The flesh is a big sucking vacuum of rapacious desire guided by a giant mass of proud stupidity.

Did I wake up with new ears, or has there been an unusual outpouring of creativity in Christian worship music recently? Whatever the case may be, among the many bands that I have been YouTubing (can I make that a verb?), I would like to draw attention to one band, Cloverton, and particularly their song “Take Me Into the Beautiful.” I want to draw attention to this song, because in an alternate universe I directed a video for it, and since I don’t have the resources to replicate that video in this universe, I thought I would provide, in narrative form, a few images from the video, as well as the general theological theme that ties the images together. If you want to hear the song before reading my narrative just skip to the bottom and click on the link.

As the song opens a camera is fixed tightly on an eye, so close that initially you can’t tell it’s an eye, but slowly the camera pans out, and it becomes clear that it is the eye of Jesus who is suffering on a cross. Around him you can see the weary faces of his followers who are dumbfounded, because they are unable to make sense of the event that is unfolding before them, particularly in light of their hopes that he was the Messiah. After this, the camera quickly pans out further, much further, giving us a view of the entire world, as well as a grand sweep of time (No, I am not sure how I pulled this off visually, but in that universe I pulled it off magnificently).

Next you see Cloverton on a rocky shore somewhere in Northern California, perhaps near Mendocino. They are bathed in the golden light of a late afternoon Sun, and as they play this song, you can see waves splashing wildly in the background, waves that crash, and spray, and catch glimmers of the Sun as it approaches the horizon for sunset.

Next is a montage of video clips that occupy your attention for varying lengths of time. Some of the clips can barely be registered by human consciousness because they move so quickly, and some move in slow motion. All of this works together to communicate a sense of the relativity of time. Amidst the diversity of images and clips a consistent thread emerges: sin and brokenness. The images and clips are of war, oppression, domestic violence, drug use, genocide, prostitution, etc. Interspersed throughout these images is the ongoing scene of Christ’s suffering that opened the video. Also, throughout this sequence you the band playing this song on the same shore line. At first, the sequence of Christ’s suffering are very brief, but little by little they become longer until everything stops with Jesus surrendering his spirit to death.

After this, the clips of suffering continue, this time interspersed with images of Jesus’ followers grieving in the aftermath of his death. Also interspersed are cuts to  the band playing on the shore, but this time in dim firelight surrounded by darkness. The interspersing of these three sequences continue to the point where Mary visits the grave of Jesus and is confronted by the resurrected Christ. You never see him, but his presence emits new light into darkness, a light that begins by illuminating Mary, and moves forward toward those in the other clips of sin and brokenness. As this resurrection light begins to permeate, each person begins to respond, first by acknowledging the light, and then eventually by turning toward it. All of this gives visual meaning to the song’s chorus “take me into the beautiful,” as the beautiful has now absorbed all darkness and ugliness, and made it possible for any and all to enter into the beautiful. In one particularly poignant sequence, you see a man and a woman in a garden, whose heads, recently hung in shame, begin to look over their shoulders to an unexpected light breaking in, and again the chorus cries out “taking me into the beautiful, where the faces glow, where the lights never dim.”

There are two basic theological themes that drive this video. The first, and most general, is the idea that God is calling all of creation to himself through the redemptive work of Christ. In a sense, he is standing at the end of time, reaching back through Christ to the beginning of time to bring all things back to himself. The second, and more particular theme emerges from Irenaeus’s doctrine of recapitulation, in which Christ functions as a second Adam, whose life rewrites all that went wrong with humanity in the first Adam. In Irenaeus’s doctrine Jesus completely identifies with the whole of humanity to the point of taking the whole of their sin, and the consequences of their sin, upon himself. The irony of Irenaeus’s thinking is that through obedience Jesus was led to death, which is the penalty of disobedience, but because Jesus was led to death through obedience he was able to overcome death by death, and thereby became the gateway for all to freely enter into life. This life, however, is not just life, but life abundant and glorious, in short, life taken up into the beautiful.

*******

Take Me Into The Beautiful

Click the above link to hear the song.

