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.