Loving Creator,Our check-in question was, "What surprised you in the past week?" Answers involved adults on roller skates, tears that welled up when yours truly wrote the last student comment of his 40 years career, a couple of surprising close encounters with birds. Susan reported on the second shot of the COVID vaccine.
We asked for strength, and you gave us difficulties to make us strong.
We asked for wisdom, and you gave us problems to solve....
Yr. D theme: Living into the Journey with God Class: Marilyn, Nuno, first year; Christine, third year; Mariel, Gene, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent:Christine, Gene.
Our discussion of the readings dwelt on a couple of points. Marilyn's comment about the prophets reminded Mariel of something she read Sedgwick's comments about "drawing a person out of individuality," a phrase that set off her "cult" radar. Scott and Susan were less alarmed. Scott experiences a cessation of individual striving that comes with age, books tell him. Susan drew on philosophy to point out that our notion of "individuality" developed with Locke a few decades after Hooker, and that Locke's premises are questionable.
Nuno wanted to know more about the middle way, focused on practice, wondering how this aspect of the Anglican tradition is viewed by other churches. Discussion followed.
Without Christine and Gene, and with Susan suffering the headache that comes with her immune system's kicking in, we decided to postpone Nuno's TR and Scott's Psalm 136 worship for next week.
6 comments:
Year 4 read Chapter 2, “An Anglican Perspective,” in Sedgwick’s book on Christian morality. Here the author summarizes basic convictions of the Christian faith: it’s monotheistic and covenantal; sin is idolatry; covenant is revealed/effected through Christ; and relationship with God is begun/deepened in scripture and worship. He distinguishes Anglicanism from Roman Catholicism and Protestantism by pointing out its greater leeway in understanding these convictions. Sedgwick portrays the Anglican faith as a practical piety that is corporate, incarnate, and sacramental.
The chapter is divided into three sections. In the first section, “Faith as a Way of Life,” Sedgwick recaps England’s ecclesiastical turmoils, from its break with Rome under Henry VIII to the “Elizabethan Settlement.” English Christianity ultimately centered on right worship rather than right belief. [Note: Elizabeth I did not tolerate contentiousness. She proclaimed, “There is only one Christ, Jesus, one faith. All else is a dispute over trifles.”]
In the next section, “The Theological Tradition,” Sedgwick discusses the influence of Richard Hooker (1554-1600) and Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667). Hooker wrote a 7-volume series on “The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity,” declaring that the end of life is a glorious mystery, beyond comprehension. He saw scripture not as a book of rules, but as the story of the purposes of God, drawing us out of ourselves into a loving relationship. Taylor’s two classics, “The Exercise of Holy Living” and “The Exercise of Holy Dying,” show how to shape one’s life by sobriety, justice, and religion, and by freeing ourselves from “cleaving to ephemeral satisfactions.” Taylor uses the image of an individual “as a bubble in a world that is itself a storm, a vapor, an appearing and disappearing.”
The third section, “Theology and Ethics,” explores the diversity at the heart of Anglican thought — a guard against reduction of faith to a set of beliefs, but also a potential danger of being disconnected and confusing. He states that no one strand of the Anglican tradition “has assumed a clearly normative stature.” Another strand of ethics in Anglicanism has been philosophical. Sedgwick cites the development of Anglo-Catholic thought by the Oxford Group, who saw the church as lost between two extremes: anti-intellectual, evangelical emotionalism and the “reasonable” philosophical approach. The Oxford movement centered worship on the Eucharist. Sedgwick calls this “a medieval vision of the church that made sense of the world as it transformed the world in light of Christian faith.” This courted danger in equating the Anglican church with the very Catholic ways that were the original source of the Protestant rejection of Rome.
The chapter concludes with a synopsis of a unified account of the Christian moral life as defined by Frederick Denison Maurice, who saw scripture and worship as the revelation of the relationships that realize the value and meaning of life. Thus, practical piety is a life lived in the presence of God, grounded in the knowledge and experience of Jesus Christ; and Christian ethics describe that kind of life.
Year One: Isaiah 40-66, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Joel, Jonah, Collins Chapters 19 & 20
The main difference between the major and minor prophets is simply the length of their writings. It is interesting to note that authorship is disputed for multiple sections. Some of the books seem to be composites and at least one may actually be anonymous. Malachi translates simply as “the messenger”. Zechariah seems to be split in half. The second half doesn’t mention the profit and seems to correspond to Malachi. Though Joel appears to have been written latest it is not the last of the minor prophets. The story of Jonah differs in that it is a narrative about the “prophet” and that the people heed his warnings. All of them have eschatological predictions or implications.
I was really drawn in by the multilayered Servant Songs. The servant is seen as alternately representing the entirety of Israel and the coming Messiah. Further, while some sections anticipate the life and ministry of Jesus, other sections speak to actions in the spiritual realm, and, I believe, look forward to his second coming, in glory.
