Thursday, October 11, 2012

Does Belief equal Salvation? (Part 2)

In our last post I hinted that I had an approach to viewing salvation that offered a greater chance at reconciliation than a model that sets up a one to one relationship between belief and salvation.  As I pointed out in that post, possibly one of the inherent dangers lurking within the Protestant ethos is precisely this relationship.  For if my belief (in either a story or a person) is my salvation (even if that belief is brought to pass through a gift of grace from God) than that which informs my belief is utterly central.  In fact, I must know with certainty that the thing informing my belief is inspired, without error, and free from corruption.  If I encounter one who has a different source, or interprets that source differently than I do (thus resulting in a different belief) than it is my duty as a human and a Christian to change their interpretation so that their belief is correct, and, consequently, the surety of their salvation can be achieved.  Sadly, that duty will be and has been met with equally strong determination not to be fundamentally altered.  I am, of course, talking about attempts at reconciliation within the Protestant Communities.  Reconciliation becomes another word for compromise instead of the very center of the faith.  The resulting disunity should be as unsurprising as it is tragic.

By contrast, and in a way of offering a possibly different way of understanding salvation, let me introduce a new word.  The new word is anagogy.  In Greek, it means, "uplifting".  It refers to the action wrought upon our persons when we encounter Christ.  We find ourselves uplifted into sharing His life.  It is made possible because of the prior decent of Christ -- the beautiful hymn in Philippians 2 captures this eloquently.  It isn't an exaggeration to say that the early Fathers of the Church, both in the East and in the West thought that the central core of the gospel is the very present uplifting of our whole person into the life of God.  The central concept here is a two fold action, not a story.  We tell stories about actions, not the other way around.  We declare this story to be true, not because we assert belief at it, but because the action which the story is relating is, in some sense, taking place still inside of us.

Let me explain that last sentence.  If salvation is the relatively passive act of being uplifted into the life of God, then how do we partake (participate, really) in our own salvation?  Well, certainly believing that the action is taking place (and so being able to also believe the story, and the person) plays a role, but only a secondary role.  The really central thing is to do things that nourish the life of God in us.  We would almost wish that there were actions that could be done that were neither only human (for that would be a sort of magic -- a manipulation of the Divine) nor only divine (for then how can I partake?) but dual -- actions whose causative agent is both God and Human and whose result is the real increase of the life of God in us.

That was a long sentence!  Nonetheless, we do find that such an action exists.  We call an action which has as it's subject both God and Human and has as its object the uplifting of the soul into God a sacrament.  And so baptism, the real substantive entry into the life of Christ on earth is a Sacrament.  Similarly, the Eucharist is the means by which the life of God is nourished in us.  Both of these great sacramental (dual subject) actions are possible because of what Christ did.  Scripture is the story that we tell (and, really, that God tells) about this action.  And we should expect this as well.  We should expect that the story told about an action done by both Human and God is told by Matthew, and Mark, and Luke, and John, and by God Himself.

Again, we are not surprised when we go back into the quote from John 6 in our last entry to discover that the this belief on the one he has sent (vs 29) is belief that takes place after an action.  What is the action which makes possible the belief?  What is the action which the story tells?  It is simple.  Christ declares His Flesh to be the bread of life and says, "If anyone eats of this bread he shall not die."  He then beautifully and expressly says, "Truly truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.  As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.  This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died.  Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever."

This is surely a great mystery.  Indeed, it is the great mystery.  Living in Christ is something into which we are uplifted by God -- but, in such a way to that we also are able to partake, to truly participate.  I suggest that this anagogic uplifting of our persons into this life in Christ is salvation.  Of course we naturally also believe it to be true.  But I think the belief is secondary, a result of an action that already is something we have partaken in.

What implications does this have for reconciliation?  Well, it takes some of the emphasis off of the text that informs our belief and how we respond to that text by placing the emphasis on the sacramental action instead.  In fact, it implies that I don't have to have everything worked out in my mind before hand, in order to be saved.  Presumably, there is even room for one's belief to be somewhat wrong!  The important thing is not that our ideas about "what is going on" are correct, rather, the important thing is that we come to partake in the uplifting of our persons into the life of God by eating Him.  Seen in this light, if you and I disagree about what we believe, and we both are baptized and are eating Him, then our Christian duty becomes one of living together, with our very real disagreements, in Christ.  We don't have to agree (as in the former model) in order to believe correctly and so be saved.

Reconciliation can once again become the center of the gospel, not merely another word for a compromise that, by virtue of it's concessions waters down belief until it is no longer salvific.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Joshua Hicks

Today would have been the birthday of a man by the name of Joshua Hicks.  Taking some space out to write a memorial of him is appropriate for this blog for several reasons: he was without doubt the best friend I've ever had, he fought hard during his 27 years for reconciliation, and he understood what it meant to have a body that didn't make life easy.  We called him Jack.  I never actually knew why, except that Lewis was called Jack, and other people called him other nicknames too, like Jicks.

