Have Yourself A Merry Non-Semi-Pelagian Christmas (eCrozier #244)

On December 19, 2014, in christmas, culture, forgiveness, grace, salvation, by bishopbenhase

Research released this fall illuminated something I’ve had a hunch about for some time: Many Christians, even those who claim they hold orthodox belief, actually have theological convictions that aren’t congruent with the Church’s traditional teaching. In some ways, this shouldn’t be surprising. We all have a tendency to believe that what we believe is right because, well, we’re the ones who believe it. So then what we believe must be orthodox. Of course, that’s a non sequitur. But sin in our lives leads us to one non sequitur after another, does it not?

This particular research showed divergence from orthodox teaching in a number of areas, but the one that showed the largest gap between the Church’s teaching and research participants’ belief concerned the work of God’s redemptive grace. In the research, two-thirds of the participants said that we’re reconciled with God by our own initiative and then God responds to our initiative with grace. So, we first seek God out and only then does God’s mercy and forgiveness become operative in our lives. This has its own internal logic based on Enlightenment constructs of individualism, fairness, and reciprocity (the old quid pro quo, as it were). It makes sense to us. It sounds like it should be the way God works. It has a certain truthiness to it, as Stephen Colbert might say. As Americans who are steeped in deep internal codes of personal responsibility, we like the idea that we have a co-starring role to play in our own drama of redemption. The problem is: That’s NEVER been the orthodox teaching of the Church.

And that brings us to the 5th Century Englishman, Pelagius. Yes, he was a Brit so we Anglicans have to claim him. He’s in our spiritual family tree. He’s like that crazy great uncle we have that no one in the family wants to acknowledge, but own him we must. Pelagius contended that humans first choose God by their own personal gumption. Our sin, original or otherwise, did not, according to Pelagius, impair our ability to choose wisely by choosing God. In other words, we must choose to appropriate the benefits of God’s grace through the power of our own will. This came to be known as Pelagianism. Two Church Councils, first in 418 A.D. at Carthage and then in Ephesus in 431 A.D., rightly rejected Pelagianism. A century later a spinoff of Pelagianism, known rather non-creatively as Semi-Pelagianism, became popular. This sought to affirm the orthodox teaching about humanity’s original sin, while at the same time still insisting that we must take the initiative for God’s grace to be operative. In 529, the Council of Orange said “nice try Semi-Pelagianists,” and rejected their views.

As I listen to Christians in America, it seems to me that the vast majority of us are de facto Semi-Pelagianists. God’s grace makes us uneasy. Grace doesn’t feel right or fair. It’s like we’re getting something we don’t deserve or didn’t have to work for at all; that we didn’t get it the old fashioned way by earning it. It’s as if someone gave us something exceptionally amazing at Christmas, something it turns out that we really loved and needed, and it’s not that we just forgot to get him anything in return, we actually chose not to get him anything at all. EXACTLY. And, for me, that’s what puts the “merry” in Christmas.

+Scott

 
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Good Friday Meditation (eCrozier #130)

On April 6, 2012, in gospel, humility, salvation, sin, by bishopbenhase

We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10)

Conventional wisdom says: “Don’t let things go to your head.” That usually refers to people who, because of their circumstances, might think of themselves more highly than they ought to think. It’s a way to keep one grounded with one’s ego in check. Yet, we should let some things “go to our heads,” for we remember Jesus, not sentimentally to eulogize the great deeds of his life or gruesomely to have a morbid fascination with the mechanics of crucifixion. Rather, we remember Jesus’ work on the cross. Jesus’ cross reminds us that we’re a “sanctified” people. We have been made holy in God’s eyes. Note this is in the passive mood. We have not made ourselves holy. That’s not our realm of competency or authority. God has done this for us without our permission and foreknowledge.