Aren’t you all entitled to your half-assed musings on the Divine. You’ve thought about eternity for twenty five minutes and think you’ve come to some interesting conclusions. Well let me tell you, I stand with 2,000 years of darkness, and bafflement, and hunger behind me. My kind have harvested the souls of a million peasants, and I couldn’t give a ha’penny jizz for your Internet assembled philosophy.

I’ve recently discovered Mitchell & Webb, and I have a colleague to thank and blame for that. Whether this discovery will bode well for either her or I on judgment day is yet to be seen, but nonetheless, I find these guys absolutely hilarious. This post, however, is not a Mitchell and Webb endorsement. Although, if I was to endorse them, I would do so with qualification, knowing that out of the ten of you who read my blog, seven, or maybe just six, might be a little disturbed by my endorsement, as these guys are a bit bawdy at times.  My only justification for this is that Chaucer, another Englishman, was quite bawdy himself, and he is an iconic figure within Western society. And no, I am not sure how evoking Chaucer justifies this, but honestly, I am equally not sure if justification is needed.

Anyways, as I said, this post is not a Mitchell and Webb endorsement, but rather my confession that I am something of a theological elitist. Why do I make this confession? Because, when I first heard the above quote in a skit, I thought to myself, “You know, I don’t completely disagree with this guy’s sentiments.” This “guy” was a priest who was talking to a couple who were making a friendly visit to check out the local church, and this priest’s response to their visit was far less than welcoming, and nowhere near embodied the love to which Christ calls his disciples. However, I totally get his response to people’s “half-assed musings on the Divine” in that when I talk to people about God, I often pick up an undercurrent that views all people’s opinions as equal, because, well, it’s about God, and so, what else is there to say but our opinions, because, apparently God is an empty concept that is begging to be funded however we want. I disagree with this current.

Just in case my elitism is still in question, I have another quote to share that receives my full endorsement. This quote is from Stanley Hauerwas, whose provocative words I have previously featured on my blog, and the quote is…

Theology is a minor practice in the total life of the church, but in times as strange as ours even theologians must try, through our awkward art, to change lives by forming the imagination by faithful speech. Thus, I tell my students that I do not want them to learn to “make up their minds,” since most of them do not have minds worth making up until I have trained them. Rather, by the time I have finished with them, I want them to think just like me.

What am I attracted to in these quotes? I am not sure except to say that I am having some kind of visceral reaction against the confluence of anti-authoritarian free thought, bourgeois individualism, and pluralistic ideology. It’s not that I want to embrace dogmatism, or absolutism, or any ism for that matter, but it bugs me that people seem to think that the ability to talk intelligently and knowingly about the divine requires nothing more than the ability to draw upon the same resources and methods one might utilize when talking about what shows are cool on TV. The truth is, if there is a God, and that God is transcendent, as the monotheistic traditions conceive him, then we are not just talking about some entity in the world,  but rather an entity upon which everything in the world depends for its very existence. And so, if the world is complex and not easy to get our heads around, how much more is that which exceeds the world.

Of course, having said all this, I am compelled to acknowledge that Jesus said that unless one coverts and becomes as a little child, one will not see the Kingdom of Heaven. Along with this, I oppose the academic monopolizing of theological discourse, as theology is the discourse that most properly emerges from the Church’s proclamation and worship of the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. This revealing means that God has drawn so very near, and often this nearness is discovered precisely by those who are not wise according to worldly standards. So, maybe my confession needs to lead to repentance. Be that as it may, I will close by asserting that “half-assed musings on the Divine” should not be equated with the child-likeness that Jesus affirmed. So there!

*******

If anyone is devout and a lover of God,
let them enjoy this beautiful and radiant festival.
If anyone is a grateful servant,
let them, rejoicing, enter into the joy of his Lord.
If anyone has wearied themselves in fasting,
let them now receive recompense.
If anyone has labored from the first hour,
let them today receive the just reward.
If anyone has come at the third hour,
with thanksgiving let them feast.
If anyone has arrived at the sixth hour,
let them have no misgivings; for they shall suffer no loss.
If anyone has delayed until the ninth hour,
let them draw near without hesitation.
If anyone has arrived even at the eleventh hour,
let them not fear on account of tardiness.

