I dream of a future community that is orthodox in the best sense of the word - that is giving our trust or belief to the right things. Ultimately the center of our trust will need to be Jesus. And it would be good to trust in the wisdom of the church over the millenia found in the creeds. This to me would be the content of orthodoxy, which I would fully want to affirm.
But I also dream that we will embrace orthopraxy (right practice), in truly loving God and loving other humans, and what might might be called orthopathy (rightly aligned passions or emotions).
It is easy for me (and I think much of the church) to get caught in thinking that - well thinking is really what matters. We just need to think and believe the right things. It is jarring, if we think this way, to come across Jesus' encounter with a teacher of the law in Luke 10 asking what must I do to inherit eternal life. If we think, thinking/believing is what matters most, we would expect Jesus to say "it is not about doing (practice), it is about believing/thinking." In fact Jesus seems to accept the experts premise and agrees with the experts assessment that the law is fulfilled in loving God and loving neighbor - in fact Jesus agrees heartily and actually doubles down on the practice of this command "do this and you will live." And this leads to the famous question: Who is my neighbor? And, the even more famous story of the man on the road to Jericho. What I want to draw out here is that the teacher of the law does recognize a doing aspect of the law, but still is looking to stay in the realm of thinking and debate - but Jesus seems to push the conversation towards - everybody is your neighbor and worthy of your love and this is the heart of it all.
Jesus is certainly interested in the conversation and is respectful and honors the teachers desire to think the right things about the command, but Jesus is also clearly interested in much more. A danger in our time is to think that thinking is what matters and to self-congratulate when I think the right things and think that this is ultimately what matters.
One of my favorite writers Richard Beck puts it this way: “When theology and doctrine become separated from emotion we end up with something dysfunctional and even monstrous. A theology or doctrinal system that has become decoupled from emotion is going to look emotionally stunted and even inhuman." Read the rest here.
I think Jesus would agree. In fact a key part of Jesus of the famous story that Jesus tells in Luke 10 is that the Samaritan had compassion. That is the Samaritan had right passion - orthopathy. Technically speaking the both the priest and the Levi were acting according to right belief as they interpreted the law - in other words they were acting according to orthodoxy. But here in this case Jesus gives the nod to orthopraxy.
One last thought. The longer the list of things that need to be thought and believed to be orthodox, the more orthodoxy is likely to crowd out orthopathy and orthopraxy.
But I also dream that we will embrace orthopraxy (right practice), in truly loving God and loving other humans, and what might might be called orthopathy (rightly aligned passions or emotions).
It is easy for me (and I think much of the church) to get caught in thinking that - well thinking is really what matters. We just need to think and believe the right things. It is jarring, if we think this way, to come across Jesus' encounter with a teacher of the law in Luke 10 asking what must I do to inherit eternal life. If we think, thinking/believing is what matters most, we would expect Jesus to say "it is not about doing (practice), it is about believing/thinking." In fact Jesus seems to accept the experts premise and agrees with the experts assessment that the law is fulfilled in loving God and loving neighbor - in fact Jesus agrees heartily and actually doubles down on the practice of this command "do this and you will live." And this leads to the famous question: Who is my neighbor? And, the even more famous story of the man on the road to Jericho. What I want to draw out here is that the teacher of the law does recognize a doing aspect of the law, but still is looking to stay in the realm of thinking and debate - but Jesus seems to push the conversation towards - everybody is your neighbor and worthy of your love and this is the heart of it all.
Jesus is certainly interested in the conversation and is respectful and honors the teachers desire to think the right things about the command, but Jesus is also clearly interested in much more. A danger in our time is to think that thinking is what matters and to self-congratulate when I think the right things and think that this is ultimately what matters.
One of my favorite writers Richard Beck puts it this way: “When theology and doctrine become separated from emotion we end up with something dysfunctional and even monstrous. A theology or doctrinal system that has become decoupled from emotion is going to look emotionally stunted and even inhuman." Read the rest here.
I think Jesus would agree. In fact a key part of Jesus of the famous story that Jesus tells in Luke 10 is that the Samaritan had compassion. That is the Samaritan had right passion - orthopathy. Technically speaking the both the priest and the Levi were acting according to right belief as they interpreted the law - in other words they were acting according to orthodoxy. But here in this case Jesus gives the nod to orthopraxy.
One last thought. The longer the list of things that need to be thought and believed to be orthodox, the more orthodoxy is likely to crowd out orthopathy and orthopraxy.
No comments:
Post a Comment