St. Aidan's Anglican Church, Kansas City - weekly talks

The meaning of life, our very existence, directly corresponds to the mystery of Christ and his Church. This mystery is all about an eternal communion of love.

Genesis & Revelation: redemptive bookends:

The marriage of Adam and Eve is the high point of the creation story in Genesis, and the marriage of the New Adam and the New Eve, Christ and the Church, is the high point of the redemption story in the book of Revelation” (Christopher West, Fill These Hearts, p 101).

“At the heart of the Gospel lies the “great mystery” of the marriage of divinity and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. The fullness of time, the two – God and Man – became one in the flesh of the God-Man” (Christopher West, At the Heart of the Gospel, p. 7).

“As if God’s visitation wasn’t enough, this astounding visitation is itself an astounding invitation.” We are invited into the same nuptial exchange. God became one in the flesh with us so that we might become one in the flesh with him” (Christopher West, At the Heart of the Gospel, p. 7).

What were the first human words spoken in the bible? “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” Gen. 2:23 These are words of the bridegroom’s desire for his bride.

And the last human words spoken in the bible are words of the Bride’s desire for the coming of her Bridegroom: “The Spirit and the bride say ‘Come!’ … ‘Come Lord Jesus’” (Rev. 22:17, 20).

The whole story of our salvation, the whole biblical story, is framed by the desire of the bridegroom for union with the bride, and the desire of the Bride for union with the Bridegroom.

The Framework for the Biblical Story

JPII covers three epochs of human history to frame the whole biblical story.

1. Original humanity – Genesis 1- 2

2. Historical humanity – Genesis 3 forward

3. Eschatological humanity – The Return of Christ for his Bride the Church

Without this simple framework, all the other pieces of the biblical puzzle will lack context and ultimate meaning. Those who spend time with puzzles usually put the outside framework together before constructing the inside.

Christopher West offers JPII’s framework in the following three words: Design, desire and destiny.

For a second week, we break from our summer series to consider, from Michael's pastoral perspectives, the SCOTUS decision to legalize gay marriage. Fr. Michael calls his flock to love the gay community while holding to the Church's teaching on marriage and sexuality. The woman caught in adultery and the wedding at Cana are referenced.

In short, we are called to love as Jesus has loved us ... speaking the Truth in love and always balance the Grace and Truth in Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:14-21

2 Corinthians 5:14-21

Last week we looked in Matthew 19 at a discussion Jesus had with the Pharisees about divorce … they are going in the wrong direction with their question: “Can a man divorce his wife for any reason?” Jesus said because of the hardness of your hearts ..., but it was not so from the beginning.

Have we been so culturally conditioned to believe that all our interpersonal conflict, all the pain and heartache in male – female relationships is normal? Jesus thinks not!

Through conditioning, we’re more familiar with ORIGINAL SIN than ORIGINAL RIGHTEOUSNESS … Jesus is saying that in order to untwist the mess we’ve made, we must go back to the beginning … before Genesis 3. We must explore ORIGINAL INNOCENCE. We have a better theology of sin than we have of creation. The Gospel doesn’t begin with “all have sinned” … it begins with the glory of God. If we don’t understand God’s original intentions, we won’t understand how far we’ve fallen from the glory of God.

Genesis 1 -2 describes “Original Experiences” of the first human beings.

The first three Chapters of Genesis, arguably the first 11, provides interpretive keys for understanding the rest of the Bible. Once those categories are in place, you’ll find that they keep reoccurring.

Historically, in America especially, we’ve been sidetracked by trying to read Genesis as a scientific account of creation. Other’s read it in a stiff, literal manner or as mere history, or pre-history. I believe the authors of Genesis are attempting to give us a theology. It is written in symbolic language to communicate universal truths about God and creation. It’s more about God’s intention for creation than HOW he created it.

The NT authors read Genesis from symbolism to spiritual reality … from the snake in the Garden symbolizing Satan. Satan is no more a literal snake than Jesus is a literal Lamb!

