The Word and the Word

 Remember I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matt 28:20)

Jesus is, of course, the Word of God (The Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). The Bible is also said to be the word of God. The word is read in our services – ‘This is the word of the Lord.’ And then there is the presence of Jesus with us always. The end of the age in the Matthean passage quoted is, presumably, a reference to the second coming of Jesus. The resurrected Jesus is always with us until he comes again.

How, though is he with us always? The words of the Bible are with us, having been carefully preserved down the centuries. However, they would not have been available to the disciples in the weeks after the first Easter. Somehow the words written down about Jesus have become the word of the Lord for us. Words about Jesus become the Word of God.

‘This is my body which is given for you’ (Luke 22:19) Jesus identifies himself with the bread and wine, remembered in the Eucharistic services we conduct. This, of course, has led to a great deal of debate, argument and break down within and between churches as to how, in a service, the bread is identified with Jesus and what it actually means. But no-one really disputes that there is an identity as such.

So, Jesus is the Word of God, and the word of God is spoken in our services: This is the word of the Lord. But Jesus is also present somehow, exactly how is a matter of debate and argument, in the bread broken and the wine shared in the Eucharist. So the fulfilment of Jesus' final statement in Matthew is fulfilled, one way or the other, in the weekly Eucharist. Of course, for some that is daily, for others quarterly or whatever. The point is that through word, bread and wine Jesus is with us now and always, until the end of the age.

Lonergan characterises this as the outer and inner messages or gifts of God. The outer message is the preaching of the church, what Christians are to believe, be, and become. This is, in part, a cognitive message: some things are stated and are to be believed; these things can be analysed, considered, reflected upon, and, ultimately, rejected or accepted by the individual. It is not quite that simple, however, as each individual is part of a wider community and the norms of that community interact with the considerations of the individual. Someone embedded in a believing community is more likely to accept this outer message that someone who is in an unbelieving or indifferent community.

That is not, however, the whole story. The inner gift of God is His love, poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5 – one of Lonergan’s most quoted passages of Scripture). The outer message makes known this inner gift, and also shows what believers have to do with it. It is all very well proclaiming the good news of the salvation of humankind, but, at some level, that can just be dismissed as words. Actions speak louder than words, even if the words are needed to give the actions their meaning. Anyone can proclaim ‘This is the word of the Lord’ on a Sunday and continue to exploit and belittle their fellow humans Monday to Friday (we’ll give them Saturday off). Similarly, anyone can feed the poor, which is always of practical help. But to feed the poor because Jesus calls me to do it is a bit different from doing so just because it keeps the poor quiet.

For the believer, therefore, there are several aspects to the word proclaimed and the word received through bread and wine. Proclaiming the Word, as something a church and all believers are called to do, is both through words and through actions. Receiving Jesus is both through words heard and through bread and wine taken. There are the words spoken by a preacher, and the words spoken by the people. These words start to constitute a community of believers, but this is also created by the activity of the community, not just in words, but in actions. At the simplest, the actions include, perhaps, arriving at a certain place at a certain time on a given day of the week. But they also include doing things, such as proclaiming a belief collectively and receiving elements (bread and wine) which, in that context, have a certain and specific meaning.

The actions, however, should spill out beyond the activities which constitute the community of the church. The difficulty here is the tension between activity which is acceptable to the wider society because it resonates with the norms of that wider society and activities which are undertaken because of the beliefs of the Christian. The latter has to maintain a critical and questioning role of why things are as they are. This can lead to conflict. To quote Bishop Camara ‘When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.’

Perhaps too often the church has acquiesced in the norms of the surrounding society. Too frequently the senior figures of the church have become political figures, identified with the state and the establishment. This was particularly true, perhaps, in pre-Revolutionary Russia where the senior clergy were state appointments, or in medieval England where bishops were often appointed from the king’s clerks, and bishops (and abbeys) were often major landowners anyway. But it still happens today, or is expected to. On occasion, when clergy have criticised government policies in some area, the church is told to ‘stay out of politics’. The implication here is that Christians should just speak the words of Jesus to themselves, and, perhaps, seek to bind up the wounds of members of society, rather than question why those people are wounded. But word and action fit together, and it should be impossible for the church to stay out of political engagement.