“[W]hatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” (Rom. 14:23 NRSVA)
“Whatever” does matter, and matters far more than many might imagine. Spoken within certain biblical and social contexts, whatever is far more suspiciously subversive and suggestively unitive than every adolescent shrug of indifference indicates. Within the context of Romans 14, and the excruciating internal tensions of the Roman congregation that St. Paul addressed, the eating or non-eating of certain meats and the observation of certain days was important. The problem of diet and days became, in Paul’s teaching, an opportunity for Christians to express grace to one another. Although concealed in the language of adiaphora, of frustrating freedoms, eating had personal and social implications. The contextual whatever dynamically affected every socio-psycho-pneumatic interaction.
And this whatever also matters to us, within and beyond our churches, including the Episcopal Church. We are, it should be remembered, members (in the biblical sense of that word) of a worldwide body that honors Holy Communion and has a commitment to ecumenical dialogue. The problem, however, is that we have not given sufficient and sustained attention to the implications and applications of the diversity amid unity that whatever communicates.
St. Paul’s words on this matter, the matter of how a diversity of opinion and application works within the context of the unity we all wish to attain and maintain, is vital. If we were to attend to St. Paul’s word in his context, and our context, there is a real possibility for true unity among those that share a diversity of apparently irreconcilable opinions.
Here is a very brief example. Political divisions and polarizations in the United States are obvious to everyone. Moreover, we disagree disagreeably, even to the point of civic unrest. We disagree dangerously. And yet whenever a new President (from any party) is elected, he loudly (and lamentably) insists that he has been given a mandate to act on behalf of those who elected him.
From one perspective, it looks like one half of the country is against the other half, but the truth is that things are far messier; being forced into neat all-or-nothing political binaries has worsened our divisions and handicapped our ability to listen and perceive nuance. Thus, seeds of discord, division, and eventual disaster are sewn in our common life. In light of such division, the Christian vocation ought to be to build bridges and not walls.
This example clearly illustrates the problems confronting and challenging the state of the union to which we are called, as followers of Jesus, to enjoy, employ and expand. St. Paul’s whatever may provide a bridge.
Whatever recognizes real problems
The 20th-century Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote convincingly about a theological symphony; that amid the diversity of voices being sounded and drums being pounded, there is a single song about the saving, sanctifying, and glorifying work of Jesus Christ, a song all Christians seek to celebrate. This is a good reminder. It is a Pauline reminder. Reflecting upon Romans 14, we find a divided community consisting of Jews and Gentiles who are wrestling with the practical yet problematic aspects of what it meant to be a covenant community.
There were real problems. There were painful problems. There were diverse and divisive problems. But when reading Acts 15, we might assume that this issue was resolved. Gentile believers were not expected, as St. Paul and this first Council of Jerusalem promulgated, to comply with certain Jewish laws to be followers of Jesus. While there were clearly stated Covenant considerations, it appears that, in Jesus Christ who fulfilled the Law, there were two different appropriations and applications of that Covenant.
Within the context of Romans 14, those who had faith could partake and those who did not have faith could not partake. Both sides, tasting of their common communion in Christ, could (or could not) partake of certain meats based upon the faith that they each, but differently, had. The morass in which we find ourselves as a Communion might find some resolution in recognizing that we all are at different levels of faith regarding a diversity of opinions, either allowing or disallowing.
The question, then, is what sorts of things might also fall into the same category that Paul places days and diet. Surely some things other than days and diet can fall into this category. Then again, some things may not (cf. Rom. 13:13).
Whatever affords real progress
Although St. Paul offers a whatever solution to the problems existing in the church of Rome, progress and not perfection must be our guide, governor, and goal. No matter how perfect and pristine we might imagine the solution to our situations might be, from “just obey Scripture” to “just walk in love,” there is no absolute answer. Yes, we must seek to obey Scripture. Yes, we must always seek to walk in love. Followers of Jesus Christ on both sides of almost any issue would agree with both priorities.
And, at times, there is an easy compatibility between these priorities. But at other times there certainly is not. It is best to honor the convictions and perspectives of sisters and brothers, even in disagreement. It is best to see even diverging perspectives stemming from a common place of sincere and Christian belief.
In such situations, St. Paul’s whatever serves to imagine and create a faith-informed and faith-framing “div-unity” that embraces and embodies other priorities, principles and practices antithetical to our own. We progress as we appreciate and celebrate the whatever capacities of each individual, family, community, parish, diocese, and province in our Communion, and even other traditions of Christianity. This Pauline whatever may provide a biblically sound path.
Whatever recognizes real unity amid diversity
This “div-unity,” an acknowledged real and radical diversity within a cruciform and therefore realistically raw unity, recognizes the partial and “not yet” in which we all live. Even within ourselves as individuals, at times there is a diverse unity that creates considerable cognitive dissonance for us. As an example, I have often described my theological position as “biblically conservative, theologically moderate, and socially liberal.” But what does this mean? Even the words I have used, conservative and liberal, pose problems for me and raise many challenging questions about me and about others.