For the Master is gracious and receives the last even as the first;
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,
just as to him who has labored from the first.
He has mercy upon the last and cares for the first;
to the one He gives, and to the other He is gracious.
He both honors the work and praises the intention.
Enter all of you, therefore, into the joy of our Lord,
and, whether first or last, receive your reward.

O rich and poor, one with another, dance for joy!
O you ascetics and you negligent, celebrate the day!
You that have fasted and you that have disregarded the fast,
rejoice today!
The table is rich-laden: feast royally, all of you!
The calf is fatted: let no one go forth hungry!

Let all partake of the feast of faith.
Let all receive the riches of goodness.
Let no one lament their poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one mourn their transgressions,
for pardon has dawned from the grave.
Let no one fear death,
for the Saviour’s death has set us free.

He that was taken by death has annihilated it!
He descended into Hades and took Hades captive!
He embittered it when it tasted His flesh!
And anticipating this, Isaiah exclaimed:
“Hades was embittered
when it encountered Thee in the lower regions”.
It was embittered, for it was abolished!
It was embittered, for it was mocked!
It was embittered, for it was purged!
It was embittered, for it was despoiled!
It was embittered, for it was bound in chains!

It took a body and came upon God!
It took earth and encountered Ηeaven!
It took what it saw,
but crumbled before what can not be seen!

O death, where is thy sting?
O Hades, where is thy victory?

Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb!
For Christ, being raised from the dead,
has become the first-fruits of them that have slept.

To Him be glory and might unto the ages of ages.

Amen.

The priest who gave the homily at the Maundy Thursday service brought our attention to the provocative fact that the service will not have a closing benediction, as the service will not not end until Easter, three days later. Instead of receiving the closing benediction, we were dismissed for an intermission that lasted until the Good Friday service, which also concluded with another intermission of which I am currently in the midst. So, here I am feeling that I have to be more conscientious about my use of time, as I am not on my time, but merely taking a leave from a service, which means I am on God’s time. Of course, all time is actually God’s time, and what this three day service has actually done is potently draw attention to this truth.

In processing this further, I am thinking that it might be appropriate to look at the time between all worship services as an intermission, irrespective of whether we have received a benediction or not, since worship is the meaning of time. The Westminster Shorter Confession supports this idea when it asks, “What is the chief end of man?” to which it responds, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” Thus according to this confession, which is intended to function as a biblical summation, the very purpose of our existence (an existence that moves through time) is the glorification and enjoyment of God. This can be further distilled by saying that the purpose of human existence is to worship God, as worshiping God means glorifying him particularly by expressing that he is our deepest delight and satisfaction, or using the words of the confession, our deepest enjoyment.

In viewing the time between services as an intermission, a potential problem is that it could imply taking a break from worship, which would further imply that there is a space where humans could be unhinged from the purpose of their existence. This is nonsense. Drawing from experience, I would like to try to resolve this problem by pointing out that whenever there is an intermission, at whatever kind of performance, the crowd conducts themselves in a way that is appropriate to the venue. Translating this into the context of worship, the venue in which we live is God’s world, and we should always conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the place we occupy. Moreover, and more importantly, the venue in which we live is one in which the distinction between actors and audience is dissolved, as all who come to the show are called to actively participate. In this context, the stage, which would be the worship service proper, is merely a focal point for the performance we carry into the world, and the intermission is just that time where we embody the performance we participated in upon the stage.

The following is a developed version of an email I sent to my friend, Kevin Bardon, who wanted me to respond to an article he sent to me about penance

*******

Kevin,

I have been attending a fellowship group at Saint James, primarily comprised of young adults, and last week we watched The Mission, which was followed this week by a lesson I provided to process the film. In relation to your question about penance, I asked a couple of questions about the character Rodrigo, who, in case you haven’t seen the film, was a slave trader. The questions I asked were:  ”Do you think it was necessary for Rodrigo to do penance to find forgiveness?” and “Why were the Guarani (the natives he used to capture and sell into slavery) instrumental in bringing Rodrigo’s penance to an end and in helping him find forgiveness?” The general consensus in response to these questions was that though God’s forgiveness is freely given, often penance is necessary in order for us to come to the place where we can take hold of what He is freely offering us. Penance puts us in touch with the gravity of sin and the profundity of our brokenness, and thereby brings us to the end of ourselves. In this way we are enabled to take a hold of God’s forgiveness in the only way that it can be appropriated, as that which is utterly free and completely unmerited.

