VOLUME 11 # 2
May -August 2005

EPHRAIM'S FORUM

 

The Christian Myth

In Matthew 6:24 it says, "No man can serve two masters: for either he will
hate the one, and love the other; or he will hold to the one, and despise
the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Thus we have two masters
standing in direct opposition one to the other. As long as we fail to live
the law of consecration we cannot help but fall into the mammon category.
It can all be comprehended in one word, one of the first words a child
learns to speak, "Mine."

We can not give up things we consider our own, even though we know, if we
really believe, that nothing belongs to us; we are only stewards. As
stewards it is our job to give all that God puts into our possession towards
the building up of His kingdom. But we cannot do it because we do not
really believe. We can go to numerous meetings, sit for endless hours,
speak endless platitudes, but we cannot accept that what we have in our
possession is not our own. Milton had Lucifer's number when he wrote,
"Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven." I'm afraid he has our
number as well. It seems better to us to rule over and control our money,
lands, and properties than to give them over in service to a Being we claim
to believe in, but fail to acquiesce to.

Zion will come. It is as certain as the rising sun. I do not know
who they are, or where they are, but I want to be a part of them. Those few
who will come together in their majesty that only God can see, because to
all others it will be poverty. To rub shoulders with men and women, who
care enough about their fellowmen to give unselfishly, in a way that will
ensure their place at the right hand of God, is the greatest honor I think I
could ever have. When Jesus told us that inasmuch as we do it unto the
least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me, he meant it. What
greater honor could any of us hope to attain than to feed or clothe He who
gave all for us, not even His life withholding? It is as simple as it is
hard. That is my hope and dream, my prayer and desire, to someday be able
to give all for Him and His kingdom.

There is an analogy within the scriptures of a wedding, a Bridegroom,
and virgins to be taken as brides. As converts to Christianity and
disciples of Christ we are supposed to stand as virgin brides awaiting the
return of the Bridegroom. It is an analogy that is quite well known in the
scriptures, but the real depth of it I think we fail to comprehend, just as
we fail to comprehend the law of consecration. Somehow God must not find
sex or sexuality inappropriate because the concept of a bride awaiting the
groom is one of sexual anticipation and desire. Do you find it interesting
that God uses a metaphor of sexual desire and anticipation to describe
Christians? The day I got married I was worthless the whole day as I
struggled to believe that it was going to actually happen! The girl I loved
and desired was finally going to be mine! It was the happiest day of my
life! That is how we are supposed to be.

We have a problem though. And that problem is that no man can serve
two masters. We cannot be anxiously waiting as virgin brides when we are
already lying in bed with mammon. Our desire, willingness, and utter
longing, to be in a state of total and complete submission to the bridegroom
cannot exist while we are lying in bed and fornicating with Satan.

Having once made a pact to sleep with Satan for money, most Christian
converts seem to endeavor to achieve virgin bride-hood while, at the same
time, continuing to have sexual relations with the arch-enemy of the Groom.
Continuing with this God given metaphor; the, so called, virgin-brides
desire to remain in bed with mammon because the sex is so damn good.

But is it really? Can they really know true sexual fulfillment if it
comes without honor, or is purchased with money? Are we so corrupted that
the sexual intimacy we share with mammon makes us feel loved? How can we
come to know the sanctity of sexual fulfillment that comes from a true
symbiotic and synergistic relationship of true love that money can't buy? I
am afraid we are so messed up that when we see the metaphor creating a
parable of a married couple that pay each other for sex, we will be as the
scribes and Pharisees; not be able to comprehend that it is speaking of us.

The problem is that the so-called Christian convert has failed to be
converted. For all of the outward profession of love for the Groom; for all
the outward profession of union with the Bridegroom, the virgin-bride, so
called, is actually lying in a bed of her "own," perhaps unaware, that she
is sleeping with Mammon. It seems to be in the words "this is mine" and "I
own that" where we lose our virginity.

In the D&C 104:17-18 the Lord tells us that the earth is full and
that there is enough and to spare, and that according to the gospel (His
law) we should share what we have and take care of one another. There is
only one reason why this doesn't happen, and that is because we do not care
to give that which is our "own." We can never find fulfillment in life as
long as what we are doing does not encompass our fellowman as much as it
does ourselves. It is like sexual intimacy in marriage, it can never be
complete as long as the desire within the sexual experience does not include
and encompass our partner as much as it does ourselves. We can never
understand life until we come to grips with the understanding that we are
not fulfilled alone, and that only in others can we truly be made alive, and
that can only happen in the oneness that comes in being one with Jesus
Christ. We can never actually become Christians until we overcome the
popular Christian myth that we have already become Christians. And that
will never happen as long as money is the god of our salvation, and we, as
virgin brides, are lying in bed with mammon.

