Tag Archives: obedience
On Discipleship Within The Monastic Tradition
This is the text of a paper presented at the first Postgraduate Research Morning hosted at St Hild’s College in Sheffield on Monday 5th June 2017.
I want to talk about discipleship today from within, what many are calling, ‘the New Monastic Movement’ of which I am part. This movement has emerged out of a protest against the steady increase of individualism prevalent in our Western culture. Many would argue that the individualisation of our society began in the Enlightenment with philosophical thought becoming more introspective and focussed on the subjective interpretation of reality famously summarised in René Descartes, “I think, therefore, I am.” The Church has not been immune to this social deconstruction and this has led to a powerfully individualised faith experience. This erosion of the corporate understanding of faith has impacted the Church’s discipleship and life together.
With the secularisation following on from the Enlightenment project and the further mechanising and fragmenting of all aspects of our lives, the place of community has diminished. In the late 20th century, with the Church increasingly unwilling or unable to offer intensive forms of Christian discipleship, some have gathered together to re-discover what it means to live out the communal life as described in the New Testament. The faithfulness of the monastic and mendicant saints throughout history became wells around which these small groups were nourished, inspiring them to live counter-culturally. These ‘pioneers’ discovered that the shared life they dreamt of had long been practiced by communities like the Franciscans, Benedictines and the Jesuits, among many. Others arrived at a similar place by a different route, having sought, in the first place, to rediscover the spiritual fortitude and charisms of the very same saints of old and so to re-dig wells of Grace in the ‘places’ where God has worked for generations before. Regardless of the path towards a contemporary articulation of the monastic way of life, they all learned that the historic forms were in need of some re-imagining for the new context in which we now live. In this way these expressions of communal discipleship can all be reasonably described as ‘new monastics’.
The term ‘New Monasticism’ was first used by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a letter he wrote on 14th January 1935. This is what he said,
the restoration of the church will surely come only from a new type of monasticism which has nothing in common with the old but a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ. I think it is time to gather people together to do this. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Testament to Freedom (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), p.424)
Two years later, Bonhoeffer published ‘The Cost of Discipleship’ in which he seems to expand on his view of classic monasticism. He writes,
The expansion of Christianity and the increasing secularization of the church caused the awareness of costly grace to be gradually lost…. But the Roman church did keep a remnant of that original awareness. It was decisive that monasticism did not separate from the church and that the church had the good sense to tolerate monasticism. Here, on the boundary of the church, was the place where the awareness that grace is costly and that grace includes discipleship was preserved…. Monastic life thus became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) p.46-47)
This ‘toleration’ of monasticism by the Church, however, relativized the discipleship lived out in the monastic houses. The Church was able to avoid the criticism of secularisation by living the life of holiness vicariously through the achievements of these monks who obeyed the radical call to forsake all earthly things and follow Jesus Christ in discipleship.
Bonhoeffer argues that Martin Luther’s journey through the monastic life led him to see how the monastic life had failed the Church by perpetuating this lie that Christians could pay others to be ‘disciples’ on their behalf. The monastic houses had become, by the time the Reformation began, propped up by the financial donations by the Roman Church paying a select few monks to be obedient for the rest of God’s Church. Luther’s protest was an attempt to release the radical obedience to follow Christ, found in the charisms of monastic life, and invite all Christians to participate in this form of devoted life of monasticism.
I say all this, yes, in order to justify the New Monastic movement as a continued protest for the Church to embrace the way of life outlined in the founding documents of the Benedictines, Franciscans, Jesuits and others. But I also say it in order to acknowledge and outline the popular portrayal of monastic life and the criticisms that it therefore receives. I want to argue that it is the early monastic life, articulated most purely in the Rule of St Benedict, that holds the key for us todayas to how to live as ‘a living protest against the seculariztion of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace.’
Listen, my son, and with your heart hear the principles of your Master. Readily accept and faithfully follow the advice of a loving Father, so that through the labour of obedience you may return to Him from whom you have withdrawn because of the laziness of disobedience. My words are meant for you whoever you are, who laying aside your own will, take up the all-powerful and righteous arms of obedience to fight under the true King, the Lord Jesus Christ. (RB Pro:1-5)
Thus starts the Rule of St Benedict. It begins with an unswerving command to obedience, not a popular command in our individualised, self-autonomous culture but the monastic life centres on the vow to stability, obedience and conversion of life. Columba Cary-Elwes helpful highlights that ‘the very word obedience has a treasure hidden in its history.’ She writes,
If you unpack it, ob audiere, to listen intently is the language of love. When you really love, you listen intently to know what the one you love wants to happen. (Columba Cary-Elwes, Work and Prayer:the rule of St. Benedict for lay people (London:Burns & Oates, 1992) p.182)
This understanding of obedience is acceptable in the context of our personal relationship with Christ but it becomes problematic for many in our post modern, subjective culture. To love and obey another is seen by our self-autonomous society as oppressive and open to all manner of abuse. In outlining the role of the abbot in his Rule, St Benedict, on more than one occasion, however, quotes Christ, “Whoever listens to you, listens to me.” Christ imparts authority to his disciples in order that they may speak on his behalf to others. The abbot in the monastic community is to represent Christ to his monks. The risk of abuse to that kind of power is real and Cary-Elwes acknowledges as much when she states,
No doubt also an abbot can go beyond his rights, and what is wrong or evil should not be obeyed. Yet all that happens is under divine providence and God’s wise guidance of the world, and this includes commands of superiors. (Cary-Elwes, Work and Prayer, p.40)
St Benedict spends many chapters portraying what an abbot should and should not do; he spends so much time that it begs the question, “why is it so important?” It is important because the role of the abbot directly impacts the discipleship of the rest of the community. ‘The first thing that defines the abbot,’ Esther de Waal writes, ‘is not the position at the head of an institution but his relationship with sons’ She links this with the model of discipleship undertaken by monks.
The learning process is more analogous to that of apprenticeship by which one person learns a skill from another. In the ancient world skills were handed down from father to son, and so apprenticeship also carries with it the implication of a father-son relationship. It involves imitation and long, patient watching and copying, a shared learning that owes much to the fact of daily living together.(Esther de Waal, Seeking God: the way of St. Benedict (London: Fount, 1985) p.130)
Discipleship, within the monastic tradition, begins with obedience; to listen intently to God through His Spirit and His people under authority. Rowan Williams paints a beautiful image of this model of discipleship as he suggest that being a disciple ‘is a state of being in which you are looking and listening without interruption.’
You are hanging around; you are watching; you are absorbing a way of being that you are starting to share. You learn by sharing life; you learn by looking and listening. (Rowan Williams, Being Disciples: essentials of the Christian life (London: SPCK, 2016) p.3)
‘Obedience is not an imposed subservience to an external authority but a condition of inward growth,’ as Dominc Milroy writes,
The monk who is not authentically obedient to his abbot and his brethren will not be a happy monk; the carpenter who is not obedient to the laws of governing joints will make an unreliable table. All disobedience represents, in this sense, the pursuit of illusory freedom which obstructs the acquisition of real freedom. (Dominic Milroy, “Education According to The Rule of St. Benedict”, Ampleforth Journal, no.84 (Autumn 1979) p.4)
As well as obedience, discipleship, within the monastic tradition, also begins with stability. Brian C Taylor says,
The Benedictine vow of stability is a vow to a community of people… In this sense it is a marriage…The grass is not greener “over there”: one must work out one’s problems with this person because, if one doesn’t, one will have to work it out with that person. This is precisely what is so freeing about the vow of stability, both in monastic life and family life. To have to work it out is to demand growth, as painful as it is, and that is freeing. Faithfulness is a limit that forces us to stop running and encounter God, self, and other right now, right here. (Brian C. Taylor, Spirituality For Everyday Living: an adaptation of the rule of St. Benedict (Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1989) p.17)
Or to put that more succinctly, Meister Eckhart wrote: ‘The meaning of stability: God is not elsewhere.’
If obedience is about listening intently, then stability aids our silencing of unnecessary distractions ‘for stability says there must be no evasion.’ There must be no escaping into a fantasy world or the day dreams of how we’d do great things if only… ‘At the heart of stability,’ Metropolitan Anthony bloom suggests, ‘is the certitude that God is everywhere, that we have no need to seek God elsewhere, that if I can’t find God here I shan’t find Him anywhere.’
Both obedience and stability combine with the commitment to seek out the conversion of our lives and gives the framework within which discipleship occurs in the monastic tradition. Conversion of life is about life-long, inner transformation which ensures discipleship is not a course to complete but a way of life to journey deeper into. Thomas Merton argues that a commitment to total inner transformation is to be regarded as ‘the end of the monastic life, and that no matter where one attempts to do this, that remains the essential thing.’
The Rule of St Benedict is immensely practical and pragmatic and can be used as a manual for a devoted life to following Christ. What we need to learn from it and the wider monastic heritage is the communal necessity of this way of life. Discipleship for Benedict, Francis and the other monastic fathers and mothers can only be done with others. Love can only be practised in the cut and thrust of community life. If the vows to stability, obedience and the ongoing conversion of one’s life can be seen as the soil in which monastic discipleship is rooted and from this the tree of discipleship can bear good fruit then we must acknowledge that all three require other people to be faithful and obedient to and to be changed by.
