More water, fewer words

The experimental alternative liturgy for baptism explored in the previous post is a response to the Liverpool Synod motion and it may be fruitful to look at it in the light of the need to which it is meant to respond.

The motion expresses uncertainty about the current provision - what is mandatory, what can be replaced with other words, what can be omitted altogether - and acknowledges that the clergy who expressed dissatisfaction had not in fact fully and creatively explored the options currently available.

So what is the problem? On the one hand, "unease expressed is not about the number of words in the service, but that those words do not connect with too many people." On the other hand, "there were some complaints that the service was too long and wordy".

What does it mean that the words do not connect with many people? The motion points towards lack of understanding rather than potential misunderstanding. In other words, the concern expressed was not that some words ("sin," "devil") have wrong or unhelpful connotations in our culture but that many words have no connotation, words that are only understood by those with a knowledge of the biblical story. Thus, e.g., people who have never heard about an exodus from Egypt will not be able to appreciate how baptism is like the deliverance "from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land." As it turns out, the experimental liturgy seeks to address both concerns, the stated and the one that was left unstated.

How might one respond to the problem? The main options are maybe these:

(1) Affirming the irreducible complexity of baptism. Baptism has to be in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit regardless of how many of the people gathered for the event have any understanding of the Trinity. This much is agreed by all. In addition, one could argue that among other things baptism makes one a participant in God's story with his people.Those prepared for baptism should have an understanding of the basic story line and outside observers should not expect to fully understand the sacred rites of this or any other religion to which they have never given much thought. One can affirm the irreducible complexity of baptism

(a) and leave everything as is, hoping that any who lack understanding of what's going on will get a sense of something big happening and will develop the curiosity to want to find out more about the Christian faith;

(b) and add more words to explain what is happening. Symbolism, poetry, allusion as much as technical terms are ways of saying a lot in few words; if one wants to say the same thing (to the extent that this is possible) and yet be understood, one will usually need (many) more words.

(2) Reducing the number of mandatory words, allowing these to be strong, weighty words, but creating more space for ad libbing explanation of what is going on. E.g., those who retain the traditional abjuration (there is of course an alternative already in CW) might explain why we speak of the devil and renounce evil rather than merely affirm that we, too, are opposed to evil in all its forms. Clergy or a baptism support team may have already explained during preparation how we move from the stark (outright rebellion against God) via deceit and corruption to the subtle (sins that separate us) but for the benefit of outsiders maybe this should also be explained during the service?

(3) Using only words which someone dropping in from the street will comprehend, but making sure that the essentials of baptism are present (cf. above on the Trinity) and understood.

So which way did the Liturgical Commission jump? One suspects that because there was in fact a concern about the service being too wordy, in spite of the initial disclaimer, adding more words to explain what is going on in baptism was not seriously considered.

The second option is actually difficult to pursue, if one wants to retain the various elements of the service. "The decision" can already be reduced under current provisions albeit only at the loss of some strong, weighty words. The "prayer over the water" uses more words than necessary (for the baptism to be valid) but any reduction would mean a loss in content, as under the current proposals. CW probably isn't "wordy" given the content to which it gives expression.If so, the only way to reduce words would be to reduce content.

Clearly, the Liturgical Commission went down the third route but combined it with a desire to reduce the number of words. What does this mean? A loss of content. Maybe they should have faced up to this.

Is this still baptism? Of course it is. Is it a watered down version of the current provision? Of course it is.

At best, this provision occupies the middle ground between the bare necessities of emergency baptism and a truly rich and meaningful liturgical celebration.

But, it is argued, CW offers a meaningful liturgy only to the initiated. Those without an understanding of the Christian faith do not find the current provision meaningful. So the new provision has the advantage of being meaningful because it is understood. Alas, how is it understood?

At worst, the provision offers a water ceremony to which on various occasions non-Christian meanings can freely be attached. Words such as "evil" are understood but not necessarily in a Christian way; even to follow Christ can be understood in a non-Christian way and frequently is, as many who have prepared parents for the baptism of their children can testify.

Does the trial baptism liturgy only respond to the widespread loss of Christian vocabulary or does it also respond to the loss of Christian faith of which the loss of Christian vocabulary is the belated consequence? And if the latter, does it do so by calling to faith in Christ crucified or by watering down the Christian faith itself in the hope that it will become more palatable to our post-Christian culture?

