Award-winning Christian author Madeleine L’Engle died earlier this year. I came across this quotation as I was preparing for All Saints’ Day.
The Churches have tended to be too literal about heaven and hell, defining what no mortal can possibly know, because only God knows. A young woman came to me, deeply disturbed, because her minister had told her that immortality is not a Christian concept. It is left over from Greek thinking, he said, and Christians are not supposed to believe in it.
This was not what she needed to hear. She had lost a beloved sister, and she needed affirmation, not a lecture. “If there is no immortality, then what about my sister?” she asked the minister.
“We believe in the resurrection of the body,” he said. “What body?” Her sister had died, very slowly, of cancer, looking like a victim from Belsen. Her sister would not want to be resurrected in that emaciated, dying body. Her minister did not have an answer, at least not one that she could remember and tell me.
“I think,” I said slowly, “that the word immortality involves time, involves our going on and on in time, human time. But resurrection is in eternity, and that’s a tough concept for us to understand.”
“Do you understand it?”
“No, but I believe it. I don’t understand it because I am in time right now. I get glimpses of eternity, of kairos, God’s time, which is far more wonderful than ordinary chronos, clock time.”
“What about my sister? She was so alive, so vibrant, until those last months.”
All I could do was repeat my affirmation that God does not create us and then drop us into nothingness. I don’t think her sister is in either the old-fashioned heaven or hell; but I think she is, somehow, somewhere, more truly alive than she was on earth. I don’t know what the resurrection body will be like.
Tommy, my evangelist friend, quoted something to the effect that many Christians are more interested in resuscitation than resurrection.
Ouch.
My grandfather would not have wished to be resuscitated at 101.
But when a child is suddenly killed, don’t we intuitively wish for resuscitation? We want that child back, exactly as before—the same deep gray eyes, the fair hair, the dimples that came and went.
But Jesus was never recognized by sight after the resurrection. So what on earth do we mean by resurrection?
When the people asked St Paul what the resurrection body was going to be like, he snapped out, “Don’t be silly,” one of my favorites of all the sayings of Paul. Don’t be silly. We can’t have back what we have lost. I can’t have my tall, lean husband with his amazing blue eyes, larger and bluer than any other eyes I have seen.
I want him back, and there’s no evading that I want him.
So what do I mean, what do we all mean when we say that “we believe in the resurrection of the dead”?
A friend said to me, “When I die and see Jack again I will recognize him.”
If we didn’t recognize Jesus, can we count on that? Not unless we, too, have been resurrected, not resuscitated.
Once again we are in mystery, outside the realm of provable fact. We are, I believe, given glimpses, and I have had a few. Walking down a dirt road on a shining summer day I moved into a realm of beauty and depth that became indescribable once I had left it, but it gives me a hint that after I die I may say, “Oh, glory! What a thin way of living I have just left!”
Madeleine L’Engle, Penguins and Golden Calves (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1996) 184-186
29 October 2007
25 October 2007
Thoughts on Marriage
“Dearly beloved: We have come together in the presence of God to witness and to bless the joining together of this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony…” The brief exhortation in the Book of Common Prayer (page 423) given by the priest at the beginning of the service offers a succinct outline of the theology that underlies our Christian understanding of marriage. It speaks of what we are witnessing as “holy matrimony”. Underlying that is the conviction that what is taking place is not merely a contractual arrangement between two people, but a covenant, where God is the key player.
The service goes on to inform us that marriage is not a human invention. It was God who established it at the dawn of creation, when he brought together the first man and the first woman in Eden. “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” the man cried aloud as he first set eyes on his newly created partner. And the author of Genesis comments, “Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
So it is that the wedding service begins with the principle that marriage was God’s idea. That point is driven home further by the reminder that our Lord’s first recorded miracle took place in the context of a marriage ceremony. I believe that teaches us the high value that Jesus himself set on marriage.
Thirdly, the exhortation speaks of marriage as signifying “the mystical union between Christ and his Church”. The reference here is to the apostle Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.
In other words, at its best, marriage is a window that helps reveal the self-sacrificial love of Jesus Christ for us, his church.
This theology of marriage was a revolutionary thought in the sixteenth century, when the wedding service was first written. In those days it had been assumed that God’s highest calling to men and women was to be celibate, as a priest or a nun. The reformers turned that around, to affirm that marriage is every bit as much a response to God’s calling, and therefore “is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God”.
