Musings of an Anglican/Episcopal Priest

Month: March 2006 (Page 1 of 4)

Short Exegesis on the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John

The following is a short exegesis paper I wrote for my New Testament class. I can’t remember if it was one I turned in or not, but here it is nonetheless.

Crosses

The Revelation to John has been the cause of a great deal of controversy in the history of the Church. It was even doubtful for a time that it would even make it into the canon of scripture. The primary conflicts in regard to Revelation have centered upon the appropriate interpretation of Christ’s 1000 year reign, with the most widespread millennialist theology in the US today being the dispensationalist variety. This conflict is not new however, and dates from the early centuries of Christianity. Conflict was quelled for awhile by the ascendancy of Augustinian theology which taught that the Church itself was what was referred to in the 1000 year reign. The Augustinian consensus was thrown into turmoil in the 12th century by the thought of a Cistercian monk by the name of Joachim of Fiore, who interpreted history in three ages: the age of the Father, the age of the Son and the age of the Holy Spirit. His work was enthusiastically embraced by some Franciscans. These groups kept the millennialist strain of Christianity alive until it reached its fever pitch in the reformation with the establishment of the bloody Anabaptist Kingdom of Munster. The discomfort of Cranmer and others toward Revelation is understandable considering this history. The few passages of Revelation in our lectionary is a testament to this discomfort.

One passage from Revelation that does appear in our lectionary is read on the feast of the Holy Innocents. Revelation 21:22-22:5 is a description of the heavenly Jerusalem seen by John. The selection begins with John describing what he sees as he survey’s the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem. “I saw no temple in the city” he says, “for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.” There is no need of a temple according to John; why should there be a need for a temple when God is residing in the midst of the people, as is the Lamb; there is no need of a temple or a sanctuary to encounter him. Additionally, the description of the New Jerusalem that John provides earlier in chapter 21 resonates with the descriptions of the Temple in the Old Testament. This city, the new creation, is God’s temple.

The presence of God has other ramifications as well, “the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the Glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” Here John makes use of metaphorical language to describe the glory of God and the Lamb. The glory of God is so bright that the sun is no longer necessary; the Lamb reflects the glory of God like the moon and is therefore a lamp that can take the place of the moon—there is no more need of sun or moon for the source of all light has made his home among the people. “By its light the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.” Here John hearkens back to Isaiah, who says “And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising” (Isai. 60:3), in order to demonstrate the fulfillment of prophesy. All the gentiles and their kingdoms have come into the fold of God, the nations walk by his light—not just physical light, but spiritual light, no longer doing what is wrong in the sight of the Lord. John tells is that “the Kings bring their glory into it;” while it is obvious that humanity cannot possibly add to the glory of God, our worship can glorify the Lord. Here John is saying that the kings of the earth are showing proper reverence for God, and glorifying him by their worship, bringing their worship into the light and knowledge of God from the darkness where it had been before.

John describes the city as a place where, in verse 25, “its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.” Cities in the ancient world used to leave their gates open in the day time in order to commerce to take place. Usually if city gates were closed in the daylight it meant there was a siege, some other type of military threat or a plague of some sort. John emphasizes the fact that the gates of the city will always be open—first, they will never be closed because of a threat, and second they will never be closed at night, for there is no night in the heavenly city. “They will bring into it the glory and honor of the nations.” John is telling us here that the nations, the powers that once stood against God are now coming to the New Jerusalem.

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The Suffering of Job and the Answer of Christ.

Blakejob Color3Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one. (Job 14:4)



Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (Rev. 7:13-14)

The Lenten series at our parish is focused on the problem of suffering and pain. The rector, Fr. Bill Midgett, felt like the Holy Spirit was leading hi to teach on this topic and the people of Trinity are responding. Last Wednesday night, our discussion turned to Job–to the challenge of Job and of the “Jobs” we are all aware of from our own lives and experience–the people who suffer for no apparent reason, whose pain not only taxes our emotional reserve and empathy, but offends our sense of righteousness, of rightness or justice. We all desire to see the wicked receive their just deserts, but we are offended when the innocent suffer.