We were asked to reflect on how uncertainty impacts belief and behavior. I think that the two ways we can repond to uncertainty are either hope or despair. The default in life is uncertainty. We are only able to see what is already directkly in fornt of us and we can not anticipate what is a little further down the road. The prophets seem to fall into these two camps, looking forward to judgement but also restoration and fulfillment.
Thoughts on movements of conversion, transfiguration, and glory: The prophets in their commissioning seem to achieve their own version of glory, unifying themselves with the father in order to deliver his message. The prophets speak of the actions of Christ and how they apply to all of Israel, even extending to the Gentiles. There is an abundant grace that covers all who turn to him. We receive grace at our conversion. Still there is talk of chosen or elect. Perhaps these are those who will achieve glory in this life, though I suspect we all get there when we come into contact with the living Christ. None of us achieves perfection in this life and we continue to be dependent on his grace even as we progress through transfiguration and glory.
Mariel's readings have the comfort of a cozy parish church, an image of a community bound by rites and relationships, all sharing some degree of emotion and philosophy in their faith.
My year two readings were also comforting, even sweet. Paul's affectionate letter to the medium-sized European town of Philippi is full of optimism even though he's in prison: Whether he lives to preach Christ or dies to be with Christ, he's content to press on. Powell points out that our doctrine of Incarnation rests on the prologue to John and the poetic portion of Philippians where Paul writes that Christ emptied himself to be among us.
I'm amused by a side comment Paul makes to Aristarchus about finishing his task. No one knows who that was or what he was supposed to do, so speculation is fun.
Colossians seems to have been the template for what I read last week in Ephesians. Like Sedgwick, Paul envisions a community of kindness and forbearance, able to unite in Christ and to keep other disagreements off the table.
The question in the RRG about how a coherent theology is emerging makes me think of what Nuno saw in the 1st year readings this week:
Some of the EfM trainers I met over the weekend were speaking of strong negative reactions of their 1st years to the violence and vengeance in the Hebrew Scriptures that aims for exclusion of others. As you've seen, there is this counter-theme that emerges in the Prophets to welcome the stranger and to bear suffering in order to reconcile us to God. The story of how that emerges is part of why we must all know the Hebrew Scriptures well. The same spirit emerges in the New Testament, too -- in the conflicts between welcoming Gentiles and excluding them.
First Year – How Uncertainty impacts the consistency of belief and behavior…
I think uncertainty can strengthen belief and behavior as one looks to gain a greater understanding and a greater sense of peace and meaning in life. A desire for certainty can increase faith and behaviors with practicing faith – wanting to be good and follow God’s laws.
I think there can also be a circumstance when uncertainty makes people not be faithful followers as they want more proof before making a commitment. Uncertainty can play into both scenarios and it might depend on individual circumstances and where a person is in their faith journey
The difference between the minor and the major prophets is not a judgment on the importance of their visions and oracles but address the size of the books in the Bible. The minor prophets have shorter books with more specific content. The books of the major prophets are longer books with broad subjects.
What movements of conversion, transfiguration, or glory can you discern for the periods in this week’s study?
Second Isaiah marks a change in prophecy from condemnation and judgment, to consolation and encouragement of a new beginning. Creation and Exodus model what is happening in the present day. In Isaiah, the concepts that there are no other gods, no more idols, and that there is definite light versus darkness are, reinforced. The world without is shown is start contrast to the world with. We learn about the Divine Plan – and the elements of restoration, conversion, and welfare of All. Israel was the leader of all nations, but the restoration of Israel was not concerned with one people, but with the restoration of all people – the conversion of the entire world.
PS. I found it to be a profound thing that God withdraws from us for a time, only to re-emerge...to show himself again, more glorious than before. I thought of this as when a child learns to take first steps and hesitates with the movement forward...looking to trust...and how the guiding hand begins to be at a greater distance... allowing the child to walk on his or her own...there's such beauty in those first, hesitant steps. Then there is a knowing a comfort... a strong sense of trust...confidence... knowing that even though the hand is not within eyesight, that the parent is ever-watchful and at the ready to be a support forevermore.
In regards to others' posts:
Scott - I thought that what you said about Paul's letter - whether he loved to preach Christ or dies to be with Christ was thought-provoking. If we follow his lead, then life will be lovingly lived. A win-win with the promise of Heavenly Days to come, no matter which choice is made.
Nuno - SO beautiful of you to note about the abundant Grace that covers all those who turn to Him. A reassuring and comfortingly divine idea. Who would ever want to turn away after experiencing it?
Mariel - That Anglican faith is a practical piety. I feel at home there. A Down-to-Earth faith. It makes religion real - a religion with real people in real life circumstances who want a deeply connected "real-lationship" with God.
I like the way you noted that scripture should be seen, not as a book of rules, but as a story of the purposes of God (the ways of Love) - drawing us out of ourselves into a loving relationship. It is a the most profound times of feeling lost that I have also been found - it is an idea very close to my heart. Knowing we are never alone if love dwells-lives within us, because it is forever meant to be shared with others. That cannot be done in isolation. Love it.
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