This approach to marriage may be equally revolutionary in our society today, when so many see it as a legal agreement, a creation of the state, or a purely human device. May we not be swept along by this tide, but continue to see marriage—and live it out—as a holy gift, a sacred trust, from our gracious and loving God.
The service goes on to inform us that marriage is not a human invention. It was God who established it at the dawn of creation, when he brought together the first man and the first woman in Eden. “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” the man cried aloud as he first set eyes on his newly created partner. And the author of Genesis comments, “Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
So it is that the wedding service begins with the principle that marriage was God’s idea. That point is driven home further by the reminder that our Lord’s first recorded miracle took place in the context of a marriage ceremony. I believe that teaches us the high value that Jesus himself set on marriage.
Thirdly, the exhortation speaks of marriage as signifying “the mystical union between Christ and his Church”. The reference here is to the apostle Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.
In other words, at its best, marriage is a window that helps reveal the self-sacrificial love of Jesus Christ for us, his church.
This theology of marriage was a revolutionary thought in the sixteenth century, when the wedding service was first written. In those days it had been assumed that God’s highest calling to men and women was to be celibate, as a priest or a nun. The reformers turned that around, to affirm that marriage is every bit as much a response to God’s calling, and therefore “is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God”.
This approach to marriage may be equally revolutionary in our society today, when so many see it as a legal agreement, a creation of the state, or a purely human device. May we not be swept along by this tide, but continue to see marriage—and live it out—as a holy gift, a sacred trust, from our gracious and loving God.
09 August 2007
Margaret Avison
The Globe and Mail carried an obituary today for Margaret Avison, who died in Toronto on July 31, in her ninetieth year. It includes these words:
Margaret wrote poetry almost all her life. She twice received the Governor Generals Award (Winter Sun, 1960, and No Time, 1989). She held three honorary doctorates and in 1985 was named an Officer of the Order of Canada. Her Concrete and Wild Carrot, 2002, was awarded a Griffin Prize for Poetry. Her first six volumes of poetry were collected as Always Now, 2003, and a seventh, Momentary Dark, appeared in 2006.
It does not mention what is my favorite of her works, a poem entitled “The Dumbfounding”:
When you walked here,
took skin, muscle, hair,
eyes, larynx, we
withheld all honor: “His house is clay,
how can he tell us of his far country?”
Your not familiar pace
in flesh, across the waves,
woke only our distrust.
Twice-torn we cried, “A ghost”
and only on our planks counted you fast.
Dust wet with your spittle
cleared mortal trouble.
We called you a blasphemer,
a devil-tamer.
The evening you spoke of going away
we could not stay.
All legions massed. You had to wash, and rise,
alone, and face
out of the light, for us.
You died.
We said,
“The worst is true, our bliss
has come to this.”
When you were sen by men
in holy flesh again
we hoped so despairingly for such report
we closed their windpipes for it.
Now you have sought
and seek, in all our ways, all thoughts,
streets, musics—and we make of these a din
trying to lock you out, or in,
to be intent. And dying.
Yet you are
constant and sure,
the all-lovely, all-men’s-way
to that far country.
Winning one, you again
all ways would begin
life: to make anew
flesh, to empower
the weak in nature
to restore
or stay the sufferer;
lead through the garden to
trash, rubble, hill,
where, the outcast’s outcast, you
sound dark’s uttermost, strangely light-brimming, until
time be full.
Margaret wrote poetry almost all her life. She twice received the Governor Generals Award (Winter Sun, 1960, and No Time, 1989). She held three honorary doctorates and in 1985 was named an Officer of the Order of Canada. Her Concrete and Wild Carrot, 2002, was awarded a Griffin Prize for Poetry. Her first six volumes of poetry were collected as Always Now, 2003, and a seventh, Momentary Dark, appeared in 2006.
It does not mention what is my favorite of her works, a poem entitled “The Dumbfounding”:
When you walked here,
took skin, muscle, hair,
eyes, larynx, we
withheld all honor: “His house is clay,
how can he tell us of his far country?”
Your not familiar pace
in flesh, across the waves,
woke only our distrust.
Twice-torn we cried, “A ghost”
and only on our planks counted you fast.
Dust wet with your spittle
cleared mortal trouble.
