Cur Deus Homo?

If you would like a summary of Anselm's Cur Deus Homo? check this out.

Mary and Martha

On a recent Sunday in church, we read the story of Mary and Martha in the Gospel according to Luke. (Luke 10:38-42) The story focuses on the interaction between Mary, Martha, and Jesus. I am sure many sermons have been preached on the complementarity of Mary and Martha, urging us to unite active and contemplative, inner and outer, either within us or within our communities of faith. Other sermons will try to reconcile Jesus' rebuke of Martha, or perhaps be offended by it.  (See further helpful comments on the text from Ian Paul.)

But an aspect of the story possibly overlooked is Martha's resentment of Mary. (See this picture for Martha's face full of resentment.) She is resentful that Mary is not helping, or perhaps that Jesus favours her slack sister, or that she, Martha, is not receiving the recognition from Jesus that her service is meant to receive. A universal experience. Resentment makes the world go around.

St Paul says that without love all we do is worthless. (1Cor 13:2-3) It might seem a bit extreme, but he is right. At root, an act of service might also be about convincing ourselves that we are ‘good’ people, or perhaps a search for recognition. And when I say ‘convince’ I don’t mean in an explicit, conscious way. More like playing a subterfuge on ourselves, not just the world around. Hidden motivations lead to resentment very easily.

It has struck many people that whatever resentments Jesus may have held during his life and early ministry they have been refined out as he makes his way to the cross so that his death and resurrection are without resentment. ("Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing," and "Peace be with you.") He dies and lives for us.

In the story of Mary and Martha the latter’s resentment is disclosed. She wanted more than to be a servant. Jesus, on the other hand, in the time of his public ministry is satisfied to be Jesus, beloved of God, servant of humankind, without resentment even when crucified by those he loves.

A Children's Talk on the Holy Trinity

It can be difficult to know what to say to kids about the Trinity. Try this next time:

Can anyone tell me why they think the love we give (and receive from others) is imperfect?
I reckon it is because human love is always given with a good splash of our own needs mixed in. And our needs - most often legitimate - shape our love so that it is not actually for the other person. It is for me as well. No parent can love their child perfectly, just as no child can love their parent perfectly. So too with our friends and anyone else for that matter.

But not so with God. God is love already. God doesn't need us to have someone to love, or need us to have someone to love God back. God is love. A communion/community of love. That is what the language of Father and Son, and their mutual love of the Holy Spirit, is meant to signify. God doesn't need us. But this is exactly why God loves us. It is for us, not mixed in with God's own neediness. (God is needless in this sense, not in a frigid sort of cold and distant sense.)

This is why it is so important to let God be God, and ourselves and everyone to be less than perfect. So many people bear a grudge against a parent or child or friend or someone they hardly know because that person was human, that is, couldn't love them perfectly. But that is to ask them to be who they cannot be. Why ask people to be who they are not? What they are not?

See also:
God Alone is Good
You can Trust God
Further Thoughts on Transcendence

Doctrinal Purity and the Pre-Eminence of Love

It is easy to wonder why the church has stuck so doggedly to its claim that Jesus is pre-eminent.  According to the traditional line of belief, Jesus is God in the flesh, with no one and nothing above him. This kind of claim can be seen as arrogant, divisive, and exclusive. (It certainly is the latter.) If Jesus is pre-eminent, then there is no other Messiah to expect, no other figure equal, no other religion to merge with Christianity or replace it. An unfashionable belief in our (allegedly) relativistic age. So why not be more open to changing our beliefs? Why not give up the doctrine and believe in ‘love’ or ‘inclusion’ instead of Jesus? The reason is that, if Jesus is pre-eminent, without equal and not to be superseded in any way, then self-sacrificing love, compassion, mercy, communion (etc.) are pre-eminent. And not just a bloodless, hypothetical form of love, but an enfleshed love that shows us the way to love and be loved. Subtract the belief in Jesus and how would the pre-eminence of love hold? Add the traditional belief back and we see that Jesus is not just the exemplar of love but the guarantee of love’s pre-eminence.

It seems to me that this is the practical effect of holding to the traditional doctrinal purity of the church’s belief in Jesus. Rather than diminishing love, compassion, mercy, and self-sacrifice, the traditional belief intensifies them. Love displayed and lived on a cross. This is the very nature of God! There can be nothing more primordial or nothing more important. And this provides a way for us to bring together (as good Christology – theology about the Christ – always does) that which we have torn apart in the church. Often it seems that Christians divide into two camps: those who hold to doctrinal purity and those who stand for justice and peace. The two are meant to go together.