The monastic tradition has always rejected a form of life that attempts to replicate the religious life outside of a communal setting. John Cassian describes a type of monk called Sarabaites in a derogatory manner,
They… go on living in their homes just as before, carrying on the same work; or they build cells for themselves, call them ‘monasteries’ and live in them as they please… Shirking the austere rule of a community: living two or three together in a cell; under no direction: aiming above all else at having freedom from the elders, of going where they like, and of satisfying whatever passion they like. (John Cassian, The Conferences of Cassian, “Conference 18: Conference of Abba Piamun on the three sorts of monks”, Owen Chadwick (trans.), Library of Christian Classics Volume XII: Western Asceticism (London: SCM Press, 1958) p.268-269)
St Benedict also depicts this type of monk as,
…unschooled by any rule, untested, as gold is by fire, but soft as lead, living in and of the world… They live together in twos or threes, more often alone, without a shepherd in their own fold, not the Lord’s. Their only law is the pleasure of their desires, and whatever they wish or choose they call holy. They consider whatever they dislike unlawful. (RB 1:7-9)
The monastic life, I would argue, is still ‘a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace.’ But in our modern context this requires us embracing the challenge of community life as outlined in the Rule of St Benedict. In this portrayal of community life discipleship is intrinsically linked with the submission of our self wills to the discipline of the larger community’s apprenticeship training. This is not the romantic, sentimental community life that we all easily describe in our dreams of missional communities but a very real and costly life which demands obedience and stability in order to enter into the inner change of discipleship.
Without this ultimate commitment to the other monks, to wife or husband, to child or parent, change is difficult at best because it lives under the threat of abandonment. With a commitment to stability, change is no longer a threat but something to be undertaken together. One can change or ask for change in the other when one knows that one is loved and that this request will not drive the other away.
What the monastic tradition offers the Church today is a communal way of life that challenges our cultures hyper-individualism by demanding the sacrificing of the idol of self and ‘a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ.’ We must discover that on the boundary of the Church today the monastics still preserve ‘the awareness that grace is costly and that grace includes discipleship.’
Chapter 71: the brothers ought to obey one another
The service of obedience is to be shown to all, not just the abbot, for by this road of obedience they shall travel to find God.
Where is authority and obedience placed and how is it used?
Let prefix this post with an acknowledgement: I will be quoting Thomas Merton a lot during this one!
I have a personal struggle with authority and obedience which is deeply woven into my personality and history. Firstly, I am a born and raised Roman Catholic which has undoubtedly influenced me for good and ill in equal measure. I cannot and will not ever shake that influence from me, I can only learn to embrace the good and ask God’s mercy and grace to redeem the ill. Secondly, I am a millennial/Generation Y, my older siblings are the cynical generation X and they have shaped me as well as my peers who, like me have been parented by baby-boomers. All of that may sound like a load of sociological mumbo jumbo but the key point is I’m a product of my culture. Generation Y is also known as Generation Me, for we are, on the whole, a narcissistic bunch obsessed with selfies due to a great deal of pampering by our parents who were the recipients of Thatcher’s ‘booming economy’! These two parts of my social makeup would be enough to create a paradox around the issue of authority but there’s more specific personality traits that create a confusing cocktail of issues for me. (There’s my Generation Y traits coming out; a desperate need to be unique and noticed. Ironic!) In Myers Briggs personality test I am an INTJ
Blindly following precedents and rules without understanding them is distasteful to INTJs, and they disdain even more authority figures who blindly uphold those laws and rules without understanding their intent. Anyone who prefers the status quo for its own sake, or who values stability and safety over self-determination, is likely to clash with INTJ personality types. Whether it’s the law of the land or simple social convention, this aversion applies equally, often making life more difficult than it needs to be.(“INTJ Strengths and Weakneses”, 16 Personalities, April 23 2016, https://www.16personalities.com/intj-strengths-and-weaknesses)
I have a deepening sense of vocation to some form of monastic life. I am a self selected Anglican. I am artistic by temperament and, until ordination, by profession. All of this makes for some paradox inducing internal struggle for me but… it’s what makes me interesting!
I appreciate authority. I desire authority. I know the necessity for authority and even in a democratic country authority is not only allowed it is more needed than ever. Our relationship with authority, as a culture, is interesting to me. After it’s abuses by so many in the 20th century we have allowed the pendulum of social opinion to swing completely in the opposite direction. As my older siblings in Generation X have taken power (often in protesting movements and social activism) a large dose of cynicism towards authority and the status quo has become prevalent too. Figures of authority are routinely mocked and publicly shamed as satire has became increasingly popular so that now most comedians will have some form of pedestal kicking in their acts. I am not suggesting this is bad or unnecessary; I’m just noting it as interesting.
Thomas Merton (here it comes!) wrote to a Marie Byles, a scholar in Japanese religions, on January 9 1967,
You ask about the Catholic idea of holy obedience. What you are really interested in is evidently the ancient ascetic idea of obedience which goes back to the Gospels, the Sermon on the Mount, and so on, is exemplified by the saints, and is analogous to the perfect obedience, docility, and so forth found in other religious ideals. The idea is fundamentally the same: to become free from the need to assert one’s ego, to be liberated from the desire to dominate others, to renounce selfish demands, and so on. Ultimately the idea is that if you renounce your own will you will be guided directly by God and moved by Him in everything… The real purpose of obedience is to obey God and give one’s will to Him. This idea of obedience is somewhat ambiguous in the later legalistic context that it got into, when the religious Orders got highly organized and became big impersonal structures run by bureaucracies. The ascetic idea was pressed into the service of a different kind of ideal, and “blind obedience” was stressed as an ideal since it meant the subject simply submitted to authority and became a cog in a machine. (Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: a life in letters (New York: Harper One, 2008) p. 191)
Merton draws out the first issue with obedience and authority and that is: where it is placed.
St Benedict’s original emphasis of obedience in his Rule stems from the expectation that within the monastic community there are personal relationships; monks were known to each other. An abbot knew the monks, personally and intimately. This relationship can’t always have been comfortable for either party particularly in issues of obedience. The abbot would have come from the community and could have been, at one time, a peer of the monks he now found himself in authority over. Within the intimacy of this fellowship of faith and discipleship, obedience is encouraged for it’s original purpose: to practice submission of our own will to God. I acknowledge not just my own personal need to practice this submission but my whole culture to do so.
Obedience, unfortunately, has continued to be associated with big, impersonal institutions and so is baulked at by many in Generation X and younger. Since the First World War and the abuses of the ruling classes that forced the population to fight increasingly failing battles on their behalf became apparent, cultural acceptance of authority began to erode. Throughout the last century, with the rise of fascism, communism, capitalism and many other philosophical and political ideals, humanity has developed a wariness to power and authority. Institutions have one by one shown themselves to be corrupted, or at least corruptible, and trust has been lost (the Church, the police, politicians, government processes, schools). This has been done to such an extent that we are now numbed to scandal and, strangely, we now see political elite and celebrities who are seemingly immune to such challenge.
To focus the issue a little more let me explore authority within the Church of England. I, as an ordained minister, have made an oath of canonical obedience,
I, A B, do swear by Almighty God that I will pay true and canonical obedience to the Lord Bishop of C and his successors in all things lawful and honest: So help me God. (Canon C14, Canons of the Church of England 7th Edition: Full Edition with First Supplement (London, church House Publishing, 2015)
In my case I have sworn obedience to the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu which has, on occasions, been put to the test. There have been decisions that the Archbishop has made which have affected me directly and which I have not agreed with. I have accepted those decisions as an act of obedience to him. This acceptance has not been easy at times as I struggle to obey authority solely because some person of status tells me to and particularly when I don’t believe them to possess all the necessary information of understanding, but I obeyed. My struggle is particularly painful when I am asked to obey decisions that have been made without any form of dialogue or relationship. Merton goes on,
As long as the notion of obedience is implicated in an impersonal power system it will be corrupted by the very things it is supposed to liberate us from- worldliness, selfishness, ambition, and so on… (Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: a life in letters (New York: Harper One, 2008) p. 192)
That is not purely to say that just the authority figure, whoever that might be, is corrupted by those things but those in obedience under them also. For the vow of obedience to be renewed and reformed for both parties involved I suggest we ensure it is placed back in the soil of long-term, trusting relationship. The alternative is to either blindly allow it to continue as it is and to be burdened by the struggle or to leave the system altogether (as many who have taken the oath of canonical obedience are doing.)
Thomas Merton, in a letter to a Wilbur H. Ferry on January 19 1967, makes the following heartfelt observation,
Authority has simply been abused too long in the Catholic Church and for many people it just becomes utterly stupid and intolerable to have to put up with the kind of jackassing around that is imposed in God’s name. It is an insult to God Himself and in the end it can only discredit all idea of authority and obedience. There comes a point where they simply forfeit the right to be listened to. On the other hand… If everyone with any sense just pulls out, then that leaves the curial boys in full command of the field with the assurance that they are martyrs to justice or something. the real problem remains the reform of the Church people who remain inside. And if there can only be a little agreement on a more reasonable and free approach, something can be done. (Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: a life in letters (New York: Harper One, 2008) p. 322)
Many have asked me why I, as a pioneer minister of sorts and as a creative artist, not only follow the rules but promote the need to stay true to them. It is the key paradox that makes me, me; how does it balance?
I have spoken before about an important moment in my life when I was asked by God to make a decision: was I going to be a revolutionary or a reformer? A revolutionary, in this instance, is one who seeks to overthrow the current system in power and replace it with something else. This revolutionary wants to destroy the status quo which is , in their mind, no longer fit for purpose, in order to create the new workable model. The reformer, on the other hand, is the one who seeks to take the treasures of the old and salvage them to allow the broken parts to either be ‘fixed’ or recycled or thrown out. The job of the reformer, in contrast to the revolutionary, is a long term systematic but thorough process. I made a promise to God some eight years ago to be a reformer and not a revolutionary.
Most pioneer ministers and those involved in the Fresh Expressions movement are revolutionaries. They are tired of the status quo failing, in their eyes, in the mission of God. The Church of England is joke and needs to be radically changed and that change is going to be made from a grassroots movements akin to the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and UKIP (this is not about motivation but solely about approach.) I have promised my God that I’d commit to participate in dialogue with the tradition because I still believe God has built his Church and he has not forsaken it yet. I believe that the Church is the hope of the nation and that God is still in it working through it. Fresh Expressions of church must, in my mind grow out from and remain united to the Church of God.
