Thursday, April 23, 2009

Docetism

Thursday, April 23, 2009 -- Week of 2 Easter, Year One

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 958)
Psalms 18:1-20 (morning) 18:21-50 (evening)
Daniel 2:31-49
1 John 2:18-29
Luke 3:1-14

How spiritualized should our religion be? Many Christians insist that the Church's concern should be with our immortal souls -- are you saved? Many say that the Church should not be involved in politics or economics or other dirty secular concerns which compromise our focus on things of the Spirit. If a preacher wants to get in trouble, talk about politics or mention sex from the pulpit. And restrain from talking about money, except in October during stewardship time.

One of the fundamental conflicts that confronted the early Church during its first few centuries concerned the reluctance of many Christians to allow their concept of Jesus to include the notion that he could have lived a fully human, material life -- being born from a woman, taking on flesh and blood, truly suffering and actually dying on the cross. Many people saw the whole journey of life as an imprisonment in the decaying flesh; human liberation was freedom from the bondage of the material order through release of our pure, imprisoned spirit. For them, Jesus was sent from God as a spiritual being and only appeared to take on flesh so he could accomplish our salvation from the flesh. As a divine being, he couldn't have corrupted himself by truly being trapped in material stuff; he wouldn't have suffered the ignoble business of being born of a woman or experiencing real human pain, and especially not human death. God is too good and pure for such corruptions. So the divine, spiritual Jesus only appeared to be a human being for the convenience of teaching us and leading us out of the corruptions of the flesh and the material world.

The letter of 1 John addresses those who believed in this manner and calls them "antichrist." The classical name for this heresy is Docetism, from the word "dokesis" meaning "appearance" or "semblance." The Epistles of John and the Gospel of John emphasize that Jesus the "man from heaven" (the Logos) came in the flesh. Last Sunday we read the story of the risen Jesus appearing to Thomas, inviting Thomas to put his finger into the physical wounds from the crucifixion. That story may have evolved as a challenge to the Docetic or Gnostic Christians, many of whom emphasized the Gospel of Thomas which offers a more spiritualized version of Jesus and Christianity.

The Christianity that eventually emerged as orthodoxy is a very earthy, sacramental religion which sees the created order as the vehicle for God's manifestation and as fully enveloped in Jesus' work of salvation. Politics and money are at the center of the gospel's concern.

So we see Luke's opening his history by setting Jesus' ministry into a very political context, naming the political figures who form the background of Jesus' challenge which inaugurates a new kingdom, a new political and economic reality which corresponds with how God would rule rather than how Caesar or Pilate or Herod or Caiaphas rule.

We see John announcing the coming of the one expected by the prophet Isaiah. When people ask John, "What then should we do?" he gives them concrete, material, political and economic answers. Share your clothing and food with those who lack. Deal honestly in your economic affairs, especially you tax collectors. Don't abuse your power, especially you soldiers. Concerns of the flesh are the concerns of the prophets; they are God's concerns and the concerns of God's Messiah.

And our story from Daniel is a very political piece. Daniel interprets the dream of the Babylonian king. The five parts of the statue probably symbolize the succession of five empires from Babylon to the time when Daniel was written (between 167 and 164 BCE). Daniel anticipates a new, independent Jewish state established by God. The book supports and encourages the Maccabean rebellion that is happening as it is being written. This is highly charged, contemporary political stuff.

If Christianity is to be true to its roots, our religion must be thoroughly immersed in the material, political, and economic realities of our day as well. Our faith offers not a spiritualized escape from the corrupted concerns of the material world, but a full embrace of our bodily lives with a call to justice and transformation. The late William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury declared that "Christianity is the most materialistic of all religions." Traditional Christianity says that God cares about our material concerns and that God is present in every aspect of creation. In our tradition, politics, health, and economic justice are supremely spiritual subjects.

Lowell
_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.


Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life
We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

4 Comments:

At 9:35 AM, Anonymous selow said...

I hope you enjoyed your well-deserved break but I am glad you are back. I missed your Morning Reflections. Thank you for making them available.

 
At 4:40 PM, Anonymous Anglo Jax said...

Thank you, Rector for sharing this morning's reflection. It is truly very inspiring to know that Jesus came in the flesh and not just an apearance.

Truth be told, a wise man once said to me, "It is good to know that Christ came to atone the sins for all. Better still, that Christ came in the flesh, he being fully God. The Divine in the flesh as being truly man makes man holy no matter how one looks upon it. That God would choose to become a human being in every way shows just how important Humanity is to God. Though we may be flawed... all of us are created in his image and the incarnation ever reminds us of that fact."

Thank you Vicar Lowell for sharing your thoughts every morning. Welcome back and keep up the good work. If only you knew how much strength and hope these reflections offer to me each day!

Peace be with you,
Jack Douglas

 
At 6:45 PM, Anonymous ArkAnglican said...

A few years back a popular local preacher on the radio(he owns the station) preached a sermon in which he likened the Virgin Mary to an incubator for the embryo that became Jesus.
Which classical heresy would that be?
Whatever happened to fully human and fully divine?

 
At 8:15 AM, Blogger Lowell said...

Thanks for the greetings, selow and Jack. It's good to be back home.

Jack, your quote is a fine appreciation of the mystery of the Incarnation. One of the old ways of speaking said that "God became human so that humanity may become divine."

ArkAnglican -- Likening Mary to a machine does seem to have a touch of Docetic flavor to it. Traditional orthodoxy -- Jesus is fully human and fully divine -- insists that Jesus is born of Mary, and thus completely participates in the humanity of one born of woman. She was his mother, not a mere incubator.

Lowell

 

Post a Comment

<< Home