Tag: Authority

Posted on

Co-Authoring with God

We all find ourselves in the middle of a story. We have known sweet moments of delight, dark moments of betrayal, intense longing, bitter disappointment, and perhaps long seasons of feeling stuck or lost.

That is how most great tales begin – in the middle of the story in which the featured character faces a seemingly insurmountable dilemma. As we discover the character’s backstory, we gain a better sense of why the dilemma is so hard. It is only when she faces her past that she can move forward in freedom and hope.

As a follower of Jesus, I can ask an interesting question – who is the author of the story I find myself in? Is it God? Is it me? And what roles do other characters play?

Catholic teaching is quite clear about the authorship – it’s both. God is truly the author, and I am truly the author. God is sovereign and all-powerful, but he always respects and honors our freedom and never saves us apart from our wanting it and freely cooperating with it. We get to grow (or wither) in love over the course of our life.

Such are the stories of Sacred Scripture. Throughout the Old and New Testaments, we hear tale after tale of human beings gifted by God, called by God, aided by God, corrected by God, rescued by God, and aided anew – but always in a way that allows the stumbling human characters to be free, to desire, to choose, and to grow (or to harden their hearts and to harm self and others). God never makes anyone do anything, yet somehow remains in charge.

The books of the Bible themselves are co-authored by God and human beings, as the Second Vatican Council taught in 1965. Dei Verbum (“The Word of God”) is the Council document about Jesus as the eternal Word of God. The Word of God is primarily a person, not a book. The Word (Jesus) is truly human and truly divine. Both his humanity and his divinity are profoundly united in the one eternal person of the Son; but neither is dissolved or diminished as a result of that union. In Jesus, all of humanity is invited into a one-flesh union with God that will be celebrated eternally.

This story of Jesus and the Church is then passed on both orally (in the proclamation of the Gospel and in Tradition) and in writing (in the God-breathed books of Scripture). Dei Verbum n. 11 clarifies that God is the true author of each book of Scripture and of the whole of Scripture. But the same paragraph teaches that various human beings are also true authors whom God chose and inspired – fully respecting their freedom, their capacities, and their abilities. God did not dictate Scripture word for word, in a way that would treat the human beings as robots or inanimate pens. Rather, he allowed his story to be told within particular human contexts. At no point did he coerce or pressure of manipulate the capacities or the freedom of the human beings he had chosen. He allowed his inspiration to adapt to the limits of a fully human context, while authentically communicating divine truth.

Fundamentalists (both in the Evangelical word and the Catholic world) tend to be afraid of human reason and academic learning. They want to put all the authorship and authority on the side of God, which lends the illusion of clarity and control. That feel safe! Never mind that God is always radically beyond our “clear” notions of him. Never mind that our feeling in control is an illusion. Fundamentalists resist facing the heartache in their own story and fantasize about getting back to the good old days when all was well (conveniently forgetting the darker deeds of those nostalgic times). They don’t tend trust that the Holy Spirit will keep showing up, and that holy human beings (or even less-than-holy human beings) in every age will answer the summons and cooperate with God’s saving action. God will never tire of saving us, but he also shows a remarkable preference to do so through feeble instruments, respecting the “yes” or “no” of those instruments.

On the flipside of fundamentalism is secular humanism. There are plenty of secular atheists, agnostics, or even practicing Christians who don’t believe that God really shows up or really authors. They see Scripture as a collection of merely human stories. They see religion as merely a human projection of needs, with the doctrines and practices as merely human efforts to make meaning in life.

Both fundamentalists and humanists are well-meaning. Both are partially correct. Both are gravely mistaken.

In the person of Jesus, God has truly shown up in human history; truly lived, truly died, and truly rose. God has really revealed himself; genuinely reconciled us to himself (in a way we could never have done ourselves). He now invites us in full freedom to be in a real relationship with him through his Son, and to follow where his Son has gone. Jesus is the great protagonist of THE human story, into which we are all invited. But he only and ever saves us by inviting us to become co-authors in our own story.