The Reformation was, in my mind, an unfortunate but necessary moment in Church history. It was unfortunate because it has birthed, out of division, a divisive movement. If you sow in division you reap in division. This has meant that preference has often replaced the deeply held convictions of the reformers and we have the situation where there are so many independent churches. These church congregations are not, in themselves a problem, many are doing wonderful, anointed work and I rejoice with them in the promotion of the life of faith and mission but the ecumenical movement, despite our best intentions of being united, is not full unity. What was begun at the Reformation has created this issue.
It is from this place of commitment to change the system from within that I speak. I don’t believe in complaining about something and not learning why it is as it is and how it or I can be changed to solve the problem. It is in this reformation mindset that I struggle to balance my obedience to authority and work to discern how God is birthing the new things in and through his Church. It is in all of this that I am encouraged by Merton’s letter to Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit and one of the founders of the Catholic Peace Fellowship,
While in fact there are a lot of Superiors who think themselves infallible, and are absolutely incapable of understanding what it means to really find out what their subjects need and desire (they consult only yes-men or people who have made the grade by never rocking any boats), there is a new bunch coming up that sincerely wants to help change things, but obviously can’t do everything they would like to do either. And then there are the good Joes who want to go along wherever the Church seems to be going even if they don’t really understand what it is all about. If all these are treated as if they were purely and simply reactionary tyrants, then there will be a real mess for sure… The moment of truth will come when you will have to resist the arbitrary and reactionary use of authority in order to save the real concept of authority and obedience, in the line of renewal. This will take charismatic grace. And it is not easy to know when one is acting “charismatically” when one is surrounded with a great deal of popular support on one side and nonsensical opposition on the other… In either case let us work for the Church and for people, not for ideas and programs. (Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: a life in letters (New York: Harper One, 2008) p. 272)
Merton draws out here the other issue with authority and obedience and that is: how is it used.
The pain of authority comes when it is, as Merton calls it, “arbitrary and reactionary”. How many of us have been on the receiving end of this approach to power? Often authority is used like this when it lacks the environment of relationship but it can still manifest itself like this even when you are within long term, trusting relationships. Merton knew this personally with his own abbot at Gethsemani where he lived.
The letters and journals of Thomas Merton are full of his personal struggles with abbot James Fox who continually refused Merton the opportunity to become a hermit. these occasions are so numerous and so gradual it is hard to find just one that will sum up the pain he felt as he wrestled with obedience to an authority he no longer respected.
I know he is my Abbot, but I am very much afraid that I have never honestly been able to deal with him as with a “spiritual father” and it would be impossible for me to do so sincerely. (May 11, 1965, Thomas Merton to Jean Leclercq, ‘Survival or Prophecy?: The letters of Thomas Merton and Jean Leclercq (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002) p.128)
Just two years earlier, Merton expressed, in his journal, his approach to obedience to an authority he did not respect.
In consequence my attitude toward the monastery changes. They have need of me and I have need of them. As if without this obedience, and charity, my life would lack sense. It is an existential situation which god has willed for me, and it is part of His Providence – it is not to be questioned, no matter how difficult it may be. I must obey God, and this reaches out into everything… In this new condition my attitude toward the abbot is changing. Of course it is obvious that my complaints and discontent have been absurd. Though I can perhaps back them up with plausible arguments, they have no real meaning, they don’t make sense. He is what he is, and he means well, and in fact does well. He is the superior destined for me in God’s Providence, and it is absurd for me to complain. No harm will ever come to me through him – it cannot. How could I have thought otherwise?(January 15, 1963, Thomas Merton, Turning Toward the World: the journals of Thomas Merton volume four, 1960-1963 (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997) p. 288-289)
Esther de Waal suggests,
…obedience is a gift rather than a matter of duty. It is something which the good monk gives with gracious charity to his brother… Obedience depends on listening so totally and openly to the other that through them we discern the face, the voice of Christ himself. (Esther de Waal, A Life Giving Way: a commentary on the Rule of St Benedict (London: Continuum, 1995) p. 208)
Obedience must be a gift and should be lived not out of duty but love. This becomes painful when authority is wielded over you and obedience demanded from you rather than inspired in you. It is a delicate balance that Merton lived and that we all, in some way, must navigate. Obedience, like love, must begin as a practice, a choice and through this will grow into a habit and a virtue.
The service of obedience is to be shown to all, not just the abbot, for by this road of obedience they shall travel to find God.
Philip Lawrence, OSB and abbot of Christ in the Desert, writes,
Obedience is valuable in our lives because we show one another what it means to serve and love one another. Even the abbot has to obey the brethren! (Philip Lawrence, “Chapter 71: Mutual Obedience”, Benedictine Abbey of Christ in the Desert, April 23 2016, https://christdesert.org/prayer/rule-of-st-benedict/chapter-71-mutual-obedience/)
Obedience is to be done in love and as a service and it is expected, although not explicit in the Rule, reciprocal. The person in authority over another is not to laud it over their subjects but to be obedient also. It is in this mutual obedience that authority can be wielded.
Obedience then should be preceded by a deep listening from both parties. If it is rooted in relationship then authority will be exercised with love and obedience given as a gift.
Reflection
This chapter challenges me, like the rest of the Rule, but particularly at this moment in my ministry. This current season in my life is painful like a continual dull thud causing me discomfort. I find myself blindside by a sear of the pain which I must ride out until it subsides. Through it all I choose obedience and to re-commit to following the path laid out for me by God, to see through my potentially erroneous beliefs or opinions and to say of my superior,
He is what he is, and he means well, and in fact does well. He is the superior destined for me in God’s Providence, and it is absurd for me to complain. No harm will ever come to me through him – it cannot. How could I have thought otherwise?
Having said that, I am also aware that authority and obedience is not currently rooted in relationship and it is in this way that it and I must seek to change. I must be careful though,
The moment of truth will come when you will have to resist the arbitrary and reactionary use of authority in order to save the real concept of authority and obedience, in the line of renewal. This will take charismatic grace. And it is not easy to know when one is acting “charismatically” when one is surrounded with a great deal of popular support on one side and nonsensical opposition on the other… In either case let us work for the Church and for people, not for ideas and programs.
I was asked to visit the nacent new monastic community at St Lukes, Peckham, as part of my involvement in the development of the Society of the Holy Trinity. In our discussion (which can be found here) the painful and personal issue of obedience to authority was explored. I encourage you to listen to it and pray.
I appreciate that this post has been long so I want to sum up the salient point: I believe in the Church as an institution which can develop a transformation of character by practices such as obedience. If authority and obedience is rooted in relationship and a place of intimacy they can be amazing gifts one to another. Outside of relationship they are potentially deeply damaging weapons wielded over people. The change should not be to disown them and seek replacements but to renew and replace them into their proper place.
You are the God who makes extravagant promises.
We relish your great promises of fidelity and presence and solidarity,
and we exude in them.
Only to find out, always too late,
that your promise always comes in the midst of a hard, deep call to obedience.
You are the God who calls people like us,
and the long list of mothers and fathers before us,
who trusted the promise enough to keep the call.
So we give you thanks that you are a calling God,
who calls always to dangerous new places.
We pray enough of your grace and mercy among us
that we may be among those who believe your promises
enough to respond to your call.
We pray in the one who embodied your promise
and enacted your call, even Jesus. Amen.
(Walter Brueggemann, Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann (Minneapolis:Augsburg Fortress, 2003) p. 90)
Come, Lord Jesus.
Chapter 70: no one is to presume to strike another
We insist that no one is to strike or excommunicate a brother unless ordered by the abbot.
What is that to you?
I want to begin with a confession. I regularly dream of committing great acts of physical violence on other people. Often these people in my dream show no sign of being impacted by the punches, bites, kicks, etc. that I inflict on them. Part of the build up of violence in these dreams is that no matter how hard I attack my opponent they merely smile or continue to taunt me.
These dreams clearly reveal an inner violence within me of some sort; a form of anguish, frustration building up inside me. The figure who takes the most amount of beatings in my dream is my brother who I always associate with antagonism. He and I growing up had a typical brother relationship of competition, bullying and taunting. We are very different people with very different outlooks and approaches to life and this continues to cause (when we spend any long period of time together) a regression to childish responses in me. He has become a totem in my sub conscious for those people who seem oblivious to my frustrations and continue unchanged in their behaviour which irritate me.
I want to be clear that it has been 16 years, 3 months, 1 week and 6 days since I last punched someone in the face… it was my brother. We were sharing a room on the way up to a millennium celebration with our family and he was deliberately winding me up and we had wrestled with each other until I had pinned him down and, as usual, he taunted me, knowing that I never used physical violence. This time, however, I lost control and punched him clean in the nose… we haven’t fought since… Violence solves nothing, kids!
When St. Benedict insist on not striking someone many of us can’t imagining monks beating each other up but we must assume it must have been a common occurrence or it wouldn’t have been specified. The insistence also highlights, as Jesus does in the Sermon on the Mount, that,
…if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement (Mt 5:22a)
Violence can be expressed in many forms and we ‘strike’ one another more than just physically. The same is true of excommunication.
Official excommunication is the task of the abbot only, as has been clearly defined previously in the Rule, but we can excommunicate others from our lives by choosing not to be near them or avoiding them. We are able to exist in the shallow comfort of community life if we hold onto the control of who we allow into our inner life. We look upon one others with the eyes of judgement choosing to give worth and value to one and not the other. In this way we excommunicate people from the community of our heart.
St. Benedict is insisting that we change our heart.
It is in this deeper area of our personal conversion that we must be attentive. Only with the progress through the ladder of humility and under the obedience that is required in that that we can be changed. Again we see the Benedictine vows of stability, obedience and conversion creating the dynamic, paradoxical tension in the life of discipleship.
