Chicken or Egg

Mutual dependence of Scripture and sacraments

04/10/2021

Mark 16:9-15 When Jesus had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. After this he appeared in another form to two of them walking along on their way to the country. They returned and told the others; but they did not believe them either. But later, as the Eleven were at table, he appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised. He said to them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

You have probably heard about the classic conundrum of causality called “the chicken and the egg.” Sometimes people ask, “Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” Have you ever wondered that? If the egg came first, who laid the egg; and if the chicken came first, where is the egg that chicken was hatched from? The poet William Wordsworth put the puzzle differently, in his poem, “My Heart Leaps up.” He wrote a line that has now become famous: “The child is father of the man.”

We are used to thinking that adults raise their children; and they do. But there is a very true sense in which children “parent” or “father” the next generation. That is, our childhood experiences, attitudes, traumas, and loves become the blueprint for the man or woman we grow into as a father or mother. Which came first: the chicken or the egg? Which came first: the child or the man?

During the coronavirus pandemic, I had a lot of time to study the scriptures, and I discovered a similar conundrum of causality, namely, which came first, the scriptures or the sacraments? Or, put differently: which came first: the Bible or the Body of Christ, the Church? It is a question of causality: which produced or created the other?

If you ask many Protestants (although not all), they may answer the Bible came first, and from the subsequent apostolic preaching and teaching from the Scriptures, the sacraments or the Church was born. That is why our Protestant brothers and sisters constantly ask Catholics: “Where does it talk about the pope or Mary or purgatory in the Bible?” Why do they ask that? Because for them the Bible came first and any faith not found there explicitly and unequivocally is not holy but rather heresy.

But the Catholic view is both more complex and more comprehensive, and therefore, I believe, more correct. We believe the chicken and the egg were sort of "born together," like twins. We maintain like Wordsworth that the man fathers the child, but the child is father to the man as well; they are inseparable. In other words, there is a dynamic interdependence between the scriptures and the sacraments; they came to be at the same time, mutually giving birth to one another. I know that sounds weird.

Today’s gospel reading from Mark is a perfect case in point. Did you know there are actually two endings to the gospel of Mark? There is a “longer ending” which we heard as our gospel reading from Mark 16:9-15, as well as a “shorter ending” which ends at Mark 16:8. How can there be two different endings of the gospel? Well, here is one of the discoveries that blew my mind as I studied the Bible. Did you know there is not one original book of the Bible in existence? That means what we have are not originals but copies, in fact, we have copies of copies of copies. And in that process of copying – remember the printing press would not be invented until 1440 – the process was not perfect. Sometimes, the scribes added or changed the original texts.

So, this evening, go home and take out your Bible, brush the dust off the cover, and turn to Mark 16. (Some of you may have to buy a Bible on the way home.) When you finish Mark 16:8, you usually find a bracket beginning in verse 9, and the closing bracket at verse 20. Why are those 12 verses set off by brackets? Because some of the oldest manuscripts (copies) have those verses while some of the oldest manuscripts (copies) do not contain those 12 verses. Well, which is it: does the gospel of Mark end at verse 8 or does it conclude at verse 20? That will be one of the questions I hope to ask St. Mark when (and if) I get to heaven.

The answer to the question about the ending of Mark’s gospel goes back to the chicken and the egg dilemma. How so? Well, even though the scripture itself cannot decide the debate - there is not original text to settle the matter - the sacraments come to the rescue, especially the Mass. You see, the reason we have any books of the New Testament is because those 27 books were the ones read at the celebration of the earliest Eucharists.

It is because the early Christians read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John when they celebrated the Mass that they decided to include them in the list of New Testament books in the year 393. In other words, the sacraments gave birth to the Bible. Therefore, because we read the longer ending of Mark at Mass, we believe that is the authentic ending of his gospel. The liturgy is the litmus test the Bible.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg, the child or the man, the scripture or the sacraments? Well, the Catholic answer is they came into being together, kind of like twins. And like all twins, they sometimes argue and fight, but don’t worry, it is always the good fight of faith.

Praised be Jesus Christ!