feast of stephen

in the readings for the feast is this wonderfully quaint sentence from the wisdom of solomon: "for the bewitching of naughtiness doth obscure things that are honest; and the wandering of concupiscence doth undermine the simple mind." (4:12)

ain't it the truth? and does not every minion of the deceiver know this very well, but don't we in our assumed sophistication ignore it?

i have been pondering the past few days how the mysterious and perfect celebration of the nativity of our lord sink so low as the american christmas. ah! naughtiness is bewitching, and we listen to "christmas music," which is full of the wandering of concupiscence. and we simply find it shiny and bright. santa claus comes to town on an interstate highway paved with the obscurity of the true light which enlightens all human beings.

therefore i rejoice that the church celebrates this feast for twelve beautiful days, giving us time to get over the vulgar greediness of the shopping days, so that the dawn from on high can indeed lead us in the paths of peace.

In the Bleak Mid Winter - Lichfield Cathedral Choir 1995

this christmas eve i am in santa fe, new mexico, with snow on snow, so this carol from my patron, chad's, cathedral seems nearly a perfect christmas card to all of you.

an advent question: what is true christianity.2

i still feel i have fallen far short of giving a good answer to my friend's question, and although i could probably go on and on without making much more sense than i have, i want to come to a conclusion. i had thought of including a part describing some "real christians," of whom i think there are very many, but who never show up on cnn news. and, i had thought of discussing some of the worst aspects of american religion, such as inflatable santa clauses in front of "christian churches." but i think none of these things are as helpful as looking at the question from an entirely different direction.

instead of considering "real christianity" from the viewpoint of real christians, i want to look at it from the real revelation of god the father in jesus christ his son. real christianity accepts this revelation as true, and builds on it. from that viewpoint, all christianity is about recognizing who the person of jesus, the christ, is. it means that no matter how well we respond to that revelation, if we recognize that god was in christ reconciling the world to himself, then we are on the path of true christianity. the work of real christians then becomes opening ourselves to this revelation. the work of the church then becomes making this reconciliation known to the whole world.

an advent question: what is true christianity?

a friend asked me the question, and i mostly blew it off, with my usual joke about having pencils made with john 17:3 printed on them. you know that verse, don't you? it's the punch line, as it were, to that sentence from john's gospel that is printed on pick-up trucks and radiator shops and pencils given to grade school children. there are "christian tee shirts" that say just "3:16."

but i find that in most even large groups of self-professing christians, asking them to quote john 17:3 evokes blank looks. but then so does the question, "what is eternal life?" here's jesus' definition as recorded in the gospel according to john, spoken in a prayer: "this is eternal life: to know thee who art truly god, and jesus christ whom thou hast sent."

of course, this is not true christianity. it is the goal of true christianity, the treasure hidden in the field of true christianity.

and of course this definition of true christianity leaves much of what calls itself "christianity" or "church" far short of the truth. "imposters will come claiming to be messiahs or prophets, and they will produce great signs and wonders to misleed even god's chosen, i such a thing were possible." (matt. 24:24) "not everyone who calls me 'lord, lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my heavenly father. . . . many will say to me, 'lord, lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out devils in your name, and in our name perform many miracles?' then," says jesus, "i will tell them to their face, 'i never knew you: out of my sight, you and your wicked ways.'"

that anyone might be excluded from the kingdom of heaven is one of the few anathmas of the modern psychosis. but if christianity means following jesus christ, then true christianity means truly following him, despite our contemporary prophets such as oprah winfrey or joel olsteen or john spong, even if they are recognized by broadcasting networks and american "churches." "narrow is the way."

to be a true christian, as has been recognized by great saints since the first century (matt. 19:27-30), one must take the call of jesus seriously. "if anyone wishes to be a follower of mine, he must leave self behind; day after day he must take up his cross, and come with me." (luke 9:23) there is more: "there is still one thing lacking: sell everything you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; and come, follow me." (luke 18:22)

need one say more? much more certainly has been said, and written. how does one sort through all the verbage that someone claims is christian? one simple way of course is not to bother. the desert fathers, who took the following of jesus very seriously, prayed the psalms and the gospels, and that was enough. francis of assissi heard the gospel from the 18th chapter of luke and did it. the pilgrim in the russian classic, the way of the pilgrim, read the gospel and the writings of the desert fathers and their succesors, most of whom lived in mountain fastnesses.

but for many of us, much of the time, it seems, we follow all sorts of paths that lead almost anywhere except to the cross. then we are surprised to find that our lives are not full of joy or peace. we do not recognize the wisdom of this prayer from the leonine sacramentary:

"almighty god, whose most dear son went not up to joy but
first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he
was crucified: mercifully grant that we, walking in the way
of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and
peace; through jesus christ our lord. amen."

the season of advent is not really about making ready for christmas. it is an annual reminder for us to make ready for the coming of the holy one, in our lives and in final judgement. the english book of common prayer is wise to suggest this prayer for daily use during the season of advent:

"almighty god, give us grace to cast away the works of
darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of
this mortal life in which your son jesus christ came to visit
us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come
again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the
dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives
and reigns with you and the holy spirit, one god, now and
for ever. amen."

this is also the season when we spend much time with psalm 85, which includes the wonderful lines,

"mercy and truth are met together:
righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
truth shall flourish out of the earth:
and righteousness hath looked down from heaven."

true christianity recognizes that we are not alone, that the same jesus whose seemingly outrageous commands also says to us, ". . . be assured, i am with you always, to the end of time," (matt. 28:20) true christianity is the source of the "joy to the world" in which "heaven and nature sing." why should we settle for anything less?

advent friday in kansas city

accustomed as i am to the towns and cities of the pacific northwest, kansas city took me a bit by surprise: i had to walk blocks and blocks to find a starbucks. but find one i did, and sipped a grande christmas blend while muzak played "chestnuts roasting on a open fire." at the next table a japanese free-lance marketeer (mostly wireless networks, i guess) was networking with an indian marketeer, who used to work for "fairy dust." in the new economy (read post-meltdown) no one is hiring, so free-lancing sub-contractors have to hustle.

it's a strange new world. in topeka the police and their dogs inspected the luggage on our bus. they took off and questioned a seemingly exceptionally nice grandfather based on the smell of one of his checked bags. the man who had spent the entire trip talking to condoleesa rice and robert macnamara about the vice president's need to leave the earth on december 15th, left the bus when we arrived in kansas city. a concerned fellow rider had asked him whether he would like to go to the hospital."robert" told "oboy" that he should get off the bus, because the man was definitely a secret agent. although he (they) had a ticket to new york, he left with his powder blue blanket and pillow, quietly talking so the other people on the bus would not hear where they were going. a woman, nearly totally hidden in a black leather coat with a fur-lined hood, had fled in terror into the laramy cold. her ticket had been to michigan, but she felt hot.

so, in this culture of make believe in have pretended to eremeticism, but i am eating ginger bread rather than fasting. i can cast out no demons. here in the starbucks of the kansas city financial district i am surrounded by people who in their worship of the economy are much more devout than i.