As with the previous chapter in which the presumption of coming to the help of another monk, in striking or excommunicating another we are placing ourselves between them and God. It is God alone, through the authority of the abbot, that judgement (if it is passed at all) is made. If we presume to step in and mediate we ourselves fall short for in doing this we ultimately say to God,
We don’t trust you’ll do what we expect.
The last two chapters have reminded me of the end of the gospel of John where Jesus has re-instating Peter after his denial.
Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!” (Jn 21:20-22)
The sins and failings of our brothers and sisters must first be a call to our own repentance as we acknowledge that ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ (Rom 3:23) Again we must place ourselves in the narrative of creation, redemption, sanctification.
Our discipleship begins with an acknowledgement that we are dust and to dust we shall return. We are created beings formed from the earth by a loving and gracious Father. Our life is solely dependent on his good will and pleasure. From this point we know that we are called to live out a life of freely chosen devotion to him, a life of willing obedience. It is in following him by way of his Son that we are transformed into his likeness. He bestows himself upon those who desire conversion in the person of the Holy Spirit who continues to equip and empower us to continue the work of redemption. The Holy Spirit also makes us holy, distinct from the way of the world and marks us out as God’s own people; beloved.
If we miss out the important acknowledgement, in full force, that we are dust, nothing, sinners, then we limit our appreciation of grace within our life. A community grows and flourishes when all truly inhabit this story of our faith. If we can rightly believe the truth of this in our life and the life of each other then we are able to see Christ working out his purposes in one another.
I’ll finish with a story from the life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. It is said that she ‘sought out the company of those nuns whose temperaments she found hardest to bear.’ A fellow novice nun, Martha of Jesus, who spent her childhood years in various orphanages and who was described by all as emotionally unbalanced, with a violent temper, became the focus of Thérèse’s attention. It is said that the Mother Superior became concerned that Thérèse was infatuated with Martha and ordered her to stop spending so much time with her. After Thérèse’s death it was discovered that
[she] went out of her way to spend time with, and therefore to love, the people she found most repellent. It was an effective means of achieving interior poverty, a way to remove a place to rest her head. (Kathryn Harrison, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (New York: Penguin Group, 2003) p. 111)
A commitment to conversion of life relies on a rootedness in humility achieved through obedience to authority outside of ourselves. That conversion, for Thérèse of Lisieux, was about achieving interior poverty in the likeness of Christ.
Reflection
What I am about to say is not as controversial as it may first appear: conflict and tension gives a community the necessary dynamic to grow and move forward. Disagreement is not only expected within community it is necessary. Without it life together becomes, firstly, bland and also, secondly, stagnated, dare I say, dead. In the tension of polarised opinion there is a movement in thought, ideals, opinions and direction. As people wrestle with one another in disagreement we all develop and grow.
That’s why the foundational commitment to the narrative outlined above alongside a vow to chastity and stability alongside an equal vow to conversion of life creates the environment to disagree well. It won’t come as a surprise that there are members of my Christian community, locally, nationally and internationally, that I have consider punching in the face on a number of occasions (I’m sure my face has been imagined being pushed through a wall more than once!) It is a natural response to frustration and conflict but the next step is the most important in spiritual growth. Do we choose to consider how to, not necessarily physically strike them or officially excommunicate them but internally do so? What do we do with these internal temptations and thoughts? Father Maximos, in Kyriacos C. Markides book, ‘The Mountain of Silence, suggests,
We ignore them. That is what the Church fathers tell us to do. They explain that they are like flies and we are to bat them away… We can take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ by His grace. (Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: a search for Orthodox spirituality (Indiana: Doubleday, 2002), quoted in Celtic Daily Prayer Book 2: farther up and farther in (London: William Collins, 2015) p.1158-9)
Community life is fraught with dangers of division and it is in the dynamic interplay of the trinitarian vows of stability/chastity, obedience and conversion/poverty and under the narrative of creation, redemption and sanctification that these issues can be a positive force rather than a destructive one.
How often in Church life do we avoid conflict because we do not know how to travel through the terrain? It is far better, I propose, that we live within the context of a life committed to the principles outlined here; that, along with the previous chapter, we are to give attention to our own growth in faith rather than take on the growth of others. It is our own conversion that we are responsible for and to allow others to sort out their own growth, trusting and praying for them as they do so. To see them through the eyes of humility, obedience and holiness.
Father Maximos also suggests that it is the practice of the Jesus Prayer that keeps ‘repetitive assaultive thoughts’ at bay.
St Mark the Ascetic said that he gave credit for his prayer life to Satan. Every time he was tempted by the devil, he prayed, thus, he prayed alot. (Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: a search for Orthodox spirituality (Indiana: Doubleday, 2002), quoted in Celtic Daily Prayer Book 2: farther up and farther in (London: William Collins, 2015) p.1159)
Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Chapter 68: when a brother is asked to do the impossible
If a brother is requested to do something difficult or impossible he should, at first, accept the command meekly and obediently.
Can we change?
Obedience.
Again.
Again I’m forced to ask the ever penetrating questions: how to respond to authority? and how to exercise authority? These two issues have oscillated throughout the Rule of St. Benedict and has raised obedience as the vow which cuts through the individualised, libertarian ethic of our age. Obedience is the virtue, the practice, I think, that challenges us most because it seems to our ‘progressive’ minds a reversal into authoritarian state which birthed both fascism and communism.
We want freedom. We want to be released from what others think of us. We want to be able to censor the oppressive demands placed upon us.
My heart knows what is good for me.
We want to be autonomous, in control, because the alternative is perceived to be unsatisfying and, at worse, abusive. We want freedom to choose because choice is the goal of our culture. We are told,
We can do anything if believe strong enough. We can achieve whatever we put our mind to. If anyone tells you can’t do it, they are wrong.
Our televisions project stories of people, ‘achieving their goals’. The contestants speak out in un-ironic parody the same statements of self belief. They’re ‘expressing themselves’ and ‘no one will stop them.’ It all sounds so positive and encouraging but under the surface lies a slightly more sinister tone of captivity.
Underneath the statements of ‘knowing self’, of finding ‘true self’ is an oppressive narrative which holds people in an identity which is unable to change;
You are who you are.
In this reality we need to discover who we are as static personalities and express it. Our gender and sexuality, our personality strengths and flaws all set in stone by a Creator who likes diversity no matter what the impact on others. Mistakes can be blamed on genetics and change of behaviours subtly denied because if we can change then we don’t know what we want or need and therefore choice becomes trickier to make.
In this consumerist narrative of free choice, we hear the call to obedience to something outside of our own choice as foreign. The truth is obedience opens our eyes to see the potential conversion of our life. It is only in obedience that we can be transformed from an old life to a new life but we must trust that which can lead us through the painful sear of true freedom into the fullness of life. All other freedom than that discovered through a commitment to obedience is false, a mirage that will blind you.
True liberation is a mystery many do not fully find because the false liberation is more appealing. The temptation makes more sense to us because we ask
why would freedom be difficult; it is the absence of pain, is it not?
True liberty does violence to self and, like Christ, who disregarded that he was sovereign becomes a slave to serve others. (Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love (Pennsylvania: The Plough Publishing, 1988) p.40)
It is this liberation and conversion that St. Benedict calls monks to through the consecrated life. Ultimately, this life is ‘impossible’ without the faithfulness and stable love of God. It would be wrong to enter the monastic life thinking that it is achievable, it is within our capabilities. Many decide not to pursue the monastic life because they see it as impossible with their personality or who they are. The truth is: it’s not about you!
It doesn’t matter who you are, or even think you are because that, hopefully, will change; in fact, it must change if you are to live the life of discipleship and true repentance. It matters not if, when you think about the expectations the Rule places upon you, you cannot imagine yourself being able to ‘succeed’ at being a monk. It only matters if you trust that God can and will transform you from the life you live as you enter into a being ready for eternal life with him.
The superior, the authority of the abbot, is not forceful here. Again we see the gentleness needed in instructing a monk into the possibility of change. There is room, for St. Benedict, to go together, abbot and monk, as brothers into the presence of their all loving Father to seek his will. Both are equal under God and it is his will that they both must obey. Norvene Vest reflects beautifully on this approach to authority,
I resonate with the image suggested by the Latin word translated “gentleness.” The word is mansuetudine, meaning “accustomed to the hand,” and refers to training wild animals. I have a vivid sense of a small colt, standing shivering in cold and excitement as an attentive trainer approaches and gently caresses it. I often feel that way in the presence of God: fearful and shivering both with anxiety and eagerness, but willing myself to do all I can to respond, which is often simply not to run away. Instead, I tremble, and await the hand that touches me in love. (Norvene Vest, Preferring Christ: a devotional commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict (Pennsylvania: Morehouse Publishing, 2004) p.261)
Reflection
We as the Church must not be lured into the social narrative of consumerism and individualism. We must proclaim the truth and reality of conversion. This is not some political ‘change’ that is preached during election season. This is deep and painful change that leads to meaningful relationships of trust and hope.
The church must suffer for speaking the truth, for pointing out sin, for uprooting sin. No one wants to have a sore spot touched, and therefore a society with so many sores twitches when someone has the courage to touch it and say: “You have to treat that. You have to get rid of that. Believe in Christ. Be converted. (Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love (Pennsylvania: The Plough Publishing, 1988) p.27-28)
Our message of salvation loses all it’s potency if we collude with the morally liberal philosophies of this world or the dictatorial conservative world views which state that significant change of behaviour is not needed nor is it possible. We are all sick and distorted. We are plagued by faulty genes and personalities. We’ve all been infected and we all need healing! To heal the patient must be obedient to the process of change otherwise nothing will happen.
The church must become a place of real transformation and healing to all who come. Change must be on our banners and explicit in all we do but a change that rightly is rooted in humility (acknowledgement of the sickness) and obedience (the willingness to let go of the past and step into a new life.)
