Christ Church Cathedral
5th Sunday of Easter (Proper 340)
April 20, 2008
The three readings for this morning come from three very different locations Jerusalem, Rome and Antioch. Taken separately, they represent quite different takes on the risen Christ. It is accurate to talk about the nature of the communities which they represent but more difficult to employ the singular “community” to characterize their relationship. What is hard to escape, however, is the observation that the connection between them arises out of the personal experience of these believers with the power of the risen Lord. It is obvious that this relationship which we have come to call their faith or belief is quite diffuse and has little in common with what the orthodox doctrinal take on their experience has come to propound. The diversity is covered up by the fact that the unity apparent in the creation of the biblical canon was also a by-product of the movement that determined what was orthodox doctrine. Elaine Pagels and Karen King recently suggested that:
Irenaeus and his fellow bishops ..decided that the marks of the true church were to be creed, clergy and canon.. Irenaeus was among the first to insist that all true Christians must confess the same things, joining together to say a common creed that states what all believe. He also divided the churches between bishops and priests and the “laity”...arguing that the latter must obey the priests that are in the church and receive baptism and the eucharist only from the hands of bishops and priests he called orthodox. 1
It is quite possible that this unity of Latin Christendom was also an outgrowth of the needs of imperial Rome to ensure peace and tranquility among the disparate peoples of the empire.
This revisionist review of history suggests that the differences of our experience from that of the early church over the centuries is not to be seen not as a drifting away from the original and thus true understanding portrayed in the Bible but rather another example of exactly the same conditions and responsibilities that have faced proponents of religion as they contemplate the issues put forward by a particular time and place. So, we take it as obvious (without always being aware of its implications) that we live in a world which is essentially devoid of everything that was taken for granted for most of the history of Christianity. Because, not only biblical imagery but all of life was ordered around three beliefs:
1. The natural world they lived in was a testimony was grounded in divine purpose and action (not in the sense we might speak of it today) but that great events in nature - storms, droughts, plagues as well as years of exceptional abundance were seen as acts of God. A view now reserved only for insurance companies.
2. God was the source of the structure of society itself as represented by kingdom , church etc A kingdom could only be grounded in something higher than mere human action .(popular sovereignty did not exist) The structure of the cosmos was a hierarchy of being in which there was a specific place for everything, person and relationship Knowledge was a matter of discovering the and adopting the form which was your very being. As well, the various associations which made up society - parishes, boroughs, guild were interwoven with ritual and worship so that everywhere one turned an encounter with God was before us.
3. People lived in an enchanted world of spirits, demons and moral forces which were beyond their control. 2
What difference does the world in our understanding make for the way in which we understand our faith? Suppose as a kind of test of this new situation, we decide to visit several different Christian churches in the Montreal area. The Risen Lord whom we encounter will undoubtedly vary from quite familiar to a complete stranger. We can say quite correctly that these communities represent different religious cultures that represent the myriad ways in which we individually encounter Jesus Christ. This is because what is held in common is not a series of doctrines about him but the fact that he can be known only through an encounter which we have to call deeply personal. Playing out the post modern more specifically, we can say we have to recreate for ourselves the encounter with Christ individual Christians have had through the ages and that this experience is what is real about our religious tradition. This understanding which is essentially universal at least in the western world. Is both a loss and an opportunity.
It is a challenge if not a loss to realize that the words - language - in which our tradition is expressed is in a sense a barrier which makes it difficult or impossible (according to some) to regard them as requiring the same non-scientific world view which was true at the time they were written - a particularly disturbing element for those who consider adherence to doctrine they key issue for determining religious identity. A similar issue with regard to the Bible if it becomes regarded as the specific word of God. This means that our understanding of history as it may be applied to Christianity assumes an important but different role. We can use it and crucially so, to understand what has happened but we cannot use it to rule out what is happening now because it is a violation of past responses which have been turned into rules governing future action. The modern world was created by this awareness and it became crystalized into the term “freedom”. We are all self-made to borrow a term from capitalist ideology but it means here what we are in ourselves is of our own creation and responsibility save in those demonic circumstances when a another person or group deliberately makes this right impossible to realize. Taken in conjunction with the dismantling of the notion of a hierarchy of being as defining relationships - we can speak of the de-struction of Christianity (or traditional religion) and the question becomes -do we see this situation as a typical anti-religion attack or an opportunity?
If we begin with the current state of the Muslim world, at least one crucial issue is the absence of a serious challenge to the fundamentalist rhetoric that has overwhelmed most opposition within the community. Those who wish to propose alternatives are hampered by the fact that its theologians generally failed to appreciate how seriously the materialistic world view would affect t religious self-understanding. The absence of relevant ideas of social justice which reflect life today has meant that the root of social unrest in much of their world which are connected to unemployment, poverty and a bleak prospects for any change has made it possible to create an external enemy whose destruction is necessary to solve the other problems. Given the history of western Christian colonialism, the anger if not the proposed solution is understandable. In the west we have had several centuries to develop a secular alternative to traditional Christianity and its view of a divine activity that directly affects all that exists which I propose has provided the basis for the acceptance of both personal freedom and religious commitment.
The western world is unfortunately and sadly the place where this great experiment in freedom is able to take place. Part of the problem for much of the rest of the world is that it must deconstruct our experience if it is to be reconstituted in theirs. A requirement quite un appreciated by those who would export wholesale the American experience.
In the meantime there are those within the western Christian community who see the loss of so-called Christian values as the basis of our society as a great calamity. But instead of a word for word re-enactment of the excitement and commitment of the Christians meeting together in Jerusalem, Rome and Antioch I suggest we know the transforming power of the relationships which we share and proclaim to those around. Karla Holmes in her sermon last week beautifully portrayed its power and meaning. We reserve the word personal to describe them not meaning a private possession but the depth to which they penetrate our whole being. Resurrection is after all about transformed relationships and I would add to her picture the Pauline vision of a transformed relationship to all creation as well.
If we pay a return visit the churches we visited , we will find that they also represent in their relationship to the community a vision of what peace and justice should mean in relationships of persons and communities to each other. Charles Taylor has noted the extent to which our contemporary world is one in which the ethical becomes a fundamental fixture in the sense that we believe that relationships are both necessary (in the philosophical meaning) and freely chosen. 3
We struggle then to turn this freedom into a striving to achieve the best possible for everyone and to overcome that which threatens its realization. If this is the case, then all human existence has a fragility that may demand possibility of sacrifice that St. Stephen portrays. This means for me that our world knows that God cannot be expected to bail us out but we believe that in the death and Resurrection of this man Jesus we know both the cost and power to save us from anything less. than the peace and justice he lived.
[1] Part of the review The Case for Judas - Continued, Harold W. Aldridge, NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, May 1, 2008, p.57
[2] Charles Taylor, A SECULAR AGE, p15 This is part of a general review of the changes in western thought as viewed from a contemporary perspective.
[3]Taylor, op.cit. This is the focus of the discussion in chapters 17 and 18.
The Rev. Roger A. Balk, Ph.d.
