Sermon preached at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, April 9, 1997

Pavey, Roger

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 24Issue 2 Essays on Liturgy and Worship Article 711-1-1998Ha shoahRoger PaveyFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Sermons is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationPavey, Roger (1998) "Ha shoah," Consensus: Vol. 24 : Iss. 2 , Article 7.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol24/iss2/7St. Augustine 87^ Sabellius was a 3rd century Monarchian Modalist who lived in the west.He was later condemned for “patripassionism” since, in hisconceptualization of God, the Son would be a mode of the being of theFather. Eunomius held a very similar theological position in EasternChristendom and wrote against the Cappadocian Fathers.This according to Catherine Mowry LaCugna, ^5.' The Trinityand the Christian Life {San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991)81.^ Colin Gunton, “Augustine, The Trinity and the Theological Crisis of theWest,” Scottish Journai of Theoiogy A3 (1990) 33-58." Ibid.^ Karl Rahner, The Trinity, tr. Joseph Donceel (New York: Herder andHerder, 1970) 17.sIbid. 17-18.® Ibid. 22. Rahner formulated it in this way: The “economic” Trinityis the“immanent” Trinity and the “immanent” Trinity is the “economic”Trinity. T his has become known as “Rahner s rule”.William J. Hill, Knowing the Unknown God (New York: PhilosophicalLibrary, 1971) 210-217.” Referred to in William J. Hill, The Three-Personed God: The Trinity asa Mystery of Saivation (Washington: The Catholic University ofAmerica Press, 1982) 55-56. This judgement is also quoted by Mary T.Clark, (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1994) 71.This quotation is a summary of Edmund Hill’s conclusions in “KarlRahner’s ‘Remarks on the Dogmatic Treatise De Trinitate and St.Augustine,” Augustinian Studies, vol. 2 (Villanova University, 1971) 67-80.Edmund Hill, ‘St. Augustine’s De Trinitate 284. In support of Hill’sthesis it should be noted that books V-Vll of De Trinitatevrexe excerptedand made available to medieval readers in the fioriiegia. See CatherineMowry LaCugna, God for Us, 81.Ibid. 284.Ibid. 285.In this paper, the following translation was used: Saint Augustine, TheTrinity, tr. Stephen McKenna (Washington: The Catholic University ofAmerica Press, 1963) 129. From this point on it will be abbreviated asfollows: DT 4.0.1 (CUAP: p.l29).Augustine spends a lot of literary energy further developing this88 Consensusdistinction in books IX - XII in his De Thnitate. These arguments includea penchant for arguing that the outer world of sense is inferior to inner,rational nature. Especially in Book XI, the inferiority of the outer to theinner serves as an analogy of the Trinity. See Colin Gunton, “Augustine,The Trinity and the Theological Crisis of the West,” Scottish Journal ofTheologyA3 (1990) 33-58; esp. p. 40.DT 4.0.1 (CUAP: pp. 129-130).DT 4.0.1 (CGAP: p. 130).DT 4.1.2 (COAP: p. 131).20 DT 4.1.2 (CGAP: p. 131).21 DT 4.2.4 (CGAP: p. 133).22 DT 4.3.5-6 (C(JAP: pp. 134-139).2" DT 4.3.5 (CUAP: p. 135).24 DT 4.3.5 (CUAP: p. 135).25 DT 4.3.5 (CUAP: p. 135).20 While writing about the problem of how to approach history, John D.Zizioulas contrasts Augustine’s use of eternity as the ruling principle withthe Greek fathers: “In contrast with the approach to this problem foundin the West since St. Augustine, the problem of the relationship betweentruth and history is tackled not from the viewpoint of time in relation toeternity, but from that of being and life in relation to death and decay.”John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood andthe Church (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985) 95.22 DT 4.18.24 (COAP: p.l60).28 DT 4. 1 8.24 (COAP: p. 1 60 and p. 1 6 1 ).2^ It should be noted here that the soul is mutable. See DT 4. 1 8.24 (CGAP:p.160).88 DT 4.18.24 (CGAP: pp. 160-161).81 DT 4.18.24 (CGAP: p.l61).82“...in order that the faith of our mortal life may not strike a discordantnote with the truth of eternal life” DT 4.18.24 (CGAP: p.l61).88 DT 4.18.24 (CGAP: p.l61).84 See William Vander Marck, “Faith: What It Is Depends on What it RelatesTo,” Recherches de Theoiogie ancienne et medievaie 43 (January-December, 1976).St. Augustine 89DT 4.18.24 (COAP: p.l61).DT 4.18.24 (COAP: p.l61).H. A.Wolfson asserts that Augustine places “faith” in an hierarchicalrelationship in between opinion and knowledge. “Faith” is not to beconfused with either opinion or knowledge but is in a dialecticalrelationship with both. H. A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the ChurchFathers, vol. 1; Faith, Trinity, Incarnation (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1956) 130-138.See: F. Bourassa, S.l. “Theologie trinitaire de Saint Augustine:(Deuxieme