You see if I want to understand what a Toyota looks like, I don’t go the junkyard; I go to the showroom. Let’s now go to the showroom.

Original Experiences

1. Original Divine Partnership (stewards of creation)

2. Original Freedom (the two trees)

3. Original Faith (avoiding death by God's awareness, not ours)

4. Original Solitude (alone without a complementary gift)

5. Original Unity (such solitude guides one to such unity)

6. Original Nakedness (without shame)

In all of the above, human beings were growing in an emerging identity. Until the creation of woman, man, Adam (generic humanity) was unique from all of God’s creation. He is coming to understand that he is alone. The obvious meaning of Adam’s aloneness, his solitude, is that it’s not good to be without Eve. So Adam experiences solitude, and at this point, with no GENDER IDENTITY … Adam is a word meaning of the earth, generic humanity.

Adam is required to live by Faith (faith working through love)

He had no reference for what death was … he would have to trust God without any experience of it. Satan fell in heaven … before this possibility … love requires freedom within a plurality, a communion of persons.

Before Sin entered the world, there was one thing that was not good. So … God did a humorous thing … Animals! After naming them, Adam came to more aloneness, alienation that he is similar but not identical to the animals.

Adam has the breath of life but still a sense of aloneness. Adam walks with an unseen deity, but still 'alone'; he has to truth God's awareness of death without ever experiencing it. His aloneness is a gift, summoning him towards God and ultimate the other, Eve.

Adam comes to understand his maleness (ish - Hebrew for male) only after he's introduced to Eve (is-sah - Hebrew for female. This one from the earth, Adam, comes to a new identity in light of a complementary gift. Original solitude remains in both Adam and Eve, summoning them towards God, a relationship of trust.

Last week we looked in Matthew 19 at a discussion Jesus had with the Pharisees about divorce … they are going in the wrong direction with their question: “Can a man divorce his wife for any reason?” Jesus said because of the hardness of your hearts ..., but it was not so from the beginning.

Have we been so culturally conditioned to believe that all our interpersonal conflict, all the pain and heartache in male – female relationships is normal? Jesus thinks not!

Through conditioning, we’re more familiar with ORIGINAL SIN than ORIGINAL RIGHTEOUSNESS … Jesus is saying that in order to untwist the mess we’ve made, we must go back to the beginning … before Genesis 3. We must explore ORIGINAL INNOCENCE. We have a better theology of sin than we have of creation. The Gospel doesn’t begin with “all have sinned” … it begins with the glory of God. If we don’t understand God’s original intentions, we won’t understand how far we’ve fallen from the glory of God.

Genesis 1 -2 describes “Original Experiences” of the first human beings.

The first three Chapters of Genesis, arguably the first 11, provides interpretive keys for understanding the rest of the Bible. Once those categories are in place, you’ll find that they keep reoccurring.

Historically, in America especially, we’ve been sidetracked by trying to read Genesis as a scientific account of creation. Other’s read it in a stiff, literal manner or as mere history, or pre-history. I believe the authors of Genesis are attempting to give us a theology. It is written in symbolic language to communicate universal truths about God and creation. It’s more about God’s intention for creation than HOW he created it.

The NT authors read Genesis from symbolism to spiritual reality … from the snake in the Garden symbolizing Satan. Satan is no more a literal snake than Jesus is a literal Lamb!

You see if I want to understand what a Toyota looks like, I don’t go the junkyard; I go to the showroom. Let’s now go to the showroom.

Original Experiences

1. Original Divine Partnership (stewards of creation)

2. Original Freedom (the two trees)

3. Original Faith (avoiding death by God's awareness, not ours)

4. Original Solitude (alone without a complementary gift)

5. Original Unity (such solitude guides one to such unity)

6. Original Nakedness (without shame)

In all of the above, human beings were growing in an emerging identity. Until the creation of woman, man, Adam (generic humanity) was unique from all of God’s creation. He is coming to understand that he is alone. The obvious meaning of Adam’s aloneness, his solitude, is that it’s not good to be without Eve. So Adam experiences solitude, and at this point, with no GENDER IDENTITY … Adam is a word meaning of the earth, generic humanity.