lo, he comes with clouds descending

the first sunday of advent is often celebrated with that wonderful charles wesley hymn, lo, he comes with clouds descending. many times when we see rainbows, we remember the promise to noah. but how often when we see clouds do we see them as a reminder of the coming again of our lord? living in the pacific northwest as i have done much of the past eight years, i am constantly surrounded with signs of his eminent return. mara na tha. even so, come, lord jesus, come.

hilda, whitby, and the beloved disciple

the past month, the readings in celtic daily prayer have been about "the house that john built"--the celtic form of church that saw itself as the work of followers of the beloved disciple, john, who listened to the heartbeat of the holy one. at the council of whitby, overseen by hilda the abbess in the late seventh century, the church of peter imposed its order upon the church of john. the "house that john built" went underground, as it were, surviving in all sorts of practices that we today sometimes call "celtic christianity."

there are many today who are trying to recover such a gentle, less imposing form of the church. celtic daily prayer concludes the series of readings with these encouraging words:

"so,is there a house that john built--today? is it being built again? if so, it will be through leaning as beloved john did on the breast of jesus, through hearing his heart-cry and uniting our hearts with his. it will not be through the establishing of some radical alternative structure that breeds schism or becomes another fast-decaying denomination awaiting fossilization. it may be through living in a way that is recognizably different, as hild and cuthbert and the others did, working in and alongside the structures presented to them--with simplicity and fervour. if the structures fall, so be it--whatever is of lasting value will endure.

"as columba said to his community when he was dying:

'see that you be at peace among yourselves,
my children, and love one another.
follow the example of good men of old,
and god will comfort you and help yo
both in this world
and in the world which is to come.'

"and this was the peace that columba found:

"the peace of christ." (p.794)

on the other hand

what was i saying about the
glories of orthodoxy?

perhaps when peter wanted to build three little shrines on mount tabor, jesus knew what such a tourist attraction could lead to. i suppose clothes don't necessarily make the man.

hoist by my own petard

a few weeks ago, in my ongoing search for the church, i decided that the correct criteria were probably found in the story of john's disciples who came to jesus just before john was beheaded:

"when john heard in prison what the messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ jesus answered them, ‘go and tell john what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. and blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.'" (matthew 11:2-6)

i confess i'm having a lot of trouble finding such a church. oh, i hear plenty of mouthing about "healing of relationships," and "metaphorical blindness," and i find cheese sandwiches and instant coffee brought to the poor, but almost everyone i meet is offended by jesus and what he says. more often than not the sermons i have heard these past months, when the new revised common lectionary months has featured the difficult parables from matthew's version of the gospel, have begun with asking something like "are you offended?" and then continued to say why we should be offended, because these stories aren't about "the real world."

so, into this search dropped a slightly worn copy of the mountain of silence by kyriacos markides. the church, the ekklesia that markides finds on cyprus as he chauffeurs and questions the gerontos maximos is a kingdom of god in which the events of the gospels and acts that so embarass us modern merely rational folk are commonplace. indeed, "the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. and blessed is anyone who takes no offence at [jesus]."

so, i am ready to give up on all the western divisions of the church and to singularly embrace orthodoxy. the problem is that the orthodox church in this country is as fragmented as protestantism. there is a greek orthodox church just a few blocks from my house. the liturgy is in greek, and my hair is not black enough to let me pass for the right ethnicity. the wall between greek and jew may be broken down in that church, but the wall between greek and welsh is still standing.

markides is satisfied, as a sociologist at least, with a concept of the church as a mystical body, not identified with any visible part of the institutional church. i am not. but i may have to live with it.

meanwhile, i am faced with the fact of how feeble my search for the holy one really is.

on being a priest today

it is five o'clock in the morning, raining. usually i would be praying psalms at this hour, but i am going to get on my bicycle in about 45 minutes and ride to a friend's house to share psalmody this autumn friday as the dayspring from on high visits us.

last night i finished reading nora gallagher's amazingly honest and painful book practicing resurrection, in which she describes her life while she was "discerning" her call to the priesthood in the episcopal church, three years during which she spent a lot of time flying back and forth between california and new mexico to visit her dying brother, and a lot of time driving back and forth between santa barbara and los angeles, and into the hills behind santa barbara, to discern and be discerned. as the book closes she has been discerned by the church to be fit for priesting, but she remains in what she calls the in between, no longer "just laity," but not quite a priest. she has not gone to seminary.

two nights ago i spent some time with a friend, ryan welch, who introduces himself as an "independent poet and thinker." he said that there are not many things he knows, but he does know that he is a poet: "i go to sleep a poet; i wake up a poet." now, ryan is not the most usual sort of person. he spends his days walking around the town, doing a little volunteer work, drinking coffee, thinking of his poems. he has no job, and he acutely feels that most of the people he meets consider him of doubtful socially redeeming value.

i'm a lot like ryan, although i consider myself profoundnly dependent: a profoundly dependent priest and thinker. (i try to rebel in my gentle way against the thinker part, but the monkey mind is always full.) i go to sleep a priest; i wake up a priest. during my days, i walk or bicycle around town, do a little volunteer work, drink coffee, and think about the book of genesis and pray for the folks i meet. i have no job, and feel acutely that many of the people who know me think better of me than they should. i am of very doubtful socially redeeming value.

gallagher, bless her heart as she drives hundreds of southern california miles musing about her home parish's concerns for cutting-edge environmental issues, does a wonderful job of expressing the confusion so common in the church today about laity and ordination. priests are the ones who get to wear "those beautiful robes" and stand behind the altar. the laity are those to whom those "privileges" are denied. she feels that to don the robes would be an abandonment of the laity.

i spend little time "behind the altar," and almost of none of it vested in those beautiful robes. so, what do i do that's priestly? the model of priestly activity is seen in the eucharist, when the priest takes the offerings of the people--offerings which unfortunately are often not really noticed except as the money, and that's often whisked away rather than placed on the holy table--thanks the holy one for them, remembering the actions of christ's incarnation as the model for the sanctification of all our lives, and then gives them back to the people. (i would add that a priest never stops being laity, a member of the people of god, a status given in baptism; the priest's job is a particular part of the work of the people--the liturgy).

in gallagher's book she experiencees priestliness in a situation that surprises her. at a book store, she receives help from a clerk. she is profoundly thankful for the help, acknowledging it with gestures and attention, giving back to the clerk their time together with a recognition of the holiness that is our true nature. this is the job of a priest. taking what the world has, giving thanks for it, giving it back with the acknowledgement that the holy one is making all things new.

this is how forgiveness works. things, actions, persons who have become tarnished by sin are made new by giving them to the holy one and receiving them back. there is nothing too tarnished, too distorted by sin, that the holy one cannot redeem them. the priest is empowered, ordained, set apart, to proclaim that that redemption, that forgiveness. it takes the whole people of god to make eucharist. each member has a role. all of the people bring something--most importantly, ourselves, our souls and bodiiwa. the priest leads us all in thanksgiving and gives it back, forgiven..

so, i wake up a priest, looking for what the world is offering today, giving thanks for it, and giving it back forgiven. as i finish writing this little post it's nine o'clock at night, and time for me to think over the day and give thanks for it again.