 

 

As Rome Fell

The Church in the West was being sorely tried because of the barbarians
pushing into the Empire. To catch up with the story there we must go back to
a time before the fall of Rome, when the Romans were trying to protect the
frontiers. Rome itself was so far away from the boundary that the government
was moved up to Milan in upper Italy. The officer in charge of this region
was Ambrose. He had been brought up in a Christian family, but had never
been baptized. The bishop of Milan died and a mew one had to be chosen.
There was great excitement because the Arian quarrel had not yet died out
and both the Nicene and Arian parties wanted to put in their man. Ambrose
feared a riot and came to the church to keep the peace. As he walked in, a
child called out, "Ambrose for bishop."

And all the people cried, "Ambrose for bishop." Nothing that he could say
would stop them. He had not even been baptized, but they took care of that.
He was run through baptism and all the lower grades of the clergy and
finally made a bishop in a week's time.

He had never been a monk like St. Jerome and St. Chrysostom, but he
admired the monks and, after he became a bishop, spent much time with them.
He had all the courage of a Chrysostom, but he admired the monks in standing
against rulers who interfered with the Church or did wrong, and he was more
successful, perhaps because he had been trained as a government official
rather than as a monk.

His first great quarrel was with the empress Justina, who supported the
Arians and demanded for them one basilica in the city of Milan. Ambrose, who
stood for the Nicene faith, refused to give the any at all. His reason was
not simply that he considered the Arian faith wrong, but that Arianism had
come to be the religion of the Goths, who had been converted by missionaries
from the Roman Empire at the time when the Arians were on top. In the years
following, most of the Empire accepted the Nicene faith while the Arian view
spread among the barbarians, with the result that Arian had come to mean
barbarian and Nicene, Rome. The empress was hiring barbarian soldiers to
defend the Empire against other barbarians. For these soldiers of the Arian
faith she desired a church in Milan.

Ambrose refused and with his followers filled up the church that she
desired. The empress sent barbarian troops to surround the church. Ambrose,
while waiting to see what the soldiers would do, taught his people to sing
some of the hymns that he had written. He is called the father of hymn
singing in the Latin language. The empress had not the heart to command an
attack on a congregation of singers. Ambrose won.

A more important conflict happened with the emperor Theodosius. He was a
great general and very successful in keeping back the barbarians. There was
no trouble with him over Arianism, but there was something else. He had a
hot temper. At Thessalonica (Salonika) there was a famous chariot driver. He
was guilty of a crime for which he had been arrested by an officer of the
emperor. The games came. The people wanted the driver and killed the
officer. "Very well," said the emperor Theodosius. "They shall have their
games." Into the great amphitheater thronged seven thousand people. The
soldiers went in too. The entrances were closed and the seven thousand were
all killed.

Shortly afterward the emperor came to Milan and to the church of Saint
Ambrose for Communion. The bishop met him at the door. "You cannot enter
here with hands soiled by human blood." The emperor had to promise never to
carry out a sentence of death until forty days after the offense, lest
anything be done in anger, and he had to do penance before being admitted to
Communion. Chrysostom in the East had not been able to defy the empress.
Ambrose succeeded in the West with empress and emperor alike. This was a
sign of the way things were to work out in the East and the West. In the
East the emperor was to rule the Church; in the West popes were to command
kings.

That day, however, was a long way off. The Roman Empire itself had first
to pass away in the West. At a time when the old world was breaking up, and
the new had not yet come, lived a man whose thinking did much to shape the
world that he did not live to see. He is called Saint Augustine of Hippo, a
little town in northern Africa. We know more about him than about most men
of his time because he wrote the story of his own life, and he told what had
gone on inside him, as no one before had ever told.

As a lad, he relates, he belonged to a gang of boys who played until late
one night and then made a raid on a neighbor's pear tree which was laden
with fruit, but tempting neither in color nor in taste because the pears
were not ripe. "We took huge loads," says Augustine, "but we did not eat
them-just nibbled and threw them to the pigs. It was mean, but I loved it.
Why did we do it? A murderer does not kill just for killing. He wants to get
even or to take something from the man he kills, but we robbed the tree for
nothing at all. I am sure of this, that I should never have done it if I had
been alone. The gang spirit carried us along. When someone said: 'Let's go.
Let's do it,' each was ashamed to come out and say that he would be ashamed
to do it. We chuckled to think of the prank we were playing on the owner,
sound asleep, little suspecting that his tree was being stripped. It was
mean. I hate now to think about it."

Augustine's father was a pagan until late in life. His mother, Monica,
was a Christian and worried greatly over her son. She hoped he would become
a Christian and talked with the bishop about him, who said: "Don't worry.
The son of so many tears cannot be lost."

