God of the Flesh

THE GOD OF THE FLESH

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

They were there when I locked up the church in the evening.

They were not there when I unlocked the church in the morning.

I am talking about some nude drawings done by a young female art student of the congregation for a parish arts and crafts exhibition in 1976.

I could not believe it. Who wouId do such a thing and why?

I quickly discovered it was my Church Warden who considered that they were pornographic. The more I tried to discuss the matter with her, the more I became aware that she had a "hang-up" about sex and the body.

DENIAL OF MATERIALISM

In this she is not alone. Much of the Church has a "hang-up" about sex and the body. It sees the body as being essentially evil, and anything to do with it as being essentially sinful. It usually spills over to include the whole of the material world. Hence the Church's frequent condemnation of materialism itself.

As far as such people are concerned, Christianity is essentially about escaping from the influence of the material

world. It focuses its attention upon the so called "spiritual" dimension of the faith, thereby divorcing the world of matter

from the world of the spirit. This line of thinking inevitably goes on to suggest, as did Dr Edward Norman in the his Reith Lectures of a few years ago, that the Church should concern itself with "making people good and not doing good". So Christianity becomes privatised being concerned only with the individual's relationship with God.

This negative attitude towards materialism has grown considerably in recent times as the church has sought to

protect itself and preserve its identity against the encroachment of secularisation. It leads ultimately to a ghetto mentality in which Christians hide away behind stained glass windows, concerned about their own salvation.

Now, this is nothing new. It is merely a resurgence of an old heresy called "Gnosticism" which was prevalent in the Church at the turn of the twentieth century. The word Gnostic is derived from the Greek word meaning "knowledge". The Gnostics saw the world divided into two; those who possessed the "secret knowledge" and those who did not. They also viewed the material world as being essential evil from which those with the "secret knowledge" were able to

escape and be united with God, the source of all knowledge.

MATERIALISM AFFIRMED

Such a view, I would suggest, is a complete denial of the Incarnation which claims that "the Word became flesh".

In other words, through the birth of Jesus, God did not deny the material world, but rather affirmed it. The material world was both the location and means of his revelation to humankind. It was the location by means of a place in the material world called Bethlehem. It was the means by the use of the womb of Mary and the physical body of a child consisting of flesh and bone. God did not reveal himself as some vague, wooIIy, ethereal, spiritual being, but as a human person. As the old Christian Hymn of Praise, the Te Deum, puts it: "When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man: thou didst not abhor the virgin's womb". Rather he used the material world and that includes the body, to be both the means and location of his revelation.

So, St John of Damascus, in the eighth century was able to write: "I do not worship matter, but I worship the Creator of matter who for my sake became material, and accepted to dwell in matter, who through matter effected my salvation. I will not cease in reverencing matter, for it was through matter that my salvation came". Or as TertuIIian succinctly affirmed in the second century: "The flesh is the hinge of salvation".

In short, to declare that "the Word became flesh" is to declare belief in the intrinsic goodness of the material world. To divorce spirituality from materialism is to deny the truth of the Incarnation.

It is this principle, that spiritualism and materialism are two sides of the same coin, whereby God reveals himself, that lies behind our understanding of the sacraments. The use of water in baptism, of bread and wine in Holy Communion, the laying on of hands in Confirmation and Ordination, the use of oil in Holy Unction, and the giving and receiving of a ring in marriage, are the material means employed to convey the presence of God to the recipients of those sacraments.

COMMITMENT T0 A MATERIAL WORLD

If God takes the material world seriously, as demonstrated by "The Word became flesh", and if the Church takes the material world seriously, as demonstrated through its sacramental life, then Christians should also take the material world seriously.

Christianity is not about some form of pious escape from the material world into a never never land of spiritualism, but rather an engagement with the material world through which it seeks to know and serve God.

I cannot express this better than in the words of Bishop Frank Weston at the Anglo Catholic Congress in 1923. He used these stirring words:

"The one great thing that England needs to learn is that Christ is found in and amidst matter - Spirit through matter - God enfleshed. God in the sacrament. But I say to you, and I say it with all the earnestness I have, that if you are prepared to fight for the right of adoring Jesus in his Blessed Sacrament, then you have got to come out from before your Tabernacle and walk, with Christ mystically present in you, out into the streets of this country and find the same Jesus in the people of your cities and villages of this country. You cannot worship Jesus in the Tabernacle if you do not pity Jesus in the slum.....And it is folly, it is madness, to suppose you can worship Jesus in the Sacraments and Jesus on the throne of glory, when you are sweating him in the souls and bodies of children. . . . . . Go out and look for Jesus in the ragged, in the naked, and in the oppressed and sweated, in those who have lost hope, in those who are struggling to make good. Look for Jesus. And when you see him, gird yourselves with his towel and try to wash his feet."

And there is no doubt that the Anglo Catholic wing of the Anglican Church did take seriously the implication of "the Word became flesh" during the early years of the twentieth century. Not only did they use the material world in their worship - candles, vestments, crucifixes, statues and icons, but they also went out from their churches, and devoted themselves to serving the material Christ in the material world, and never more so than in the deprived areas of our inner cities. It is a matter of deep regret that in recent years, it has lost this former vocation to social concern and action and has become inward looking, seeking to preserve the correctness of its liturgy and male dominated priesthood. Gone are the Anglo Catholic giants of parish ministry who worked tirelessly amidst the slums of our cities. Today we are often just left with the decaying shell of irrelevant worship.

CONCLUSION

My friends, the fact that "the Word became flesh" means that we can do no other - as Christians - than take the material world seriously, for it was both the location and means of God's revelation to humankind. It is also the basis of the sacramental life of the Church and of Christian service.

I am sure that had my Church Warden been more Incarnationally minded, she would have thought twice before removing those nude drawings, and not seen the "fleshy" side of life as being essentially evil.

It is this principle that lay behind the ministry of Jesus, whereby he used the material world to be the means of revealing the power and presence of God. For instance he communicated the power of God by the use of bread and wine at the Last Supper, the use of loaves and fishes in feeding the 5000, to Simon's mother-in-law by his hand and to the leper and to the blind man at Bethsaida by the touch of his hand. He communicated the presence of God by talking and drawing attention to the material world. He talked about wine skins, seeds, lamps, salt, fig trees, pearls, dragnets , tower builders and lost coins. For Jesus, the physical or material world revealed both the power and presence of God to his teams.