now of course the whole people of god, the whole body of christ, are a priestly people, a royal priesthood. so i invite you to join me this night and each night in giving thanks. you might consider this thanksgiving, written by an english priest during a time of great turmoil, as a start:

almighty god, father of all mercies,
we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks
for all your goodness and loving-kindness
to us and to all whom you have made.
we bless you for our creation, preservation,
and all the blessings of this life;
but above all for your immeasurable love
in the redemption of the world by our lord jesus christ;
for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
and, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies,
that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise,
not only with our lips, but in our lives,
by giving up our selves to your service,
and by walking before you
in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through jesus christ our lord,
to whom, with you and the holy spirit,
be honor and glory throughout all ages. amen.

it seems to be a helpful way of looking at the parts of the day that we might have chosen to avoid as becoming part of "all the blessings of this life" as we give them to the holy one in thanksgiving.

all saints

especially in modern america, where religious holidays have been reduced to consumerism for children, it is easy to lose track of the close connection between all saints day and pentecost. but the connection is real, and important. in the eastern church all saints day is the sunday after pentecost; in the west it is six months from pentecost, the other pole of the axis of the holy spirit at work in the church.

at pentecost we celebrate the first coming of the holy spirit; at all saints we celebrate the continuing coming of the holy spirit into the lives of all believers.

so, how might we celebrate this most wonderful feast? i suggest we might take some clues from the instructions our lord gave the first very small group of believers: wait and pray. so tonight i some friends and i are going to gather together and wait, praying with the saints who have gone before, waiting for the spirit which opens our eyes to see the great cloud of witnesses which surround us.

who are we, this small group of friends in one room and the great cloud of witnesses which john in the revelation reading for the feast says is "a great multitude no one could count?" perhaps we would well to see how they are described in the psalm for the feast:

"i will alway give thanks unto the lord
his praise shall ever be in my mouth.
my soul shall make her boast in the lord
the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.
o praise the lord with me
and let us magnify his name together.
I sought the lord, and he heard me
yea, he delivered me out of all my fear.
they had an eye unto him, and were lightened
and their faces were not ashamed.
lo, the poor crieth, and the lord heareth him
yea, and saveth him out of all his troubles.
the angel of the lord tarrieth round about them that fear him
and delivereth them.
o taste, and see, how gracious the lord is
blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
o fear the lord, ye that are his saints
for they that fear him lack nothing.
the lions do lack, and suffer hunger
but they who seek the lord shall want no manner of thing that is good.
come, ye children, and hearken unto me
i will teach you the fear of the lord.
what man is he that lusteth to live
and would fain see good days?
keep thy tongue from evil
and thy lips, that they speak no guile.
eschew evil, and do good
seek peace, and ensue it.
the eyes of the lord are over the righteous
and his ears are open unto their prayers.
the countenance of the lord is against them that do evil
to root out the remembrance of them from the earth.
the righteous cry, and the lord heareth them
and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
the lord is nigh unto them that are of a contrite heart
and will save such as be of an humble spirit.
great are the troubles of the righteous
but the lord delivereth him out of all.
he keepeth all his bones
so that not one of them is broken.
but misfortune shall slay the ungodly
and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.
the lord delivereth the souls of his servants
and all they that put their trust in him shall not be destitute. (psalm 34, coverdale translation)

a flagrant emdorsement of the psalter

from dallas willard's the divine conspiracy: "if your bury yourself in psalms, you emerge knowing god and understanding life." (p. 65)

parochialism re-invented

i had the honour to be present last evening at the "kick-off event" for a new "church plant," which in this case took the plant metaphor seriously, with an image of a banyon tree: northwest community church.

although much of their theology i might consider far from orthodox, mainly in terms of their intense concentration on the second person of the trinity, a concentration which seems shared by much current american protestantism, there is a part of their understanding of what it means to be church that is i think very important and very orthodox and which more of the church could learn from them with benefit.

northwest community church wants to be a church in and for and with the community. the church poured out, to put words in their mouth, or in the mouth of the pastor, for the life of the world. once upon a time, before the church saw herself as so splintered, the church in constantinopole or rome or alexandria or salisbury organized herself into parishes, and saw the care of the souls within each parish as her pastoral duty. we might call this the good old days. and it seems that northwest community church is calling us again to good days. let us pray they will succeed "beyond what we can hope for or imagine."

on the reading of books: a flagrant advertisement for the daily office

i suspect that you know several people who are "short for time," who have trouble finding enough hours in a day to do all the things they want to do. perhaps you are one of those people. i have friends in that category, and i am always a bit saddened to find that they are reading books about the problems of the world but do not find time for the daily office. you know the sorts of books they're reading: jared diamond's works, or naomi klein's; the books of people who have a firm grasp of the obvious, and who have the footnotes to prove it.

my plea, my flagrant advertisement for the daily office, is that one would do much better to read books that have a firm grasp of the sometimes-not-so-obvious, but who have the testimony of the church to prove it: the books of scripture which we are encouraged to read in the daily office.

those of us who follow the two-year cycle of readings that is recommended by most of the church in north america are just finishing up micah. this is a quote from this morning's reading:

"he hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
the Lords voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it.
are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable?
shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights?
for the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
therefore also will i make thee sick in smiting thee, in making thee desolate because of thy sins.
thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied; and thy casting down shall be in the midst of thee; and thou shalt take hold, but shalt not deliver; and that which thou deliverest will I give up to the sword.
thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine.
for the statutes of omri are kept, and all the works of the house of ahab, and ye walk in their counsels; that i should make thee a desolation, and the inhabitants thereof an hissing: therefore ye shall bear the reproach of my people. (amos 6:8-16)

not only does it, as northrup frye says prophets always do, describe what is always true, but it starts rather than ends with the prescription for correction of the problem. since of the making of books there is no end, why not start by reading the best? books aren't read for 2600 years because they're of merely historical interest.

the mystery of faith and the election

each sunday in the liturgy, "we proclaim the mystery of faith: christ has died, christ is risen, christ will come again." this "proclamation" is not i suspect something we think very much about, although it certainly merits consideration.

i have been asking "self-professing, practicing christian " friends this question the past few days: "what is the best-case scenario you see for the next five years. i keep hoping someone will answer in terms of the mystery of faith, or in terms of what we all pray each day when we say, "your kingdom come." but i have been considerably disappointed that so far the answers have all been in terms of who is hoped to win the next u. s. presidential election and why that wouldn't be so bad as it would be if the other candidate won.

so i wonder which we have lost, the mystery or the faith? or both?

on the current meltdown of the american greedonomy: 'nuff said

". . . as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away." (matthew 24:38-39)

26 september: lancelot andrewes

lancelot andrewes is much more influential than most of us know: as the chairman of the old testament group for the translation of the bible authorized by king james i of england, it is he who almost certainly is responsible for the creation stories in genesis with which we are all so familiar.

i am celebrating his day by reading a wonderful book about genesis as i
struggle with the story of cain and abel for my slow work on my blog the ring of the lord. there is a lot to chew on in the first brother story. it encourages me that leon r. cass work on the beginning of wisdom: reading genesis for 25 years. perhaps i can be excused a little slowness in my work.

it all makes the mere seven years that it took the translators of the authorized version the more impressive.

