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.

mary magdalene

mary magdalene, whose feast day is the 22nd of july, must be the most pliable of saints. over the years she has been imaged and imagined in many ways, from the first witness of the resurrection and the apostle to the apostles, the inventor of the easter egg (my favourite), through repentent whore to excuse for the da vinci code.

i have long been a "fan" of hers, and remember with great expectation the publishing of starbird's the woman with the alabaster jar, a copy of which the publisher gave me since i was living in santa fe at the time and had given a workshop of the role of mary magdalene in the early church. seldom have i been so disappointed by any book, and few of the many books about mary that have followed have been any better. it seems that she is fair game as a hook on which to hang any hair-brained scheme about the early church or women one wants.

the midaeval understanding of the magadalen as a penitent i have usually avoided, even if i have sometimes defended it against the neo-gnostic goons. therefore i was delighted to re-find (duh! where have i been all these many years) that the epistle reading for her feast is from the fifth chapter of second corinthians:

"if anyone is in christ [she] is a new creature."

ah. of course. so many times in so many ways, i want to be, or at least to have the advantages of, the new creature, but to keep my old mind, thank you very much. i want memories, which i can re-paint as needed, in nostalgic sepia tones, rather than to re-member. but to be in christ is to have the mind of christ. it requires me to repent. there is no other way to be sanctified, which, as the collect for the feast reminds us, is what jesus did for mary:

"o almighty god, whose blessed son did sanctify mary magdalene, and call her to be a witness to his resurrection: mercifully grant that by thy grace we may healed of all our infirmities, and serve thee in the power of his endless life; who with thee and the holy ghost liveth and reigneth, one god, world without end. amen.

proper 11a: ladders in the weeds

we may say in the creed about jesus that "he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead," but it seems that few of us live as if that were an important part of our expectations. indeed liberal theologians often speak of how mistaken the "early church" was in expecting the immanent return of christ. i sometimes wonder whether the phrase "early church" implies that we are the "late church," and that therefore we might be surprised by a trump at any moment.

of course there are those who are making big bucks off "the second coming." if, however, the gospel for this sunday is correct, the left behind folks have it just about backwards: it will be the tares, the weeds, who leave their clothes behind on airplanes, with the good wheat left behind (on an earth that will be recreated, according to the revelation to john).

meanwhile, we have to live amongst the weeds. I once worshiped with a parish that was jokingly called "bede's-in-the-weeds," as if somehow her mother parish downtown were in a perfect wheat field. i confess i find this persistence of weeds less enjoyable when i think of the parable in jungian terms, and realize that the weeds are often within my own heart. if the weeds were only those persons with whom i share the field who were less perfect than i, i could probably forgive them. but the truth is that there are many things growing in my heart for which i pray clearance, and that sometimes i pray with my fingers crossed behind my back.

it is in the context of my own heart that i find the story from genesis hopeful. ". . . the holy one is in this place, and i never knew it." again and again the holy one comes into the stony desert where jacob was fleeing from his brother, no stonier than my weed-filled heart can be, not just a "second coming," but comings "seventy times seven." for as john wesley wrote in his notes on the new testament, "the mediation of christ: he is this ladder: the foot on earth in his human nature, the top in heaven in his divine nature; or the former is his humiliation, the latter is his exaltation."

strange nest fellows

i have been reading two quite encouraging and somewhat unusual books this past week. encouraging because i find myself in such agreement with them, which itself these days makes them unusual.

the first is bede griffiths" return to the center; the second stanley hauerwas's a better hope. it may seem strange that i find two such apparently differing authors so similar to myself in our approach to the modern/postmodern world in which we find ourselves.

griffiths: ". . . men of genius who lack 'wisdom', like luther and calvin, voltaire and rousseau, marx and freud, release such incalculable forces of evil."

hauerwas: "postmodernism . . . is the outworking of mistakes in christian theology correlative to the attempt to make christianity 'true' apart from faithful witness."

