (9), on the other hand, is a matter of identification ’is’: it’s an object-object predication. Hence, the predicate and the object can change places and the meanings is the same. Hence, we can infer from (9) that ‘Venus is the evening star’. Consider another example: Bruce Wayne [object] is Batman [object]. This can be turned around: Batman is Bruce Wayne. Both sentences make sense and are true. Try the following, though: Bruce Wayne [object] is tall [concept]. This cannot be turned around: tall is not Bruce Wayne.   

Noting the difference between (8) and (9) already solves Conundrum B: saying that [God is good = goodness is God] is like like saying that [the barn is red = red is a barn]. We are confusing object-object predication with object-concept predication. Goodness is not ‘a thing’: rather goodness is a concept predicated of “a thing” we call God. And yet, because God is simple, we can also say (as long as we keep the relevant distinctions just introduced in mind) that ‘Goodness exists’ or that we ‘worship Goodness’ – here we are using Goodness as a title of God, as a name. (Nota bene, this is not mere nominalism: we can still say that goodness is a metaphysical reality – namely, the reality of God. In this sense, as a simply another term for the personal divine being, we can speak of goodness as an object.)

But how about Conundrum A? According to the critics of simplicity ‘God is power’ and ‘God is wisdom’ are are akin to (9): they are a case of object-object predication. But here, too, divine attributes are mistakenly treated as objects or things rather than concepts. Hence, the logical sequence in (1)-(3) is thought to be the same as in the following:  
 

  1. The evening star is the planet Venus. 
  2. The morning star is the planet Venus. 
  3. Therefore, evening star is the morning star.  

 However, this is in fact not the case. In actuality, (1)-(3) represent a logical fallacy of the following sort: 

  1. The barn is red.  
  2. The barn is wide. 
  3. Therefore, red is wide.  

This logical fallacy stems from not distinguishing between the ‘is’ of predication and ‘is’ of identification. The words ‘wisdom’ and ‘power’ are not objects in (1)-(3), but concepts. You see, the whole point of the doctrine of simplicity is that divine attributes cannot be predicated of the divine essence as separate things or objects: they are not ‘parts’ or ‘things’ in God.  Rather, they are concepts that signify the undivided, utterly simple divine essence. Hence: 

  1. God [object] is power [concept]. 
  2. God is [object] is wisdom [concept]. 
  1. Therefore, God is both power and wisdom. 

Now the critic might jump in, though, pointing out that we have predicated a plurality of attributes of a simple being (God is both power and wisdom). For, the critic might say, in the barn-case ‘wide’ and ‘red’ are indeed distinct attributes of the barn, because the barn is not an undivided, simple entity but has parts. Hence, there is nothing objectionable in the conclusion that we predicate a plurality of attributes of the barn (‘wide’ and ‘red’) but it is incoherent to predicate such a plurality of God who is supposed to be simple. With simplicity we are not saying that God is wise and powerful. We are saying, rather, that in God these are the one and the same: there is no distinction whatsoever between them. To make this clearer, imagine, at the risk of nonsense,  a barn that is simple: if a barn was simple, we would have to say that somehow redness just is wideness in the barn. The words would not pick out two distinct aspects of the thing but somehow they would pick out the one and the same thing. And this of course seems to make very little sense in terms of how we use words like ‘red’ and ‘wide’. Indeed, the whole sentence (“redness is wideness”) sounds entirely nonsensical – or at least it would leave open the question why we would want to use two different terms for the exact same reality, terms that in our common usage don’t pick out the exact same reality but two different realities. 

But here the doctrine of analogy comes in: it is not that the meaning of ‘power’ and ‘wisdom’ is the same, but rather that their referent is the same and their meaning is analogical. ‘Power’ and ‘wisdom’ both have the same referent: the simple, undivided divine being – in that sense the reference works as in ‘morning star/evening star’. However, the doctrine of simplicity does not force us to say that we mean the same thing when we say ‘God is wise’ and when we say ‘God is power’. Rather, these are just concepts that pick out the same object (God) under different descriptions. This is just what it means to say that ‘God is power’ is an object-concept predication and not an object-object predication.  

As Eleonore Stump put its: “Finite human minds contemplating the deity must break the one divine nature into separable attributes; limited human minds cannot take in as one whole the greatness of the divine nature” and so “human minds, like a prism, break the white light of God’s nature into a rainbow of divine attributes”. (Stump, Atonement [Oxford University Press, 2018], 409). 

