Part of my sermon study each week is to read over what various Church Fathers wrote on a given text. The Gospel Lesson this week is Mark 7: 24-37 and I was fascinated to find the following thoughts from Augustine on Christ's response to the Syrophoenician woman:
Some people, intent on severe disciplinary precepts, admonish us to rebuke the restless and not to give what is holy to dogs, to consider a despiser of the church as a heathen, to cut off from the unified structure of the body the member who causes scandal. These may so disturb the peace of the church that they try prematurely to separate out the wheat from the chaff before the proper time, and blinded by this pretext they themselves then become separated from the unity of Christ."[T]hey try prematurely to separate out the wheat from the chaff before the proper time"! Certainly, the separatists in our midst stand under this indictment. Having decided that the General Assembly's actions concerning Recommendation Five of the PUP Report is a departure from Scripture--which it certainly may be, by the way--the schismatics declare that the holy things of God shall not be given to the dogs, but to the children. If Augustine is correct, their separation, regardless of the purity of their faith or motive, may very well have an unintended consequence--separating themselves from the unity of Christ.
posted by The Parson | 11:12 AM
3 Comments:
I really cannot agree that separating from the PCUSA, whether it's one person or a whole church,
constitutes the act of "separating themselves from the unity of Christ". The PCUSA is not the body of Christ, in my opinion.
I do however agree with not trying to separate the wheat from the chaff on our own. A heard a pastor saying that at a meeting we had at our church to discuss PUP, and I have to say I agree with it. It's not our job to take care of the problem, whatever it may be.
This quote would have the intended effect only if we are to ignore the fact that it is historically located in Augustine's own experience of a truly catholic church that was threatened by Donatism.
The PCUSA does not represent the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. It is a tiny branch of the Reformed (reformerly?) churches, which constitute a small part of Protestantism at large, which is only a part of the church universal. The contention that those who are DEEPLY troubled with the direction of the PCUSA and seek fellowship with believers apart from its institutional structure are schismatic cannot be sustained unless one adopts an incredibly narrow view of where the Church of Jesus Christ exists.
Both of these responses are helpful and I am thankful for them. I don't think one needs to confuse the holy, catholic, and apostolic church with the PCUSA, however, in order for Augustine's conviction to speak to our situation. One, to do so implies that Augustine's historicity negates his words meaning something for us, and I don't believe anyone really thinks that. If George Santayana is right--that those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it--is right, then Augustine's experiences and responses are at some level informative to us. But second, and I think more importantly, the attempt to ourselves separate the wheat from the chaff betrays a real lack of humility on our part. That's quite simply not our job. It just may be that leaving the PCUSA results in a leaving of Christ, not because the PCUSA is itself a body of Christ, but because the hubris necessary to undertake such an action divorces us from the One who, even though he is God, humbled himself to the point of death on a cross. In this instance, I think it's not as much an ecclesiology question as it is a discipleship question.
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