Nagypál, Szabolcs

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“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”(John 12, 24)God entrusted us with the duty and responsibility forbringing God’s peace to all people on Earth. Reconciliationinside and outside is the main aim of any dialogue, be itecumenical or interreligious, which are the great andadventurous endeavours of present-day Christianity. Indialogue the participants aim for a conversion of thinkingand for building a reconciled community. These are thehoped for effects of dialogue for the person and forhumanity. In our essay we present a radical methodologi-cal proposal to move forward in our ministry of dialogicalreconciliation.COEXISTENCE, CONVIVENCE AND COOPERATIONThere are two types of dialogue: the (indirect) dialogueof love and the (direct) dialogue of truth. First, let us havea look at the dialogue of love, which embraces the socio-political dialogue of action and the experiential dialogueof life and participation.A group of people – not yet a community – in building uptheir belonging and in aiming for common identity in dia-logue of love, can make three steps in the way of dialogueof life, action and participation. These steps are coexis-tence, convivence and cooperation. On the level of coexis-tence, the group aims for tolerance, understanding,respect and appreciation through the elimination ofmutual prejudice, intolerance and misunderstandings,improper and inadequate words, judgements and actions.The territory of convivence offers serious reflection,reception and advancement through the open exchangeof experience and witness of faith, love and hope; usinghonest cross-questioning and respectful listening. Thirdly,cooperation contributes to various solutions of conflictsthrough the promotion of consciousness and perfection;through the service of our neighbour in common humantasks, while strengthening the good and fighting againstsin.As soon as a group made a commitment towards thesesteps, and continued to put them into practice, a commu-nity is born. The fruits of this endeavour are manifold, andconcern partly the inner cohesion of the community andpartly the outer common effects. As for the communitari-an consequence, a certain element of ‘already and not yet’is present in all possible opportunities for dialogue.In the process of identity-building, a new self-under-standing is created, a fusion of transcendental horizons,converging to a new common horizon. A unity of recon-ciled differences appears which is endured and produc-tively shaped. The community starts to maintain a consen-sus of conscience, providing each other with friendship,sisterhood and brotherhood.DISCOURSE ON TRUTHParallel with the dialogue of love, the direct dialogue oftruth embraces the intellectual dialogue of discourse andspiritual dialogue. Compared with non-religious types ofdialogue, the interreligious and ecumenical dialoguebrings about new dimensions in the dialogical game seek-ing the truth. We mention interreligious dialogue first,because the cement and glue already linking the partici-pants is strong in one hand, but general enough on theother.The basis of interreligious dialogue, apart from our com-mon humanity, is the nature of the people seeking andserving the transcendental truth. Therefore, the commu-nity we hope as a fruit of interreligious dialogue is thetheocentric community of people longing for God and thetranscendental. The goal of interreligious dialogue is thedeepening of our commonalties and spiritual values, thefurther discovery of experiences and dimensions of thedivine mystery, through mutual enrichment and exchangeof charisma.When focusing on the intra-Christian application of thegeneral and the religious theory of dialogue, both thehope and the effectiveness of our method increase.Ecumenical dialogue brings about more hope for a unitedcommunity than non-religious or interreligious dialogues.Its prayed-for effects are growth in faith and renewal, andthe regaining of Christian credibility when encounteringthe world, through the visible unity of the Church of JesusChrist.The conversion of the various denominations and con-fessions, the ecclesial transformation means to reopenour traditions from the perspective of the primacy ofgospel-praxis. The official motto of the ecumenical move-ment, John 17, 21 points to the main aim of our unity:“that the world may believe”. It is not only our missionwhich is difficult to credit because of our division, butChristian contribution to human dialogue is also weak-ened by this.UNITY AND CREDIBILITYWhile we are in the demanding but worthwhile processof building up a wider human community or religious(inter)communion, there are three Biblical passages tolead us in our present twofold dialogical task, reconcilia-tion. 1 Corinthians 5, 18 enlists different fruits whenspeaking about the diversified gifts of God: “All this isfrom God, Who through Christ reconciled us to Godself,and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” It is God Whois the source of reconciliation, and from God’s reconcilingact we are able to bring reconciliation to the world.Matthew 5, 