by CCW | 24 February 2016 06:00
This is the second of four Lenten addresses on the theme Contemplation, Activity and Resurrection in the Passion of Christ. The first is posted here[1], the third here[2], and the fourth here[3].
“Mary,” Luke tells us, “sat at the Lord’s feet” in Bethany “and listened to his teaching”. He portrays the precise image of Christian contemplation. It means sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to his word.
Contemplation in the contemporary discourse is an ambiguous word. It suggests at once something esoteric and intellectual, perhaps even gnostic, and something altogether useless and impractical. Yet, whatever one might say about the forms of spiritual hunger and the relentless demands of the practical, Christian contemplation counters such preoccupations with the self and the sensible by its strong attention to the reality of the God who has revealed himself.
Contemplation is an essential element in our Christian pilgrimage. It is the “one thing needful”, a good part which is even the better part. We need to recover our sense of its importance. It means to come to Bethany to sit with Mary at Jesus’ feet in the progress of his passion. There we may learn something of what it means to contemplate the passion of Christ.
The way of the pilgrim is the way of contemplation. Mark records Jesus’ charge to his disciples to take nothing for the journey except a staff and sandals. They are the basic gear of pilgrims. But are we really prepared to heed our Lord’s injunction to take virtually nothing? No bread, he says, no bagels, no biscuits. No bags for provisions, he says, neither Gucci nor Louis Vuitton; no money, he says, no credit cards, not even gold or platinum cards; and no cloak, he says, no extra clothing at all. Just a staff and sandals. And if that were not enough, Matthew goes further and disallows both staff and sandals – no brandy sticks, no birkenstocks! Yet, with or without staff and sandals, the point is really the same and it belongs to the character of contemplation in Christian pilgrimage. The “one thing needful” is what is really essential. With or without staff and sandals, Christ is the way of our journeying even as he is the end.
The pilgrim’s staff is a suggestive image of contemplation. It is no ordinary walking stick, we may say. It is no empty image. In Homer’s Iliad, for instance, Odysseus takes up the staff, the sceptre of judgment, to marshal the Greeks in the assembly and command their attention. The sceptre is the staff (rabdos) which permits one to speak. It grants to the bearer the authority to speak.
Here in the Gospel it means something more. It signifies not only the authority to speak but also determines what is to be spoken, namely, only that which accords with Holy Scripture, only that which stands upon the holy ground of revelation. The staff of the pilgrim belongs, too, to the shadows of the cross falling backwards through the Old Testament and forwards into the life of the church.
This staff recalls us imaginatively to the rod of Moses and the rod of Aaron; the rod of the battles of liberation from Pharaoh’s yoke; the rod which strikes the rock from which outpours the living waters for the pilgrim people; the rod upon which the bronze serpent is fixed for the forgiveness of sins in the wilderness of Sinai, but so, too, “shall the Son of Man be lifted up”. It reminds us, too, of the rod that springs from the root of Jesse, that becomes the sceptre of King David and that flowers in the Virgin Mary who bears the holy fruit, Jesus, the Lord Incarnate. And then, finally and completely, here is the rod that becomes the rood of Christ’s passion, the cross of our salvation.
This is the staff upon which we lean. We can have no other and no need of anything more, “thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me”. Here is the staff of life which gives us our daily bread, the very substance of our lives in Christ. To lean upon this staff is to lean upon Jesus, to hear his words and to listen to his teaching. The staff of God’s revelation is altogether sufficient for our journeying, if only we would attend to it faithfully.
Thus, the staff is the cross of contemplation. It means that we must think the content of Scripture and not despair of its doctrine. With or without staff and sandals, the gear of pilgrims, we journey as contemplatives. Why and how? Because we stand and walk upon the grace of God revealed in its fullness in Jesus Christ. That grace is altogether sufficient for us. It is “the one thing needful”, the essential thing.
Contemplation means attending to the mystery of God’s purpose revealed in the whole way of the cross, the entire life of Jesus Christ, the entire content of God’s Word Written and Incarnate. How? By listening and reading, by meditation and prayer. Two forms of contemplation are before us. First, there is prayerful meditation upon God’s Word Written. Second, there is quiet meditation upon God’s Son crucified.
God’s Word goes forth with purpose. It belongs to our purpose to attend to it. Not to attend is to deny its purpose through our own machinations and schemes. That is the meaning of the Fall.
The Word of God goes forth with purpose in creation. The humanity which God creates he places in the garden of Paradise. He is established in a right relation to his creator and to the rest of creation according to its order. There is an order, a justitia, a righteousness or a right order in creation which is the basis for moral righteousness but as arising primarily from the justitia or righteousness of God himself.
God gives to the humanity which he has created a responsibility and a commandment. They belong to the purpose of our being and express our character as rational creatures, spiritual creatures, creatures endowed with knowing intent and purpose. The commandment states the simple condition of our being. We are made in the image of God and are utterly dependent upon God for all that we enjoy and all that we have. The further point is that we are to honour our derivation knowingly and willingly by the freedom of our obedience to God’s will.
