Too bad it wasn’t ‘Sinners in the hands of a merciful God’

 

    During one of my travels though the internet, I came across an article discussing the difference in understanding of salvation between Protestants and Orthodox Christians.  While I was reading the article, I was struck by a thought:  Is there something more to the word and the idea of atonement than we in modern society understand?  I decided to do a little more digging into the word atonement and how it tied into salvation.

     The first thing I decided to do was to look in the dictionary.  I did this to verify the definition.  According to Webster’s Dictionary, atonement is defined as:  1) Agreement; concord; reconciliation, after enmity or controversy.  2) Expiation; satisfaction or reparation made by giving an equivalent for an injury, or by doing or suffering that which is received in satisfaction for an offense or injury; with for.  Reading through both possible definitions, the common theme that came to me is of two people or groups now at peace after formerly being at odds. 

     What  I find interesting is, the first definition of atonement is one of reconciliation.  Being a former Protestant, I can remember the concept of substitutionary atonement, and the first definition doesn’t seem to ‘fit’ with that concept.  I decided to find out about the history of the satisfaction understanding (or theological interpretation) of atonement, to ensure my memory on the topic was accurate.  In short, Archbishop Anselm , the Archbishop of Canterbury  living in the 11th Century first wrote out the idea of ‘forensic justification’ in his work Cur Deus Homo.  Anselm described  mankind’s sin is an infinite offense to God, and only Christ was able to satisfy the infinite offense and God’s infinite wrath (by extension) through Christ’s crucifixion.  To me, this now describes salvation as something scientific.  Moreover, looking at salvation as a legal matter, it moves the essence of our individual salvation outside of ourselves.  If we are the children of God, is He going to treat us and our sins in a legal fashion?  (Maybe I shouldn’t ask that question given how many families seem to think it’s OK to sue each other.) 

     Orthodox Christianity, by contrast, views the essence of our individual salvation as inside  each of us.  Our souls and our fallen natures are healed and we are reconciled to God through Christ through His incarnation, death, and resurrection.   Going back to the idea of our being the children of God, both God’s act through Christ (involving His incarnation, death, and resurrection) and our act of repentance (along with other elements of the Orthodox faith) allows us to be reconciled to God.  This is more in line with the concept of family (at least to me).

      Moving on from the dictionary, I decided to start looking through the Bible to see where atonement was used.  The word appears 70 times.  69 of those are in the Old Testament.  I decided to look at a Jewish version/definition of Atonement.  In The Encyclopedia of Judaism, there is the following on page 86 regarding atonement:

Judaism views the sinner as one spiritually alienated from God, from his fellow-man, or from his ideal self.  Atonement, in the religious sense, means a reversal of the alienation caused by sin whereby the offending party is restored to spiritual “at-one-ment” and ultimately forgiven.  Atonement, in Jewish teaching, can only be achieved after a process of repentance which involves a recognition and admission of the sin, feelings of remorse, restitution to the offended party, and a resolve not to repeat the offense.

And later in the same entry: 

In the case of unwitting offenses against the ritual law, the Bible prescribes a sin-offering.  This is not viewed as some payment of restitution to an offended God, but rather as a sacrament intended to restore the ideal relationship between man and God, a relationship that had been impaired by man’s sin.  Confession, as an expression of repentance, always accompanied such sacrifices and offerings.  when the prophets of Israel directed harsh criticism against sacrifice, their real target was not the sacrificial system as such but insincere atonement and the perfunctory way in which the offering was made.  No sacrifices could atone for deliberate transgressions, and the concept of a vicarious sacrifice was largely alien to Judaism.    

Looking at this, the idea of someone suffering in place of another is not in the theological framework of Israel,  from which the Christian Church grew.  I did remember Leviticus Chapter 16 and the Day of Atonement, where sacrifices were made to atone for the sins of the people of Israel.  When you look at the Jewish system of atonement, the goal was for the soul of the sinner to be relieved of the burden of his sin.  This requires action from the individual committing the sin.  You can’t ask someone else to do this for you.  There also needs to be repentance in order for the relationship (whether with God or with another person) to be restored.  How many times have we seen either someone ‘apologizing’ without truly being sorry for what they did, or having a ‘spokesman’ try to apologize for them?  When we see these things happen, do we believe the person is sorry and wants to reconcile the relationship?  My answer’s no.  Why should it be any different when we are trying to reconcile with God?

     The one New Testament reference is Romans 5:11 “And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.”   I decided to play ‘word substitution’, where I would substitute either ‘reconciliation’ or ‘satisfaction’ for ‘atonement’.  I’m going to type them out so you can see the results:  1) “And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the satisfaction.”  2)  “And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation.” 

    The west (Roman Catholics and Protestants) treats salvation as a legal matter (where we as sinful human beings are before a vengeful God to be judged) and the east  treats salvation as a matter of the soul (where humanity, originally a perfect reflection of the image of God, is now an imperfect reflection due to sin). This polemic continues to feed  the misunderstandings between the two sides and hinders the possibility for reconciliation.

My 9/11 Story

 

     With the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, I thought I would take a minute and reflect on my memories of that day.  It’s not so much that my story is unique, but it serves as another perspective.

     I was in the Army stationed in Washington.  At that time, my unit was out in the field, participating in an exercise.  We had been out there for three days.  I was working on the night shift.  I remember it was approximately 7:30 am (so that would make it 10:30 am eastern time), and we had just finished the change-over brief with the day shift.  I was beginning to walk out of the command tent and mentally planning the next half hour:  get some breakfast (my evening meal) and go to my tent to sleep for the next six hours or so before beginning the cycle over again (wake up, get dressed, shave, make sure there was nothing serious going on before I grabbed some dinner (my breakfast) and go back to the command tent for the (final) night of the exercise and then stay awake to break everything down and go home.  Things didn’t go that way.

