For the Life of the World 1

Here are my notes for chapter 1 from the group study I led on For the Life of the World. The key issue throughout the whole study was secularism and its incompatibility with historic Christianity as embodied in Eastern Orthodoxy. The conclusion is that secularism is sin because it attempts to carry forth life in the world as if God does not exist. It essentially tries to steal the world away from God. The Orthodox tradition, as expressed in this book, asserts that there is no part of life or the world that does not have God as its central referent. There is no separation between sacred and secular or spiritual and material. All is for the glory of God and is a means of communion with God.

In this study, we also dealt with the question of purpose. What is the purpose of humanity and what is the purpose of the world? Historically, Western Christianity has denied any ongoing significance for the world and has treated with indifference the world's original significance. As put forth by Alexander Schmemann, however, Eastern Orthodoxy strongly affirms that the initial and the ongoing purpose of the created order is for it to serve for us as a means of communion with God.

An important book in my spiritual development has been The God of Israel and Christian Theology by R. Kendall Soulen. This book is important to me for a number of reasons, but, as it relates to the issues dealt with in For the Life of the World, The God of Israel and Christian Theology also deals with the question of the world's purpose. In his effort to ascribe ongoing theological significance to Judaism in the biblical narrative and in the attendant purpose of overcoming the Gnostic temptation to empty the world of significance that has historically been present in Christian eschatology, Soulen affirms that God still has plans for the consummation of the earth and that the economy of earthly consummation is caught up with Israel. For the Life of the World affirms God's intent to consummate the creation as well, but, consistent with Orthodoxy, and, in my opinion, Scripture and the Reformed tradition (post-millennialists like NT Wright and the Federal Visionists, among others), this little volume exuberantly proclaims that this economy of earthly consummation is caught up in Christ and the Church. Christ has indeed died and risen for the life of the world, to bring it to its ultimate fulfillment in Him.

Heaven and Earth Are Filled with Thy Glory: Eastern Orthodoxy For the Life of the World

What we are undertaking here is as ambitious as it is exotic. For some of us, the perspective we are unrolling here is a totally different understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. It is going to challenge some of our most basic thoughts and assumptions about what Christianity is all about, and ultimately, what life is all about. The most important questions we need to consider before we start this project is, What is the chief end of humanity and of the world? What is the life of the world that Jesus has died to reclaim for us? What exactly are we in the Church doing when we gather together to worship on the Lord's Day? What is it that the Church is doing in all of its work and in all of its teaching and what is the purpose and goal of this action and teaching? Also, what is the significance of our lives beyond church doors? Let's chew on this a little bit while I attempt to answer a question that I am sure all of you might be asking.

What is Eastern Orthodoxy and how is it valuable to us as 21st-century American Presbyterians? Why do I think this book written by an Orthodox priest about the faith of his church is so vitally important that we need to hear it? Well, let's work on exploring Eastern Orthodoxy for a minute. Where does this tradition come from?

The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church separated 500 years before the Protestants broke from Rome. There are more similarities between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism than there are between Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism. Nevertheless, Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism have some profound differences. For instance, unlike the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy has no pope and rejects the doctrine of purgatory and its artistic expression comes to focus on the icons of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the saints rather than on the statuary that is more representative of Roman Catholicism.

On the other hand, like Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox have priests (but unlike in Catholicism these priests can marry); they have seven sacraments instead of two, as we will find out; they recognize the Apocrypha as Scripture; they view Tradition as being equal with Scripture in authority; they have strong devotion to the Virgin Mary; and they ask the saints in heaven to pray for them. Unlike Roman Catholicism and also Protestantism, for that matter, Eastern Orthodoxy does not view mystery and questions we can't answer as the problems we tend to think they are; instead of always trying to figure out the mysteries and provide answers the way we seem to want to, the Eastern Orthodox simply bow before God in worship, thanking Him for His majesty and incomprehensibility.

This points us to the language issue. Greek, the traditional language of the Eastern Church, is more fluid and poetic than Latin, the traditional language of the Western Church. Latin, on the other hand, is characterized as a more legalistic and technical language than Greek. Our Western practice of using a great many words and technical terms to describe and understand divine mysteries is undoubtedly part of the heritage left to the Western Church from the Latin tongue. Nevertheless, from whatever sources it arises, our Western wordiness means that the piety of Western Christianity, particularly Protestant piety, is more focused on the Word and words. As a result, Protestant piety, particularly Reformed piety, gets manifested in things like Bible study, listening to or delivering a good sermon, or congregational singing, for instance, while Orthodox piety gets manifested in ritual action, in chanted music, and in painting or venerating beautiful icons of Christ, Mary, the saints, and other heavenly mysteries.

