Aristotle thought that young people (under the age of 30) shouldn't study philosophy because they could not be wise or practiced in the virtues. When I first learned that as an undergraduate studying philosophy, I at first thought that terribly unfair, and I generally countered his thought with this verse from Psalm 119: "I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the elders, for I keep your precepts." And of course Paul told Timothy, "Let no one despise you because of your youth." It never occurred to me that the Psalmist's words and St. Paul's words were rarely applicable. For a long time I believed everyone surely must love wisdom . . . they just aren't very good at it, that's all!
Also in college I learned that some students of theology were irritating and perhaps Aristotle had met young people like them, and that was why he thought the young should not study grave subjects. These young people were irritating to me for very particular reasons: they were more interested in the way in which advanced-sounding subjects like "systematic theology" made them appear intelligent than they were in actual learning. They were more in love with their egos than they were in love with the study of God. I found this very difficult to understand--for although I was no stranger to love of ego, it seemed stupid to study theology to show-off. Why not study something less important? The love and study of God seemed too important to trifle with.
It occurs to me even now that we can all study theology or write theology or advocate for theology for all the wrong reasons. We can do it with something other than love in mind. We can study our books and write our papers and have nothing of real value in mind--we can completely miss the service of the Church and of God in favor of something else. What a waste that would be.
I was praying the other day and decided to do something I hadn't done in a little while: use some Ignatian methods of prayer with imagination. As I often do, I "imagined" Jesus with me and waited for him to say or do something. To my surprise, he didn't do any of the things I normally expect from him, instead he just sat there, slumped over, and clearly sad. I waited for a moment, and I think I said something like, "So . . . what's up?" His response was, "I'm sad about my church. I am sad about the brokenness of my church."
I couldn't really think of anything to say in response. Of course Jesus is sad about the brokenness of his church. One would have to be a fool not to be sad, at least on some level, about the brokenness of the church. But on that particular day, I wasn't feeling terribly sad about the denominational aspect of the church's brokenness, so I was a bit surprised that He said something about it.
It took me the course of the day to realize that Jesus wasn't really talking about the divisions between denominations--as heartbreaking as that is. He was actually talking about the kind of brokenness that means people shut out the love of God. While I hadn't been doing very much reflecting lately about ecumenical issues in the church, I had been consumed with thought--and some grief--about the ways in which people don't want to be loved. How much some people (Christians) don't want to be loved. How much they ignore or turn away from God's provision of love, or his own outstretched arms of love. How much they would rather have things other than love. How much they are consumed by idolatrous desires for approval, for acceptance, for importance in the eyes of their brothers and sisters in Christ or of the world, and how much they simply are not able to believe and receive the gifts God wants to give them. How often are our hearts cold and hard because we don't want the good things God has for us? We'd rather play around with our addictions and diseases and our own death than be healed and forgiven and accepted and loved. We play in death all the time. And that makes Jesus sad, yet we do this all the time and the adherence to saying the Nicene rather than the Apostle's Creed will not compel you otherwise.
So . . . it occurred to me that in all my thoughts about ecumenism, I had really forgotten about something the same way my college irritants had forgotten that they were studying theology because God is beautiful and worthy to be loved and adored. They had forgotten that worship is at the heart of all theology, and I had forgotten or never quite knew that love is at the heart of ecclesiology and ecumenism. Theologians occasionally differ (peaceably I think) as to whether they say that the Church was born out of the blood and water which came when Christ's heart was pierced by the spear or whether she was born when the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost. Either way, the Church is born when the love of God is poured out for us, the Holy Spirit is Love, and the blood poured out for us at Calvary is love. The Church is born of Love, of the Bridegroom for the future Bride, and our meditations both on the nature of the church and on the ecumenical call to peace and reconciliation must begin with the identity of the Church as She who is Loved, the Beloved of God, the loved one in the Song of Songs.
I was thinking about ways in which I wish the ACNA would structure its conversations on the controversial matter of the ordination of women. What I would really like to see is our Church come together about our identity first. And I would like to see us come together in a way that is real and tangible, not just paying lip service to things we are supposed to believe. I would like to have us have theological conversations in a matter befitting to Christians. I would like to see them begin and end in love--knowing that the Church exists as living witness and proof of God's love, born out of his love, and born to the great purpose of one day being united to him in perfect wholeness, perfect peace, and perfect joy. I would like to see a celebration of the nature of the Church as one loved by God, in which we are all striving to do what we can to show that love to one another. And I would like to see us commit to love one another deeply from the heart, and to stop having theological conversations until we have done the first duty of loving our neighbors. How can we reason about the things of God if we will not obey him? And if we hate and resent our brothers and sisters about such small things, and intend to quarrel about power and doctrine, what good is it to pretend to talk to one another? I want us to love one another first, and settle questions of theology later. Maybe that means a lot of healing and reconciliation first, I imagine it means growth in trusting God to settle things rather than giving into our own fears and anxieties about what will happen if someone else does something or believes something we think is wrong or unjust. I would like to see Jesus Heal in our Church, and offer that healing to our world. I would like to see us awake to our identity in Christ and offer the world an escape from worshiping dead idols.
Love, real love, is heartbreaking. It is hard and difficult and looks like the Cross and not like the Hallmark channel. I think really learning how to love our neighbors as ourselves--or perhaps just beginning to love our neighbors as ourselves means the destruction of a whole lot of the "person" I think I am--the false identity, the false refuge of self I have created for myself in which I can hide. Love will break you down and break you apart and overturn everything that seems right to you (Jesus died and the apostles didn't understand it at all), but Love turns the kingdoms of the world upside down and puts the right Man on the throne. I really hope that the ACNA takes up the mantle of calling Anglican Christians and especially Anglican Christian leaders to the humble, patient, inglorious calling of love rather than to whatever thing the Episcopal church was seeking after for the last fifty years. Was she searching for acceptance for the world, for recognition, for power, for relevance? I don't really know, but I think her face was turned to the world and away from God. If she had sought those things in God, she might have been weak and despised in the ways of the world, but strong and mighty to the casting down of strongholds in the name and power and will of God. I hope we have the courage to embrace the latter destiny rather than the former. I hope we have the courage to embrace shame and distress and irrelevance and smallness because we are so sure of ourselves in God, and so sure we are loved by Him, and chosen, and called according to his purposes. We certainly can't do it without his love. And if we don't know we are possessed by the God who is Love, we don't really have anything, and we don't really know anything, and we have forfeited our identity and mission as the Church.
Why not enact an ecclesiology and a call to unity and a call to theological conversation based on 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live out these things in fullness and in perfection and impart their bounty to us: we need to be about the business of receiving all that God is, so we may give him away to every one we meet.
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