This Sunday, our Pastoral Intern, Tim Bowyer, urged us to see in the sacrament of communion a startling reality, a face to face encounter with God. Drawing on the important work of theologian, David Ford, Tim helped us to draw on the many rich metaphors from Scripture of salvation in the face of God. Maybe, Tim will post his notes here soon.... I’ll ask him. Tim, are you reading this?
God is always facing us and he is always inviting us, even to the point of wrestling us, to turn our face towards him. This is the way God is. He is always facing every human being made in his image and inviting her or him to be fully alive, to flourish as a human being. In spite of our wrestling to turn our faces away from God, his gaze is always there on us, wishing to impart love and forgiveness to us. We are the bearers of his image and he has attached himself to us in love and hospitality.
This is an important thing for us to keep in mind as we think about the meaning of these words of the Lord’s prayer: your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. These words are to meant to be a petition on behalf of all of humanity - an agonizing cry for each human being made in God’s image to be made fully alive to God’s love and forgiveness. And when we remember that this is what we are praying and not just for ourselves or our churches but for all human beings in all circumstances - well, that begins to help us see the world a little bit more as God sees the world and a little less like we would see it if left to our fears, our prejudices, our self-righteousness, and our pure selfishness.
When we think of this petition in this way then we pray for and give thanks for human flourishing in all of its manifestations. We pray for all people to come to know and experience the love that Christ has shown for us and we will also pray for our Muslim neighbors to enjoy the same freedom of worship that we do. We pray for the child soldiers in Sudan - that they come alive to God’s love and grace in Christ and we pray that the efforts to bring psychological healing to their trauma will bear much fruit whether that care comes from a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew or an atheist. The prayer for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven is a prayer for the coming of shalom on this earth, a state of peace between human beings and each other and human beings and God; in the world to come the peace between people and each other and people and God will be in full fruition because, to quote St Paul, Christ will be all in all. However, in order to represent God as generously as he represents himself in this in-between-time some Christians, most Christians, you and I must repent of reducing our understanding of human flourishing in this fallen world to a matter of already actualized conversion to Christ. We must pray for human flourishing to come in all of its forms and celebrate it wherever it occurs and mourn it whenever it is absent.
In speaking to a group of Bishops of the Anglican church in Africa last month, Rowan Williams , archbishop of Canterbury said this in his homily of the role of a bishop and I think it is in a sense the place where all Christ followers should want to stand: “We have the responsibility brothers and sisters of showing the world how precious a thing is a human being – and a special responsibility to show the world the preciousness of those who are hated or neglected by others or by society at large.”
When we the affections of our heart are shaped by daily praying for others to come to understand how precious they are in God’s sight we are praying in line with the Lord’s prayer: your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Questions for discussion:
1. Respond to the Williams quote above. Can you think of one person you know who you ought to help understand more fully what a “precious thing it is to be a human being”? If not too personal, can you share a bit with the group?
2. During the remarks leading into communion, Tim Bowyer, drawing on David Ford’s work, invoked the story of Jacob and the angel. Do you ever sense that you are wrestling with God? Do you think that wrestling with God is a normal part of a healthy relationship with God?
3. "Salvation in the face of God": what a wonderful metaphor. Why and how is it helpful to think of our relationship with God in metaphors?
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Here are my notes. I didn't have much time to abbreviate them, so don't feel the need to read past what Ford says...
ReplyDeleteI talked about the sacrament of Communion being a place of face to face encounter with the living God.
There is a great history of salvation by the face of God, from the moment of shame when Adam and Eve turned their faces from God in Eden, to Moses, whom God spoke to face to face, as a friend, to David's Psalms asking God not to turn his face from him, to Christ's encounters with his band of followers, especially after the resurrection.
David Ford, a scholar and professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, has a lovely treatise entitled Self and Salvation, in which he gives an account of the Biblical history of salvation in the face of God. He unfolds a theology of facing from the Scriptures' use of the word, panim, most often translated as "face" as in the Numbers chapter 6 benediction: "The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace."
As a metaphor for this idea, he discusses Jacob's struggle with God at Peniel.
If you don't recall the story in detail, see Genesis 32.
Of this Ford says (Self and Salvation 195):
"The context of this face to face seeing has been mortally dangerous, wounding combat. Rembrandt has a painting of the scene which interprets it profoundly. In it, Jacob (the supplanter who from birth seized his brother's heel from behind and later took his blessing behind his back and fled) is having his neck slowly and painfully turned so that he looks his opponent in the face. It is salvation as the terrible struggle with a God who is content with nothing less than complete reconciliation face to face. On the cross too there is wrestling, there is wounding to the point of death, the identity of a people and of God is at stake, and there is eventual blessing. It is as if the whole dream is a way of painfully wrenching our necks to focus on this dead face as the sign of reconciliation.
God has chosen to meet us and extend his grace to us. God is turning his face to us and we are doing our best to meet it. Like Jacob, we are given a new name and identity, one that is rooted in the saving face of Jesus Christ, CRUCIFIED and RISEN. Here we receive a blessing, the loving presence of God.
Christ met his disciples face to face at the meal that instituted this sacrament, so he meets us here, and we meet him, in the very ordinary faces of each other.
The image is of the Kingdom of God, inexhaustible in its Feasting before the face of the King. This ought to help us imagine that in this meal, we are joined, not only to those we face physically in this room, but the entirety of Christian past, present, and future, ONE GREAT LIMITLESS KNOT. An image of the abundance of God, overwhelming all of humankind with love for everyone, an image of the age and kingdom to come, wherein feasting in absolute reconciliation will be our ongoing habit.
Though we find it too hard to bear, and we resist grace, based on a sense of ignorance, dishonor, or undeserving. In spite of how often we delay or forgo the sustaining practice of the gospel, God turns his face towards us and offers us grace. The table offers us an encounter with the divine, whereby we are undone, forgiven, accepted, and renewed. Even when our minds are playing catch up or doubting the experience …our bodies practice gospel, and wrestle with God, meet his face and receive a blessing.
Thanks Tim: great thoughts.
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