More Questions than Answers from Isaiah 6
While doing some research in anticipation of Trinity Sunday I came across the following quote and have not been able to put it down.
"The sacred is found wherever religion is found; the holy wherever God is present. Accordingly, it is quite possible to consider many things as sacred but nothing as holy, or equally possible to treat many things as holy but nothing as sacred. Everything depends on the concept of God. Of the two terms, theistic religions view the holy as primary, the sacred as secondary." Paul S. Minear, Yale Divinity School. Theology Today, 1990
After rereading the Minear quotation this morning I wonder about his definitions of sacred and holy. What is the content of each? What differentiates? I think I read the first line not as an experiential observation but as a definition of terms.
Here is my re-write. Do I read him right?
"Where you find religion you will find lots of sacred stuff but you might not find God. But when you find God you will find the holy but might not find any religion. Accordingly, it is quite possible to consider many things RELIGIOUS but nothing CARRYING THE PRESENCE OF GOD, or equally possible to treat many things as CARRYING THE PRESENCE OF GOD but nothing RELIGIOUS. Everything depends on the concept of God. Of the two terms, theistic religions view the PRESENCE OF GOD as primary, the RELIGIOUS as secondary." Paul S. Minear as interpreted by Sparks, 2006
If I am close to Minear's meaning then I agree. This is much more in line with my sense of freedom to find God (the holy) in the most unexpected places and people. In fact maybe the hardest place to find the holy is in the sacred. The sacred cries out, "Worship me. Hold me. Cherish me. Protect me." The sacred quickly puts up fences, hurdles and walls to protect itself but ends up protecting us from the holy, God Himself. I am reminded of Toxic Faith. The sacred has become a substitute for the holy and thus religion becomes toxic. In this case the sacred tracks down the holy seeking to control it, codify it, but ends up corrupting it.
This also reflects my experience. The people around me have found little of value in sacred things, sacred language or sacred traditions. They really do seek for the holy but can't separate the sacred from the holy or religion from God. I am not sure that the church knows how to separate them either. It seems to me that most of our attempts to separate just end up substituting one set of sacreds for another i.e. traditional for contemporary, hymn books for walls, one expectation for another.
Maybe the problem is that the sacred and the holy cannot or should not be separated. Maybe we just need to keep our definitions and priorities clear, i.e. the holy as primary, the sacred as secondary.
I love the visual picture the Acts 14 council in Jerusalem when James feels it necessary to codify the holy which Paul found among the Gentiles; “(The gentile believers) – should abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.”
I know that James was facing a highly charged political atmosphere but is that not typical of religion? Actually, in his old age and under less or no political pressure, James got it right: “Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself form being polluted by the world.”
Does the coming of the Spirit of Christ make this James-Religion possible?
Does not an authentic Isaiah-Cleansing send us out to care more about those in distress than for our own lives?
Is not this James-Religion the simplest expression of God’s primary disposition towards the world?
posted by David Sparks @ 2:02 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
There are deep ramifications to such ideas, Dave. And a world of hurt for even daring to explore them. For if it is God, His presence, that makes anything and all things holy; and if God's presence is anywhere and everywhere so that, as Steve Green once commented, there is no place left that is God-forsaken; then what has been accomplished is nothing short of the establishment of a holy creation. That is, there is nothing that is not holy because there is nothing of which God is not a part.
Our creed tells us that Jesus, the very presence of God made flesh, descended into hell. However, we are to take that, I think that it at least means that God enters into everything, including all the things, persons, places that we think are unworthy of his presence. And we may be correct in that assumption, for none are worthy. But to question the worthiness of creation for the Creator is to ask the wrong question entirely. A more correct question, so it seems to me, is, What and who has God chosen to favor with his presence?
That then leads us to Starbucks and The Red Octopus, and morgues. It leads us to baristas, morticians and personal property processors, probation officers, delinquents, and, God save us, perhaps even Christians. It means that God can enter into anything he chooses, redeeming anything he wants (all creation perhaps?), and lead all people to himself through any means he chooses, even if they do not resemble or imitate our own means.
It means that as the bread and wine are sacred because at some point their holiness has blessed our lives in the past, that we too are to be sacraments to the world around us, communicating not our own holiness or the holiness of our beliefs, but that which makes us holy - the Holy.
But as you point out, I suppose it all matters what you choose to worship in the end and at the end: the Real, or just a cheap imitation.
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