Video for June 13th, 2024
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s video.
At our celebration of communion Sunday by Sunday we respond to the sermon by saying the Nicene Creed. This is a doctrinal formulation that goes back to the Council of Nicaea in 325AD. It was convened by Constantine, and between May and July that year, a group of Bishops sought to attain consensus on the understanding of the nature of Christ against various heresies that were kicking about at the time. I’ve very glad indeed our contemporary Synods don’t go on that long! Next year is the 1700th anniversary of that gathering. Many are hoping that it will provide an impetus for church unity.
As Constantine both legalised and encouraged Christian faith across the Roman empire, many people flocked to join from their pagan background. There are stories of Bishops riding through villages on horseback patting people on the head as they lined the road to confirm them in their new faith. However, for a number of Christians this broadening led to a dilution of the rigours of Christian discipleship and they retreated to the desert. St. Anthony saw the solitude, austerity and sacrifice of the desert as an alternative to martyrdom. Bearing in mind it was only 20 years or so before Constantine that the last great persecution against Christians happened under Emperor Diocletian. They chose a life of extreme asceticism renouncing the pleasures of the senses, rich food, baths, rest and anything that made them comfortable. They focussed their energies on spiritual practices, giving alms to the poor, and preserving love and harmony with one another. They sought to keep their thoughts and desires for God alone. It was the beginning of a movement that eventually became monasticism and they were known as the desert Fathers. By the time of St. Anthony’s death there were so many men and women living in the desert that it was described by Anthony’s biographer as a city.
As you can see, the desert is an unforgiving place. We find it hard to imagine what would possess anyone, even a deeply spiritual person, to make their home here. The ideal of fasting, even in Lent, is not a much-observed spiritual practice. The Fathers would be turning in their grave at suggestions of taking things up for Lent rather than giving them up. Such asceticism as practiced by the Fathers is incompatible with everyday life in the 21st century. However, there is a spirituality here that does have its place in our faith development. We are very familiar with the classic spiritual disciplines of prayer, worship, Bible study, giving and the like. But the Fathers point us to the role both of fasting and recognising that God is at work in the suffering and frustration of life.
Spiritual writer Larry Crabb saw this paradigm in two much misunderstood biblical books: Job and Ecclesiastes. Job starts with a man who views God as a blessing dispenser in response to his religious observance. The pain of his sufferings slowly expose an entitled heart, culminating in an argument with God that accuses Him of not doing his job– which is to make life work properly, centred on Job’s requirements. The book makes clear the God isn’t the author of his misfortune, but none the less uses it to expose this spirit of entitlement which is the core of the human problem. It is very contemporary. Suffering and frustration can expose that core, lead to repentance and significant spiritual growth.
Ecclesiastes exposes the spiritual power of boredom! The author had tried everything, finding much promise initially, but discovering in the end it was only God who could provide the real sustenance his soul needed. The author is on to the root of all addictive behaviour here. As I quoted from Jeremiah last week, a pursuit of broken cisterns. You can never pour enough alternatives into the God shaped hole in our lives to fill it.
I don’t for a moment think we should emulate the extreme asceticism of the desert Fathers, but reflection on the frustrations of life, asking the Holy Spirit to use them to expose what is really going on in our soul can be a fruitful alternative. Growth in holiness is not just about the spiritual practices, it is about such reflective practices as well. The goal of all this is not some sort of masochistic self-hatred. As the writer to the Hebrews said of Jesus himself, “In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered”. The goal is that of the Westminster catechism. Humanity’s chief end is to know God and enjoy him forever. That is where true and lasting happiness is to be found.
+Richard