Even as it challenges us, the story of Job gives us hope as it describes the reality that evil really is unexplainable, that people suffer without reason, that suffering can’t be equated with punishment for sin. But there is another way in which the Book of Job works, that I haven’t heard or read about elsewhere. I believe we see in Job a foreshadowing of Christ, that there is messianic content in Job just as there is in other parts of the Old Testament canon. For example, consider the role of the devil as the Accuser, the prosecuting attorney seeking to prove Job unfaithful to God, to force his disbelief and thereby wrong an innocent man–to prove in fact, that Job wasn’t as faithful or innocent as he or God believed. And yet through all of his trials Job maintained his belief in God, believing even when he lashed out at him in anger at affliction. As admirable as his endurance was though, Job could only endure, he had no hope of triumph.

There is no doubt that the story of Job is a troubling one, for even if Job never questions the existence of God, it is unclear that such a questioning would have even been possible for a pre-enlightenment person. Job doesn’t question God’s existence, but he does–and I think within reason, if not “justifiably”–question God’s goodness. And yet, God doesn’t allow the story of Job to form the entirety of what we know about him or about the devil. You see, there are parallels between Job’s story and the life of Christ. Just as the Enemy was fulfilling his role as the accuser in Job, seeking to destroy Job’s faith, he strikes out again at another innocent man in Jesus of Nazareth…but this time, the joke is on the devil. For while Job could only endure, Jesus had the power of God and could triumph.

There are some interesting similarities and differences between the way the devil attacks Job and the way he attacks Jesus. For Job, the temptation is to blame God and believe him unrighteous and unjust–to “curse God and die.” For Christ, the temptations placed before him were about the misuse of his power and authority, twisting them toward the ends of the devil rather than the Father. Job Plate Sixteen-1

The suffering of Job and Christ are parallel; Job was “innocent” and did all in his power to offer sacrifice to God for even a hint of wrong-doing. Jesus by contrast was intrinsically good and needed to offer no such sacrifice. In each case the role of the devil, of the Accuser, was to test and to tempt, to lead away from faith. The incarnation of Christ however was the means through which God played a trick on the devil and shattered his power over humanity. One wonders if, at the moment of Christ’s death on the cross, the devil believed he had turned events to his purposeses only to discover through the power of the resurection that Christ had been made God’s answer to the suffering of Job–in the person of Jesus Christ, God became man and suffered as humanity suffers in the fallen world. By enduring the worst of the devil’s assaults, and death on the cross bearing the sins of the whole world, Christ was able to deceive and defeat the devil–the totally innocent man taking on the totality of guilt for the whole world and dying at the hands of sinful people only to defeat death, hell and the devil by rising on the third day. And this is the defeat of the devil by God’s might, so that as we hear in Revelation 12:12:

Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!

The devil has been defeated by Christ through his resurrection, his hold on humanity is at an end, and we are no free by grace to enjoy relationship with the Father. But because of his defeat, and the fact that he “knows his time is short,” the devil is ever more active in our world, bringing affliction on humanity…and yet, because of Christ we have hope, because of our salvation from sin. One of Job’s friends asked the question in chapter 14, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” We now know the answer to that question is not “there is not one,” but rather, there is one, Jesus Christ, who has brought a clean out of an unclean by saving a wretch like me and every other believer… our robes have been made white in the blood of the lamb.

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A Proposal for Repentance: What would it look like?

t_christ

Kendall Harmon has posted a letter from the Bishop of Arizona regarding the recent House of Bishops meeting which has again raised the issue of what true repentance would look like. The following is a FICTIONAL (As in not a real speech from a real person) proposal that I thought some would find interesting:

I greet you in the name of our victorious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who in conquering death, freed us from bondage to sin, restoring the possibility of fellowship with God our Father; and who, if we accept and seek His Will, brings us into perfect communion with the Almighty through the Holy Spirit.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we gather here today under the shadow of judgment. The actions we have taken as a body over the past several years, the arrogance and lack of regard exhibited for our Anglican family—indeed our lack of fortitude and failure to administer godly admonition to our errant brothers and sisters who have strayed from the cause of Christ—all of these stand under the judgment not only of our fellow Anglicans in Africa, Asia, South America and elsewhere, but our ecumenical partners, and the entire Church of Christ, but also—and most importantly—under the judgment of God himself.

