To Think God as Love

Sane Expectations

Posted on 8 March 2010 | No responses

‘Have no expectations except to be fiercely tempted to your last breath’ (Fr Thomas Hopko).

Thomas Hopko on the Image of God in Eastern Orthodox Christianity

Posted on 7 March 2010 | No responses

An excellent – if brief – introduction to the teachings of the Orthodox Church on the imago dei. Download it here.

Hospitality and Family

Posted on 6 March 2010 | No responses

‘Good relationships are hospitable. When we enter into a home and feel warmly welcomed, we will soon realise that the love among those who live in that home is what makes that welcome possible’ (Henri Nouwen).

A New King in Town

Posted on 6 March 2010 | No responses

The message of the Gospel is not ‘God has a wonderful plan for your life’ so much as ‘There’s a new king in town and you need to get on board with his project’ (Dr Jeff Lamp).

The Knowledge of God

Posted on 4 March 2010 | 2 responses

Once you recognize that the Lord’s judgments ‘are in all the earth’ (1Ch 16:14), then everything that happens to you will teach you knowledge of God. (St Kosmas Aitolos)

Suffocating Christ: the Destructive Power of our Sins

Posted on 1 March 2010 | 1 response

While speaking of how Christ’s death works in us, I used ‘death’ as a name for the event of sanctification, the process of being Christified.  I want to speak now of the death of Christ in an entirely different sense. In the Pentecostal tradition the death of which I’m speaking now is known as ‘backsliding’, losing faith. Origen speaks of it in a homily on Judges:

God, Omnipotent Ruler, ensure that it should never happen to us that Jesus Christ, after he is risen from the dead, again should die in us. For what does it profit me if in others he should live on account of virtue and in me should die on account of the weakness of sin? What does it profit me if he does not live in me and in my heart and if he does not complete the works of life in me? What does it profit me if on account of good desires, good faith, and good works by another he is nourished and restored, but because of evil thoughts and impious desires by me and in my heart, because of wicked desires, he is, in a certain manner, suffocated and killed?

Origen is right, I believe. My sins do suffocate Christ, aborting his life (and his death) in me. How do my sins do this? By destroying character. Every act of bad faith works, cancer-like, to unmake me, to efface the image of God in which I participate and so find myself as human.

This is not mysterious. Sins accomplish their horrendous effects on us by making it less and less possible for us to love and to be loved, making it less and less possible for us to thrill at every occasion of the good, to stand in awe of the beautiful, to rejoice in the truth (1 Cor 13).  So long as we are sin-sick, we can’t speak or listen rightly, we can’t touch or be touched rightly, we can’t judge ourselves or receive others’ judgment with anything like clarity and calmness of spirit. And every time we act from bad faith (or, if you prefer, faithlessly), the damage is deepened.

In this season, I am praying that God will help me to recognize the cancers at work in me.

Death is at Work in Us: A Lenten Sermon from 2 Cor 4.7-12

Posted on 26 February 2010 | No responses

⁷But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. ⁸We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. 12So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

1.

Our readings of these verses almost always stress the second beat: ‘not crushed’, ‘not in despair’, ‘not abandoned’, ‘not destroyed’. In truth, however, faith does not confess only what is not the case – thanks to God’s power and wisdom – but also what is the case: ‘hard-pressed’, ‘perplexed’, ‘persecuted’, ’struck down’. Lent is a season in which we learn to speak faithfully about these realities, too. ¹

Usually, we talk of Jesus’ death as substitutionary, as happening in our place; as if Jesus’ death saves us from dying. The truth is, Jesus’ death makes possible our death; the substitution, as Volf says, is inclusive, not exclusive. ²

Jesus’ death makes it possible for us to die in hope, as a last act of love. It also makes it possible for us to experience the sorrows and tragedies of both life and death faithfully. But we must not talk exclusively of Jesus’ life;  we must also talk of Jesus’ death and how it is at work in us.

2.

What does it mean to ‘carry’ Jesus’ death in our bodies? What does it mean to be ‘always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake’? I think it means, quite straightforwardly, putting ourselves at the mercy of our neighbors and enemies, entering into relationships with people in order to serve them and be served by them –  which means that they have the power to harm us, if not to destroy us. It means living open to their judgment, risking submission to them, and living joyfully with the wounds that result from such a life, which are, as Paul knows, the marks of Christ (Gal 6.17).

A life of this kind requires, among other things, using our bodies in certain ways: being present here, saying this, listening to them, watching that with utmost care, and often ignoring everything else. It means knowing when and how to touch our neighbor, when to embrace and when to refrain from embracing.

All of this bodily action – this listening and talking, this touching and being touched – is awesomely risky. It involves us in real interaction with real people, and that kind of interaction impacts us in very real ways. There is always more going on in our interactions with one another than we can possibly calculate or quantify. The truth is, every genuinely human encounter marks us eternally; it works in us both death and life. When we live in Christ, and through him engage others, we find that every encounter is both a life-bringing and death-dealing event, and one because it is the other.

3.

The ‘death’ Paul is experiencing is, at least in part, the death of rejection; the Corinthians have divorced themselves from him, shaming him by their public disavowal of his apostolate. This ‘death’, however, he recognizes as a gift for them, as an opportunity for Christ to intervene, as a space for the Kingdom to break into the world, a gateway for the Spirit. If Paul ‘dies’ rightly, then they – the very ones who put him to death – can experience life!

The Christo-logic of Paul’s response is unmistakable, and, for those of us lead by the Spirit, enthralling and commanding. We must learn to respond this way; we must learn to carry Jesus’ death in our bodies, to let his death ‘work’ in us. As difficult as it might be, it isn’t complicated. It simply requires using our bodies in the ways that Paul did, and allowing God to situate us among those who do us harm, intentionally or not, empowering us to receive this ‘crucifixion’ with Jesus’ own faithfulness.

Easier said then done? Yes. But doable nonetheless.

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