This really points to another distinction as well between Reformed Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy and even Catholicism are more sense-oriented traditions than most Protestant traditions. This leads to Protestant charges of idolatry against these traditions, some of which are quite frankly valid, but, what we fail to realize is that we put a great deal of emphasis on the senses in our traditions as well. We certainly put a great deal of emphasis on our sense of hearing when it comes to hearing and understanding the Word, and, of course, understandings of the sacraments that limit them to teaching ceremonies certainly put a great deal of weight on the sense of sight. In my understanding of the sacraments, though, I think the use of our senses of touch and taste are also significant. Pay attention to this kind of thing throughout our study. We will be returning to the issue of how our humanity and materiality come into play in our spirituality.

That's enough about the specifics of Eastern Orthodoxy for the moment. The question is, "Why?" What does it have to do with us? Well, there's a couple of things. Eastern Orthodox are our brothers and sisters in Christ, but we don't know much about them. Just as I think we need to do with all Christian traditions, we need to get to know them because they are part of the family and they have something valuable to teach us.

Before we dig deeper into what exactly it is Eastern Orthodoxy can teach us, though, we need to talk about modern Western society and the challenges it poses for Christian mission. This is the central issue that our text is going to be addressing and why we have chosen to study this book. We are seeking a vision to help us more successfully make disciples of Jesus Christ in a very challenging and very quickly changing world. According to our author, the chief problem that our society poses for Christian mission is that it opens a great chasm between the Church and the rest of the world. Dualism is the problem. What the heck do I mean by dualism? On one side of life is material existence; on the other side is spiritual existence.

Fundamental distinction made between:

• religious versus secular
• sacred versus profane
• spiritual versus material
• church versus state

In the preface, Schmemann talks about the two responses that Christians have made to this situation. How has the Church responded?

• Page 7-8, 12-13
• What is the "spiritualist" response? What do you make of it? How is it evident in American Christianity?
• What is the "activist" response? What do you make of it? How is it evident in American Christianity?

Do you agree with Schmemann's statement on the bottom of page 13? Why or why not?

Whether we "spiritualize" our life or "secularize" our religion, whether we invite men to a spiritual banquet or simply join them at a secular one, the real life of the world, for which we are told God gave His only begotten Son, remains hopelessly beyond our religious grasp.

What seems to be our "traditional" understanding of Christianity? What is the purpose of the world, and what is humanity's purpose? Why did Jesus come and what is the goal of our life in him?

I would characterize the "traditional" American understanding of the Christian faith by three terms: world-denying, pessimistic, and otherworldly. It is world denying in that it really doesn't have an answer for God's purpose in creating the world. Its view of humanity and the direction of our future is pessimistic. Our original purpose, of course, is to "glorify God and enjoy him forever," but humanity is so destroyed and the world is so beyond redemption that it is impossible for God to salvage anything from the planet but the few souls that he has decided to rescue. In order to fulfill our purpose, then, we shouldn't focus too much on what's happening here because our hope is completely in heaven. It is spiritual realities that we truly need to apply ourselves to. I would call this understanding an evacuation theology—the "I'll Fly Away" approach to Christian faith. Christ has simply come to rescue us from this rotten, stinking, sin and death-infested world and take us to heaven. The world is only going to get worse, so the best we can hope for is to be raptured the heck out of here before the world literally goes to hell.

In this perspective, everyday life, the eating, drinking, monotonous, daily grind kind of life, doesn't really have a lot of significance. Don't get me wrong, we have a lot of work to do in getting people saved so we can get them to go to heaven with us, but we really shouldn't be wasting our time on trying to change the world for the better. Nothing but winning souls matters; everything else is just waiting around to die and go to heaven. Does that really inspire you and give you a vision by which to live your everyday life? Don't get me wrong; the freedom from pain and struggle that Jesus promises us in heaven is a valid part of our Christian tradition that at some point in our lives as we grow older each of us is going to draw strength from. The hope of being absent from the body and present with the Lord is precious for those whose lives in the world are nothing but pain and hardship, like those imminently facing death or those who are living in the midst of severe poverty, illness, or oppression, but what about for the rest of us? What do we do until then? It's exactly this kind of view of Christian faith that caused me to leave my own fundamentalist background. It was all about what happens after death. There wasn't much meaning attached to our earthly, everyday lives. It's that ugly dualism again! The spiritual life cares not for the things of this world.

