I’m reading Richard Rohr’s recent mainstream classic, Everything Belongs. He’s sort of the other Brennan Manning, a Franciscan monk with a mystical bent, but also dripping with a “theology of the cross” train of thought (note: for what it’s worth, I know a few folk personally who have been helped tremendously by Rohr).
Here are a few nice quotes:
“How do you make attractive that which is not? How do you sell nonsuccess? How do you talk descent when everything is about ascent? How do you talk about dying to a church trying to appear perfect? This is not going to work (admitting this might be my first step).”
“First there is the fall, and then there is the recovery from the fall. But both are the mercy of God.”
“The great and merciful surprise is that we come to God not by doing it right but by doing it wrong!”
“Although we have a ‘merit badge’ mentality, prayer shows us that we are actually ‘punished’ by any expectation of merit and reward…Experiencing radical grace is like living in another world.”
On Transformation:
“But law does not give life; only the Spirit gives life, as Paul details in Romans and Galatians…When a student comes and says, ‘Should I pull out the weeds?’ Jesus says, ‘No.’ He says to let them both grow together until the harvest (Matt 13:29). Then, at the end of time, he will decide what is wheat and what is weed. This idea has had little effect on Western moral theology. But we are a mixture of weed and wheat and we always will be. As Luther put is, simul justus et peccator…The only true perfection available to us is the honest acceptance of our imperfection.”
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15 responses to “A Few from Richard Rohr’s Everything Belongs”
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Yippee! I told you that all of us Catholics weren't semi-Pelagians 🙂
This is great, John. Thanks so much for sharing.
mattie: i highly appreciate your joy!!
Thanks for this, John! Really, really good.
"First there is the fall, and then there is the recovery from the fall. But both are the mercy of God."
This has got to be one of the most comforting things I have read in a very long time.
I have, on a very real and personal level, come to understand "the fall" as being a sort of rescue in itself. Being stripped of any delusional ideas of being right, or in control, or without sin brings me to a place where God does his redeeming work and healing begins.
I am able to truly thank Him for the fall as well as the recovery.
I love the quote about not trying to pull out the weeds, even though I think he jolts the metaphor out of the context in which Jesus used it. But it still holds true that trying to pull out the "weeds" of one's personal life is really an attempt to use the flesh (even if it is wearing "spiritual" gardening gloves)to "put to death the deeds of the flesh." Paul says only the Spirit can do that. This is a fantastic quote, John. God is at work on both sides of the Tiber.
Mike, I hear what you're saying, but I guess I'm not in the same place. I certainly think of the "penalty" (expulsion from Eden) as judgment, and am therefore inclined to wrap the fall into the judgment camp, too. I guess because the fall can only have happened under the law. Isn't law (a situation in which humankind CAN fall) opposed to mercy, at least at the beginning? This is reminiscent of the Barthian idea that Law and Gospel are both gracious words of God, since God didn't have to speak to us at all. Am I missing something, guys?
Nick,
What I'm trying to say, I think, is that although the fall is, or at least, is perceived by us as judgment, in reality without an intervention from a gracious and merciful God we continue in our selfish sinfulness and ultimately are destroyed by it.
God's knocking us for a loop enables us to honestly see and assess our inward selves, the blinders we have put on ourselves are removed, graciously, and we are open to surrender.
I see what you're saying, but I need an intervention! I need God to do the work that I am unwilling to do. To me, that is mercy.
Thanks, Mike. Always so good to hear your voice on here.
For what it's worth, he's not referring to the Fall (cap F), but to the moments in life when things collapse and fall apart.
Yes, thank you JAZ for clarifying.
I still think that falls (little f) are God destroying idols in our lives (success, etc.). I agree that these lead to our recognition of our reliance on him, but I still can't find it in myself to ask for his "refining fire." It hurts (and, of course, comes whether I ask for it or not)! I agree that I need an intervention, but I need it to save me DESPITE the falls, not to cause them! In the end, though, I'm really scared of the idea of God's words becoming one rather than two.
Nick, I don't thinking he's speaking with one word, equating Law with Gospel or some such. He's pointing out the problem that lies with theologians of glory, that they call a bad thing good and a good thing bad (o quote Luther's Heidleberg disputations). Rohr is simply putting forth Luther's idea that a theologian of the cross does not misinterpret suffering in light of glory-based thought. The question is whether or not God has a hand in that which we experience as suffering? I tend to think he does.
I'm with you John…I've been called into professor's offices after claiming God has "had a hand" in human suffering! I just don't see that hand as one of "mercy" or grace. It seems, though, that I am picking apart a quotation from something I haven't read. Always dangerous. To the extent that he means "calling a thing what it is," I'm right there with him. Pardon my pedantry!
I can see how the quote was unclear, and I guess it didn't express the idea as clearly as I thought it did. That's why I linked to that Red Beard-related post. You helped me to clarify the issue Nick.
Also, I watched Mumford again recently, which is so great. Thanks for introducing me to that one!
John, you can't POSSIBLY expect me to investigate the context that you provide, can you? And you're welcome on Mumford, possibly the ultimate Great Movie No One Has Ever Seen.