Adam is required to live by Faith (faith working through love)

He had no reference for what death was … he would have to trust God without any experience of it. Satan fell in heaven … before this possibility … love requires freedom within a plurality, a communion of persons.

Before Sin entered the world, there was one thing that was not good. So … God did a humorous thing … Animals! After naming them, Adam came to more aloneness, alienation that he is similar but not identical to the animals.

Adam has the breath of life but still a sense of aloneness. Adam walks with an unseen deity, but still 'alone'; he has to truth God's awareness of death without ever experiencing it. His aloneness is a gift, summoning him towards God and ultimate the other, Eve.

Adam comes to understand his maleness (ish - Hebrew for male) only after he's introduced to Eve (is-sah - Hebrew for female. This one from the earth, Adam, comes to a new identity in light of a complementary gift. Original solitude remains in both Adam and Eve, summoning them towards God, a relationship of trust.

We are taking the Summer to explore, through the lens of Holy Scripture, what it means to be fully human, made in God’s image and likeness and how that plays out and signifies the final act, the return of Christ for his bride, culminating in what’s called the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Through the lens of Holy Scripture, we will ask …

1. What does it mean to be fully human, male and female?

2. How do we reflect the divine image and likeness?

3. How are our bodies, as male and female, a sign of the great mystery of Christ and his Church?

I will be presenting material from John Paul II called “Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body.” I’ll also be using several commentators of this work, among them Christopher West and Mary Healy.

We will consider both single and marital relationships with the understanding that marriage is a sign, a symbol pointing to a greater eternal reality – consummating our union with God. Therefore, earthly marriage is not the ultimate reality we’re moving towards, for there will be neither marriage nor giving in marriage in heaven; earthly marriage merely signifies the greater reality of union with God, both now in part and, at the return of Christ, an eternal consummation, in fullness, completeness.

How do we begin? Back to the Beginning, Jesus says.

In today’s Gospel, Matthew 19:3-9, Jesus provides one of the keys to understanding the Gospel: “for your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” v. 8.

Therefore, in this Gospel passage, Jesus is inferring: Do you think all the interpersonal conflict and tension, all the destruction and heartache in the male-female relationship is normal? Far from it! This isn’t the way God created it to be. Something has gone terribly wrong.

Christopher West gives this image. It’s as if we’re all driving around town in cars with flat tires. The rubber is shredding off the rims; the rims are getting all dented up; and we just think this is normal. Jesus is saying to the Pharisees (and to us), “In the beginning, they had air in their tires.”

So if we want to know the meaning of “one flesh” union, according to Christ, we have to go back to the beginning, before sin distorted things. That’s the benchmark of God’s intention. And how far we have drifted! But remember, Christ came into the world not to condemn those with flat tires! He came into the world to re-inflate our flat tires. In this stage of redemption – we can’t actually return to the state of innocence, but we can follow Jesus, learning to love as he loved, living in the communion of love, the Holy Trinity and receive God’s original plan for male and female and live it with the grace of Christ.

What does it mean to be created, male and female, in the image of God?

A man’s body or a woman’s body doesn’t make sense by itself. Why did you make me this way? When we have eyes to see in the beauty of the masculine form as it was created to be and the feminine form as it was a made to be, we discover the unmistakable design of our creator as male and female, we are a complementary gift to one another. The bridegroom can truly say to the bride, this is my body given for you. And the bride can truly say to the bridegroom, let it be done to me according to your word.

In this mutual exchange of self-giving and self-donative love, self donation, the love between a man and a woman is so profound it can become another living human being, the union of the two in the normal course of events leads to a third. And we catch a glimpse in this great mystery of the eternal exchange of love of the Trinity. We are made in the image and likeness of God as male and female and in the call to be fruitful and multiply. The call to love as Jesus loves is literally inscribed in our bodies. Our bodies tell this story; our bodies proclaim the Gospel message itself.

