A friend emailed me this–see what you make of it–KSH.
Protocol 142/07
December 25, 2007
The Nativity of Christ
What shall we offer You, O Christ,
Who for our sakes has appeared on earth as a man?
(From the Vespers of the Nativity)
To the Most Reverend Hierarchs, the Reverend Priests and Deacons, the Monks and Nuns, the Presidents and Members of the Parish Councils of the Greek Orthodox Communities, the Distinguished Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Day, Afternoon, and Church Schools, the Philoptochos Sisterhoods, the Youth, the Hellenic Organizations, and the entire Greek Orthodox Family in America
Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
On this glorious day of the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ we celebrate the truly historical, universal, and eternal event of His Incarnation. It is historical, for at the divinely appointed time He entered our human history by being conceived and formed in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and was born of her in a cave in Bethlehem. It is universal because the Son of God, the divine Logos of Creation, took upon himself human flesh and blood so that He might redeem us and all of the universe from the burden of sin and death. His Incarnation and birth has eternal significance because through His life, we are offered life, not just a mortal and earthly life, but unending life. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The gift of the Lord and the gift of life are the greatest offerings presented to humankind. God the Father gave his Son, and the Son gave Himself so that we might be restored to the life and communion for which we were created.
It is in this gift that we see and experience the true nature of giving. First, our Lord gave himself freely. He did this because of His great love for us. Jesus became like us in every way with the exception of sin. He began his life in the womb, then as an infant. He endured temptation, suffering and death, and He affirmed the power of faith through His Resurrection. In this revelation of God¹s love, our Lord has given completely, freely, and willingly so that we might be saved.
Second, Christ offered himself in humility. He did not enter this world in all of the trappings of royalty and might. He did not come seeking fame, political power, and wealth. It would appear that He came in weakness and obscurity and that His meager beginnings would be no match for worldly authority. But in His humility was His power. In entering our humanity, our Lord exalted what had been made low by sin and death. As the Son of God Incarnate, He affirmed the divine imprint on our creation and our lives. Through His birth, life, teaching, and miracles He baffled the so-called wise of this world, brought down pride and spiritual arrogance, and illumined the path of truth so that all might enter His kingdom.
Third, the offering of our Lord was one of peace. His compassionate sacrifice of himself was not accomplished through violence. His birth signified that His cause was life, and even through His death He revealed His power to give and uphold life. The peace offered by Christ is an enduring peace that is experienced and sustained not by the sword, but through faith and love.
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Let us contemplate what our Lord has offered to us, especially during this time of year when we give to one another. Giving can and should be a blessed and beautiful act toward others when we know the true nature of giving. Our Lord has given to us freely, and in humility and love. In the challenges of our lives and the uncertainty of our world He gives us peace. What can we offer to Him and to one another? In our celebration of this great Feast of the Nativity, we can affirm our faith in Him. We can and should offer all of our being for His glory and service, sharing in the life, love, and peace that will be ours for all eternity.
With paternal love in Christ,
+DEMETRIOS
Archbishop of America
———————————————————–
The Presiding Bishop’s Christmas message 2007
(ENS)
Eyes to see
Finding Immanuel as immigrant, wanderer, child
In what form will you find the Christ child this year? The fact of the Incarnation in a weak and helpless babe says something significant about where we focus our search. I am convinced that it is part of our call to exercise a “preferential option” on behalf of the poor, weak, sick, and marginalized. The long arc of biblical thinking and theologizing has to do with seeing God’s care for those who have no other helper. Indeed, Jesus is understood as that helper for all who fail, by the world’s terms, to save themselves. More accurately, we understand that Jesus is that helper for all.
One of the great gifts of the way in which those in our cultural surroundings celebrate Christmas is the focus on children and on those who have few human helpers. We delight in the wonder of children as Christmas approaches, and many of us make an extra effort to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and care for the needy. The challenge is to let our seasonal “seeing” transform the way we meet our neighbors through the rest of the year, and through all the coming years.