feasts, suppers & banquets

reading the book of judith in the daily office this past week has made me think of the importance of feasts, banquets and suppers in scripture. the judith story brings up images of other meals which figure into the story of the holy one's saving us from our own rebellious and gluttonous ways: esther, of course; but also in a rather inverse way, john the baptist and salome; belshazzar's feast and the last supper; the feeding stories in the gospels and the fish grill on the lake shore that ends john's gospel.

one of the most insightful books about sacramental theology i have ever read is alexander schmemann's for the life of the world, which begins with the phrase, "we are what we eat." "what we eat." not "what i eat." for christians eating, like all of our lives, is a communal activity. even if we seem to be alone, we are eating with all the people and plants and animals and rain and wind and sun along the food chain leading all the way back to creation.

i haven't begun to puzzle out all i hope to learn from this circle of thought, but i found it interesting enough to point it out. maybe you can help me understand it better.

the fall ember days: cleansing lepers

my experiences with "the church" the past few days has made me think about john's disciples' question to jesus: "'are you the one who is to come, or have we got to wait for somebody else?' jesus answered, 'go back and tell john what you hear and see; the blind see again, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised to life, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor, and happy is the man who does ot lose faith in me.'" (matthew 11:2-5)

but of course these days when we as the church are asked this question, our answers tends to be about pedigree and propriety. i am as guilty as anyone. when asked about this malabar rite, thing, my first answer is usually a little lecture in church history, the point of which is to prove that my "apostolic succession" is as old and as "valid" as anyone's. only if pressed do i say that my archbishop, who ordained me, is almost entirely unconcerned with theological orthodoxy. yet when a few years ago when i considered "transferring my credentials" to a part of the church with which i am in closer "theological agreement," i quickly thought better of it. you see, my archbishop radiates the principal that "they will know that we are christians by our love."

the fall ember days are the wednesday, friday and saturday after holy cross day. this is one of the four times of the year when those of us who are ordained are encouraged to take stock of how we are doing, and to report in to our bishops. i find that i have a long way to go. but i think i'm asking at least some of the right questions. "what do we see and hear? do the blind see again? do the lame walk? are lepers cleansed? do the deaf hear? are the dead raised to life? is the good news proclaimed to the poor?"

17 september: hildegard von bingen

i "met" hildegard in the form of a copy of some of her music in a library at memphis state university. i remember looking at it and thinking, how beautiful, but how unsingable. shortly after that "a feather on the breath of god came out, and hildegard began another career.

it seems best to let her speak for herself.

simple disobedience

the words are those of "the apostles and elders", and they came up in the daily office a few days ago:

". . . it has seemed good to the holy spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. if you keep yourselves from these, you will do well." (acts 15:28-29)

many times we have read this passage, the conclusion of what we sometimes call the council of jerusalem, the first synod of the emerging church of the first century, and we have described them as freeing us gentiles from the requirements of the laws of moses.

we do a good job, for the most part, of not following the mosaic law from which we have been released. seldom, however, do we notice that the council of jerusalem did leave us with some restrictions: "to abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication."

it strikes me that we do very poorly these days in observing these restrictions.

most of the food we eat has been sacrificed to the idol of cheapest-for-me-damn-the-results-for-anyone-else.

every day the weapons bought and operated by our taxes shed the blood of the (mostly) innocent throughout the world (not that jesus has suggested it is our job to decide who are the guilty and to shed their blood).

the commandment against food that is strangled is certainly violated in spirit if not in the letter itself in almost everything we eat from the chicken and cattle and pork food factories that provide us with our cheap-to-us food.

and it is hardly possible to go through the check-out lines at the stores selling the strangled food without noticing the popularity of fornication. if we do not commit it ourselves in fact, it constitutes some of our most popular "amusements."

should it surprise us if we do not "do well?"

who am i? the 16th sunday after pentecost a.d.2008

yesterday's propers were an embarassment of riches: moses and the burning bush, wonderful exhortation to a loving life from paul, and jesus' rebuke of peter, whom he had just called a rock on which the church would be built, but whom he now reminds, as he reminds us, that disciples of christ must deny themsselves and take their our cross and follow him. the temptation to the preacher, and also to the blogger, is to try to exhaust these readings in one year. at least one reading a blog can stop to argue or consider.

lately i have heard a lot of sermons talking about moses as a murderer, a wanted man, who has fled egypt to escape prosecution. but i suspect it was not a crisis for moses because he has killed a man that led him to flea to midian. if indeed he had been raised as the pharoah's grandson, such a crime could probably be overlooked. if he were found out to be a hebrew, however, the situation would be very different.

it is in the context of self-identity that i find these readings so challenging, especially coming as they do after jesus' question last week of "who do people say that the son of man is?" we are only able to know who we are if we first recognize who jesus is. moses had been able to identify with the empire, with the people in power. now he recognizes that his true identity lies with those who are enslaved, with those whose labor had provided the wealth he enjoyed.

often when we speak of "our cross," we think of abusive husbands or sick relatives. these are, i find,very different situations from what jesus must mean when he says "if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." jesus, by taking up the cross, took on the suffering of the world. and it seems we are called to do no less. we must deny ourselves. we are not called to send a check to the suffering from time to time, but to join them. our identity as followers of christ jesus does not derive from those who claim power and glory, whether they call themselves pharoah or king or president. rather our identity is given us in baptism by the true king of glory, about whom we many of us each friday pray this collect:

"almighty god, whose most dear son went not up to joy but
first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he
was crucified: mercifully grant that we, walking in the way
of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and
peace; through jesus christ our lord. amen."

let us not forget who, and whose, we truly are.

29 august: the beheading of john the forerunner

john is the only person other than jesus and the theotokos whose day of birth and day of falling asleep are celebrated. because his birth is midsummer's, and comes six months from christmas, it is seldom missed. his beheading is less important in the western church. indeed the story was skipped a few weeks ago in the new revised common lectionary.

but if one notices the great importance of john in the gospels as the last of the prophets, the head of the old testament, as it were, then it is hard to pay too much attention to the story of his beheading.

p.s. to augustine of hippo

the collect from the 1963 lesser feasts and fasts of the episcopal church is such a wonderful piece of writing that i had to include it. i think professor enderby would approve:

"o lord god, who art the light of the minds that know thee, the life of the souls that love thee, and the strength of the hearts that serve thee: help us, after the example of thy servant saint augustine, so to know thee that we may truly love thee, so to love thee that we may fully serve thee, whom to serve is perfect freedom; through jesus christ our lord. amen.

sts. augustine and pelagius: 28 august

i very much liked that the northumbrian community in their excellent celtic daily prayer take the 28th of august for the commemoration of pelagius rather than austin. as one who has been encouraged by karl barth's complaint that all english (he may have said british, which more accurately describes my ancestry) theologians are pelagians, i joined in their commemoration.

to the daily office's reading of the book of job, therefore, i added anthony burgess's the clockwork testament. it seems to me that a careful reading of job requires one either to agree with pelagius or curse god and die.

augustin was, i'm, afraid, simply too clever for our own good. and how wonderfully convenient to be able to say, as we accept the "benefits" of low prices for consumer goods that accrue to the empire, that "there will always be wars and rumours of wars [or whatever sin it is that we don't want to avoid--lust and gluttony being among the more popular]." pelagius reminds us that jesus also said, "go, and sin no more." what sort of god would ask us to do the impossible? an augustinian god, perhaps, a god who was severely misunderstood by martin luther's reading of paul, but who is very useful if we want to think we can be the slaves of two masters.

enderby, the protagonist of the clockwork testament and several other of burgess's mostly autobiographical novels, is certainly not a saint by most of our standards. but if we cannot accuse him of saintliness, neither can we accuse him of sloppy thinking. as a caricature of an englishman, he has horrid taste in food, although he never descends so low as hamburgers and coca-cola but an educated taste in words: why waste time on hip-hop in the wasteland that is modern mall "culture." and he takes seriously the problems of behaviour that augustinians, either roman catholic or lutheran, sweep under the rug of grace.

rather than quote lengthily from burgess, which is a temptation, i will instead point to a delightful short piece from a review of geez magazine. it reminds me of the complaint lodged against the disciples on pentecost, that they must have been drinking.

"we don't live in houses"

francis of assissi said, and at first i thought he meant that the little brothers didn't live in houses because they were too poor for them. but as i have experienced, over the past several years, living outside or in a tent, i now know the "we" is bigger and the truth is we don't live in houses.

i've been trying a compromise this summer, living in a slight bit of a house, with a deck hanging over a creek. but last saturday i bought a new tent, and i'm thinning my accumulated anchors this week, giving away pottery and books, to move back into the world, where i can listen to the wind words again.

this song of bruce cockburn's seemed a gift for the occasion.

st. louis of france, in an election year

as the american political conventions start their circuses, i thought this quote from t. ralph morton's the household of faith might be appropriate:

"the place where we are free to choose and the place where our freedom of decision is most effective in in the use of our money. many of us are not free to choose how we use our time. the use of most of it is determined by the work we do and few of us are our own masters there. the use of the rest of our time--our leisure time, so called--depends ultimately on the use we make of our money. for the most determining thing in our lives is not our opinions but the way we use our money. it's the way we spend our money that determines the kind of life we live and not, or at least not in the case of most of us, the choice of a particular kind of life that determines how we spend our money we may think at the start of our adult lives that we decide the pattern on which we are going to live but very soon we find that it is determined by the things we think we need. that was, presumably, what jesus meant when he said: 'where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.'" (p.114)

of course the theology of the collect for the feast of st. louis,

"o god, who called your servant louis of france to an earthly throne that he might advance your heavenly kingdom, and gave him zeal for your church and love for your people: mercifully grant that we who commemorate him this day may be fruitful in good works, and attain to the glorious crown of your saints; through jesus christ our lord, who lives and reigns with you and the holy spirit, one god, for ever and ever."

is completely politically incorrect these days. religious thinking, in the sense that religion means binding things together--re-ligio--is out. separate categories of political thinking and economic thinking and appetite-fulfillment thinking leaves a little time left over for what it's popular to call "spirituality thinking." but if jesus is telling the truth, our hearts are likely to be found in some strange and nasty places.

proper 15a: "who do you say that i am?"

yesterday's gospel was matthew 16:13-20, in which jesus asks his disciples an all-important question, "who do you say that i am?" peter's answer, sometimes called "the confession of peter," is "you are the messiah, the son of the living god." this is the foundation on which jesus says he will build his church.

i do a little volunteer work in the library of my local parish, often checking books in, so i get to see what people have been reading. if best-seller lists and discussion groups on the internet are any indication, what our parish reads is fairly typical of early twenty-first century christian fare. i am not encouraged by what i find. books by authors arguing that jesus only "became the christ" years after his death (and without any faith in his resurrection) are very popular. very rarely does anyone check out a book such as, say, n. t. wright's the challenge of jesus: rediscovering who jesus was and is or even wright's book with john dominic crossan, the resurrection of jesus.

now of course, there are many people who faithfully read daily the gospels with their firm proclamation in agreement with peter that jesus is "the messiah, the son of the living god," and that he is risen from the dead. but i suspect that if we are serious about being built into the church, we will leave aside the pop-christology that denies peter's confession. is it any surprise that the church in this country is so powerless to do anything except look for scraps from the emperor's table? if that seems a harsh observation, i ask you to consider if the church in the united states today is really any more powerful witness to the risen christ than was, say, the church of germany in the late 1930's. we read a lot of bonhoeffer's books, but we seem rarely actually to follow jesus, especially knowing what next week's gospel will be.

the lost chapters of the lectionary

i admit that it's partly my fault. i am famous for giving folks copies of the book of common prayer. in fact, my friends now send me their friends with their requests, knowing i will provide. (i also have a little private gideon-thing going on the side with the jerusalem bible..)

i introduce people to the prayer book because jesus told his disciples, of which i consider myself one, if a faltering one, "to make disciples," and the prayer book is really an exercise program: a discipline of spiritual body building, building up the body of christ. if christian television were really christian, at 2:00 a.m. there would be gnarly old ladies and men testifying to the way their lives had been changed by praying the psalms daily, and reciting the holy scriptures, of how their lives had been completely rebuilt in just two 15 minute sessions a day, all with a book that fits conveniently on the bed-side table.

one of the things i point out to folks is that the prayer book lectionary leads us through the new testament twice a year and the old testament in two years. (back in the day--1549 or so--it lead us through the old testament in a year, and the new testament twice a year, but as one can tell from the before pictures on late night television, we've gotten soft.) but, the problem is, it doesn't.

now we are lead to read less each day now, which i think is probably a good thing in many ways. the smaller portions make lectio divina with the daily readings easier. and they make it easier to take in and digest even if one doesn't chew very slowly. unfortunately, we also are led to leave parts out, and sometimes they are very important parts indeed.

the problem is that the church (pecusa, producer of the daily office lectionary, which is used by most denominations in america) has adopted modern critical study of the bible, and such a study doesn't know how to make useful such stories as the 19th and 20th chapters of the book of judges, so they are just left out. and these two chapters are the climax of the bible up to this point, and they are quite important to at luke's understanding of the coming of the messiah. (compare what happens to mary and joseph in bethlehem to what happens to the ephraimite levite's concubine. and consider the geographical places involved in the story, remembering that galilee is ephraimite territory.)

these two chapters are stories of our lack of hospitality ("we do not love our neighbor as ourself") and our inability to "fix" things on our own ("and there is no health in us." the tribes of abraham, chosen to be a blessing to the whole world, have become no better than sodom. and there is no forgiveness; the other tribes follow their own oaths, but ignore the commandments of the holy one. these are juicy if horrible chapters, quite accurately describing the world in which we are ruled by our own desires. ("there was no king in israel. each man did what was good in his own sight.")

so, if i have coerced you into following the daily office from the book of common prayer, i encourage you to check ahead and make sure you read any parts our enlightened editors have edited out. if i have not encouraged you into following the daily office, please consider this an invitation. i have, as always, a stock of books to give away.

you can also sample the readings of the daily office on line, of course.

