May 15, 2007> 9:47 AM
koinonia > communio
Here's a really good chunk from the little book I just finished reading - Behold The Pierced One - by he who was formerly known as Joseph Ratzinger. Good stuff. It was hard to pick a "small" piece, but here you go...
The Hebrew word habhura corresponds to the Greek koinonia and, like the latter, designates a partnership, a "cooperative."...
...ultimately the word is applied to those (at least 10 in number) assembled for the Passover meal. This latter usage shows quite clearly how easily it could be applied to the mystery of the Church: the Church is the habhura of Jesus in a very deep sense – the fellowship of his Passover, the family in which his eternal desire of eating the Passover with us (cf. Lk 24:15) is fulfilled. But this Passover if far more than a meal: it is a love which goes as far as death. Thus it gives us a share, a participation, in his own life, which, in death, is divided up among us all.
In the Old Testament, too, sacrifice and the sacrificial meal are designed to create a communion between God and his people. But the word habhura – communio – is never used to designate the relationship between God and men. Between God and man there can be no "communio"; the Creator's transcendence remains an impassable barrier. Consequently the concrete relation between God and man which is essential for the Old Testament is not given the word "communion" but the word "covenant" (berith). This terminology safeguards God's sublime majesty (for he alone can determine what relationship the creature may enter into with him), and hence it also establishes the distance which remains between the two. ...the Old Testament knows of no "communion" (habhura, koinonia) between God and man; the New Testament is this communion, in and through the Person of Jesus Christ.
This is what many of us do and have done, I think: we forget to make the leap - from covenant to communion. We can't make enough sense of this new mystical union we have with God in Christ, so we continue to think of it (and hence live in accord with it) in terms of a deal between God (way up there) and us (way down here). We act, talk, think as if what we have in this Christian thing is just another covenant, in a long line of covenants, with God. It's all external that way - the deal is made and we know the deal, so we then go about trying to live up to the deal.
How different is that from this new thing, this actual koinonia, we have now in and through Jesus, with God? So different that it was never spoken of that way before - they didn't dare. This oneness Jesus spoke of and embodied was blasphemous to many. You just don't talk like that. And what's more, as He later spoke to us through the Scriptures, He talked about US like that – about how we were to share this life, this oneness with God, and how we comprise the fullness of Him who fills all things in every way. Good Lord! Good Lord indeed. Make the leap. Covenant is fine and dandy but we have much more than a mere covenant with God in Christ. We have restored internal Union. Time for some thought tweaking. God's Grace be with us.
May 15, 2007
> 9:47 AM
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