How might we begin to see that child in those around us: strangers and aliens (both Immanuel and Immigrants); wanderers (Homeless, like Mary and Joseph, for whom there was no room); widows and orphans (Social Outcasts); babe born in Bethlehem (Palestinian and Israeli alike; or the boy babies whom both Pharaoh and Herod sought to kill); divine feeder of thousands (Soup Kitchen worker); and savior of the world (Peacemaker, Bringer of Justice for All, Reconciler, Just and Gracious Lawgiver…). If God comes among us as a helpless child, then the divine presence is truly all around us. Where will you meet Jesus this Christmas?
(Hat tip: ykw)
The first primate gets it. The second doesn’t. Next topic?
Two gospels.
Has anyone sent the author of the second message, the first message? The Archbishop shows how to do it. I’m thinking that making a list of examples of good episcopal actions and statements might be edifying for the sorry leadership of our beleaguered church.
I’d love to be able to point to a statement and say “In this situation, this is what you do.”
The Gospel is expressed in both messages–from two different perspectives. #2…Not two gospels, but a gospel big enough for all sorts of approaches.
Virgil — you are welcome to hold to all sorts of gospels as a part of your gospel #2. Gospel #2 is certainly large enough to hold anything it gets a fancy for, depending on the fads. But no, The Gospel is not inclusive enough for false gospels.
Which is why two gospels in one organization will not stand.
The first Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, the Word made flesh. The second is Jesus the guru.
#5…Reason has to be applied to determine the applicability of the interpretation to the sources of the gospel in the individual (or groups) message. It’s not just a subjective whim.
You know, Friday we attended my son’s school’s Christmas Cantata. The Jesus we saw in that service (WELS) and the Jesus in Gospel #1 (Eastern) appear to be the same, and are indiscernible from the one at our small Anglican mission. This is the Jesus I discuss with my Roman friends and my non-denom friends, too.
The Jesus in Gospel #2 seems a completely different person on a completely different mission.
How can we have a faith in common when we do not even have a Lord in common? The great ecclesial differences of the above groups feel like much less of hurdles.
6…Conservative message=the gospel is plainly and simply what I see. There are no lenses through which I see it, or those lenses give me a 20/20 image of the gospel.
Liberals: The gospel is before us=I see the gospel, but I recognize that I’m seeing it through my interpretive lenses. I’m going to try and modify my lenses to get the clearest image possible, but I realize that my image will never be 20/20 and different sets of lenses might give me different perspectives on the gospel reality.
In the first, the reason for the birth of the Child is made clear: redemption.
In the second, the reason is, well…not discussed.
Merry Christmas to Dr. Harmon, to all the folks that create and maintain this wonderful site, and to all posters and readers! I pray that we all carry “good will toward men” in our hearts all year and beyond.
#9 you are projecting a reappraiser mentality onto the orthodox – you really believe that any belief is subjective and therefore orthodox Christians see only through a personal lens. That IS how reappraisers think, and that is what is embodied in the PBs message… but is not the way orthodox Christians perceive the world.
Orthodox Christians receive the Gospel, not as a self-created perception but an externally given reality. And although we do so imperfectly, we seek to hold ourselves to the demands of that revealed truth – many speak of being “convicted” and conforming themselves to this message rather than seeking to find how the message can conform to what we think it should be.
Now, I’ll grant you that ALL world views and movements can be infected by subjectivisim, cultural captivity, unexamined assumptions and biases, etc. The difference is, orthodoxy sees that as a means to confession and real conversion of life, reappraisers say, “Hmm, isn’t this interesting about how me, myself and I experience things.”
I’m with Sarah – 2 Gospels expressed that cannot be harmonized without both being betrayed.
It sounds like +KJS wishes she had a degree in the humanities. It still isn’t too late for her.
The “gospel” as expressed by the second Primate is not new. I first encountered it 40 years ago as a seminarian. How often I remember saying then, “Why don’t these students and faculty members study for a Master’s Degree in Social Work instead of a Master’s of Theology?” I say the same thing today with the added sorrow that it has now captured the Episcopal Church and I am now your typical odd man out.
The Gospel is not plainly and simply what I see. I rely on the witness of the apostles, martyrs, and fathers of the church, who knew the Lord or knew those who knew Him. The orthodox faith is the corporate response of the Church to the revelation it witnessed. I am not alone, and I am not justified in taking up the Bible and reading what I want into it.