church architecture and little us

last month i visited seattle university, a jesuit school, with a friend who was considering one of their courses of study. while there i of course visited their famous chapel of st. ignatius. since then i have been thinking about what the architecture of the places in which we worship says about us as the people of god, the laity, which although we don't often think so, includes "ordained" people as well as "unordained" people.

consciously or unconsciously, our buildings are ourselves built large or the cosmos built small. indeed from ancient times they have been understood as describing our proper place in the cosmos. in israel the tent and then temple-on earth was a copy of the heavenly pattern, which jesus interpreted as a model for a church built with living stones, his body. christian architecture then has traditionally been as much a teaching method as merely a place to house worship. the teaching, however, has been in the interaction of the people within the space. it has been a theater space, where the liturgy is performed by all the people of god, and which at its best facilitates that performance, itself a practice for our lives when we leave the building. (indeed the word mass comes from a the same root as mission. it is the going forth to which the whole rite leads.)

this ancient understanding of the uses of buildings has been kept, at least until very recently, by most of the church. orthodox churches are still modeled in part on the pattern of the temple in jerusalem. in the west the anthropomorphic nature of the church building is widely recognized, with the building in plan replicating the form of the perfect man, christ crucified, his head in the sanctuary, outstretched arms forming the transepts, the nave his body. there have of course been many variations, but this essay could quickly become very long, so i won't begin to go into even those i do know, except to point out a quite wonderful one, the syrian and anglican two-room churches. it, whether consciously or not, replicates the two-room plan of the temple, with the whole people of god acting out the priestly function. a wonderful modern interpretation of that idea is san francisco's st. gregory of nyssa.

recently in the west, all this has changed. with the reformation's emphasis on the word in its mostly restrictive and literal sense, church buildings became auditoriums. even many of the older buildings were remodeled with a central pulpit. the unity of the whole people of god making up the body of christ, each in his own order, was replaced by the preaching pastor, the parson (person), with a congregation who listened and consumed.

with the emergency of post-modernism--whatever that means, it is certainly a reality in our lives--the singular role of the preaching pastor becomes a multi-media experience. indeed i know one young pastor of an "emerging" congregation who suggests that it is time for the sacred cow of the sermon to be killed off. in eureka springs there is a congregation whose building has no cross or other overtly christian "symbolism," nor a pulpit, nor a holy table, but a scattering of music stands on a stage, peveys, and a trap set. the pews for the audience are still firmly in place. most of the body of christ having reduced to "laity" who are entertained, the "minister" has now been deconstructed as well.

it seems, and here sadly is where the chapel of st. ignatius was helpful to me, is that we have reduced the church even further, and our buildings once again both represent and inform that reduction. on the seattle university campus there is this great piece of art. we as the church have become another consumer market. this fact was well pointed out to me this week by a friend of mine who described his discomfort with the various "evangelical" and "missional" portions of the church in bellingham who are trying to "minister" to him--i.e., sell him their product--for as he said, he is trying to remain only a potential consumer of religion.

alas, our buildings now have nothing to do with the kingdom of god, which jesus came proclaiming, which the early church understood quite immediately as they took over the basilicas (kingdom halls) of the empire and made them halls of the heavenly king, but are all about shopping in the market place of religion, in which as my same potential-consumer-of-religion friend said, we are comparing apples with apples. no longer are we encouraged to become christians. we are merely to buy chritian swag.


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a note on william wilberforce

ah, yes, two weeks late. i am the victim here of the wonders of the modern world, since i wrote this on youtube, which promises to post quickly to my blog. two weeks really is quick publishing, compared to the good old days, especially. but i am a little spoiled, and like all good 'muricans, expect instant. it's a good thing wilberforce was patient.

commemoration of william wilberforce (30 july)

i can't help but find it a bit ironic that william wilberforce, m. p., is on the calendar of american episcopal church given our temerity to become involved in "political" issues, leaving war to the generals.

there is a poster at one of the local save-the-earth-by-buying local/organic/expensive grocery storesthat i think illustrates the double-speak of these times. it speaks against slave-made merchandise, being a thinly-veiled ad for the cottage schlock for sale next to it, and it contains the serious untruth that "there is today no powerful economic force backing slavery." hah!

i recommend, if you haven't already found it, a wonderful book by a 15-year old boy, zack hunter: be the change

the dormition of the mother of god (15 august)

i love this feast, partly because i love mary and what she has done, but also i love it because it has no hallmark card associations, no protestant abasements such as the confusion that makes the feast of the incarnation jesus's birthday, complete with hats and cake and the happy birthday song. (if you know of such abuses, please don't tell me.) yet the feast has a lot of wonderful vagueness, since it is a celebration of an event that is quite mysterious and about which there has not been such doctrinal fighting as surround events in the life of our lord.

it is a little odd that fundamentalists so completely ignore mary. since the acceptance of the virgin birth as a historical fact is one of the first of the "fundamentals," one might expect some rather developed mariology coming out of geneva or grand rapids. but, to my knowledge, it has not happened. here is a link to the orthodox understanding of the feast.

a part of my practices for the feast concerns food, of course. i'm about to go to some friends' house for a domestic dormition feast, and i'm taking basil ice cream; basil because one of the traditions surrounding the end of the theotokos' life on earth is that her dormition, her falling to sleep, and whatever happened next, occured in a field of basil. our word basil is from the greek basileus, meaning king. our lady fell asleep in the field of the lord. (basil was also found growing over the remnants of the true cross found by helena, according to the legends of its finding.)

the readings for the feast are an interesting lot. the eastern lections tend to be metaphorical descriptions of the virgin; the western tend to suggest parallels between christ and his mother. what is wonderful about the whole lot of them, and about the feast in general, is that they celebrate that what happens to the christ, happens to his mother, as representative of the church, and therefore to all of us, but the exact details remain a bit of a mystery, something we shall discover "when we shall see him face to face."

11 august: patron of television (i couldn't make that up something that outrageous if i wanted to.)

we folk are odd critters. i read bart ehrman's book, god's problem: how the bible fails to answer our most important question--why we suffer yesterday, on the feast of st. clare of assissi. i sat in the bright sunshine beside the bay, and i smoked two cigarettes. i know that i might get skin cancer or lung cancer, but i did it anyway. i hope that if i do "develop" cancer, as we say so interestingly, that i do not blame it on god, and say, "now it's your problem." i had just finished reading brett grainger's in the world but not of it: one family's militant faith and the history of american fundamentalism: odd reading, perhaps, for the feast of a very roman catholic saint.

but clare was, to say the least, a bit "against culture," and i perhaps humour myself that i am, too, and i was trying to understand a bit better that part of american culture that we call "fundamentalism." the grainer book therefore seems obvious, and it was very helpful, reminding me of things i had more or less forgotten from american history and church history, things which many fundamentalists have perhaps never known or choose to ignore. for instance, i had forgotten the close connexion between the first vatican council (1869) and the niagra bible conference (1878), at which biblical literalism in its modern form was birthed. (when earlier christians spoke of the literal meaning of the bible, they were not speaking of the same sort of thing as 19th century american protestants at all, as anyone who has read augustine's confessions in book nine of which he discusses the "literal meaning" of genesis, knows.)

