Paying the Piper
p. 78
...one of the things we do not hear in Celtic spirituality is the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, a dogma that has dominated the landscape of Western Christian thought and practice. Like so much else in our imperial Christian inheritance, it is linked with the doctrine of original sin. There are two assumptions behind this thinking. First, God requires payment, like a piper that can be paid to change his tune, from judgment to forgiveness. And second, we are so sinful that we cannot make a worthy payment. So a substitute is made, which God himself provides: Christ, the perfect sacrifice.
...if we are discovering...there is much in the doctrine of substitutionary atonement that is opposed to our deepest experiences of forgiveness--namely, that forgiveness by its very nature is absolutely free--then we need to find new language to speak about the way in which Christ leads us into the experience of forgiveness at the heart of life....
p. 80
...although forgiveness is free, it is not cheap. ... Forgiveness is the most costly of gifts because it involves the sacrifice of the heart. When we forgive another, we offer our heart to the person. So it can cost us everything. ...[what can be seen] in the cross of Christ, the heart of God.
Who are we prepared to give our hearts to? Who are [those] who have wronged us...? It is to these that Christ calls us to open our heart. This is the way of making peace: "peace through the blood of the cross" ... (Colossians 1:20). We make peace by offering our hearts. Forgiveness is free. We can offer it and receive it only as pure give. Yet forgiveness is costly, for we participate in it only to the extent that we open ourselves. But forgiveness is not about payment. Never. It is about a free and costly opening of ourselves to one another in ways that have the power to heal and transform us.
p. 82
... The doctrine of substitutionary atonement is not only opposed to our deepest experiences of forgiveness...; it perpetuates the notion that what is at the heart of God, and therefore what is at the heart of the human mystery, is judgement, not love. And judgment must be satisfied, paid for, before love can be offered. The piper needs to be paid to change his tune, even though he provides the fee himself. But his default mode is judgment.
p. 83
... Celtic spirituality is more poetic than doctrinal. Belief is pointed to rather than defined. ... So there is no neat doctrinal phrase in the Celtic world to contrast with substitutionary atonement. But if one phrase had to be chosen to point to the difference, it would be the title of ... Julian's series of dreamlike visions of Christ, "The Revelation of Love." Her visions are filled with...the suffering of Christ on the cross. But they are never about payment. ...in the Celtic tradition, the cross is the greatest showing of God.
It discloses the first and deepest impulse of God, self-giving. It reveals that everything God does is a pouring out of love, a sharing of lifeblood. And so the whole of creation is an ongoing offering of self, a showing of the Eternal Heart that is pulsing with love in the life of all things. Not only does the cross disclose love, but it also discloses the cost of love. To offer the heart is to offer the self. And so the cross, in addition to being a revelation of the nature of God, is a revelation of our true nature, made in the image of God. It reveals that we come closest to our true self when we pour ourselves out in love for one another, when we give our heart and thus our whole being.
... Aelred of Rievaulx...taught that God is not our Judge but our Lover. Judgment, in and by itself, has no power to profoundly change us. It can frighten or inhibit us, but it cannot transform us. Only love transforms us, for only love has the power to change our hearts. Any transforming experience of judgment in our souls, therefore, in which we come to see and desire what is right (jus, the Latin root of judge and judgment [and justice?]) is based on an awareness that we have been untrue to the Beloved. And what this awareness awakens in us is a longing to change, whether in our relationship to the Lover in creation or in our relationship to the Lover within ourselves and within one another.
And just as God is Lover, longing for union, rather than Judge, demanding union, so, for Aelred, Christ is companion of our soul rather than ransom for our soul. ... Being present to the heart of the other, looking with love to the essence of the other--this is what releases the truest depths in one another.
pp. 84 - 86
... Who are the people who have truly loved us in our lives? Could we imagine them ever needing to be paid to forgive? In my mind, it was like the prostitution of God, payment for love.
p. 89
... To speak about the cross as a revelation of love rather than payment for sin is not to suggest that this is merely a show. This is real blood. This is real self-giving. Jesus knew full well the cost of loving his nation and his religious tradition the way he did, enough to weep over the falseness of the city he loved and to cleanse the injustices of the temple at its core. This is real suffering at the hands of a corrupt religious leadership and an inhumane empire that would not tolerate the challenging implications of the law of love. But it is not a payment to God; it is a disclosure of God. It is not a purchasing of love; it is the manifestation of love.
p. 90
Not only does the cross disclose love,
but it also discloses the cost of love.
To offer the heart
is to offer the self.
Nailed it.
Lovely, illuminating piece, thanks.
Posted by: adit | June 05, 2013 at 06:58 AM