Co-authorship is hard. We will resist it and try to find another way. When we find ourselves in the middle of our story, when the plot becomes particularly intense, we tend to feel stuck. We want a solution that doesn’t involve so much vulnerability or risk. We then enter fantasy thinking – the realm of “if only…”

If only I had what that person has… If only God would send the right partner… If only I had a different job… If only I wasn’t so sensitive… If only I wouldn’t make mistakes… If only God would take this temptation from me… If only that political party got in charge… If only this person would finally pay for what he did… If only…

When we feel particularly overwhelmed in our story, may find ourselves in the broken record of an addiction cycle – which also always begins with the “if only…” of fantasy thinking. Fantasizing about a predictable pleasure may help the present moment feel less unbearable. It brings a certain soothing. But it will ultimately bring us to a familiar place of disappointment and shame. It slowly but surely ruins us.

Like the apostle Paul (2 Corinthians 12), we are likely to beg God to take our trials and temptations away, to rescue us by removing us from the hard spot in the story. Sometimes God does that – but ultimately, he desires us to become heroes who share in the glory of his Son. That will only happen if we follow Jesus closely in his suffering, death, and resurrection. If we do not face the full heartache of where we have come from and where we are going, we will miss out on becoming the full gift that we were meant to be. When we come to accept more fully the story that we find ourselves in, we can proceed in fuller freedom as co-authors of a future full of hope.

Posted on

Fatherhood

Fatherhood is under fire today. Even to talk about it can be taboo. I will take that risk. Authentic fatherhood cuts into the core of Christian faith, because Jesus reveals God as his Father. Read John’s Gospel. Read his three letters. You will hear again and again that Jesus is from the Father. He is in communion with his Father – not just as a human being now in time – but in an eternal communion of intimate love. The bond of love between them is so perfect that it IS a third person, the Holy Spirit. Jesus repeatedly expresses his desire that we come to share in this communion; he invites us to experience God as “Our Father,” to pray and relate to him in that way, both individually and communally.

This poses a problem in a world (and a Church) in which fatherhood has so often failed or harmed. Almost all of us have a distorted view of God the Father, because we are looking at him through the lens of our earthly experiences of fatherhood.

We tend to take the analogy backwards. We are thinking, “God is a Father sort of like these earthly fathers.” It is the other way around! Any authentic earthly fatherhood is rightly called fatherhood only to the extent that it is a sharing in and revelation of God’s Fatherhood.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church warns us against projecting our earthly views of fatherhood onto God:

…we must humbly cleanse our hearts of certain false images drawn “from this world.” Humility makes us recognize that “no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son” … The purification of our hearts has to do with paternal or maternal images, stemming from our personal and cultural history, and influencing our relationship with God. God our Father transcends the categories of the created world. To impose our own ideas in this area “upon him” would be to fabricate idols to adore or pull down. To pray to the Father is to enter into his mystery as he is and as the Son has revealed him to us (n. 2779).

These days you will find anti-patriarchy and pro-patriarchy camps in Christianity. The Catechism here offers sympathy and caution to both sides! Both are speaking certain truths that need to be heard. Both sides also have a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater. On the pro-patriarchy side, you will often find culture warriors who are defending, not God, but worldly structures. Those structures are much more about privilege and power than they are about a true sharing in God’s Fatherhood! God is always on the side of the poor and the oppressed, and if we find ourselves blindly defending oppressive fathers (whether dads or spiritual leaders), we may find ourselves far from God! But on the anti-patriarchy side, there is an over-reaction against these abuses. They are right to acknowledge that many men have victimized, dominated, intimidated, used, exploited, excluded, and silenced. Such acts belong not only to isolated individual men, but have often been embedded within structures that silence opposing voices and blame the victim: including governments, businesses, schools, families, and our own churches. But throwing out fatherhood altogether means cutting off our access to the true Fatherhood of God. We are created to receive his blessing, and will remain miserable without it.

