Standing Under the Scriptures
October 18, 2009

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this Sunday are:

Hebrews 10-31-39: The letter contains a ringing call to stand fast in the face of persecution.

Mark 13.14-27: Jesus forecasts earthly disasters coupled with deceptions of the faithful reflected in cosmic disorders, but nevertheless followed by the coming of the Son of man.

Please note that the above are our readings for this Sunday but not for this Sunday’s services. Instead they are those for November 15. As explained in the last class notice, I will be the preacher that Sunday. And my project, about which I am excited, is to draw my sermon from the class discussion of these readings. Ceteris paribus, we would discuss them on the Sunday previous to that. But on account of my time away in England, this Sunday will be our chance to do so. Be assured that our class will continue in the meantime. Two present class members and one former one---the last visiting back from Brazil---have kindly undertaken to lead it in my absence.

I would call your attention again to this Sunday’s Rector’s Forum, where in the absence of Bishop Salmon I will make a presentation on the Anglican Church of the Congo, which I visited in August, and its extraordinary story. Relationship with our fellow Anglicans is not to be regarded as apart from our biblical studies. In fact without the other neither can be fully meaningful.

Last Sunday our readings continued to be in Hebrews and Mark. We found a link between them, a paradoxical one, in the concept of bestowal. As for our Hebrews passage (3.1-6), we began our discussion of it with some observations about its language, how it takes us around logical corners at such speed that we are obliged to hang on, a characteristic which is even more marked in the original Greek than in the English translation. We took the passage to be primarily about the church, which is to say ecclesiological. This did not mean that it is not also christological, namely pertaining to the person and work of Christ. For the ecclesiological and the christological are inextricably bound together, as in the concept of Christ as the head of the church. The basis for our view of the passage’s emphasis was in the assertion towards which it builds: “We are his house,” namely the church (verse 6). To be sure, this is a shift from the usual New Testament image for the church, which is the body of which Christ is the head. But we saw it as in continuity with the Old Testament characteristic of speaking of the people as the house of Israel (beth Yisrael; cf. Ezekiel’s valley of the dry bones: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel”). And this reference is appropriate for a letter styled as to the Hebrews. In any case, the terms house and body are not without mutual connection. For “house” slides over into “household” or family, which has members. Joshua, after laying down his challenge to the Hebrews whom he has led---“Choose this day whom you will serve”---concludes, “As for me and my household (beth), we will serve the Lord” (24.15).

The previous verses of the passage we took as leading up to above climactic assertion and as giving it its force. Our construal of them was the following. As in them the church is seen as a house, so is its builder seen as Christ. And in his function as builder he corresponds to Moses, the builder of the house of Israel. Both were faithful in the functions to which they were appointed. But the similarity stops there. In the first place, Christ as the agent of creation---“the builder of all things is God” (in whom Christ participates)---is the builder even of the house of Israel (verse 4). Beyond that, Moses was faithful as a servant, functioning to testify to the things that were to be spoken (and come to pass) later. But Christ, the “apostle and high priest of our confession.” was faithful over God’s house as a son.” And as we saw above, it is given to us as the church to be God’s house. This however is with a proviso, that “we hold fast our confidence and pride in our hope,“ which is to say our faith.

As for the significance of this passage for us, we left this largely implicit. But it might be supposed that, whereas the image of the church as a body calls to mind our participation in and contribution to it, the image of a house speaks more of what that has been bestowed on us. And this house is of the most special sort, since Christ is its builder. Thus its bestowal must inspire us with the deepest gratitude, to be shown forth with our lips and in our lives.

The concept of bestowal affords us a link with the Mark passage (10.17-31). At first this may seem contradictory. In the passage a rich man (it is Matthew and Luke who call him young and a ruler) urgently asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life. And Jesus, after some preliminaries to test his earnestness (cf. his testing of the Syrophoenician woman, Mark 7.24-30), poses for him the necessity of disposing of his possessions and of following him. But for this rich man, as evidently for the wealthy in general (“How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!”), it proves a bridge too far. And he goes away in sorrow. All this the disciples, evidently still thinking along worldly lines, find deeply perplexing: “Then who can be saved?” Jesus’ response is lapidary: “With men it is impossible, but… all things are possible with God.” Next Peter comes at Jesus from the other side of the question: “Look, we have left everything and followed you,” saying in effect, what then about us? Jesus answers with a list of what might have to be given up “for my sake and for the gospel.” This comprises not just possessions but brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, children, in effect family. And in conclusion he says that anyone so giving them up will be recompensed a hundredfold---“with persecutions.” The reference here we took to be to the fellowship to be enjoyed in the church, which in New Testament times if not in ours was indeed such as to afford such compensation, while also entailing persecutions, of the most grievous sort.

We might suppose that the requirement to surrender of our possessions is scarcely the bestowal of a gift, such as our Hebrews passage speaks of. But Justyn Terry, the Dean of Trinity School for Ministry and our preacher for the day, in his sermon brought out the fundamental point. This is that Jesus was not intent on depriving the rich man (or us) of possessions, Instead he was undertaking to free him from bondage to them, so that he could participate in what was infinitely greater, namely fellowship in the kingdom of God as represented by Jesus. Even so we may have wondered, and perhaps did wonder, whether we were up to such relinquishment of possessions, even for so great a reward. Here again Jesus provides the answer, not only for the disciples but also for us: “All things are possible with God.” The enabling here is not of entering the kingdom of God with our possessions, as some might suppose. Instead it is an enabling to relinquish them and our reliance on them, so that they will no longer bar us from the kingdom. And this gift, like the gift of the church as a house for us to inhabit, must inspire us with gratitude, to be shown not only in worship but also in fulfilling of God’s will for us in our lives.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted