Our Praxis Gives Theoria of our Theosis
Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
August 9, 2009; 10 Pentecost; Proper 14, Year B
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary
(John 6:35, 41-51) – Jesus said to the people, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, `I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, `And they shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
_______________________
I am going to do another teaching sermon today. That means I'm asking you to listen with a bit more attention than usual because I don't have some good stories or compelling images to add a little entertainment value. I can remember much of Suzanne's fine sermon last week thanks to her story of the scoundrel named Mutt and the image of radiance around him as he died. If you are going to remember anything about my sermon this morning, you might need to take notes or grab a copy of my text from the Narthex or the Welcome Center. This will be more like a classroom lecture, complete with foreign words and definitions. But at least its not fifty minutes long.
"I am the living bread that came down from heaven...; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
The fourth century church father Athanansius said, "The Son of God became human so that humanity might become God." The word the Church uses for this teaching is theosis, meaning divinization, deification, or making divine.
Nine hundred years later, Aquinas put it this way: “To restore humanity, who has been laid low by sin, to the heights of divine glory, the Word of the eternal Father, though containing all things within His immensity, willed to become small. This He did, not by putting aside His greatness, but by taking to Himself our littleness.... The humanity of Christ is the way by which we come to the divinity.”
The gift and goal of God is for all of us – all of humanity itself – to be restored to the full potential of our humanity. And our full potential is immense. We have the potential to be one with God. We have the potential to be divinized, filled with divine life and light. We were created to be in union with God, one with God, and therefore one with all creation, because in Christ, God has reconciled to the divine life, not only all of humanity, but also all of creation. That is theosis.
One of the early teachers, Irenaeus has a fetching way to teach theosis, this divinization of humanity. Irenaeus was a student of Polycarp who was a student of John the Apostle. Irenaeus said that God created the world and has been working with it ever since. He sees God as being in an ongoing creative project of raising up humanity from childhood into maturity. It takes a long time to grow up. Adam and Eve were created as children, says Irenaeus. So he says that the Fall wasn't a full-blown grown-up rebellion, it was more like a childish spat, a desire to grow up too fast and have everything now, before we are ready for it.
From the time of Adam and Eve, God has been doing everything God can do to help us overcome this initial mishap and grow up into our full spiritual maturity. But life is difficult. Irenaeus says that God made life difficult on purpose. The world is a difficult place where human beings are forced to make moral decisions as moral agents, because that is the only way we can truly grow.
He says that death is like the big fish that swallowed Jonah. You remember the story. Jonah was trying to flee God's call to go to preach to that terrible city Ninevah. Jonah sailed in the opposite direction and God appointed a fish to swallow Jonah. There, in the belly of the beast, Jonah was able to turn to God and accept his calling. Irenaeus says that death and suffering are like the fish, they appear as evils, but without them we could never come to know God. When we get swallowed up in the difficulty and tragedy of life, God is with us, inviting us to grow into something new, something we couldn't become without such adversity.
For Irenaeus, everything points to the incarnation of Jesus. He calls Jesus the new Adam. Jesus systematically undoes what Adam did. Where Adam was disobedient, Jesus was obedient. Adam disobeyed God by eating from the Tree of Knowledge; Jesus obeyed God even to death on the wood of the tree. Whereas Eve's disobedience brought death to the whole human race, Mary's obedience brings life and salvation, also for the whole human race.
Irenaeus says that Christ recapitulates in his one life the entire history of humanity -- from Adam the child to Jesus the mature human. Jesus lives his life from infancy to maturity, and by simply living it, Jesus sanctifies all human life with his divinity.
If the penalty for sin was death and corruption, Christ's embrace of our flesh awards immortality and incorruptibility. When God unites the divine and human natures in Christ, God spreads the divine qualities to us, like a benign infection. Irenaeus says that Jesus completely renews all things in himself.
A couple of weeks ago I quoted the Presiding Bishop's comment about the great Western heresy, "that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God." St. Irenaeus also reminds us that we are not merely saved as individuals, but that we are part of God's project to create a new human race in Christ. In Christ, our flesh is raised into divinity. Christ takes into the Godhead not just our fleshly body, but the material of the whole cosmos.
Irenaeus said that we know our material body and our material world is filled with divinity because the cup of the Eucharist is the communion of Christ's blood, and because the bread which we break is the communion of his body. Bread, wine, body, blood – all are radiant with divinity, theosis. God became human so that humanity may become divine; God embraced earth so that the whole world might radiate divinity.
Another Greek word: Theoria. Theoria is the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. Theoria is the experience deep down in your guts, in your body and blood, that you are one with God. Knowing. Deep knowing. We know Christ in our life, through praxis, one last Greek word. Praxis is the process by which we gain theoria of our theosis.
Oh my! I've gone one Greek word too far, I fear. But it's easy to translate. Praxis is our practice – the Eucharist, our daily prayer, our struggle to be conscious and loving, our service and surrender to God's will in the present moment. By our practice, we share in the work of growing up, God's work of taking us from infancy to full maturity. And we come to know, deep in our guts, that God is with us, we are "in Christ," we really are God-breathed. We open our hands and receive the living bread which came down from heaven, and we become what we eat. The life that Jesus gives to the world, which is his flesh, becomes our flesh. We enflesh God.
Our praxis gives theoria of our theosis. We look out our window with intentional consciousness and see the lush green leaves blowing in the wind, and we are struck by its beauty. We are seeing with God's eyes; it is God's eyes seeing through us. We look consciously at someone we love and our hearts are so gladdened. We are loving with God's heart; it is God's heart loving through us. We reach out our hand to do some work that needs doing. We are acting with God's hands; it is God's hands working through us.
It's just the business of growing up. Maturing into the potential that God intends for us. "The Son of God became human so that humanity might become God." Our praxis gives theoria of our theosis. So practice. And you'll know. You are one with God.
I am going to do another teaching sermon today. That means I'm asking you to listen with a bit more attention than usual because I don't have some good stories or compelling images to add a little entertainment value. I can remember much of Suzanne's fine sermon last week thanks to her story of the scoundrel named Mutt and the image of radiance around him as he died. If you are going to remember anything about my sermon this morning, you might need to take notes or grab a copy of my text from the Narthex or the Welcome Center. This will be more like a classroom lecture, complete with foreign words and definitions. But at least its not fifty minutes long.
"I am the living bread that came down from heaven...; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
The fourth century church father Athanansius said, "The Son of God became human so that humanity might become God." The word the Church uses for this teaching is theosis, meaning divinization, deification, or making divine.
Nine hundred years later, Aquinas put it this way: “To restore humanity, who has been laid low by sin, to the heights of divine glory, the Word of the eternal Father, though containing all things within His immensity, willed to become small. This He did, not by putting aside His greatness, but by taking to Himself our littleness.... The humanity of Christ is the way by which we come to the divinity.”
The gift and goal of God is for all of us – all of humanity itself – to be restored to the full potential of our humanity. And our full potential is immense. We have the potential to be one with God. We have the potential to be divinized, filled with divine life and light. We were created to be in union with God, one with God, and therefore one with all creation, because in Christ, God has reconciled to the divine life, not only all of humanity, but also all of creation. That is theosis.
One of the early teachers, Irenaeus has a fetching way to teach theosis, this divinization of humanity. Irenaeus was a student of Polycarp who was a student of John the Apostle. Irenaeus said that God created the world and has been working with it ever since. He sees God as being in an ongoing creative project of raising up humanity from childhood into maturity. It takes a long time to grow up. Adam and Eve were created as children, says Irenaeus. So he says that the Fall wasn't a full-blown grown-up rebellion, it was more like a childish spat, a desire to grow up too fast and have everything now, before we are ready for it.