     A Major I knew was walking into the command tent as I was going out.  He was carrying a transistor radio and had a very serious look on his face.  I asked him what was wrong, and he said ‘they’ve attacked the World Trade Center’.  I did a 180 and followed him back into the command tent where our commander was giving directions for the days missions and activities.  The Major put the radio on a table and we all stood and listened for about 2-3 seconds before the commander said, ‘get my driver’.  I walked quickly out of the command tent and found the driver and told him to get ready to bring the commander out of the field.  Once I made sure the driver was set, I tried to eat, and go to sleep.  It was very difficult to sleep, as I didn’t have any real idea at the time of what was going on, but I knew it was something we as a country and a people had never experienced before.

     After finally getting some sleep, I got up and went through my routine (as I described it above).  But I immediately noticed there wasn’t the ‘hustle and bustle’ that had characterized the exercise up to this point.  The exercise had been halted while I was asleep.  I asked and found out about the halting of the exercise,  we were to wait until our planned time to come out of the field.  As I went to dinner, we were all discussing what had happened.  As the details were just unfolding as I went to bed, I didn’t know about the falling of the twin towers, or the attack on the Pentagon, and details were still very sketchy about a possible fourth plane.  I took it all in with a growing pit in my stomach as the enormity of it hit me.  The entire last night out in the field, all of us on night shift listened to the radio as they replayed the events of the day.  More details were coming out and of course we listened.  We listened in shock, almost numb.  For Americans, a terrorist attack on our own soil was such a foreign concept I had difficulty coming to grips with it.

     The next day we packed up and got out of the field.  The route for us to get back in was difficult as roads we had gone out on were closed due to heightened security.  Once we were back, and had done everything possible to close up and clean things up/out, we were allowed to go home.  There was only one way in and out of post.  The other gates were closed (again due to heightened security).  It took a very long time for me to get home, and once I did it was a bittersweet reunion with my family.  We were able to exchange our stories about how we heard, and discuss our fears in those first few hours. 

     The days and weeks following were a continued series of changes:  new realities, new fears, new work.  Looking back, it was as if everyone was asleep and had been jarred awake by what happened.  Many significant events afterward seemed to have its roots in that day.  It is one of those events where you can ask someone ‘where were you when you heard?’  Or, ‘where were you when it happened?’  It’s a sort of common bond with our fellow citizens.  The best way I can think of to describe it is, ‘the day we lost our innocence’.  Others may have used the same phrase, I don’t know, but it fits for me.

Do we understand this word?

 

     The word I am referring to is worship.  It is a word that is thrown about quite a bit these days, and sometimes I feel like Inigo Montoya from the movie The Princess Bride and want to say ‘you keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.’

     I went to Merriam Webster Online to find what I will use for the rest of this post as the authoritative definition:  1.  To honor or reverence as a divine being or supernatural power.  2.  to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion.  Worship can also be used as a noun.  The idea being expressed is one of honor and respect.

     How does one worship? In Christian worship, there are songs and prayers at a minimum no matter which denomination you are.  Sermons (or homilies) are also a part of most Christian worship services.  These vary in length from 10-15 minutes to over an hour or longer.  Once you move beyond these common blocks, the services start to diverge.  Some are considered liturgical where others are not, but all churches have a pattern to their services.  Different churches vary how often communion (or Eucharist) is served.  Even the elements of communion can differ (wine, grape juice, crackers, leavened or unleavened bread).  Although songs are common, they can vary between churches as well (song types, whether or not instruments are used, type of instruments).

     Now, keeping in mind that worship has to do with honoring or reverencing the divine, our actions should reflect that honor and reverence.  We should dress like we are entering the presence of one deserving our best (not necessarily requiring we wear one particular article of clothing or another).  We should also be humble, as the person we are worshipping is greater than us. 

     The actual act of worship or the worship service should involve our entire person and include our senses (hearing, sight, etc.) Our minds must also be engaged so that our worship is not a ‘rote’ set of actions.  You can be in a wonderful worship service, but if your mind is not engaged, it is not true worship, as John states in John 4:24: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth”.  True worship involves both our spirit (soul/mind) and our body, as illustrated in Mark 7:6 “He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”

     Having our whole person involved ensures our worship is not simply an intellectual exercise.  Worshipping God at its root is an action.  Thought is required, but it is in our actions every day and hour we show what we honor and revere.  James 2:14-26 gives a wonderful explanation of how our faith is not something just intellectual or verbal, but requires physical action on our part as well.

      What is the ‘right’ way to worship?  God is a God of order, and not chaos.  God gave direction to Israel in how to worship through Moses in the Old Testament.  The Orthodox Church was born out of that Jewish tradition and incorporated traditions regarding Christ without losing sight of its heritage.  Looking at all these things I believe I am in the Church with that correct form of worship.  You are certainly free to disagree with me.

     There is one other issue I would like to touch on.  Looking again at the definition of worship, I think people in modern western society have difficulty accepting the idea that there is someone or something that is greater or higher than ourselves, despite their acknowledgement of such.  We are taught by our schools that each individual is important, and no one is more important than another.  Most countries do not have a class of nobility, or any official designated class system for that matter (I would argue all societies have a class system, it’s just not officially acknowledged).  The ‘supremacy of the individual’ has made the concept of the Christian community or gathering as a part of a larger body more and more difficult.  It is this that causes many to (unconsciously) ‘put God in a box’ where God can only do what they say He can, because otherwise we need to give up something:  our overdeveloped sense of self, otherwise known as pride.