Shape and Substance

meditations on faith and church

Tag: faith

December 3, 2024

Shape and Substance, No.6

3 December 2024

Annunciation, 1898. By Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937). Philadelphia Museum of Art

Annunciation

The feast of the Annunciation falls in April, nine months before Christmas. That’s logical; it takes thirty-six weeks to gestate a human being. Yet every year I want to hark back to that moment at the beginning of Advent when we stand on the verge of seeing what the Annunciation began. I want the Annunciation to be the word that is Advent’s annual starting gun.

In truth, I don’t think time means much in the biblical universe. Or, to put it a bit more precisely, I don’t think time has any meaning in the reality of the One, in which all times—like all things—are one. In the reality of the One, there is only one moment, the eternal moment, in which all moments are gathered and in which there is no separation between one moment and another. So I feel some justification in rehearsing the myth of the Annunciation here at the beginning of Advent. If it’s all the same to the Holy, it’s all the same to me.

That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.

Here is a poem:

Annunciation

Luke 1:26-38

Suppose it was not an angel,

But dust motes floating in a shaft of light,

an idle breeze billowing the curtains

whispering the wild and wordless wonder

of the ages.

Suppose it was not a message

from gods no one has ever claimed to see,

and from whom only madmen claim to hear

promises like these that strain the limits

of belief,

but merely a poor girl’s fantasy

who had no sense of natural causation

and no better explanation near to hand

than godly violation of the sanctum

of her womb.

Tell me, could you blame her

for telling such a tale and, tale once told,

believing with a girl’s ferocious power

relying on the growing evidence

of her belly?

And if she believed it,

kept it within her heart, then why not we?

Why not the world—can it not make good use

of a god who yields up life in service

to the Holy?

Here I am, she said,

a statement less of certainty than hope.

And wondering if we could say as much,

we follow at a distance on the road

to Bethlehem.[1]

Occasionally, people ask me to tell them what I intended a poem of mine to mean. My standard answer is that I want it to mean whatever it means to whoever is reading it whenever it is read. I can’t determine meaning; that is the province of the reader.

But I can tell you what was on my mind when I began writing it. I was sitting in my study in the late afternoon, and sunlight was streaming through the half-closed louvers on the windows, creating an alternating grid of light and shadow on the floor. In the illumined spaces, where the light poured in as though from some sort of celestial ewer, I could see dust-motes floating in the air, moving aimlessly in every direction.

I don’t remember if I had been reading Luke’s story of Gabriel’s visitation to Mary, but something about the dust and the alternating pattern of light and dark and the silence of the room and the stillness of the world made me think of that young girl and her angel.

I never think of angels as embodied. Which is why I love this painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner, the African American artist who painted it in 1898. Tanner doesn’t show the traditional angelic figure, robed in white and standing in the midst of a heavenly aura. Tanner in fact doesn’t yield to our anthropomorphic arrogance at all but gives us instead an angel who is a shaft of brilliant, white-hot light, almost too bright to look at, and surely too unsettling to get comfortable with. Which is why, I think, Tanner depicts Mary as a shy teenage girl, seated on her bed, a little hunched as if to make herself smaller, looking sideways and upward with apprehension on her still-childlike face. This is not a mature woman who is ready to declare the eschatological revelation that will turn the world upside down. This is a frightened daughter of timid parents who know what it is like to live with the boot of the oppressor on your neck and his hands in your pockets. This is a child who knows more about threat than promise, more about fear than hope. And yet…

… there is something defiant in her glance, too, and in those quiet hands clasped in her lap. Not the eyes of the terrified, the rabbit suddenly aware of the wolf, the deer illumined by fast-approaching headlights, but the eyes of the wary and worldly, who know how to look out for themselves. Not hands raised in self-protection or flung forward in fright, but hands stilled and patient, as if to say, let us see what is in store, what the future already unfolded in the ken of the One who sends the light will show to rest of us who wait in the mottled time-bound darkness. She is saying, let us play this out, ravel this skein to the end, well beyond a manger and even all the way to a cross.

I suppose something like that is what I was hoping to convey with my Mary. Pregnant by some cause—does it really matter whether human or divine?—she is gathering her grit and mustering her moxie to take on this charge to bear the One into the many. I think she knows it will not be easy to carry this child, that there will be plenty who want to take him from her. Some of them sit on queasy thrones and would take her child because they need to feed their visions of grandeur with the blood of innocents. Others—and herein are most of us—dream up visions and versions of our own desiring and would take Mary’s child as the sigil of our own self-aggrandizement. I pulled up behind a car in traffic today, which bore a sticker on the rear window: “Just a girl who loves Jesus.” No, you don’t, I thought. The “Jesus” you think you love is a figment of your imagination, created to suit the predilections of your own life and lifestyle. The same, I then thought, is true of mine. And yours.

