Augustine of Hippo

Warning - this will be a long post and perhaps different from most of my posts. I am a pastor and preacher with theological interests. But I have never claimed to be a theologian. But this is a theological post, prompted by the fact that on August 28,430, Augustine of Hippo died. And so he is remembered by the Church on this day, and I've been thinking about him lately for this reason. 

The word theology, comes from two Greek words: theos (God) and logos (word). Theology is, therefore, discourse about God, in much the same way that “biology” is discourse about life (bios). It's not a word found in the Bible. The late second-century writer, Clement of Alexandria, contrasted theologia with mythologia of his day; the former became a “church” word used to contrast with the stories and myths of pagan mythology. (Remember that Christianity came into existence in a polytheistic world.) Christian theology is reflection upon the God whom we adore and worship in and through Jesus Christ. 

None of this is very new or maybe even exciting, but I think it's helpful to define terms. Although I said above that I am primarily a pastor and preacher, in fact there is a theology that is always implicit and undergirding how I do those other things, as there is with all of us. Some theologies are fairly simple, which doesn't mean they aren't true. ("Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so...") Other theological concepts are more complex (or at least difficult to understand) like the Atonement. But all of it is about faith seeking understanding. 

One question that arises across denominations and across the centuries is this: what are the authoritative sources for doing theology. For some, it is scripture alone. For others, it is the teaching of the Church, through bishops. For others it is about being slain in the Spirit and a first-hand experience of the living God. Many of our theological differences have their roots in what we claim as our sources. Richard Hooker, an important early Anglican theologian, spoke of the role of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason as the sources for doing theology. But we do well to remember that in Hooker's time (the sixteenth century) reason meant both rationalism and empiricism. In other words, it encompassed both reason and experience. United Methodists, whose roots are Anglican, make this explicit and speak of scripture, reason, tradition and experience. Episcopalians, when speaking of the three-legged stool (scripture, reason, and tradition) do well to remember that at least implicitly, to be true to Hooker, we need also to consider about our experience of God and of God's world. 

This post is about one aspect of the “tradition” by which I don't mean American Christianity during the Eisenhower administration. The roots of our living tradition go much deeper than that. Tradition isn't about literal rigid adherence to the past; but it can mean “attentiveness” to what other pilgrims have learned that might be helpful in our own context. Finally, and then on to good old Augustine: we do well to remember, though, that then (as now) theology is shaped by culture. There is no "pure" theology; it is all contextual. So learning from the past is about gleaning what is helpful today. 

St. Augustine got into a theological argument with a guy named Pelagius about the nature of Sin. Too often we think of theological "arguments' as having winners and losers: the winners we call saints and the losers we call heretics. But we get clarity on what we believe and why we believe what we believe when we have a good debate partner who will help us to see why it matters. Pelagius was a good debate partner; a British monk, from that  "backwater" province of Britain in the fourth century. He came to Rome and saw the terrible conditions there and he was mortified that Christians were not much better behaved than anyone else. What about that call to be leaven in the loaf and salt of the earth, Pelagius asked? He felt that the Christians in Rome were hypocritical for the ways their life choices mirrored the dominant culture rather than influencing it for good. He wanted them to "stop sinning." He wanted to call the Church to a higher moral standard. 

On the other side of that argument, Augustine got clear about what would come to be called the Doctrine of Original Sin. He had some blind spots about that, to be sure, and he had his own issues. So he got it confused with sex. But what he wanted to say is that we are born into Sin, that it's bigger than the choices we make. As that theologian from the swamps of Jersey puts it (in a very Augustinian way):

...you're born into this life paying for the sins of somebody else's past, Daddy worked his whole life for nothing but the pain, Now he walks these empty rooms, looking for something to blame, You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames, Adam raised a Cain. (Bruce Springsteen)

What is being claimed here is that Sin is a part of existence, not only about bad moral choices. We get "caught" in it as much as we choose it. Luther, of course, was an Augustinian monk before he nailed those theses on the door of that church in Wittinberg. Through the centuries this Augustinian influence shaped Luther and then, eventually, a twentieth-century theologian named Paul Tillich, who famously said that Sin is separation. To experience life as separation - from God, from others, from even our own true selves - is not a choice. It's just part of life. 

