Sermons

Sermon preached by The Reverend Paul Burrows

Preached by The Reverend Paul Burrows on (Sunday, November 10, 2002)

"Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus,
God will bring with him those who have died."

1 Thessalonians 4:14

Today, although a Sunday, is the memorial of St. Leo the Great, bishop of Rome from 440 to 461. Some of you, like me, will remember that he had a small part in one of those historical epics of the 50's arriving by boat at night to meet with Attila the Hun. He is perhaps most famous for his interventions with the invaders of Northern Italy to save the City of Rome from destruction. Although he is not known for them the greatest contribution that he made to literature of the Church are his brilliant sermons on the Incarnation written for the celebrations of Christmas and Epiphany. But perhaps his most important role in Christian history is his intervention in the great dispute that divided the Byzantine Empire over whether Christ had two or only one nature. The Tome of Leo, sometimes called the "Epistola Dogmatica" was read out by legates to the assembled bishops at Chalcedon in 451 and formed the basis of the decree that was adopted and that appears in our Prayer Book on page 864.

It is hard for us in our modern age to understand what all the fuss is about the nature of Jesus. Even the terms used do not mean much to us. What does it matter whether Jesus has two natures or one, and if two how those natures interact? These things have more importance to us than we might acknowledge but at the time of Leo they caused riots and were the excuse for many political upheavals in what was left of the Roman Empire. Constantinople found theological debate as engaging as the World Series was in San Francisco and with similar violent side effects. On the one hand the followers of Eutycius held that there was only one nature in Jesus, the divine, and that the human was merely an 'economy' for the purpose of making the Word of God incarnate while on the other hand the followers of Nestorius held that there were two distinct natures and that each played its part in the person of Jesus but that neither were connected. So according to Nestorius the human Jesus felt the pain of the nails in his hands but the Divine Word was unaffected. The fighting around these two positions was causing havoc in Byzantium and the Emperor, Theodosius II, wanted it resolved. The Council he called at Ephesus decided that Eutycius was right, refused to hear the legates sent by Leo of Rome and promptly deposed and exiled their opponents. It was at this point that there happened one of those moments that I can only call a Divine joke. Theodosius was a keen horseman and rode every day; this was the day that he fell off his horse and died from his injuries. The Empress Pulcheria, who had more sympathy with the Nestorians, married and had the new Emperor Marcian, summon a new council to Chalcedon where the Tome of Leo was adopted. Was this a reversal? Or was this a new direction?

In fact it was neither. This was a statement of the beliefs of the Latin Church, and it was the statement of a paradox. The one person, Jesus of Nazareth, possessed two natures, human and divine, that are neither separate nor conjoined. Impossible if approached logically but still a statement of what is!

Why should this be of any importance to us today? Recently some of my ministerial colleges have tried to convince me that the position of those who have historically been called 'monophosyte' is not as wrong about the nature of Jesus as the church has held. In fact the word 'monophosyte', used to refer to the teachings of Eutycius, does not occur until well after the decree of Chalcedon. And many of those churches that have historically been called monophosyte are as far from Eutycius as we are. Today we are more tolerant of divergent theological positions than we have ever been. The trouble with that is that we end up not holding up for the things that we hold dear. It is important that we accept divergent views but we need to be sure about what our own views are. And here I have to conclude that as catholic Christians what we believe, and indeed what the Greek and Russian Orthodox believe is different from what has historically been call monophosyte. Because we believe in the true humanity of Jesus. Not that Jesus assumed a human form but that he was truly human in every way that we are. It is because Jesus possesses a human nature like ours that we can say that humanity has been taken into the Godhead. And because we can say that humanity has been taken into the godhead that we can have confidence that we too will come to resurrection with him at the last day.

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