I stand before you today as one who had no official role in the action, which served as a presenting cause for the conflict and pain, which has wracked the body of our global communion. There are also those of you who have stood as a loyal opposition to the actions taken by the national Church. Yet we ALL stand under judgment. These actions were not the actions of a few only, but of our Church corporately, and it is as a body that we must bear responsibility. We have indeed sinned in thought, in word and in deed; by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. Clearly we have not loved God with our whole heart, and we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves, for who among us would knowingly lead someone we loved to take actions which would imperil their lives. Yet as a Church we have taken actions; actions which have not only imperiled our relationships with other Churches, imperiled the lives of some among us who see affirmation as license, but we have imperiled the very souls of those in our care, To whom we have been sent to lead from darkness to light. We have done this. We are ALL guilty and we stand here today so that we might kneel tomorrow, seeking that humility which is the basis of truthful and sincere repentance, humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God (1 Pet. 5:6).

But we protest. We protest because we desire to preserve freedom of conscience, we hesitate because we don’t want the role—the burden, the responsibility, and the hard task—of telling someone we love that the road upon which they walk leads to destruction and pain—in this life, and in the next.

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Interesting stuff as the Bishop of Exeter addresses the Episcopal Church House of Bishops

The Times of London is reporting that the Bishop of Exeter had some interesting things to say to the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church–words many of them probably didn’t want to hear.

‘I suppose one of the major challenges for the Episcopal Church now has to do with whether there are enought of you to stand broadly on the same ground, holding a range of opinions on Lambeth 1.10 but firm in carrying forward the Windsor vision of a strengthened and enabing communion life. This, I believe, is the key question rather than questions about whether the Episcopal Church will either be pushed out of the Communion or consciously walk away. Let’s be clear. On the one hand, noone can force another province or diocese either to go or remain. We are not that kind of church. Yet equally, no diocese or province can enforce its own continued membership simply or largely on its own terms.

{read it all}

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Comfortable* Words from the Late Fr. Lou Tarsitano

The Rev. Louis Tarsitano was an inspiration to many within the orthodox Anglican World and his death in January 05 came as a blow. Tarsitano has since come to be seen as a forerunner to many of the persecuited orthodox clergy today, as he was forced out the Episcopal Church over disagreements with the 1979 Book of Commpn Prayer. Here is what he has to say about one of the unique characteristics of the Anglican Way. Remember, councils of the Church, being made up of sinful men, can and have erred.

At the heart of the Anglican Way is the freedom to say “no” to error, just as long as one is prepared to bear the costs of that freedom. The Archbishop of Canterbury is not a pope, and the primates are neither cardinals nor a legislature. While the support of our brethren in other countries is precious, the fact remains that one can continue to be an Anglican without permission for as long as he has the guts for it. One can’t be a Roman catholic without the pope’s permission, nor a canonical Orthodox church without the recognition of the other churches of that household. But it is an Anglican witness that makes an Anglican church, with or without anybody else’s recognition. After all, the first American bishop was not consecrated by the Church of England, but by Scottish bishops not recognized at that time by the Archbishop of Canterbury, etc.

You can read the whole thing over at Albion Land’s Anglican Continuum.

*Comfortable here is the older use, meaning comforting.

Where do the seminaries fit into the equation?

There has been so much discussion since General Convention 2003, so much posturing and jockeying for positions that one particular group has seemed to receive very little attention – the 11 seminaries of the Episcopal Church USA.  As a seminarian and a future priest in God’s Church, I am very interested in the dialogue and what the future of our denomination might look like.

Since the election, consent, and consecration of Gene Robinson, the Anglican Communion Network has come into existence, and now there are individual priests, parishes, and whole dioceses who have pledged their allegiance to the fundamental tenets of orthodoxy espoused in their Statements of Belief.  I think I can speak with some confidence that Trinity and Nashotah House walk right in step with the Network, and would be considered the "Network Seminaries."  However, that leaves 9 other schools in a different situation.

It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Episcopal Divinity School, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, General, Bexley Hall, and Seabury are all sold out to the revisionist agenda.  If that’s true, then any split within the Episcopal Church would be just fine with them.  I really don’t think they want the orthodox around anyway. 

Okay, I’ve now accounted for 7 of the 11, where does that leave Virginia (VTS), Seminary of the Southwest (ETSS), Yale, and Sewanee?  Some may say that I am very generous by including these four in one group together.  After all, VTS has a partnered lesbian Homiletics professor who is pregnant right now.  I also believe that ETSS and Yale have housing policies which allow for co-habitation of same-sex couples.  In any case, what is the true allegiance of these schools?