having graduated from a seminary downstream from the mistakes of calvin, i am particularly aware of how embedded in the religion of capitalism modern european christianity has become, and as i usually point out in a slightly different context, america is just what europeans do when they have no restraints.

what is needed in these absurd times brother louis called "the modern psychosis" is of course what is always needed: true repentance and amendment of life. what i find hopeful in the writings of griffiths and hauerwas is their recognition that it is our religion itself from which we must repent. once again, those of us who have ears should hear: "the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of god is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the gospel."

the end of midsummer: the feasts of sts. peter and paul

there are many wonderful ways the church--the kirk, if ye be a bit scots--embodies the gospel.

in celtic lands, especially, the feast of sts peter and paul marks the end of midsummer and the beginning of a time of fast leading up to the transfiguration.

in cornwall, there are bonfires. (the best i could do was to go to cornwall beach and put candles in the sand.)

at st. paul's, bellingham, today we are kirkin the tartans. this event is not tied to any particular time of year, but i am particularly happy that it is happening today at st. paul's, especially when the new calendar makes this not just the feast of st. peter but also of peter and paul, the holy apostles.

the collect for the day in the 1979 book fo common prayer is

"almighty god, whose blessed apostles peter and paul glorified
you by their martyrdom: grant that your church, instructed by
their teaching and example, and knit together in unity by your
spirit, may ever stand firm upon the one foundation, which
is jesus christ our lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the
unity of the holy spirit, one god, now and for ever. amen."

i especially like the "knitting" image, echoing the collect for all saints day. the tartans of the scots were very much the work of human hands, died with the plants from local gardens. this event is a wonderful expression of the incarnation that makes salvation possible.

the kirkin o' the tartans is also a reminder that the church is more than just us now. it is "the blessed company of all faithful people." we join therefore not only with those of us who will gather in elizabeth park, but with those who have walked before us and those yet to be born.

i hope we sing st. patrick's breastplate.

the forerunner: least in the kingdom

although the japanese manufacturing giant toyo kogyo chose the name of the ancient persian god of light, "mazda," so far as i know john is the only christian saint honored by sharing a name with a car, although i have no idea whether when toyota named their suv "forerunner" they were aware that the name was already taken by one of the most important of saints of the church.

john the forerunner is so important that the church commemorates not only his death, by beheading, on the 29th of august, but his nativity, today, the 24th of june. only our lord and his mother the theotokos are similarly remembered.

his nativity occurs at the height of summer, when the days are the longest, when earthly splendour is at its greatest. this can be a trap for us. we easily forget the profound importance of jesus words, "among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than john the baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." (matthew 11:11) so we seek, not the kingdom of god, but the lesser good, and it is a good, of this world. we seek happiness in sunny days and toyotas.

even the book of common prayer's collect for the day lists the goods of this world, of the time of the law and the prophets (matthew 11:13, if you will, without speaking of the kingdom and the king to which john was pointing:

"make us so to follow his doctrine and holy life, that we may truly repent according to his preaching; and after his example constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth's sake." these are good goals, but not the best goal. we are satisfied to settle for what the book of acts calls "only the baptism of john." (acts 18:25) we repent, looking for forgiveness of our sins, often (and in much of pop christianity only) because we want to escape the consequences of our mistakes--we want a get out of hell free card. but we never begin to truly live in the kingdom of god.

as great and faithful as john the forerunner is, and as excellent an example as he was, we are offered yet a better way. let us not be blinded by the brilliance of the sun at midsummer, but give thanks for john's witness and look forward to the even greater brilliance of the uncreated light which we see in christ jesus and which is available to enlighten "all men." (john 1:9) let us anticipate the next great feast of the year, the transfiguration, casting off the works of darkness that we might be true images of the light of christ.