There is quite likely only one “girl who loves Jesus,” and that is the teenager reticent and yet somehow resilient, who sits and faces the Light that falls from the One, terrifying as it must be (Rilke once said, “Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich – Every angel is terrifying”), and still musters courage and voice to say, “Here am I; let it be with me as you would have it.” Loves him enough to accept the angelic assignment: pregnancy and delivery, motherhood and martyrdom and myth, heaven’s light and tomb’s dark. Here am I, she says, incredibly. So be it. 

I don’t have that kind of courage. The best I can do is to follow her at a distance, as she makes her way toward Bethlehem, and Jerusalem, and into the world beyond, and finally into the mystic wonder of the heart. It is, I suspect, a holy and harrowing journey.

[1] Paul Hooker, The Longing: Poems. Eugene OR: Resource Publications, 2024, pp. 95-96.

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November 29, 2024

Shape and Substance No. 4

Nudifidian 

PRONUNCIATION:

(noo-dee-FID-ee-uhn) 

MEANING:

noun: One who believes that faith alone is sufficient for salvation. 

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin nudus (bare) + fides (faith). Earliest documented use: 1616. 

NOTES:

The term often emerges in theological discussions about “sola fide” (faith alone), a cornerstone of certain Protestant doctrines during the Reformation. Nudifidians believe that salvation is attained solely through faith, without the need for good works, though they don’t necessarily reject good works, but rather see them as a result of faith, not a prerequisite for salvation. 

USAGE:

“Yet a Christian must work — for no nudifidian, as well as no nullifidian, shall be admitted into heaven.”
Thomas Adams; The Three Divine Sisters, Faith, Hope, and Charity; Robert Carter; 1847. 

________________________________________________________________________________________

My friend Jan Williams of Santa Fe, NM, knowing my fondness for obscure words and the way they roll off the tongue, sent me this word. Nudifidian. Say it two or three times, for no other reason that the sheer and slightly tingly joy it gives your mouth to say a word that has its home in the numinous but its roots in the naughty. Nudifidian.

Jan said I should write a column about it, and I always do what Jan says.

Among the hallmarks of the Protestant Reformation was the notion that we are not saved by the good works we amass but by the faith and trust we place in Jesus Christ. Sola fidei—“faith alone”—was one of three “watchwords” (so our Presbyterian Book of Order, F-2.0104) by which it was possible to tell a trustworthy and reliable Protestant from one of those questionable Catholics,[1] the other two being Sola gratia—“grace alone”—and Sola scriptura—“Scripture alone.” By the Wordsmith.org definintion above, we Protestants are all nudifidians. There, you see? Our Roman Catholic brethren have been right all along: there is something a bit scurrilous and sleazy about us (and here we thought we were just sexy).

Nudifidian, obviously, has its roots in the Latin nudus, the source of our English “nude,” and fides, “faith.” Nudifidians are naked believers. “Nude” is a societally proper word for “naked,” which is in turn the morally upright if still slightly risqué rendering of the great Southern word, “nekkid.” If you don’t know the difference between the latter two terms, let me refer you to the late Southern comedian and columnist Lewis Grizzard, who said that “Naked is when you don’t have any clothes on; nekkid is when you don’t have any clothes on and you’re up to something.” To be nude is to be without the costumery that defends our modesty and (usually) disguises our intentions.

How, then, did a word arising (image intended?) from nakedness slink its way into proper academic speech? I wasn’t around to hear the original exchanges, but I imagine that someone described those morally opprobrious Protestants as standing naked before the throne of God without the benefit of the clothing of good works to make a positive impression on the divine. We are nude before the Seat of Judgment, they must have said, and judged us who hold such notions as sola fidei to be as scandalous as a skinny-dipper.

As a lifelong Protestant, I confess an affinity for nudifidianism. I like the notion that I don’t have to earn my standing before the divine—can’t earn it, in fact; that it is as gift I can neither be worthy of nor revoke by insufficient merit. I like the fact that my status with the eternal is not conditioned on my behavior, which is inconsistent at best and more often problematic. And while it’s been many a year since such notions were truly scandalous, I like the fact that we Protestants were once looked upon as theologically risqué, like a strippers in a sanctuary. I find myself attracted to a “naked faith.” I want to write some more about this “naked faith,” but to do so now would launch us into a conversation larger than this format will tolerate. Suffice it for now to say that as my theological journey lengthens and steepens, I’m finding it necessary to shed more and more of the heavy clothing of my former convictions. I’m getting closer to naked all the time.

