Opus

We are attempting to answer the question: what is the Church? In attempting to answer this question we look first to the episode of creation from Genesis chapter 2. The text constructs reality as we know it by using relationships and we can appreciate that Scripture picks up on the biological perspective in finding relation to all living things through the soil. Arguably, what we refer to as the N.P.K. levels are the basis to all living things and it is in the soil beneath our feet that we are provided access to these biological neccessities. But, all life based in this reality has two basic commonalities: Scripture elaborates in Genesis 1:30; 2:7 and 2:19 that all life has been shaped from the soil and animated by the “Spirit of God.”

Adam was created from the dirt, the soil, the ground, in 2:7 and provided with the “breath of God” to become what Scripture refers to as a “living Soul.” Right before this episode, in 2:4, Scripture states God’s intention: “there was no one to till the ground.” So, Adam, whose name literally means “the earth creature” was created for a very specific purpose to “keep the ground,” and we should not forget that “the ground” is the basis to all of life. In Genesis 2:19 Scripture testifies to God forming every creature “out of the ground.” And as we have already touched on, Adam’s “vocation” in life is not only to be in relation to the ground but also “every living thing” which he keeps in relation to Heaven (tilling the ground, naming all the creatures, etc, walking along God’s side as a priest in an earth-Temple).

But finally, it is a mistake to say that this is Adam’s vocation, Adam was not created to do this alone but was created with in a community. It is Adam and Eve, the “community-creature,” that was vocationed to perform this pinnacle task in reality. Adam was not complete, Eve was not complete, they became “one flesh” at the height of creation and human glory. So the answer to our question, “what is the Church” is identifiable within this original “community-creature” that was vocationed to regulate the relationships between earth and Heaven; as all living things, even the non-living simple organics of soil, originally found their relationship to the God of the Universe through the community-creature of Adam and Eve.

Conclusion: an organic, spirited, living-soul social structure of humankind, the “community creature” is the center of reality: the family, the community, the Church, regulating all relationships through itself and back toward Heaven. Between the human-self and God, between the soil and all living things, between all living things and God. The mystical-community-creature.

Now, let us view the fall of humankind. Beginning with the soil we can observe that what was once given by the soil freely, can now only be wrestled from it by the sweat of our brow, Genesis 3:17. Our vocation brings us fullfilment, in the Garden we took pleasure in our work which brought us joy. But now, not only do we fight the soil to give us life, but we fight eachother for access to it, we kill our brother for it, we go to war over it. What Scripture tells us about the fall is that by turning from God the most crucial relationships, that we as a community of creatures are vocationed to keep, will erode without a human-God communion resting at the absolute center of the universe. But, there is also more to be observerd from Scripture. The erosion of three essential relationships cause the breakdown of the entire universe into chaos and death.

1. Between human’s and their own bodies, Genesis 3:7,10, we are ashamed or our own flesh, and Genesis 3:16 Eve will suffer immensely in producing the offspring of man.
2. Between humans and the animals, 3:15, there will be emnity between us and them; as well as Genesis 9:2, “The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered.”
3. And finally “cursed is the ground because of Adam,” Genesis 3:17-19, the relationship between humankind and the soil is forever corrupted and becomes the source of violence among men, which the Flood event directly responds to.

The fall of humankind compromises the relationship between humankind and God, which also comprimises the crucial relationships which hold reality together, further separating us from ourselves, eachother, other creatures in a downward spiral.

Conclusion: humankind cannot fix this. This action compromised reality at its most fundamental level, the level of personal relationships. The observation should not be taken lightly, we know the results, the fruits, of broken human relationships: confrontation, violence, war, exploitation, followed by mysery, loneliness, hopelessness and eventually death. Scripture is stressing the point that the entire universe is in danger of descending into chaos without functional human relationships. Communion with Heaven is not only essential to the survival of our Universe, but can only be restored by God’s own self penetrating human history and stopping the downward spiral by giving to us the perfection of God’s own self.

First we have the flood, which responded to the chaos that unfolded in the form of human violence against one another, and baptized the soil. As Noah’s name implies: he will bring us “rest” from the soil. Following the Flood event, we are given our first Divine Law in Genesis 9:6: “thou shalt not Kill.” Observe this covenant (Genesis 9) which is the first step in repairing the universe:

“God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life.

7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it.”

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. 11 I establish my covenant with you …”

Law’s do two things, they regulate the relationship between man and all other living things, as well as the relationship between all living things and God. This, the Flood, begins the restoration of those crucial relationships. The Ancient Covenant people are eventually given a series of 613 Laws which serve to reconstruct reality and restore it from chaos. But this Law must be brought to its true, Divine, and complete fruition. It is in the person of Jesus that our reality is given this opportunity to atone and he gives us two Laws: Love God with all your heart, and Love your neighbor as yourself. These are the crucial relationships that build the only sustainable reality.

Conclusion: Christ left us the Church as something greater than an ark but as a new community-creature with a restored vocation for a restored universe. The Church, as povided by Christ’s own self, is now the community-creature fully vocationed to regulate all relationships that not only sustain our reality, but also that most crucial relationship that provides us Communion with God’s own self: the Eucharist. It is in the Eucharist that we find one reality, one body. It in this ultimate Christian Sacrament that we encounter a sacrificial Love that moves us closer to one another making us one community, one-universal-creature, standing at the center of reality directing everything towards Heaven. It is in this ultimate Christian Sacrament the we encounter the opportunity to make the perfection of God’s own self a part of ourselves and a part of our community.

What is the Church? The Church is the Community-Creature, the Mystical-Universal-Creature, she is alive, she is one.

As we move forward it is imperative to observe and consider mystically the following:

“Many schooling species maneuver as intricately as the most cohesive bird flocks—and they’re much easier to study, because they can be watched and photographed from above in open tanks. In the 1960s a Russian biologist, Dmitrii Radakov, tested schools and found that they can successfully avoid predators, as a whole, if each fish simply coordinates its movements with those of its neighbors. Even if only a handful of individuals know where a predator is coming from, he wrote, they can guide a huge school by initiating a turn that their neighbors emulate—and their neighbors’ neighbors, and so on. Unlike linear flocks of geese, which do have a clear leader, clusters are democratic. They function from the grassroots; any member can initiate a movement that others will follow.

Refining Radakov’s theory had to wait until the 1980s, when computer programmers began to create models that show how simulated animal groups can respond to the movements of individuals within them. It turns out that only three simple rules suffice to form tightly cohesive groups. Each animal needs to avoid colliding with its immediate neighbors, to be generally attracted to others of its kind, and to move in the same direction as the rest of the group.”

-Peter Friederici https://www.audubon.org/magazine/march-april-2009/explaining-bird-flocks