Loving Father, we submit. We submit to your gentle hand in obedience. We cannot see how we will live out the impossible but we trust that nothing is impossible for you. What we have always been can be redeemed for you, for the Kingdom, the glory and the power are yours, now and forever.
Come, Lord Jesus
Obedience
Suscipiendus autem in oratorio coram omnibus promittat de stabilitate sua et conversatione morum suorum et oboedientia.
Upon admission, in the oratory, before all, he is to make a promise to stability, conversion (of behaviour/morals/life) and obedience,
Obedience
I have been rather tarry on my writing for the blog this week due to the topic of today’s post. As part of a Lenten discipline I’ve decided to take up writing for 20 minutes a day again. A project which started me on this blog some two years ago! Instead of just writing a diary which led me to overly introspective and unhealthy depressive cycles of thought, I have decided to set myself outward focussed writing tasks. I have been writing fairytale versions of gospel narrative which I started for Burning Fences and I have been gathering material from this blog to put into a book (I know another book project which will probably not get finished and I’ll move on!)
One of the chapters I have tried to collate this week has been the chapter on ‘obedience’. This has meant I have looked through my blog on Parish Monasticism and picked out any material which touches on or has guided my reflections on the theme of obedience. The problem is: the whole of the Rule of St. Benedict is about obedience!
Most of the chapters have been me wrestling with what obedience looks like in 21st century western culture. I have returned again and again to issues of authority, leadership and individualism. In fact, if I were to sum up what I’ve been learning about through my reading and meditating on St. Benedict it has been the need for clear authorities in our modern day society.
At this point I’d direct you to a link on a previous blog post to highlight the salient point but, I can’t choose from so many. Type authority into the search bar at the top of the page and you’ll find the wealth of material there. Type obedience in and you’ll have more… enjoy!
The challenge of evangelism in our current age is the call to submit to an authority which is not the self. Life within the character of our Triune God demands that we relinquish power of our lives to someone/thing else, otherwise it bears no fruit. Anglican pews are used to the bottoms of the lukewarm non-committed, in fact they are pews because no one has felt the need to sit on them for a long enough time for them to be painful! (I’m being deliberately provocative, I’m sorry!) The challenge for the Church is to be bold in living out the life of obedience in a way that shows its fruit.
Let me be clear, this obedience is difficult and painful. We can easily romanticise, as with the whole religious life, what it means to commit to a life of obedience. I have only lived out ‘diet obedience’ or ‘obedience lite’ and that’s tough but I long for the environment to delve deeper into it.
True obedience requires stability and the intentional conversion of opinion, thought, behaviour and life. Obedience can only be experienced within the relationship of the other two vows that we’ve explored just as each of the other vows require the balancing of the rest in order to be fully experienced.
Brian C. Taylor helpfully writes,
We tend to think a balanced life means one in which there is no tension – a perfectly placid existence. But, in fact, it is quite the opposite. A truly balanced life, if it is to embrace the paradox of truth, is one which is in tension: not destructive and stressful but healthy and dynamic.
Approaching the vow of obedience after reflecting on ‘stability’ and ‘conversion’ it can seem that these first two vows are in unhealthy tension and the vow to ‘obedience’ brings about a dynamic tension and frames them harmoniously. This would be too limiting. In fact if you approach any of the three vows through the other two vows you’ll come to the same conclusion: Trying to live within the tension created by a vow to obedience to a particular person or Rule and the vow to conversion creates an antagonistic relationship of discernment and interpretation. When discovering stability as a third point of reference eases that battle and brings an extra dimension to the life lived within these vows. The same is true with discovering the power of conversion via the tension of stability and obedience.
In this way the trinitarian model of life asserts itself in practice.
Authority is abused; that’s a fact of life. We can all reel out stories of how someone in authority has abused that position to meet their own needs. No area of life has been immune to this experience and that needs to be said and heard. This does not mean, however, that authority is, in itself bad or negative. I have had problems with authority personally but I have found it helpful to put a face to those problems and rather than dismiss ‘authority’ because it hurt me name the person in that position who hurt me (on a side note, the Church doesn’t hurt people, people hurt people!)
Life without authority is actually just as painful and difficult and it is in the vacuum of authority that extremist views step in. As human beings we hunger and thirst for an authoritative voice to get behind and we’ll find it wherever it may be found. Charismatic leaders, like Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Russell Brand, etc. can sound authoritative when their opponents lack depth and experience. Sadder still is those amongst us who’s only authority is themselves and their own egos and desires. With these as sole authorities no learning or change can occur, cynicism and skepticism hinders any depth of relationship and all of life becomes precarious and unstable.
Authority is needed to teach and grow us beyond our immediate beliefs and opinions. Authority, ironically it seems, gives people freedom to explore and exist. Culture and Societies only develop and deepen when there is a shared narrative; to prove this I point you to the current character of public discussion and the temperature of the exchanges. Our examples of philosophical discourse is loud, abusive, fear centric, cyclical and, above all, non-sequential (the great example of this is David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Question Time when in response to a question he’ll change the subject as his answer!)
Obedience is other focussed. Obedience is about placing your life, your choices, your future, however difficult it is, into the hands of another. This is risky; there’s no escaping that fact. Obedience is about inviting someone to act in freedom upon you and you to take on the consequences of their decision. This is so alien to us that it will take the Church to start to live it out to be an example that will save our world.
I want to finish this short romp through potential vows around which many new monastic communities may gather to explore briefly how our culture desperately needs to participate in a triune life. What I mean by this is a life which is beyond polarised, extreme binary terms of reference into a dynamic dance of ideas and discovery.
We are increasingly finding combative language and views as we’re forced into extreme, entrenched political, social and religious viewpoints. Our debates have become antagonistic fought between two sides; political right and political left with the centre being an attempt at mixing the two in different concoctions, liberal and conservative wings of the church with the ‘middle of the road’ churches being different grey mix of the two at the whim of that particular people. I have quoted Oscar Romero recently,
The Church, then, is in an hour of aggiornamento, that is, of crisis in its history. And as in all aggiornamenti, two antagonistic forces emerge: on the one hand, a boundless desire for novelty, which Paul VI described as “arbitrary dreams of artificial renewals”; and on the other hand, an attachment to the changelessness of the forms with which the Church has clothed itself over the centuries and a rejection of the character of modern times. Both extremes sin by exaggeration. Unconditional attachment to what is old hampers the Church’s progress and restricts its “catholicity”… The boundless spirit of novelty is an impudent exploration of what is uncertain, and at the same time unjustly betrays the rich heritage of past experiences… So as not to fall into either the ridiculous position of uncritical affection for what is old, or the ridiculous position of becoming adventurers pursuing “artifical dreams” about novelties, the best thing is to live today more than ever according to the classic axiom: think with the Church. (Oscar Romero quoted in Morrozzo Della Rocca, Roberto, Oscar Romero: prophet of hope (London: Dalton, Longman and Todd, 2015) p.22-23)
Romero’s call to ‘think with the church’ has haunted my thoughts for the last few weeks. I have come to discover that what he might have meant is to think Trinitarianly (that’s a new word I’ve just made up!) not in binary on a flat spectrum but in a three dimensional balance. We don’t fit on a continuum between two points but a matrix within three.
I am a vocal supporter on the Anglican approach to authority and it is Richard Hooker’s balance that finally convinced me of my Anglican calling. We do not limit ourselves to Sola Scriptura (scripture alone) nor to Sola Traditio or even to Sola Spiritus but a beautiful balance between them all. Univocal authority tends to lead to oppression of those under it. With only one authority power becomes unbalanced and blind loyalty is required. Bivocal authority creates stand offs, the likes we have seen within both political and ecclesial debates. It is once you reach three or more that power is released and shared. This is what I have discovered within the Rule of St. Benedict and what I am keen to press into more within an umbrella construct to feed new monastic communities across the Church of England and beyond.
Practical
So what might the call to obedience look like for the different forms of community? For most of these broad categories it will come down to the individuals involved, to what/who they are obedient may need to be fleshed out in the context.
Sodal
For more intentional gathered communities, obedience will look very different depending on the individuals who participate within it or, rather, will be more or less of an issue depending those within the community. Taking on a vow of obedience would need to be done within a multi-authoritative framework. Obedience to a particular role of authority whose job it is to interpret a communal narrative which is another authority and, finally, a community of people who live out said narrative who are an accountable authority to the others.
Obedience will need to centre on accountability frameworks which will be contextual but the practice of obedience will be the same. These communities will need to figure out to what they are obedient and how they encourage the living out of the vow.
Modal
The parish church has authority structures in place but encouragement and teaching on obedience is somewhat lax amongst us. Synod and Bishops are not always agreed with and local expressions tend to follow differing practices depending on conscience; such as it naturally is within a place like the Church of England. This challenge to obedience has led to some difficult and painful discussions but the challenge has come from a perceived abuse of authority.
How do we ensure power is not abused within a large, established institution? I think a detailed exploration of the understanding of leadership is vital in this discussion. When leadership is seen as ‘driving forces’ then we are in difficulty as it is a force to be reckoned with and is unhelpful in relationship. If leadership is seen more as one who is under authority, a first amongst equals then we’re on our way to a healthier tension. That is why a model like that proposed for sodal communities can also be adopted in the modal.
Obedience within the monastic/mendicant form is to a particular tradition and so naming those things, be they, General Synod, Articles of Religion, Canon Law, a Bishop, a Rule of Life within the parish context is key to encourage the practice.
Nodal
For networks of autonomous groups, obedience becomes very tricky as we have seen in the Anglican Communion recently. Establishing, early on, not only what are the authorities but also how they relate with one another is absolutely essential. If we neglect the long process of exploring together the details of how authorities relate and hold that important balance then disagreements will become increasingly difficult. This is where the Rule of St. Benedict becomes an example in the same way as the Sermon on the Mount is. St. Benedict explores, in many areas of life, how to discern the way forward, how the authorities of the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit and tradition interplay to develop a community which deepens the individual as well as communal character.
