Recovering Original Blessing
A baby photo of me.
Scholars and mystics have been fascinated with Celtic Christianity in recent years. While there are debates about how it formed and what is myth and what is fact, most agree that the Christianity that developed in Ireland was unique. There was a fusion of celebrating the Christian story along with celebrating nature in the art that was produced. One of the biggest differences seems to be that for centuries, Christianity among the Celtic nations avoided the Roman church’s obsession with original sin.
John Philip Newell and others have written about a Celtic contemporary of Augustine named Pelagius who vigorously resisted the doctrine of original sin. Essentially, original sin means that humans are born sinful.
This doctrine continues to be very powerful. I remember a church leader from my childhood, who was also a young father, describing to us that however much he loved his newborn daughter, he knew that her heart was sinful.
This line of thinking stems directly from Augustine’s doctrine of original sin which became a test for orthodoxy in the church post-Augustine.
But Celtic Christianity stood in opposition to it.
Pelagius said that such a doctrine – seeing people as inherently sinful – would damage rather than aid spiritual development. Instead, he, along with the Celts, encouraged us to proclaim with God in the very first chapter of Genesis that ALL of God’s creation is “good”.
This is what theologians now call “Original Blessing” instead of original sin.
Richard Rohr says that the doctrine of Original Sin makes the world a problem to be solved. Original Blessing sees the world as forgetting its essential goodness. Original Sin begins with “no”. Original Blessing begins with “yes”.
Our reading this morning is from the book of James. We don’t hear much from the book of James these days. Reformer Martin Luther said that it was an “epistle of straw” and wanted it to be out of the biblical canon and it’s suffered ever since in Reformed circles, but I think it deserves a hearing in light of this understanding of Original Blessing.
“ Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.
But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.
If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. ”
Mostly, Luther's critique lies around verse 22 – “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers…” The reformers struggled with this because they so strongly believed that God’s grace comes to us regardless of what we DO. Grace is a gift of God, not something that is earned.
While their passion for grace is to be admired, I think they missed the point when it comes to this passage in James.
They were looking at the world through the lens of Original Sin – that humans are problems in need of being fixed.
But it doesn’t seem the writer of James sees it that way.
If you go back to verse 17, you see echoes of Original Blessing… Every good and perfect gift is from above… God gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would become a kind of first fruits of God's creatures.
The writer is inviting the readers to become what they already are – good and perfect gifts of God. The writer is describing what happens when we live as the children of the Father of the lights that we already are… we are quick to listen and slow to speak and be angry… we care for orphans and widows and are able to stand firm when the world around us is troubled.
Verse 21 caught my gaze this week: “welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.”
Notice that the word of God is not coming from outside of us or from a book – the word is already within us. The goodness is there. Our job – our joy – is to welcome it.
When we do that, we no longer see the world or ourselves as problems to fix. We can leave behind shame and punishment. Instead, we see that planted within us and within the world around us is grace, beauty and goodness. And we look for it everywhere we go.
I am reading a book written by one of our church members and a woman who has become a dear friend this year, Anne Hillman. In it, she writes,
“The soul’s call is not about being good or bad. It is not about the heroic journey or having the power to fix our lives. Nor is it following glib rules for spiritual success. If you are serious about your soul’s question, you will need to go deeper than this… The fruit of a sustained spiritual journey is the emergence of a new kind of consciousness that can heal the divisions and the pain that our boundaries have created.”
This new consciousness beyond boundaries is the word already implanted in you – that you are created in God’s image – a reflection of boundless love and grace. And just as creation stands in its original and unvarnished goodness, so you are welcome to as well.
Anne’s book is inspired by one of my favorite writers, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard was a man who was truly ahead of his time. In his lifetime, he carried stretchers in the gruesome battlefields of World War I, he became a priest and taught theology and he was part of archaeological digs all over the world, including the Peking Man in China. His writings, which now have been recognized to have crossed over into quantum physics and evolutionary psychology were banned by the Catholic church. He was a man ahead of his time – immersed in the natural and spiritual world and seeing the constant connections between the two. He embodied the spirit of this text in James.
While his writings are inspiring, it is the forward of a book of his writings that is my favorite. Jean Houston writes of being 14 years old in New York City in the mid-1950’s. On her way to class, running because she was late, she bumped into an older gentleman who was walking down the street. He asked her, “Are you planning to run like that for the rest of your life?” “It looks that way,” she replied. “Well, Bon Voyage!” he said as she ran off.
She ran into him a week later and they began to talk again. He told her to call him, “Mr. Tayer” and they began to go on walks together in Central Park twice a week and that continued for about a year. Mr. Tayer walked with no self-consciousness she said and delighted in everything. He would get down on the ground to look at a caterpillar on a leaf. After exclaiming over its wonder and beauty, he asked her, “Can you feel yourself to be a caterpillar?” At the awkward age of 14, she definitely could! “Then think of your own metamorphosis,” he suggested, “What will you be when you become a butterfly, une papillon? What is the butterfly of Jean?”
There was another time when Mr. Tayer was watching an old woman watch a young boy play a game in Central Park. Mr. Tayer went right up to her and asked her why she was so fascinated by his game. The woman replied that she played the same game in the park 70 years before but that it was a bit different. Mr. Tayer then asked the boy if he would like to learn to play the game as it used to be played. He did and Jean and Mr. Tayer left the old woman and the young boy in conversation over the variations of the game.
Jean loved how Mr. Tayer looked at her. She told her mother, “Mother, I was with my old man again and when I am with him, I leave my littleness behind.” She said, “You could not be stuck in littleness and be in the radiant field of Mr. Tayer.”
Mr. Tayer one day looked in her eyes and told her “Au revoir.” When she came back the following Tuesday, he wasn’t in their usual meeting spot and never returned. It was years later when someone handed her a book by Teilhard de Chardin that she recognized the language and then looked at the picture on the cover and realized her old friend had been the brilliant philosopher, scientist and priest. And she learned that he had died the week that he had said goodbye to her.
What will you become when you become a butterfly? The writer of James draws a picture for us in this text – a picture of someone whose life begins to reflect the implanted word of God.
May we be those who invite the world to leave its littleness behind, to discover our original blessing as made in the image of God, who join in the dance of a Christianity that celebrates this world rather than divides it.