Sin abounds. Thankfully, grace abounds all the more. As far as I can tell, whether claimed explicitly or not, the theology that under-girds 12-Step spirituality is also indebted to Augustine. Pelagius would say that if you want to be sober, just stop drinking. Just say no! But the experience of so many who are caught in the throes of addiction is that they are powerless on their own to do that. Recognizing that powerless and overcoming separation by turning to one's "higher power" and to the power of a group of people is step one that allows for healing to begin. One day at a time. 

Why does this matter? Well, this is what I've been thinking a lot about although it's taken me some time to get here. I suppose that people with a more solid theological background could just start reading this post here.

A few years back, Barbara Brown Taylor wrote a little book called Speaking of Sin. In that book she wrote these words: 

I remained aware enough of social sins to be surprised when religious people wanted to focus on sexual sins instead. I suppose that when poverty, crime, and degradation of the environment start looking unbeatable, then it is predictable that people will shift their attention to an enemy who seems easier to attack.

The American Church has, it seems to me, by and large tended toward Pelagianism. Augustine "won" the theological battle in his day but Pelagius "won the war," as it were. We tend to think we can do what we put our minds to doing; that we can fix things - as if they were things: ourselves, our congregations, the neighborhood. Yet this has continued to make it very difficult for us to even speak honestly about big systemic sins like poverty and crime and degradation of the environment; and I would add, systemic racism. So we tend toward Pelagianism when we think that if can just rid a police department of the few bad apples or change some hearts that we'll be on our way. And when that doesn't happen, we get discouraged. 

Yet Sin abounds. The work really is about dismantling racism, one day at a time and that is going to take some commitment and dedication and hard work. Sin abounds. Even so, grace abounds all the more. But not like a magic wand or a quick fix. More like the journey of healing that happens one day at a time. 

How we learn to live into that gift, one day at a time, is at the heart of the spiritual journey. Naming things rightly, and rediscovering a vocabulary for Sin, may be a modest first step. Perhaps as we remember Augustine of Hippo we can remember what he learned about the life of faith. I have come to believe that a good healthy doctrine of Sin is actually the beginning of the theology of hope, in much the same way that 12-step programs are. We begin by telling the truth, which allows us to become agents of reconciliation and repairers of the breach, toward building the City of God. 

Augustine lived in a time not so different from our own, as the once great Roman Empire was coming unglued. Pelagius wanted to fix it but it was too far gone and eventually Rome fell. Yet that would not be the end of the story, and Augustine wrote The City of God. That may be another long post, for another day. 

 

Final Post in Genesis Series: A Sermon for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost

Throughout the summer, I've been blogging on the readings from Genesis. But I've not had opportunities to preach on it. This week, however, as we come to the end, I have my chance. I recorded this sermon in July at All Saints Church in Worcester to be shared across our diocese while folks continue to worship online. Some may use it, some may not. But I'll go ahead and share the sermon here to conclude this summer's reflections on Genesis. It's been fun for me; I hope for those of you who have been reading along as well. Peace. 

Note on Genesis Series

I am grateful to all who have been joining me on this journey through Genesis since Trinity Sunday, on June 7. If you have been reading these posts you will know that my goal was to publish on Monday morning to help preachers and hearers of sermons to reflect on these Track 1 readings, in preparation for the following Sunday.

This coming Sunday, however, I will be preaching on the last Genesis text of this series. And I'd rather wait to publish that sermon here than do so on Monday. So it'll be coming...but it'll be coming on Sunday morning. 

This has been a good COVID pandemic "discipline" for me - although it's been in truth a labor of love. I love the Bible and I love the Old Testament especially; not "more" but I love that it's important and too often neglected by Christians, particularly liturgical ones. So I hope these reflections have been helpful for you. See you Sunday! 

The Dreamer

So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan. They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, "Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.

The narrative suggests two reasons as to why Joseph’s brothers hate him so much. One is good old-fashioned sibling rivalry: they are jealous of him because they believe that their father, Jacob, loves Joseph more than he loves them. (That coat is an outward and visible sign that this is actually true. Playing favorites is not a new thing in this family.) 

But the narrative gives a second reason that his brothers can’t stand Joseph: he is a dreamer and they don’t like the dreams he has been having.

