A Lutheran Perspective on Lectio Divina
by Rev. Jeffrey W. Ware
Presented to the Circuit 33 Meeting / Texas District
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, 11-7-07
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Introduction
An age old devotional technique called
Lectio Divina is gaining popularity
again here in the 21st Century.
Its growing popularity has made it the subject of lay and clergy studies,
retreats, and literature, not only within Roman Catholicism but also in wider
Protestantism including the Lutheran church.
But what, exactly, is Lectio
Divina and does it have a place within confessional Lutheranism?
Lectio Divina is
“divine reading” or “holy reading.”
In its most basic form Lectio Divina
is simply a technique for learning, meditating upon, and praying the Holy
Scriptures. Various other
definitions shed light upon the contemplative aspect that is most usually
thought of as the goal of Lectio Divina.
Lectio Divina… represents an early monastic technique of
prayer which continues in practice though less widely, intended to achieve
communion with God as well as providing special spiritual insights and peace
from that experience. It is a way
of praying with Scripture that calls one to study, ponder, listen and, finally,
pray from God’s Word (Wikipedia).[Lectio Divina
is] a slow, contemplative praying of the Scriptures which enables the Bible, the
Word of God, to become a means of union with God (Dysinger).
History of
Lectio Divina
It was most likely Origin (185-232) who laid the groundwork
for Lectio Divina as he put forth the
idea of reading to discover a deeper meaning that lay beyond the literal sense
of the biblical text. “He used the
Greek phrase thea anagnosis to
describe scriptural reading for the purpose of finding a hidden message from
God” (Hagan). This tradition
continued into monasticism where it became an important part of the daily
horarium. “It was, by the 5th century pretty well an institution of
all monasteries.” (Hagan)
Benedict (480-543) extolled the value of “divine reading”
in his Rule, making it a part of the
daily ritual of monks in the Benedictine Order.
Benedict envisaged his monks making about three hours a day
available for personal lectio. He
sees reading as one of the sources of spiritual energy, something that puts us
into contact with grace and thus makes possible an enhanced level of fervor and
unselfishness in daily living. It
is clear that what Benedict has in mind is a very existential, life-related
reading and not just mindless paging through any volume that comes to hand
(Casey, 5).
He makes extensive mention of the specific times, during
each season of the church year, which are to be devoted to reading. Throughout the year he has at least two hours a day set aside for such
reading (Benedict).
Guigo II (1140-1193) was
the first to systematize Lectio Divina
into four steps or moments: reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation.
Sometime around 1150 he wrote his famous
Scala Claustralium, “The Monk’s
Ladder.” In this writing uses the
image of a ladder, reminiscent of Jacob’s ladder (Gen. 28) stretching from earth
into heaven.
This spiritual ladder is the means by which
people “can climb from earth to heaven. It is a
marvelously tall ladder, but with just four rungs, the one end standing on the
ground, the other thrilling into the clouds and showing the climber heavenly
secrets. Understand now what the
four staves of this ladder are, each in turn.
Reading.
Lesson, is busily looking on Holy Scripture with all one’s will and wit.
Meditation is a studious insearching with the mind to know what was before
concealed through desiring proper skill.
Prayer is a devout desiring of the heart to get what is good and avoid
what is evil. Contemplation is the
lifting up of the heart to God tasting somewhat of the heavenly sweetness and
savour. Reading seeks, meditation finds, prayer asks,
contemplation feels. The first
degree is for beginners, the second for those profiting from it, the third for
those who are devout, the fourth for those who are holy and blessed of God
(Guigo).
Guigo understands the four moments as a progression whereby
one ultimately achieves contemplative union with God.
He “affirms that simple dedication to God’s word, if carried to its
logical conclusion, will conduct us to the lofty zones of contemplative intimacy
with God. Thus it can be said that
the ultimate goal of lectio divina is
contemplation” (Casey, 59).
The Goal of
Lectio Divina
Most understand the goal of
Lectio Divina to be contemplation.
That is to say, Lectio Divina
is radically different from the kind of reading that we commonly engage in
today. “One does not engage in
Lectio Divina to acquire disinterested, intellectual knowledge. The intent of
Lectio Divina is to make the reading of Scripture a prayer, to create a two way
street for God and us” (Hagan).
This is a spiritual reading that has as its chief characteristic an attitude of
surrender to the word of God rather than the restless attempt to “get something”
out of the text.
