"They desire a better country": On "Independence Day" as a Holy Day (A Polemic)

Christ Pantocrator icon. St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai (6th c., Egypt)

When the bishops, clergy and laity of the Episcopal Church, in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, established “Independence Day” as a Major Feast and adopted what I will not dignify with the name of “collect” for the same, they showed some residue of wisdom in choosing propers that expose the theological incoherence of making a civic holiday a Holy Day of the church. —As for what is claimed in the “collect”, its historical falsity is patently obvious: it is simply not true that “the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us” in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (as its grammar suggests).  And the claim that the founders “lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn” is not only an ill-conceived flight of rhetorical fancy, but also a display of such willful blindness to contradictory aspects of the history of the United States (I need only mention slavery) that it looks like self-deception at best, and, at worst, a blatant lie.— Now, because I am preparing “to engage to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of The Episcopal Church,” it seems to me a matter of obedience that I submit to the church’s decision to observe “Independence Day,” for to refuse altogether to do so would be to display a prideful contempt for the authority of the church.  Happily, by confining myself to the appointed propers from Holy Scripture I can both observe the day and seek to clarify what is confused by its very observance as a Major Feast.

What is confused by observing the day “these American states became independent with respect to civil government”* as a Major Feast (i.e., a Holy Day whose observance is not optional)?  Simply put, it confuses the distinction between the people of the United States and the people of God to place “Independence Day”—the feast of the founders of the United States—on the same footing as the feasts of the Apostles and Evangelists, of Saint Joseph and Saint Mary the Virgin, of Saint Stephen and the Holy Innocents.  It threatens to confuse the liberties granted (unevenly and belatedly) to (some) people of this land with “the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21), to obfuscate the difference between the freedom for which “Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1)—the perfect freedom of serving the Lord of all—with the sham freedom proffered by the state, which “looks like freedom, but feels like death.”**

Now to the appointed lessons from Scripture.  The psalm displays the proper activity of the people of God, the people who confess God as King, who sing together, “I will exalt you, O God my God,” simply because the Lord is great “and greatly to be praised” (Ps. 145:1, 3).  They praise God in his “faithful servants” whose lives have shown forth the glory of God’s “everlasting kingdom” (vv. 10–12), but they say nothing of those who pledge allegiance to any of the kingdoms of this world.

Accordingly, the epistle remembers God’s faithful servant Abraham, who obeyed God’s call because he considered God faithful.  Abraham lived in tents because “he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God,” the city prepared by God for those who “confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth” since they “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:10, 13, 16).  Those who, like Abraham, are assured of God’s faithfulness endure sufferings for the sake of the better country, the kingdom of God.  The author of the letter to the Hebrews exhorts them to gain confidence above all from the example of Jesus, “who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (12:3); indeed, the knowledge that they “possessed something better and more lasting” has already enabled them to endure persecution, to have “compassion on those who were in prison,” and to cheerfully accept the loss of their possessions (10:32–34).  Living in the freedom of faith, they go to Jesus and share in his sufferings, offering through him praise to God and sharing what they have with others, “for here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (13:13–16).  Only in that city is there true liberty and justice for all.

All those who “belong to Christ” (Gal. 2:29)—both Jew and Gentile—are citizens of that city, heirs of the kingdom.  As such, all those who belong to Christ share in the vocation of Israel, described so concisely in the passage from Deuteronomy.  Chosen by God’s love “out of all the peoples,” the people of Israel are to demonstrate that everything in creation belongs to the Lord precisely by giving themselves entirely to the Lord (Dt. 10:14–15).  They are called to imitate the Lord their God who brought them out of Egypt:  

“the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.  You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Dt. 10:17–19)

'Tsar of Glory' icon. 14th cent. Bulgarian. (Tretyakov Gallery). 

Israel exists to love and serve the Lord with their whole being, to praise the Lord “who has done for you these great and awesome things” (v. 21) in bringing Israel out of Egypt.  God takes a people for his possession so that they might “proclaim the mighty acts of him who called [them] out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pt. 2:9); those mighty acts, that is, made known to us in creation, in Israel, and, above all, in Christ Jesus.  These acts are constitutive of the identity of the people of God, including that part found in the Episcopal Church; these are the “wondrous acts” (Ps. 145:6) of the Lord the church is called to proclaim—not the independence of the United States (although even this did not happen apart from God’s providence).

The church is the people who acknowledge Jesus as the Lord, and who pray “thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”  The church lives in obedience to her Lord, who says “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  The Lord of the church commands, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” and calls her to imitate God’s perfection (Mt. 5:44, 48).  The church is to become like Christ Jesus, who “humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death” (Phil. 2:8) and in whom is her unity (Gal. 3:28).  How then can it not be detrimental to her identity to observe as a Holy Day the civic holiday of the nation that idolatrously claims to make one out of many (E pluribus unum)?

* Preface to the BCP.

** A lyric from Leonard Cohen’s song, “Closing Time.”

"He Ascended into Heaven"

The Ascension, Rabula Gospels (6th c., Syriac)

“God has gone up with a shout,

the LORD with the sound of the ram's-horn.”

