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Sunday, May 16, 2010
Our House And His: A Sunday Rumination
Before I proceed, apologies for the recent raggedness of these Ruminations. I try not to dwell on it...well, at least, not here...but I'm rather hard pressed just now, and have been for a while. As much as I'd prefer that it be otherwise, I can't always keep my personal trials from affecting the regularity or quality of these sententious little essays. It's a special torment that expressing myself on the matters closest to my heart should be impeded by personal difficulties, but each of us has his trials.
Perhaps the lesson to be drawn from this is that nothing is free, though payment can sometimes be deferred. In the movie Shadowlands, drawn from C. S. Lewis's brief, tragic romance with and marriage to American poetess Joy Gresham, Debra Winger as the fatally cancer-stricken Gresham tells Lewis at one point that "The pain then is part of the happiness now. That's the deal."
Words to remember, and to live by.
Three years ago, I wrote of the sense of welcome and safety that emanates from all Christian churches. I doubt there's ever been a time, here or elsewhere, when that welcome and safety have been more valued. The world around us has turned rather hostile -- and an appalling percentage of the hostility is aimed at Americans, especially American Christians.
America itself is a place of welcome and safety. It always has been, our current troubles with illegal aliens notwithstanding. In one of Tom Clancy's later novels, he has a Jewish character say that this is the best of all countries in which to be a Jew. That is unimpeachably true -- yet by every imaginable standard, the United States of America is the most Christian of all First-World nations.
Have you spotted the semantic problem in the previous sentence yet? If not, here it is: the word yet really should be because.
Ours is a Christian nation both demographically and ethically. A staggering 74% of Americans identify themselves as Christians of one denomination or another. Our cultural ethics -- note: not our laws, but the ethics Americans predominantly uphold as private citizens -- are Christian ethics. Despite the assaults raised against Christianity in every imaginable media forum, we persist in steering by the Ten Commandments of Mount Sinai, as united and illuminated by the Two Great Commandments of Jesus Christ.
Among good Christians, all men of good will, whatever their allegiances, are welcome and safe.
I suppose I must make the obligatory allowance that not all who claim to be Christians truly believe and behave according to His teachings. This has always been so, and probably will be until the Second Coming. Nevertheless, no matter who you are or what icon you follow, if you do unto others as you would have them do unto you, among us you will be welcome and safe. We will cheer for your successes, mourn your tragedies, and do what we can to lift you up when you stumble. You will be one of us.
What better explanation could there be for the pressure against our borders?
America is as much God's house as any church. The original waves of European settlers came here that they might practice their faiths without interference. Were there a few flies in their ointment? Of course; of the original thirteen colonies, only one -- Rhode Island -- had no established church. But that was all over with by 1840; complete religious tolerance has been the law of the land ever since. Persons and groups that have departed from that standard are roundly and justly reviled.
Just now, Christendom in general is under assault by a militantly hostile competing creed, which seeks dominion over all things, spiritual or temporal. Yet America welcomed its followers as it has welcomed all migrants. That might have been a mistake; certain neighbors are better loved at a distance. All the same, we accepted them, bade them make themselves at home, and allowed them all the latitude we take for granted as Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, and members of the Church of God the Fairly Competent (Kurt Vonnegut). Some of them have abused that latitude rather badly...yet despite the frequent and lurid media scare talk, Christians have sought no vengeance for such abuse, nor will we countenance a pogrom against them under the banner of the Cross.
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." [The Gospel According to Matthew, 5:43-45]
To the extent American Christians manage to cleave to the standard Jesus articulated, our house is His as well.