bernard mizeki and proper seven

one of the great advantages of the liturgy is that it is not dependant on great sermons to be great worship. the hymns, the readings from holy scripture, the psalmody, the intercessions, and especially the prayer of great thanksgiving are so powerful that one can sit through a so-so sermon not so much in boredom as in anticipation of what comes next. i have, i admit, sat through many of those so-so sermons, and if i am truthful, i must confess i have preached some of them.

lately, however, i have been hearing very good sermons, sermons which take the role of proclaiming the word of the holy one today as a serious part of the work of the people called to be holy.

yesterday was no exception. chuck used as an example of the life to which jesus calls us in the gospel the story of bernard mizeki, who was killed for loving christ jesus and his followers more than the local religion. and even as chuck challenged us to take seriously jesus' call, he reminded us how easy it is to deny jesus, not in the dramatic ways which we might fantisize--"would i be faithful if faced with likely martyrdom?"--but in the little times, illustrated by an instance within his own life when he realized he had denied jesus without even noticing it.

chuck's confession of faltering faith made me wonder if we don't often deny jesus in a big way, also without noticing it. in the life (and martyrdom) of mizeki, it is easy for us to see his having abandoned what david l. veal calls in saints galore "that superstition and ignorace" of the local religions.

but we do not even recognize the the consumerism in which we so often worship for the religion which it is, a religion in the true sense of tying our world together, with which me have easily made peace, and from which we are very reticent to cut loose with the sword which jesus brings. our witness has been so easily neutralized that it would be silly to consider ourselves potential martyrs. again and again we have chosen "greed, which is idolatry," over the self-denial to which we are called. as often as not the cross we take up is a piece of jewelry. and we never notice that what we give up is the way that leads to true joy.

"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."

re-entry chattiness

after being away from bellingham for a year and two weeks, i am finding re-entry somewhat difficult. when living as a semi-hermit in the gentle hills of the ozarks, amidst slabs of ancient limestone, my life fell easily into a rhythm that i found deeply satisfying.

now i am back to the city, where at any given moment it seems there are more cars whizzing down squalicum parkway, the quiet street beyond my deck, than there are in the whole of eureka springs on a busy weekend.

i am trying to find another rhythm, one that keeps me centred on the holy one in our midst but which makes me available in "the conversation that leads us to new acts as todays apostles" in real time and not just on this blog.

so, i am adding two other sets of links, one commotions under the big steeple, the other groans of emmergence, and will try to engage some of the questions and issues that confront us in the noisy city. the blog about the mouse in the living room is part of that effort.

the mouse in the living room

jesus, so far as we know, said nothing about homosexuality. it is said that he loved two men (the rich young ruler and john--i know, agape not eros, a distinction to which i will return). but he did say a lot about economic injustice (and when he needed a coin for the empire, he never seemed to have one).

if i may paraphrase g.k. chesterton, it would be possible to develop a huge cloud of blog tags about whether jesus thought homosexuality is a sin (chesterton said whether he believed in fairies) but about whether jesus said that the rich are in deep shit (i don't remember what more polite victorian/edwardian phrase g.k.c. used) there is no room for debate.

earlier this week, i sat in on what the local congregation with which i most often worship in bellingham calls its "alms ministry." for one hour a week, people are allowed to come into the church building and beg. the beggars are treated well, and the people who distribute the alms are much like peter and john in the temple in that they offer the beggars jesus christ. but they are not like peter and john when they tell the beggars that there is only $150 a week to give out.

this is a lie. the church has much more money than this. the lease payments on some of the mercedes i see in the parking lot on sunday mornings are more than $600 a month. the truth is that we as the church--and not just in this congregation--love our toys more than we love our brothers and sisters in need. we choose to give only $150 a week in "alms." i understand the lure of toys: i have been tempted the past few weeks by a new bicycle. the ones i've been looking at cost between $600 and $1000. fortunately i personally have about $3.50, and no credit card, so i can't go out and indulge my temptation.

that one hour tuesday morning has been almost the only time since returning to bellingham that i have been engaged in any discussion or activity about an issue jesus seemed to think is important. (i mean, in the daily office last night we read again about his feeding of the multitudes, but we don't discuss this "in church".) instead, i hear about "the question:" homosexuality.