Man’s disobedience means the vain attempt to deny God’s purpose. The consequence is the expulsion from the garden of that initial righteousness. Does this destroy God’s purpose for man? No. Rather humanity experiences the truth of its being and the purpose of its creation negatively in the long, sad course of wickedness, suffering and death. We return to God “another way”, the longer arduous way of redemption.
The Word of God goes forth with purpose in the law to teach humanity, in our explicit self-consciousness, the character of our creatureliness and the purpose of our being. In The Book of Exodus, for example, Israel comes out of Egypt to be the people of the Law. They are defined by that and they are to live by that. “Man shall not live by bread alone” – not by the wheat of the plains, not by the economies of the world, which like the grass wither and fade away – but by “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” – words which abide forever. Man finds his purpose in God’s Word.
That we might attend to its objective truth, the Law is inscribed upon the hard tablets of stone. Not to attend to it means to erect the golden calf of idolatry, the idol of our false relation to the will and purpose of God. This brings the tables of the Law down upon our heads, broken by the wrath of Moses, rewritten by the mercy of God’s justice.
The Word of God goes forth with purpose. What is at first inscribed outwardly on tablets of stone is to be known inwardly in our hearts of flesh, in our very being. That means attending to the going forth of the Word. It means the constant rediscovery of the purpose of God. This sense of rediscovery and attention to God’s Word is captured in a marvelous scene in The Book of Nehemiah (ch.8).
The scene anticipates a feature of the liturgy, namely, the Gospel proclamation sometimes highlighted by a procession – as they with the law of Moses so we with the Gospel of Christ. “Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly” – the Word of God goes forth to gather the people. “Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people” – the Word of God goes forth into the midst of the people. “And when he opened it all the people stood” – the Word of God goes forth in honour demanding our respect. “And the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law” – the Word of God goes forth for our hearing and edification. And that the people might understand all the more clearly, the Levites, the priests, “gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading” – the Word of God goes forth in instruction that faith may be deepened into understanding. “All the people wept when they heard the words of the law” – the Word of God goes forth to convict us of our unrighteousness, of how we have fallen away from God’s will and purpose for us. But in his Word we find his purpose. “Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” – the Word of God is our salvation. What adds even greater poignancy to the picture is that the book of the law here is probably The Book of Deuteronomy literally rediscovered in the temple of Jerusalem by Hilkiah during the reign of Josiah, the great reforming king of Israel.
As ancient Israel became the people of the law through reading and hearing the law, so the new Israel must attend to the law but only so as to be brought to its fulfilment in the Gospel. That fulfilment is not something which can be accomplished by ourselves but only in Jesus Christ. The law convicts us of our unrighteousness and points us in the direction of the righteousness of God for us. The prophets heighten our desire for God’s righteousness in us. Jeremiah prophesies, “I will put my law within them and I will write it upon their hearts” (Jer.31.33). Yet prophecy cannot effect what it seeks. The law cannot provide what it presents. Thus, our contemplation of the law and the prophets brings us to the Gospel, to the necessity of a saviour who is true God and true man. We contemplate the need for a divine mediator who alone can overcome the gulf between the purpose of God for us and our frustration of that purpose in ourselves; in short, between where we want to be and where we find ourselves in our sinfulness. “The good which I would, I do not; the evil which I would not, that do I do” as Paul describes the contradiction of the human condition. We come to the Gospel to attend to the overcoming of that contradiction in Jesus Christ.
But how well do we attend to the words of Christ? Jesus comes to Nazareth and reads in the synagogue and explains what he reads. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4.21). How well do we hear?
In Nazareth, “they wondered” at the words of grace which came forth from the mouth of Christ; at Capernaum, “they were astounded at his teaching”. Surely it comes to the same thing, this wonderment and this astonishment. And yet, how vast the difference between the reception of Christ in Nazareth and his reception in Capernaum. How vastly different is the reception between those who would be taught in Capernaum and those who would not be taught in Nazareth; in short, between the teachable and the unteachable. In Nazareth, they attend to the gracious words, words of eloquence, it may seem, to the form of grace, as it were, but at Capernaum, they attend to the content of those words, to the heart of grace, to the teaching, and therein lies all the difference. We were better off to stay at Capernaum, the spiritual home of Christ’s Galilean ministry, than to remain in the childhood haunts of Nazareth. No good, it seems, can come from there.
And yet, the Christian pilgrim on the way of contemplation derives a great good even from this. The Gospel of rejection of the Gospel belongs to our good. We learn even from those who would not learn. The Gospel of rejection belongs to our Christian vocation.
The Word of God goes forth in the teaching of Jesus. At Nazareth, they reject him because they would possess him; they would make him serve their purpose. Christ comes to Nazareth, his boyhood home, having done well, it seems, away – marvelous words and deeds at Capernaum and elsewhere – but not having done any special good for his village. “Is this not Joseph’s son?” they ask, a son of the village they think, and as such, is he not ours? they suppose. Does he not belong to us?
