If He offers nourishment to the birds…

If he offers nourishment to the birds, will he not offer to humankind food to nourish them? If those who do not labor find food, will not people find food, to whom God has given both the wisdom to work and the hope to enjoy it? God made all animals for humankind’s sake, but he made humankind for his own sake. Therefore, if he serves animals for humankind’s sake, will he not serve humankind for his own sake? God made all things in wisdom, but he made humankind not only in wisdom but also according to his own wisdom. Therefore, to the degree that the creation of humankind is more precious than that of animals, to the same degree God’s solicitude over humankind is greater than that over animals. God made all animals so that they would exist as long as they do, but when they die, they would become as if they had never been, but he made humankind so that he would live not only before death but even after death. Indeed, he would live more after death than before death because he lives before death in temptation but after death in glory. Therefore, if he helps those whom he has created so as to live for only a little while, will he not help humankind whom he has made so that they may live forever?

Opus imperfectum on Matthew, Homily 16

Opus Imperfectum on Wealth

Consider, moreover, that he did not say, “Nobody can have God and wealth,” but “no one can be a servant of God and wealth.” It is one thing to have wealth and quite another to serve wealth. If you have wealth and your wealth does not make you haughty or violent, but you give to the poor as much as you can, you are master of your wealth, not its slave, because your wealth does not possess you, but you possess your wealth. But if your wealth makes you arrogant or violent and you do not give anything to anyone because you have been restrained by your greed, then you are a slave of your wealth and not its master, because your wealth possesses you, not you your wealth.

Opus imperfectum on Matthew, Homily XVI

A dread and marvelous mystery

A dread and marvelous mystery we see come to pass this day. He whom none may touch is seized; he who looses Adam from the curse is bound. He who tries our hearts and inner thoughts is unjustly brought to trial. He who closed the abyss is shut in prison. He before whom the powers of heaven stand with trembling, stands before Pilate; the Creator is struck by the hand of a creature. He who comes to judge the living and the dead is condemned to the cross; the Destroyer of hell is enclosed in a tomb.

Vespers of Great Friday, from the Orthodox liturgy

An indestructible energy making for love

At the heart of the desperate suffering there is in the world, suffering we can do nothing to resolve or remove for good, there is an indestructible energy making for love. If we have grasped what Jesus is about, we can trust that this is what lies at the foundation of everything.

Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust, p. 10

What Christians can expect each other to take for granted

[The Creed] sets out what Christians can expect each other to take for granted. You might even say that it tells us why we can trust each other in the Christian community. We’re looking in the same direction, working with the same hopes and assumptions.

Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust, p. 7

Where I find the anchorage of my life

‘I believe in God the Father almighty’ isn’t the first in a set of answers to the question, ‘How many ideas or pictures have I inside my head?’ as if God were the name of one more doubtful thing like UFOs and ghosts to add to the list of the furniture of my imagination. It is the beginning of a series of statements about where I find the anchorage of my life, where I find solid ground, home.

Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust, p. 6

He believes; he has confidence

In John’s Gospel (the ninth chapter), Jesus asks the blind man he’s just cured whether he ‘believes’ in the Son of Man. He’s certainly not asking (as he might about the Loch Ness monster) whether the man is of the opinion that the Son of Man exists; he wants to know whether the former blind man is ready to trust the Son of man – that is, Jesus in his role as representative of the human race before God. The man – naturally – wants to know who the ‘Son of Man’ is, and Jesus says that it is him; the man responds with the words, ‘I believe.’

He believes; he has confidence. That is, he doesn’t go off wondering whether the Son of Man is out to further his own ends and deceive him. He trusts Jesus to be working for him, not for any selfish goals and he believes that what he sees and hears when Jesus is around is the truth. Hence the radical difference from ‘believing’ in UFOs or the Loch Ness monster. To believe in these doesn’t make that much difference to how I feel about myself and the world in general, and it has nothing to do with whether the Loch Ness monster is reliable or not. If it existed, it would undoubtedly be useful to know if it was a creatures of dependable and regular habits, but that isn’t what we have in mind when we talk about believing in it.

Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust, pp. 5-6

The man who here lies half dead, wounded and stripped of his clothing, is Adam and all mankind.

The man who here lies half dead, wounded and stripped of his clothing, is Adam and all mankind. The murderers are the devils who robbed and wounded us, and left us lying prostrate half dead. We still struggle a little for life; but there lies horse and man, we cannot help ourselves to our feet, and if we were left thus lying we would have to die by reason of our great anguish and lack of nourishment…The parable stands in bold relief, and pictures us perfectly, what we are and can do with our boasted reason and free will.

Martin Luther, Church Postil, Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity, First Sermon, II.28-29

Bede on the deaf man of Mark 7

The deaf-mute, of whose marvelous cure by our Lord we have just now heard when the Gospel was read, represents those members of the human race who merit being freed by divine grace from the error brought on by the devil’s deceit. Man became deaf, unable to hear the word of life after, puffed up as he was against God, he listened to the serpent’s deadly words; he was made mute and unable to declare the praises of his Maker from the time when he presumed to have a conversation with his seducer. Rightly did God close man’s ears from hearing the praises of his Creator along with the angels – those ears which the unsuspected enemy by his speech had opened to hearing denunciation of this same Creator; rightly did God close man’s mouth from proclaiming the praises of his Creator along with the angels – that mouth which the proud deceiver had filled with his lies about the forbidden food, in order, as the devil said, to improve upon the work of this same Creator.

The Venerable Bede, Homily II.6

Love (II) – George Herbert

Immortal Heat, O let thy greater flame
Attract the lesser to it: let those fires
Which shall consume the world, first make it tame,
And kindle in our hearts such true desires,

As may consume our lusts, and make thee way.
Then shall our hearts pant thee; then shall our brain
All her invention on thine Altar lay,
And there in hymnes send back thy fire again:

Our eies shall see thee, which before saw dust;
Dust blown by wit, till that they both were blinde:
Thou shalt recover all thy goods in kinde,
Who wert disseized by usurping lust:

All knees shall bow to thee; all wits shall rise,
And praise him who did make and mend our eies.

George Herbert, Love (ii)