The Anglican Communion exists within this exact and exacting frame of reference. We too try to be biblical. We try to be moderate. And we try to be open and, in a sense, liberal. All such people and parties and perspectives exist within and among us. And yet, at times, we overlook this because it is excruciatingly uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable because it forces us to continue asking questions and wrestling during our many dark nights until there is a dawn of breaking blessing—a new naming of an old and tedious struggle as we faithfully limp along our common path.
The 20th-century Assyrian scholar George Lamsa translated the close of Romans 14 thus:
“[K]eep [a certain belief] to yourself, in the presence of God. Blessed is he who does not condemn himself by doing those things which he has selected. For he who is doubtful and eats, violates his beliefs; for whatever is not of faith is sin” (The Holy Bible from Ancient Eastern Manuscripts, Holman Bible Publishers, 1981).
The whatever of our belief acknowledges these differences because all of us “in Christ” are different, and yet surprisingly and supernaturally the same. The whatever recognizes the wrestling. The whatever does not let go of the other. The whatever helps guard and guide our appetites and our perspectives.
The Universal and the Personal
It is easy to depersonalize people and problems. We do it frequently, and it is (at best) simply a defense mechanism that helps us cope with life and living. We push problems and people away, we hold them at arm’s length, in order to re-engage, perhaps ideally, with them at a later time. We don’t see them so that we might, again ideally, see them later.
But at best and ideally are not always functionally operative. Too often they are dysfunctional and disruptive. The internet and the COVID pandemic, along with the increasing anxieties and animosities we are all emotionally experiencing, has led to anonymous and acrimonious attacks upon other human beings. Given that we are often relating to and through different media platforms, it is easy to forget that there are people at the other end of our outrageous outbursts. It is easy to shoot verbal handguns and lob vocal hand grenades when we do not really see eyes and faces and debilitating pain. We do not see that they, too, are broken and in need of the balm of blessing.
Paul’s whatever may help us appreciate, amid our monstrous muddles, that we are all in the same boat—the same Barque of Canterbury—with Jesus apparently sleeping upon the thorny cushion of our never-ending and faithless questions and concerns. While each of the disciples may have experienced the swamping storm in different ways, as we all certainly do, their call to Christ in their shared time of perceived need is our distraught call to Christ. We all appear to be sinking, and this is of great concern to every one of us. The personal and the universal coalesce in the darkening and bruising deep of our common condition in choppy and uncharted waters.
Our entire Communion is treading exceptionally deep and dangerous waters. We all are struggling, suffering, and in desperate need of grace, mercy, and truth—the truth, who is Jesus, and not “my truth” or “our truth.”
No one can be a stranger to our divisions. Regardless, we are also called and challenged to no longer be strangers to each other in our different cultures of conscience where some may be entirely free to “eat” of certain perspectives and others may not. While sharing one Lord, one faith, and one baptism, our personal faith regarding certain issues may be both personal and universally shared. Although there is the Faith, the “once delivered” Faith that St. Jude’s Epistle boldly insists upon, it is wise to recognize how the Faith, my faith and our faith, intersects and interacts. As such we are not free to disregard any other whose frameworks and freedoms are not our own, at least as far as we seek to uphold Jude’s priority.
We “proceed” (Romans 14) in our quest for unity by honoring the diverse cultures of conscience, both personal and universal, that both allows and disallows certain (and at times disturbing) freedoms of which others in our Communion may not be allowed to partake.
And then, as well, there are the exceptionally choppy waters of not causing other members of Christ’s family to stumble and fall because of some freedoms that we may personally or jurisdictionally be free to enjoy. I may indeed be allowed to eat, to partake of some perspective, but I must also appreciate that I live in communion and my freedoms must not lead to another’s stumbling or condemnation. Communion is true communion or it is confusion.
Whatever is a way but not an answer
As can be seen, or rather perceived, the whatever is a way that does not provide a comprehensive answer to the challenging and complicated set of hot-button issues that we face. The whatever way requires us, by Scripture, sacrament, and Spirit, to approach everyone with open heads, hearts, and hands. It requires, as one of my teachers was wont to say, “the sanctification of the relaxed grasp.”
Far from being an adolescent shrug of annoyed indifference, the whatever way calls us into radically intense and intimate engagement. And it is precisely in this engagement, this face-to-face intimacy of edgy encounter, that we begin to see the pulsing pain and the searing struggle of the other—of those whose perspectives and practices are so very different from our own. The whatever way expects and demands those differences that annoy and empower us to wrestle—with angels ascending and descending—together along the long and laborious path of being church, that wounded body that is yet one. We are irrevocably called to be of one heart and one mind in our One Lord who has afforded us One Baptism into this Christian community. This is the meat of the matter, the meat of which some may or may not be allowed to partake. This is the day we are given, a day some may keep and some may not.
The Rev. Donald Richmond, DMin, DD is a Guest Writer. He is a semi-retired priest and worships and serves at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Auburn, California.