grainger ends his largely autobiographical story with his returning to anglicanism, from which his grandfather had strayed. his chapter about his new/old faith is short, but very insightful. it is about christology, and how the early church wrestled with whether jesus was man or god, and how it decided both, as expressed in the nicean creed. for grainger christianity is about christ, not about a book. the word of god is a person.

ehrman's trip has been from early episcopalianism through just about every bible-centered part of american christianity there is. his school connexions start with moody bible college and end at princeton and chapel hill, both of which i suspect are considered rather different from moody. but i suggest that he has remained a fundamentalist, even in his present "non-believer" stage from. he looks at the bible as an answer book, one which fails to give him a satisfactory answer. in this he continues the sort of struggle with a book which has been at the center of fundamentalism.

but christianity is not about a book, it is about christ. clare and francis are famous, and influential far beyond "christianity," because they took christ jesus seriously, accepting the words of the gospel as his, and actually trying to follow them rather than argue about them. jesus said, "blessed are the poor," so those who follow along with clare of assisi are still called "poor clares." simple. radical. entirely anti-cultural.

there is nothing counter-culteral about erhaman's book, which probably explains his popularity among readers who would like to avoid the claims of jesus. his introduction includes celebrating ". . . long evenings . . . drinking scotch, smoking fine cigars, and talking . . . .does it get any better than that?" (p. x) after this introduction i find it rather fascinating that he then quotes amos,

"hear this word, you cows of bashan,
who are on mount samaria,
who oppress the poor, crush the needy,
who say to their husbands,
'bring me something to drink." (amos 4:1)

"every time i read this passage i imagine an heiress to millions sitting in a lounge chair by her outdoor pool, asking her 'dawlin' husband'for another daiquiri." (p. 98)

"surely there's a way to solve [starving people's] problems . . . . i don't much like tohinking about this myself. . . . but maybe i should think about it, and maybe i should try to do something about it." (p.200)

most fascinating is that erhman finally does find his answer within the text of the bible, choosing ecclesiastes, his exegesis of which is his conclusion:

"by all means, and most emphatically, i think we should work hard to make the world--the one we live in--the most pleasing place it can be for ourselves. we should love and be loved. we should cultivate our friendships, enjoy our intimate relationships, cherish our family lives. we should make money and spend money. the more the better. we should enjoy good food and drink. we should eat out and order unhealthy desserts, and we should cook steaks on the grill and drink bordeaux. we should walk around the block, work in the garden, watch basketball, and drink beer. we should travel and read books and go to museums and look at art and listen to music. we should drive nice cars and have nice homes. we should make love, have babies, and raise families. we should do what we can to love life--it's a gift and it will not be with us for long." (p. 277)

these are fine words for those of us who enjoy driving our suvs to mall book stores. but by ehrman's own criterion of how they sound to people starving in ethiopia, they merely express clearly, even violently, how little we love our brothers and sisters. now, you may find me hard on ehrman. actually, i expect no more from an honest apostate. the horrifying thing to me is that his conclusion seems to be the one by which most of those who call themselves christians in bellingham live as well.

8 august: st. dominic

i always tend to accumulate too many books, and to spend a lot of time reading. therefore i have often felt guilty when i read of francis's contempt for books. (you know francis: he's the minimalist saint that all of us who have far too much junk around our houses enshrine as a bird bath, the anti-book dude whom i nevertheless learn about in books.) so. i was very happy to discover dominic, who was also barefooted and poor, but who encouraged his brothers to stay up as late as they wanted to, reading. he had the novel idea that it would be better to talk to--the post-modern wording would be conversation with, heretics and non-believers than to turn them or run swords through them,

off he went to rome, to pitch his idea to honorius iii, bishop of rome. the pope gave him the grand tour, showing him the accumulated riches of the papacy, and bragging that no longer would peter have to say to the lame man, "silver and gold have i none." but neither, replied dominic, can he now say, "rise up and walk."

i love that story, and i have tried to remember it as a guide to what i should read, and how i should use any knowledge i gain from my study. so the rest of this feast day i plan to read about celtic methods of evengelism, particularly of how the celtic monks went to europe to try to re-evangelize areas where the faith had been lost, rather as in the rich, embedded, american church, sitting bare-footed along a creek.

the transfiguration: how the holy one is revealed; how we receive the revelation

this year i have been struck by the cloud in this story. it is high summer, and this is certainly a feast of light, the antipode of candlemass, when simeon and anna recognized the light of the holy one in the face of the infant jesus. peter and james and john are beginning to stay awake, and they see the glory of jesus. then comes the cloud, and they are afraid--terrified is the word the nrsv uses.

ah, how like these three i find myself. it is not the absence of the holy within the cloud which is terrifying, it is the presence, and the voice: "this is my son, my chosen; listen to him." i want the revelation of the holy to be all nice and shiny, in a context i can understand, in which i can celebrate my heritage, my past experience (surrounded by moses and elijah, in other words). this cloud thing scares me wordless. like peter, i don't know what i'm saying, i want to build shrines. but of course it is the cloud that always announces the presence of the holy in scripture.

i find the contrast that paul makes in the second letter to the church in corinth very perceptive: ". . .the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." (4:4) this date, the sixth of august, is also the anniversary of fallen adam's greatest light, the bomb over hiroshima. the god of this world wants to keep us dazzled, to pretend that light is all there is, to deny us the cloud, the sheer silence in which the beloved revealed himself to elijah (1 kings 19:12) we find it hard to take time to keep silence (luke 9:36), to treasure these things in our hearts (luke 2:51).

we read in the eucharist for this day peter's remembrance of the transfiguration (2 peter 1:13-21). but i think we overlook john's reflection on his experience. both peter and john are old as they write, peter explicitly referring to his near death. john's treasured memory becomes part of the prologue to his magnificent gospel, even as his intimate memory of a breakfast on the beach after the resurrection, including jesus' talking about these two friends' deaths, becomes the postlogue. john writes:

"in the beginning was the word,
and the word was with god,
and the word was god.
the same was in the beginning with god.
all things were made by him;
and without him was not any thing made that was made.
in him was life; and the life was the light of men.
and the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
. . .
that was the true light,
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
he was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
he came unto his own, and his own received him not.
but as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on his name:
which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of god.
and the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,
(and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father,) full of grace and truth." (john 1:1-5, 10-14)

in but not of the world

few events in the church have spawned so many electronic dances as the just-ended lambeth conference. to me perhaps the most interesting image from the palace is the photograph of ++kalistos on a page from the prayer book society. there is kallistos, grey beard and black cassock, and on his right shoulder is a lad, cropped hair, bike bag, cell 'phone.

now, i'm as big a fan of "the one faith received from the apostles" as anyone. i have a grey beard, and wear black, and don't own a cell phone. but if we continue to reduce the apostolic faith, until it's content is "we don't ordain honest gay men or any women," then there is no compelling reason for the lad with the cell 'phone to consider the church as worthy of consideration as a source for guidance through "this transitory life."

but then, as kallistos admitted in his interview, the last orthodox council was in 787.it was decided that the veneration of icons is not idolatry.

lambeth

as a one-person-in-christ ecumenical movement, i've been following the proceedings at lambeth the past two weeks fairly closely, because i think the anglicans are bravely doing important work for the whole church, work made much more difficult because we have not addressed many issues late from any seriously theological bases, especially human sexuality and industrial capitalism.