The gratuity of
Lectio Divina is different from the utility of study.
Study endeavors to master the word,
Lectio Divina surrenders and yields
before it.
Lectio Divina also differs from
spiritual reading. The last can
have as its end the acquisition of knowledge, the formulation of convictions or
the stimulus for generous self-giving.
The aim of the former is union with God in faith and love (Olivera).
The four moments in
Lectio Divina are to be seen as a progression.
“What begins as reading becomes reflection or meditation; this leads to
prayer and ultimately to contemplative union with God.
The Latin terms used traditionally are
lectio >
meditatio >
oratio >
contemplatio” (Casey, 57).
However, this progression is by no means a rigid “method” of prayer
intended to be mechanically performed in one session.
Neither is it a progression in the chronological sense.
Sometimes the steps of the ladder are not chronologically
connected. The prayer latent in
meditation on Scripture is released unpredictably later when engaged in an
entirely different activity. Some
people combine reading, reflection, and prayer in a single ‘exercise’; others
separate them in time and space.
Many experience a delayed reaction.
The impact of their lectio may strike
months later. There is a lot of
flexibility here that takes seriously different characters, different vocations,
different opportunities, and the changing seasons of life (Casey, 59).
A Deeper Look at
Lectio Divina
The selection of reading material is very important in
Lectio Divina.
“The earliest interpretations, and some current ones, see Lectio Divina
limited exclusively to Holy Scripture” (Hagan).
This is the most conservative position.
Most modern practitioners would include other Christian writings.
For the purposes of this paper, however, we will limit our discussion to
the application of Lection Divina in
the reading of Holy Scripture.
It is also important to set a definite time for reading
each and every day.
Lectio Divina requires a time
commitment each day from as little as a half hour to three or four hours a day.
“Saint Benedict insists that the monk’s day includes definite times for
reading. This is to say that such
periods are known in advance they are not subject to whim…” (Casey, 23).
Location is also important.
Lectio Divina should take place in an
area that is free from distractions.
It also helps if the location has some kind of spiritual significance.
Engaging in Lectio
Divina should not be taken lightly.
Commitment is key. “Spasmodic periods of a few minutes of spiritual
reading may be of very positive value, but it is not
Lectio Divina.
Lectio Divina as a formal discipline contemplates reading an entire
book from beginning to end. Not at
one sitting, but from beginning to end” (Hagan).
The importance of this fact will be discussed later.
It is also important to prepare the heart and mind.
Modern practitioners of Lectio
Divina stress the importance of engaging in “transitional activity” prior to
reading in order to achieve the proper state of mind.
Deep breathing, proper posture, and prayer prior to
Lectio Divina helps to give the
reader focus helps the reader prepare for the encounter with God.
Now that we have a general idea of what is involved in
Lectio Divina let’s take a closer look at what takes place in each moment. Casey
shows that behind the four moments of
Lectio Divina lies the ancient teaching that there are multiple “senses” of
Holy Scripture. Each sense is
apprehended with a different faculty of human consciousness.
The Four Moments of Lectio Divina (Casey, 57).
|
SENSE
|
FACULTY
|
FUNCTION
|
PRAYER
|
|
Literal/ Historical
|
Intellect
|
Understanding the text
|
Lectio
|
|
Allegorical/ Christological |
Memory
|
Contextualizing the Meaning
|
Meditatio
|
|
Tropological/ Behavioral
|
Conscience
|
Living the Meaning
|
Oratio
|
|
Anagogical/ Mystical
|
Spirit
|
Meeting God in the Text
|
Contemplation
|
Lectio engages
the literal sense of Holy Scripture by use of the human intellect in order to
understand the “historical” meaning of the text.
This moment of Lectio Divina
is characterized by study of the text.
This may range from a mere reading of the selection multiple times to
full blown exegetical study. Of key
importance is the reading of complete texts rather than mere selections of
texts. This helps to avoid
misinterpretation. As one applies
Lectio Divina to Holy Scripture this
means reading whole books of the Bible.
However, there is an aspect of this kind of complete reading that may be
unfamiliar to our western mindset.
Lectio Divina is not reading in the sense that our society
has educated us to understand reading.
Our western culture has taught us to consider reading as a purely lineal
progression. We start on page 1 and
proceed consecutively to ‘the end.’ Lectio Divina does in fact begin at the
beginning and end at the end, but it presumes much wandering in between.