Partie) L’lntelligence de la Foi,” Gregohanum 59 (1978)375-412. He writes: “Par ce fait, Augustin a, deja ici, realise la synthesevivante de la foi, et ceci a un double niveau: (a) epistemologique:synthese de !a foi et de Unteilectus, et (b) ethique: theologie eteconomie, c’est-a-dire la connaissance et I’amour de la Trinite commeontoiogie du salut, principe, structure et terme de leconomie.” (380)See Robert W. Jenson, The Triune identity (Philadelphia: FortressPress, 1982) 116-118.H. A.Wolfson, Philosophy of the Church Fathers, 586.Ibid. 586-587.Ibid. 586.4^ As quoted by H. A.Wolfson, ibid. 585.44 DT 2.1.3 (COAP: p.53). He gives the following examples: “1 and theFather are one” and “when he was in the form of God, he thought it notrobbery to be equal to God.”4^ DT 2.1.3 (COAP: p.53). Augustine gives a large number of examples.Two of these are: “For the Father is greater than 1” and “for neither canthe Son do anything of himself, but only what he sees the Father doing.”46 DT 2.1.2 (CGAP: p.52).4" DT 2.1.3 (CUAP: p.55).46 DT 2. 1 .2 (CCJAP: pp.52-53).4® DT 2.5.9 (CGAP: p.61). The use of the terms “word” and “wisdom”usually presumes that these do not have an independent existence apartfrom the person they belong to or originate from. However, long beforeAugustine wrote his De Trinitate an understanding of the biblical use ofthese terms had developed whereby, when applied to God, they werehypostasized. Over 150 years before Augustine wrote his De Trinitate,Origen had commented that “when one reads the term ‘door’ or ‘vine’ or90 Consensus‘way no one thinks that Christ is an actual door or a vine or a tree...TheWord of God, then, must be understood as something that is like ahuman word, but is not a human word.” Origen continues that the“Word of God” has its own “individuality, i.e., has life in itself’. Aspresented in Robert L. Wilken, “Not a Solitary God: The Triune God ofthe Bible.” Pro Ecclesia3 (1994) 41-42."0 DT 2.5.9 (CCJAP: p.62).Edmund Hill presents this idea as the key to the structure of De Trinitate.He characterizes it as a “dramatic confrontation between God revealingand man seeking.” Edmund Hill, “St. Augustine’s De Trinitate. TheDoctrinal Significance of its Structure,” Revue des EtudesAugustiniennes 19 (1973) 278."2 DT 2.5.10 (CClAP:p.63).Eternity is identified with immutability for Augustine. He illustrates thisidentification with the example of the soul which, because it grows andchanges, in a sense dies. That which used to be is no longer. See DT2.9.15 (CGAP: p.69).See DT 2.10.18; 2.18.35; 3.0.3 (CCJAP: pp.73-74; p.92; p.98).Colin Gunton, “Augustine, The Trinity and the Theological Crisis of theWest,” Scottish Journal of Theology 43 (1990) 33-58. Guntonconcludes that this was due to Augustine’s abhorrence of the materialworld. He calls this Augustine’s anti-lncarnational slant. 1 read this,rather, as Augustine’s attempt to spell out the difference between theseappearances of the invisible, unchanging God in “signs” and theappearance of God in the Incarnation.DT 2.15.26 (CCJAP: pp.82-83).DT 3. 11.27 (CCJAP: p.l26).DT 3.11.26 (CCJAP: p. 126).DT 3.11.27 (CCJAP: p.l27).DT 4.1.2 (CCJAP: p.l31).“The doctrine of appropriations is a compensating strategy within Latintheology that tries to reconnect the specific details of salvation history tospecific persons. Appropriation means assigning an attribute (wisdom)or an activity (creation) to one of the persons without denying that theattribute or activity applies to all three.” (Catherine Mowry LaCugna,God for Os: The Trinity and Christian Life, San Francisco:HarperCollins Publisher, 1973, p.lOO.62Ibid.St. Augustine 91Edmund Hill, “St. Augstine’s De Trinitate," 211-21Q.^Ibid. 278ff.Henry Chadwick, “Augustine” in Fo4y/7t/e/-so/777oty^/7^ (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1991) 273. This concern anticipates Karl Barth’scriticism of the analogia entis.See Erich Przywara, “Stellungnahmen zur Zeit,” in In und Gegen;Stellungnahmen zur Zeit (Niimberg: Clock B Lutz, 1955) 279f.Przywara insists that Christian theology has to be more than an assertionthat God is totally Other.DT 1.1.1 (CUAP: p.3).DT 4.1.2 (CUAP: p.l31)..^,....„ ,-,iv Jiipii mu«||f,.onri^ /}«! <5* ;j/>- i|^:*^*^5t ;vii^’^''‘S.(ji'-’ f.?ff|8.'«i. KiW^f^'V " i.i JhtIi'!i\' lo’S^i.-'it I • 1';>,.i'• '"'H'-' /'- ' ’^> ® "'U iU-''»f, T— -'—^ ;«M C;^S r'*^a.^v>.'1 iJBHiiiiL^. -I^>4^I188L »*:- ^^-: A ‘W r' ry'M'lf;.4i.vv l..-.i.Ui?fihi,.