I love to eat, as I am sure many of us do. I have many happy memories which are associated with food from my favourite tea when I was a child: mum's cheese and onion flan followed by apple pie, to Granny's pork crackling and roast potatoes and little fellows cupcakes, to nana's bacon and she would fry up the rind separately so that we had these long, crunchy tiddlybits to eat...I could go on and on.
Afternoon tea, I just love, and being rather a sedentary creature by nature, I always look for the places to break up a walk or a day out and usually these involve cups of tea. Much of what Jesus did involved food and drink and the sacrament of all sacraments just so happens to be a meal. I love it that Tom Wright describes himself thus,
I am one of those who think it good that the church has never formally defined 'the atonement', partly because I firmly believe that when Jesus himself wanted to explain to his disciples what his forthcoming death was all about, he didn't give them a theory, he gave them a meal.
The above would seem a little unrelated had I not just delivered a seven minute presentation on the Penal Substitutionary nature of the atonement today, which I am still reflecting on, despite trying not to.
My main thought as I write this post though, is about how we share together, 'eat' together, wait for one another. One of those verses I find resonates with me particularly, from the bible, for various reasons, is this one:
So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. 1 Cor 11:33
After New Wine Harrogate Women's Conference this Saturday, which was a very special time 1700 women all shared together, I visited Betty's in Harrogate and we waited in the queue and discussed what we had seen God doing or heard about God doing at the gathering. I loved that queue, all these different people thrown together, waiting to eat and I became conscious that the couple behind us were listening very intently to what we were all saying and I began to wonder what their lives and experiences of God might be like.
Soon I will be far away in another country, just for a few days, eating with people I do not know yet and 'waiting for one another' in the way I have come to also understand it, as we discuss theology, the authority of scripture and no doubt many other things besides. I am glad for this reason to have found N Humphrey of THE SEMINAR ON CONFLICT ECCLESIOLOGY and I think that just as we all gained so much from Ruth Gledhill posting on the 10 blogger commandments, promoting transparency and mutual respect, these pearls of wisdom from N Humphrey are worth posting here so that I do not forget that when we are debating and exploring theologies, pneumatologies and christologies, for they seem to be more plural than singular, we remember the covenant of grace that binds us each to the other.
Thanks N Humphrey
The following theses are subject to critique and revision by the Members of the Seminar. Nathan Humphrey is the original proposer of these theses:
01. Conflict is the normal condition of ecclesial life. As such, conflict is the basic context for ecclesial discernment. [NH: Amended 10/12/2007]
02. An ecclesial community reveals what it most truly is (and is not) in periods of conflict.
03. The goal of discernment is not to resolve conflict but to know the will of God for a particular community in a particular place and time.
04. Conflict resolution is unimportant except insofar as it aids discernment, edification, sanctification, and mission.
05. Reconciliation of human beings to each other in the church cannot happen unless the church is also committed to an ongoing reconciliation of the church to God. [NH: Amended 10/12/2007]
06. Discernment plays a prophetic role in the church, in that it names the idols and false gods that we have erected in our sanctuaries and calls us back to the worship of the one, true God.
07. Issues are church-making when they are used iconically, that is, to point beyond themselves to God as the focus of the community’s energy. Issues are church-breaking when they are used idolatrously, that is, to point to themselves as the focus of the community’s energy.
08. The church should never be described in idealistic terms, nor apart from concrete historic experience. If an ecclesiology describes an idyllic community that has never existed, short of the eschaton, it will never exist in the future, and is an unhelpful model of the church.
09. Human fallibility, weakness, and sin are a part of ecclesial life. The church does not exist in a pure state apart from fallen humanity.
10. In the church, redeemed humanity ought never to be confused with perfected humanity.
11. The only pure community is the Kingdom of Heaven, which is not the church. Purity is only attained eschatologically through participation in the divine lovelife of the Holy Trinity, the source of all purity. As such, it is impossible to have a “pure church.”
12. Nevertheless, it is possible for the church to be semper purificanda, insofar as participation in the divine lovelife of the Holy Trinity is possible in the here-and-now through the community of the church and its reconciling relationships.
13. The only pure human being ever to walk the face of the earth is Jesus Christ. His purity was and is maintained through communion with God, not through disassociation with the unpure.
14. Purity through isolation and schism is a satanic temptation; the more one values orthodoxy and holiness, the more attractive this temptation.