Hence, I content, to say that divine attributes are predicated of God analogically is to say just this: they all reliably pick out the same, simple object under different, plural descriptions (or meanings). The root of the analogousness – the ‘dissimilarity’ of Lateran IV – is in the fact that divine nature is simple: somehow these distinct descriptions (concepts) do not pick out distinct realities (like ‘wide’ and ‘red’ do in the case of the barn). Divine attributes have the same exact referent, but different meanings. This is not to say that language about God is ultimately nonsensical (i.e. that we are forced to say things like ‘wisdom is power’ or ‘omnipotence is loving-kindness’). Rather, this is to say that the attributes are analogical.  

 

3rd Advent 2022 / Ish. 35.1-10, Mt. 11.2-11 / St. Clement’s Church, Oxford

 

The promises of Isaiah’s chapter 35 – ‘the wilderness and the dry land that shall be glad’, ‘the redeemed of the Lord that come to Sion with singing’, ‘sorrow shall flee away’ – these promises ask us to call to mind various historical situations: the people of Judah in Isaiah’s own time, hard-pressed by the Assyrian empire, fearing for their homes and families; the people of Judah, over a hundred years later, this time exiled in Babylon, hoping to return to their homeland, to rebuild what was lost; the Jewish people of the first-century, suffering under the occupation of the Romans, looking for God’s promised Messiah who would set them free and restore Israel; and we today, of course, with the wars, injustices and turmoils of our own, waiting for that time when God will finally eradicate evil. Empires and kings rise and fall, often accompanied by fear and violence, injustice and oppression. These words of Isaiah, then, travel through many exiles, many wars, rulers and oppressive regimes and yet still, somehow, earthly power’s the same – more or less deaf to truth and blinded to its own limits, always transient.

Into all these different historical situations Isaiah spoke and still speaks his word of hope: “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

Isaiah’s prophecy, spoken into many contexts and situations, also has many fulfilments, one fulfilment opening towards another, yet more complete fulfilment, like a range of mountains, each peak higher than the other: the miraculous rescue of Jerusalem from the Assyrian invaders in Isaiah’s time; the return of the exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the city; the coming of God’s Messiah in first-century Palestine; and finally, the ultimate fulfilment – the return of Christ, the Messiah, on the final day when all will be made new, and all sorrow and sighing finally flee away.

You see, the word of God – unlike our words – does not simply state things, but it also makes things. The Word spoken by God is a creative word, word that has the power to bring into existence what it promises, word that spoke the universe into existence. The word of God is after all, alive and active: always, as it were, ‘being spoken’, always already in movement, seeking hearers. It is always a new call to hope in the God who fulfills his promises, the God who will restore his creation, the God who saves. Always, therefore, also a new call to not just hear the Word but do it: to join in with what the Word is doing in the world, to join with God in his mission to bring life and salvation into his creation.

It is into this world of promise, the world where God’s active word is at work in the midst of all the confusion and turmoil, that we enter also in our Gospel reading today: John, the last of the prophets, the one who announced the Messiah’s coming has been imprisoned by Herod Antipas, the local ruler who didn’t like what John had to say about him taking his brother’s wife as his own. Again, something familiar here, perhaps, with rulers abusing their power to silence those who refuse to bend, like a reed in the wind, to please, to say anything less than the truth, even when threatened with imprisonment and death.

So, John is in prison and his disciples bring him news about ‘the works the Messiah was doing’. In response, John sends his disciples to ask from Jesus, ‘are you the who is to come or are we to wait for another?’ This is, admittedly, a somewhat strange question coming from the man who proclaimed Christ’s coming as the promised Messiah just a few chapters ago. The early Christian commentators were somewhat confused by this as well, as Gregory the Great put the question: “It seems as if John doesn’t know the one he had pointed out, as if he didn’t know whether he was the same person he had proclaimed by prophecy and by baptizing!” Most ancient commentators chose to get around this difficulty by reading John’s question not really as his own question but as a question he asks on behalf of his disciples, for their sake, so that they might come to realise that Jesus is the Messiah.  

There is perhaps some truth to this: in some sense, John’s question voices the shared Messianic expectations – and confusions – of many Jewish people of his time. But I also rather like the more human picture of John this question gives us: is it possible, maybe, that John had begun to doubt his earlier convictions while in prison? Had he become uncertain whether Jesus really was the Messiah? Perhaps he, too, needed reassurance? Is it possible that Jesus’s words then – “blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me” – are a gentle rebuke directed at John’s lack of faith?

