In Luke 9: 51-62, we see that Jesus has concluded the main body of his ministry and has now turned towards Jerusalem and his future destiny. He chooses deliberately to travel through Samaria, which is a radical breaking-down of barriers, for mainstream Jews and Samaritans are bitter enemies, each considering the other to be heretical. First, they do not agree on Scripture. Samaritans accept only the first five books of what we call the Old Testament, whereas Jews accept all of the books in their current canon and the authority of "oral Torah" or commentary. Second, Samaritans believe that God's sacramental presence is in the Temple on Mount Gerazim in Samaria, whereas Jews believe Jerusalem is the cultic centre of the faith. One year Samaritan terrorists went to Gerizim and burnt down the Temple there and the next Passover a delegation from Samaria strew bones of dead humans in the Temple render it impure for worship. Looking back at the Exile to Babylon, Jews saw their deportation as a sign of God's chastisement of those God loved; Samaritans saw it as a sign of God's disfavour, for they were not exiled.
When Jesus' band seek hospitality in Samaria, they are turned away. Well, of course, for a believer in Samaritan culture would not abet a pilgrimage to Jerusalem which they considered to be counter to God's will. The disciples want to burn the place down. Jesus says, no don't retaliate. Much later, the "heretical" milieu of Samaria will prove a fertile field for Christanity. Jesus evangelizes a Samaritan woman who becomes an evangelist to her people, and much later on, the Jerusalem Church will send Peter and John to Samaria to confirm converts who have only been baptised and thereby to convey the Holy Spirit to these new believers.
What messages might we pick up from this story. First, avoid judgementalism towards those whose worship and traditions are different from our own. Second, go outside your comfort zone and find relationship with those beyond your usual circles. Broaden your horizons. Third, be proactive in serving all people.
The latter vignette in our reading initially seems unreasonable, but I believe the core message is that building the Kingdom of God on earth is of surpassing importance. Jesus' work is not to be tackled at our convenience, or when we squeeze God in, or when we have nothing better to do. As Christians, the Kingdom mission is now and always primary in our lives, in our deployment of time, talent and wealth..
I
Monday, June 27, 2016
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Pentecost V: Jesus cares and cures
In two of today's texts [I Kings 19: 1-15a; Luke 8: 26-39],we learn about changing direction. Elijah is having a terrible time in his life: the land is evil, the king is evil, prophets are dead, and the Queen wants him executed. For answers, he goes to Horeb (i.e. Sinai), no doubt looking for theophanies of old, like earthquake, wind and fire; instead there is the sound of sheer silence. Instead of fixing his problems magically, God communicates through a sheer silence that Elijah is to change direction. In his new assignment he will anoint healthy kings and a new prophetic successor, He himslef will find that he is the answer to his problems!
Jesus involuntarily also changes direction. He and his bind are out on the sea when a storm drives them to Gerasa on the opposite side of the lake from Galilee. Boy, has he landed in the wrong place! Gerasa is home to a Roman garrison of soldiers called a "legion;" it is a centre for the cult of Roman and Greek sacrifices, and a symbol of Roman imperial military power. Logically, it is also the hub of swine production, as pork is a main staple of the Gentile diet. Watch for serious symbolism as the tale unfolds.
The first person Jesus encounters is a madman who lives rough in a cemetery, apparently suffers from epilepsy and mental illness, and runs rounds naked. Jesus lures him out of the tombs and cures him. As the ancients thought all disease and defect were caused by tiny demons, the story is cast in terms of throwing out demons. These perfidious parasites happen to be named "Legion!" Jesus sends "the Legion" into a herd of swine who commit suicide by jumping into the sea. And remember that Jews thought demons lived in the wilderness and could not survive in water. (In some churches the nearest door to the font is left open during baptism so the demons can escape easily.) Now our protagonist is sane and and dressed. Mission accomplished. But are the locals grateful? No, they ask Jesus to go away because they are afraid. What would you bet the real reason is that the local Chamber is upset by the destruction of the pigs, and the profits they would have generated
What can we say? Jesus has given back the protagonist's dignity and future. No one who is open to transformation by Jesus will remain unchanged. The problem is that we too often live amongst the tombs of self-satisfaction, addiction, obsession, wealth, power and privilege. We can get really comfortable with our demons and want to protect them instead of letting Jesus heal us and convert us into the people he calls us to be.
In destroying "the Legion," Jesus has taken on the values of imperialism and militarism. And in the obliteration of the swine he has taken on the values of unbridled capitalism, doing most anything or anybody for a buck. It is clear that Jesus is not safe to be around. Don't approach unless you want to be changed forever.