Katherine #14 said it better than my post. Amen.
The first is an affirmation of Jesus’ purpose in our world. The second is an affirmation of our purpose in Jesus’ world. They are as complementary as Paul and James.
In the first, Jesus is our Lord God, our Savior, the divine Logos of Creation, the Son of God. He who deserves our eternal worship and praise, not only for what He has done for us, but for who He is, and was, even before he came into this world.
In the second, Jesus is “helper for all who fail, by the world’s terms, to save themselves”. (So, if you’re not failing “by the world’s terms”, does that mean you don’t need Jesus?) Helpers deserve thanks and recognition, but don’t demand worship and praise.
The true Gospel isn’t about the world’s terms. It’s about God’s terms. And by God’s terms, no one can save themselves.
++KJS states:
[blockquote]If God comes among us as a helpless child, then the divine presence is truly all around us.[/blockquote]
Can somebody please explain to me how the first half of that statement logically leads to the second?
The first IS the gospel. The second, a CONSEQUENCE of living the gospel. We must be very careful to not mistake the CONSEQUENCE for the gospel itself. The gospel is much more than the consequence of serving the poor. It has something to say about my sin, my redemption and the role of Jesus to do that saving work. If it wasn’t for THAT gospel, the consequence of ‘service’ would not exist.
#18…Maybe, God as transcendent being is totally unknowable except where he reveals himself. In Judaism he is revealed in a tradition of ha-torah. In Christianity he is revealed in a human being. The metaphysical implications of that are startling and calling.
#19…There is a difference in the gospel and the consequences of the gospel. Anyone can give to the poor and live a moral life (under a feeling of obligation). The gospel adds an the ontological dimension of recognizing our unity in being and because of that a unique relationship with beings, thusly calling us to service in the name of being (which I define as the immanent aspect of God).
#20 Your answer to me is even more confusing; so how does God’s coming as a child mean that there is divine presence all around us? Are you saying that until Christ, God was unknowable? I think the Jews and most Christians would disagree with that. The tradition of Judaism is that the Burning Bush still speaks.
[blockquote]The metaphysical implications of that are startling and calling.[/blockquote] What does that mean?
Hmmm…
The Patriarch is Orthodox.
The ABC is not.
Was there another point I was supposed to get?
Let me play devil’s advocate. One could argue that the first Christmas message manifests several things:
1) A craving for an eternity of pleasant living, which at bottom is hedonism;
2) A conviction that man’s sinfulness, and by implication man himself, is so significant in the universe that God himself had to step in to remedy it; this reflects a very high anthropology, to borrow a phrase Paul Zahl uses;
3) A deep-seated fear of death and its possibility of personal oblivion, which reflects a view of God as vengeful dictator, as well as a lack of trust that things will turn out OK no matter what.
In other words, some might read the first Christmas message as being all about “me, me me.”
In contrast, the second message fits in nicely with a different kind of theology and anthropology, one in which we are all workers in God’s continuing project of creation. People don’t do their best work when they’re poor, sick, or marginalized. It would make sense if part of what we’re expected to do is to chip away at those problems, so that each of us can be put to our highest and best use, making the greatest contribution of which we’re capable with the various gifts that have been entrusted to us.
DC, I am truly glad that God can’t make it with you. I do pray that one day you will accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
Pax and Merry Christmas.
Sorry that’s:
DC, I am truly glad that God can’t make it without you. I do pray that one day you will accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
Pax and Merry Christmas.
Virgil,
I will grant you that we cannot know God in His fullness. Our minds just are not capable. Because I cannot know God, I am constrained by the received Self-Revelaiton of God to us. I am not free to change the metaphores and similies that God has given. I am not free to re-image the Incarnation or to change the Revelation. Because I cannot [b]know[/b], I must [b]faith[/b]. I must faith what the Church has taught and what Scripture says as “the Word of God.” I must submit to (as Paul calls it in today’s lesson from the Romans) “obedience of faith.” (Rom 1:5) This is the difference between reasserters and reappraisers. We take our lack of knowledge and submit to the “obedience of faith.” You take the lack of knowledge as freedom to innovate. We ask “do we know this to be right? Do we know it to be of God?” You ask “do we know it to be wrong? Do we know it is not from God?”