We are taking the Summer to explore, through the lens of Holy Scripture, what it means to be fully human, made in God’s image and likeness and how that plays out and signifies the final act, the return of Christ for his bride, culminating in what’s called the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Through the lens of Holy Scripture, we will ask …

1. What does it mean to be fully human, male and female?

2. How do we reflect the divine image and likeness?

3. How are our bodies, as male and female, a sign of the great mystery of Christ and his Church?

I will be presenting material from John Paul II called “Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body.” I’ll also be using several commentators of this work, among them Christopher West and Mary Healy.

We will consider both single and marital relationships with the understanding that marriage is a sign, a symbol pointing to a greater eternal reality – consummating our union with God. Therefore, earthly marriage is not the ultimate reality we’re moving towards, for there will be neither marriage nor giving in marriage in heaven; earthly marriage merely signifies the greater reality of union with God, both now in part and, at the return of Christ, an eternal consummation, in fullness, completeness.

How do we begin? Back to the Beginning, Jesus says.

In today’s Gospel, Matthew 19:3-9, Jesus provides one of the keys to understanding the Gospel: “for your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” v. 8.

Therefore, in this Gospel passage, Jesus is inferring: Do you think all the interpersonal conflict and tension, all the destruction and heartache in the male-female relationship is normal? Far from it! This isn’t the way God created it to be. Something has gone terribly wrong.

Christopher West gives this image. It’s as if we’re all driving around town in cars with flat tires. The rubber is shredding off the rims; the rims are getting all dented up; and we just think this is normal. Jesus is saying to the Pharisees (and to us), “In the beginning, they had air in their tires.”

So if we want to know the meaning of “one flesh” union, according to Christ, we have to go back to the beginning, before sin distorted things. That’s the benchmark of God’s intention. And how far we have drifted! But remember, Christ came into the world not to condemn those with flat tires! He came into the world to re-inflate our flat tires. In this stage of redemption – we can’t actually return to the state of innocence, but we can follow Jesus, learning to love as he loved, living in the communion of love, the Holy Trinity and receive God’s original plan for male and female and live it with the grace of Christ.

What does it mean to be created, male and female, in the image of God?

A man’s body or a woman’s body doesn’t make sense by itself. Why did you make me this way? When we have eyes to see in the beauty of the masculine form as it was created to be and the feminine form as it was a made to be, we discover the unmistakable design of our creator as male and female, we are a complementary gift to one another. The bridegroom can truly say to the bride, this is my body given for you. And the bride can truly say to the bridegroom, let it be done to me according to your word.

In this mutual exchange of self-giving and self-donative love, self donation, the love between a man and a woman is so profound it can become another living human being, the union of the two in the normal course of events leads to a third. And we catch a glimpse in this great mystery of the eternal exchange of love of the Trinity. We are made in the image and likeness of God as male and female and in the call to be fruitful and multiply. The call to love as Jesus loves is literally inscribed in our bodies. Our bodies tell this story; our bodies proclaim the Gospel message itself.

Today is Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday of Ordinary Time. I’ve come to see this Feast Day as a summary of the Christ Event, revealing the relations and roles of the Trinity – God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. From the Virgin Mary’s conception right through Christ’s Resurrection, we see the relations of the Trinity at work. The baptism of Jesus would be the most explicit display of this Great Mystery – the voice of the Father and the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus.

To consider the Trinity in merely philosophical terms would be missing the point. C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, says, ‘“You may ask, “If we cannot imagine a three-personal Being, what is the good of talking about Him?” Well, there isn’t any good talking about Him. The thing that matters is being actually drawn into that three-personal life, and that may begin any time – tonight, if you like.”