We called you a blasphemer,
a devil-tamer.
The evening you spoke of going away
we could not stay.
All legions massed. You had to wash, and rise,
alone, and face
out of the light, for us.
You died.
We said,
“The worst is true, our bliss
has come to this.”
When you were sen by men
in holy flesh again
we hoped so despairingly for such report
we closed their windpipes for it.
Now you have sought
and seek, in all our ways, all thoughts,
streets, musics—and we make of these a din
trying to lock you out, or in,
to be intent. And dying.
Yet you are
constant and sure,
the all-lovely, all-men’s-way
to that far country.
Winning one, you again
all ways would begin
life: to make anew
flesh, to empower
the weak in nature
to restore
or stay the sufferer;
lead through the garden to
trash, rubble, hill,
where, the outcast’s outcast, you
sound dark’s uttermost, strangely light-brimming, until
time be full.
07 August 2007
The Inadequacy of ‘Instant Christianity’
Some pithy words from A.W. Tozer (1897-1963):
It is hardly a matter of wonder that the country that gave the world instant tea and instant coffee should be the one to give it instant Christianity. If these two beverages were not actually invented in the United States it was certainly here that they received the advertising impetus that has made them known to most of the civilized world. And it cannot be denied that it was America … that brought instant Christianity to the gospel churches…
The American genius for getting things done quickly and easily with little concern for quality or permanence has bred a virus that has infected the whole evangelical church in the United States…
By “instant Christianity” I mean the kind … which is born of the notion that we may discharge our total obligation to our own souls by one act of faith, or at most by two, and be relieved thereafter of all anxiety about our spiritual condition. We are saints by calling, our teachers keep telling us, and we are permitted to infer from this that there is no reason to seek to be saints by character. An automatic, once-for-all quality is present that is completely out of mode with the faith of the New Testament.
Excerpted from That Incredible Christian (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1964). The article may also be found on the web here.
It is hardly a matter of wonder that the country that gave the world instant tea and instant coffee should be the one to give it instant Christianity. If these two beverages were not actually invented in the United States it was certainly here that they received the advertising impetus that has made them known to most of the civilized world. And it cannot be denied that it was America … that brought instant Christianity to the gospel churches…
The American genius for getting things done quickly and easily with little concern for quality or permanence has bred a virus that has infected the whole evangelical church in the United States…
By “instant Christianity” I mean the kind … which is born of the notion that we may discharge our total obligation to our own souls by one act of faith, or at most by two, and be relieved thereafter of all anxiety about our spiritual condition. We are saints by calling, our teachers keep telling us, and we are permitted to infer from this that there is no reason to seek to be saints by character. An automatic, once-for-all quality is present that is completely out of mode with the faith of the New Testament.
Excerpted from That Incredible Christian (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1964). The article may also be found on the web here.
06 August 2007
August 6
Lest we forget what day this is in the Church’s calendar…The Transfiguration seems to stand at a watershed in the ministry of Jesus, and to be a height from which the reader looks down on one side upon the Galilean ministry and on the other side on the Via Crucis. The story resembles the baptism of Jesus, inasmuch as it culminates in the heavenly voice proclaiming the Sonship; and it resembles the agony in Gethsemane, inasmuch as it shows the three disciples witnessing a decisive moment in the relation of Jesus to the Father.
Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1961-1974
On a more sombre note, it is also the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.
24 July 2007
Growing in Faith
Early this month I sent out an email to half a dozen or so people at Messiah, asking them to work with me on the question of how we can most effectively offer high quality Christian education to all members of Messiah. Not that we are not offering some excellent opportunities already. But the question always remains: How can we do better?