"In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." [The Gospel According to John, 14:2]
Jesus was quite explicit about the requirements for entering into life as His Father wants us to live it:
And behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honor thy father and thy mother, and Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. [The Gospel According to Matthew, 19:16-19]
Though not all "Christian" churches or preachers will admit it, by the plain and unambiguous words of the Redeemer, those are the requirements -- the only requirements -- for eventual admission to the nearness of God. Alternately, we have an old joke:
Smith died, found himself at the Pearly Gates, and was told that he had been granted admittance to the Heavenly City. His guide angel took him on a tour of some of the "many mansions" of which Jesus spoke. One after another was filled with joyous souls, singing and praising God as they partook of they unimaginable bounties of eternal bliss. As they walked, the guide angel marked them off with their allegiances: "These are the Lutherans...here are the Episcopalians...those are Buddhists...these here are Hindus...oh, a few Shintoists over there...this is the heaven for Zoroastrians..."Presently they came to a mansion where the souls appeared mired in gloom. Though the banquet tables were as full and various as those in the other rooms, the grim-looking souls in this one disdained to partake. Instead, they spent their time lecturing one another about their superiority and the faults of others. "Shhh! Quietly, now. These," said the guide angel, "are the Roman Catholics."
Smith was stunned. "How can they be so priggish and supercilious? And why must we slink past in silence?"
The angel shrugged. "They think they're the only ones here."
But the prescriptions and proscriptions of Matthew have nothing to do with denominational allegiance. They ask only that we be good men: men of good will toward others. "His people on earth" will include all men of good will. If it were not so, Jesus would have told us.
Isn't that the attitude Americans take toward one another, and toward any newcomers in our midst?
Surely we'd love to be perfect. We'd love to be more even tempered, less profane, more inclined toward charity, less tentative about justice, and less irritated by bad traffic, Keith Olbermann, and the Yankees' unfathomable retention of Damaso Marte. God would love that, too. But though we aspire to perfection, we're guaranteed not to get there while we wear the flesh. As Cyril Northcote Parkinson has written, "Perfection is finality, and finality is death."
Between now and then, we can only strive to be better. Which is exactly what sincere Christians, and sincere Americans, are pledged to do. In this as in so many other things, the journey matters more than the destination. We are guaranteed to reach the destination as long as our sincerity fails not.
We who sincerely follow Him, however ineptly, dwell in His House.
May God bless and keep you all.
Comments
Honestly, you seem to have missed your calling.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/16/2010 at 12:07 PMOh, I dunno, pdwalker. Seems to me that FWP is combining two callings, each profoundly affected by the other.
Francis, your discomfort at being held in such high esteem does you credit inasmuch as it shows you’re aware of your own shortcomings. But that esteem is our choice, our judgement and ultimately, our responsibility.
I’ll be going to meet my Maker before too long and but for you I wouldn’t be doing so with anything like equanimity.
There’s no way to minimise or evade that enormous gift to another human being.
(that’s a response, by the way to your linked “strive to be better” post)Posted by KG on 05/16/2010 at 02:37 PMSome others aren’t helping much : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1263444/Our-nice-furry-Archbishop—lost-barbarous-world.html
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/16/2010 at 05:01 PMFrancis, you have an uncanny knack for telling me things I already know, just when I need to hear them. Mucho appreciated, sir.
Posted by Scott on 05/16/2010 at 09:59 PMThere’s an old song (and boy, does it make me feel old to call 80’s music “old”) by Huey Lewis and the News, called “Jacob’s Ladder.” It has the line in it, “All I want from tomorrow is to get it better than today.” That’s pretty much my view, too.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/17/2010 at 01:27 AM“Jesus was quite explicit about the requirements for entering into life…
Though not all “Christian” churches or preachers will admit it, by the plain and unambiguous words of the Redeemer, those are the requirements—the only requirements—for eventual admission to the nearness of God…”
I find it interesting that believing in Jesus AND following the commandments are required, but so many Protestants chide Catholics that it’s really sola fide. To big a discussion, probably, for comments, but I find it interesting nonetheless.
And that joke? Some Catholics may believe that, but the Church doesn’t teach that.
” ‘Outside the Church there is no salvation,
846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?...
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.”[url=“http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a9p3.htm#III”]
CCC[/url[/url]My emphasis added. One should note that the Church doesn’t guarantee salvation to anyone, thus by saying, “those too may achieve eternal salvation,” they place non-Catholics in the same boat as Catholics.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/17/2010 at 09:48 AM
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