Sewanee is in the most precarious of positions since it is owned by 28 dioceses in the Southeast.  4 of the 10 dioceses that helped begin the Network are owning dioceses (South Carolina, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Central Florida).  19 of the 28 owning bishops voted against +Gene’s confirmation and against resolution C-051 at GC2003. 

If things go as most seem to think it will, where does that leave things?  Where does that leave orthodox students at places other than Trinity or Nashotah?  If the majority of the owning bishops at Sewanee chose Anglicanism over ECUSA, what do the revisionists do who are students/faculty?  Where does that leave The University of the South?  No matter what direction Sewanee goes, one group of bishops is going to be very upset, and will most likely sever ties completely.  As it is now, many orthodox dioceses retain their ties to Sewanee in name only.  I don’t believe that +Jack Iker of Ft. Worth would send a postulant to Sewanee if his life depended on it!

It is a precarious time that we find ourselves in, and it is only going to get murkier as we approach GC 2006 and beyond.  However, I still hold onto the knowledge that God is in control of His church, and we must remain faithful to the faith once delivered to all the saints.  That is the faith that I will promise to uphold in my ministry, and to settle for anything else would be apostasy.

 

History of Bishop Elections in the Diocese of Tennessee

George Conger has written an article in the Living Church about happenings in Tennessee. That article can be found here. George graciously posted some information that didn’t survive the editing process, which I’ve included below the selection from his Living Church Article.

The Diocese of Tennessee’s history of multiple ballots over two days to elect a bishop was repeated on March 18. Clergy and lay delegates to a special convention at Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville failed to elect a successor to the Rt. Rev. Bertram N. Herlong after 14 ballots spread over 10 hours. According to the election procedure, the winning candidate must achieve a two-thirds majority in both the clergy and lay orders. {read it all}

Here’s the information that George shared:

The 1986 Tennessee election went to 38 ballots, while the 1993 election took 15, and both followed the same pattern as Saturday’s voting with the clergy and lay orders initially supporting separate candidates.

At the close of the first day’s voting in 1986, the Rev. Canon Robert G. Tharp led in the clergy order with two thirds of the votes after 28 ballots, ahead of the Rev. George L. Reynolds who ran first in the lay order and the Rev. James M. Coleman, who ran third. On the second day, Reynolds received two thirds of the lay order on the 31st ballot and was elected bishop on the 38th ballot after gaining the clergy vote. Canon Tharp later was elected second Bishop of East Tennessee while Fr. Coleman was to become the second Bishop of West Tennessee.

In 1993 the Very Rev. Bertram N. Herlong was elected Bishop of Tennessee after 15 ballots spread over two days. Herlong lead in the lay order for 14 of 15 ballots, finally gaining the lead in the clergy order over the Rev. Walter L. Krieger, rector of Christ Church, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on the 13th ballot.

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The Direction of the Anglican Communion: Evangelical vigor, charismatic passion, sacramental spirit, catholic polity

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[This post is Cross Posted from Quo Vadis]

The Chinese have a saying: may you live in interesting times. These are definitely interesting times for the Anglican Communion. There remains little doubt that the Episcopal Church, USA will not embrace the spirit of the Windsor report, nor will General Convention repent of the church’s actions in 2003. Yet, I remain hopeful that the bulk of the communion will not follow ECUSA into the dark night of liberal sectarianism. Indeed, the dialogue in the communion has moved beyond the issue of human sexuality (Archbishop Williams in laying out his vision for Lambeth 2008 has stated that there will be no revisiting of the stated Communion teaching in Lambeth 1998 resolution I.10, i.e. that homosexuality is incompatible with Holy Scripture and the Christian life). Instead, the conversation within the broader communion has moved into the process of reception of the Windsor Report and the process of considering what an Anglican Covenant as suggested by the Windsor process would look like.