Having offered this understanding of penance, and affirming it as my own, I realize that some potential problems need to be addressed regarding the application and practice of penance. The primary problem is that penance can easily become legalistic, and could be ironically used to prevent us from seeing the very thing it was designed to allow us to see. We could use our practice of penance to keep us from seeing the depths of our brokenness, and thereby the necessity that God’s forgiveness be unmerited. We could practice penance in such a way that we focus on the doing of penance, and through this generate a sense that we are atoning for our wrongdoing, or that we are overcoming our brokenness. If this is what happens when we practice penance, it is doing the very opposite of what God and the Church intends.

In some ways, my understanding of penance is akin to the Law/Gospel dichotomy that is present in Protestant notions of preaching, which is to say that Gospel proclamations should include some declaration of the Law so that people will despair of themselves and be led to Jesus. In this manner, penance is a kind of proclamation in gesture form. Again, through undertaking the discipline of penance we come to see our brokenness more fully, and become more fully able to throw ourselves upon the sheer mercy of God.

So, in light of this, penance needs to be a Spirit led reality, because the Spirit’s primary ministry is to lead us into all truth, and since Jesus is the embodiment of all grace and truth, the primary ministry of the Spirit is to more fully bring us into the reality of Jesus. The implication of this is that penance needs to be a discipline of the Church overseen by those who are wise in the ways of human depravity and who have deeply tasted the profound, glorious, and surprising grace of God.

In the movie, Father Gabriel was such an overseer for Rodrigo, and regarding his oversight I am reminded of an exchange he had with another brother of the Jesuit Order about Rodrigo. The exchange was as follows:

Father Fielding: Father, he’s done this penance long enough, and well, the other brothers think the same.

Father Gabriel: But he doesn’t think so, John. Until he does, neither do I.

As it turned out, Rodrigo’s penance came to an end when he encountered the Guarani. His penance was to carry a net full of weapons that characterized the depths of his broken existence over a great distance to the mission of the Guarani. Upon encountering them, one of the Guarani approached him with a knife in hand, and intent unclear. After a brief pause the Guarani cut the net from Rodrigo, and as the wares of his destructive life fell into the flowing waters of the river, Rodrigo was sacramentally freed from the weight of his sin. He cried deeply. He cried as Father Gabriel embraced him, and he cried even more as the Guarani encircled him, a clear sign that they had come to understand the Gospel of forgiveness by welcoming their former persecutor into their community. As I see it, the Guarani were instrumental in bringing Rodrigo’s penance to an end because they moved him beyond his existential experience of guilt, and into the realm of relationships and righteousness, where those who had every right to condemn him instead offered him unmerited forgiveness. For Rodrigo the Guarani were the face of God.

So, all this to say that penance can be a great thing when rightly administered.

*******

Theocratus: On the other side of this wall is everything you truly need, blessing without limit, and unspeakable joy.

Catachumen: How do I get in, as it’s far too tall to climb, its foundation is far too deep, and it stretches in both directions as far as the eye can see?

Theocratus: ——-

Theocratus: Now that you have been given a clear picture of where you need to go, don’t forget to start from the right place.

Catachumen: Where’s that?

Theocratus: I’m not going to tell you.

I just got a hold of The Moral Vision of the New Testament, a text I am considering for a theological ethics class that I have the opportunity to teach next semester. As is often the case in my relationship to a new text, I read through the introduction, scanned the table of contents in order to get a sense of where I will be going, and briefly scanned the bibliography for familiar names and perhaps names I should become familiar with. In doing all this, I encountered a very familiar name, Stanley Hauerwas, and I turned to the section of the book that addressed his thinking. In doing this, I came across the following provocative quote:

Most North American Christians assume they have the right, if not obligation, to read the Bible. I challenge that assumption. No task is more important than for the church to take the Bible out the hands of individual Christians in North America. Let us no longer give the Bible to every child when they enter the third grade or whenever their assumed rise to Christian maturity is marked… Let us rather tell them and their parents that they are possessed by habits far too corrupt for them to be encouraged to read the Bible on their own.