Without God as a Father, Jesus himself would have no identity! He simply IS the Son – eternally begotten of the Father. He invites us to discover our own true identity by receiving fatherly blessing. We need fatherhood to remember our story and to know who we really are.

Any authentic expression of fatherhood is a true sharing in God’s Fatherhood. The apostle Paul puts it this way: “For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named…” (Ephesians 3:14-15). More commonly, it is translated “every family,” but in Greek the wordplay is obvious: God is Father (pater) and all patria is from him. Without God’s Fatherhood, there is neither fatherhood nor any other sense of family belonging.

We begin our understanding of Fatherhood by connecting with and meditating on the Trinity. This weekend (eight weeks after Resurrection Sunday), many of our Christian liturgical traditions celebrate “Trinity Sunday.” Jesus is the Son. He is from the Father. He depends upon the Father, and draws his true identity from the Father. When Jesus is baptized, the Father claims him as his beloved Son, in whom he delights.

There are layers of truth here. The Father anoints the humanity of Jesus with the Holy Spirit and declares this human being to be truly his Son. But he is also speaking of their eternal relationship. He is eternally God’s Son – even had he never become one of us, even if he had never created human beings or a universe at all!

The Son is eternally from the Father, yet they are co-equal in dignity and majesty. There is no “greater than” or “less than” in the Trinity. If there were, then Jesus and the Holy Spirit would not truly be God! They would be somehow less than fully God.

Can you see the relevance for human versions of fatherhood or patriarchy? If our fatherhood truly reflects and draws its substance from God’s Fatherhood, then there will be no opposition between equality (on the one hand) and being a source of identity and blessing on the other. That means that we must renounce any counterfeit versions of fatherhood that want to exalt someone on a pedestal. Fatherhood is never about power or privilege. Properly understood, there is an authority there – but it is an authority that lifts others up. True fatherhood pours identity into others, helping them to discover in God the Father who they truly are.

This is true of husbands and dads, but it is also true (in a parallel way) of spiritual fathers: priests or bishops. Each in different ways are a sharing or participation in the Fatherhood of God; each causes grave harm when the God-breathed authority is usurped for the sake of power or privilege.

Perhaps that is why Jesus gave such a stern caution, “Call no man on earth your father – you have only one Father, and he is in heaven” (Matthew 23:9). In point of fact, we do call men our “fathers” – both biologically and spiritually. Paul referred to himself as a spiritual father (1 Corinthians 4:15; 1 Thessalonians 2:11-12); the Letter to the Hebrews exalts Abraham as our patriarch. Jesus is not condemning earthly fatherhood, but reminding us of its true source.

Dads are fathers. Priests are fathers. Others are father figures as well. Like it or not, we who are fatherly have a massive impact on how others form their view of God the Father. We can heal or harm their relationship with God, depending on how we embrace our calling.

To be continued…

Posted on

St. Benedict and Obedience

“Listen carefully, my child, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from a father who loves you; welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice.”

So begins The Rule of Saint Benedict, one of the most enduring spiritual works of all time. Consisting merely of a prologue and 73 paragraphs, it is filled with spiritual and practical wisdom, and a keen insight into human nature.

It has been refreshing for me to hear from the Rule again, drip by drip, during these three months of Sabbath renewal, here in the midst of a community of twenty Benedictine monks. Each evening at the end of supper we listen to a few lines of Benedict’s instructions before closing in prayer.

Regardless of our calling in life, the threefold Benedictine vow of obedience, stability, and conversion of life bears lessons we can all learn from. During this installment, I will reflect on obedience.

Obedience is ultimately a matter of obeying God the Father, in imitation of Jesus, who said, “I have come not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me” (John 6:38). Christ’s obedience involved a total self-emptying, freely and wholeheartedly laying down his life in sacrifice. Monastic life allows obedience and self-emptying to take on a visible form. The monks vow obedience to their abbot (a name meaning “father”) and habitually submit their own will to the will of the abbot and of their elder monks.

