Ever to Emmaus” by Arthur A. Just Jr. (Part 3)
The final section of Art’s memoir (Liturgy, Catechesis, Diakonia, and Missions) includes four chapters, with today’s post covering the first two. The baton for this relay returns to Kent in August for the final blog post on Ever to Emmaus.
Reading chapter 8, “Liturgy and the Catechumenate: What Is at Stake in the Worship Wars,” was a constant reminder of why we accepted the offer from his (and our) publisher, Wipf and Stock, to review the book; namely, because of many shared convictions about the church and world; the value of a strong adult catechumenate well integrated into the liturgical life of a congregation; and a biblical theology rooted in Christ and his ongoing presence in the world though the eucharistic banquet. Like Art, I remember well the early years of the Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW, 1978) and subsequent publication of Lutheran Worship four years later (I even remember where I was when LBW was first available and the kindness of the retired LCA pastor who lent me his copy). And like Art, we quote from James A.K. Smith and lived through the LCMS “Worship Wars” of the 1980s and 90s in the LCMS.
Art unpacks his passion for the catechumenate via the story of a seminary curriculum revision that he, as part of a committee, recommended to the faculty. Although their vision of a new model for seminary education was well not received, Art’s point is that seminary education in a post-modern world needs to be rethought as formation, following the same pattern of adult catechesis he advocates. He asserts that seminarians will be well equipped for ministry “by understanding who they are in Christ …” (173), and that
This will happen if they experience what we are doing at the seminary as primary and real—that the story we tell is … the story of the world made new in Jesus Christ, … a story that is told first in liturgy, then in hymns, and finally in preaching, culminating in a feast at a table of old friends who include Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the saints, and they find delight in being invited to party.… For the way of the kingdom is not through the mind but through the heart, that is, through love, embodied love, love seen and experienced by people who are lovers of Christ—who sing to him, listen to him, feed upon him (173-74; the language of Smith is clear in the final sentence).
Amen, Brother Art!
As a deaconess, I looked forward to chapter 9, “Diakonia,” but was initially disappointed by the limited vision for deaconesses as “women of mercy” (189). Fortunately, the majority of this chapter is chocked full of interesting exegetical reflections on Galatians that weave together the Galatian themes of justification and love in a fresh way for me. Art writes:
If we understand “to justify” or “declare righteous” as “God’s making right what has gone wrong,” it ties justification to the new creation, for the image here is not a courtroom but a world infected by sin and in need of being made right by being made new. Justification and new creation are two different ways of speaking about the impact of the presence of Christ in the cosmos (198, emphasis in original).
The paraenesis chapters, Galatians 5 and 6, are bookended with 5:6 (in which the word “faith” is implicitly linked to justification) and 6:15 (the new creation):
For in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything,
but only faith working through love (5:6).For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision,
but a new creation” (6:15; page 205, emphasis in original; translation by AAJ).
Thus, in chapters 5 and 6, “Paul is providing them … a map for this world in which they now actually live … a map of the new creation … This map is a map of love” (204).
For Art, language of “new creation” and “freedom” are associated with the liturgy, or more accurately,
a liturgical space, where Christ is making right what has gone wrong by joining them to himself through Paul’s preaching and the celebration of the Eucharist. … constituted by this freedom in the church’s liturgy, [the Galatians and Christians today] now take this freedom out into the world in a liturgy of life by following Paul’s map of love (204).
What a great theology of diakonia! Amen and Amen.