last week i went to a movie night at some friends' house, and the movie was "inlaws and outlaws." last night i went to a birthday party, and one of the other men there was a pastor of a local congregation of the church of god of andersonville, indiana, and he asked me, "what's the deal with homosexuals in the episcopal church?" (his was not a coy question. his own take is that there is sin in our lives, some of it heterosexual, some of it homosexual, but just as paul writes to the roman, we all are sinful, and so have no room to condemn each other.)

with tens of thousands of children starving to death each day, largely the result of the actions of the empire as much as the death of the holy innocents of bethleham was an impirial action, with the world's "only superpower" using its powers to destroy governments and people throughout the world, with corn prices so high that the poor of south american are doing without tortillas as the rich of north america are burning the corn in their chevrolet denalis, the upcoming lambeth conference will be reported throughout the world as a debate about how sinful it is for the american episcopal church to have selected and consecrated gene robinson as a bishop.

one of the more insightful essays about the wider implications of the debate expected at lambeth was in the july 2008 harpers, which puts it within the context of imperialism and its aftermath. it is of course much easier for us to say "tush, tush" about good old gene robinson, "isn't it a shame he started packing fudge?" than it is to look at our own responsibilities for the greed and suffering in our world.

it is much easier to talk about the mouse in the living room, to shriek and look for a better mouse trap or say how harmless the mouse really is, than to deal with the same issues jesus found important enough to talk about so forcefully that the empire found it necessary to try to silence him.

so, back to jesus and his love for at least two men. i confess i find the term "homosexuality" an oxymoron. sexuality is about reproduction; it is one of the ways diversity is kept within a species. but in our modern culture informed more by the scandalous magazines at the check-out stands of the grocery stores than by careful formation by the church in the real implications of the scandal of the cross, there is not much room for love, only for sex, and sex is no longer about reproduction but about lust and appetite-fulfillment.

as my friend from the church of god and i talked last night, i tried to encourage him to look at what happens between two men, between gene robinson and mark, for instance, as not about sex but about love. why do we define people by something that my friend said "takes about three minutes every two weeks?" is this the only time he loves his wife? is this all that there is between any two people who love each other? and if it is, should we split the church yet again over this small act while ignoring the huge acts of sins we ourselves commit? (i seem to remember jesus saying something about splinters and logs.)

it is fascinating that although all of the evangelists speak of the bridegroom, it is only john, in both his gospel and in his revelation, who speaks of the bride. (and paul speaks of neither.) i suspect such imagery, although very important in the mystical tradition of the church, east and west, and celebrated in the popularity of the song of songs and explored in carmelite spirituality particularly, makes many of us good old boys, whether mega-church pastors in colorado or cardinals in rome, uncomfortable. if we follow the imagery even paul does use about the submission of the bride to the husband, which he says is a mystery and is about the church, it means that we must die daily to our own will, to seek not power but knowledge, and not knowledge we can express on wikipedia but knowledge of the most intimate and personal sort.

knowing the holy one, the father who is revealed in the son, is eternal life. and it is also the way we come to love god, whom if we do not know we cannot love. and loving god prepares us to love our neighbor as ourself. and when we truly do that, fulfilling the first and great commandment, then our living rooms will be freed of pesty intruders small and great.

a good day for singing

today is the feast of st. ephrem of edessa, sometimes known as ephrem of syria, a fourth century deacon who is responsible in large part for the beginnings of hymnody in the church. he is also patron of spiritual directors.

as i have been adjusting to life in bellingham again, i have realized that the most consistant part of my practice lately has been drinking coffee. therefore i find this prayer of blessed ephrem, used especially during lent in the eastern church, to be particularly helpful to me:

(making a prostration)

"o lord, master of my life, grant that i may not be infected with the spirit of slothfulness and inquisitiveness, with the spirit of ambition and vain talking.