Same water, different words

The Liturgical Commission of the Church of England was charged with producing a form of the baptism service which is accessible to those who are not used to being in church and unfamiliar with its language and symbolism. The trial rite is available here. I’ll compare this with the current provision using the following abbreviations:

current: CW = Common Worship provision for Christian washing

wanted: WC = Water Ceremony for a word-weary culture

What begins with baptism?

CW: Both “their new life in Christ” and therefore “their journey of faith”.

WC: Only “their journey of faith” (alternatively it can be said that children are helped to “become part of God’s family” but the “community of faith” is removed from the promises made by parents and godparents and use of the language of "help" in the context of becoming a member of a family is at least curious.)

Has baptism anything to do with belonging to a church community?

CW asks parents and godparents, “Will you care for them, and help them to take their place within the life and worship of Christ’s Church?” (To which parents and godparents hopefully reply, “With the help of God, we will.”)

WC doesn’t and the Commission is content to say that “there will always be a place for you here” (as if this isn’t true for the unbaptised?).

What does dying to sin involve?

CW: rejecting the devil and rebellion against God, renouncing the receipt and corruption of evil, repenting of the sins that separate us from God and neighbour.

WC: dying to “sin”? We die to “all that destroys” by rejecting what all good people reject: evil in all its many forms and with all its empty promises. We may decide for ourselves what this might mean without reference to sin, the devil or God.

What does new life in Christ involve?

CW: Turning to Christ as Saviour; submitting to Christ as Lord; coming to Christ, the way, the truth, and the life.

WC: No calling upon Christ as Saviour, no mention of obedience, but a promise to follow him (which in our culture may be understood as living by “Christian values” – the sort of thing every good citizen would want to – without any need to take up one’s cross).

What’s the significance of the sign of the cross?

CW: Confessing the faith of Christ crucified which puts one at odds with sin, the world and the devil.

WC: Belonging to Christ, opposed to evil (as above, being Christ’s “faithful disciple” apparently need not involve the scandal of the cross nor any realisation that we make ourselves enemies by being loyal to Christ).

What’s the significance of water?

CW explores the main ways in which water functions in the Scriptures from creation to Christ who leads us to new life.

WC only mentions the baptism of Jesus (Prayer 1) or the deliverance through the Red Sea (Prayer 2) alongside the cleansing and washing (from “the deep waters of sin” in Prayer 2 in a context which may suggest that sin is what others do to us).

CW speaks of being born again by the Holy Spirit, WC of knowing ourselves loved as God’s children. Here and throughout the prayer over the water there are some interestingly nuanced differences. At the risk of oversimplification: CW prays as if baptism is something “which now saves you” (1 Peter 3:21), while WC looks back to Christ as having rescued us and “shown us the way of salvation”, praying that baptism will bring such a filling with the Holy Spirit that these truths become better known to us.

What’s the faith into which we are baptised?

There is a close relationship between the Apostles’ Creed and baptism. There are other valid forms of affirming our faith but because baptism initiates into the church of all times and places, it is especially fitting that we should used (a translation of) the creed which has been used at baptisms throughout the world throughout time.

CW allows for the use of an “alternative Profession of Faith” “where there are strong pastoral reasons”.

WC makes this the standard affirmation of faith which is fitting for a ceremony which tends to play down the link between baptism and belonging to the church.

To what does baptism commission us?

CW offers a pretty full picture of the Christian life which includes a question and answer format which stresses the commitment involved in embarking on this journey.

WC offers guidance for a short extempore homily rather than a specific form of words and paints a more realistic picture of what life is like for the unchurched baptised. Thankfully, WC finally affirms that baptism joins to the church through space and time and even suggests that “being a Christian means going to church” (“and more” of course, which includes learning “the story of Christ’s birth, death and resurrection, the pattern of his loving life, and the teaching that he gave” and prayer as well as standing up for “fairness, truth, and kindness”).

Beyond words on the page

The main argument for the WC liturgy is that it provides a form of words which people may find easier to affirm; better to say WC words and mean them than to make CW promises with no intention of keeping them. But is WC really saying the same things in simpler words or does it present a different picture of Christ and of the Christian faith and life? And if the latter, is this different presentation adequate or one which falls short of proclaiming Christ crucified?

And pastorally: Would we need to use the WC liturgy also with the children of regular members of the congregation to prevent the impression that there is an entrance into the church for the committed and one for the rest? Shall therefore even the faithful be deprived of a celebration of baptism which indulges us in the meat of biblical teaching?