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
[i]In other words, some might read the first Christmas message as being all about “me, me me.†[/i]
Only someone actively engaged in the treating of Self as god would get that. Otherwise such a read makes no sense.
[i]In contrast, the second message fits in nicely with a different kind of theology and anthropology[/i]
Indeed; one in which we are gods. Sounds a lot like politically liberal Mormonism to me.
The first takes Christ as He came to us. The second pounds Him into a convenient shape for use in the author’s secular agenda.
I’m a bit surprised the “Mary and Joseph were homeless” trope hasn’t been pilloried here. As Mark Steyn put it:
[blockquote]For Pete’s sake, they weren’t homeless — they couldn’t get a hotel room. They had to sleep in the stable only because Dad had to schlep halfway across the country to pay his taxes in the town of his birth, which sounds like the kind of cockamamie bureaucratic nightmare only a blue state could cook up. Except that in Massachusetts, it’s no doubt illegal to rent out your stable without applying for a Livestock Shelter Change of Use Permit plus a Temporary Maternity Ward for Non-Insured Transients License, so Mary would have been giving birth under a bridge on I-95.[/blockquote]
Virgil, Why on earth bother to get up on Sundays if the message of Katherine is all you can use? Her mother preferred the first. Wiser lady by far. Don’t worry; rest assured you are completely safe from the content of the first message in the Diocese of Olympia.
I love the first letter. It’s superb and true. Not only that, I understand it.
But I’m already a Christian.
I already give the bible authority. I already get the metaphors. I already believe in salvation.
When I was not a Christian I would have read the first letter and been confused. Why is he quoting a scroll written 1900 years ago? It’s a fairy tale anyway. Why does it matter?
But if you had wanted to convert me to Christ, the second letter would have piqued my interest. The first is for the insiders. The second is for everyone.
Isn’t amazing how different we are…I am a late life convert but even when I was a “devout agnostic” I knew the broad outlines of the greatest story every told since it was everywhere I turned: film, literature, art. The second letter would have seemed very nice, but devoid of what even I, a great sinner, knew of the ageless holy mystery of a God that transcends the mundane.
I accepted Christ after being pursued by the “Hound of Heaven.”
#30, you have a point. Problem is, the movement from #2 to #1 still needs to occur. In TEC today, the movement from #2 to #1 is not acknowledged as necessary.
What Letter 1 shows is that the Tradition is infinitely more insightful than our “insights” into making it relevant. Still, #30, you make a good point.
Its maddening to have to make points of contact in order to make points of contact.
I wonder if there is a generation gap, #31. Many children just born are the grandchildren of people who feel no need to teach people about their cultural inheritances. You are a lucky one. Celebrate it.
I’m busy telling people the story again and again and why it matters. I can tell you the first letter, among people my age set and younger, would get a resounding “huh?” Of course, there are exceptions. About 30% of the people under forty, I think is the number, who get the outline of the story. It halves for people under 18.
My parents were both agnostics and taught me the general story, of course, because they believed in the cultural inheritances of Christianity. The first letter is wonderful, as i said. But the second letter seems to be for an audience of people already skeptical, people who would not read the first and understand.
One is for converts. The other is for the unconverted. If there is someone who is NOT already a Christian on this blog, I would like to know which they would find more compelling. That, in my view, is a legitimate test.
#4 Virgil, I believe that Christians are commanded to love all people whether we agree with each other or not but I am mystified why people such as yourself feel that we all need to be part of the same group/body/organization/church. We can define a group so that its members may have all sorts of contradictory views and we can all mean the very best for each other. [i][b]But that only works as long as we don’t try to DO anything together.[/b][/i]
If the number of people with opposing views is roughly equal then dysfunction reigns. If there is a large majority then the majority rules and the minority has no voice. What is the point?
