For the last two weeks, I've been back in the classroom and back in the office. It's definitely a comfort zone for me. I can navigate this. I know where things are (most of the time...though I could use some help with filing right now!). I know what comes next in the course I'm teaching. I know what to say.
But history, and historical theology, is not about routine and predictability. History is made by those who are adventurous and take risks and by those who are brave enough (or naive enough) to say things that need to be said.
Today, we talked a little about John Chrysostom, who was called a great preacher, but was exiled for it! Sound familiar? Nevertheless, it's Chrysostom I'm reading about today, not the Emperor and Empress who exiled him. He was "rehabilitated" and given the title "Doctor of the Church" but only after he and his accusers were dead.
I've been contemplating John 17 of late. How does the church's unity prove that Jesus is the Son of God? I think it has to do with community in God and community in the church as a witness of that.
Many of us, including my students this week, are concerned about disunity and compromise. Some seem to be able to laugh off the junk we see and the political moves we hear about or witness (or are victim to) but I've been placed in a particular setting within the Kingdom and so I believe it must all be taken seriously. So did Chrysostom.
At least the next generation apologized.
"Do you wish to honour the body of Christ? Do not ignore him when he is naked. Do not pay him homage in the temple clad in silk, only then to neglect him outside where he is cold and ill-clad. He who said: "This is my body" is the same who said: "You saw me hungry and you gave me no food", and "Whatever you did to the least of my brothers you did also to me"... What good is it if the Eucharistic table is overloaded with golden chalices when your brother is dying of hunger? Start by satisfying his hunger and then with what is left you may adorn the altar as well."
1 comment:
I love Chrysostom. If I remember correctly he is one of the first to speak of "impanation" in which the bread and wine become the presence of Christ in the mediation of the body. Luther later develops this into consubstantiation.
Chrysostom also wrote a great sermon entitled "God Desired a Harlot" in which the church is a drunken harlot that Christ seeks out and loves until she begins to worship Him, at which time she is transformed into a beautiful maiden and he gives her the signet ring of the Holy Spirit. (Eutropius II)
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