From the time of Adam and Eve, God has been doing everything God can do to help us overcome this initial mishap and grow up into our full spiritual maturity. But life is difficult. Irenaeus says that God made life difficult on purpose. The world is a difficult place where human beings are forced to make moral decisions as moral agents, because that is the only way we can truly grow.
He says that death is like the big fish that swallowed Jonah. You remember the story. Jonah was trying to flee God's call to go to preach to that terrible city Ninevah. Jonah sailed in the opposite direction and God appointed a fish to swallow Jonah. There, in the belly of the beast, Jonah was able to turn to God and accept his calling. Irenaeus says that death and suffering are like the fish, they appear as evils, but without them we could never come to know God. When we get swallowed up in the difficulty and tragedy of life, God is with us, inviting us to grow into something new, something we couldn't become without such adversity.
For Irenaeus, everything points to the incarnation of Jesus. He calls Jesus the new Adam. Jesus systematically undoes what Adam did. Where Adam was disobedient, Jesus was obedient. Adam disobeyed God by eating from the Tree of Knowledge; Jesus obeyed God even to death on the wood of the tree. Whereas Eve's disobedience brought death to the whole human race, Mary's obedience brings life and salvation, also for the whole human race.
Irenaeus says that Christ recapitulates in his one life the entire history of humanity -- from Adam the child to Jesus the mature human. Jesus lives his life from infancy to maturity, and by simply living it, Jesus sanctifies all human life with his divinity.
If the penalty for sin was death and corruption, Christ's embrace of our flesh awards immortality and incorruptibility. When God unites the divine and human natures in Christ, God spreads the divine qualities to us, like a benign infection. Irenaeus says that Jesus completely renews all things in himself.
A couple of weeks ago I quoted the Presiding Bishop's comment about the great Western heresy, "that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God." St. Irenaeus also reminds us that we are not merely saved as individuals, but that we are part of God's project to create a new human race in Christ. In Christ, our flesh is raised into divinity. Christ takes into the Godhead not just our fleshly body, but the material of the whole cosmos.
Irenaeus said that we know our material body and our material world is filled with divinity because the cup of the Eucharist is the communion of Christ's blood, and because the bread which we break is the communion of his body. Bread, wine, body, blood – all are radiant with divinity, theosis. God became human so that humanity may become divine; God embraced earth so that the whole world might radiate divinity.
Another Greek word: Theoria. Theoria is the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. Theoria is the experience deep down in your guts, in your body and blood, that you are one with God. Knowing. Deep knowing. We know Christ in our life, through praxis, one last Greek word. Praxis is the process by which we gain theoria of our theosis.
Oh my! I've gone one Greek word too far, I fear. But it's easy to translate. Praxis is our practice – the Eucharist, our daily prayer, our struggle to be conscious and loving, our service and surrender to God's will in the present moment. By our practice, we share in the work of growing up, God's work of taking us from infancy to full maturity. And we come to know, deep in our guts, that God is with us, we are "in Christ," we really are God-breathed. We open our hands and receive the living bread which came down from heaven, and we become what we eat. The life that Jesus gives to the world, which is his flesh, becomes our flesh. We enflesh God.
Our praxis gives theoria of our theosis. We look out our window with intentional consciousness and see the lush green leaves blowing in the wind, and we are struck by its beauty. We are seeing with God's eyes; it is God's eyes seeing through us. We look consciously at someone we love and our hearts are so gladdened. We are loving with God's heart; it is God's heart loving through us. We reach out our hand to do some work that needs doing. We are acting with God's hands; it is God's hands working through us.
It's just the business of growing up. Maturing into the potential that God intends for us. "The Son of God became human so that humanity might become God." Our praxis gives theoria of our theosis. So practice. And you'll know. You are one with God.
______________________________
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.
For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and it's life and mission, please contact us at
P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373
More sermons are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org
Visit our web partners at www.explorefaith.org
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.
For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and it's life and mission, please contact us at
P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373
More sermons are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org
Visit our web partners at www.explorefaith.org
posted by Lowell @ 8/08/2009 04:49:00 PM
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