15. Absolute undifferentiated inclusivity is not a Gospel value, inasmuch as absolute inclusivity is static. Inclusion without conversion is contentless.
16. Ecclesial stability must be rooted in a basic common commitment to Jesus as the Incarnate Word whose Spirit interprets the Word of God to the community. The full humanity and full divinity of Christ and Nicene Trinitarian faith are foundational to this account of ecclesiology. All ecclesiology is Christocentric, pneumatic, realistic, historic, and eschatological.
17. The Church is best maintained in unity by the Holy Spirit when its members have a basic commitment to each other that is grounded in the unbreakable covenant that God has first made with us.
18. The minimum basic commitment required of a member of the Church, therefore, is an indissoluble commitment.
19. Edification, or building up the Church, serves the mission of the Church, and must therefore be a primary focus of each member’s activity.
20. When engaging in conflict, focusing on the edification of the Church keeps the Church visibly united; unedifying words and acts lead inexorably to schism and heresy.
01. Conflict is the normal condition of ecclesial life. As such, conflict is the basic context for ecclesial discernment. [NH: Amended 10/12/2007]
02. An ecclesial community reveals what it most truly is (and is not) in periods of conflict.
03. The goal of discernment is not to resolve conflict but to know the will of God for a particular community in a particular place and time.
04. Conflict resolution is unimportant except insofar as it aids discernment, edification, sanctification, and mission.
05. Reconciliation of human beings to each other in the church cannot happen unless the church is also committed to an ongoing reconciliation of the church to God. [NH: Amended 10/12/2007]
06. Discernment plays a prophetic role in the church, in that it names the idols and false gods that we have erected in our sanctuaries and calls us back to the worship of the one, true God.
07. Issues are church-making when they are used iconically, that is, to point beyond themselves to God as the focus of the community’s energy. Issues are church-breaking when they are used idolatrously, that is, to point to themselves as the focus of the community’s energy.
08. The church should never be described in idealistic terms, nor apart from concrete historic experience. If an ecclesiology describes an idyllic community that has never existed, short of the eschaton, it will never exist in the future, and is an unhelpful model of the church.
09. Human fallibility, weakness, and sin are a part of ecclesial life. The church does not exist in a pure state apart from fallen humanity.
10. In the church, redeemed humanity ought never to be confused with perfected humanity.
11. The only pure community is the Kingdom of Heaven, which is not the church. Purity is only attained eschatologically through participation in the divine lovelife of the Holy Trinity, the source of all purity. As such, it is impossible to have a “pure church.”
12. Nevertheless, it is possible for the church to be semper purificanda, insofar as participation in the divine lovelife of the Holy Trinity is possible in the here-and-now through the community of the church and its reconciling relationships.
13. The only pure human being ever to walk the face of the earth is Jesus Christ. His purity was and is maintained through communion with God, not through disassociation with the unpure.
14. Purity through isolation and schism is a satanic temptation; the more one values orthodoxy and holiness, the more attractive this temptation.
15. Absolute undifferentiated inclusivity is not a Gospel value, inasmuch as absolute inclusivity is static. Inclusion without conversion is contentless.
16. Ecclesial stability must be rooted in a basic common commitment to Jesus as the Incarnate Word whose Spirit interprets the Word of God to the community. The full humanity and full divinity of Christ and Nicene Trinitarian faith are foundational to this account of ecclesiology. All ecclesiology is Christocentric, pneumatic, realistic, historic, and eschatological.
17. The Church is best maintained in unity by the Holy Spirit when its members have a basic commitment to each other that is grounded in the unbreakable covenant that God has first made with us.
18. The minimum basic commitment required of a member of the Church, therefore, is an indissoluble commitment.
19. Edification, or building up the Church, serves the mission of the Church, and must therefore be a primary focus of each member’s activity.
20. When engaging in conflict, focusing on the edification of the Church keeps the Church visibly united; unedifying words and acts lead inexorably to schism and heresy.
I’ve been following and enjoying your blog for a while now and would like to invite you to visit and perhaps follow me back. Sorry I took so long for the invitation
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting in full Nathan Humphrey's 20 theses about ecclesial conflict, each one of which could be form the basis of a doctoral thesis! Much food for thought there. I love the way they seem to be centred in the Trinity and highlight the distinction between the kingdom of heaven and the church. In the gospels, meals are so often associated with pictures of the kingdom of heaven and the central explanation of his death that Jesus has given the church is the shared meal.
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