It is also important to have shared authorities, particularly so in nodal communities. It could seem as though I’m suggesting just having lots of authorities to defend against dictatorial forms of dominance but actually too many conflicting authorities and the balance is lost also. The authorities need to interact in a creative and dynamic way rather than creating a new kind of destruction.
Conversion
Suscipiendus autem in oratorio coram omnibus promittat de stabilitate sua et conversatione morum suorum et oboedientia.
Upon admission, in the oratory, before all, he is to make a promise to stability, conversion (of behaviour/morals/life) and obedience,
Conversion
I would not be a true writer on the Rule of St. Benedict if I did not begin by explaining that the latin term conversatio morum is a controversial phrase when it comes to true translation. What St. Benedict meant is lost in the dust of the original manuscript. I have decided to simply translate it as ‘conversion’ as most translations include this phrase; what changes is the object of that conversion (behaviour, morals, life, etc.) Thomas Merton famously wrote,
It is the vow to respond totally and integrally to the word of Christ, ‘Come, follow me’…It is the vow to obey the voice of God,… in order to follow the will of God in all things. (Thomas Merton, “Conversation Morum”, Cistercian Studies (1966) p. 133
Brian C. Taylor likens this vow to the repentance which is at the heart of the sacrament of baptism. This vow is a commitment to the ongoing turning away from sin and, more importantly the turning towards God.
We are regaining an increasing awareness that conversion is not a one time event. I know too many people who said ‘the prayer’ and were baptised and have since fallen away. The journey of faith starts in that first ‘yes’ to God’s call but there are many who never take many steps beyond that. Some treat the life of faith like a club; after they have paid the lifetime membership fee they find they no longer visit the club house, speak to other members. They keep the card in their wallet which they look at time to time but they do not participate in the life of the club, they do not remember the purpose of the club but their name is on the list.
The vow to conversatio morum is a life time commitment to participate in a process of change.
When you stop and think a little about St. Benedict’s concept of conversatio morum, that most mysterious of our vows, which is actually the most essential I believe, it can be interpreted as a commitment to total inner transformation of one sort or another – a commitment to become a totally new man. (Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions, 1975) p.337)
The first tension in the trinitarian of vows begins to emerge as you commit to stability and to change. A monk is pulled by seemingly opposing forces; one to remain faithful and one to move forward. Under the surface, though, these two vows hold a mysterious unity, a unity that develops as the two dialogue with each other. As you remain faithful to others you will be asked to change.
The commitment to conversion is a commitment to be open to discoveries about your failings and the sin that hinder your transformation into the likeness of Christ. We discover, as we decide to stay, particularly in painful conflict, that the only way that we can maintain stability is if there is change in our viewpoint. These two vows demand a moving through entrenched views on both sides.
There is also an important link between the vow of conversion and the vow of poverty which helps to deepen our understanding of conversatio morum.
Oscar Romero, when he was seeking unity within the archdiocese of El Salvador called all Christians to a shared understanding of conversion.
The criterion of genuine conversion was love for the poor, who represented Christ, and this love obtained forgiveness and grace from God. (Roberto Morozza Della Rocca, Oscar Romero: prophet of hope (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2015) p.120)
Christ is seen, for Romero, amongst the poor. It was Christ who considered equality with God not something to be exploited but emptied himself (Phillippians 2:6-7). Christ became poor so that we could be rich by God’s grace. If we are called to continually be transformed into the likeness of Christ then we should seek to also empty ourselves so that others may become rich by God’s grace.
All of us, if we really want to know the meaning of conversion and of faith and confidence in another, must become poor, or at least make the cause of the poor our own inner motivation. That is when one begins to experience faith and conversion: when one has the heart of the poor, when one knows that financial capital, political influence, and power are worthless, and that without God we are nothing. (Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love (Pennsylvania: The Plough Publishing, 1988) p. 121)
As I explore these vows I realise that not only is there an awareness of the Trinitarian shape to the life of a community committed to them but I’m also reminded of the other Trinitarian frameworks which I have discovered within my own monastic call. Here, in this quote from Romero, there is a call to place ourselves in a perpetual Ash Wednesday. We are dust, nothing but the life of discipleship is to remain rooted there whilst also accepting the conversion, by God’s grace, into Christ and receiving the power and anointing to become children of God by the Holy Spirit.
In this framework the call to stability is rooted in the faithfulness of God the Father who raises us from the dust to shape and form us. The call to conversion is brought about by the Holy Spirit who blows where it likes and brings about newness of life but points us to Christ of the poor and back to the foundational view that we are nothing. The conversion is also about being brought into true communion with others as one is converted through relationship and community. This exchange from the Ash Wednesday moment to the communal Pentecost moment rotates around a third point of reference: Christ’s obedience to death on the cross.
The Philippians 2 structure is also interesting when discovering this life within the Holy Trinity: we begin with the humility and awareness of our need for God. We remind ourselves, as we do at the start of Lent, that we are nothing. Without this awareness we will not fully understand the wonders of god’s faithful love and grace.
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself (Philippians 2:5-8a)
As we continually remind ourselves of our status without God we become obedient to his remoulding of us, his shaping of us. We submit ourselves to his will,
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.(Philippians 2:8b)
Submitting to God’s will will lead us to death with Christ and we painfully obey that call in the hope that we will rise to new life. It is here that the start of conversion begins. The Holy Spirit begins its work of transformation and converts us into the likeness of Christ
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.(Philippians 2:9-11)
This conversion to ‘glory’ is not as most would imagine, an individual perfecting but the conversion is into the corporate Body of Christ who empties Himself to enrich the lost and the poor, not with material wealth but the riches of heaven. To be converted into this, therefore, is to particpate in that kenosis of God in Christ. This conversion into ‘something’ at once reminds ‘that without God we are nothing’.
Practical
So what might the call to conversion look like for the different forms of community?
Sodal
For those communities of more intentional belonging and activity the call to conversion maybe a relatively easy vow to taken on. Most of these communities are ‘new’ and part of the attraction of them is that they are fresh and different. These communities are born out of a desire for change from the mode. There is a temptation to stagnate, however, and the intial impetus fades. The response to these occasions is either to do something new or multiply. When multiplying though there may be a call to ‘not fix what isn’t broke!’ That which had embraced a call to bring about new things soon settles into a rhythm and tradition of its own. Trying to maintain both the call to stability and to conversion is a space, I think, which will bring about much fruit for sodal communities.
An ongoing question for sodal communities who adopt a vow to conversion as outlined above would be in what way are they converting and why?
For individual participants it will be about that inner conversion of opinions and behaviours. This must be done within the context of community in dialogue. This will be come into play at times of great discernment about directions or visions.
Why do I think or feel that is the right thing to do?
But the call to conversion also plays out on the communal aspects of life together too. Consider that point of stagnation into familiar, the plateauing of missional zeal and activity. How does the community continue to grow and develop whilst maintaining stability? The tension here is a creative one and will help steer discernment.
Modal
Parish churches are often parodied as the ultimate change resistors.
How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb?
Change? We don’t change!
This vow of conversion, the commitment to change, however, is at the heart of our baptismal liturgy. the issue is that the majority of our baptisms are to infants who are never encouraged to live out the continual conversion into Christ. This is why the baptism service must be performed within a main service in order ‘that the congregation… be put in remembrance of their own profession made to God in their baptism.’
Most change resistance within the parish church, I find, is about power. People get a status with positions of power. People connect that sense of control, prestige with what they do and so when someone challenges what is being done the individual takes it as a challenge to them. So Romero’s call to remind ourselves that financial capital, political influence and power are worthless is integral to bring about necessary change within a modal community.
The commitment to conversion, held within the tension of the vow to stability, is about the individual continual repenting of any claims on power and influence. It dialogues with the commitment to the rest of the community as you discern the will of God together in relationship. Yes, there are somethings that should remain but often asking the questions as to why reveals ulterior motives which will always need to be challenged within the context of repentance.
Nodal
As with the call to stability, nodal communities, particularly any New Monastic Society, the vow to conversion will be worked out in dialogue. All that has been said about having an openness to be changed by another is key in the nodal model. Conversion begins with the individual but develops into the communal and this evolution must continue into the networks of communities too.
Conversion could also remind distinct communities to remain connected with others as they seek to continual revisit their own life together. To dialogue with others who share this vow to both stability and conversion will mean that fruitful discoveries will be found. Sharing good practice, supporting one another, mediating for one another and ultimately challenging one another are many practical ways in which a nodal society can enable the living out of conversion across the communities.
Where Next?
Suscipiendus autem in oratorio coram omnibus promittat de stabilitate sua et conversatione morum suorum et oboedientia.
Upon admission, in the oratory, before all, he is to make a promise to stability, conversion (of behaviour/morals/life) and obedience,
I have been joined, as I have journeyed through the Rule of St Benedict, by increasing numbers of companions whose path happens to meet with mine and/or mine with theirs. Some of them have made commitments to particular monastic houses in different traditions, others are parish ministers who seek deeper community and discipleship within that service and others are those exploring what has come to be known as ‘New Monastic’ communities.
The New Monastic movement in Britain is a loose collection of groups who have identified a desire for more intentional community than that which is offered through traditional forms of church gathering. There is no stringent entry policy to this ‘network’/movement; it is better seen as an association. Even when a group identifies themselves in the category of ‘new monasticism’ it doesn’t bind you to another group who have also chosen to name themselves as such. In this way the movement remains self governing and flexible.
It works… sort of.
