Squatters

I do not call them pupils of the wise, but merely "squatters." Certain of them come to hear and not to learn, just as we are attracted to the theatre to satisfy the pleasures of the ear, whether by a speech, or by a song, or by a play. This class, as you will see, constitutes a large part of the listeners... They do not set about to lay aside any faults there, or to receive a rule of life, by which they may test their characters; they merely wish to enjoy to the full the delights of the ear.

- Annaeus Lucius Seneca, Epistle CVIII

Well, it has been a long time, my friends. So, what has drawn me out of retirement as the faithful Lucilius? I suppose Our Seneca still has some words of wisdom for us. I dropped the blog about two years ago when I got too busy to study Seneca, but now I'm too busy with the meat of ministry NOT to study Seneca. Well, the above passage pretty much says it all.

"Squatters." They like to gather in church on Sunday morning, or at a National Youth Gathering (see above pic from 2007), and PRETEND to be Christians. They are not present to hear the Word preached. They are not sitting around or standing up clapping their hands or wiggling and convulsing to the newest liturgical groove music because they want to amend their sinful lives and be shown the Way. They are not present to have their sins forgiven. They do not sit in the Stoa in order to receive wisdom, except perhaps as a tickling fancy on the eardrum.

Sadly, if our Seneca is right (and I believe he is), they make up the majority of persons gathered in places of "worship" on Sunday morning.

Well, if they're not gathered around the Word to test their character, to be proven wanting, and to receive forgiveness and instruction in the Way of life, why are they there at all?

Well, we may be separated by nearly 2000 years, but Seneca hits the nail on the head. He says that we all of us have within us something that resonates with Truth, and even the most willful sinner will cry and shout approval when he hears his own sins laid bare; however, this is the same as the coward who can feel patriotism stir in his breast as he watches men sacrifice their lives for their nation in the movie theater. It is the same as the adulterer who weeps to see true love exemplified by the actors in a movie about fidelity and suffering for the same.

So why attend the theater? Why turn the Church into such a theater? The answer is simple: Because by doing so we reduce the Christian faith to a momentary assent to what is True, a singular point of time, a finite experience of repentance, a "moment of conversion," but without the conversion. We turn the entire Faith into a pious ejaculation (that's monk-talk, so don't make too much of it).

My friends, it gets worse. What happens when even the Truth has to be cut away from the entertainment, so that there is no discomfort of sins laid bare?

-Lucilius

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

- St. Paul's Second Epistle to St. Timothy (4:3)

NO SOUP FOR YOU!

Sunt quaedam nocitura impetrantibus, quae non dare sed negare beneficium est; aestimabimus itaque utilitatem potius quam voluntatem petentium.

There are certain gifts that do harm to those who obtain them, and the benefit is in withholding these gifts rather than in giving them; we shall therefore consider the advantage of the petitioner rather than the desire.

- Seneca's De Beneficiis, 14:1 (ESS III:74-75)

The question that faces every person who holds something desired by another is this: Shall I give it or withhold it? Of course, Christians everywhere argue that it is morally encumbant upon the followers of Christ to give liberally to those who have need. Where people are hungry, Christians are required by Christ's own commands to give food. Where people are sick, to give medication and care. Where people are in prison, to visit them.

Wherever there is need, the Christian is required to provide for this need. Once upon a time, the matter of communing at the Altar of Our Lord was a matter of need. A pastor examined the petitioner as a doctor might (see last post) and determined whether or not the petitioner had a need for the Gospel, keeping in mind that only those who are repentant are in need of the Gospel, while those who are unrepentant are only harmed by the Gospel.

Those days are long past, however, and now the entire matter of who shall approach the Altar is one of individual desire. Appropriately, Seneca is not talking about need any more than churches are talking about need, but rather voluntas - "desire" or "wish."

What is the moral landscape when the desire presented is a desire for something dangerous or deadly to the petitioner?

A mother who gives her child a gun to play with will have a hard time arguing in a court of law that her child is responsible for shooting himself and not she, and this on the basis of her child's expressed desire to play with the gun. She was a kind and good mother, always giving her child what he desired, and should not be held accountable for the unfortunate, though predictable, way that things turned out. Of course, any reasonable person would find this a laughable defense.

When someone desires something dangerous or deadly, the morally upright action is no longer satisfying the desire, but withholding the desire.

Unfortunately, the common Christian practice of the Lord's Supper has become unreasonable and morally reprehensible. Christians are taught that the bread and wine of the Holy Sacrament are potentially deadly to those who eat and drink unworthily, that is, without recognizing the true body and blood of the Lord in the meal (1 Cor 11:27-30). When those who do not recognize the body (and the Greek vocabulary here does not allow "body" to be identified with the congregation, as many Protestants assert), participate in the Lord's Supper, they do so to their harm.

Are Christian congregations that grant the desired bread and wine to those whom it will harm doing good or evil?

Even Seneca, a pagan philosopher and moralist, makes it clear that congregations are committing a morally reprehensible act in distributing this meal to those who may be harmed by it. While such congregations may point to their free distribution of the meal as a sign of their goodwill and universal love, the act reveals quite the opposite about their moral character - if, that is, they actually believe Saint Paul's words.

It all rests on this: is Holy Scripture correct when it attributes dangerous or even deadly characteristics to the Holy Sacrament, or is Saint Paul (and Holy Scripture) in error?

Finally, a congregation is caught in a "knight's fork:" either the congregation is morally deficient in that it is freely giving dangerous and deadly gifts to those who may be harmed by them, or the congregation does not believe that Scripture's statement concerning the danger attached to Holy Communion is actually true.

- Lucilius

Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

-The Gospel of Saint Matthew (7:9-11, ESV)