In my opinion the apostle Paul’s statement of his goal for spiritual growth among the Christian community in Ephesus has never been excelled, and ought to be the mission of every church:
… to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. (Ephesians 4:12,13)
What do we mean by spiritual maturity? A poll by the Gallup organization suggests nine characteristics of what this looks like. People who are seeking to be spiritually mature:
• are more likely to gave a daily time of private prayer;
• feel a genuine sense of the presence of the presence of God in their lives;
• report that their religious experiences are a source of strength, personal growth, and the healing of inner conflicts;
• tend to have a greater sense of inner peace, to feel more joyful and happy, and are less likely to feel depressed;
• are more humble, less likely to exhibit an inflated sense of self-importance;
• are far more often engaged in compassionate helping acts to others;
• are less racially prejudiced;
• are far more capable of forgiving people who wrong them and of being constructive, reconciling members of society;
• are more favorable to church involvement in political activity in order to right wrongs in society. (Herb Miller, The Parish Paper, September 2007)
Whether or not you agree with all nine of these characteristics, there is no question that an effective program of Christian formation can be of huge benefit to each of us as individuals, to the church community, and to the wider life of society as a whole. The curious thing about it is that all of this only happens as long as we continue in the process of growth. Again, the apostle Paul recognized this about himself:
I do not consider myself to have ‘arrived’ spiritually, nor do I consider myself already perfect. But I keep going on, grasping ever more firmly that purpose for which Christ Jesus grasped me. My brothers [and sisters], I do not consider myself to have fully grasped it even now. But I do concentrate on this: I leave the past behind and with hands outstretched to whatever lies ahead I go straight for the goal—my reward the honor of my high calling in Christ Jesus. All of us who are spiritually mature should set ourselves this sort of ambition, and if at present you cannot see this , yet you will find that this is the attitude that God is leading you to adopt. (Philippians 3:12-15, J.B. Phillips translation)
So if we were to add a tenth mark of spiritual maturity, it would be this:
• recognize that their journey towards spiritual maturity is a life-long quest.
It looks as though our little task force has a tall order ahead of itself. Yet, by God’s grace and the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit, I hope it will prove of significant worth in leading us all towards the measure of the full stature of Christ.
In my opinion the apostle Paul’s statement of his goal for spiritual growth among the Christian community in Ephesus has never been excelled, and ought to be the mission of every church:
… to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. (Ephesians 4:12,13)
What do we mean by spiritual maturity? A poll by the Gallup organization suggests nine characteristics of what this looks like. People who are seeking to be spiritually mature:
• are more likely to gave a daily time of private prayer;
• feel a genuine sense of the presence of the presence of God in their lives;
• report that their religious experiences are a source of strength, personal growth, and the healing of inner conflicts;
• tend to have a greater sense of inner peace, to feel more joyful and happy, and are less likely to feel depressed;
• are more humble, less likely to exhibit an inflated sense of self-importance;
• are far more often engaged in compassionate helping acts to others;
• are less racially prejudiced;
• are far more capable of forgiving people who wrong them and of being constructive, reconciling members of society;
• are more favorable to church involvement in political activity in order to right wrongs in society. (Herb Miller, The Parish Paper, September 2007)
Whether or not you agree with all nine of these characteristics, there is no question that an effective program of Christian formation can be of huge benefit to each of us as individuals, to the church community, and to the wider life of society as a whole. The curious thing about it is that all of this only happens as long as we continue in the process of growth. Again, the apostle Paul recognized this about himself:
I do not consider myself to have ‘arrived’ spiritually, nor do I consider myself already perfect. But I keep going on, grasping ever more firmly that purpose for which Christ Jesus grasped me. My brothers [and sisters], I do not consider myself to have fully grasped it even now. But I do concentrate on this: I leave the past behind and with hands outstretched to whatever lies ahead I go straight for the goal—my reward the honor of my high calling in Christ Jesus. All of us who are spiritually mature should set ourselves this sort of ambition, and if at present you cannot see this , yet you will find that this is the attitude that God is leading you to adopt. (Philippians 3:12-15, J.B. Phillips translation)
So if we were to add a tenth mark of spiritual maturity, it would be this:
• recognize that their journey towards spiritual maturity is a life-long quest.
It looks as though our little task force has a tall order ahead of itself. Yet, by God’s grace and the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit, I hope it will prove of significant worth in leading us all towards the measure of the full stature of Christ.
20 July 2007
This is a critical time
A Statement from the Global South Steering Committee
London, July 16-18, 2007
… We in the Global South remain committed to the underlying principles and recommendations of the Windsor Report and the various Communiqués that we have issued, especially the statement that was produced during the most recent Primates’ meeting in Dar es Salaam. It was the result of enormous effort and heart-felt prayer and we remain convinced that it offers the best way forward for our beloved Communion. In particular, we are hopeful that the development and endorsement of an Anglican Covenant will help us move past this debilitating season into a new focus of growth and missionary zeal.
