I've been thinking about the monastic life for a while now, and it was pointed out to me that most people hear monastic life and think weird old hermits, no sex, and actively avoiding anything that sounds like it might be even remotely modern. Of these 3 only the no sex is even remotely accurate and even that tends to miss the point, but I was thinking that writing a reflection on the monastic vows might be helpful to anyone who hears me thinking out load about the monastic life. Since I've been thinking about this, however, I've been keeping an eye open for things like that and I found something even better than my writing a general reflection on the vows. The Order of Julian of Norwich has reflections on the vows as part of its Customary. Since they do such a good job of covering what the vows mean for a monastic, I thought I'd shift my own reflection to other sorts of vowed life, like marriage but also the Christian life more generally.
Looking at marriage first, it seems reasonable to talk about the marriage vows as at least vaguely defining a sort of vowed life, but what sort of vowed life is it? The vows as given in TEC's Book of Common Prayer on page 427 are essentially that both husband and wife vow to hold to the other under more or less all circumstances to the death, to share as much as any two people can share of life. One of the most widely known consequences of this formally and permanently choosing each other is that adultery is ruled out (almost explicitly ruled out, in fact, in the pre-vows agreement on p. 424 in the BCP). Sexual activity isn't the only part of life which would be impacted. Every sphere of daily living, from money to child-rearing to religiosity, needs to be shared in a way that both husband and wife can stand. It strikes me as preferable to work out in advance how the couple will deal with money and children, and it might even be helpful to think about how house chores might be divvied up. Still, the one piece that is absolutely essential, far more than advance agreements, is striving to understand how the other half of the couple feels, having enough of a shared understanding, having enough in common to keep fights from being a daily event, being able to work through disagreements when they come up. In short marriage requires commitment to an actual person rather than one's idea of the person, and one is constrained by the reality of the other person.
In some ways marriage parallels the Christian life in general, although the vow at the center of the Christian life is not always explicit. Like marriage, it is a matter of choosing another, although the other is God in Jesus Christ rather than another human being. Why do I say that the Christian life has a vow at the center? It should seem obvious to most members of TEC since the baptismal covenant has been given such a central place in the life of the church, but the vowedness of the life was present even when the only creed was "Jesus is Lord." To say "Jesus is Lord" indicates first and foremost a recognition that one owes fealty to Jesus. Put another way it is indicates the realization that one ought to strive to do Jesus' will. The only sensible response as far as I can see to recognizing the obedience owed to God in Jesus is to (explicitly or implicitly) commit oneself to the work Jesus calls us to do. The only alternative is rebellion, which is looks to me like an attempt to avoid paying off the debt of honor.
This brings us to what is probably the most difficult question in the Christian Life. What does obeying Jesus require of us? The simplest, truest answer seems to me to be that we must love God with all our heart and mind and strength and spirit, and love everyone we meet either physically or indirectly (for example through the Internet) as God has loved us. This is the truest answer I know and is fairly easy to derive from Scripture, but it just leaves us with more questions. What does it mean to love God that way? What does it mean to love everyone we meet as God has loved us? These are far more difficult questions and the closer we come to brass tacks, to responding to specific real world problems the more difficult it is to definitively say what answer is best. The best I have to offer is to look at the example given in Christ's life, especially in his death and resurrection. It begins, I think, with approaching life open to being mistaken, open to learning something new. One ultimately needs to keep grounded in what is, especially what is real enough to contradict one's thoughts about it, and that requires being open to correction. After understanding is gotten, the next requirement is to use that understanding to make the world a better place to be, partially by letting people be themselves but also by not leaving them holding on to what is harmful out of ignorance. Truth enables us to make love real.
It seems that, as Christians, we are vowed to Love, and perhaps vowed to pursue Truth because of Love. These vows to both love and truth are then lived out through vows like those of marriage or the monastic life.
Jon
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2 comments:
This is a good post on a subject that I find interesting and which I think is very important.
I once preached a wedding homily in which I said that living with one's spouse becomes one's primary practice of discipleship in a way analogous to entering a monastic community. I then interpreted the meaning of the marriage vows through the lens of the monastic vows of stability, conversion and obedience.
In my view, one of the major problems in the Church today (and in our society more generally) is that people are either unwilling or unable to keep their promises and live their vows. And not just married persons, but all Christians (you note the Baptismal Covenant) and clergy as well. Too often, we merely "go through the motions," saying with our lips what we don't necessarily intend in our hearts (and perhaps don't always really understand that well, anyway). How many of us have done that when it's another Sunday for reaffirming the Baptismal Covenant?
Keep up the good work.
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