In Defence of Flogging

Scot McKnight has re-published his 2011 summary of William Webb's Corporal Punishment in the Bible: A Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic for Troubling Texts (IVP Academic, 2011) here.

This time it attracted a few useful comments by Alastair J. Roberts who links to an essay by Peter Moskos published in The Chronicle of Higher Education April 24, 2011 under the title "In Defense of Flogging". The essay tells of the origin of his book with the same title published later that year.

The opening gambit of the book is surprisingly simple: If you were sentenced to five years in prison but had the option of receiving lashes instead, what would you choose? You would probably pick flogging. Wouldn't we all?

The book is in fact not so much extolling the virtues of flogging, he tells us, but questioning our alternative. Writing as an US-American he seeks to expose the brutality and inhumanity of the US-American prison system. 

So is flogging still too cruel to contemplate? Perhaps it's not as crazy as you thought. And even if you're adamant that flogging is a barbaric, inhumane form of punishment, how can offering criminals the choice of the lash in lieu of incarceration be so bad? If flogging were really worse than prison, nobody would choose it. Of course most people would choose the rattan cane over the prison cell. And that's my point. Faced with the choice between hard time and the lash, the lash is better. What does that say about prison

The New David who is also a New Solomon

If the arrival of wise men with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh suggests that this newborn king of the Jews is a new Solomon, and if the concurrence of gold, frankincense and myrrh in connection with the altar of incense (Exodus 30) points us towards Solomon as builder of the temple (cf. previous post), then this is interesting:

Michael Barber argues in "Jesus as the Davidic Temple Builder and Peter's Priestly Role in Matthew 16:16-19," JBL 132 (2013): 935-953, which you can download here, that Matthew portrays Jesus as the new temple builder. Here is the abstract:

It is widely accepted that Matthew presents Jesus as fulfilling Jewish eschatological expectations, particularly, Davidic hopes. However, although Jesus frequently speaks positively about his disciples' participation in the cult in Matthew's narrative (e.g., 5:23-24), little attention has been paid to Matthew's interest in Christ's fulfillment of the cultic dimensions of future hopes. In fact, ancient Jewish sources repeatedly express not only the belief in an eschatological temple but also expectations of a reformed and/or new priesthood. In this article, I argue that such hopes inform Matt 16:17-19. I begin by arguing that Jesus' building of the church is best understood in light of Matthew's Davidic Christology, an aspect of the evangelist's portrait of Jesus that many scholars have noted. Specifically, building on the work of others, I contend that Jesus' response to Peter's confession involves allusions to Davidic traditions of temple building (cf. 2 Sam 7:12-13; 1 Chr 17:7-10) (e.g., Ådna, Meyer, Wright). Going on, I demonstrate that Jesus' description of Peter's role in the following verses seems to portray him as one holding a priestly role. In particular, as many scholars have noted, Jesus' words to Peter appear to echo the description of Eliakim in Isaiah 22 (e.g., Davies and Allison, Hagner, Willis). What is frequently overlooked is that this passage describes Eliakim as wearing garments usually associated with the high priest (cf. Isa 22:21 with Exod 28:4), an aspect of the passage not lost on Jewish readers (e.g., Tg. on Isaiah; b. Ta'an. 29a). "Binding" and "loosing" also seem linked to responsibilities typically associated with the priesthood (teaching, judging, mediating divine forgiveness). In light of this I argue that this passage provides Jesus with the perfect quarry: if the church is a temple, its leadership is naturally described in terms related to priestly responsibilities.

What Gregory of Nazianzus said to Naomi

Today the church remembers Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus, two fourth century bishops and teachers of the faith. The Common Worship lectionary invited us this morning to read the first chapter of the book of Ruth. So here is what Gregory of Nazianzus might have said to Naomi:

Sorrow is not immortal. Let us not aggravate our light griefs with ungenerous thoughts. If we have been bereaved of blessings, we have enjoyed them too. To be bereft is the lot of all; to enjoy, is not the lot of many.

Cited from Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages selected by Horatius Bonar (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1994), 23.

Myrrh - a bitter perfume?

The idea that the wise men offered gold because the newborn is a king, incense because he is God, and myrrh because he is mortal is attested as far back as the fourth century, e.g. in an Epiphany poem by Aurelius Prudentius Clemens published in his Liber Cathemerinon.