Jesuit author, Fr. James Hanvey tells us …

Too often our understanding and experience of God as Trinity is dismissed as a mystery or presented as some sort of paradox or conundrum: ‘three persons, one God.’ Now, of course, God is the absolute mystery of our lives and because we, as finite creatures, have only very limited ways of expressing the transcendent glory of God’s Trinitarian life, we have to remember that our language must be humble, partial and inadequate. If it were not then it could not speak truthfully of the reality of God who cannot be contained within our speech. The point of our attempting to put this luminous, holy reality into the poor rags of language is not to obscure but to point the way – the way from thinking and speaking to the life of the mystery itself. So, when we speak of the Trinity as a mystery we do not mean that we should not think or speak about it but rather that its meaning is inexhaustible. On the contrary, then, we can never be done thinking and speaking and coming to an adoring wonder that we have been given such an extraordinary vision of God’s own life. So what do we mean when we say ‘three persons, one God’? Well, we’re not talking arithmetic. If we are then, clearly, we’re going to get into trouble and our Trinity will seem nonsensical.

Now we get Love wrong if we think of it as a ‘thing’ – something we can possess or control. It is a relationship and it is a verb – we can only ‘have’ love by loving, by participating in a relationship of love.

So, the Trinity is Love Loving – alive, incomprehensible, inexhaustible, eternally complete and creative. Yet, here is the great mystery. We only know this because the Father gives Himself to be known in His Son and the Son gathers us into this eternal self-giving through and in the Spirit.

In other words, the fact that we can speak at all about God as Trinity is already a sign that we are beginning to participate in God’s Triune life: we know and experience that the Trinity is Love Loving us. This is what we call grace, gift, God himself. Today’s passage in Romans 8 says that “we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer WITH him in order that we may also be glorified WITH him” 8:16, 17).

Today is Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday of Ordinary Time. I’ve come to see this Feast Day as a summary of the Christ Event, revealing the relations and roles of the Trinity – God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. From the Virgin Mary’s conception right through Christ’s Resurrection, we see the relations of the Trinity at work. The baptism of Jesus would be the most explicit display of this Great Mystery – the voice of the Father and the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus.

To consider the Trinity in merely philosophical terms would be missing the point. C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, says, ‘“You may ask, “If we cannot imagine a three-personal Being, what is the good of talking about Him?” Well, there isn’t any good talking about Him. The thing that matters is being actually drawn into that three-personal life, and that may begin any time – tonight, if you like.”

Jesuit author, Fr. James Hanvey tells us …

Too often our understanding and experience of God as Trinity is dismissed as a mystery or presented as some sort of paradox or conundrum: ‘three persons, one God.’ Now, of course, God is the absolute mystery of our lives and because we, as finite creatures, have only very limited ways of expressing the transcendent glory of God’s Trinitarian life, we have to remember that our language must be humble, partial and inadequate. If it were not then it could not speak truthfully of the reality of God who cannot be contained within our speech. The point of our attempting to put this luminous, holy reality into the poor rags of language is not to obscure but to point the way – the way from thinking and speaking to the life of the mystery itself. So, when we speak of the Trinity as a mystery we do not mean that we should not think or speak about it but rather that its meaning is inexhaustible. On the contrary, then, we can never be done thinking and speaking and coming to an adoring wonder that we have been given such an extraordinary vision of God’s own life. So what do we mean when we say ‘three persons, one God’? Well, we’re not talking arithmetic. If we are then, clearly, we’re going to get into trouble and our Trinity will seem nonsensical.

Now we get Love wrong if we think of it as a ‘thing’ – something we can possess or control. It is a relationship and it is a verb – we can only ‘have’ love by loving, by participating in a relationship of love.

So, the Trinity is Love Loving – alive, incomprehensible, inexhaustible, eternally complete and creative. Yet, here is the great mystery. We only know this because the Father gives Himself to be known in His Son and the Son gathers us into this eternal self-giving through and in the Spirit.

In other words, the fact that we can speak at all about God as Trinity is already a sign that we are beginning to participate in God’s Triune life: we know and experience that the Trinity is Love Loving us. This is what we call grace, gift, God himself. Today’s passage in Romans 8 says that “we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer WITH him in order that we may also be glorified WITH him” 8:16, 17).