Repetition is critical to Lectio Divina.
Back and forth, up and down, savoring and balancing what is presently
being read with what was recently read (Casey, 7).
Another aspect of proper
lectio is an attitude of passive,
silent receptivity. One is to
become quiet during the reading in order to hear the voice of God.
Lectio is reverential listening; listening both in a spirit
of silence and of awe. We are
listening for the still, small voice of God that will speak to us personally –
not loudly, but intimately. In
Lectio we read slowly, attentively, gently listening to hear a word or phrase
that is God’s word for us this day” (Dysinger).
A sense of expectation accompanies this receptive attitude.
The Bible was written for salvation, therefore, we approach the text
expecting to hear from God.
However, we also recognize that God works in ways that we
often do not expect. “What we
sometimes forget is that this gift of salvation often runs counter to our own
perceptions and expectations. The
disposition that makes us capable of receiving salvation includes a willingness
to be guided and to be changed” (Casey, 6). Submission is an important aspect of
Lectio Divina. We are to approach the
reading defenseless and ready to be changed and influenced.
“We open ourselves to the text, we approach it in a spirit of faith and
obedience, ready to perceive in what we read the word of God, the will of God,
the action of God coming to save us.… We approach our reading as a disciple comes
to a master: receptive, docile, willing to be changed” (Casey, 6).
The lectio in
Lectio Divina lays the groundwork for
the three moments which follow and yet it is only the beginning.
“The literal meaning of the text is always the point of departure: the
letter reveals the deeds and presents the persons, history is the foundation.
The Spirit takes us beyond the letter, our theological life opens the
door of meaning to us” (Olivera). Meditatio
naturally flows from this first moment.
Meditatio
engages the Allegorical sense of Holy Scripture by use of the human memory in
order to contextualize the meaning of the biblical text.
In this moment human memory is used to discover Christ and the Church
within and behind the biblical text in order to build faith.
In its most basic sense
meditatio could be described as
reflection and application. “We must take in the word – that is, memorize it –
and while gently repeating it to ourselves, allow it to interact with our
thoughts, our hopes, our memories, our desires” (Dysinger).
The individual engages the biblical text in a new way by beginning to
focus on a word or words that are of particular import.
These words are repeated multiple times in order to commit them to
memory. In the process the memory
is used to call forth prior knowledge and experiences.
The individual applies the text to himself as he begins to see himself
within the context of Christ’s passion and as a member of the Church.
Meditation is not to be confused with exegesis.
Rather, it is an intensely personal reading of Holy Scripture with
application to one’s own life. “To meditate is to chew and ruminate, for it is
to: repeat, reflect, remember, interpret, penetrate… One who thus meditates on
the Word is transformed according to the Word and becomes a mediator of the
Word. When the text speaks to your
heart, you have reached and received a precious fruit of meditation” (Olivera).
This personal application of scripture in
meditatio serves two purposes.
It effects both moral and experiential change.
Memory is more than the ability to recall information.
In the traditional sense it involves living in the presence of what is
‘remembered,’ just as mindfulness of a loved one may accompany all our
activities. This is what Jesus
meant when he spoke about ‘abiding’ or ‘remaining’ in his word (John 8:31;
15:7). To live in the presence of God alters our behavior and also effects a
qualitative change in our experience.
It is a dynamic element in ongoing conversion.” (Casey, 72).
Oratio engages
the Tropological or behavioral sense of scripture by use of the human conscience
as the individual begins to live out the meaning of the text.
The first expression of this is prayer.
Oratio may simply be described
as praying the text, using the words of the text itself to form the words or
theme of one’s own prayer. It has
also been described as opening one’s heart to God or even as conversation with
God. “Prayer understood both as dialogue
with God, that is, as loving conversation with the One who has invited us into
His embrace; and as consecration, prayer as the priestly offering to God of
parts of ourselves that we have not previously believed God wants” (Dysinger).
The application of the text to oneself in
meditatio reveals our lowly sinful
condition and creates in us a desire for a clean heart that we might know God.
In this situation the heart itself is enflamed and led to pray for these
things. In the midst of such prayer
God grants contemplatio.
