Moral action only flows from doctrinal truth by grace and faith, that is through prayer. Martin Thornton
The Word of God
In the Zoom mass at Saint Clements Church we have a shared homily. The rector begins with a few thoughts and then anyone can offer their ideas. It’s a grace filled time as people work to connect themselves to the Gospel. Today we heard Romans and Matthew.
So, the People of God engaged the Word of God; or more truly, the Word of God engaged the People of God.
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good ... Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all ... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
In many ways the best of Anglican theology. Pragmatic, Biblical, and open minded.
What are we to do with our anger and feelings of judgment? People without masks. Racial injustice. Police shootings. Looting and violence.
We shared ways of faithfulness—getting perspective, managing our feelings, challenging evil, accepting the limits of our influence, doing what we are able to do, knowing when to step aside and when to say something. It was the Body of Christ preparing to receive the Body of Christ.
Later I found myself recalling the Community of Julian of Norwich in Trenton where we had a shared homily each Sunday. Face-to-face was easier than Zoom! Yet, also much the same—courteous, present to one another, direct, listening with “the ear of our heart.” How are we to sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?
Lord, I love the house in which you dwell *
and the place where your glory abides.
Anglican Ascetical Theology
I also found myself recalling the Anglican basics.
One is from the Anglican bishops at the Lambeth Conference in 1978. They spoke of a pattern of life: "This inextricable fusion of worship, of doctrine, and of action constitutes the distinctive contribution the churches of the Anglican Communion desire to make to the Universal Church of God in Jesus Christ."
Worship-Doctrine-Action was for the bishops a synthesis. Together they formed a whole. And it was necessary that they remain together because that allowed for the messiness and complexity of life.
Another is from Father Martin Thornton, "Moral action only flows from doctrinal truth by grace and faith, that is through prayer"
He was challenging what he saw as a mistaken Protestant inclination to believe that the person and the church could move from doctrinal truth directly to action. In the language of my youth it was, “Get your head on straight and you’ll act correctly.” Right thinking would bring right action. Thornton was recognizing that it wasn't so. That God’s action within and upon us, “grace and faith, through prayer”, was what allowed for truly moral action. It’s pretty basic stuff. Really the same thing Evelyn Underhill says in other words, “One’s first duty is adoration, and one’s second duty is awe and only one’s third duty is service. And that for those three things and nothing else, addressed to God and no one else, you and I and all other countless human creatures evolved upon the surface of this planet were created. We observe then that two of the three things for which our souls were made are matters of attitude, of relation: adoration and awe. Unless these two are right, the last of the triad, service, won’t be right. Unless the whole of your...life is a movement of praise and adoration, unless it is instinct with awe, the work which the life produces won’t be much good.“
"Christian action is participation by the People of God in the work of God. This is a process of being drawn into a deeper relationship with God, into service to others, and into responsible participation in the care and ordering of the creation. To be a Christian is to be a servant, evangelist and steward. This is most properly understood as a way of being rather than as a list of things to do. Those shaped over the years by participation in the life and ministry of Christ's Body, nurtured by Word and Sacrament, grasped again and again by Mercy and Glory, become his light and salt and leaven. Martin Thornton touches on this in Spiritual Direction: 'Aquinas got it right: prayer is 'loving God in act so that the divine life can communicate itself to us and through us to the world.' Christian action is not action of which Jesus approves but action that he performs through his incorporated, and therefore prayerful, disciples.' "[i]
This is something that Fr. Kevin frequently points out when he stresses our life in community. Thornton put it this way: “The prayer and life of each member is wholly dependent on the health of the total organism.”
Through prayer
Recently I’ve found a particular method of prayer helpful as I struggle with my anxiety and occasional hostility. The spiritual map of Contemplation-Intercession-Action has come to mind and offered me a pathway from my feelings and thoughts into Grace.
One woman’s thinking brought it to mind. She spoke of how she read news sources other than those she easily identifies with. I gather it’s a way she broadens her thinking and gains a more comprehensive perspective on issues and events. It was nice to hear. It’s something I try to do each day. I’ll read the more conservative local news source and the National Review. It’s not just that it helps to know what your “enemies” are thinking, which it is helpful to do, but sometimes they add facts into the picture that your own normal sources of information avoid offering. By this point I assume most of us have figured out that it’s all too common for journalists on all sides, to leave out facts, and stress a narrative that advances their side of things.
All of which reminded me that contemplation begins with doing your best to see things, people, and events as they are in themselves. And after doing your best with that--to seek to look upon them as God might. Contemplation includes doing our best to grasp the situation before us, to see effects, to have a more complete picture; knowing that we are called to take responsible action even though we will never have all the facts.
That combined with the call to intercess for others has helped me let go of the impulses of hostility and judgment. I find it hard to hold another on my heart before God and continue judging them.
I do have a message in my head that I shouldn’t add to the world’s hostility and that I need to focus on ways in which my influence can best be used. And yet, the message in itself doesn’t take me to right action. I have to move there through prayer, in this case contemplation and intercession.
Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.
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[i] From Fill All Things: The Spiritual Dynamics of the Parish Church, Robert Gallagher, 2008, Ascension Press.