Of course, many Christians in America and around the world have realized the deficiency of this completely otherworldly kind of Christian understanding. I would characterize the alternative view by the terms: world-affirming, optimistic, and secular. It is world-affirming because it is insistent that the world is God's good creation. It has an optimistic view of human nature and of the progress of history. People are inherently good and if we just try a little harder, life can become heaven on earth. If this is the case, in this view, if life in this world holds out such good possibilities, we really don't have to focus too much attention on heaven or on truth claims about God. We really can't know too much about that stuff anyway. The most important thing about Jesus is how he has taught us to live in this world and love one another.

I say this is secular because, if the sum total of our Christian life is activism and we don't pay much attention to worship and the revelation of Scripture, there really isn't any need for the Church when we can accomplish the goal of making a better society through politics or justice movements outside the Church. Many historians and sociologists of religion think this is why Protestantism declined in the Northeast after the Civil War and into the early and middle 20th-century. That confounded dualism strikes again, divorcing our practical life in the world from worship.

Well, the reason I put forward Eastern Orthodoxy, as presented in this book, is that it puts forward a vision of life and of what we are doing here as the Church that, in my view, is unpolluted and uncontaminated by Western forces of modernity and secularity. It has not accepted this confounded dualism that puts religion in a marginal place in this world and takes from it the soul and the spirit of life, truly abundant life, that Jesus promises to give God's people here and now in this world and stretching forward into eternity. During the course of the study, we're going to see how the vision of Christian mission that Eastern Orthodoxy sets forth can give that spirit of life back to us.

Another reason Eastern Orthodoxy might be of help to us is that it's a tough time right now for the Church. If any Christian tradition knows adversity, it has been Eastern Orthodoxy. For the last 500 years, the Orthodox churches in the Middle East have managed to remain in spite of repressive theocratic Muslim governments or societies, and, of course, the Russian Orthodox Church and the other Orthodox churches in the former Soviet Union managed to survive and even thrive throughout nearly a century of Communist rule. There is some kind of power and beauty in this Christian tradition that has enabled it to continue and even flourish through long years of trial. What they've got to say, I think we need to hear and learn from.

There is also the fact that Reformed Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy have a few important areas of convergence. One of the pioneers of Reformed Christianity, John Calvin, looked toward the East in his teaching on the Lord's Supper. In light of this historic convergence, the historic catholic movement within American Presbyterianism has been fed and nourished in sacramental theology by Eastern Orthodox thinkers, especially our author, Alexander Schmemann. We see both of these currents running through the Communion liturgy we use in the Presbyterian Church USA.

So, what is the Eastern Orthodox understanding of the purpose of humanity and of the world?

The world's purpose-

In the Bible the food that man eats, the world of which he must partake in order to live, is given to him by God, and it is given as communion with God. The world as man's food is not something "material" and limited to material functions, thus different from, and opposed to, the specifically "spiritual" functions by which man is related God. All that exists is God's gift to man, and it all exists to make God known to man, to make man's life communion with God. It is divine love made food, made life for man. God blesses everything He creates, and, in biblical language, this means that He makes all creation the sign and means of His presence and wisdom, love and revelation: "O taste and see that the Lord is good." page 14

Humanity's purpose-

Man is a hungry being. But he is hungry for God. All desire is finally desire for Him. To be sure, man is not the only hungry being. All that exists lives by "eating." The whole creation depends on food. But the unique position of man in the universe is to bless God for the food and the life he receives from Him. He alone is to respond to God's blessing with his blessing. . . . The first, the basic definition of man is that he is the priest. He stands in the center of the world and unifies it in his act of blessing God, of both receiving the world from God and offering it to God—and by filling the world with this eucharist, he transforms his life, the one that he received from the world, into life in God, into communion with Him. The world was created as the "matter," the material of one all-embracing eucharist, and man was created as the priest of this cosmic sacrament. pages 14-15

Is this drastically different from our "traditional" American understanding of the Christian faith? What do you make of humanity being the priest and the world being the eucharist of God's presence? Does this understanding allow for a division of life into sacred and secular? What is most surprising?

What do the Scriptures testify?

Deut. 6:3-12- Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you. . . . then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

Romans 8:19-21- The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

How does Schmemann describe the Fall?

The "original" sin is not primarily that man has "disobeyed" God; the sin is that He ceased to be hungry for Him and for Him alone, ceased to see his whole life depending on the whole world as a sacrament of communion with God. The sin was not that man neglected his religious duties. The sin was that he thought of God in terms of religion, i.e., opposing Him to life. The only real fall of man is his noneucharistic life in a noneucharistic world. The fall is not that he preferred world to God, distorted the balance between the spiritual and material, but that he made the world material, whereas he was to have transformed it into "life in God," filled with meaning and spirit. page 18

Does this make sense? What about the characterization of religion itself being a result of the Fall?

