THE CHURCH IN FLUX
Chapter 21
John, the Irishman, more than a millennium ago, told us that God is in all things. There’s a man who knew the bible. Colossians 1:15-20 says exactly that: “He is before all things and in him all things hold together.” The Irish John said it in poetry: “God has not created everything out of nothing, but out of his own essence, out of his very life: That is the light that is in all things,
the light which is the light of angels,
the light of the created universe,
the light indeed of all visible and invisible existence.”
Again this Irishman: “the way to learn about God is through the letters of the Scriptures and through the species of creation.” He urges us to listen to these expressions of God and to conceive of their meaning in our souls. So it is no wonder that the national color of the Irish is green. They were the Green Party as long as we have recorded history.
The attitude of The Irish John and Celtic spirituality in general is diametrically opposed to the materialism we have in our world, shaped by Roman Catholic dualism, and equally evident in Protestant Christianity. The bible is very clear on this. Again Colossians 1:15 -20 is a passage exemplifying the Celtic Spirit more than any other. This is what it says: Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
The Gnostics deny Christ’s humanity. But Paul affirms it repeatedly because Jesus always introduces himself as The Son of Man, which simply means Human through and through. Paul sees Jesus as the ‘firstborn of all creation.’ Bible translators like to modify this because it doesn’t fit in with their presuppositions. The Greek plainly says ‘proototekos pases ktiseoos’ which translates not as ‘the firstborn over all creation’ as the NIV has it, but ‘the firstborn of creation’
What does this mean? It means that, when God planned the creation, he started with duplicating himself in the form of Jesus Christ, in the form of the ultimate in creation, the human beings we are. God Himself, in the words of the Son, is a spirit and we must worship him in spirit and in truth. But Christ is not a spirit: he is a man of flesh and blood, just like we are. He also is the prototype, the original human, the very first human being, the firstborn of all creation. We look like him because we are made in God’s image. Yes, we look like Christ. We, as women and men, as boys and girls, are the highest order in God’s creation, but we come from the lowest material, the original stuff of creation: clay. We are made of that material, that’s why we belong to the earth and will always be part and parcel of it. After all the word ‘Adam’ means clay. God fashioned us, the human race, from the clay of the earth, a mixture of dry dust and water. He, as the Master Sculptor, created us, fashioned us, shaped us, molded us, in the image of that perfect, divine creature, God’s alter ego, Jesus Christ. That is what verse 15 says.
Verse 16 continues in that same vein: “For by Christ all things were created.” Remember Christ, the first human being, did this. Made in his image, part of his body, we can read this also: For by us, as human beings, as the body of Christ, all things were created.
That’s what accounts for the tremendous accomplishments we human beings have achieved: we are of divine origin. That’s why God is also so outspoken when he warns us not to kill other humans because they are God’s image (Genesis 9:6).
However, because we have strayed from the path of Christ, have not seen creation as the First Word of God, have gone in exactly the opposite direction, a direction to which the Celtic Christians objected, the world now is in such a dire situation that soon we will need a complete overhaul, a total cleansing, a drastic process of burning all the rubbish that now defile God’s cosmos.
By and large organized religion has neglected this approach. Even worse, by placing so much emphasis on God’s world, they were persecuted by the church as the Irish John was, with the result that reason, doctrine, church dogma, human wisdom, became the measure of faith.
We now see the result. We see a world plagued with pollution, plagued with poverty, plagued with a plurality of pains. We see a world where the idol of economic growth takes priority over any creation friendly act so that we now occupy a planet depleted with whatever is precious.
Until now many preachers still read Genesis 2:15 as a license to ‘dominate’ creation. Actually, just as Jesus came not to be served but to serve, so this text too has that same intent. Early in human history, in the glorious days of the Garden of Eden, God charged humanity to look after God’s creation. The word that previous translations showed as ‘dominate’ or ‘lord over’ in reality means ‘taking care’, because the identical Hebrew word is found in Joshua 24:15, where Joshua, the man who succeeded Moses as leader of Israel, vouches “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Thus the same Hebrew word indicating ‘taking care of God’s creation’ and ‘serving the Lord’ means exactly the same.
This serving is reflected in the prayer of St. Patrick, the great Irish evangelist. His prayer is typical:
I bind myself today
The virtues of the star-lit heaven
The glorious sun’s life-giving ray.
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
the stable earth, the deep salt sea
Around the old eternal rocks.
Again the closeness to creation, but also the sense that Christ is in everything, including ourselves, based on this very bible passage in Col.1:19, where it says that God was pleased to have all God’s fullness dwell in Jesus.
Christ be with me, Christ within me
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
Celtic Christianity does not see a great gap between heaven and earth, no, the two are seen as inseparably intertwined.
The (Canadian) Presbyterian Record once had a review of a book called The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christians can reach the West.
The author, George G. Hunter III, outlined five proven Celtic Church practices he believes are needed today.
(1) We need to move from the ‘lone ranger’ approach in the church, where the minister is the all and in all, to partnership forms of ministry.
(2) We must create ‘neo-monastic church communities’ as places of formation for modern Christians.
I know that this is difficult in our subdivided world, where we all live in our own dwelling. Monastic means communal living, as in a convent or monastery, but then for families. It is something to which I will give more attention in a next chapter. Curiously in the October 9 2003 issue of the New York Review of Books which discusses The Human Web by Father and Son McNeil, the authors recommend the formation of primary communities:” Religious sects and congregations are the principal candidates for this role.”
(3) We must develop imaginative/ contemplative prayer patterns.
(4) Practice open and full hospitality as our prime response to those who are seeking.
We are all very private people and not prone to open our houses and hearts to others. In our busyness, we think we have no time for this.
(5) Rediscover that belonging comes before believing for those new to the faith.
These are new times. We see every day what the Roman Way of Christianity is bringing destruction and pollution to God’s world. In 1966 Dr Lynn White addressed the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. His topic: The historical roots of our Ecological Crisis. I quote: The church has taught that God planned this earth explicitly for man’s benefit and ruled no item in the physical creation had any purpose save to serve man’s purposes. Christianity, in absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asian religions not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for his proper ends.
We now know that this approach has been destructive for our planet. I sincerely believe that Celtic Christianity provides a better answer to today’s way of serving God than any church way yet confessed.
The Celtic cross plainly expresses this. The orb, the circle at the centre of the cross represents the sun and the light of the world, and expresses the desire to hold together the revelation of God in creation and the revelation of God in scriptures.
This is our Father’s world, which we will inherit as his children. Treat it as such, because it is ours to live in forever.
Here is a final Celtic poem:
DEEP PEACE OF THE RUNNING WAVE TO YOU
DEEP PEACE OF THE FLOWING AIR TO YOU
DEEP PEACE OF THE QUIET EARTH TO YOU
DEEP PEACE OF THE SHINING STARS TO YOU
DEEP PEACE OF THE GENTLE NIGHT TO YOU
MOON AND STARS POUR THEIR HEALING LIGHT ON YOU.
DEEP PEACE OF CHRIST THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD TO YOU.