“My words shall not pass away”
What strong and disturbing words do we hear in this morning’s gospel! Almost as bad as the evening news or the weather report! “There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring.” Nothing really new about that – same old, same old – other than being far more eloquent than, perhaps, either the news or the weather!
And yet, it must surely give us pause, “men’s hearts failing them for fear”, anxious and worried on account of “looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.” There is a profoundly cosmic quality to these Scriptural warning notes which signal the Advent theme of judgment at once coming to us and ever present.
But exactly how, to use Cranmer’s words in his marvellous collect for this Sunday, do such disturbing warnings about judgment provide us with “patience and comfort of thy holy Word”, let alone “hope”? And yet that is precisely Jesus’ claim here. “My words shall not pass away.”
Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all religions of the Word. They are all logo-centric, we might say. Even though the meaning of Logos or Word is different for each, they are all nonetheless quite explicit about the primacy of the Word of God as revealed to our humanity. They are all revealed religions as distinct from the various nature religions and the religions of the political that surround them and out of which they emerge in one way or another. And they are all religions which place a high value on that Word of God as mediated to us through written texts, through Scripture, whether the Scriptures are the Hebrew or Jewish Scriptures, comprising the Torah or Law, the Prophets and the Writings for Jews, or the Arabic Qur’an for Muslims, the recitation of Allah’s will by the Angel Gabriel (Jibril) to Mohammed, or the Scriptures for Christians which embrace the Old Testament (largely written in Hebrew) and the New Testament written in Greek. Scripture, after all, is nothing more than that which is written.
“Whatsoever things were written aforetime”, St. Paul states, “were written for our learning.” Paradoxically, he is talking about the Hebrew or Jewish Scriptures and not what will come to be called the New Testament which contains the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and ends with St. John’s Revelation and, in between Acts and Revelation, a considerable number of Epistles, the greatest number of which comes from Paul. But here he is stating, somewhat baldly but usefully, an important principle about revealed religion. It is inescapably something written down. “And whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning.”
This phrase caught the imagination of Thomas Cranmer and has been incorporated into one of the profoundest collects belonging to our Anglican heritage. He understands the context and extends its meaning. “Blessed Lord, who has caused all holy Scriptures to be written for learning”. “All holy Scriptures”. Cranmer has in mind how St. Paul’s own words have now become part of the Scriptures of the New Testament, part of the Bible, that library of books – biblia – that constitute “God’s Word written” for Anglicans. There is something here to be learned and it is, inescapably, book-centred and belongs to the book culture of early modernity. Revealed religion has to be learned through books and teachers.
That is, of course, the hard part. “How readest thou?” Jesus asks. “What saith the Scripture?” St. Paul asks. And, in a way, the answer to those questions is captured by Cranmer in words which encapsulate an entire biblical approach to the matter of reading. “Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest”, as the Collect puts it. Not skim, scan or surf; not even just listen, but “read, mark” – meaning take note seriously, “learn” – meaning what? meaning to make what you have read your own, and, indeed, in the most direct and intimate way imaginable, namely, “inwardly digest”. Then, and only then, are we shaped by the Word. It no longer remains outside of us. “Inwardly digest.” We become in-worded, if I may coin an expression, even as we await the holy birth of the Word Incarnate.
This approach speaks to the crisis of our age about reading and learning. The digital world makes so much and so many things accessible to us, if we know how to find them. A great boon, to be sure, and yet, in many ways, it also hides great dangers. The greatest danger is the loss of understanding, a flattening of the intellect rather than a deepening of our souls. There is an analogy between the tactility of the book, the Bible, and the embodiment of the Word and Son of God, the Word made flesh. The illusions, images and empherality of cyberspace do not capture this at all. The digital world is now part of the transmission of knowledge to be sure but not capable of superseding the book culture without a great loss to ourselves. Dependent upon the book culture, it would be a tragic irony if it were to succeed in destroying it.
The metaphors for reading in the digital culture stand in stark contrast to the metaphors belonging to the culture of the written word, whether in manuscript or print. To my mind, it is not a question of opposing these two cultures so much as it is about appreciating the differences. No greater challenge lies before us than being able to negotiate between the culture of the written word, be it hand-scribed scroll, codex or printed book and the digital culture with its constant barrage of images, constantly in flux, unstable, elusive and transient. Where is the Word when the power goes out? What is at issue is the quality of our reading. What is at stake is our understanding and our being.
Consider the Law – the Ten Commandments – which we recited this morning. They are understood as having been engraved on tablets of stone – objective and tangible, solid and real. And yet, the strong objectivity of the Law is meant to realized in us, inscribed upon our hearts, as Ezekiel suggests. Consider, too, the wonderful image of Ezekiel being bidden to eat the scroll of the Torah; literally inwardly digesting the Law. Such images recall us to the biblical traditions of a deep and thoughtful reading of the Word and prepare us for the Christmas wonder of the Word made flesh.
In many ways, it is the express purpose of our Churches to be the places where the Word of God is not only proclaimed and celebrated but also where it is thought about carefully and profoundly, both in the liturgy and in prayerful study. Our purpose is not to be emotional entertainment centres that provide some sort of orgasmic high for the experience-deprived of a spiritually empty age. No. These readings challenge everything in our age, including our penchant for wanting to use God’s Word for political and social ends and purposes.
Scripture in its fullness bids us live what it teaches; it is “a living word” but the measure of that Word and its living force is not simply to be found in this or that agenda and plan. Those are exactly the things which pass away while “my words,” as Jesus says, “shall not pass away”. They have in them that quality of what a Canadian poet, the late Margaret Avison, calls “foreverness” (Margaret Avison, “Pilgrim”).
We have forgotten that the Word which comes to us comes from God and is eternal. It stands in stark contrast to the passing away of all of the projects of our hearts and minds, all our projects, that is to say, that are not rooted and grounded in the eternal Word. It remains our lifelong project to think deeply and carefully about ourselves in relation to that Word. It means to be able to discern the things of eternal worth and meaning in and through things that are constantly passing away.
Margaret Avison helps us to appreciate the real truth of Christ’s words to us.
“astonish me with how
real words are. Oh
yes, I can skid
over surfaces and
syllables. But “real
words” are the
ones Your mouth-parts, throat
and breath
weigh in with, meanings
soundlessly deep forever.”
(Margaret Avison, “Listening (for Grandma)”
To be looking for those things that the Scripture encourages us to seek and find is the antidote to all our fears and anxieties. It requires that we “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest”. Only so can we find an inner peace, a deeper joy and an everlasting hope precisely in the midst of the ups and downs of our world and day, “meanings soundlessly deep forever”, read and learned in the Words of Christ whose “words shall not pass away.”
“My words shall not pass away”
Fr. David Curry
Second Sunday in Advent
December 6th, 2009