In light of this understanding of the Fall, what is Christ's mission? What did his death and resurrection accomplish?

But it is the Christian gospel that God did not leave man in his exile, in the predicament of confused longing. He had created man "after His own heart" and for Himself, and man has struggled in his freedom to find the answer to the mysterious hunger in him. In this scene of radical unfulfillment God acted decisively: into the darkness where man was groping toward Paradise, He sent light. He did so not as a rescue operation, to recover lost man: it was rather for the completing of what He had undertaken from the beginning. God acted so that man might understand who He really was and where his hunger had been driving him.

The light God sent was His Son: the same light that had been shining unextinguished in the world's darkness all along, seen now in full brightness. page 18-19

How is this different from the "traditional" understanding of Christ's mission? How is it similar?

Consummation Theology:

In Him was the end of 'religion,' because He himself was the Answer to all religion, to all human hunger for God, because in Him the life that was lost by man—and which could only be symbolized, signified, asked for in religion—was restored to man. page 20

“In Christ, life—life in all its totality—was returned to man, given again as sacrament and communion, made Eucharist.” page 20

What do the Scriptures testify?

John 6:25-35- When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?" Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval." Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." So they asked him, "What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." "Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread." Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

For next time, we will look at how the Church itself is the sacrament of Christ's presence and action in the world by engaging Schmemann's discussion of the Eucharist in Chapter 2. Please take the time to read it; it is well worth it.

Edges of the Lord

Of the movies I watched this weekend, Role Models was easily the most fun, not to mention sinful, but Edges of the Lord was by far the most edifying. If you want to know how to grow up undercover in the midst of persecution and war, Edges of the Lord is the movie to watch. Surprisingly I had never heard of this movie before, but it was released in 2001 and stars Haley Joel Osment. Bad Polish accent (admittedly, not that bad) included, he's every bit as good in this movie as he was in The Sixth Sense and then later in Secondhand Lions.

In this movie, Osment stars as 11-year-old Romek, the young Jewish protagonist. It opens in Kraków, Poland in 1942. Romek is being taught Catholic prayers by his father in preparation for his escape to the Polish countryside, where the blond-haired and blue-eyed Romek will hide from the Nazis in plain sight by pretending to be a local farmer's cousin from the city. In order to make the charade work, Romek must be able to fit in with the devoutly Catholic Polish peasants he will be living among. Fortunately, one of Romek's saviors in the Polish countryside is the local priest, played by Willem Dafoe. He helps teach his young charge the ins and outs of Catholicism while paying careful attention to respect the boy's Jewish heritage.

Romek's other chief protectors are the farmer Gniecio, his wife Manka, and their two sons, Vladek and Tolo. Once Romek arrives in his haven, he tries to go about the business of being a typical adolescent, but the circumstances he finds himself in are anything but typical. Poland is under the tyrannical heel of Hitler's Germany, whose fury extends not only to Jews but to the Polish people as well, whom the Nazis also view as inferior. Romek, in particular, must deal quietly with his fears and hopes regarding the fate of his parents, who have gone into hiding elsewhere. The most visible challenge with which Romek must deal, however, and the one with which the movie's plot deals most extensively, is that of fitting in with and gaining the friendship of his peers.

Initially, Vladek, who is closest to Romek in age, makes things extremely hard for him, playing the tyrant with the smaller and frailer boy. Of Gniecio's sons, however, the junior Tolo is most accommodating and welcoming to their guest, soon forming a close bond with Romek. Of those village youngsters not of Gniecio's family, Romek becomes most enamored of Maria, an inquisitive, pretty, and rather fierce girl who is the lone female playmate of the group and Vladek's girlfriend. That she is also kindly disposed to Romek only serves to intensify Vladek's animosity toward Romek. Even less kindly disposed to Romek than Vladek are the sons, Robal and Pyra, of the oafish neighbor Kluba. This family will later prove to bring great grief to Romek and to Gniecio's family.

At times, it seems as if the most important concerns of the youngsters are typical ones, like swimming in the quarry, eating strawberries, the battle between the sexes, and catechism class, but the devastation of the war and the brutal Nazi occupation is ever-present to mar the otherwise idyllic setting of the film.

This becomes shockingly apparent when the neighbor Batylin is caught possessing pigs after the Germans have seized all of the Poles' livestock and forbidden them from possessing any on the pain of death. The children run to Batylin's field, looking on from the trees as the priest begs the German officer for Batylin and his wife's lives. The sadistic Nazi officer makes a bargain with the priest, agreeing to spare one life if the priest can catch a pig in one minute. If he can catch two pigs in two minutes, he can save both lives. The other soldiers on hand laugh hysterically as the priest scrambles through hay and dirt, trying desperately and vainly to catch the slippery, squealing pigs running wildly through the field. He fails and the elderly couple is executed. From her place in the trees, Maria flees the scene, leaving the boys behind. Romek is not alone in having lost his parents; Tolo later explains to him that Maria had seen her parents murdered by the Nazis in a fashion similar to that which they have just witnessed at Batylin's field.