[1] My beloved Roman Catholic friends and family members who read this blog must know, because they know me well enough not to entertain thoughts to the contrary, that I speak here with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

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November 15, 2024

Shape and Substance No. 2: Beyond Moralizing

Shape and Substance

Paul Hooker

15 November 2024

No. 2

I want to follow up my comments on moralizing preaching with some additional thoughts. Several of you have been kind enough to respond with some critique, for which I am immensely grateful. Your comments have been thoughtful and wise. I might summarize those reactions as concern that, in this era of diminished moral responsibility at both the top levels of government and across society in general, we cannot afford to lose the moral imperative of preaching. Additionally, a few of you have expressed concern that you would prefer moral directives over flights of preacherly fancy.

It seems important to me to distinguish between moralizing and moral vision. The former amounts to someone telling me what to think or do, most often accompanied by all manner of homiletical hand wringing over the state of the world. The latter, it seems to me, sets forth a compelling image of beauty, hope, and peace, and invites us to enter that vision and absorb its values and attributes.

Above is the famous Russian icon, painted by Anton Rublev in the early 15th century. There is a tradition in Russian iconography of depicting the visit of the three angels to Abraham beside the oaks of Mamre (Genesis 18) to convey to him the news that he would have a son to inherit the blessing. In both Eastern and Western Christianity, the visitation of the angels is taken to be an image of the Trinity. So much so, in fact, that in many renditions the background of the dwelling and the oaks still visible in Rublev’s icon disappear completely in favor of the three figures, each of whom bears specific attributes associated with one or another person of the Trinity.

A Google search of “Rublev icon” will open for you the world of commentary about the icon and its theological significance, far more than I have time or space to explore here. I only want to illumine one aspect of the painting. You will note that the three figures (the Father in the center, the Son at the Father’s right, and the Spirit to the Father’s left) are seated at something like a table, on which rests a vessel of some sort. Perhaps the vessel holds the water, bread, cakes, or meat Abraham has called to be prepared (18:2-8). Or, as some have suggested, perhaps is a chalice that holds Eucharistic wine, and the three are gathered at the Eucharistic table. Part of the beauty of art is its flexibility and openness to wonder.

I rather like the Eucharistic reading of the icon, and I note one thing further. As on looks at the painting of the seated Three, there appears in the center foreground an open space, as though there is a place at the table presently unoccupied and waiting for the arrival of the final guest. As one approached the painting, one has the sense that this place belongs to the viewer, that the Three invite each and all of us to enter the fellowship of Beauty in and through the Sacrament.

I want to suggest that, like the Eucharist, the best preaching is an invitation into the divine fellowship. I want to suggest that, beyond all the shoulds and oughts we are tempted to adjure, the most effective means of transforming life and lives is the offer of a place more lovely, more compelling, more fulfilling than any moralizing can finally be. I want to suggest that preaching point in the direction of Beauty and remind us that there is a place waiting for us at the table.

I am not advocating sacramental escapism, dousing the very real fires of a passion for justice with sacramental wine. I am not suggesting that the Beautiful Vision does not carry with it some expectation of change on the part of those who see it. Precisely the opposite. As Reformed theology has taught for generations, to be the invitee into the divine relationship is to become what one was created to be, not merely continue being what one already is. However, we change not in hopes of getting an invitation to the feast, but because we already have that invitation in hand and want to dress appropriately. Beauty makes us want to become.

The coming years will have more than their share of moral horrors on which to reflect (although, one hopes there may be some good in them, too). We who wear the homiletical mantle will be tempted weekly to decry the ugliness we see displayed on the evening news. Some of that, I would agree, is necessary. But can preaching be more than decrying the ugly? Can there be also and finally a vision of Beauty that draws us beyond the grit, grime, and grimace of the daily grind? Can there be an opportunity not to escape but a summons to fulfillment? Can there be a sanctified imagination that asks what is possible, not merely what is practical or pragmatic or politic?

I hope so. What about you?

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February 9, 2022

What I Believe

She asked, in substance if not in these words, “What do you believe?” 

It may be easier to start with what I do not believe. 

I do not believe in believing, at least not the way most people define that term. For most people most of the time, “believe” is a synonym for “think” or perhaps “agree with.” As in, “I believe it will rain this afternoon.” Or perhaps, to say, “I believe in the Virgin Birth” is to some the religious equivalent of “I pledge allegiance to the flag.” As though believing were a matter of acquiescing to a creed, be it religious or political. If that is what it means to believe, then I do not believe in much of anything at all. 