The Church of Nigeria has already given its response to this by iterating a commitment to the historic Book of Common Prayer, 1662, the classic ordinal and the 39 articles of religion. Other provinces and individual theologians are working furiously to provide input and direction for such a covenantal statement among the churches of the Communio Anglicana. Because of this, I’ve decided to write my honors paper on ecclesiology in Anglicanism. In particular my interest has been piqued multiple times over the past several years by a historical school of anglican thought termed “High Church Evangelical,” “Evangelical High-churchmen” or the “Reformed Catholic” position. I would say that this position formed the bulk of the High Church party, especially after the recusants left the Church of England, seeing that their hopes of steering the C of E back to Rome were ill-founded. This party remained as the primary expression of the high-church position within Anglicanism until the 19th century and the rise of the Oxford Tractarians and Anglo-Catholicism.

The reason that recent conversations within the communion have directed me more and more toward this historical Anglican position is this: It is clear that provinces of the Anglican Communion share a commitment to the three-fold ministry of Bishop, Priest and Deacon. Additionally, they have a high sacramental theology, especially as regards the Eucharist (indeed, I think an argument can be made that while the Episcopal Church, USA has a rite which suggests a high eucharistic theology, in practice the eucharistic theology of her sister churches of a more evangelical stripe is higher–witness their insistence on breaking table fellowship with Frank Griswold and Gene Robinson). This high ecclesiology and sacramental theology however is paired with a broad-based foundation in Evangelical theology. The result is a Communion that doesn’t quite fit within the predominant expressions of Protestantism yet it does not embrace the Roman Catholic understanding of the Church either. This unique ecclesiology is founded in the experience of the English Church prior to and during the reformation.

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Upside-down Ecclesiology

This post is cross-posted from my blog http://www.deepsoil.com

I spent an amazingly long time inside the Episcopal Cathedral in Nashville on Saturday as our diocese (the Diocese of Tennessee, which represents the middle part of the state) attempted to elect a new bishop.

What I witnessed was very disturbing to me as I saw clergy voting against their own laity.  Let me explain: in our diocese it requires a 2/3 vote from both the clergy and the laity on the same ballot to elect a bishop.  If you want to read more about the election itself or what was going on Saturday, click on the link at the bottom of the post to read more.  I’m happy to explain, but what happened sparked some thoughts in me on the role of clergy and the direction of ecclesiology in general.  Saturday’s events revealed a clear dichotomy. 

The lay people of this diocese were clearly holding their ground in favor of not revising the traditional interpretation of scripture on the sexuality issue (which is actually a smoke-screen issue for trying to uphold reasons to ignore Scripture in a number of arenas) and the importance of mission, evangelism and discipleship as priorities for our diocese which—hello!—should go without saying as the priorities of the entire church, however there was only one candidate here who clearly stood for those.  (For more on this, read Matt Kennedy’s excellent summary here).

The clergy, on the other hand, were scheming and forming their own little club and trying to maneuver the least positive candidate into position to be elected by attempting to make him look like their second choice and the middle ground (see the addition to this post below).  I heard many grumblings about clergy who couldn’t get their parishes to vote with them, but what I was concerned about along with a number of the other younger members present was clergy who weren’t listening to their parishes (and the Episcopal church wonders why it can’t keep it’s younger members… they aren’t listening to us, that’s why!  Only one of us involved in the hallway rant sessions between votes was actually a voting delegate… how sad is that!)

Here’s where the issue in ecclesiology comes up.  Apparently, the clergy think that since they are clergy, people should automatically listen to them, and the lay people think that the clergy should listen to the scriptures.

Nowhere in scripture is it supported that the clergy are the end-all in teaching, in fact, the opposite is true.  Otherwise, the language of the priesthood of all believers (2 Peter 2:4-9) and the role of the Christian as an ambassador of reconciliation with God (2 Cor. 5:18-21) would be nonsensical.  Also, Ephesians 4:11-12 makes it very clear what the role of church leadership is: “The gifts that he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ.”  So who has the work of the ministry?  The entire church, not the clergy alone. 

And if these clergy don’t realize that their lay people are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, then they are unfamiliar with Scripture (or have decided that it no longer means what it says).  And even if they have the excuse that all those clergy somehow never read Ephesians, it was read to them in their ordination service word for word (see the Book of Common Prayer p. 533).  And then, they never actually read the catechism that supposedly teach to their lay people where it says, “The ministry of the lay persons is to represent Christ and his Church; to bear witness to him wherever they may be; and according to the gifts given them, to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world; and to take their place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church” (BCP p. 855).  Not to mention article 20 (BCP p. 871) which states that “…it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another.”