After this tragedy, life returns to "normal" in the village. The young group of friends and the priest return to the concerns of the catechism class, with the father asking the children to draw sticks on which the names of the apostles are written. He instructs them to learn all they can about the apostle they have chosen. Maria, who is an incipient feminist, inquires of the priest if Jesus played with girls too. He tells her she must learn all that she can of Mary Magdalene and emulate it.

During this session of catechesis, the priest also has another lesson to teach the children. In light of the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews and the fact that they are unknowingly associating with a Jew in Romek, the priest inquires of the children which people group Jesus was from. Pyra suggests that Jesus was from the Vatican. Only Romek is unsurprised when the priest tells the children that Jesus was Jewish.

The theme of redemption, which begins to reveal itself even prior to this moment (Romek sees the priest beating himself in the barn after he fails to save Batylin and his wife, which Romek interprets as the priest's arguing with God), begins to come into sharp relief as Tolo insists that there can be no apostles without Jesus. He takes it upon himself to play the part of Jesus, vowing to undertake "Jesus exercises" to prepare. Romek, a quick study about the Christian faith, suggests that if Tolo plays the part of Jesus, he must hang on a tree all through the cold and dark night. Tolo is unfazed; if that is what it takes to become like Jesus, that is exactly what he will do, not to mention wearing a crown made from a rosebush and, oddly, running naked in the rain.

The children take to the "Jesus games," though perhaps in ways the priest had not intended. For instance, highlighting the theme of growing up and discovering love, Maria imitates Mary Magdalene, telling the boys that she is going to take her beloved into the barn for an hour, after which they are to pretend to pick up stones to throw at her. To Vladek's chagrin, Maria chooses to take Romek into the barn with her instead of him. What ensues in the barn is an expression of innocence and naïveté when it comes to matters of love and sexuality, which Romek and the older Maria both display. It deals with the matter in a touching, modest, and appropriately awkward way.

In the wake of Batylin's death, Gniecio decides it is time to sell his own family's pig. He ventures off into the night with Kluba to sell the pig in town. In a pouring rain, Kluba returns the next afternoon, hauling Gniecio's bloodied, lifeless body in his cart. A heart-rending scene ensues as an inconsolable Manka beats her husband's lifeless body, pleading for him to wake up. Kluba says that Gniecio had left him the previous night with the man to whom he was selling the pig but did not return. Kluba had found him later, shot in a ditch. Some neighbors had reported that the Germans had done it. Young Tolo comforts his anguished mother, but, as Romek relates in his narration, Tolo does not cry for his father.

With the tragedies in the village and in all of Europe closing in around them and finally coming to rest in his own family, Tolo comes to understand in an ever deeper way the need for redemption from human brutality and suffering. He expresses this in his continuing and escalating "Jesus exercises." The night after his father's funeral, for instance, he runs naked in the rain. Lying sick in bed the next day, Tolo summons his friends to his bedside and has them make a solemn vow.

Tolo: I have a plan, and all of you are in it. On that special night, I'm going to hang on the tree all night, and I am going to make them all come back.
Vladek: Who, Tolo?
Tolo: Papa. . . . And yours (pointing at Maria). And yours, too, Romek. . . . And we all have to take a bath together.
Romek: Get baptized?
Tolo: Get baptized together to get ready. . . . You all must say yes.

They all do. In the next scene, Tolo has his friends dip their heads into a bucket full of water and he kisses each one as they rise from their "baptism." After removing his "priestly vestments," Tolo gives one of the best baptismal sermons I have ever heard. Imagine that he is Jesus: "Because you shiver . . . (coughs) in this holy river and you might get cold, listen to me and remember that you all put your heads in the bucket, and now you have to follow me. I'm going to suffer for you. But I'm going to make things better."

The final significant conversation I want to lift out from the movie is between Romek and the priest. It has significance not only for its statement about humanity but also for Eucharistic theology and ecclesiology, but I won't get into that here. In this, Romek's most important catechism session, the priest is preparing hosts for Communion. He asks Romek if he would like one. Romek, perhaps not understanding transubstantiation fully, declines with a look of horror on his face. The priest laughs, assuring him that they are not holy hosts just yet and that he can freely eat them. Besides, he assures Romek, these are only the edges, which he never blesses. Recognizing the cosmic significance that Catholics attach to the bread, Romek asks a profound question about humanity.