Accountability is covered for most of these groups through independent means but is not enforceable. Communities should seek to have an outsider to oversee or converse with the community to ensure safeguarding of its members and that relationships remain healthy as the group grows and evolves together. These relationships are based on trust and so the selection of a spiritual companion for a community can be a risky one.
The connection between individual groups and communities is a free choice. A group can, if they choose, be independent and get on with doing what they’re doing and being what they’re being without interaction with another group (many do). This choice, however, can lead to a sense of isolation and/or blind egotism, not to mention the spending of energy re-inventing of the metaphorical wheel! Many want to learn from others and become acutely aware of the challenges that face intentional community. At these times they reach out and discover the joy of journeying with others who share something of what they are living through.
Again, these relationships between groups/communities are self-selecting and so carry with them potential dangers. The concern I have is that of the blind leading the blind when there are communities that, although still learning and emerging, have journeyed terrain before and so can steer with wisdom and experience.
At the heart of my concern around the New Monastic movement is that we want to remain connected with the world in some areas of our life but not in others and we want to remain in control and choose the sacrifices and changes we experience. The sacrifice of the community is self selecting to suit our individual needs and what we think is right for us. Are we falling short of the ultimate hurdle which distinguishes a normal life and the monastic life? Does New Monasticism encourage people to remain individualistic consumers whilst giving the impression that we’re living radically different lifestyles? Do we just want to be different?
I’m more than aware that we all have unique vocations due to what God wants of us in our different contexts, with our personalities and experiences. Some of us are ready and blessed to be called to traditional monastic life in the different traditions. Some of us are called to that way of life but find ourselves in families and relationships which also seem to be permanent. Some of us are called to ordained ministry and some form of more intentional life. There seems to be several different shapes and models emerging all naming themselves something slightly different in order to distinguish themselves. ‘Missional Communities’, ‘Hubs’, ‘Home Groups’, ‘Organic Communities’, ‘Parish Monasticism’, ‘New Monasticism’, or any other unique name for a group who have a particular shape and call on its members. Some would say,
It works… sort of.
Discipleship and mission must be contextual. Where you find yourself must impact how you live out your faith and mission. The Holy Spirit calls us to particular tasks at particular times in particular places but the source of strength and call must remain fixed in the same God. Although the expression of faith has adapted to different cultures and language the faith remains steadfast. It is the tension between the rootedness of tradition and the fresh expressions of faith and mission which keeps a sense of life. A balanced life is one lived in tension.
I am an advocate of uniting all these different expressions of discipleship and community and I know that many others disagree. I can see that there may be some who feel uncomfortable ‘pinning down’ or ‘fencing in’ these exciting, new discoveries. ‘Organic’ and ‘adaptable’ keeps the thing streamlined and efficient, able to move to new places but I am extremely cautious about this view. It strikes me that there’s an addiction to novelty and being different. Maybe I’m being too cynical but is there not still an ‘attractional’ mindset underneath this approach to move with the times and the people we want to connect and bring into the group/community?
I agree that the Spirit blows where it will and the Church has suffered by its slowness to catch up with God. I agree that definition can exclude some who might have otherwise moved further in if they were encouraged to, or rather if they were not discouraged by boundaries. I agree that most communities who identify with this ‘monastic’ call, whatever that means for them, remain fragile and embryonic. And I totally agree that the reason traditional church doesn’t work for increasing numbers of people is because of our culture’s anxiety, fear and disapproval of institution.
It still comes down, for me, however, to a desperate need for the gospel to challenge individualistic consumer culture and not collude with it. Structure and framework is needed for a sense of security and refuge. It is not sustainable to constantly live in uncertainty, risk and vulnerability; we need shelter, even if it is just a tent which is moveable.
This is why I have found reflecting on the use of tents in the Bible encouraging. Tents give people a resting place in a landscape of wilderness. Tents are used as ‘home’ when you are being called to be nomadic. Tents give you the space to feel safe when the rest of your life is danger and risk. Paul uses this image to describe our earthly bodies on earth and to encourage us to see ourselves as belonging to another place.
I have shared before this prophetic picture someone once saw for me of a mountain goat living in rocky terrain, barren and wild. The words that accompanied that picture were, “You were built for this terrain.” I often find myself in spiritual wilderness, barrenness. I find myself in conflict and rough seas. When I do find a settled place, a place of comfort, I get uncomfortable. I thrive in the wild but even I need times of peace and rest. I survive but in a different way to how the sheep of the green pasture survive down in the valley.
I was reading Psalm 104 last week and then a verse sprang out as an encouragement for me,
The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the coneys. (Psalm 104:18)
What struck me was I was built for one context which is not shared for others but I still need refuge and places to recuperate. Graham Cray, ex-bishop of Fresh Expressions UK, when I shared this picture with him told me to hold onto the monastic practices to sustain that call to those contexts.
The Church is in exile; divorced from mainstream culture. The passionate discussions over calling the last Fresh Expressions’ Conference ‘From Margins to Mainstream’ focussed many people’s concern on where do we want to see ourselves. Some like being margin, periphery dwellers, others like to be anywhere but ‘boring mainstreamers’, some like the comfort of the known and others are anxious but uncertainty. Whatever is mainstream for one is margin for another; it depends on where you’re standing and how you see yourself.
I am one who finds himself, more often than not, in isolated viewpoints. I don’t fit. This always runs dangerously close to my obsession with being different and contrary and I am on constant watch to not fall into that trap. I know that is part of where God must hold me close and is part of my spiritual practices.
Rules of life are meant to be way markers not straight-jackets. I have explored different rules of life and studied the charisms of different communities what fascinates me and excites me is that despite being different they share similar central calls; they name them different things but they’re essentially the same. I’m talking about principles or virtues they live by not the practices they perform. Ian Mobsby and the Moot Community named these principles, ‘postures’.
I wonder what might happen if we acknowledged together, a sense that the monastic call is commitment to ‘stability, conversion and obedience’ (words used by St Benedict in chapter 58 of his Rule)? Some may want to interpret them as the traditional vows of ‘chastity, poverty and obedience’ but I see them as interchangeable.
Stability
A desire to remain rooted somewhere or with someone; no matter what the spiritual weather is like, no matter what temptations afflict you, you stay and remain faithful.
Conversion
A desire to change, to turn away, step by step, from the things of this world to the Kingdom of God. To seek, in different circumstances and in different ways, to become more and more Christ-like, poor and dependant on God.
Obedience
A desire to place yourself under the decisions of something or someone else. To seek to curb that deeply human temptation to be in control of ourselves and our decisions; to hold onto the power in or own lives.
Over the next few weeks I want to develop this motif and offer some potential suggestions how, in different contexts, disciples can adopt these three shared vows whilst remaining contextual and flexible in practice.
Chapter 63: rank in the monastery
The brothers will rank in order, depending upon the date of their entrance, the merit of their lives or the order of the abbot.
Where does power lie?
You don’t have to look far in the archives of my five years of blogging to learn I am egalitarian. I wrote my dissertation on establishing non-hierarchical communities of faith based on the principles of ensemble theatre practice. What egalitarian communities look like depends on the reasons why you want equality and what equality means. I have also written a lot about the term ‘equality’ and I have challenged the popular contemporary definition or understanding of this term. This could confuse many (it confuses me sometimes!)
I want to focus a little more on how non-hierarchical structures are created and how they work.
St Benedict is an orderly man; you can feel that throughout his Rule. It is very popular to be cynical and against order in society. This is expressed in semi-anarchist movements such as the Occupy Movement and Anonymous. I’m not totally against such movements, indeed I agree with the sentiment at the heart of them. My challenge to them, if I were to be so bold, would be to what end? How do such philosophies create a safe, secure society which encourages the well-being and stability to life for it’s people? Power is always present in any social dynamic and to deny that is dangerous; it’s not necessarily just about who holds the power but really about how it is held.
In most societies and groupings power forces people into a hierarchy: those with more are seen as over and above those that do not.
Egalitarians seek to change that thinking, some by taking power from those that have and give them to those that don’t. This, however, only flips the hierarchy and those that didn’t now do and those that did now don’t… the oppressed become the oppressors and so the cycle begins. You can see this in many ‘equality movements’. In order to re-address the balance of power those that have held power, e.g. men, are denied dignity and are shamed into handing power over to the oppressed, e.g. women, until the balance is found. This is a dangerous way of doing things as it is violent in nature. There is a temptation to unconsciously communicate a “this is what it feels like’ message in the re-addressing of power.
Peace and reconciliation is about taking the sting out of power. Power-sharing is a narrow and treacherous path to walk. Power is a dangerous weapon to carry and must be handled with great care. We must see it as the one true ring of Middle Earth that requires a fellowship to carry it safely in order to destroy it. Power must be shared before it takes root in one person and oppresses them and then those around it.
I have been reflecting a lot recently on reconciliation and how it can be discovered. For me it is about discovering the joy and power of collaboration. The journey to collaboration must pass through the difficult destination of ‘ego-death’. This, for me, is at the heart of the healing humanity needs, both individually and collectively. It is why the cross is the central point of our salvation. The cross is the singular sign of ‘ego-death’. There can be no healing, no reconciliation, no healthy relationships without the complete annihilation of our egos and God has walked it ahead of us.
This is the challenge that Jeremy Corbyn has to enter into if his vision for a ‘new politics’ is to be achieved. I’m not totally sure he’s up to the task but I’m willing to try and, in his wake, see many others follow through. I am, personally, excited about what he has begun but trying to lead a people so adversed to the painful walk of ‘ego-death’ will be nearly impossible. The reason I have reservations is that he has yet given a good enough reason to people as to why they should go through this painful procedure. With any healing, the patient must understand the risks of not having it as well as to having it.
My wife has recently had an assessment for a lung transplant. This procedure is dangerous with many risks involved. It is overwhelmingly scary to consider all the pain, the cost and the turmoil it could bring upon us. I found myself asking,
Why would we want to do that?