I suppose another view is that the differences are actually insignificant but that assumes that we agree on some foundational principals. What do you believe are the foundational values or principals that unite us?
From the Rob Bell interview in the latest Wittenburg Door —
http://www.wittenburgdoor.com/interview/rob-bell
Rob Bell: . . . I was hiking through these slums in Nairobi where people are dying of AIDS and it’s the Church figuring out how to give them medication, how to prevent and educate, to help give people an honorable death. The Church is on the front line.
DOOR: As a pastor, how do you motivate people to the front lines?
BELL: First, the scripture always bends towards the oppressed and the marginalized. Beginning in the Torah—take care of the widow, the orphan, the stranger among you. The story is written by oppressed minorities. And it continues, no room in the inn, they follow Jesus because they are hungry. The story always goes towards the underside of the Empire. I think it is sometimes hard for the American church to understand the Bible because we are the Empire. We are the ones in power, the ones with wealth. I think in some settings that’s why the Bible has such little power—because it’s an oppressive narrative. There are six billion people in the world, three billion live on less than $2 dollars a day, 800 million people will not eat today, and 300 million in Africa alone do not have drinking water. So we as Americans are six percent of the population yet we consume 40 to 50 percent of the resources. We are the upper, upper, rich elite. And our way is taking over the world. So we have to first ask the question—how can we take all this wealth and give it away? All the technology and beautiful parts of capitalism and bless the world and the poor—or else we’re in deep trouble.
DOOR: Sometimes the issue of the poor gets lost in all the left vs. the right crap in this country. How do you cut through that? Serving the poor is not a new message.
BELL: The issue is not saving the poor—it’s saving us. When Jesus uses the word hell, He does not use the word with people who are not believers or not believing the right things. It is a warning to religious people that they are in danger of hell because of their indifference to the suffering of the world. So the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is not what heaven and hell are like. It’s a parable to rich people warning them that their apathy has them in danger. Heaven and hell are present realities that extend into the future.
For a lot of Americans, this is about the saving of their own soul. Recapturing God’s heart for the world. Otherwise I will end up not caring and not passionate.
#30 and #33, The Archbishop has addressed his letter to the Orthodox faithful not “everyone”. Also the PB does implicitly “quote from a scroll written 1900 years ago” – it only makes it appear that she could not be bothered with the book, chapter and verse. The first one is an example of a Bishop as a teacher of the scripture.
Both letters appear to be addressed to the faithful of the churches overseen by each leader. I don’t see how the PB’s letter can reasonably be viewed as an invitation to seekers or an altar call.
I don’t have any major objection to the Presiding Bishop’s message, I suppose. I have heard more vacuous stuff. But what gives me pause is the feel of it. It feels like I am reading one of those old 1980’s adolescent choose-your-own-adventure stories. Jesus seems to be whatever I want him to be, not meeting him where he is.
It is all too easy to try and read too much into the above letters, which are surely intended to be limited in scope. However, it is hard not to be struck by the difference in focus on Jesus as Exemplary Giver in the first and Jesus as Exemplary Recipient in the second. The first letter clearly indicates a higher Christology and expects us to emulate Christ’s Divine charity. The second sees our Lord as one who suffered and to whom we might, were we His contemporaries, offer charity. We are not exhorted so much to emulation of Him as to pity of Him, and pity of others, whom we might see as being like Him. It is hard to avoid the sense that in the first letter, we are asked to place ourselves under Him, while in the second, we are asked to place ourselves, in a way, over Him. This is not necessarily a corrupt approach, although, as demonstrated by medieval passion plays written specifically to goad the faithful through pity for the Lord to attack Jews (which phenomenon was much discussed some years ago when Gibson’s “The Passion” came out – note that the attitude of that film was much more like that of the first letter), it can be. The problem in the current context, is that this appears to be too much the approach proffered by TEC’s current leadership. I suspect that this explains some of the negativity of the reactions above. Mrs. Schori’s message is not a faithless or unchristian one, just more limited and problematic than that of the Archbishop.
#36 “Chapter and verse” were additions. They are elements of the modern mind. That she did not use “chapter and verse” indicates more a willingness to negotiate the issues of the first Christians.