23-24 strongly questions our credibility asChristians without making peace: “If you are about tooffer your gift to God at the altar, and there you rememberthat your sister or brother has something against you,leave your gift there, in front of the altar, and go at onceto make peace with your sister or brother; then come backand offer your gift to God.”In Colossians 3, 13-14, forgiveness and love are boundtogether with unity: “Forgive one another, whenever anyof you has a complaint against someone else; you mustforgive each other, in the same way that the Lord has for-given you; and to all these, add love, which binds all thingstogether in perfect unity.”MOZAIK 2003/1 Redrafted Memories8 > > > > >N A G Y P Á L SzabolcsThe Ministry of Reconciliation through KenosisWithout forgiveness, Christianity loses its identity.Dialogue is an intermediate stage between separation andunity. It is of such an importance that dialogue can bedefined as one of the marks of the Church, who tries tocreate a climate of reconciliation.SPIRITUALITY OF DIALOGUEAfter the dialogue of intellectual truth, we have to con-centrate on the spiritual dialogue of truth. The change itentails is conversion, metanoia, the change of our heart.In this respect, the theological dimension of the climate ofreconciliation could be enriched by the radical concept ofkenosis, the way of creative transformation.As early as in 1964, a document of the ecumenical move-ment (Christian Encounter with People of Other Beliefs)spoke about the abandoning of much that is familiar,about a painful and dangerous self-emptying. In a kenoticway, God has relativized Godself in history.The doctrine of kenosis can be applied both to God andto Christ, thus having a Theocentric and a Christocentricemphasis. Through such self-emptying at each step, roomis made for the other. This kind of kenosis is the finalproof of our definitive God-centeredness, which could beseen even in self-emptying at the doctrinal level, in thename of love.In the parallel of dialectic, question and answer, or the-sis and antithesis, leads to a deeper knowledge and truth,to synthesis. There the negation of negation provides uswith an excellent opportunity for a double self-denial ordouble kenosis.Epoché (or reduction) is a similar concept used in theo-logical thinking. It means to suspend our judgement andplace in brackets our prejudices and assumptions to cre-ate a situation of silence within ourselves in pure trans-parency and receptivity. This requires a severe ascese. Weshould regulate, however, this kind of self-emptying,because if we are empty, we do not have anything toshare. That is why epoché should endue the double natureof Biblical kenosis in order to be full and empty at thesame time, fully divine and fully human.EMPTYING-OUTEmptying-out or kenosis in its verbal form appears onlyin five places of the New Testament. In Romans 4, 14 itmeans ‘null’; while in 1 Corinthians 9, 15 it means ‘todeprive’. In the other three places, its meaning is connect-ed to ‘emptiness’. 2 Corinthians 9, 3 speaks about the fearthat the boasting of Paul with the congregation mightprove to have been empty.1 Corinthians 1, 17 tells us about the fact that if Paul pro-claimed the Gospel with eloquent wisdom, the cross ofChrist might be emptied of its power. The Biblical and the-ological basis, which we are looking for now as a theoret-ical background for dialogue, as a true paradigm-shifter,can be found in the kenotic hymn of Philippians 2, 5-11.”Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,Who, though He was in the form of God, did not regardequality with God as something to be exploited, but emp-tied Himself, taking the form of a slave, being born inhuman likeness. And being found in human form, Hehumbled Himself and became obedient to the point ofdeath – even death on a cross. Therefore God also highlyexalted Him and gave Him the name that is above everyname, so that at the name of Jesus every knee shouldbend, in Heaven and on Earth and under the Earth, andevery tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, tothe glory of God the Father.”MOZAIK 2003/1Redrafted Memories9Békés Gellért Ecumenical Insitute(Pannonhalma, Hungary)Established in 2001 by ArchabbotVÁRSZEGI Asztrik OSB,this Benedictine Institute is a place to pray and work forthe unity of the Churchby means of conferences, workshops, lectures and publications.Our young theologians are involvedin the ecumenical movement internationally and in Hungary.If you wish to know more about us, contactNAGYPÁL Szabolcs:bgoi@chello.huIRISH SCHOOL OF ECUMENICSIreland’s Centre for Reconciliation StudiesM.PHIL. PROGRAMMESEcumenical Studies (Dublin) Email: ecumsec@tcd.ieInternational Peace Studies (Dublin) Email: peacesec@tcd.ieReconciliation Studies (Belfast) Email: reconsec@tcd.ieOne year full-time (Two year part-time)One-term Sabbaticals availableEvening Postgraduate Diploma ProgrammeConflict & Dispute Resolution Studies (Dublin)Email: cdrssec@tcd.ieOne-year part-time,Two evening sessions per week plus twoSaturday workshopsPlease quote Ref. No. EPR4052002 with enquiry:Irish School of Ecumenics (Trinity College Dublin)Bea