— Psalm 47:5

Christ our God “has gone up with a shout” (Ps. 47:5).  He went up with a shout when “the Father of glory”—his Father and our Father, his God and our God (Jn. 20:17)—raised him in the power of the Spirit and “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” (Eph. 1:17, 20–21).  Jesus the Messiah, the King of glory, lives and reigns over the nations.  Seated at the Father’s right hand, he is destroying “every ruler and every authority and every power,” subduing all his enemies until even death is destroyed (1 Cor. 15:24–26).  His reign is not like that of the nations, for he reigns as the Lamb who was slain.    He reigns over the powers, because “all things have been created through him and for him” and because “he disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them,” triumphing over them in his cross (Col. 1:16; 2:15).  His weakness is mightier than the nations, who display only an empty simulacrum of strength.  He is “mighty in battle” (Ps. 24:8), trampling down death by death.

Christ has gone up with a shout, that those who believe might know “the immeasurable greatness” of God’s power for us (Eph. 1:19).  He returned to the Father that he might pour out on his church the Gift, the promised Holy Spirit.  He fills his church, which is his body, with his Spirit, “the pledge of our inheritance towards redemption as God’s own people” (1:14).  He pours out his Spirit as the pledge that we are, with Christ, children of God and joint heirs of his kingdom (Rom. 8:16–17).  The Spirit bears witness that Christ, who “ascended in the flesh to the bodiless Father,” has lifted up all our humanity and brought it to his Father.*  Christ sends the Spirit “that we, his members, might be confident of following where he, our Head and Founder, has gone before.”†

Christ has gone up with a shout, bearing our humanity in his body into the life of the Triune Lord, and giving the Spirit that his members might bear his life in their bodies.  Through the gift of the Spirit they share in his life.  He gives them to become a people capable of witnessing to his peaceful reign in the midst of the idolatrous and death-bound kingdoms of the world; they do not fear because he has won the victory.

* John of Damascus, Troparia, Canon for the Assumption.

† Missale Romanum, Preface of the Ascension I.

"The Church of Sinners": Radner and Rahner

"The Scribes and the Pharisees—they are not in the Church alone but everywhere and in all disguises—will always drag "the sinful woman" before the Lord and accuse her (with secret satisfaction that she is, thank God, no better than themselves) —"Lord, this woman has been taken again in adultery. What sayest Thou?" And this woman will not be able to deny it. No, it is scandal enough. And there is nothing to extenuate it. She thinks only of her sins, because she has rarely committed them, and she forgets (how could the humble maid do otherwise?) the hidden and shining nobility of her holiness. And so she does not attempt a denial. She is the poor Church of Sinners. Her humility, without which she would not be holy, knows only her guilt. She stands before Him to Whom she is espoused, Who has loved her and given Himself up for her to sanctify her, who knows her sins better than all her accusers. But He is silent. He writes down her sins in the sand of world history which—with her guilt—will soon be effaced. He is silent a little while, which to us seems thousands of years. And He judges this woman only through the silence of His love which gives grace and absolves. In every century new accusers confronted this "woman", and stole away, one after another, beginning with the eldest, for there was not one who found her who was himself without sin. And in the end the Lord will be alone with the sinner. He will turn and gaze at His fallen Spouse, and ask: Woman, where are they who accuse thee? Has no man condemned thee? And she will reply with unspeakable remorse and humility: No man, Lord. The Lord will go to her and say: Then neither will I condemn thee. He will kiss her brow and say: My Spouse, my holy Church."

 - Karl Rahner, "The Church of Sinners" (1947, collected in Theological Investigations, VI)

Being an intern at Church of the Incarnation has many advantages, one of which has been the opportunity to attend a class on ecclesiology Ephraim Radner has been teaching as part of the Incarnation School of Theology.  Thinking through what we mean by "the church" with the Rev. Dr. Radner has been a timely exercise for me, as I consider where I stand in the mess that is Anglicanism in North America (more on this in future).  The last two days have been particularly apropos to the current situation, as we have considered how to articulate the church's oneness, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity in the face of her sinfulness and brokenness in history.

Radner has convinced me that any understanding of the church must acknowledge her sinfulness as part of her identity in time.  He suggests that a figural reading of the church is the best way to articulate how it is that the church that has so evidently failed time and again is truly said to be "one, holy, catholic and apostolic."  How?  Because a person (e.g. Adam, Israel, David, Mary, Peter) has a history which is marked by sin, judged and forgiven by Christ, and which finds fulfillment in the person of Christ.  Radner used Karl Rahner's famous essay, "The Church of Sinners" (with which I began this post) as an example of such a figural reading.  For Rahner, the church is the woman caught in adultery, whose holiness is found in her repentance and her Lord's forgiveness. (If you object to this figure on the basis of the story's questionable authenticity, then take the case of Peter, or Israel, or David, etc.)  Thus, the church is inescapably (in history) in need of continual conversion.  

If the church must be semper reformanda, always reforming, as part of its very identity, then surely division is not the solution to the church's failures. 

[The images are from Rembrandt's painting The Woman Taken in Adultery (1644) and his drawing Christ and the woman taken in adultery (1659), respectively.]