Standing Under the Scriptures
August 30, 2009

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this Sunday are:

Ephesians 6.10-20: This is the passage that exhorts us to put on the whole (spiritual) armor of God.

Mark 7.1-23: Jesus specifies that, contrary to what we may suppose, it is what comes out of us rather than what goes into us that defiles.

Last Sunday we found that our first reading (Galatians 1.6-12), although not from the lectionary, accorded well with our second, Gospel reading (John 6.60-71).

In our Galatians passage we saw Paul as being highly exercised, perhaps more so than in any other of his letters. For in verse 8 he says,

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed [Gr. anathema].

And in the next verse, for emphasis, he repeats this. Thus the questions are posed of what was he exercised about and, no less, why. As for what, the standard answer is that others, referred to as Judaizers, had come among his Galatian converts and said that, together with their faith in Christ, they needed to conform to provisions of the Jewish law. We were content with this answer. Nevertheless, some scholars have contended recently that it was really the Roman imperial cult to which Paul was taking exception, albeit in oblique language. Be that as it may, the answer to the question of why he was so exercised seems much the same. For in either case there is the implication that the salvation wrought by Christ in his incarnation, death, and resurrection is not sufficient in itself, that something more is required. And not only was this contrary to Paul’s own liberation from sin and death by the cross, it undercut the salvation in Christ alone that he had held out to the Galatians, thereby depriving them of what had he had found to be of supreme importance.

We could see the rest of the passage as following on from this. .In denying that he is seeking the favor of men (verse 10) Paul is saying in effect that he is not protesting the Judaizers our of rivalry with them, so as to maintain his own position His only concern is to serve Christ. Moreover, the gospel he has proclaimed is not a human invention, his or any others’, but instead came to him through divine revelation. (We speculated as to whether this revelation was on the Damascus Road or during the withdrawal into Arabia that later in the chapter he speaks of). And this origin is of more than nominal importance. For only that which is divine can be truly saving; only God has this power. This is true of course not just for the Galatians but also for us.

Our Gospel reading, to move on to that, comes at the end of John’s long chapter 6. This begins with Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand and continues with his walking on the Sea. From there it develops into a discourse on feeding and its significance: Jesus himself is the bread of life. He goes on to say that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood will have eternal life. These evidently are the sayings which, as our passage opens, cause many of his disciples to murmur and eventually to turn back from following him. We considered why those disciples, and early readers of John’s Gospel, would have found these sayings “hard.” There was to begin with the shocking nature of the imagery they employ, so contrary to Gentile as well as Jewish understandings. We supposed, though, that beyond that there was the totality of the commitment to Jesus that they entailed and, concomitantly, the turning away from all other reliances. For it is not just the receiving of the bread and the wine in the Eucharist that eating and drinking Jesus’ flesh and blood calls for, although this is involved too. It is also and more a participation in his suffering and death, which means acceptance of the failures and tragedies that we undergo as this participation. The point was brought home to me when nine years ago I preached on this passage the Sunday after my older son’s death.

The striking thing is that the very sayings which caused many to turn away, and which if not actually hard may still be heavy, are heard by Peter, representing the Twelve, in just the opposite way. One is reminded here of Jesus’ citation of Psalm 118.

The very stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

For when Jesus asks the Twelve, “Will you also go away?” Peter responds, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” It is given to him to perceive that the reliances which the others are loathe to give up have in fact no substance and that, on the other hand, what Jesus offers is truly life, the eternal life which only God can give. Here is substantially the same point that Paul was concerned to make in our Galatians passage. Only Christ as proclaimed by him avails; beside him nothing has any real worth. But he avails truly.

We may think of our own reluctance to give up our other reliances, of our failure to realize that there is none but Jesus to whom we can effectively go. We may think also of how we have passed over, or even regarded as heavy and oppressive, that which actually contained words of eternal life. At the same time, as we acknowledge these shortcomings, we can be sure that God will accept us in them.

A further relevance of this passage may be worth mentioning here. When I was in Kinshasa to attend the installation of Archbishop Isingoma of the Anglican Church of the Congo, I had a considerable conversation with Kenneth Kieran, the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, who was also there for the occasion. He remains hopeful, despite indications to the contrary, of overcoming the division that has arisen in The Episcopal Church (TEC). Knowing of my conservative leanings, he asked me what it would take for me to be reconciled to TEC. I was at a loss for an answer. Subsequently it came to me that neither TEC nor any other church is worthy of allegiance if it does not have “words of eternal life.”

Faithfully, Fr. Ted