The supper of God is our flesh, not his. |
"Orthodoxy continues to uphold the ancient Christian teaching that all war is evil."
If it were true that all war is evil, the Orthodox would have to stop worshiping Jesus, who believed in war with all his heart and preached it, a final war in which the Son of Man would imminently descend from heaven leading the armies of God to judge the world in righteousness, saving the few but consigning the many to the flames of Gehenna. The vision of it which animates Jesus' entire ministry commanded people to flee from its coming not just for their own good but as a sign of their repentance, abandoning their very lives with all its encumbrances, including "goods, fame, child and wife".
It matters that Jesus did not think that human beings would or should take this war into their own hands, but the failure of that war to materialize means that Jesus' statements about pacifism in the face of that war are as historically conditioned as his failed predictions of that war. Christianity is absurd without the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven.
So the vision of Him as warrior, with armies of his own to bring wrath on the human race and prepare a feast of dead flesh for the buzzards, died hard:
Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. ... And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, followed him on white horses. From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. ... Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly in midheaven, "Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great." And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who sits upon the horse and against his army.
-- Revelation 19:11, 14f., 17ff.
Food for buzzards, that's what we are. That's the supper of God, not the communion.
Food for buzzards, that's what we are. That's the supper of God, not the communion.