st. bartholomew's day: a wonder for nathaniel bar tholomew

"may the words of mouth always find favor,
and the whisperings of my heart,
in your presence, YHWH,
my rock, my redeemer." psalm 19:14, (jerusalem bible)

what, i wonder, were the words
whispering in nathaniel's hearts as
he sat under his fig tree.

i wonder if they could have been
jacob's dream of the ladder, well
before he became israel without guile.

(i wonder if even in john's gospel
jesus knew such things
as this. yes?)

i wonder how long nathaniel
would keep his ironic humor:
"rabbi, you are the son of god."

i wonder if it were jesus'
ironic humor,
"there is an israelite who deserves
the name, in capable of deceit,"
that drew nathaniel bartholomew
to follow.

i wonder, was it the search for the ladder
that would take this israelite to india,
carrying the gospel book in his native tongue.

i wonder, that spring day by the gallilean sea,
if nathaniel's heart murmered to wander
so far, even with the king of israel.

and, i wonder if it were only in albana,
by the caspian sea,
that he saw the ladder,
as his guileless skin
was pulled from his
faithful body.

call me historian, not christian

i read too much, and seldom do i listen.

lately i have been reading fredrick denison maurice's work. he is a rather unusual historian in that he is not so interested in learning the past that we might avoid the mistakes, but that we might enjoy the wisdom. and he is especially interested in christian unity, as i am, too. (see my posts from february, 2008.) but he still speaks in terms of the wisdom of quakers, and lutherans, and unitarians.

there is a little group that meets on friday nights for soup and bread, sometimes pie, and the gospel of mark. i am usually the historical arse, finishing people's statements with historical insights. history often is just the academic word for gossip. (think of footnotes: the most pedantic way of saying "he said 'she said'".)

last night, in that modest little group, i heard the word of the lord. it came, not surprisingly, gently, with no elaboration. the denominational backgrounds of the little group are varied, and therefore actually a help to each other. but, i the historian, have difficulty letting go of the past. so as we were casually ending the discussion, i referred to two very dear friends as "the lutherans."

marilyn quietly said, "we are not lutherans, dale, but christians." wow! the meaning in the depths of simple words has been been echoing in my hollow head all the hours since. i thought i needed to look for the unity of the church, and here it was, gathered around my little table, as we broke bread together.

there are none so deaf as i, who will not hear.

the dormition of the blessed virgin mary

there have of course been many thousands of pages written about the theotokos, and some of the earliest are accounts of her dormition, starting with evodius, the second bishop of antioch. i don't need to add much to the pages; a good review of many of the topics are clearly posted at a byzantine christian. i would direct you to the reading for celebrations of the blessed virgin on saturdays after trinity in the traditional benedictine missal:

"and it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. but he said, yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of god, and keep it." (luke 11:27-28)

the first part of this gospel is the part picked up in discussions about mary that center, as most of them do and as lance discussed in his post, on the nature and person of her son. but the second part, the words spoken by jesus, point us to the nature and person of jesus herself. it is her hearing the word of god, and keeping it, which is at the heart of her singular role in our salvation. a few years ago there was a book by marina warner, alone of all her sex, which traced mary as, among other things, a model of feminism in western culture. it could however as easily been titled "alone of any sex," so singular is she.

i can't end without posting a link to my favourite hymn of this fest, "ave stella maris", here in a setting by monteverdi. it is the hymn in the benedictine second vespers for the feast.

musings on evangelism, 2

now for the good news: the spread of the kingdom doesn't require that my life is remarkable. it wouldn't hurt, but the good news is not that some of my friends are worried about their real estate investments, or not, nor that i, who live on social security, am worried about how many books my stipend will buy this month, or not.

rather, of first importance, the good news is that god was in christ, reconciling the world to himself. we are more accustomed to hearing that as god so loved the world that he gave his only son. indeed, that's on quite a few of the t-shirts walking round eureka springs on any given saturday.

god so loved the world: me, with all my books; my friends who find their real estate investments more enslaving than liberating; the earnest young man on the plaza clinging to his bible as he spoke; the lesbian couple who came to stand by me because, they said, i was peaceful.

what people need, what "saves us" (i.e., heals us, makes us whole), is to know the love of god, and to love in return. some of us remember when each sunday the anglican rite started with the words, "hear what our lord jesus christ saith. 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 neighbour as thyself. on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

i said that if i were to preach at the park on a saturday morning, i would start with the eighth chapter of the gospel according to john. that's the story of the woman caught in the actual act of adultery. what jesus says to her, after all her accusers have gone, is remarkable: "neither do i condemn thee. now go and sin no more." as all gospel stories do, this one seems rather hard. likewise hard is the reading from the eighteenth chapter of st. luke in this morning's daily office. a certain ruler comes to jesus to find out what he needs to "do to inherit eternal life?" jesus tells him that he must "sell all tht thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shall have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me. and when [certain ruler] heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich."