there fore i was encouraged to find these words from brian maclaren, posted on terry martin's blog:

" ...i know that most people think the "news story" here is about divisive controversies over sexuality, but my sense is that the real news story is very different. there is a humble spirit here, a loving atmosphere, a deep spirituality centered in bible study, worship, and prayer, and a strong desire to move beyond internal-institutional matters to substantive mission in our needy world.

in every conversation and gathering I've participated in, the spirit has been kind and holy and positive. that sort of good news doesn't attract the media the way a salacious or pugilistic story does ... it will be interesting to see whether the press reports what is actually happening here, or if they need to rewrite the narrative to fit the shape of war-tales they are more accustomed to telling..."

lammastide/ludghnasadh/transfiguration

at the base of many of the great celtic stone crosses is the figure of st. anthony of the desert and st. paul of thebes. anthony has come to visit paul, and they are brought bread by ravens. this image reflects the ancient tradition that celtic spirituality is derived from the coptic desert fatgers, who sent, if legend is correct, seven brothers to the british isles long before st. patrick's slightly more historical mission.

there are many correspondences between the practices of the eastern church and the celtic church which support this legend. one of them is the celebration of the beginning of august, the ancient celtic season of ludghnasadh, as the thanksgiving, the harvest home feast. removed from each other by thousands of miles, the church in constantinople, and now her sister churches, and the church in the villages of cornwall, and her sisters, both rejoiced at this time, in the agricultural harvest, and in the spiritual harvest that results from our understanding of who jesus truly is.

the celtic church looked at the sun god ludgh as a prophecy of the true king of glory, christ jesus, whom the disciples saw at the feast of the transfiguration shining brighter than the sun. many of the saints of the season, such as sidwell of exeter are harvest saints. the second of august is her feast; she "was killed when her pagan stepmother incited the reapers in the harvest fields to cut off her head." (shirley toulson, the celtic year.shaftesbury: element, 1993, p.198.)

it has long seemed to the that the protestant hymn, bringing in the sheaves, written in 1874 by knowles shaw, is not inappropriate for early august.

the first of the month: a new start

for those of us who recite the psalter monthly, today began with a familiar verse:

"blessed is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners *
and hath not sat in the seat of the scornful."

it makes me wonder how often last month i "walked in the counsel of the ungodly." indeed the psalms can often seem troublesome, and it is probably the most troublesome ones which we should consider most carefully.

for several years i have had the privilege of meeting with a diverse group of christians each thursday to consider the next sunday's eucharistic lectionary readings. for next sunday we considered psalm 17:1-7, 15, which begins,


"hear the right, o lord, consider my complaint *
and hearken unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips."

one of the members was troubled by these words, saying that her lips are often feigned. if, however, really listen deeply to what this psalms is saying. then implied in these words is the hope that the holy one will ignore our feigned prayers and listen to the right, the true ones.

reciting the psalms is like learning a new language, the language of holiness. we say these words until they are ours, just as we might stumble through french tapes until french words really do express our thoughts. and each month, we get to start over, hopefully with improved pronunciation and comprehension, until there is formed in us the mind of christ, who speaks all these words truly.

joseph of arimathea (31 july)

besides the gospel account of joseph of arimathea as the sanhedran member who took jesus' body for burial in his own new tomb, there are many charming legends about the man sometimes called jesus' god father or foster father. my favourite is that joseph, a tin trader who therefore traveled sometimes to cornwall whence came most of the tin in the classical world, took with him on one of his trips the young jesus. this legend is the basis for hubert parry's great setting of william blake's hymn jerusalem, which many people consider the real national anthem of england.

there is much for us to imitate in all of the stories of this fabled saint. one of the duties of israelites was the burial of the dead, an important part of the story of tobit, which is seem as a prophecy of joseph's action. the early church continued this work, and the non-christians in the pagan world found it quite remarkable that christians buried not only their own but strangers. how ironic therefore that in some times and some places, the church refused "christian burial" or burial in "holy ground" to"those who do not profess the christian faith." i am happy to report that this charity is being recovered by the church, and more and more suggestions for how the church should minister to the dead whose faith is known to god alone are available, such as the excellent material in the episcopal book of occasional services.

in the story of joseph and the young jesus' trip to england and blakes' poem is the recognition that all ground is holy ground, if we have eyes to see (another action encouraged, by the way, in book of occasional services). indeed one of the works of the church as the body of christ is to tread the earth in a holy way, casting off our shoes, as it were. many orders of nuns and monks recognize this.

here is a collect for this day:

o merciful god, by whose servant joseph the body of our lord and saviour was committed to the grave with reverence and godly fear: grant, we beseech thee, to thy faithful people grace and courage to serve and love jesus with unfeigned devotion all the days of their life; through the same jesus christ our lord. amen.

mary and martha: patronesses of hospitality

last sunday at st. paul's during the birthday and anniversary prayers, two women came forward as they begin their third year together. their names were mary and martha, and they celebrate the anniversary of their union on july 29, the feast day of the women of bethany who so often provided hospitality to our lord. talking to them afterward i found they were delighted to have this coincidence because much of what they wanted to model in their own household was hospitality.

it seemed to me quite wonderful to be in a worshipping community in which they felt comforted and supported in their life together in christ jesus. it also seemed appropriate that people who are in some way or another marginalized most often are models of hospitality to those of us who are either in the comfy middle of things, or are able to present the image that we are.

many sermons and much ink have explore the relationship between these two sisters and their gifts. these days the majority of speakers seem to be saying that mary could not have chosen the better part without martha's constant and loving work. this sort of comparison, i think, misses the essence of their relationship and of jesus' statement that mary had chosen the better part. i am always reminded when i read the bethany sisters' story of two beloved aunts, nell and blanche, who during my childhood provided the household of hospitality for family gatherings and feasts. blanche, during such a gathering, would seem very much like mary, while blanche would be doing the kitcheny sort of martha business. at other times, however, nell was the bookkeeper for the local chevrolet dealership, working to pay for the bread that nell would slice while the nephews would sit around blanche in the living room and listen to her stories. (and indeed some of the legends from the early church suggest that mary of bethany was a working woman, too.)

that the two sisters together provided hospitality seems to have much to say to us in the church as we try to provide hospitality today. all too often our work of evangelism, our work of worship, and our work of social justice and alms, get separated. indeed i have evangelical friends who suggest that my social justice friends are tainted by "works-righteousness." of course true healing hospitality--think of the connection between "hospitality" and "hospital"--requires both action and contemplation, and the experience of the church over the centuries is that mary has chosen the better part, that action not based on a deep experience of godlove is fruitless.

the sequence of the jesus' summary of the law is essential: "thou shalt love the lord thy god with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. this is the first and great commandment. and the second is like unto it; thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

i am happy to find this sequence reflected in the collect for the day:

"o god, who bestowest divers gifts and grces upon thy saints: we give thee humble thanks for the examples of thy servans mary and martha, the friends of our saviour jesus christ; and we pray thee to give us grace to love and serve thee and others for his sake, who with thee and the holy ghost liveth and reigneth eve, one god, world without end. amen.