Readings:
[Common of a Theologian and Teacher]
PRAYER (contemporary language)
This commemoration appears in Lesser Feasts & Fasts 2018, with revised readings. Return to Lectionary Home Page Webmaster: Charles Wohlers Last updated: 6 Oct. 2018 |
JOHN OF DAMASCUSHYMN-WRITER, DEFENDER OF ICONS (4 DEC 750)
The dispute about icons was not a dispute between East and West as such. Both the Greek
and the Latin churches accepted the final decision. Obviously, the use of images and pictures in a religious context is open to abuse, and
in the sixteenth century abuses had become so prevalent that some (not all) of the early
Protestants reacted by denouncing the use of images altogether. Many years ago, I heard a
sermon in my home parish (All Saints' Church, East Lansing, Michigan) on the Commandment,
"Thou shalt not make a graven image, nor the likeness of anything in the heavens
above, nor in the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth -- thou shalt not bow
down to them, nor worship them." (Exodus 20:4-5 and Deuteronomy 5:8-9) The preacher
(Gordon Jones) pointed out that, even if we refrain completely from the use of statues and
paintings in representing God, we will certainly use mental or verbal images, will think
of God in terms of concepts that the human mind can grasp, since the alternative is not to
think of Him at all. (Here I digress to note that, if we reject the images offered in Holy
Scripture of God as Father, Shepherd, King, Judge, on the grounds that they are not
literally accurate, we will end up substituting other images -- an endless, silent sea, a
dome of white radiance, an infinitely attenuated ether permeating all space, an
electromagnetic force field, or whatever, which is no more literally true than the image
it replaces, and which leaves out the truths that the Scriptural images convey. (One of
the best books I know on this subject is Edwyn Bevan's Symbolism and Belief, Beacon
Press, originally a Gifford Lectures series.[note - now out of print]) C S Lewis repeats
what a woman of his acquaintance told him: that as a child she was taught to think of God
as an infinite "perfect substance," with the result that for years she
envisioned Him as a kind of enormous tapioca pudding. To make matters worse, she disliked
tapioca. Back to the sermon.) The sin of idolatry consists of giving to the image the
devotion that properly belongs to God. No educated man today is in danger of confusing God
with a painting or statue, but we may give to a particular concept of God the
unconditional allegiance that properly belongs to God Himself. This does not, of course,
mean that one concept of God is as good as another, or that it may not be our duty to
reject something said about God as simply false. Images, concepts, of God matter, because
it matters how we think about God. The danger is one of intellectual pride, of forgetting
that the Good News is, not that we know God, but that He knows us (1 Corinthians 8:3), not
that we love Him, but that He loves us (1 John 4:10). In the East Orthodox tradition, three-dimensional representations are seldom used. The standard icon is a painting, highly stylized, and thought of as a window through which the worshipper is looking into Heaven. (Hence, the background of the picture is almost always gold leaf.) In an Eastern church, an iconostasis (icon screen) flanks the altar on each side, with images of angels and saints (including Old Testament persons) as a sign that the whole church in Heaven and earth is one body in Christ, and unites in one voice of praise and thanksgiving in the Holy Liturgy. At one point in the service, the minister takes a censer and goes to each icon in turn, bows and swings the censer at the icon. He then does the same thing to the congregation -- ideally, if time permits, to each worshipper separately, as a sign that every Christian is an icon, made in the image and likeness of God, an organ in the body of Christ, a window through whom the splendor of Heaven shines forth. by James Kiefer |