When Augustine grew older, he became a father without marriage and had to
have money to take care of his boy and the mother. For that reason he became
a school teacher in Carthage, a city not far from his home. But the boys
were unruly, as he had been himself. He heard that teaching was easier at
Rome and, without telling his mother, slipped off, taking his boy and the
boy's mother. Teaching in Rome was easier. The boys were well-behaved, but
skipped off just before payday. Augustine was glad when a better place
opened at Milan. His mother learned that he was there and joined him.

Milan was the city of St. Ambrose. Augustine went to hear him preach. As
a teacher he was interested to see how the preacher used his hands and his
voice and made up his sentences. Augustine soon found something more than
graceful hands and smooth words. Here was a man who knew the power of God.
Here was a brave man, a decisive man. Augustine wished he could be like
that. Whenever he had been in a tight place, he had always run away. If he
could be like Ambrose! But Augustine was not ready to change yet.

Since he was not married to the mother of his boy, his own mother wished
him to send her back to Africa and marry another woman. To please his mother
he did send her back, and then took someone else, also without marriage. At
this point in his life he heard the story of the monks in Egypt who lived
away from women altogether. He was astonished that these simple men could
make themselves live such hard lives. And there was Ambrose, who acted like
a monk even though a bishop.

Augustine went off by himself into a garden and beat his breast and tore
his hair. "Strange," he thought, "that when I tell my hand to beat my breast
and tear my hair it obeys, but when I tell my mind to do something, it
refuses." Then Augustine heard the voice of a child playing in a house
nearby. The child was repeating: "Take up and read. Take up and read." He
went over to a seat and found there a copy of the New Testament. As he took
it up, the pages opened at the words in Paul's letter to the Romans, "Not in
rioting and drunkenness . . .but put on the Lord Jesus and do not follow the
desires of the flesh." Augustine surrendered. "I bowed my neck to the yoke
that is easy and my shoulders to the burden that is light."

In all of this he felt that a power beyond himself had been leading him.
Though a man may do better or worse, the way his life comes out depends on
God and his grace. The word "grace" means a free gift. God's forgiveness,
God's love, and God's power are not ours to command, but his to give, when
and where and to whom he will. Augustine knew also that God uses human
tools, and that God's tool for him had been his mother. He went in from the
garden and told her that the Lord Jesus had become his strength and his
redeemer. A little later Augustine, with his son, was baptized by Ambrose of
Milan.

Then the party started back for Africa. Monica fell sick along the way
and died. Augustine was at first too overcome even to cry. He sang the hymns
of Ambrose and his tears were unstopped. With his son he returned to Africa
and then the boy died. Alone now, Augustine became a monk and wanted to
spend his days in peace, but he was called to be the bishop of Hippo.

A hard time it was to be a bishop! The barbarians were sweeping over the
Empire. Why did God let them? Some thought He was angry with the Arians.
That was Ambrose's explanation. But why then did the Nicene party suffer
too? Saint Augustine sought a deeper answer. The fight that is going on now,
he said, is only a part of a fight that is always going on, not only on
earth but in heaven, between the forces of good and evil. These forces break
out on earth and a Cain kills an Able. The Roman Empire, for the most art,
is like Cain and has grown by taking land from other peoples. It is the
result of the greed of men. The barbarians are only paying Rome back for
what she has done to others. The Roman Empire will pass. Something else will
come, is already beginning now. The Christian Church, although it is not
perfect, is an expression of the forces making for good. We need not be
troubled too much if Rome passes away, provided the Church remains.
Augustine did not mean that the Church should take the place of the Roman
Empire. He wanted to have a government as well as a Church, but the
government should be guided by the Church. The popes later tried to fulfill
his dream.

Yet nothing on earth lasts-nothing except love. Saint Augustine has an
interesting comparison of love and money. "Money," he said, "is made smaller
if you give it away, but love grows. We show more kindness to a man when we
give him money if we do not ask it back, but we do not give love unless we
require it to be repaid. When money is received it stays with him who
receives it and leaves him who gives it, but love does not leave the man who
gives it, and if it is not repaid, still it stays with him, and he who
receives it does not possess it unless he gives it back."

Saint Augustine is great in his preaching. He is greater in his prayers.
"Late have I loved Thee whose fairness is so old and yet so new. Late have I
loved Thee. And behold Thou wert within and I without and there I sought
Thee. Unlovely I broke upon the loveliness which Thou hadst fashioned. Thou
wert with me and I was not with Thee. Long was I held from Thee by those
things which without Thee are naught. Thou didst call and cry and burst my
deafness. Thou didst gleam and glow and dispel my blindness. Thou didst
exhale fragrance. I drew breath and I pant after Thee. I have tasted and do
hunger and thirst. Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are
restless till they find their rest in Thee."

(From The Church of Our Fathers, As
Rome Fell)

Submitted by Mark

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