Jesus hasn’t just gone away. He has gone deeper into the heart of reality ”“ our reality and God’s. He has become far more than a visible friend and companion; he has shown himself to be the very centre of our life, the source of our loving energy in the world and the source of our prayerful, trustful waiting on God. He has made us able to be a new kind of human being, silently and patiently trusting God as a loving parent, actively and hopefully at work to make a difference in the world, to make the kind of difference love makes.
So if the world looks and feels like a world without God, the Christian doesn’t try to say, ”˜It’s not as bad as all that’, or seek to point to clear signs of God’s presence that make everything all right. The Christian will acknowledge that the situation is harsh, even apparently unhopeful ”“ but will dare to say that they are willing to bring hope by what they offer in terms of compassion and service. And their own willingness and capacity for this is nourished by the prayer that the Spirit of Jesus has made possible for them.
The friends of Jesus are called, in other words, to offer themselves as signs of God in the world ”“ to live in such a way that the underlying all-pervading energy of God begins to come through them and make a difference.
“God is the depth of energy out of which every single thing comes. . . .
The friends of Jesus are called, in other words, to offer themselves as signs of God in the world – to live in such a way that the underlying all-pervading energy of God begins to come through them and make a difference. ”
Is this Anglican theology? We emerge from God, and, at the request or by the example of Jesus, we can, through our own volition and works, bring the energy of God into the world to make it better?
This isn’t quite Jedi theology, because I think the Force emerges from living things. It isn’t Buddhist theology, because it is still dualistic and still posits the existence of individuals. It is not the Bhagavad Gita, because duty seems irrelevant and renewal comes from us bringing God into the world, instead of us returning to God. I don’t think it is Christian, because I think Jesus believed in a sovereign Father God, to whom we owe love and obedience (which is the same idea behind Islam and Judaism). Perhaps it is the theology of the liberal welfare state.
If it isn’t Anglican theology, should we care? Does theology matter?
No. 1: Yes, that’s Anglican theology, with a bit of Orthodox terminology thrown in, I’d say.
“Be careful not to think that God is there to fill the gaps, to solve the problems, to fit in in our terms.” That’s good philosophical theology–often put just that way over the past 50 years–to get us away from the idea of God as either miracle worker (the God of the zaps) or explanation for what science has not yet explained (the God of the gaps).
“God isn’t a thing among other things.” Again: good phil’l theology. We often speak of God as a being among beings when God is a member of a class of which God is the only member.
“God is the depth of energy out of which every single thing comes.” Reminiscent of the language of St Gregory Palamas and the Eastern Fathers who talked of the divine energies and of how we can participate in that. Yes, chilly if taken by itself, but have to read Williams in context.
“If we can’t instantly ‘see’ God in the world, perhaps it’s because he is like the air we breathe, so all-pervasive that we can never pin down its presence as if it were an object.”
That’s straight out of Austin Farrer, whom Williams knows very well. (Farrer puts it better, though.)
“Well yes; that’s all very well, but it sounds a bit chilly, doesn’t it? So it does – if we ignore the other big thing we need to remember. Jesus goes away – but he promises that he will fill his friends with his Spirit…. Whatever we may be feeling from moment to moment, we’ve been given a relationship with Jesus that doesn’t depend on being able to see him and speak with him in the way his friends could during his earthly life and immediately after his resurrection.”
This is a pretty good way of speaking of the meaning of the Ascension, isn’t it? After all, the Ascension, in its bare form, is pretty heavily mythological in its expression, wouldn’t you agree? It has to be translated from first-century terms to 21st-century terms to have meaning for us today.
“And this relation means that we are able to turn in complete trust to God as father in the way Jesus did, and also to respond to the apparently God-less world with something of his compassion and his transfiguring energy.”
That’s ok, but I wish that Williams hadn’t ended with his rather lame conclusion that we all try to–the dreaded cliche–“make a difference.”
“Jesus hasn’t just gone away. He has gone deeper into the heart of reality – our reality and God’s. He has become far more than a visible friend and companion; he has shown himself to be the very centre of our life, the source of our loving energy in the world and the source of our prayerful, trustful waiting on God.”
It’s the combination of love and energy and center of reality and personal presence that definitely rescues this sermon from the Star Wars/impersonal Force category.
This language (energeia) is drawn directly from Scripture, particularly St. Paul – in English it’s often translated the “working” of God – cosmically, in Christ and transformatively within the church as in Ephesians 1:19, Ephesians 4: 16, Colossians 1: 29, 1 Thess. 2:13 etc. I would image that the Archbishop is using this language precisely because it’s Scriptural (and is, of course, taken up and becomes enormously significant within Orthodox theology).
No. 3: Very good; thanks.
If you cannot tell what he is saying, I think he has accomplished his purpose. Anything else would be divisive. And throw in something for the Orthodox for good measure.
RE: “If it isn’t Anglican theology, should we care?”
I think — with the exception of a comparative few in the Anglican Communion — that most people do not care either way what the current holder of the See of Canterbury says or whether what he is saying is heretical or faithful.
No. 6: I think I’m just about at the point of broadening that dismissal to every pointy-hatted prelate in fancy dress in TEC, ACNA, AC, what-have-you. A rank amateur could do as well at either leadership or theology, without all the accompanying pretentiousness, sanctimoniousness, and cost.
No 7: Well — I can’t do that. I have a lot of respect for what the Primates of the vast majority of the Global South say. I’m interested in what they have to say.
As far as TEC goes, I have a lot of interest and respect in what Mark Lawrence has to say. He has been an astounding leader and has succeeded in differentiating — rather starkly — the diocese from the rampant corruption and heresy of the current leaders and vast majority of bishops of TEC.