House, Milltown Park, Dublin 6, Rep. of IrelandTel. +353-1-260 1144 / Fax +353-1-260 115848 Elmwood Avenue, Be8lfast BT9 6AZ, Northern IrelandTel./Fax +44-28 9038 2750 (From RoI: 048 9038 2750)Website: http://www.tcd.ie/iseOn this text, we can ground the kenotic theology, and thistheology we intend to use to understand the true chal-lenge of dialogical behaviour. When God decided toengage in dialogue with the world, God decided to do itthrough a special form of communication: to be in com-munion with the whole creation. God chose to be fullyhuman.But this was just one side of the coin: God in this process,which we call incarnation (becoming flesh), kept God’snature (which is probably identical with identity in thehuman realm in our day’s language), while at the sametime embracing human’s nature. The process happenedwithout confusion, change, division or separation (as theCouncil of Chalcedon formulated it in 451). As Basil HUMEput it, God, in a wonderful delicacy of touch, has translat-ed Godself into human terms.DEATH AND RESURRECTIONChrist Jesus refused to cling to a definition of Who Hewas and what rights He was entitled to, in order to go outtowards the human and sinful other, to take the form ofthe servant, and become vulnerable unto death. Ouracceptance of death is connected with the one and onlyhope for life. By her own dying, the Church will reveal theCrucified to the world, says Bruce D. MARSHALL.We can compare the kenotic hymn with other Biblicaltexts such as John 12, 24 (the grain of wheat must fall intothe ground and die if it is to produce any fruit); Matthew6, 2–6 (not to parade our relationship to the Lord out-wardly but to await the reward of the Father Who sees insecret); Matthew 16, 26 (to lose our life in order to find it);and Matthew 23, 12 (to humbleourselves in order to be exalt-ed).We are not talking about thedying for the other as the finalgood. This is a death in thehope of a resurrection. In thissense, the possibility of aneschatological banquet is theimage of the good. “Christ’sopen-handed gesture of keno-sis aims and intends to undoAdam’s tight-fisted gesture ofgrasping for equality with God”(Jean-Marc LAPORTE SI).We have to expect the differ-ent Christian denominations toact and behave in an attitudeof self-denial, self-transcen-dence and spiritual povertywhen being active in a dia-logue. An all-embracing andoverwhelming ecumenical spir-ituality consists of an aware-ness of the guilt and failure ofChristians, readiness for keno-sis and metanoia, as well asprayer of penitence, sacrificeand supplication. The way Godchose to engage in dialoguewith humankind was kenosis,and we are challenged to fol-low Christ’s footsteps.Kenosis meanspowerlessness, continual purifi-cation from self-centeredness,growing in openness. Prayer and sacrifice nourish kenoticspirituality. Prayer links one with the goodness and powerof God, while sacrifice strengthens prayer and promotescommunion. In the process of kenosis, self-sacrificeunites prayer and sacrifice, when one becomes prayer-for-others.For a Magyar Jesuit, ÖRSY László, ecumenical dialogue isthe effort to promote and sustain the healing process with-in the one body. The dialogue of discourse must go handin hand with spiritual dialogue. The kenosis of Christ isthe eternal model for dialogue in all the communities,because it became the entry point into the paschal mys-tery. Death is the door to resurrection, as well as kenosis isthe door to genuine unity and reconciliation.Suggested ReadingARINZE Francis: Letter to Presidents of Bishop’s Conferences on the Spirituality of Dialogue. Pro Dialogo 1999/2.Asian Bishop’s Institute for Interreligious Affairs, Interreligious Dialogue. Fresh Horizons for Communion and Cooperation Today (Hua Hin, 1991). Bulletin (Pro Dialogo) 1991/1.IISAKA Yoshiaki, Dialogue, Dialect, Dialectic, and Diakonia.Bulletin (Pro Dialogo) 1992/2.LAPORTE Jean-Marc SI, Kenosis and Koinonia: The Path Ahead for Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue. One in Christ 1985/2.MARSHALL Bruce D., Who Really Cares About Christian Unity? First Things 2001/1. www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0101/articles/marshall.htmlMILBANK John, The Ethics of Self-Sacrifice. First Things 1999/3. www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9903/articles/milbank.htmlÖRSY László SI (Ladislaus Orsy), “Kenosis”: The Door to Christian Unity. Origins 1993/3.WILLEBRANDS Johannes, The Ecumenical Dialogue and its Reception. One in Christ 1985/3.NAGYPÁL Szabolcs (1974) is a graduate in law, literature and ecumenical theology. Heis Roman Catholic, a theologian in the Békés Gellért Ecumenical Institute (BGÖI) inPannonhalma, Hungary. He is a former chairperson of KÖD (Magyar SCM), and is cur-rently a member of WSCF European Regional Committee (ERC) and global ExecutiveCommittee (ExCo). He is editor-in-chief of Student World and Mozaik.MOZAIK 2003/1 Redrafted Memories10 > > > > > > > >

The Ministry of Reconciliation through Kenosis

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The Ministry of Reconciliation through Kenosis

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