Christ draws out the implications of the question, “doubtless, you will say to me the proverb, Physician, heal thyself, What we heard you did in Capernaum, do here also” (Luke 4.23). They believe that Jesus exists for the sake of Nazareth and not Nazareth for his sake. They would not be subject to him; they would have him be subject to them. They would know him only as Joseph’s son and not as the eternal Son of God who speaks to us of the things which matter most. He would teach us the essential things of salvation – the revelation of God to man and the redemption of man to God. It means hearing his words, keeping them in our hearts and following him in our lives. Not to listen to the eternal Word of God is to reject his teaching.
Such unteachableness belongs to our contemplation because it brings us to the cross. The cross is the ultimate place of all rejection. God’s Word written shadows forth the way of the cross and places us there. Its shadows illuminate our prayerful and attentive reading of the Scriptures. The cross before which we kneel is also Christ’s pulpit under which we sit “listening to his teaching”. We are brought to the place of God’s purpose fulfilled and accomplished. We find our purpose in the words of Christ crucified. In the hour of his passion, the Word and Son of the Father opens out to us the infinite life of divine charity. At the cross we hear the words of sins forgiven and the words of purpose fulfilled. The words from the cross begin and end with an address to the Father. “Father, forgive them…” and “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit”, for on the cross “it is finished”. He has accomplished the will of him who sent him. At the cross, then, we contemplate his purpose for us.
Sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to his teaching also means kneeling before the cross of Christ. Our meditation upon God’s Word written and our meditation upon God’s Son crucified belong to our contemplation of the love of God. God’s love moves in our hearts to attend to his love for us. That love comes out of the very heart of God’s own being. It is the love of the Son for the Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit. We are drawn into the intimacy of that divine life. “That most burning love [of] the crucified” awakens in us “that most burning love for the crucified”. Such is the way of contemplation.
Practically speaking, what does it mean? Simply put, it means giving time and attention to the Word and Son of God crucified. It means our reading and our praying. It means reading the Scriptures doctrinally, that is to say, according to the teaching which they present without which they would not be the Scriptures. They are not just a loose collection of texts from which we may take whatever suits us and dismiss whatever displeases us.
Our age is an age of distraction and inattention, it seems. And while there is much texting and much viewing of images, there is not much in the way of what some call deep reading. We give precious little time if any to the Scriptures and precious little time to prayer before the cross of Christ. And yet, that is the “one thing needful”. When was the last time you sat down and read one of the Gospels, or an Epistle? When was the last time you read Genesis and Exodus or Ruth, let alone Leviticus or 1st Chronicles? Somehow these things, too, are written for our learning but we have to give our blood to them if they will ever speak to us, like Odysseus with the shades in Hades. It takes the sacrifice of time and attention to learn from them.
The business of contemplation is about reading God’s Word and looking upon Christ’s cross. There we learn the way of our salvation, the way of our being with God in his love for us. We do not read the Scriptures like we read our digital newsfeeds, to find out the latest things or to discover what kind of sneakers Jesus wore. No. We read the Scriptures to learn the things which abide even in the midst of the passing away of the world. We read to learn God’s goodwill and purpose towards us.
God’s word written and God’s Son crucified teach us the things which matter most. They are the things which we most need to take to heart. We are to be like that other Mary, the Mary of all Marys, the Mary of us all, Blessed Mary, the Virgin Mother of our Lord, who hearing the words and seeing the deeds of Jesus, gathers them up within her, “pondering them in her heart”. The Church is Marian in just this way, in this activity of contemplation.
Mary of Bethany sits attentively at the feet of Jesus, hearing his words, listening to his teaching. She, too, is the symbol of loving contemplation. Contemplation is not just about listening and reading but listening and reading attentively and prayerfully. The operative word is pondering them. We pray them in the spirit of their understanding, in the spirit of their fulfilment in Jesus Christ; praying them, you might say, in the spirit of the cross.
Scripture speaks about our humanity as being like sheep. In this activity of contemplation, perhaps, we are to be like those other ruminate beasts – cows. To contemplate is to be a rational cow – ruminating, chewing and chewing again and again on the Word of God by which we are “changed,” as Cranmer puts it, “into that thing which [we] readeth,” into what we contemplate.
For the Scripture of God is the heavenly meat of our souls; the hearing and keeping of it maketh us blessed, sanctifieth us and maketh us holy; it turneth our souls; it is a light lantern unto our feet. It is a sure, steadfast and everlasting instrument of salvation. For in reading of God’s Word, he most profiteth …that is most turned into it, that is most inspired with the Holy Ghost, most in his heart and life altered and changed into that thing which he readeth. (Book of Homilies, Homily 1)
And likewise in the Exhortation to Holy Communion, he reminds us that “as the Son of God willingly yielded up his soul by death upon the Cross for your salvation; so it is your duty to receive the holy Communion, in remembrance of the sacrifice of his death, as he himself commanded” (BCP, pp. 91,92). Contemplation is essential to the way of our being with Christ. “One thing is needful” if Christ is to be received into the house of our souls and we into the kingdom of his love.
Fr. David Curry
Tuesday in Lent
Eve of St. Matthias, 2016
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