Inexplicably, however, the lectionary committee (in their infinite wisdom) cut out the middle part of today’s narrative. So if you come to this text without already knowing the story then you may not recall what it was Joseph had been dreaming. Jacob has settled back into the land of Canaan after two decades away from there. Joseph is now seventeen years old, and no one seems to deny that he is a spoiled brat and a tattle tale. And then in verses 5-11 of the thirty-seventh chapter of Genesis, the verses not included in today’s reading, the narrator says:

Once Joseph had a dream which he told to his brothers; and they hated him even more. He said to them, “Hear this dream which I have dreamed: There we were binding sheaves in the field, when suddenly my sheaf stood up and remained upright; then your sheaves gathered around and bowed low to my sheaf.” His brothers answered, “Do you mean to reign over us? Do you mean to rule over us? And they hated him even more for his talk about his dreams. He dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers, saying, “Look, I have had another dream: And this time the sun, the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” And when he told it to his father and brothers, his father berated him. “What,” he said to him, “is this dream you have dreamed? Are we to come, I and your mother and your brothers and bow low to you to the ground?” So his brothers were wrought up at him and his father kept the matter in mind.

(Jewish Publication Society translation)

Now as we all know, some dreams are best kept to ourselves. Some are just too weird to share with others. But Joseph apparently relishes this dream and can’t wait to throw it into the faces of his brothers, apparently as evidence of his superiority over them.  

Now to offer this commentary, I am going to have to spoil the ending. I need to tell you (if you don’t already remember it) that the dreams do come to pass. Joseph is taken out of the pit and sold to the Ishmaelites who take him to Egypt. Long story short, it turns out he is not only a dreamer but a pretty good interpreter of dreams and that gift will get him out of jail after he is imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. He is then promoted to a cabinet position in the Pharaoh’s administration—Secretary of Agriculture. After the economy enters into a serious seven-year recession and famine threatens the land, his father and brothers come down from Canaan to Egypt and because of his political position, Joseph is able to save them from starvation. And guess what? They’ll bow down before him!

One way to preach this story is as a transition from Genesis to Exodus: literally that is how the Joseph story functions in the Bible.  We move away from the patriarchs and the land of Canaan, and the children of Israel end up in Egypt. That is where the story will pick up with the call of Moses and the Exodus event. I’m sure there are countless sermons that could be preached on this transition, including sermons about family dynamics and in particular the complexities of large blended families.

But I want to raise a fairly serious theological question with you. The Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob materials reflect a more primitive social context and worldview. In that world, Abraham seems to hear God’s voice as clear as day: “Go to a land I will show you.” Or, “take your son, your only son whom you love, and go with him to Mt. Moriah.” God speaks. Abraham obeys. That is what makes him the father of faith. Isaac is saved when God says, "look in the thicket for a ram." Jacob wrestles with God at the Jabbok River. 

But Joseph moves in a more sophisticated cultural milieu, and I would argue that is a world more like the one we inhabit. By the time we get to Joseph, God’s way of communicating is more hidden and less direct. Instead of “go” or “take” we get these dreams. It isn’t even clear initially that God is behind the dreams that Joseph is having, the root cause of which may well have been (for all we know) too much garlic in the hummus. The point is that the meaning of dreams is never literal and rarely obvious; dreams always need to be interpreted in order to figure out what is of God and that takes some time. 

So Walter Brueggemann argues that what this text is really attempting to do is to raise a crucial and far-reaching faith question: what does it look like to trust God in a world where it isn’t quite so obvious what God is up to? How do we respond to God's call when it isn’t always clear what God is asking of us?

Think about that for a moment. I hear it all the time from people who begin to encounter the Bible in more serious ways. If, like Abraham, we could really “hear” God and know what God wants of us, then maybe we could muster up the strength and the courage to act. But what if the harder part is figuring out what God is up to—and what exactly God wants of us? 

The fancy theological word for this work is “discernment.” But all that word really means is that most of the time we have to try to figure things out when at best we get dreams that need to be interpreted or epiphanies that give us glimpses and  half-guesses into what might be God’s will for us. Most of us don’t get clarity from God, and when we do we are probably wise to be suspicious of our own certitude.

Stay with me on this! Bruggemann argues that this Joseph narrative is about “God’s hidden yet decisive power that works in and through, but also against human forms of power.” The flip side of that same claim is that Joseph’s call is hidden, even from him. To say this in a much simpler way: God is at work in this text, but that doesn’t become clear until the end. God is working in and through (and sometimes against) all of these mixed-up characters to bring about a new reality, but that work is mostly hidden from the sight of the characters in this story and even to some extent from us as readers. 