We were distressed by the initial response of the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church USA issued on March 20th, 2007, reaffirmed by the Executive Council on June 14th, 2007, in which they rejected the underlying principles and requests of the Dar es Salaam Communiqué. We urge them, once again, to reconsider their position because it is their rejection of the clear teaching of the Church and their continuing intransigence that have divided the Church and has brought our beloved Communion to the breaking point. Without heartfelt repentance and genuine change there can be no restoration of the communion that we all earnestly desire and which is our Lord’s clear intent.
We have also been pained to hear of the continuing and growing resort to civil litigation by The Episcopal Church against congregations and individuals which wish to remain Anglican but are unable to do so within TEC. This is in defiance of the urgent plea agreed to by all of the Primates in the Dar es Salaam Communiqué. This approach to use power and coercion to resolve our current dispute is both enormously costly and doomed to failure and again, we urge the immediate suspension of all such activities and a return to biblical practices of prayer, reconciliation and mediation…
… We are concerned for the future of our Communion as a truly global fellowship and our witness before the world as a respected ecclesial family within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. In regards to the proposed Lambeth Conference in 2008, we are concerned that the publicly stated expectations for participation have changed its character and function. It is now difficult to see it either as an instrument of unity or communion. At a time when the world needs a vision of reconciliation and unity, our failure to restore the ‘torn fabric’ of our Communion threatens to show the world a contrary example.
We remain committed to the convictions expressed in the CAPA report “The Road to Lambeth” and urge immediate reconsideration of the current Lambeth plans. It is impossible for us to see how, without discipline in the Communion and without the reconciliation that we urge, we can participate in the proposed conference; to be present but unable to participate in sacramental fellowship would all the more painfully demonstrate our brokenness. The polarization surrounding the Lambeth meeting has been exacerbated because we are also unable to take part in an event from which a number of our own bishops have been arbitrarily excluded while those whose actions have precipitated our current crisis are included…
The whole statement is here.
London, July 16-18, 2007
… We in the Global South remain committed to the underlying principles and recommendations of the Windsor Report and the various Communiqués that we have issued, especially the statement that was produced during the most recent Primates’ meeting in Dar es Salaam. It was the result of enormous effort and heart-felt prayer and we remain convinced that it offers the best way forward for our beloved Communion. In particular, we are hopeful that the development and endorsement of an Anglican Covenant will help us move past this debilitating season into a new focus of growth and missionary zeal.
We were distressed by the initial response of the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church USA issued on March 20th, 2007, reaffirmed by the Executive Council on June 14th, 2007, in which they rejected the underlying principles and requests of the Dar es Salaam Communiqué. We urge them, once again, to reconsider their position because it is their rejection of the clear teaching of the Church and their continuing intransigence that have divided the Church and has brought our beloved Communion to the breaking point. Without heartfelt repentance and genuine change there can be no restoration of the communion that we all earnestly desire and which is our Lord’s clear intent.
We have also been pained to hear of the continuing and growing resort to civil litigation by The Episcopal Church against congregations and individuals which wish to remain Anglican but are unable to do so within TEC. This is in defiance of the urgent plea agreed to by all of the Primates in the Dar es Salaam Communiqué. This approach to use power and coercion to resolve our current dispute is both enormously costly and doomed to failure and again, we urge the immediate suspension of all such activities and a return to biblical practices of prayer, reconciliation and mediation…
… We are concerned for the future of our Communion as a truly global fellowship and our witness before the world as a respected ecclesial family within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. In regards to the proposed Lambeth Conference in 2008, we are concerned that the publicly stated expectations for participation have changed its character and function. It is now difficult to see it either as an instrument of unity or communion. At a time when the world needs a vision of reconciliation and unity, our failure to restore the ‘torn fabric’ of our Communion threatens to show the world a contrary example.
We remain committed to the convictions expressed in the CAPA report “The Road to Lambeth” and urge immediate reconsideration of the current Lambeth plans. It is impossible for us to see how, without discipline in the Communion and without the reconciliation that we urge, we can participate in the proposed conference; to be present but unable to participate in sacramental fellowship would all the more painfully demonstrate our brokenness. The polarization surrounding the Lambeth meeting has been exacerbated because we are also unable to take part in an event from which a number of our own bishops have been arbitrarily excluded while those whose actions have precipitated our current crisis are included…
The whole statement is here.
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