Jack and I formed a friendship that quickly became very strong early on in our Seminary experience.  We were both training to be Anglican Priests, we both loved a good gang movie (I can't count how many times we watched Boon Dog Saints or The Departed), and we both loved to cook.  By "loved to cook" I don't mean that we both enjoyed it, unless we could find something better to do.  I mean, we begged the world for opportunities to cook for it, inviting friends over, making up parties just for the pure joy of cooking for them. We'd cook simple stuff, good party food -- stuff that goes well with too much beer, too many Dark and Stormy's, and just a few Gin and Tonic's.  (Ok, a lot of Gin and Tonic).  ;)

Those were the good times.  How many countless living rooms, how many countless movies, and drinks, and food -- always the food -- always the good, well loved, dearly cooked, and exuberantly served food.  And then, when much of the food had been eaten, and the movie turned off, and the first few rounds of drinks were in the books for the night, Jack would get his guitar.  He'd serenade the ladies -- all of them -- and make the men wish they knew how to play.  He'd make us all join him singing, and then, just when we were all a little lost because we couldn't remember the words, he'd strum a little, look around like he was lost too, then, "1, 2, 3, 4...!" and off he was again.

We ate till our stomachs would pop, (and made sure our friends did too) we drank till we probably shouldn't have, we laughed till it felt like our very souls would tear asunder under the joy of it all.  We were also there for each other when life wasn't pretty.  Each of us has very dark shadows in the spaces of our heart that we don't visit very often.  Jack was one of the only men I've ever known who was brave enough to face his shadows and try as best he might to deal with them.

Part of the this internal struggle in his own soul gave him a pure love for other people.  He knew darkness and loss, confusion, and sorrow.  When he saw any of these in another human being, he would love that person with a matchless energy.  When anything -- anything at all that was even remotely good -- took place in the life of another, his joy knew no bounds.  Something deep inside his soul would take over, as it were, and he'd just simply start rejoicing with you.  He had the gift of making you more excited about your own good news after he left then before you told him!

Jack fought for reconciliation.  He worked with Not for Sale (an organization that tries to raise awareness about present day slavery in Mass and the rest of the US.)  He sang many of us right through our own darkness and our own sorrow and our own conflict.  Many who have had the great pleasure of knowing Jack would characterize him with the word, "freedom."  When I was in my period of darkness, and the void where God should have been was utterly silent, Jack said to me, "if you have a choice between not being yourself and sinning, sin!  You can always repent later."  Jack was real.  His love was real.

Jack also had a body that didn't make living an easy thing.  He had an anaphylactic allergic response to four food groups: Dairy, Eggs, Peanuts, and Soy.  I share his allergy to dairy.  So, while I haven't walked a road that is as limited as his was, I am intimately familiar with what it means to have an allergy that will literally kill you within minutes of having the wrong thing.

For you, (if you are fortunate enough to not have any allergies) food is linked (both theologically and experimentally with nourishment.)  To be fair, there are varying degrees of nourishment, (an apple does more for you than McDonalds) but it is nourishment, nonetheless.  For Jack (and I) food is linked both with nourishment and with death.

You really have to want to live.  I don't just mean you have to not want to die.  Not wanting to die isn't strong enough to carry a person through depression.  You have to literally want to live.  Imagine what life would be like if you literally had the chance, every four hrs, (or whenever you got hungry) to die.  Or rather, if you had the burden, every four hrs of avoiding death, once again.  If you are extremely clever, and extremely sober, and extremely lucky, you'll live -- until you are hungry again.

I think this is why we loved cooking for others.  There was (and still is, for me) something incredibly pleasant -- almost intoxicating, really -- about cooking for others.  Sifting through a world filled with life and death, and picking the good things out and making something good and full of life for others is a true joy.  Seeing the delight on their face is a deep reward.

In fact, for both of us, now that I reflect back upon it, 5 months almost to the day of his passing, serving food to someone else was a way of reconciling the world with our bodies.  We couldn't necessarily eat what we cooked.  But you could, and we made that happen.  We would die if we ate what we created, but it brings life to you, and joy to you, and health to you.  And that, in and of itself is worth drinking about, and signing about, and laughing about.   And, in that moment of joy, the fact that we couldn't eat all of the food on the table was transcended by the conquest of love -- our demon that haunted our waking hours was defeated when we cooked for you.

So, on behalf of Jack, and all people out there with allergies who like to cook, thank you.  Thank you for letting us cook for you.  Thank you for letting us rejoice with you, thank you for so intimately being part of our lives, even though you don't know it.