we do not really know the responses of the woman caught in adultry or of the ruler. perhaps they followed jesus' command, even if the ruler were sorrowful at first. if indeed they did, their lives would probably have been as remarkable as anthony of the desert's. but we do know that jesus said about that the difficulty for those of us with richest to enter the kingdom of god, that "the things which are impossible with men are possible with god." and we do know that not all of us achieve sanctity immediately. remember that st. mark, whose gospel we have been reading on friday nights, was sent away by paul. but he went on to accompany peter in jerusalem, to write the gospel, and to become the first bishop of alexandria.

even if the life of christians are not always so remarkable as we might wish, the total life of the church neverless is. we are part of that great cloud of witness which includes the blessed virgin mary, apostles, martyrs, confessors, and those of us who worry about our mortgages and retirement funds. the holy one may have finished the work of creation, perhaps even the work of salvation (in the sense that if i were to tell someone the time and date of my salvation, i would probably say 3:00 p.m. 4 april a. d. 31, judean local time), but the work of sanctification continues, and the inclusion of more and more of the people the holy one loves into the body of those being sanctified continues.

there is, your see, nothing intrinsically wrong about t-shirts or houses or books, or love of another human being. but as we come to know and love the holy one, our love for all of these other things falls into perspective and is rightly ordered. that is good news indeed.

musings on evangelism

the topic of the past week has been evangelism. i had not invited it, at least not consciously, but i suppose my pretensions to starting a congregation has its own invitations. anyway, the topic first presented itself when i was the luncheon guest of the new episcopal vicar. we were talking about the attraction of eureka springs. i suggested that it has always been a place of healing, and that is still it's attraction, even for those who come on harley-davidson's, even though we have overlaid it with great numbers of greedy t-shirt stores and motels.

it was usual for desert monks to have a few books. st. athanasius' cell was remarkably free of books. when he was asked about that, he said that creation is an open book to those who have eyes to see. eureka springs seems like one of those places, and the opposition to its role as a revelation of the creator seems much like the same sort of opposition that occurs to other forms of the holy one's revelation, especially in scripture and in the incarnation of god the son.

friday night, as the little group that meets at my house for soup and the gospel of mark were discussing the fourth chapter of that gospel, one of the participants said, in real surprise, "why are we talking about evangelism?" for most of us evangelism has become a discomforting word, and we wondered why. it was, i suggested, because the word has been coopted by those whose take on evangelism is the question, "if you died tonight, where would you spend eternity?" the gospel of mark, the good news of our lord jesus christ according to mark, starts with jesus saying, "repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." there is no suggestion that the kingdom needs to wait until we die.

the little group also recognized, however, that the church often falls far short of actually living in the kingdom. we wondered whether there were any noticeable difference common to those of us who considered ourselves christians and those of our neighbors who do not consider themselves christians. it was certainly difficult to see much difference in morality.

one of the participants suggested that she had been taught as a young lutheran in catechism class that a christian is one who knows whom to thank. i added that for orthodox christians, it is also how to thank. we have again and again noticed in reading mark's gospel that people gathered in great numbers around jesus, who often was trying to escape for a while.

there was a fairly large gathering saturday morning in downtown eureka springs' basin park. it was one of the four annual "diversity weekends," and although i usually avoid downtown on weekends (for reasons alluded to above under the heading of greedy t-shirt shops), i thought it wouldn't hurt me to see more of the town in which i have come to live, and i was particularly curious about a group called "jericho riders" who have noticeably appeared on diversity weekends to perform "street preaching"--in other words, something that probably would be described by its practitioners as "evangelism." i listened to one of the earnest young men for a little while, went off to write a rather depressed letter to a friend, and came back to talk with the "preacher." i confess i find what he and the jericho riders were doing to be about as far from evangelism as i could imagine. to start with, they were "proclaiming" certain passages from paul's writings, mostly from his letters to the corinthian church, with no concern for how the passages they quoted worked within the structure of paul's letters and thought, nor with any appreciation that the audience in the park were mostly not church members. paul's letters were pointedly to church members. i thought that if i were going to preach to that crowd, i would probably start with the eighth chapter of john's gospel.

but evangelism i expect seldom occurs when some one decides that some group of "others" needs a good preaching. evangelism happened in the new testament, and it could happen still, when people who call themselves christians live lives that are remarkable enough to make people curious. jesus pointedly reminded us that where our treasure is, there we will find our hearts. for those of us whose main concern is the value of our real estate or retirement investments, or whose christianity consists of motor-cycle jackets with crosses decorating them, there's nothing to make anyone curious.