Notice that the text doesn’t say that God made the brothers do this terrible thing of selling their brother off. The text doesn’t negate free will. But it does seem to be insisting that God can use even our bad choices to bring about good, that God can use our sibling rivalry and petty jealousies and ineffective parenting and all the rest and still bring about good. That theme will continue to the very end of the Joseph saga. In other words, this narrative is exploring the nature of God’s providence. That word is one I think we need to rediscover and reclaim in our theological vocabularies. It comes from two Latin words, pro-video, literally “to see before.”  (We encountered this word earlier in Genesis on Mount Moriah, when God "sees to it' that a sacrifice (other than Isaac) is provided.) 

God sees.  I prefer this language to the normal way we've used "providence" which tends to make us think of God as a puppet-master, pulling our strings. Or moving chess pieces on a board. When people say "everything happens for a reason" it feels like nails on a chalk board for me. I just don't believe that. 

But neither do I believe in the "god" of the Deists; that God built a clock and then just stepped back in to the heavens. Like an old hymn puts it, I do believe that: 

God is working his purpose out, as year succeeds to year / God is working his purpose out and the time is drawing near...

Not passively but actively. Not sitting way up in heaven distant from our daily lives but right here, in the midst of it all. Through it all, God sees and God acts. God’s hidden yet decisive power keeps working in families and in congregations and in nations and on this planet, not just when we get it all right (which we rarely do) but even through the messes we make. God keeps seeing to it and bringing good from ill. 

I think most of us probably believe this, at least to some extent. Or at least we want to believe it, at least when it comes to personal lives. It may be harder for us to make the claim that this narrative makes that God’s activity isn’t confined to individuals and families, however, but global events as well. This is headed toward a story of God’s liberating activity of bringing a band of slaves out of an oppressive political situation and into freedom. Granted, that won't happen overnight. But it does happen...

It’s hard for us, I think, when we read the newspapers or watch the news to believe that God is involved in global events today. Often those who want to find a reason for something bad happening are in the business of scapegoating the people they fear.That's not discernment; that's projection. 

But what if God is still working in and through (and sometimes against) human forms of power in order to bring about peace on earth and good will to all? Perhaps the greatest challenge of faith in our time is to trust that to be the case: that God is seeing to things we can’t yet see. I think that's what Dame Julian understood when she said "all will be well." When? That she didn't know! How? Well, that she didn't know either. She just knew that God wasn't yet finished...

So Brueggemann makes the claim that a narrative such as this one creates a listening community that is invited “to live between the hint of the dream and the doxology of the disclosure.” I love that! We see the “hint of the dream” in today’s reading—Genesis 37.  (Well, actually the lectionary committee didn’t even give us that much but it is in the text!) Next weekend we’ll read from the 45^th chapter, what Brueggemann calls the “doxology of disclosure” part of the story. Unlike today, when we don’t hear mention of God, next week it will all be about God: God did this, God was at work in these events, praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise God who has provided for us and who saves us from our foolishness and so on and so forth. But that only comes at the end, once we know the rest of the story. 

We live most of our lives between hint and doxology, don’t we? We work on letting go and letting God, some days with little more than a hunch or a dream or a prayer to go on. We live our lives as followers of Jesus Christ asking for discerning hearts so that God can work more in and through (rather than against) us to bring healing to our lives, our community, and our world. Faith is hard when like Joseph we find ourselves in a pit, abandoned by those we thought were supposed to love us. Faith is hard when the doctor says cancer or our spouse says “I don’t love you anymore” or our kid is in real trouble or the world seems bent on destruction.

But God sees further down the road than we can see and that is good news for us. We don’t have to worry about making it all fit together. As long as we are moving toward doxology we can let God worry about the disclosure part. Our work is to move from the hint of the dream to praise. To proclaim the mystery of faith: that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Which is simply another way of saying, as Julian did in the midst of the bubonic plague: all shall be well. 

Or as Francis of Assisi prayed in a time of war and a church in profound need of healing: Lord, make me a channel of your peace. Faith in God’s providence doesn’t make us passive: rather, the hints of God’s kingdom that we do get sustain us for the work God gives us to do, as we live toward the doxology of disclosure, and toward the plan God has for our lives and for this world.