«(p «t' ‘jii-a:SERMONSEdited by Eduard R. RiegertIntroduction: The Shoah andChristian PreachingWe remember it as the Holocaust; Jews remember it asha shoah. The Hebraic understanding of “remember”is important, here. To “remember” is so to re-memberor re-present something that it becomes present to the contempo-rary hearers. For Jews to re-member the Holocaust is to lament withunimaginable pain:LORD, the pagans have invaded your heritage,they have desecrated your holy Temple;they have left the corpses of your servantsto the birds of the air for food,and the flesh of your devout to the beasts of the earth.They have shed blood like waterthroughout Jerusalem, not a gravedigger left!We are now insulted by our neighbours,butt and laughing-stock of all those around us.How much longer will you be angry, LORD? For ever?Is your jealousy to go on smouldering like a fire?For Christians to re-member the Holocaust is, above all, tohear\hdX lament:Pour out your anger upon the pagans,who do not acknowledge you,and on those kingdomsthat do not call on your name,for they have devoured Jacoband reduced his home to desolation.Why should the pagans ask, “Where is their LORD?”May we soon see the pagans learning what vengeanceyou exact for your servants’ blood shed here!May the groans of the captive reach you;by your mighty arm rescue those doomed to die! (Psalm 79)In the winter term of 1997 at Lutheran Theological Seminary,Saskatoon, Professor John W. Kleiner’s Jewish-Christian Relations96 Consensusclass planned and conducted a service in the LTS Chapel, “A Holo-caust Commemoration”, using an order of service from Liturgies onthe Hoiocaust, ed. Marcia Sachs Littell (Lewiston and Queenston:The Edwin Mellen Press, 1986). Two homilies were preached, oneby Rabbi Roger Pavey and one by the Rev. Gordon Palmer. We aregrateful to Dr. Kleiner for making these homilies available to Consen-sus.To them we add two sermons, one a Good Friday meditation bythe Editor, and the other an Easter narrative by Dr. Use Friesen. TheGood Friday-Easter season has been for centuries the most terrifyingtime of the year for Jews. The remembrance of the Holocaust needsto become a necessary discipline for the Christian preacher duringthis central season of the Christian year.Eduard R. RiegertHomiletical EditorHa shoahRoger PaveyRabbi Congregation /]qudus IsraelSaskatoon, SKLutheran Seminary, April 9, 1997The Nazi genocide has two aspects. Jews remember it asha shoah, others remember it as the Holocaust.For Jews the Shoah is a time to remember and to mourn. Mil-lions of human beings who were Jews, men, women and children,were murdered because they were Jews. We mourn their deathsand everything that died with them, the unfulfilled dreams and hopes,the joys and the sorrows, that are the right of everyone. We will not—cannot—forget their pain and suffering, and the cruelty and the evilinflicted on them. We will not—cannot—forgive that evil, for forgive-ness would make us accomplices, and it is not ours to give anyway.We who have survived, through no merit of our own, carry a burdenof sorrow that is almost too hard to bear. We are their kaddish. Theymust live on through us. We must survive as Jews and so deny thefinal victory to darkness.For all humankind, too, this is a time to remember. Because forthose who are not Jews, this Holocaust is a symbol of the ultimateabyss of evil. While for Jews it is unique because Jews, and onlyJews, were programmed for total extermination, it has meaning fornon-Jews as well because they too were touched and soiled by thisevil. As victims—Gypsies, gays and lesbians, Poles and Russians,communists and liberal democrats; as accomplices—all those whodid not cry out, who were complaisant, who were silent; as resist-ers—all those who fought for humanity and decency and justice andpeace, even unto death.For humankind the Holocaust is not an historical event, some-98 Consensusthing that happened in the remote past. It is being repeated overand over again, in the killing fields of Rwanda, in the ethnic cleansingof Bosnia. Because the road to genocide is an easy path to travel.Whenever we see in our fellow human beings, not the image of Godour creator, but the image of the Other, the different, who threatensus; whenever we see in our fellow human beings, not the image ofGod our creator, but the image of the non-human, the demon; thenwe have begun the journey that starts in fear, goes on to hatred, andends in murder.We have to learn that so difficult lesson that if we do not choosethe hard way of love, we inevitably must choose the easy way of ha-tred. And when we hate we destroy those we hate and ourselves withthem, victim and oppressor bound up together in the agony of hope-lessness and death.We must not forget those who died. We must not let their deathsbe meaningless. We must work and pray and dream and hope forthe day of human fellowship before God when everyone shall sit un-der their fig and their vine and no one shall make them afraid and noone shall learn war anymore.As the Talmud reminds us, it is not for us to finish the work, butneither may any one of us ever stop trying.

Ha shoah

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Ha shoah

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