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Great Thinkers in the History of the Church (no. 11)
One with God…. If Christ is the Head and we the members in the Mystical Body, then we relate to each other as member to member and we are all one in God, a divine life. If God is in us and if he is love, then it cannot be otherwise but to love one another. Therefore, our love for our brothers and sisters is the measure of our love for God. But it is different from a natural, human love. … The love of Christ knows no bounds, it never ceases, it never withdraws in the face of hatred or foul play.
—Edith Stein, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, 1891-1942, The Mystery of Christmas, Trans. Josephine Rucker.
Article
Weary of all this wordy strife,
These notions, forms, and modes, and names,
To Thee, the Way, the Truth, the Life
Whose love my simple heart inflames,
Divinely taught, at last I fly,
With thee and thine to live and die.
--Charles Wesley, “Catholic Spirit”
The very urgency to defend faith can be an escape from the most radical demand of all faith worth the name of faith. The worthiness of faith rests on the call and choice to love.
Charles Wesley reminds us of two classes of Christians. A first group is preoccupied with the outer forms of faith, or the outer skin of Christianity. These religionists are infatuated with and their faith is defined by notions, forms, modes, and names. These are those that St. Paul speaks of, when he writes:
1But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 6For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 8Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. 9But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men. (I Timothy 3, ESV)
These persons have “the appearance of godliness.” “Appearance” is the Greek for mórphōsis, “appearance, form,” which is the basis of the English morphosis. The Message has, “They’ll make a show of religion….” But they deny “its power.” “Power” is dúnamis, “ability, power,” and our word dynamite comes from the same root.
We need not think this first class of persons is what we might think are only among those outside the churches. Rather, many confessing Christianity and members of congregations are surely living this life of form, this show of religious appearance, apart from the power of walking in the Spirit of Christ. They show themselves as such by focusing on and often arguing about the very things St. Paul mentions: all pertaining to nonessential or relative aspects.
Charles Wesley moves us to a second class of Christians. These have their hearts set aflame by Christ. They are aflame with Love. They are taught directly by the Spirit of Christ, through intimate relationship, even when the Spirit teaches them in the community of the faithful. These have escaped attachment to form as the ultimate, seeing its relativity, and have fled to live and die with those who live in the Spirit.
Rumi, the great Sufi mystic, echoes Charles Wesley:
There are two types on the path, those
Who come against their will, the blindly religious,
And those who obey out of love.
The former have ulterior motives.
They want the midwife near because she gives them milk.
The others love the beauty of the nurse.
The former memorize the prooftexts of conformity
And repeat them. The latter disappear
Into whatever draws them to God.
Both are drawn from the source.
Any motion is from the mover.
Any love from the beloved.
--Rumi: The Book of Love, Trans. Coleman Barks
Reflection
What did you learn from the above writing?
What did you agree with?
What did you disagree with?
Which class of confessing Christians do you belong to? Explain.
Does your faith community focus on form or the Christ of Love? Explain.
Spiritual Exercise
Make sure you have a sacred space in your home for time alone in prayer and spiritual reading.
Make sure you are in a covenant group. For more information on covenant groups, write me at the address below.
Consider, if you are not already, sponsoring a child through Compassion International. You can find out more about Compassion International by going to www.compassion.net to read about sponsoring, in the name of Jesus, children living in poverty. Thanks! Brian K. Wilcox
Brian’s book An Ache For Union can be purchased at major book dealers.
To contact Brian, write briankwilcox@comcast.net .
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