(making a prostration)

"grant instead to me, your servant, the spirit of purity and of humility, the spirit of patience and neighborly love.

(making a prostration)

"o lord and king, grant me the grace of being aware of my sins and of not thinking evil of those of my brethren.

"for you are blessed, now and ever, and forever. amen.

"lord jesus christ, king of kings, you have power over life and death. you know what is secret and hidden, and neither our thoughts nor our feelings are concealed from you. cure me of duplicity; i have done evil before you.

"now my life declines from day to day and my sins increase. o lord, god of souls and bodies, you know the extreme frailty of my soul and my flesh. grant me strength in my weakness, o lord, and sustain me in my misery.

"give me a grateful soul that I may never cease to recall your benefits, o lord most bountiful. be not mindful of my many sins, but forgive me all my misdeeds.

"o lord, disdain not my prayer - the prayer of a wretched sinner; sustain me with your grace until the end, that it may protect me as it is your grace which has taught me wisdom; blessed are they who follow her ways, for they shall receive the crown of glory.

"in spite of my unworthiness, i praise you and i glorify you, o lord, for your mercy to me is without limit. you have been my help and my protection. may the name of your majesty be praised forever. to you, our god, be glory. amen."

the visitation: women and children first

the story of the visitation reads like an opera. all the spoken lines are poetry, but beyond the sheer beauty of the language, a lot of rather surprising things are going on.

would it have been unusual "n those days" for "mary" to "set out and [go] "with haste to a judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of zechariah and greeted elizabeth"?

"when elizabeth heard mary’s greeting," not only did "the child [leap] in her womb," but "elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry." in other words, elizabeth is described as a prophet. her words became the beginning of the marian praise song we call the hail mary:

"blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb."

mary responds in song as well, with the magnificat, often set to wonderful music:

“my soul magnifies the lord,
and my spirit rejoices in god my savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the mighty one has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
he has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
he has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
he has helped his servant israel, in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to abraham and to his descendants forever.”

how often outside of musicals and the gospel according to luke do women speak in such song? but of course they are speaking of a very great event indeed. the newly-conceived messiah, jesus, is making the first of many fateful trips to jerusalem if indeed that is where elizabeth and zecheriah reside, and he whom the universe cannot contain is contained in the womb of a young women about whom elizabeth says, "blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the lord.”

but it is not only the women who know and are beginning to understand the profound significance of this visit between cousins. elizabeth says, "as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy."

this first visit of jesus to jerusalem is a very different event from his last, when the children will still greet him as the king (see the gospel for palm sunday), but the king and priests and roman government will not greet him with joy. is it any surprise that the first one to meet the risen lord will be another woman, mary magdalene?

women and children seem better to understand the nature of real power than do those who consider themselves the powerful.

the second sunday after pentecost: musings

it's a little later in the week than usual for this post: i have been settling into my new town and digs and surroundings. being back in bellingham has been quite wonderful, with long coffee sippings with friends i hadn't seen for a year, and with the mysts of mystery every morning draping the bay and mountains.

it has also been a time of experiencing in a very wonderful way the gospel for the sunday. when i arrived i had no idea where i would live or how i would pay for my food or any of the things that make life easy. but i was not worried. i knew that our father knew what i needed, and would provide. and he did. i walked into the living room of a friend who works with recovering addicts who would otherwise be homeless people, providing lodging and food while they get back on their feet. "would i go to work?" yes. and she had a tiny loft apartment over the garage, with a little deck hanging over squalicum creek. sunday morning my shoes fell apart. in the corner, a little spider-webby, was a pair my size, abandoned. thanks be to god.

whitsunday: the alan parsons project - la sagrada familia

what can one say about pentecost? perhaps the most important is that "they were all gathered in one place with one accord."

Peter Gabriel - Here Comes The Flood

whitsunday is the english name for pentecost: the day when the rivers were warm enough for baptism. baptism, our death and burial.