Either way, John’s question – “tell me, are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?” – appears to me to be the kind of question asked by someone who might be uncertain but is ready and willing to believe, open to believe. So, even if it would be motivated by some doubt, it’s still a question asked by someone who is ready to hear and follow.

Jesus’s answer to John’s disciples is to go and tell John ‘what you see and hear’: look at what’s happening, Jesus says, the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear – just like Isaiah said. Jesus is asking John to place the events of his time within the world of Israel’s Scriptures, the world of promise and fulfilment, the world where God’s word is active at work, and in so doing recognise Jesus as the Messiah – as the fulfilment of God’s word.

And more than that – Jesus is not simply the one who, as it were, matches the description of Isaiah, does what Isaiah said the Messiah would do. Rather, He himself is the Word of God, the flesh and blood embodiment of God’s word. He is the one who was promised, and the one promising; he is the one who was spoken and the one who speaks. He is the Word of God in human form: the Word through which the universe was created, the one who still holds the cosmos together, in whom all things hold together. He himself is the active, creative Word of God, moving in our world, calling John – and us – to be hearers, doers of the Word.

It is in this Jesus, the Word made flesh, that John the Baptist is seeking to have faith in, despite his doubts and questions, so it appears to me. John’s faith, complex and maybe wavering at times, seems real to me, something I recognise. I, too, have my doubts, my reservations, my unanswered questions. I, too, look at the world and wonder what the fulfilment of God’s promises – of renewal, justice, peace, joy – might mean in this world we know. In fact, sometimes when I – for example – watch in the news Ukrainian children trekking through muddy fields towards some hope of safety, refugees, all their belongings contained in the plastic bags they carry, I quite spontaneously find myself exclaiming: “God, what’s the plan here? When will you fix this world of yours? How long still?”

I don’t always know what do with all these things that trouble me, but maybe John’s example is useful: perhaps despite my fear and doubt, I, too, can be ready to believe still, and bring my questions to Jesus. Struggle towards him and with him, rather than away from him. Perhaps God’s answer to my questions, then, would be something like Jesus’s answer to John’s question: look around you, God might say, I’ve already started. Will you join me? Will you place your doubts and questions in the context of my Word that is alive, creative, active? Will you join what that Word is already doing in the world? Will you hear it, will you obey it, will you follow it, will you hope in it even with a wavering, imperfect faith?

The next time, after our passage today, John appears in the Gospel of Matthew is in chapter 14 where we learn of his execution. Although it is not recorded in the Gospels, I’d like to think that John’s disciples brought Jesus’s answer to his question back to him. I imagine John his prison cell, words of Jesus entering into his darkness, gently like the light at dawn: he has not laboured in vain or spent his strength for nothing, his eyes have seen the coming of his God. He can go in peace.

It might take some looking and some learning, but I believe that we, too, can learn to see God at work in our world, in our lives, God’s coming in the midst of us: our ears can be opened, our eyes, too. Indeed, it is the theme of the Advent season: to learn to behold ‘the One Who Is Coming’. “The eyes of the blind shall be opened; the ears of the deaf unstopped” at the coming our God.

‘The One Who Is Coming’ is actually a Messianic title of Jesus, ὁ ἐρχόμενος in Greek. During this season we pay attention to God as the ὁ ἐρχόμενος, as the One Coming, as the One approaching us: he is the one who came as a child in the midst of us, the Word made flesh; he is the one who is coming to us today, especially in the bread and the wine, to be present in our lives and to make himself known in the world through us; and he is the one still to come, to finally and completely fulfill his word, his promises of renewal and salvation.

“Strengthen the weak hands”, Isaiah says, “And make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not fear!’ Here is your God.”

Although we in our faith might not always be like John the Proclaimer – unbent, steadfast, strong – but maybe more like John the Prisoner – a little afraid, tired, spent, bothered by doubts, weighed down by sin, maybe – it is also said of this Coming One that “a bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out” but “in faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth”. In his faithfulness and love he also comes to us, giving what is lacking, supplying what’s needed, strengthening what’s weak. In this promise we can hope, and so receive him with joy.  

For the coming of our God is, as Isaiah says, a matter of joy – the kind of joy that’s promised into a world like Isaiah’s and John’s, a world like ours where there is injustice, hardship, loss, and sorrow. This joy is not something that would trivialise these, but but a more complex kind of joy, the kind that’s somehow deeper than always feeling happy, maybe something that comes close to wonder and gratitude, an attitude more than a feeling, a joy that fits our beautiful, confusing world.