So, top-down ecclesiology would be that the Holy Spirit speaks through the leaders of the church and is then passed on to the lay people.  Bottom-up ecclesiology would be that the Holy Spirit speaks through the church—not just the clergy—and that the Holy Spirit will never contradict something that is written in Scripture.  Clearly, some clergy in this diocese have their ecclesiology upside down… By the way, the whole things starts again next Saturday… will there be an election?  That will depend on whether a group of clergy is willing to listen to the voice of their parishioners and realize that their scheming is standing against over half of the diocese. 

To quote Matt Kennedy:

There were essentially two solid voting blocks, the overwhelmingly orthodox laity voting for Canon Michell and the slim majority revisionist clergy who voted as a block first for the Rev. Charles and then shifted en masse to the Rev. Magness. Normally, when the laity vote consistently and overwhelmingly for a candidate, you would expect large numbers of the clergy to follow suit. That did not happen.

And that pretty much sums it up. Click on the link below if you want more about the situation in the diocese, complete with what I think about it (surprise, surprise!).

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Rowan Williams: Sermon on the 450th anniversary of the Martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer

Cranmer MartyrThe Martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer

Archbishop’s sermon at the service to commemorate the 450th anniversary
of the Martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer

St Mary the Virgin, Oxford

From today’s epistle: ‘The word of God is not bound’.

When it was fashionable to decry Cranmer’s liturgical rhetoric as
overblown and repetitive, people often held up as typical the echoing
sequences of which he and his colleagues were so fond. ‘A full, perfect
and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction; ‘Have mercy upon
us, miserable offenders; Spare thou them which confess their faults;
Restore thou them that are penitent’; ‘succour, help and comfort all
that are in danger, necessity and tribulation’; direct, sanctify and
govern’; and of course, ‘earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust’.
The liturgical puritan may well ask why it is not possible to say
something once and for all, instead of circling back over what has been
said, re-treading the ground. And in the same vein, many will remember
the arguments of those who complained of the Communion Order in the Book
of Common Prayer that it never allowed you to move forward from
penitence to confidence and thanksgiving: you were constantly being
recalled to your sinful state, even after you had been repeatedly
assured of God’s abundant mercies.

Whether we have quite outgrown this reaction, I’m not sure. But we have
at least begun to see that liturgy is not a matter of writing in
straight lines. As the late Helen Gardner of this university long ago
remarked, liturgy is epic as well as drama; its movement is not
inexorably towards a single, all-determining climax, but also –
precisely – a circling back, a recognition of things not yet said or
finished with, a story with all kinds of hidden rhythms pulling in
diverse directions. And a liturgical language like Cranmer’s hovers over
meanings like a bird that never quite nests for good and all – or, to
sharpen the image, like a bird of prey that never stoops for a kill.

The word of God is not bound. God speaks, and the world is made; God
speaks and the world is remade by the Word Incarnate. And our human
speaking struggles to keep up. We need, not human words that will
decisively capture what the Word of God has done and is doing, but words
that will show us how much time we have to take in fathoming this
reality, helping us turn and move and see, from what may be
infinitesimally different perspectives, the patterns of light and shadow
in a world where the Word’s light has been made manifest. It is no
accident that the Gospel which most unequivocally identifies Jesus as
the Word made flesh is the Gospel most characterised by this same
circling, hovering, recapitulatory style, as if nothing in human
language could ever be a ‘last’ word. ‘The world itself could not
contain the books that should be written’ says the Fourth Evangelist,
resigning himself to finishing a Gospel that is in fact never finishable
in human terms.

Poets often reinvent their language, the ‘register’ of their voice.
Shakespeare’s last plays show him at the edge of his imagination,
speaking, through Prospero, of the dissolution of all his words, the
death of his magic; Yeats painfully recreates his poetic voice, to
present it ‘naked’, as he said; Eliot, in a famous passage of the
Quartets, follows a sophisticated, intensely disciplined lyrical passage
with the brutal, ‘that was a way of putting it’. In their different
ways, all remind us that language is inescapably something reflecting on
itself, ‘talking through’ its own achievements and failures, giving
itself new agendas with every word. And most of all when we try to talk
of God, we are called upon to talk with awareness and with repentance.
‘That was a way of putting it’; we have not yet said what there is to
say, and we never shall, yet we have to go on, lest we delude ourselves
into thinking we have made an end.

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