The Good Gift

Holy Communion, the Eucharist, the Good Gift, is extremely important. For example, Christ says of it 'this is my body - this is my blood' and in John 6 Jesus says:

"Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink."

As well, I read this passage the other day and was astonished again, it's St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 discussing the abuses of the Eucharist (to Protestants, no this does not mean the Corinthians weren't using Welch's Grape Juice and Goldfish crackers, and to the Catholics no this does not mean they were using a priest from SSPX)

"For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgement against
themselves. For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some
have died."

To me the most amazing thing is that St. Paul or any other NT epistle rarely ever quotes Christ, there is probably only a handful of phrases St. Paul even knew from Jesus, he most likely did not ever read the gospels (maybe mark - which I don't think includes these phrases). This means that the early church had such a high view of the Eucharist that it passed on the exact or near exact words of Jesus. St. Paul says he received it from the Lord (does this mean in his vision? maybe). All in all, it goes to show me that the early christians were very reverent when it came to communion - or rather were not, and thus invoked the wrath of St. Paul.

Unity not Uniformity

During a college Q & A the famous apologist Ravi Zacharias was asked by a Muslim why Christianity was so splintered and that if he wanted to join a church how would he pick the true one out of all of the thousand denominations. This I thought would be Ravi's time to plug the Christian and Missionary Alliance (his denomination), but rather he said something which I will attempt to quote: "Know this, that unity is not uniformity, and that ultimately Salvation does not depend on which denomination you are affiliated with, but rather with whether or not you know Jesus Christ".

I thought it was certainly a different way of answering the question. Catholicism's 'extra ecclessiam nulla salus' is another standard answer. I thought this was a good quote on Ravi's behalf for a few reasons. It is true to early Christianity, in 1 Corinthians 1 St. Paul talks about denominations already forming. Indeed many of the epistles are to fragmented churches with disagreements and problems, there was the schism in Corinth, the racist jews that our first *Pope sat with in Galatia* (Peter - see Gal 2), and the Roman church of course with all the division we can read about in Romans 14. This yields alot of interest to me. Note this passage:

"Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarrelling over opinions. Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgement on those who eat; for God has welcomed them. Who are you to pass judgement on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand. Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. Those who observe the day, observe it in honour of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honour of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honour of the Lord and give thanks to God...Why do you pass judgement on your brother or sister?...each of us will be accountable to
God." - Romans 14:1-6, 10 NRSV

What a great way to look at the faith, I guess he is a Saint for a reason. This is God's message, it's the exact opposite from the Catholic or Calvinistic method. St. Paul doesn't say 'for those of you abstaining from meat, ANATHEMA!!! may God's curses torment you, Ye heathen Heretical schismatic who would divide the apostolic unity of the one true church!!!!PHGSODIHSGPISDGJ'.... Thank God for ecumenical Paul. This isn't any of that fundamentalist 'the truth always divides', it's just 'yes, we disagree, but don't judge each other, and worry about yourself and God - that's who you are accountable to.'

I like what Paul also says in Ephesians 2 about how Gentiles and Jews are united in Christ, I think the same is true of the church when he writes "For he [Jesus] is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us...In him the whole structure is joined together" Eph 2: 14, 21 (NRSV). So later when he writes, "there is one body and one Spirit...one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all." Eph 4:4-6 (NRSV) it really shows how Christ is in all and he has broken down the barriers. Even if we have 'broken communion' we are all in communion with Christ. The unity of the church does not depend on man, much like creation, salvation and all the other major points of the bible, but depends on God. It would seem we can't do anything right, and so Christ did it for us, again.

Am I Jacob or Esau?

So I was challenged by someone the other day to read Romans 9 again, I won't say by who (cough* Jared) and I really didn't want to, so I delayed. Finally today I did actually read it and it once more scared me as it always does. It just seems so rank with injustice. Aristotle defines justice as 'giving to each man that which he deserves' but this is NOT the justice of God.

"Yet before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad - in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls...Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" What then shall we say? is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion" It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy." - Romans 9:11-16

I have yet to find - as Rob Whittaker says - some tricky expositional gymnastics and greek interpretations that get me out of the bluntness of that message. Even worse than that passage is what Paul says next:

"What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with a great patience the objects of his wrath - prepared for destruction?" What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of mercy" -Romans 9:22-23

... I sit staring at my bible not knowing how to respond. Phillip Yancey's 'helpful' side notes in my Student Bible mention nothing of Calvinism. No explanation at all. Just a small joke about rabbis asking questions.

...

That's the best you can do Yancey? ... St. Paul just said God made certain people to pour out his wrath upon for his own grand scheme of self-glorification, and all you can say is 'Rabbi's ask alot of questions' ... (hatred for evangelicalism boiling in soul....count to ten....)

