July 18, 2003
Myths
“A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world.” Rollo May wrote this first sentence in his intriguing book The Cry for Myth
We enjoy in our Communion an appreciation and deep respect for an authority derived from Scripture, tradition, and reason. Further, we have understood that Scripture as a “normative tradition” which sets, might we say, the spiritual parameters for all the rest. We may slip into other idolatries from time to time. But we are not bound by the one that ascribes to that norm a verbal inerrancy fundamentally insulting to God’s and God’s imagining us to be free to choose “to reason” (BCP p 845). All of which is to say — perhaps more round-aboutly than some would prefer — that our normative tradition includes a plethora of stories about “eternity breaking into time,” about creation from nothing, about seas parting for our passage, about prophets assumed bodily into heaven, indeed, about heaven itself. We treasure that tradition, that Scripture, so much that not a one of our many liturgies for worship can be said not to be filled with its references. To worship in this church is to tell repeatedly our story at one family reunion after another, Sunday in and Sunday out, crisis in and crisis out, and never seem to tire of it or of ringing changes on it in our homilies. Its myths are our ways of making sense out of nonsense. Perhaps our world has never been more morally confusing than now, at least for us it has not. Thus, there is a mooring awaiting our attention. Jesus fed five thousand plus with only a few loaves and fishes. His grace remains quite sufficient for us. And besides all that, there is much green grass in the place on which to sit (Mk 6.30-44). Who could ask for anything more?No Comments