Yikes!! What possessed Mr. Hauerwas to say this? Isn’t he undermining the Protestant conviction regarding the priesthood of all believers with its concomitant impulse to deconstruct the barrier between the laity and priests, by giving all believers access to the Scriptures?

The rationale for Hauerwas’ statement comes earlier in this section where Hays, the author of The Moral Vision of the New Testament, pointed out the influence of the Patristics, particularly Athanasius, on Hauerwas’ thinking regarding the relationship between one’s character and one’s vision. The idea is that one’s moral constitution functions as a lens through which one sees the world, and all things in the world, including texts. This means that one’s moral disposition will profoundly influence how one will appropriate and apply the Scriptures. This, perhaps, can be summed up in saying that corrupt people will read and apply the scriptures corruptly.

I have to confess that I see worth in Hauerwas’ critique, and yet I wonder about our need to hear the Word of God in order to be revivified, renewed, and morally transformed. Though I have not read how Hauerwas addresses this matter, I imagine he would say that such need should primarily be met through the Church’s encounter with the Word, which is to say that the proper context for reading Scripture is in the gathering of the Church, not in the privacy of one’s prayer closet.

This response, however, still tramples upon my Protestant (and perhaps bourgeois) instincts. And yet, there is historical precedent to support Hauerwas’ proposal. In the early Church there were no mass produced Bibles, and so the reading of Scripture was a collective affair. Theologically, there is still further support in that a dominant motif for understanding the life of a believer is incorporation. When a person comes to faith he or she is made a part of the figurative body of Christ, which through the Spirit is connected to the resurrected and exalted body of Christ. This means that salvation is not primarily a private, me-and-God, affair, but a response to God’s purpose to sum up all  things in and through Jesus. Certainly, in this light, the collective gathering of the Church is the most proper context for reading Scripture.

Having said all this, I am still not willing to go out and retrieve Bibles from the hands of the unwashed masses. I know of too many instances, both now and in history, where people were edified and personally transformed through a private reading of Scriptures.

I guess I am going to have to consider all of this a bit more.

Bureau of Emotional Retardation
201 Independence Avenue
Washington, DC 20540

Dear Mister Velez,

As you know we have been conducting a decade long campaign to identify the most emotionally retarded individuals according to age category, with each age category being grouped by five year spans beginning with 20-25 year olds, and working consecutively to the final grouping of those who fall between the ages of 95-100 years. You, Mister Velez, are our final candidate for the 40-45 year-old category.

Upon receiving this news, you no doubt felt quite angry and probably already have cursed a few times, but lest you be tempted to employ some kind of infantile defense mechanism to deny the validity of our findings, know that our methodology for identifying emotional retardation is sound and unassailable. We have government satellites that employ a diversity of neuroimaging technologies (i.e. MRI, Electroencephalography) upon anyone we choose. Our choice to monitor a person is motivated by audio-visual monitoring technologies which allows us to identify people in society who exhibit stereotypical signs of emotional retardation: losing your temper in a manner not equal to the circumstances that evoked your anger, withdrawal from interpersonally challenging circumstances, consistent self preoccupation, playing air guitar in your underwear while blaring rock music at ear splitting decibels, spending time surfing the net and employing social media in a manner commensurable to a teenager, procrastination and lack of overall discipline. We think you get the picture. Once we have a person selected, we use our neuroimaging technologies to monitor brain development, as well as brain functioning throughout a wide variety of activities, over a statistically significant period of time. The combined results of all this data gathering allows us to get an accurate picture of a person’s emotional development and maturity.

Regarding your results, though you are biologically in your early 40s, emotionally you typically plot somewhere between that of an 8-17 year old, with your emotional mean clocking in at 14 years of age.

If you have any questions about our selection criteria, or the results of our findings, or if you just want to issue a complaint (which wouldn’t surprise us in the least) we can be reached at the above address.

In closing we want to wish you well, as well as the will to grow up, at least just a little. If you would like some help with this matter, let us know and we will have someone from the Department for Well Adjusted Citizens contact you.

Sincerely,
John Rees Thompson
(Age 47 – Emotional Age 47)