Image from Panantheniac Amphora, courtesy BBC
Yesterday the younger son was in my office at work when I finally got away from the ward. He is not happy with his new Physical Education teacher, who made him do an endurance test: step-ups onto a high box, push-ups, burpees — to number, and to time. This morning he came into my room saying his legs hurt.
He has some sympathy. I’m back in the gym after the break, and despite walking most days, restarting any exercise programme is painful. (And I did warn him, when he chose to stay in the hotel room rather than go swimming and walking , that he would suffer around now. Pain is truly a teacher).
Today the writer of Hebrews uses an analogy of athleticism. You do not run a race in your suit, encumbered with a few kilos of gear. You run dressed lightly: in fact, in the time of the early church, the athletes were naked. And there were enough Greek cities and Hellenized Jews that the analogy would work.
32And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets — 33who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. 36Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented — 38of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
39Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect. 1Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
We are told to get rit of the extra stuff, keep things light: not be stuck down and tied down with cares. One of the things you learn when you travel is to leave much at home: you literally pack, then edit it down to half the size.
In our editing we are to look to Jesus, who clearly threw the idea of being popular away as not needed.
60When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” 61But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? 62Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. 65And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”
66Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. 67So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” 68Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”70Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” 71He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him.
I have been taught on the first of these passages over many years. The individual message of simplification and clinging to the faith is one that needs to be taught, and is taught. But most of us do not thing of this as occurring to us as a congregation, as a group.
This brings us back to worship and liturgy. For here I agree with what Brendan commented about a post I wrote a couple of days ago.
The thing about liturgy, just to respond here instead of in the thread of a few days ago, is that it has to be something of “integrity”. In the Catholic/Orthodox world, there are actually many liturgical “rites” (by which is meant liturgical families, rather than specific rituals) of which the Roman Rite and the Byzantine Rite are only the two largest. There are quite a few others, such as the Coptic and Ethopian, the Armenian, the Jacobite Syrian, and so on. There also used to be other rites in the West as well, such as the Sarumite and the Gallican.
In the context of non-Catholic and non-Orthodox communities, it seems to me that what some seem to be striving for is some greater degree of liturgical integrity similar to what one sees in the “rites” of the high liturgical churches. That doesn’t mean it has to look the same as the Byzantine or the Roman Rite. Conceptually, there could, for example, be a “Reformed Rite” that would encompass an integral, historical Reformed liturgical tradition — rather than the ad hoc liturgies that tend to be present in a lot of the more popular non-denominational Protestant communities (at least here in the US). Ad hoc is “relevant” at the expense of “integrity”
I am less sure about the Baptists, but I am fully aware that there are prayers and a structure for worship in the Presbyterian Book of Order and enfolded in the Westminster Confession. The Anglicans have the most developed and beautiful rites. And the truth within a liturgy that functions is that it is truthful and requires the verbal proclamation of scripture. Which has a power of its own.
But Brendan said something quite astute. Being relevant is an encumbrance. It is like trying to be fashion forward: a huge amount of effort for a net reduction on beauty. We need to be aware of the fashions of this world — and stand against them when they are evil.
For the world will never see the truth as relevant. They want a message that will comfort, soothe, make them feel spiritual, and leave them damned. For all eternity. This is an issue to serious for intellectual fads. Our salvation was bought by the blood of Christ and witnessed by the blood of the ancient prophets and martyrs. We need to preserve its integrity.
And the deep irony is that my branch of the church, which criticized the Romans for their accretion of statues, art, and made their rites and churches plain, have abandoned this in a fruitless search for acceptance by the intellectual elite. We need to learn again to hold fast to the words and life of Jesus, and here the Orthodox and Catholic example must instruct us.