Romek: Are we blessed, or are we just the edges?
Priest: We are all scraps, Romek. We are all blessed the same.
Romek: But not all the people. Right?

The priest does not answer. Romek begins to break the edges into pieces representing all the people who have been lost: Batylin, his wife, Vladek's father, Maria's parents.

Romek then informs the priest that he has been to the trains that pass through the village and asks him point blank if his parents are going to come back for him. The priest tells him that they probably will not, so Romek breaks off two more edges to represent them.

Edges of the Lord is a poignant and powerful story but a melancholy one. It treats with depth and sincerity the various ways in which war warps the young, bringing out the worst in some but also bringing out the best in others. In the process, Edges of the Lord calls on all of us to answer humanity's highest calling regardless of the circumstances—the calling to love our neighbor. It is exhortation for us to sacrifice for the edges of the Lord just as we would for Jesus himself, to love and to seek an end to all the terrible things that people do to one another. The ending to this film, as much and more than anything I have described so far, is a great statement of redemption and sacrifice—a terrible, sad, and unforgettable one but a great one nonetheless. Can we recognize Jesus in the despised and persecuted other? Can we identify with the condemned like he did?

Empathy

Is God the distant Prince of the Stars?
Is God the Indifferent One who cares not for His children?
Is God the Cold Controller—the Perfecter of Power?
Does He care how we feel?

Is God beyond pain, suffering, and weakness?
Is He the Cosmic Sadist who wounds us for kicks?

Are You the God of the philosophers?
Are You the bare, cold Reason above emotion and heat?
Or if passionate, do You burn with wrath and self-interested love?
Is justice Your concern or Your shifting whims?

O God, O God, do You really love me?
Do I really matter to You or am I just a toy—
a subject to Your infininence and uncompromising will?
I know You created me, that You gave me breath.
You know my every thought; my very hairs are numbered.
My lying down and rising up are ever in Your eyes.

But the Christ, the Christ!
If You were in Him, it could be that You have some empathy
for us creatures here below.
If You came to us in Jesus, it means you truly became one of us,
that you lived in our skin and walked in our shoes.

No, you never failed like me, but maybe it makes a difference
that you could have.
No, you never did the things I have, but you don't judge me for that.
You don't throw stones at sinners like me,
only at the pretenders who beat us down,
who want to make us pay and keep paying.

Holy and blameless were you, but you didn't flaunt it.
You were humble and forgiving, gathering to you the weak and flawed,
the hos and Joes, the cheaters and thieves, the terrorists and schemers.

Your life showed you were the friend of mortals and sinners,
but your death says even more.
You never sinned, but you identified yourself with the worst of the worst.
You died the death reserved for murderers and thieves,
beaten like a slave, tortured, slaughtered like a lamb.

But what of the wrathful Father who required the sins of the guilty
from the innocent Son?
Is this the unfeeling Patriarch of the Skies again playing vicious games
with his powerless creatures.

If the theologians are right about Father, Spirit, Son,
then the exacting Father and self-emptying Son are one.

Oh most gracious Lord! What a strange Man you are,
never requiring more of us than that which You Yourself have supplied.
Deign, if You will, to save me by Your own hand.
Condemn me only if You know how it feels.
Aye, but I pray for the first.
Through the stripes of the Son, please dear Lord,
rescue me from the curse.

Love the Lord Your God with All Your Strength.

*Disclaimer: Though this writing deals with the kinds of things I have been writing about in this blog, it is of a more intensely personal nature than anything else I have posted so far. I post it with some trepidation but feel that it could possibly be of worth to someone. Some of what I have written is of a sensitive and mature nature. I just want to caution my female readers that this post deals in some depth with "guys' issues" but, at the same time, I feel it is reflective of universal human experience.*

I struggle with a flesh that is wracked by desires that are too powerful for me to control. I am at their mercy. At some point I can resist them, but, if they do not relent . . . I am slain. Alas, I am always failing, and the failure is bitter. It is never a joyous embrace of that which I have desired but a beggarly and dirtied submission to the faint and distorted outline of that to which my flesh points and testifies in its desire. What a cruel trick! I do not know my desires or what I am really searching for until I have failed and realized that what I had grasped in that guilty moment was a shameful and deceitful sham for something real, holy, and deep. Why does my body declare truths and then lie so coldly?

My body screams that it wants sexual gratification. That is true, but that is not all of it. That is just the heat put off by the fire that burns within. My desire points, not to the pleasure, but to the passionate embrace of love. It is not sex I want. I want union. I want love. Anything less is a cheap and degrading substitute for something so powerful and holy. The union of man and woman, husband-and-wife, an expression of love and self-sacrifice whereby pleasing the other brings such great pleasure.