Benedict has no illusions of abbots being perfect; rather, he is aware that often they are awful. Many of the instructions of the Rule are directed at the abbot and the grave responsibility that he bears. If there are problems or toxic dynamics in the life of the monastery, they are ultimately his fault – unless he has truly been just and loving and the faults are ultimately due to the obstinacy of the unwilling followers. He plays the role of Christ within the community, first and foremost by his example and then by his exercise of authority.

Benedict is clear about this Christ-like authority not being one of power or control, but one of humility – including attentive listening and consulting. The abbot is not to make major decisions without pulling together other monks and listening deeply to what they have to say. He bears the ultimate responsibility for the final decision, but not before listening with an open mind and heart.

As one who has often borne the burden of authority amidst multiple seasons of disorienting change and turmoil, I can relate. Sometimes I don’t like listening to truths that expose my failures or invite me to pour more of my already depleted energy into a problem. Other times I have put off making the right decision out of fear of domineering or manipulative people, leaving the righteous ones to suffer in silence. Still other times it is tempting to avoid making decisions and over-consult – hoping someone will “just tell me what to do” and rescue me from my responsibility. When we leaders (whether parents, bosses, pastors, or bishops) abdicate our authority, it is often more damaging than when we abuse our position of power. Either way, Benedict repeatedly reminds the abbot that he will give an accounting to Jesus on the Day of Judgment, when our full story will be told by the all-seeing God.

You may be surprised that I am spending so much time talking about the duties of those in authority, but it is essential to see obedience in the context of healthy and holy relationships, not within the context of power or exertion of will. Too many Christians have only known “authority” as an abuse of power or an abdication of responsibility. They haven’t experienced enough of the real thing – with the result that many today (including many ex-Christians) are only suspicious of authority. We need to take their pain seriously and listen to their stories – admitting fault and humbly repairing as justice calls for. AND we can model authentic authority and obedience, and the freedom they bring. Obedience is wonderfully freeing.

Obedience, lived well, directly overturns the strongholds of the evil one. He tempts Adam and Eve – and each of us – to replace the words “thy will be done” with “MY will be done!” In our pride and self-protection, in our fears and insecurities, in our shame and isolation, we resist the intimacy involved in freely submitting to another’s will.

Benedict describes the good fruit the grows in the heart of monks as a result of their obedience: “They no longer live by their own judgment, giving into their whims and appetites; rather they walk according to another’s decisions and directions.” Benedict’s understanding is that those who can obey and submit to an imperfect human being will be more free in submitting to a perfect and loving Father.

Obedience balances individual and communal needs, reflecting the truth that we are not isolated individuals each doing whatever we feel like, but all interconnected in relationships and called to love and serve one another. There are times in a monastery when an individual and talented monk is asked to give up his own personal dreams in order to fill a role needed by the rest of the community. The same often holds true in married life, in the workplace, or in the diocesan priesthood. In the Rule, these kinds of decisions aren’t to be made lightly by the abbot, but only through dialogue and consultation. Hopefully in a happy marriage, in a healthy work environment, or in a healthy bishop-priest relationship, there is a similar dialogue and consultation when challenging decisions need to be made, allowing freedom to move forward.

The church bells fill the Benedictine day with moments of obedience. The bells ring, and the obedient monk promptly rises from bed. The bells ring, and the obedient monk promptly lays down his work project and heads to the chapel to pray. But isn’t it interesting that the bells are rung more than once each time?  There is always the ideal of a prompt and joyful obedience that immediately springs forth, combined with a realistic accommodation for human weakness and real-life circumstances.

Pride is the ancient sin of the devil and of our first parents. Each of us daily is tempted to cry out, “My will be done!” in a hundred different ways. Obedience chips away at our pride and selfishness and teaches us to love and serve others, freely, not because “I have to.” It looks different for the monk, the employee, the spouse, or the priest. But we all are called to Christ-like authority and Christ-like obedience in healthy and holy relationships. How do you allow obedience to set you free in your daily life?

en_USEnglish
en_USEnglish