Lord,
What Would You Have Me Do?[ii]
There is some confusion in the
contemporary Western Church over ethics. An important dynamic in the study of
ethics in Holy Scripture is the understanding that prayer is not a monologue,
but a dialogue. Lectio Divina presupposes that God speaks to us and that we
should respond: Read the Word, Reflect on the Word, Respond
in Prayer, Rest in the Presence of God. When
we sing and pray the Psalms we sing and pray them with Jesus Christ the
Incarnate Son of God who prays in us and through us. When we pray the Psalms we
also pray them with all the Body of Christ throughout the world;, in whatever
circumstances our brothers and sisters in Christ find themselves.
Even
when we pray an imprecatory prayer; “O God, break the teeth in their mouths;
tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!” [Psalm 58:6]; we pray with
Jesus Christ who is the Enfleshed Logos; we pray with the persecuted Church,
and we pray with the oppressed everywhere. Christ enfleshed in us speaks to us,
and gives voice through us, to God the Father.
Lectio
Divina takes us a step further; we Rest in
the Presence of God, or more literally “before the Face of God. “Seek the LORD,
and his strength: seek his face (paw-neem)
evermore” [Psalm 105:4]. That dialogical relationship transcends the study of
ethics and is the basis of ethics. Ethics says simply, “Now that I am before
your face, O God, and before all the Holy Angels; what would you have me do?”
If I hear and pray, “O Lord our God (O Yahweh our Adonai) how majestic is your
name in all the earth” [Psalm 8:1], how will the majesty of the transcendent
and immanent God transform my life; the way I think about things, and the way I
act? The question is both personal and corporate; no Christian actually lives
apart from the Body of Christ of which he, or she, is a member.
As
we dwell in the holy dynamic of Lectio Divina, the Holy Spirit is at work in
the transformation of our thoughts and actions. As that mysterious work goes on
in His Presence, before His Face, we become radiant, “Look to him, and be
radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed” [Psalm 34:5 NRSV/RSV]. This has
strong implications for our understanding of ethics. In his letter St. Peter
tells us that as we become partakers of God’s divine nature we are to make
every effort to supplement our faith with virtue:
His divine power has
granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the
knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has
granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you
may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption
that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every
effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and
knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness
with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection
with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you
from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having
forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.[iii]
“The
Fear of the Lord (Yahweh) is the
beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding”
[Proverbs 9:10]. That is to say that in the practice of the awareness of the
fear of God we will understand how to live; which of course is the question of
ethics. The awe of God is to be met with humility, and with obedience to God
who desires to work out his justice (mishpawt)
through us in the midst of our wicked world; after all we live in “the
habitation of dragons” [Psalm 44:19].
We
share with Christ the responsibility of ministering justice. C. S. Lewis said
“Justice is the old name for fairness; it includes honesty, give and take,
truthfulness, keeping promises, and all that side of life.”[iv]
Justice is not done in a vacuum, but in the real world as it is. If one is to
do justice and righteousness, one will extend oneself to preserve justice in our
society and in the world. Christ
incarnate in us desires to work out his justice through us in the very real
situations that require our ethical decisions. “Blessed is the man who fears
the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandment!...who conducts his affairs
with justice” [Psalm 112:1, 5]. Joan Chittister comments, “The Rule of St.
Benedict treats work and lectio
interchangeably. One focuses the skills of the body on the task of co-creation.
The other focuses the gifts of the mind on the lessons of the heart.”[v]
Our relationship with God and prayer must be transferred into actions.
St.