I’d like to encourage you therefore during this season of Advent and Christmas to seek that joy in God’s coming in the midst of us, to see where he is already at work in the world around you, both in things big and small, like helping someone in need or paying attention to the gift God has given you in other people. For God’s Word is active at work in the world – creating something new, calling us to join in with wonder and gratitude.

Rizpah

2 Samuel 21

 

Say what you will of that man’s sin but my

sons, these sons of Israel will not go

to Sheol ungrieved. I know our hunger, yes,

I know how we haven’t seen any rain, I know

it all. It’s all the same to me, I will

lay this, my sackcloth, here – on this rock – and

here I will keep my watch. My sons will have

their funeral.

                          And Sheol will not have them ungrieved.

 

They came and said: it’s time to pay. For there’s

a debt that’s hidden somewhere in the pit

of the Earth, or the waters deep. A count

is kept, beyond the dome of heaven. And

it’s blood they want, lives are asked. Such things

are not my worry. All I know is that

I had two sons who are now dead and gone.

 

A hidden cause, His will or theirs, it’s all

the same to me. They can say what they want

and keep on saying, call me scornful, think

me irreverent – so be it: my sons

are dead, is all I know. So they can keep

their talk and I will keep my watch.

 

Not that I wish to quarrel with the Lord

Almighty. Truly, I know that he’s no man,

his ways above ours, plans beyond our wit,

and mortals, mere, his secrets won’t reveal.

I’ve heard these things, I know these words. I, too,

did see the festivals and heard the songs

they sang: he holds his court in the heavens,

the darkness covers him, and storm and fire

go ahead of him. The Lord’s his name, I know.

 

And it’s not justice I deny. But I’m

of earth, a woman made of flesh, from dust

to dust returning: it’s his justice not

mine. So, I will keep my watch here, on this

rock I’ll remain, come who or what.

 

                                                             Let me

say this as well while you are listening:

my mother bore him children. Chosen, not

choosing, given and taken, bore her lot.

I never saw him much, that strange man who

always seemed so afraid, as if he thought

the ground itself might swallow him up. None

could give him peace, no oath of loyalty,

nor riches or power. When he died, we fled

like others did. New king in town, we had

to go, like birds we fled and then we were

forgotten, free.

                            It’s all the same to me

for I’m no poet nor priest, and I’ve no gift

for prophecy, I’m just a woman, and

no more, and none of this matters. Their plots,

intrigues and cunnings won’t matter. Power

is still the same. But now my sons are dead.

 

So, judge me or revile me. So, come rain,

come wind, or heat without mercy, you will

still find me keeping watch right here. For as

long as I, dust and all, still breath on this

sorry Earth, my sons, these sons of Aiah,

will not go down to Sheol unwatched, ungrieved.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect. Rm. 12.2

In response to various shifts in culture – shifts in the way we perceive human relationships, especially romantic and sexual relationships, gender issues, shifts in broader values, etc. – the church, like much of society, is being pulled into two different directions, liberal and conservative, left and right. At times it feels like the middle won’t hold much longer. Beliefs that were once considered simply Christian now carry with them the additional weight of tribalistic identity: to say x is no longer to simply say x but to signify belonging to a certain tribe or faction. This also means that beliefs, more and more, come in packages: to say x is to also – implicitly – choose to say y, z, and not-q. So, for example, caring deeply about environmental issues or social justice means that you cannot also care about preserving the traditional social teaching of the church.

Since my background is in the more conservative type of Christianity, I’ve noticed how conservative churches are pushed, by these changes in the culture and the resulting polarisation, more and more towards reactionary conservatism: towards a Christian faith that is defined by what it is against, a spirituality that is a series of reactions to what is perceived as being a threat to authentic Christian life and values, a spirituality which therefore lacks a centre. This lack of centre is quite important, I believe: there is this distinctive sense in which highly polarised, politized and reactionary conservativism seems to lack a kind of steady, inner stability. It is, so it appears at times, a spirituality that is lived entirely on the level of what Thomas Aquinas called ‘passions’ – instinctive reactions to what is perceived either as good or evil: fighting whatever threat appears most urgent at the moment, whatever latest liberal heresy needs rebutting, or whatever cultural phenomenon commentary. It is spirituality fuelled by the passions of distress, fear, and anger – as is often pointed out – but also, I would like to suggest, by certain misguided hope (that we can go back to the “good old days” of ‘truly Christian society’) and audacity (many right-wing conservatives seem to take pleasure in upsetting “the liberal establishment”, in “saying things as they are” regardless of who they might offend: the audacity to offend with straight-talk is “courage to stand for the truth”). Passions themselves aren’t a bad thing. They are, rather, the raw energy of human flourishing: passions and affections are needed for virtuous living because they push us to pursue what is good and avoid what is evil. But in order to be integrated into a life of flourishing, passions do need to be guided and ordered by the virtues. Few, perhaps, stop to ask what is truly good and how the zeal – the passion – for the good could be rightly, wisely, and virtuously ordered.

