The following is a two-part excerpt (a scarcely edited excerpt) from my personal journal, recorded during a recent trip to England, which was a four-week study abroad class I took through Gardner-Webb University.
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04 June 2010, Friday 7:55 AM
Last night, ... I went to a "simple Celtic celebration of Holy Communion" at St. Andrew's in Hove (Church of England). It was a wonderful experience. The entire service, the door to the street was open, allowing sounds of cars and people walking down and up the street in Hove to be a constant reminder of Mission. Several times I felt distracted from the "worship," but then embraced the outside noise of the "world" as a constant reminder of the mission of the church, the Church, and my mission. I became aware of the role of each Christian and Christian community as intercessors--standing in the gap between unreconciled man and God, pleading the case of the former, worshiping the latter, or holding out the way of the latter to the former--and as I shared in God's body, I painfully yearned for those outside of the walls to be a part as well.
At one point I thought, "We just need to drop all of this silly Celtic meditative stuff and go out there and start talking to those people."
But that's not standing in the gap. "Minding the gap," as the British rail service constantly reminds you [and you would be wise to follow the advise, lest you fall into the gap, between the boarding platform and the train, to an uncertain fate!].
It's not enough to go out into the world and talk to people. But maybe it is, if you are "talking," and sharing God, and your experience of being transformed in His constant presence.
It's not enough to spend all of one's days in the courts of the Lord, marveling at the "beauty of holiness." But maybe it is, if you are receptive to God's Gospel, and as a part of your response are intentionally "minding the gap" between God and the objects of God's reconciliatory work of salvation.
This is, possibly, the two-fold work of evangelism, which is to be undertaken both individually and corporately, within the context of both human- and God- community, holding out the God-way: the Gospel.
Mind the Gap.
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Another insight I gained during the Celtic service started developing (developing more, I should say) at the priest's words of, paraphrased, something about our search for truth coming to an end in the Corpus Christi--the body of Christ, the person and presence of Christ. I am reminded of the Apostle Paul's (Colossians 1:17) words: "[Christ] is before all things, and in him all things consist." I find an end to my search for Truth in Jesus Christ. This doesn't mean that I believe I know everything with absolute certainty. It means that "my faith has found a resting place, not in device nor creed," but in the person and office of Jesus Christ (Eliza Hewitt, 1891). I still have not, and will never, figure out all of the implications, truth claims, and imports into faith and practice that the person of Jesus makes in my life and the life of the world, but that's not the point. Many would misunderstand and call this position a "cop-out," or "way out." It is a way out...and in. Out of meaninglessness and despair and into the constant Joy of being reconciled to God and the world. Constant Joy, not necessarily happiness.
It is not a resting place of blissful ignorance. Many days are anything but blissful, and I wish I was ignorant of many hurts that are a direct result of my following Christ. The Christian worldview is logically consistent, but this coherence doesn't preclude tension. In fact, I find faith to be a constant exercise in the acknowledgment of tension. Part of my Christian faith teaches me that my understanding of the world and of God, although important, does not affect the Truth that I can or cannot perceive, but that I worship in spirit and truth regardless. I realize that while there are diverse ways of understanding the Divine Mystery, there are better ways of understanding; I believe those ways which are, in my estimation, the closest to the Truth as it has been revealed to humanity by its Creator.
Back to the words of the priest. In Christ--in His Real Presence, particularly within the context of communion--we [can] find an end to our search for truth.
I think that here, in this context, it is wise to consider the meaning of the word end. Not necessarily the end, as in the end of a race, but a "telos." An end as in a shaping force, the purpose, the goal, the thing toward which everything moves and around which everything is focused and centered. Possibly, an end as in a "resting place"--a ceasing from worry and strife and doubt--not doubt in claims or things, but a ceasing of doubt in the person of Jesus. More of a handing over of my doubts in trust. Like Thomas, who doubted, shared those doubts, then declared, "My Lord and My God" after encountering the Corpus Christi: the presence and person of the crucified and risen Christ, who invited Thomas to a very hands-on encounter.
Maybe Holy Communion is the closest thing we can get to an invitation to place our fingers in the Lord's wounds--as we consume reminders and icons of body and blood, and partake-as a community that is the Corpus Christi on Earth, that has its very real wounds-in an encounter with the crucified and risen Lord, and with Thomas, find our resting place, our end, our "telos," in the person of "[Our] Lord and [our] God."
-8:45 AM
6 June 2010
Sussex, UK
Day after Corpus Christi