Well, the alternative of not doing anything is guaranteed to be worse (for me at least because Sarah will get to be with Jesus sooner!) The transplant seen in this way is the necessary healing.
I know that our society is crying out for equality and this healing from hierarchy but I fear the obvious path towards it will not solve the problem but by-pass the most needed part of the process: ‘ego-death’. I have spoken many times of distress of the process that brought about same-sex marriage. I have spoken of my deep concern for the way in which people try to achieve gender equality. I have written too much on how broken our processes are for achieving real change in a situation and it all revolves around the lack of ego-death, or rather it is focussed too much on ‘others’ dying to their ego whilst I remain unchanged, unchallenged.
St Benedict’s Rule looks at arbitrary measurements of seniority: whoever’s been here the longest is valued the most. This is not about age but is based on an understanding that the person who has lived the central principles of humility and obedience will have transformed the most. It is the monks who have been engaged in the killing of their egos that are given the power because they know the dangers of it better than any.
I had the privilege of listening to Jean Vanier being interviewed at the New Parish Conference in Birmingham this weekend. He was asked,
If you were given a magic wand that could stop the church doing one thing and make the Church do something more, what would you take away and what would you make happen?
Immediately he responded,
I would get rid of the magic wand!
That is what St Benedict is proposing; putting men like Jean Vanier who has been slaying his ego for the most amount of time being given responsibility for the power. It is these people who understand the danger who should be entrusted with the job of walking the painful journey to destroy the sting of power.
Reflection
Leaders of the local parish should be judged not by their qualifications but by their maturity of faith. At the centre of every neighbourhood should be the person who has slain their ego the most. The one who has been committed to humility and obedience for extended period of times. It is the one who has walked that journey down the narrow and treacherous path of inner reconciliation that should guide others into the same terrain.
This is where the monastic charism is so important in parish ministry. At the heart of all monastic calls is the commitment to humility and obedience that leads to ‘ego-death’. This is why the New Monastic Movement resonates with exile language so much because they inhabit the terrain of wilderness and have learnt to thrive in that post death world.
I often write a prayer that directs my reflections back to God. This time I want to use a liturgical response from Common Prayer’s Evening Prayer on Thursday.
May our minds be like that of Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God,
Did not regard equality with God
As something to be exploited,
But emptied himself,
Taking the form of a slave,
Being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
He humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death,
Even death on a cross.
Therefore, God also highly exalted him
And gave him the name that is above every name,
So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,
In heaven and on earth and under the earth,
And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
To the glory of God the Father. Amen.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Chapter 62: priests of the monastery
He will keep his entrance rank except in service at the altar…
Where is the discipline in our discipleship?
Again and again the Rule of St. Benedict causes me to reflect on my vocation to the priesthood. The ordering of the church with it’s various designated roles and callings which overlap and yet remain distinct is a confusing subject and it gets increasingly so as people try to re-order and make room for individuals as they explore their specific ‘charism’.
After the last two week’s reflections I begin to see clearly the challenge and, potentially, the call of God on the Anglican Church.
Where is the discipline within our discipleship?
This is a particularly important question when it comes to vocation. There seem to be so many different ‘ministries’ available but with our commitment to ‘the three fold order of ministry’ there is a natural hierarchical view of ministry built into the Church. We can try and promote the work of the laity but Canon Law, which governs and shapes us, forces us to hold the offices of bishop, priest and deacon higher than others. These three offices have wide ranging specifications outlined in the ordinals that it begs the question what is it that designates a priest from the rest of the people of God.
I have sat with the ordinal many times and prayed through it. I can’t help but feel overwhelmed by everything I am asked to be and do. I’m glad that the response to whether I can fulfil all that is asked of me is,
By the help of God, I will.
But even after I relinquish some of the responsibility onto the grace of god I still have to ponder when non-ordained members of the Church take solemn vows to participate in the work of the Church? If all these tasks fall on to the ordained only what is left for the laity to do and participate in?
My question is about how to value properly the work of all the people of God and not demand that, in order to be able to do any ministry, you need to be ordained. To put it another way: how do we stop the personalising of ordained orders in order that all vocations are rightly affirmed.
Changing tack, or rather to focus in on a particular issue; I am not against the Fresh Expressions movement nor the role of Pioneer Ministers (indeed I am active within it!) but there is a real challenge that is raised by the mixed economy of what exactly constitutes a call to the diaconate, the priesthood and to episcopal office. There is an argument that Ordained Pioneer Ministers are being given ‘time off’ to pursue the work that all people and ordained ministers should be doing anyway. ‘Non-pioneer Ministers’ argue that they would love to be creative and missional if only they had the time but their diaries are full of the ‘nuts and bolts’ of ordained ministry. Specifying ‘Ordained Pioneer Ministry’ from the ordained ministry has caused many to feel excluded from the work of contextual mission.
I have always and continue to argue that Ordained Pioneer Ministry is a necessary move by the Church of England in order to raise these questions and conversations and I feel we should be looking to use the questions to solidify our view of the three fold order of ministry. The experience of Ordained Pioneer Ministers should be helping to release and encourage ‘Non-pioneer Ministers’ to be pioneering. Whether this pioneering is done by laity or ordained ministers is a real question. For what it’s worth I suspect most of it should be done by laity but that does not release clergy from the responsibility to participate too.
If I was to be bold in putting forward a real pathway to fruitful debate it would be to propose that all disciples should be pioneers as we respond, through the Spirit, to the call of God to all his people to share the good news and herald in his kingdom. All disciples ordained or not should be looking at ways to do mission and evangelism in their particular context. Once our discipleship bears its fruit in the form of outreach and kingdom building we can then re-examine the role of deacons, priests and bishops within that.
As it stands we are trying to solve a problem in the wrong part of the system!
Like St. Benedict’s monasteries, the call to the priest comes from an established discipleship programme where everyone is subject to the same training and discipline. From this place, 62 chapters in, we then discuss the practical role of presiding at the Eucharist and leading the disciples in prayers. The role of priest does not change their need to follow the discipline of the community. They are priest at the table.
Here priesthood is not the same as leadership.
To be a leader you do not need to be a priest. It is thought that the abbot was not necessarily ordained as a priest and this makes for a fascinating insight into hierarchy in these religious communities. The abbot remains as spiritual leader whilst the priest has a different function. Terence Kardong explores this differences in his book ‘Together Unto Life Everlasting’, proposing that,
…the power of the bishop/priests is of sacramental order, that of the abbot is charismatic. The first power comes from the church: the second comes from the Holy Spirit. (Esther de Waal, A Life Giving Way: a commentary on the rule of st benedict (London: Continuum, 1995) p232)
That distinction is worth noting. I have been struggling to articulate that feeling for some time. My understanding and call to the priesthood is a sacramental order, a function of sorts. My call to specific areas, people or contexts is a charismatic one. All disciples are called to charismatic ministries; ministries that are contextual and unique within the shared call to share the gospel. Some are called to sacramental roles and that is a church function.
The Church, in my mind, should explore specifying better the three fold order of ministry so that those not called to a sacramental role are still encouraged in participating with equal anointing to the life and mission of Christ’s Church. There must be a greater articulation that those given an ordained office in the Church are not seen as of a higher rank or calling. They remain disciples but with a particular, sacramental role. Other disciples are called by the Holy Spirit with charismatic roles which should be honoured and encouraged.
There are parts of my job which I do because it’s my office (presiding at Holy Communion, visiting the sick and baptizing new believers, etc.) but there are other things I do because I feel the Holy Spirit calling me to do at that time and place (community chaplaincy, encouraging artists in the city, gathering and leading a small home group, etc.). Some are tasks that I alone can do in our community because they are sacramental, but many other tasks that I do as a disciple and not as a priest to which others may also be called to do. The specifying of these different tasks needs to be done more intentionally to release disciples into the work that they are called to do as disciples, ordained or not.
Reflection
As I contemplate moving from my curacy into a parish of my own, I think about how I will minister in the new context. There will be sacramental tasks I am called to do because God has called me to be a priest and the Church has acknowledged that. There will also be other things that I will discover God is calling me to, not because I am a priest, but because I am a disciple.
Our question should be, within the parish, should there be a distinction between the abbot and the priest? I would argue there’s room for this framework. It would require a rethink of how the Church views and discusses ordained ministry and that of lay ministry. I think God is already moving in this area as increasingly stretched ordained ministers find themselves forced into ever-widening job specifications and expectations. As more churches find themselves in longer interregnums and more multi-parish benefices are created, less ordained ministers feel ‘called’ to the struggling (mostly rural) contexts due to the ‘killer workloads’ and overwhelming pressures, as well as not fully understanding the discipline of discipleship. I speak from personal experience, here. It was in the intensity of college that I discovered the cost of discipleship (and I came from a ‘successful’, growing church).
We can any longer hide the charismatic call of all disciples to contextual mission in its infinitely varied forms. The praise and holiness of ‘leadership’ and the pursuit for better equipped leaders is futile as we increasingly discover that what is being asked of them should be the work of all disciples. To require a title like ‘leader’ or to need ordination to encourage someone in doing the work of the kingdom is a failure on our discipleship. Leaders come from a fully functioning discipleship programme (as we’ll explore in two weeks time). Naming someone a leader and then asking them to find followers is illogical to me.
You’ll be aware that I am convinced that only a focussed, intentional re-examination of the real life of discipleship where commitment is paramount and better more systematic re-ordering of God’s Church to ensure the discipline of humility is at the heart of all we are and do is needed!
Loving Father, gracious and powerful, you call us to be converted from our old life to new life in Christ. You have adopted us as your children and grant us true peace, found when we know our identity in Christ. Continue to call us closer to you that we would live in the freedom of your grace and that others would see your good work in us that hey to would respond to your call on their lives also.
Come, Lord Jesus.