In some countries polarisation is quite deeply and widely felt and in others – such as Finland – perhaps less so, although I can sense that in Finland, too, further polarisation is the direction Christians are headed towards. My main issue with reactionary conservativism is that with its focus away from the centre towards outside threats, it will distract us from discerning what truly faithful Christian living in our current context might actually mean. It hollows-out the rich, nuanced, dynamic life of discipleship we are all called to as Christians. It allows us to pick and choose our favourite cultural grievances and ignore the full ethical call of Christian life. It substitutes ecclesiological belonging for ideological belonging (as a pastor once pointed out: “I’ve seen a lot of people change churches because the teaching of the church did not match they political beliefs, but I’ve never seen anyone change their political beliefs because they didn’t match the teaching of the church”).

As a pastor and a theologian myself, these developments bother me quite a bit: I would like to see non-reactionary Christianity that nevertheless remains faithful to the Scriptures and tradition survive the transition from ‘Christendom’ to post-Christian, pluralistic society. I don’t have a complete answer to how that could be done, but I would like suggest a sketch of an alternative for reactionary conservativism: two spiritual practices – liturgical daily prayer and immersion in the Scriptures – that fuel faithful witness to the truth of the Gospel by allowing us to become transformed by the Gospel. The last part of this sentence is very important: faithful witness to the truth of the Gospel requires that we ourselves are first transformed, from within, by the Gospel. And this process is not once for all: rather a constant conversion of life is required, a constant renewal from within. The question of faithfulness is therefore not simply a question of having the right doctrine or the right kinds of beliefs: it is a matter of being and becoming the right kind of person. It is a matter of living a life that is in accordance with the Gospel.

Merely stating the truth against competing views – merely defending it like a debater would defend a proposition they’ve been given – is not sufficient for preserving the truth. Merely engaging in polemics is not enough. We must become the kinds of persons who are able to faithfully witness to the Gospel. It’s a matter of formation. Let me just take one example of the disconnect between belief and formation in certain type – I would suggest, reactionary – conservatism: the blatant refusal of several U.S. Republican politicians to support policies that would give additional and much needed support for families while the same politicians also rejoice in the revoking of Roe v. Wade. There can be no consistent pro-life stance that does not care for the well-being of families on the whole – especially the poorest, most vulnerable of them. We cannot consistently witness to the truth that all human life is intrinsically valuable, if we refuse to care for the children of the families whose lives are made dangerously precarious by lack. With their refusal to support such policies, these politicians betray their true concerns: they care about abortion not because they truly care about the intrinsic value of human life but because it is a tribalistic identity marker that allows them to signal their political conservativism.

Belief can be cheap, but becoming is hard. What we need, therefore, is not mere belief but formation. This necessary becoming, this formation, begins not by focusing to perceived outside threats but by turning towards the centre. And the centre – the beating heart of Christian life – is prayer and the Scriptures. These will allow us to become the kinds of persons we must be to not just say but live the truth of the Gospel. It is the hard, mundane, constant work of prayer and discipline that will slowly form us in our discipleship. Through formation, slow and daily, we begin to acquire wisdom and understanding: we become able to discern “what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect”.

This transformation through the truth of the Gospel, leads into fresh and dynamic faithfulness that might go against both the tenets of our secular culture but also, sometimes, that of Christian culture. It does not allow us to rest easy in our contentment that we already have the truth, that we’ve already acquired all the right opinions, but calls us into a life of constant renewal, ever deepening understanding of what is required of us as the disciples of Christ.