I imagine we don’t often think of ourselves as especially holy people. If we did it might “go to our heads.” Well, it ought to go to our heads, not so we can feel superior to others, but so we can live into God’s love and desire for us. God has made us a holy people for a reason. Our holiness isn’t a badge of honor we wear in order to exclude others, but rather it’s a way of life we receive and adopt so we can invite others to live into God’s love and desire for them. Being made holy means being so humbled by God’s love on the cross that we humbly invite others to join us in this holy life. We’re merely “beggars showing other beggars where to find food.” We should let that go to our heads.

This is accomplished “through the offering of the body of Christ.” Jesus in his life and death doesn’t offer us mere words of wisdom or secrets for successful living. Jesus offers up his body. In Dickens’ The Tale of Two Cities, Charles Darnay ends up on the gallows saying: “it is a far, far better thing I do now than I have ever done before.” Jesus will have none of that. He’s there to offer up his body as a sacrifice for our sin. Modern people are often put off by the bodily image of Jesus on the cross. But offering his body showed the depth of God’s love for us. Jesus wasn’t concerned about putting his reputation on the line. His concern was for us and he offered his body to prove it. In our discipleship as a people made holy by God, we need to be less concerned with our reputations, less captivated by our words. We should let that go to our heads as well.

And this is “once for all.” As people made holy by Jesus’ cross, we still can find ourselves in despair of our sin. No matter where we are or who we are, sin lies close at hand. We should take that reality seriously, but we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously in that reality. Jesus died for the sins of the world, “once for all.” He doesn’t need to die again each time we sin. That’s giving sin way too much power in our lives. We must be bold enough to live like our sins have been forgiven, that the death Jesus died, he died, once for all. In the words of that old Gospel hymn “It’s been done.” That’s why our sin should never lead us to despair. And that’s why we’re liberated so we can dare to be holy people. Jesus died for our sins once for all. We should let that go to our heads as well.

+Scott

 
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eCrozier #24

On March 26, 2010, in salvation, by bishopbenhase

We are about to enter the great narrative of salvation. From Palm Sunday to Easter, we have the opportunity and responsibility to tell our story and to tell it truthfully and rightly. Yes, our people have heard this story many times before, but some have not, or they have not heard it told as one meta-narrative, the one great story that renders all our smaller stories intelligible. I urge you to tell the story in such a frame for it is most compelling for people when they understand and comprehend it in its totality.

I know we preachers sometime get overly focused on one part of the narrative. While this is understandable and useful it often does not help people connect the dots and thus make the whole narrative intelligible. For example, the narrative of Holy Week and Easter is a good time to talk about Christmas in the sense that the incarnation is one part of the story that is a necessary precondition for Easter. As the Creed says: “For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven.” Helping people comprehend the entire frame of incarnation and resurrection leads them to a deeper sense of what their salvation in Christ means to their lives and to the life of the world.

Let me explain more of what I am getting at here. Focusing only on the Good Friday to Easter part of the narrative will certainly help people understand what we are saved from. We are saved from our sins as we identify with Peter and the other disciples who betray, deny, and run from Jesus and his cross. When we all cry out “crucify him” as we read dramatically the passion story, we can place ourselves in the story and see how we, too, through our sins betray, deny, and crucify the God who created us and more wonderfully redeemed us in Jesus. That is a central part of our salvation narrative, but it is not the whole story. The narrative is incomplete.

We are also saved for something. When we speak of salvation, we often define it as only saving from and not saving for. The incarnation of Jesus tells us that, because God has graced humanity by becoming one of us, our matter matters. We are not simply created for heaven as if we were some sort of apprentice angels on earth. God in Christ has saved us for something. We are saved for the work of God on earth and in heaven. As Jesus taught us to pray: we are to pray that God’s kingdom would come on earth as it already has come to heaven. That is what we are saved for: to work for the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Such framing of the narrative of salvation in its completeness will help all of us attain to a holistic discipleship, one that includes both the saving from and the saving for aspects of our story. I know we do not have long in the pulpit each time we enter it. Attention spans of our listeners seem to grow shorter each year. I do, however, hope that our preaching and teaching during this great week ahead will be holistic as we share the good news of our salvation in Christ.

+Scott

 
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