As far as ACNA goes, I am very interested in what John Guernsey and Foley Beach have to say. They’ve always seemed like straight-shooters to me and seem to want to be honest about ACNA’s strengths and weaknesses.
More than any Anglican Gospel believer with power and influence that I can think of [obviously I’m not including those leaders who don’t share the same Gospel], Rowan Williams has squandered what respect and interest Anglican Christians might have in what he has to say. I’m not saying that because he would care about such things — I understand that he doesn’t, and that’s understandable as well. All he needs is for a few guys at the top — and particularly in the COE — to care what he thinks and utters. At one time he probably cared if his fellow Primates were interested and respectful of what he had to say. I doubt he does now.
At any rate, I just don’t think that the majority of informed, interested, active Gospel-believing Anglicans give a fig as to his utterances, nor do they waste many brain cells wondering if what he has to say is faithful or heretical. I certainly don’t.
It doesn’t really matter to me.
The last bishop I knew who was worth listening to retired in 1963.
Perhaps we can put forward enough care to talk about what he said, instead of complaining about what we think he should or shouldn’t do or say, or how he should or shouldn’t say it. Unless Rowan is one of the commenters here (which would be a little strange given what’s been said — but I’ve always wondered if maybe he had a strange little sense of humor…) — God hasn’t made any of us the Archbishop of Canterbury.
He didn’t preach the sermon I would have preached on Ascension, but I wonder if it might be worth examining what he did say. Is it true? Does it have something to say in our lives? Did it have something to say for those at St. Martin-in-the-Field? Is it opposed to the Truth taught in the scriptures?
It is really a very good effort by Rowan on a very important and too often neglected topic. I used this sermon with great profit in the adult Sunday school today where we teased out some of the theological meanings of the Ascension, which is one of the seven principal feasts of the Christian Year.
Whilst I agree that we shouldn’t make a general practice of critiquing sermons for what they do not say, I do find the omissions in this one surprising.
When he speaks of Christians modelling the love of God and the transcendence of God to the world, and when he speaks of the special relationship we have with God, it is rather surprising that there is not a hint of a reference to the fact that Jesus gave his own life to take away our sins. It wouldn’t bother me if he called it atonement or that we are justified, or any of a dozen other theological terms, or put it just in plain english – its still pretty fundamental to the very points on which he preaches.
The reason why I am moved to comment are:
* This is the very area on which Rowan Williams has been notably weak over the years. He has given the distinct impression that he is not comfortable preaching about Jesus’ atoning sacrifice for us. And yet this is arguably the single area where he could have provided leadership to the Church, but hasn’t done so.
* A couple of posts above are couched in laudatory terms of ++Williams. Yet I find very little in Rowan’s preaching or pronouncements to indicate that he has a really strong grasp of theology. His sermons tend to be very general, and to avoid certain hard bits of Christianity. This one is the same.
Mind you, I don’t doubt that there are some useful things there, and I can understand that some people would find some parts of it useful. But please, let’s keep the hype to a minimum – it was hardly momentous, and it did not fill the gaps which we have been noting in ++Williams’ theology for years.
“Well yes; that’s all very well, but it sounds a bit chilly, doesn’t it?”
Flor once, RW here touches on a matter of the utmost significance: Being in the company of God -and now Jesus, post ascension – is to stand unprotected in the dark emptiness of space into which energy springs unbidden and not understood. God is NOT a buddy, and neither is Jesus. On all mortality, the breathe of the void-which-is-not-void (for which English has no word) is cold and frightening, like the wind that blows from the grave. THIS is the reality, the source of the universe’s energy: life and death, naked and unprotected. Here science and religion are one thing, inseparable, and we can at last know ourselves. Most mortals cannot bear this clarity, this transparency, so we run and hide in Mariolatry and the like, wherein we are comforted, wherein Mother protects and shelters us. But the truth is is there in the dark-that-is-not-dark, where we must ask in desperate humilty who we are that He should be mindful of us.
God’s love is vast, implacable, incomprehensible. Only when we realize this can we understand that he has made each of us a nanopoint of light, of life-energy from which comes the warmth of love, a matter of such significance that he has gathered the dust of galaxies into a thousand planets that it may be enlarged, multiplied,
saved and stored. We will not know why we are important to him, but we are. Larry
I would have been happy to hear this sermon; much good, worthwhile, thought-provoking matter contained therein. And not just information–fortifying stuff for the soul and daily living, as well. I don’t have any great quarrel with Rowan Williams as a theologian. In fact, I’ve used some of his work in my own, rather less significant contributions. But as a leader, yikes…. He and the other powers-that-be have just about turned a lot of us off to the whole Anglican enterprise.
MichaelA: It’s hard to know what else had been said and taught surrounding the sermon. It’s too easy for us to critique the sermon completely out of the context of what had previously been preached in the place–and we are writing as though the sermon is the only that has any instructive value. It’s not a substitute for teaching on the atonement, but let’s not forget other parts of the liturgy [i]explicitly[/i] teach on that very subject every time it is prayed.
Samh, I am not sure I understand you. A sermon has to be critiqued “out of the context of what had previously been preached in the place”, because there is no guarantee that a person listening to it has heard previous sermons.
But in fact, I did comment on precisely this point (i.e. what ++Williams has previously preached on) when I wrote the following:
[blockquote] “This is the very area on which Rowan Williams has been notably weak over the years. He has given the distinct impression that he is not comfortable preaching about Jesus’ atoning sacrifice for us. And yet this is arguably the single area where he could have provided leadership to the Church, but hasn’t done so.” [/blockquote]