4 may: the sixth sunday of easter: the koan returns

i can scarcely do better than to quote the whole gospel:

"these words spake jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, father, the hour is come; glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee: as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. and this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true god, and jesus christ, whom thou hast sent. i have glorified thee on the earth: i have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. and now, o father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which i had with thee before the world was. i have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. for i have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that i came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. i pray for them: i pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. and all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and i am glorified in them. and now i am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and i come to thee. holy father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are."

"and this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true god, and jesus christ, whom thou hast sent." (17:3) in the great arch-form of john's gospel, we are nearing the climax. here he concludes the theme begun at chapter 3, verse 16: eternal life. jesus' answer to philip from the fourth sunday is repeated within this great prayer, the eucharistic prayer of the last supper, as it were. and then the intent of the prayer: "holy father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are."

as i look at the claims of the church to be divided, the attempts we make to excommunicate one another, i cannot help but think we might do well to recover the use, throughout the church, of the book of common prayer's "prayer of humble access:

"we do not presume to come to this thy table, o merciful
lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold
and great mercies. we are not worthy so much as to gather
up the crumbs under thy table. but thou art the same lord
whose property is always to have mercy. grant us therefore,
gracious lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear son jesus christ,
and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him,
and he in us. amen."

if we truly dwell in him, the dear son, we cannot help but to dwell in the father also.

ascension: theology vs. incarnation 1.

yesterday, the feast of the ascension of our lord jesus christ, i helped a friend clean out a house he had rented for six and a half years to someone who seems to me to epitomize a miserable sinner.

how can i say that? you might ask. am i not being judgmental? no. merely observant.

sin is what makes us miserable. for six and a half years through i have no idea how many different boy friends and different drugs the occupant of that house had been surrounding herself with the detritus of a life lived ugly. the furniture, a collection whose unifying style was filthiness and odour, we put on the curb to be picked up as garbage, along with boxes of beer cartons and candles stubs and forks, remnants of some kind of business and broken pieces of once-useful objects.

like most cities in the united states, eureka springs is a collection of cultures, different outlooks, with little mutual recognition or understanding. tourists driving by the little yellow victorian cottage we were emptying would have no idea that the inhabitants were not living happy, fulfilling lives in this tourist haven. nor would the inhabitant of the little yellow house have any obvious reason to doubt the lives of the tourists passing in their new suv's were less than the joyful events vacations advertise.

the joyless artifacts i carried to the curb, as i found myself being covered with the dust and filth of the misery which passes unobserved and approved by modern life, made me especially aware of what we pray on ascension day:

"grant, we pray, almighty god, that as we believe your
only-begotten son our lord jesus christ to have ascended
into heaven, so we may also in heart and mind there ascend,
and with him continually dwell; who lives and reigns with
you and the holy spirit, one god, for ever and ever. amen."

and they made me wonder why we so easily settle for lives of quiet, filthy desperation when the kingdom is at hand.

ascension day

this ascension day is the 22nd anniversary of "my first celebration of the eucharist," an event the synchronicity of which has gained significance for me over the years as my understanding of the place of the ascension in the liturgy has grown. celtic daily prayer from the northumbrian community has added another glimpse of understanding: the ascension as a marriage. of course! and of course this is part of the implicit orthodox understanding of the liturgy, but which i seldom remember explicitly.

the northumbrian "liturgy combines material from a variety of sources: . . . traditional scottish prayer . . ., the imagery of jewish betrothal custom and catherine de hoeck doherty's vision of the bride as a 'servant of the poor.' the scriptures used are from the song of solomon and st john's gospel.

"jesus betrothed his followers to himself. he offered his love. his own body and all his kingdom. he looked for our love, our willingness to follow him, our promise to be his alone, to wait for him.

"you have not chosen me', he said, 'but i have chosen you. receive my love. do not be afraid. drink from my cup as the sign of your betrothal to me. trust in my love and believe in me. if only you could see me for who i am!'