Sometimes my soul feels so isolated; it feels so alone. How wonderful it would be to unite completely with another human being, to give all of myself to the woman I love and to whom I am exclusively, passionately, and eternally dedicated, to receive all of her in turn, so close that we are one flesh. Here, by virtue of being united, there is no distance between us physically and no distance between our hearts and our souls. We have become one soul. This is truly what it means to know fully and to be fully known. This is holy. This is beautiful. This is sacramental. Truly this is the highest height and deepest depth of love.

What a great and terrible sin to transgress this most sacred, beautiful, and deep Holy of Holies of human relationships! Nothing on earth is more sacred than this mystery. It must be kept pure. How dare we subject this mystery to our whims, to our convenience, to our perversity of will and desire! Pornography. To hell with it! Send it back to hell from whence it came. It is a sham; a demonic deception of the lowest kind! Missing the forest for the gnarled trees.

A lonely young man with little hope of experiencing this union of body and soul with another, this depth of love, the very fullest expression of life and love and passion and grace and service and joy and pleasure and grace. Oh God. How cruel it seems that I should be denied the love of a loving woman after by its absence I have learned to appreciate it so. A wonderful, soft, lovely, sensuous, delicate, vibrant, beautiful, intelligent, charming, kind, good, passionate, gracious, loving, forgiving, pleasing light that would so illuminate everything that is good and worthwhile about life, about the world, about humanity, about God. Does she know how much of my devotion she would truly have? Does she know that she would be the most loved of all women who have ever been loved by a man? Does she know the treasure and blessing she would be to me, that I would be to her in return? Why is it that her heart is not moved by the one who would appreciate her most, love her most deeply, give of himself most freely.

Where is she? So many times I have recklessly and foolishly thought I had found her. No. I deceive myself, rush myself, delude myself into thinking she might care. I fall so quickly, so recklessly, so foolishly. I am impatient. My life drains away, time continues on, gather ye rosebuds while ye may, daylight's burning. For one who claims such a regard for love, I treat it so cavalierly. So much as a smile from a young lady, and I am smitten, I am slain. I would promise her the moon and the stars in a moment, fully and foolishly in earnest. Why am I so impatient? The love of a woman is indeed a great treasure, but with all good things, it takes time. A love so quickly grasped is as seed thrown on shallow soil. It springs up full of joy, but as soon as it meets a challenge, it withers away and dies. It has no root. It has not had time to dig deep in the soil of friendship, of companionship, of deep conversation and inside jokes, of the common experience of growing in respect and admiration for one another, of surprises, of disappointments, of hurts and bruises inflicted and then tenderly bound up, of conflict, of resolution and reconciliation, of time and distance, of good times and bad, of memories made together. Its source is not fire but its mere heat, which dissipates away in a few moments. My body, my hormones, my desperation, my fear, my impatience, my loneliness, my neediness, they shipwreck me. They deceive. I speak of love in such lofty terms but treat it with such shallowness.

Sex? Is that my problem? If only the biological urge were not so strong. I wonder, am I that starved for love, or is it just my manhood? Do I just want to hop in the sack? Is it just my glands? I am a man after all. I do have testosterone, and apparently quite a bit of it. The biological desire is not wrong, but getting too hung up on the physical can cause one to miss the forest for the trees.

Perhaps I have missed a wonderful love, perhaps I have overlooked "the one" because I was feeling with the wrong organ or giving my eyes too much authority over my affections. Attraction is vital, but I'm afraid I have given it too much emphasis. Maybe I deserve my loneliness. Maybe I've just got what's coming to me. There have been a few in the past that have liked me, but I overlooked them because they failed to strike me as attractive. How can I feel cheated or wronged or not given the consideration I have warranted when I have failed to give it to others? After all, beggars can’t be choosers. But I'm not so beggarly after all. It's not as if I'm hideous, and I really believe that I have much to offer beyond the physical. Besides, women don't get as hung up on how we look as we do about how they look. Ay, but that's the rub; if only I could see from the inside out. True beauty comes from within.

What I fear, though, is something far worse. Are people really so shallow as to write me off immediately as a possibility because I am disabled? Does it have something to do with a defect of personality, want of social skills, lack of confidence, the way I look, or is it that I am somehow viewed by women as less of a man because I'm in a wheelchair? Is it my disability? Am I doomed to be alone because I'm physically dependent. Women want a certain physical strength or power in a man that I do not possess. They want to be held, someone to protect them and to provide for them, someone to take the lead in making love to them. It is true that I belie the stereotype of what a man should truly be, but is this not something I can compensate for in a certain mental, spiritual, or emotional strength? I am strong though I am weak. No, I cannot hold her all through the night or lovingly lay her down, but I can be a solid rock for her to lean on.