In order to flesh this out, let me now specify the two kinds of central prayerful practices – two kinds of spiritual disciplines – that I promised as an alternative to reactionary conservatism: daily, liturgical prayer and immersion in the Scriptures. I think these are vital to formation, because they are practices that allow us to reach inner silence despite the clamour of the world. First, liturgical prayer: praying the daily office plants us firmly within historical, Christian tradition.[1] It roots us in history, allowing us to perceive the distractions and polemics of our time from the steadier vantage point of the communion of the saints, stretching back in time for centuries and centuries. It gives us perspective and liberates our spiritualities from the tyranny of the present. It teaches us to live by a different rhythm to that of scandals and controversies, the 24-hour-news-cycle: a rhythm of prayer that invites us to hear the call of Christ, over and over again, against the noise of the world. It is an alternative constant to endless feeds of TikTok videos, the daily barrage of social media posts that suggest their own version of the good life: it is a constant that will call us out of ourselves, to know a life that is truly holy and happy. Rooted in tradition and the communion of saints, liturgical prayer will challenge the individualistic tendencies of our spirituality and teach to pray for things we didn’t know we should pray about. It will offer us the grace of somebody else’s perspective. It will call us to submit ourselves to tradition, to others who are on the same journey, teaching humility: that we and our personal prayers are not sufficient to ourselves, that we lack something, something that we need others – those who’ve prayed before us – to give us. Through all this, we will be transformed from within: we can become the kinds of persons we need to be in order to faithfully witness to the Gospel.

Second, immersion in the Scriptures: a commitment to not simply use the Scriptures, but to truly hear them. To use the Scriptures is to come to them with a pre-determined agenda: a question that needs answering, a dispute that needs settling, a belief that needs proof. To hear the Scriptures is to learn the difficult practice of setting our own agendas, questions and desires aside momentarily and simply listen. Listen and hear even those passages that do not make immediate sense, even those commandments that seem too demanding, almost impossible, to follow (“love your enemies”).  Instead of immediately watering down these difficult demands into some approachable practical application, by learning the attitude of listening we can let ourselves simply sit with the word, letting the word be what it is. This kind of practice can help us to hear not simply what we want to hear, but what we need to hear. Instead of conforming the Scriptures to ourselves, we can – slowly, increasingly – conform ourselves to the Scriptures; to become immersed in them, soaked in the language of the Scriptures, completely at home in their world so that eventually, through constant exposure, the word becomes part of the very fabric of our being. This is transformation from within that will fuel faithful witness, faithful discipleship. It is the centre from which will flow truth and justice, mercy and kindness, wisdom and love.

Turning back to the centre – to prayer and Scripture, discipline, and tradition – means that instead of quick soundbites, easy slogans, and instant opinions, truth becomes a matter of discernment. It is something that will dawn on us in a manner that is piecemeal. “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God.” Discernment as a spiritual practice and virtue would deserve not just its own post, but rather its own book. For now, I simply wish to draw your attention to it: that knowing how live out the truth in real world situations is a difficult matter that requires wisdom, prudence, discernment. And that there is no easy, quick way to these: to wisdom there are no shortcuts. It might be that there isn’t a simple one-size-fits-all principle that will allow us to always know what do and say in any given situation, what faithful witness to the Gospel means in each situation. This is a difficulty we must learn to live with, hoping that turning back to the centre from which our life of discipleship flows – prayer, the Scriptures, tradition – will eventually result in us gaining hearts of wisdom.

Discernment could perhaps also heal some of those divisions that we now see in the church: by acknowledging that neither “side” has the complete truth and by recognizing others – even those who we do not see as members of our preferred tribe – as persons who are also concerned with the truth, who also wish to prayerfully discern, we can join them in a mutual process of discernment, a shared seeking after the truth. Or at least we can be open towards recognizing the fact that those “on the other side” might also have something valuable to contribute. That they, too, might be motivated by deeply felt ethical convictions. Instead of digging more deeply into our trenches and shooting at each other with arguments and accusations, we can begin to take some steps towards truly hearing each other. Or so I hope. 

So, then, here is my alternative to reactionary conservatism: liturgical, daily prayer and immersion in the Scriptures. This sounds perhaps too thin a solution to too enormous a problem. But I truly believe that these slowly subversive practices can transform our lives and our world. For what I’d like to see in the church would be a pause: let us stop, for a moment. Stop our political and moral posturing, stop trying to situate ourselves in a divided, polarized cultural field. Let us shut the door and leave the clamour of the world out, for a moment. Let us hear the Master speak. Let us be transformed by his words.

 

[1] Different denominations have their own versions of the daily office that all, more or less, follow a similar pattern. Personally, I use the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and/or Common Worship. In addition to the old-school book format, these are available online and as apps (Daily Prayer, Time to Pray, Lectionary).