I was watching this movie on Jacob on TV called "In the Beginning" -Jacob being the bible character, previously mentioned above as being loved by God - lucky him. Anyways, as I watched the clips of him and was wondering about why God loved him. He didn't do anything good. He was a bastard just like me. But for some strange reason, God revealed himself to Jacob, and for an even crazier reason he decided to hate Esau. ... did Esau ever pray? did he know God hated him? ... I wonder why God decided to hate him. I bet Esau wondered. I have a hard time thinking that Esau was some degenerate his whole life, I mean he didn't kill Jacob when he saw him again.. that has to be worth something.

So this troubles me because yes it's fine to preach about Jacob, and isn't God's grace awesome to him... but what about Esau. His life sucked. He got cheated out of his inheritance, his brother screwed him over, and his mom loved his brother more. I don't think St. Paul and Esau would've been friends, Paul would probably pat him on the back and say: 'tough luck Esau, but you know all this is happening because God hates you. But don't worry, in the end it's all working together for the good of those who love God'. ... I don't think that really helps. I wonder if Jesus felt like that 1971 years ago yesterday when he was crucified. I wonder if while he was in the immense pain on the cross if he was thinking 'at least this is working out for the good of those who love me... although it doesn't seem like it, Mom's crying and I even gave her my best friend John for a new son...Peter abandonned me... maybe I should totally make Bartholomew the new Rock on which I build my church...'

I realize that anyone reading this will probably think "BLASPHEMY" but luckily I know no one reads this. See I am troubled by most Christians because they simply say 'well we're all Jacobs, so fuck Esau' ... but what if I'M not a Jacob. What if my constant sin is actually proof that I have never been a Jacob, but I'm just stuck as an Esau, an unsaved, unregenerate, vessel of wrath. LOL better yet, what if all of our Protestant sacraments are invalid and none of us are saved... It's a really scary thought, because the system of Reformed theology says that you are totally depraved and sinful... but that if you exhibit those characteristics, then it's proof you aren't one of the elect. It's a painful contradiction that I simply do not understand. So I guess my prayer is, as I go off into life, bound to sin agian, bound to live a wrong and ungodly life, only to repent later... I guess my prayer is...

God let me be a Jacob.

Being "In Him"/"In Christ" from Paul to Descartes

Lately I've been reading some stuff on Justification and what it means. I was reading some N.T. Wright and he talked about how many scholars (though not himself I think) believed that the central theme of all of the apostle Paul's writing was the mystical (in a Christian sense - remove modern connotations) was his most important Idea.

In Philosophy we were going through Rene Descartes' Meditations and other metaphysical writings. I love learning about Descartes at Brock because 1) our Professor is smart and accurately portrays him, and 2) Descartes makes me feel like I have a friend, like somewhere even in the distant past there was actually someone who thought about the same things I do. Now I am not trying to compare myself to Descartes, but I'm just saying I love his philosophy because at this point of the book all that Descartes says he can trust is that he exists, and that in order for him to exist, God must exist, and somehow we exist in God.

It reminds me of Acts 17 when Paul goes to Athens and starts debating with the philosophers. Getting up early every morning I drive to philosophy makes me feel like Paul. Maybe I'm being melodramatic but I like to imagine these genius platonic philosophers, and it says that, "While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols". I know the feeling, you know the feeling, when you're sitting there and people around you are reading celebrity magazines and listening to iPods, and talking about money. Everyone has idols - especially here at brock, people embrace the strange polygamy of sources from Nietzsche to Buddha they all deem them 'respectible' but in the end there is no authority to which they owe their allegiance. They believe they are their own end and the 'master of their fate'.

as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.'

I think one of my Personal dreams is to somehow before I leave brock get a platform and microphone and scream this out.

Because this is Paul's thinking, it is Descartes thinking. When asking the biggest questions of life, when trying to realize what we are as humans, humanity itself can have no answer. Descartes Cosmological argument shows that the only thing you will ever get from human finitude is finite and human ideas. But as Paul reminds us, when we are 'In Christ' we have access to a whole other world. Something much greater than ourselves. When we enter into the new covenant we have bound our fates together, for all times.

The Greeks talked about an idea where when two people were born a soul was broken in two and your 'soulmate' is the other person in the world who makes you complete. Well call me cynical about women, but I've never met one who could be that (and certainly no men...let the rumors stop lol). I think Paul's idea parallels that quite nicely. That all of our idols and temples built by men cannot contain the greatness of the infinite God, and that only in this covenant with him can we be made whole (salvation means to make whole).

Those are just my thoughts from this morning.

Gratias Tibi Domine