The body, the material, the sensual is infused all through with a powerful potentiality. It is a glorious palette upon which the spirit can express its abundance, its passion, its very life. It is good. It is very good. It is very, very good. Physicality mediates the experience of the human. It is the place where the divine and the earth kiss in a passionate embrace. It is the conduit, the stage for the highest experience of the sublime, of the ecstatic, of the heavenly, of the glorious, of the gentle, of the soft, of the powerful, of the electricity of being. It is where flame's fire burns, the ice's cold bites; it's where sense finds its sensation and where passion finds its expression.

Physicality is also where we encounter the other. The other who says we are not alone. It tells us that there are others who share our reality, who trod the same earth in the same shoes. They share our passions, our fears, our sorrows, our pains, our joys, our pleasures. They share the same life that we do. It is in this knowledge that existence finds its savor and its purpose. A community of embodied spirits makes these dry bones live. We do for, with, to, and because of people-for their smiles, their touches, their looks, their favor, their benefit and ours, the blessing and fulfillment of all. Life is beautiful. It is grand and magnificent, a glorious shout of exultation at the sheer wonder of being. How glorious it is that I know, feel, comprehend, that I am! How much greater it is that he is and that she and she and he are! This is great knowledge. The possibility of all this! How glorious the Being that must exist to give us this incredible gift! Praise be to God for our lives! Praise be to God that he has placed us here between heaven and earth! Thank you God for the stuff we are made of. Oh thank you Lord for becoming one of us, taking our physicality, sanctifying it, exalting it, and ransoming it from the Fall. It is all your good creation and we, all of us, mind, soul, heart, body, are designed by your hand the most glorious of all this very good creation.

What would we do without a hug or a kind word? What would we do without shared laughter and shared food? Where would we be without jokes and stories and speech and words? For family, friends, lovers, strangers, animals, the soil, the sky, the snow, the thunder, the rain, the wind, God be praised! We see, we hear, we touch, we taste, we smell, and we declare that all you have created is good and very good. Thank you for coming to share this with us as the blessed Son of Man. Thank you for all the images of yourself that we see in the eyes of the human other. It is good that we are not alone.

Shuffling feet, lively voices, work week stories, "Good Morning!" "Good to see you today!" Cups of coffee, hale and hearty, creaking chairs, children running 'round, their smiles, their shrieks of delight, their games, hymn books and Bibles, "Let us prepare our hearts for worship." Vestments of purple, the altar covered in silver, the loaf, the wine, the smell of yeast, young and old, man and woman and child, the bored and the earnest, rich and poor, saint and sinner singing, piano clanging:

"All creatures of our God and King
Lift up your voice and with us sing,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou burning sun with golden beam,
Thou silver moon with softer gleam!

O praise him! O praise him!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!"

Reading the Scriptures:

"Lift up your heads, O gates!
and be lifted up, O ancient doors!
that the King of glory may come in.

Who is the King of glory?
The Lord, strong and mighty,
the Lord, mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O gates!
and be lifted up, O ancient doors!
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts,
he is the King of glory."

Gentle reader says, "This is the Word of the Lord." Many voices ring, crying, "Thanks be to God!" General and private confession and absolution, "In Christ we are forgiven!" The encouraging Word preached by kind and reverend sage, the Word speaking, fed flock declaring:

"I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth.

And I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried,
descended into hell,
and the third day rose from the dead.
He ascended into heaven
and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen."

Ancient hymns, glorious ancient Church, creeds and liturgy, a mystery we are caught up in, God is here, deacons collecting widows mites in scarlet bags.

"Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. A-men. Amen."

The Feast of the Church, Supper blessed at the Table, body of Christ in silver dish, breaking loaf, "This is my body, broken for you. Take, eat it. Do this in remembrance of me." Munching, chewing in unison the bread from heaven, our manna in the desert.

The Cup consecrated, blood of Christ in tiny plastic cups, "This is my blood in the new covenant, drink all of it", slurping, sucking, clicking in unison, strangely warmed, Jesus like a jelly sandwich, "There is Power in the Blood!" United with Christ and one another, flock fully fed.

Smiling, bearded young man, raising hands, gives the benediction "The Lord bless you and keep you, and may God cause his face to shine upon you!" Processing out, singing, "Amen. Amen. Amen." Romantic orthodoxy. Embodied Living Presence made known through Word and Sacrament, a happy and blessed people of God.