What does God then, whose help is ever upon the righteous
and our ear at our prayer? He
doesn’t wait until the prayer is fully ended, but he pierces in the midst of the
burning desire of that thirsty soul, and with a secret balm of heavenly
sweetness softens the soul and comforts it, and makes it be so overcome with
delight and joy that it forgets all earthly things for that hour, and he makes
it to lose itself in wonder, as if it were dead from knowing ourself.
And as in fleshly works we are so overcome that we lose the guidance of
reason and so become all fleshly, right so in the ladder of contemplation our
fleshly stirrings are so cancelled out that the flesh does not win over the
spirit but is become all spiritual” (Guigo).
Contemplatio
engages the Anagogical or mystical sense of scripture by a special gift of the
Holy Spirit applied to the spirit of man such that God is met and personally
experienced as one reads text.
Contemplatio has been described in
various ways. Central for most
authors is the concept of subjective experience of the divine.
It is sometimes described as mere listening to God as one gains freedom
from one’s own thoughts as one’s mind, heart, and soul is opened to the
influence of God. The idea of
“resting” in the presence of God is also a common theme.
It is perhaps best thought of as an indescribable experience of the
divine characterized by silence and feelings of delight, thirst, knowing, etc.
The following two definitions attempt to get at the heart of
contemplatio:
What is contemplation? It is a change in the consciousness
marked by two elements. On the one
hand, there is a recession from ordinary sensate and intellectual awareness and
all the concerns and programs that depend upon it.
At the same time, more subtly, it is being possessed by the reality and
mystery of God. Having emptied
oneself in imitation of Christ (Philippians 2:7), one is filled with the
fullness of God. ‘Of his fullness we have all received, grace for grace’ (John
1:16). The endowments of Christ
become ours – in particular his relationship with the Father.
In graced living Christ becomes the doer of our actions; in contemplation
we become the subject of Christ’s prayer.
There is a mysterious interpenetration of subjectivity in the realm of
supernatural existence.” (Casey, 39)
To contemplate is to take silent delight in the
Temple
which is Risen Christ. To
contemplate is to encounter the Word, beyond words.
To contemplate is to live in the Risen One, rooted in the now of this
earth, reaching out to the beyond of the heavens.
Contemplation is vision. The
contemplative sees the resurrection in the cross, life in death, the Risen One
in the Crucified. Contemplation is the thirst caused by the seeming absence or
the satiety of mutual presence. The
contemplative is at a loss for words, simply because he knows (Olivera).
Contemplation is, therefore, the final goal. In
contemplatio the individual finally
makes actual contact with the divine by ultimately transcending the text itself.
“He who has revealed truth engraven in the innermost depths of his heart,
does not depend on the sacred text and is for others a living Bible” (Olivera).
Luther and
Lectio Divina on the Word of God
John Kleinig has shown that Luther’s life in the monastery
most certainly exposed him to the practice of
Lectio Divina.
“Luther distinguished his own practice of spirituality from
the tradition of spiritual foundation that he experienced as a monk.
This tradition followed a well-timed, ancient pattern of meditation and
prayer. It’s goal was
‘contemplation,’ the experience of ecstasy, bliss, rapture, and illumination
through union with the glorified Lord Jesus.” (Kleinig, 4-5)
This “pattern of meditation and prayer” was none other than
Lectio Divina.
Luther’s reformation discovery of the Gospel led him, finally, to reject
this brand of spirituality.
Oswald Bayer shows how Luther’s “reformation discovery” led
him to a new understanding of Language.
In his early years Luther dealt with the Word in terms of Augustinian and
Stoic theology, namely, that “language is a system of signs that refer to
objects or situations or of signs that express an emotion. In either case the
sign is – as a statement or as an expression – not the reality itself” (Bayer,
76). In the case of holy absolution,
for instance, the word of absolution was understood to be a declaration of that
which has already happened in heaven.
The absolution, in this case, is not the reality itself, rather, the
words signify or point to a reality that already exists.
Luther’s theological breakthrough was his discovery that
the word of God is the reality in itself. “That the linguistic sign is itself
the reality, that it represents not an absent but a present reality, was
Luther’s great hermeneutical discovery, his ‘Reformation Discovery’ in the
strict sense” (Bayer). Luther had
discovered that the word “does what it says” and “says what it does” (Bayer).
It is clear that Luther’s fully developed understanding of
the word would have conflicted with the basic premise of Lectio Divina.
Kleinig proposes that Luther’s
Oratio, Meditatio, Tentatio was his corrective to
Lectio Divina.