The reputation of myrrh as a “bitter perfume” which speaks of the death of Christ can be anchored in the two other occurrences of myrrh in the Gospels. In Mark 15:23 “they offered him wine mixed with myrrh”  on the cross and in John 19:39 Nicodemus brought “a mixture of myrrh and aloes” to embalm the dead body. The fact that neither of these is in Matthew’s gospel makes it difficult to claim that this is what the evangelist had in mind in Matthew 2.

Others say that the gifts speak of Christ as king, priest and lover. About half of all occurrences of myrrh in the Bible are in the Song of Songs. Strikingly, here and in Psalm 45 myrrh is a man’s perfume as well as a woman’s. More commonly, myrrh is something women use to attract men, e.g. in Proverbs 7:17 and Esther 2:12. But myrrh was also an ingredient in the anointing oil for priests (Exodus 30:23).

In fact, Song of Songs 3 and Exodus 30 seem to be the only two places prior to Matthew 2 in which gold, frankincense and myrrh come together. With Song of Songs 3 in mind we may think of gold, frankincense and myrrh as heralding the arrival of a king who is love.

Exodus 30 presents us with a gold-covered wooden altar which is as much anointed with myrrh as the priests and on which frankincense-containing incense is burnt. Chris Hamer-Hodges argues on that basis that the gifts speak of God’s presence:

"Frankincense was made into incense used by the high priest when he entered before the presence of God. 

Myrrh was made into the holy anointing oil used on God's prophets, priests and kings. 

Gold was used to cover everything in the temple that communicated the glorious presence of God himself."

Meditating with carols on the gifts of the wise men

William Chatterton Dix offers the most straightforward reading of the gifts of the wise men in his carol As with gladness men of old. Gold, frankincense and myrrh were “gifts most rare” – expensive, precious gifts fit for a new-born king. Maybe this is all the gifts meant to these star-gazers. Maybe not. 

Did they travel around the world to pay homage to each crown prince? I don’t think so. More likely, they opened their treasure-chests only to the one born “king of the Jews” and maybe because they knew that this wasn’t going to be a king like any other. But we don’t know.

Our own homage to Jesus Christ is of course not limited to imitating what, if anything, we can ascertain about the adoration of the magi. We hail Christ “Sacrifice, redeemer, saviour!” in the words of Michael Perry’s more recent Epiphany carol Bethlehem, what greater city. 

Christopher Wordsworth’s carol Songs of thankfulness and praise focuses on "God in man made manifest" but does not mention the gifts. Jesus is known as “Prophet, Priest, and King” at his baptism and as “Godhead manifest” at the wedding at Cana. The poet does not claim that the “sages from afar” knew what we do, we who come to celebrate the birth as those who know the works and teaching, the suffering and death, and the resurrection and ascension of Christ.

If we ourselves were to bring the Christ-child gold, frankincense and myrrh, it would be gold to crown our saviour king, frankincense to worship our high priest as God, and myrrh to embalm, in anticipation of his death like the woman in Bethany, our sacrificial lamb as redeemer. This is a post-resurrection perspective: “Glorious now behold him arise, king and God and sacrifice” – as Edward John Hopkins has it in what is maybe the most famous Epiphany carol, We three kings of Orient are. The gospel is of course written from a post-resurrection perspective and the evangelist may have listed the gifts on the view that the men gave better than they knew. Maybe, maybe not.

But we cannot give gold, frankincense and myrrh. Nor should we, Reginald Heber claims in Brightest and best of the sons of the morning. He asks whether we should yield Christ “odours of Edom, and offerings divine, gems of the mountains, and pearls of the ocean, myrrh from the forest, or gold from the mine?” No, we would be offering these in vain, if we tried to secure God’s favour thereby, he rightly points out. But what if we wanted to make gifts to honour him?

The author doesn't say. But the choice of “odours of Edom” may have been influenced by the often negative portrayal of Edom in the Bible and “offerings divine” can remind us that none of these gifts are manufactured in a full sense. Yes, work is involved in mining gold and producing spices but these are gifts we find in creation rather than things we produce, so of what value can they be to the one who made them in the first place and can reproduce them in any quantity he likes? “Richer by far is the heart’s adoration, dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.”

Our adoration and prayers must be matched, however, “with gold of obedience, and incense of lowliness” because only then do we offer “truth in its beauty, and love in its tenderness”. But if we do so, we can offer up all or sorrows and worries as well, as John Samuel Bewley Monsell reminds us in O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.