"'my father is rich in houses and land. i am going to prepare such a wonderful place for you, so where i am you can be with me. when all is ready, i will return and take you to myself.'

"'walk as my own in the world, and remember how i have loved you. it is better that i leave you now--for time is short, and you have much to do as you prepare for my returning.'

"clouds of heaven covered him as he was taken up out of their sight.

"when the people of heaven welcomed their heart-love, mary's beautiful son broke into tears before them.

"'i am my beloved's,' he said, 'and she will be mine. my desire is towards her, and she will not fail me. soon she will shine as brightly as the sun, reaching out for me, urgently as a mighty army, radiant and terrifying. my sister, my bride, she is mine!'

"the spirit of promise gave this vision, the spirit he said would lead us deeper into truth. it is a vision of what we, as his own, can become.

"there she stands, above the treeline, shining in the rays of the noonday sun.

"she is beautiful and simple, with her doors wide open: and into her stream the rich and poor alike.

"she is the bride of christ. she is his beloved and he is all tenderness, all love, towards her.

"not only is she his beloved, but she serves the people whom he loved, the poor. the people whom he fed with loaves and fishes, she now feeds with bread and wine.

"from her heart rises an immense cry of adoration:

"'my lord has died,
jesus, my lord is risen.
jesus our lord will come again to take us to himself--that where he is we may be also.'
. . .
"lord, hasten the day when those who seek you in every nation will come from the east and west, from north and south, and sit at table in your kingdom."

--from celtic daily prayer (harpersanfrancisco, 2002), pp.281-283.

36 and counting: the sixth sunday of easter

the gospel for this sunday is john 14:15-21. the church knows that forty days after the resurrection jesus ascended to the father, a fact that is celebrated thursday of this week. but she remembers that jesus promised he would not leave us orphans, that he would send, "another comforter, that he may abide with you forever."

for a number of years my favourite read for pentecost (after of course the daily office readings for this season) has been annie dillard's holy the firm. this year i have a new favourite: cormac mcarthy's the road. it profoundly recognizes that we are living in the last days, but it is also a profoundly hopeful book, a pentecostal book in all meanings of that word. in it a loving father takes his son through the wilderness, telling him all along the terror-filled way that they are "some of the good guys," that they "carry the fire," even though the existence of other "good guys" is an act of faith, and the fire is constantly challenged. at last the father dies just as the son meets some of the other good guys: one man, one woman, two children, one boy, one girl.

"the woman when she saw him put her arms around him and held him. oh, she said, i am so glad to see you. she would talk to him sometimes about god. he tried to talk to god but the best thing was to talk to his father and he did talk to him and he didnt forget. the woman said that was all right. she said that the breath of god was his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all time.

"once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. you could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. they smelled of moss in your hand. polished and muscular and torsional. on their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. maps and mazes. of a thing which could not be put back. not be made right again. in the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery." (p. 241)

koan on the creekside

i sat on the banks of a creek wednesday as it flowed into the impounded waters of the white river, it's enlarged surface reflecting early springs green leaves and the still-white trunks of the sycamores.

i was reading nikolai gogol's the divine liturgy of the russian orthodox church, and i interspersed bits and pieces of psalms which occur in the liturgy as i read, especially psalm 103. i found myself humming them to melodies from the orthodox liturgy, and i was saddened that there is no community here to sing with.

and i understood perhaps some of how brother andre of taize felt. he stopped celebrating eucharist because the whole church would not celebrate together.

today i am reading s. l. greenslade's schism in the early church (london: scm,1964), which includes these words:

"[the early church] was not undivided, but it was much less divided than we are to-day, and it hated division and worked hard, if sometimes by unhappy means, to heal it. it did so, not because it was uneconomical in manpower or money to have a novatianist chapel and a catholic church on opposite street corners, nor even because disunion was mocked at by the pagan. it was because disunion is in itself sin, and therefore to be fought against." (p. 33)

lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep thy law.