In contrast to this rather manipulative method, Luther
proposed an evangelical pattern of spirituality as reception rather than
self-promotion. This involved three
things: prayer (oratio), meditation (meditation),
and temptation (tentatio).
All three revolved around ongoing, faithful attention to God’s word” (Kleinig,
258).
It has already been demonstrated that the ultimate goal of
Lectio Divina is contemplation
whereby one comes into an experiential encounter God.
In this encounter one is enabled to transcend the text of scripture and
achieve direct communion with the divine.
The fundamental presupposition behind this is the idea that the word is
merely a sign. The word is a
mediator between God and man which, while certainly important and useful, is not
the thing in itself. True, actual,
communication with God cannot take place until one, by prayer and meditation, is
finally by God’s grace, enabled to go beyond the text to establish mystical
communion with God. It is for this
reason that, in Lectio Divina the
word can only be the point of the departure or necessary beginning which leads
ultimately to the true goal of true communion with God on a purely spiritual
level.
In Luther’s Oratio,
Meditatio, Tentatio there is no room for
Contemplatio.
The direct encounter with God happens in the word itself.
The word does not merely signify God’s speaking to us.
The word is, in fact, God speaking to us.
There is no reality to be sought beyond the word of God.
Therefore if you want to be certain what God in heaven
thinks of you, and whether He is gracious to you, you must not seclude yourself,
retire into some nook, and brood about it or seek the answer in your works or in
your contemplation—all this you must banish from your heart, and you must give
ear solely to the words of this Christ; for everything is revealed in Him
(Luther, AE 24:257).
One thing, and only one thing, is necessary for Christian
life, righteousness, and freedom. That one thing is the most holy Word of God,
the gospel of Christ, as Christ says, John 11[:25], “I am the resurrection and
the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live”; and John
8[:36] (Luther, AE 31:345).
The order in oratio,
meditatio, tentatio is important.
In contrast to Lectio Divina
which sees the word as a means to an end, Luther’s list continually leads one
back to the word.
Oratio, meditatio, tentatio “describe
the life of faith as a cycle that begins with prayer for the gift of the Holy
Spirit, concentrates on the reception of the Holy Spirit through meditation on
God’s word, and results in spiritual attack.
This in turn leads a person back to further prayer and intensified
meditation” (Kleinig, 258).
For Luther everything is focused on the word.
Prayer does not stand above the text as a more spiritual exercise
divorced from the word. Luther does
not see the believer seeking for something beyond and above the text in prayer.
Rather, true prayer (oratio)
directs believers toward the Scriptures.
In prayer the believer asks for understanding and steadfastness as he
approaches God’s word. Furthermore,
the very words of scripture form the language of prayer itself.
Luther also completely redefines
meditatio.
Whereas in Lectio Divina
meditation is focused on the human memory and its ability to make the text
personal through the recollection of past events, Luther’s understanding of
meditation focuses on God’s word.
For Luther, meditation is simply the continual study of scripture.
God’s word is not a mere sign that needs to be internalized in order to
be heard properly, it is the very voice of God that comes with power both to
kill and make alive.
Finally, Luther replaces
Lectio Divina’s
contemplatio with
tentatio.
The goal is no longer subjective, experiential contemplation with God.
Rather, in his addition of
tentatio he refocuses our attention on the word as the goal.
Tentatio (sufferings and
temptation) is a form of spiritual attack which drives the believer away from
the internalized self to the external word.
Tentatio is not a goal.
It is not the highest rung on a spiritual ladder to heaven.
It is God’s way of turning self-seeking men back to the word and
therefore back to himself.
Conclusion
We must applaud
Lectio Divina for its high respect for the word of God and for it’s many
helpful suggestions on how to approach it’s study.
However, we have seen that, in the final analysis,
Lectio Divina merely pays lip service
to the word in favor of its much loftier goal, namely, contemplation.
It was finally unable to stand up to Luther’s full blown theology of the
word and was therefore rejected by him in favor of a new approach that kept the
word as the focal point and goal.
Lectio Divina’s growth in popularity
seems to be in line with certain trends within pop-Christianity that focus on
subjectivism and experientialism.
Luther’s oratio, meditatio, tentatio
is deserving of a much greater hearing in our Lutheran churches as a truly
faithful substitution and corrective for the kind of spirituality being promoted
in the church today.
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