But that is not what believing means to me. Rather, I think believing is a far deeper, non-logical, reflexive response to something outside my control, like falling love or withdrawing my fingers from a hot stove. Better yet, believing is the constriction that tightens my throat and the tears that flood my eyes when I hear the second movement of Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, and the trusting, unadorned voice of a boy soprano singing Adonai ro’i lo’ echsar (“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want”) above the roiling, angry chorus of male voices grumbling lama rag’shu goyim, lama rag’shu (“Why do the nations rage?”). Believing rises from the same place as the stunned silence to which I am reduced when I watch the rising sun set fire to the clouds at dawn above the lake as I take my morning walk. Believing is what happens when a fourteen-inch brown trout, just released from the hook, arches its muscular back, leaps free from my grasp, and returns to its own sovereign universe in a spray of watery gold and light. I do not choose to believe. Believing happens.

Once, when I was a Boy Scout, my troop took a trip to Cumberland Caverns, near McMinnville, TN. We were led through the cave by the guides, who ushered our group into a large chamber lit by bare electric light bulbs, deep in bowels of the earth. My troop was among the first to enter the chamber, and we were instructed to move all the way across and sit down on the floor along the far side of the room. I did as I was told, sitting next to the chamber wall, within arm’s reach of rocks so unimaginably old and massive that they must surely have been among the pillars that held up the world. Once we were settled, the guides told us they were going to turn out the lights.” We live in a world where there is almost always at least some light,” said one young man, wiser than his years would have suggested. “Very few of us experience what total darkness actually feels like. You’re about to find out.” And with that, he turned out the lights, and my world abruptly ended. 

To say that darkness fell on the chamber is like describing a Category 5 hurricane as a gentle breeze. Darkness opened its gigantic maw and consumed me like some hungering cosmic beast, swallowed me whole, sucked me down beneath the surface of some great demonic flood that obliterated everything I hoped for or understood or relied on. It was a darkness so complete as to engulf all creation and leave nothing left over, not even dreams. It was a darkness utterly indifferent to my existence. In the instant that it took that darkness to chase away the light and possess the chamber, I experienced what I can only describe as the dissolution of my personality. My friends, my scout leaders, the tour guides—and beyond them, my parents, my sister, my teachers in school, my church—my world were gone, vanished, obliterated in the ravening dark. I would say that I became completely confined within my own mind except that I was not sure that my mind any longer existed. I remember deciding to raise my hand to my face as a way of establishing that I still existed in the flesh, and then being startled to the core by the sudden, alien touch of my own fingers against my own nose. 

I remember feeling dizzy and disoriented, as though up and down had lost meaning as directional verities of the universe, as though I was tumbling, wildly pitching and yawing, through an endless, lightless void. I reached out reflexively, blindly, for something—anything—to arrest my fall. My hand struck that solid, immovable, unimaginably ancient rock wall, the foundation on which rested the weight of creation. 

Immediately everything changed. As suddenly as the vertiginous darkness had deprived my senses of orientation, so suddenly did the world right itself and cease its nauseating, rolling tumble. I knew where I was. More important, I knew who I was. I was a child of a family who lived on a street in a neighborhood and went to school and was a member of a scout troop on a tour of a cave. I knew up from down, right from left, good from evil. My hand touching the rock was the essential connection to the foundations of creation that gave my life meaning and purpose and self. 

I did not know it—and could not have said it—at the time, but in that moment, I learned what it means to believe. Believing is the reflexive reaching out to touch the Foundation of Things. It is not a decision one makes. It is not a set of ideas one either agrees to or rejects. It is not a body of doctrine one uses or a canon of stories one recounts to construct a worldview. It is not a choice between competing ideologies. All those things may come later, when the lights come back on, and the cave tour moves out of the chamber and back to the surface. In the darkness, though, none of them matter. 

“God is Three in One and One in Three.” “The Word became flesh and dwelled among us.” “Jesus is fully human and fully divine.” Born of a virgin. Raised from the dead. Savior of the world. For me, these and other such theological truth-claims are only metaphors for truth, and not the Truth in themselves. They are tiny lights by which I grope my way in the eternal darkness and give imaginative shape to mysteries I do not understand and cannot explain. Their value is not in themselves, but in the unseeable, unknowable, unsayable mystery that they, if only partially, illumine. I use them to give broken, halting language to what I do believe. If I lift them up for a time, it is only for the purpose of dispelling for a few more steps the gloom that forever hovers at the edges of their feeble light. Inevitably, though, they burn out or grow dim and must be abandoned and replaced. I do not believe them. In the end, believing is the involuntary response to the crisis of existence that makes all these metaphors possible, and without which none of those metaphors means anything at all. Believing is trust that somewhere in the darkling existential tumble of human life, there is a rock.

So, what do I believe? 

I believe in the rock in the darkness. 

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