Benedict tells us in his Rule that his 6th century monks were to
pray the entire Psalter in a week, but he points out that earlier monks prayed
the entire Psalter in a day. The only Psalm that is prayed in bite size pieces
is Psalm 119. That Psalm throughout the course of its 176 verses stresses the
importance of the law, not only for the Psalmist, but also for the Church that
prays the Psalm. Half of Psalm 119 is prayed in the various Offices of Sunday,
the balance of the Psalm is prayed in the Offices on Monday, that is; one
begins the week praying about the importance of the law and its place in our
lives. “Oh, how I love your law! It is
my meditation all the day” [Psalm 119:97]. The point being that early
monasticism and the early Church prayed the Psalter as the basic language and
thought form of prayer, including, “how I love your law.” In contemporary
Offices Psalm 119 is prayed in the Midday Office being divided up over three
days, Sunday through Monday. Where the Midday Office is shuffled aside in favor
of the mid-morning Daily Eucharist it blunts the ethical emphasis of praying
the Psalms.
What
was meant by the law? The basic law in Exodus and Deuteronomy is given in the
Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments included basic life orientation and
community relationships, but the ceremonial and food laws were given as an
addendum[vi].
We should note in passing that in the addendum the laws regarding basic life
orientation and community relationships are applied to specific circumstances
and that the New Testament accepts those explications of the law as normative.
Far
from approving of society’s sexual mores, St. Paul tells us that such things
should not even be named among us [Ephesians 5:2]. That does not stop St. Paul
from naming them. In doing so he holds the adulterous within the Church on an
equal level with idolaters, greedy, drunkards, and those who practice
homosexuality. [vii]
There isn’t a nickel’s worth of difference between one reprehensible sin and
another. Then he adds, “And such were
some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” [I Corinthians
6:11].
When
compassion for others and our corporate sense of guilt drives us to approve of
things in others that Scripture forbids, we are out of balance. There is a
difference between human compassion and the holy love of God that flows from
the Incarnate Christ within us. Jesus in his mercy doesn’t say, “That’s alright
dear; don’t feel badly about what you are doing.” What he says to all of us is,
“Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more." [John
8:11].
When
Jesus restates the law in the Sermon on the Mount he teaches about the former,
life orientation and community relationships; but he fulfills the ceremonial
law in the sacrifice of himself; and he sets the food laws aside. At the same
time he re-emphasizes the laws about life orientation and community
relationships.
And he called the
people to him and said to them, "Hear and understand: it is not what goes
into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this
defiles a person." Then the disciples came and said to him, "Do you
know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?" He
answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be
rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the
blind, both will fall into a pit." But Peter said to him, "Explain
the parable to us." And he said, "Are you also still without
understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the
stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the
heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts,
murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat
with unwashed hands does not defile anyone."
J. B. Phillips’ happy translation, “it is the
straight-edge of the Law that shows us how crooked we are” is apt. While we
live in the freedom of grace, we have the law to measure ourselves by to see if
we are heading in the right direction. This is also reflected in the Rule of
St. Benedict,
The
first step of humility is that a man always ought to have the fear of God before his eyes ( Ps 35:1), never forgetting it,
and always remembering all that God has commanded. He [each brother or sister] should keep in mind that those who despise
God will burn in hell for their sins, and that life everlasting is prepared for
those who hold God in awe. And while he guards himself always against sin and
vices of thought, word, deed, and self-will, let him also make haste to cut off
the lusts of the flesh. Let him recall that God always sees him from Heaven,
and that the eye of God looks on all his works, and that the angels report his
works to God every hour.[viii]
A
Benedictine approach to ethics can only worked out in acknowledgement of the awe
and majesty of God, and our response of humility and obedience. Once God is
held in awe, all other considerations fade away.
[i] St.
Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (Epist. 10, 2-3, 5: CSEL 3, 491-492, 494-495)
[ii]
Paul’s question at his conversion, Acts 22:10
[iii] 2
Peter 1:3-9
[iv] Mere
Christianity, Chapter 12
[v]
Joan Chittister, THE RULE OF ST. BENEDICT: Insights for the Ages, (New York: Crossroads, 1997), p. 135
[vi]
Addendum is correct since the 16th century. Addenda was the older
Latin form.
[vii] 1
Corinthians 6:9-11
[viii]
The Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 7, Humility, v.10-13
No comments:
Post a Comment