Jesus involuntarily also changes direction. He and his bind are out on the sea when a storm drives them to Gerasa on the opposite side of the lake from Galilee. Boy, has he landed in the wrong place! Gerasa is home to a Roman garrison of soldiers called a "legion;" it is a centre for the cult of Roman and Greek sacrifices, and a symbol of Roman imperial military power. Logically, it is also the hub of swine production, as pork is a main staple of the Gentile diet. Watch for serious symbolism as the tale unfolds.
The first person Jesus encounters is a madman who lives rough in a cemetery, apparently suffers from epilepsy and mental illness, and runs rounds naked. Jesus lures him out of the tombs and cures him. As the ancients thought all disease and defect were caused by tiny demons, the story is cast in terms of throwing out demons. These perfidious parasites happen to be named "Legion!" Jesus sends "the Legion" into a herd of swine who commit suicide by jumping into the sea. And remember that Jews thought demons lived in the wilderness and could not survive in water. (In some churches the nearest door to the font is left open during baptism so the demons can escape easily.) Now our protagonist is sane and and dressed. Mission accomplished. But are the locals grateful? No, they ask Jesus to go away because they are afraid. What would you bet the real reason is that the local Chamber is upset by the destruction of the pigs, and the profits they would have generated
What can we say? Jesus has given back the protagonist's dignity and future. No one who is open to transformation by Jesus will remain unchanged. The problem is that we too often live amongst the tombs of self-satisfaction, addiction, obsession, wealth, power and privilege. We can get really comfortable with our demons and want to protect them instead of letting Jesus heal us and convert us into the people he calls us to be.
In destroying "the Legion," Jesus has taken on the values of imperialism and militarism. And in the obliteration of the swine he has taken on the values of unbridled capitalism, doing most anything or anybody for a buck. It is clear that Jesus is not safe to be around. Don't approach unless you want to be changed forever.
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Pentecost IV: Forgiveness
Two thirds of the statements attributed to Jesus relate directly or indirectly to the subject of forgiveness. It is not surprising, then, that the first act of the Risen Christ was to confer on his Church the authority to forgive sins. That is a great responsibility and a great honour.
Yom Kippur is the day of atonement in the Jewish religion, our mother tradition. On that day faithful Jews come to their temple or synagogue to ask for forgiveness and to be enrolled in the Book of Life for the coming year. But there is one hitch: a Jew may not come to the Yom Kippur service without first having spent the day seeking to be reconciled to those persons by whom offended or whom one has offended, This is nothing new; it is ancient Jewish teaching. When Jesus said in the Our Father "forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us," he was simply repeating a prayer recited every morning by every observant Palestinian Jew. You cannot hold a grudge and then ask for God's pardon.
Our gospel story (Lk 7:36 et seq.) is one of four accounts of the anointing of Jesus by a woman. Each recounting has a different theological concern, shown in the figure objecting to the anointing with rich perfume. In Matthew, the crowd object. In Mark, the apostles object. In John's very late gospel, the mysterious "Judas: objects. Here in Luke, Simon, a pharisee, objects because the woman has a reputation and rabbis should shun such sinners. Jesus says that Simon has little love and will receive little forgiveness. The woman of ill repute knows she is a sinner, has much love and self- awareness and, so, Jesus forgives her sin.
'
We Christians are not confined by the Yom Kippur protocols, although we do have the Lenten season as our model of penance. Nevertheless, there is no bad time for forgiveness and too often accidents and life events take away loved ones still out of a state of our grace. That is supremely sad. The great rabbinic sage Israel Salander tells of visiting a cobbler. After going to bed the first night, he realized there was a light streaming into his room. Investigating, he found his host repairing shoes in the middle of the night. When Salander inquired about it, the host said, "As long as the candle is burning, it is possible to mend."
We never know how long the candle of our life will burn, so mend as soon as you can.
Yom Kippur is the day of atonement in the Jewish religion, our mother tradition. On that day faithful Jews come to their temple or synagogue to ask for forgiveness and to be enrolled in the Book of Life for the coming year. But there is one hitch: a Jew may not come to the Yom Kippur service without first having spent the day seeking to be reconciled to those persons by whom offended or whom one has offended, This is nothing new; it is ancient Jewish teaching. When Jesus said in the Our Father "forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us," he was simply repeating a prayer recited every morning by every observant Palestinian Jew. You cannot hold a grudge and then ask for God's pardon.
Our gospel story (Lk 7:36 et seq.) is one of four accounts of the anointing of Jesus by a woman. Each recounting has a different theological concern, shown in the figure objecting to the anointing with rich perfume. In Matthew, the crowd object. In Mark, the apostles object. In John's very late gospel, the mysterious "Judas: objects. Here in Luke, Simon, a pharisee, objects because the woman has a reputation and rabbis should shun such sinners. Jesus says that Simon has little love and will receive little forgiveness. The woman of ill repute knows she is a sinner, has much love and self- awareness and, so, Jesus forgives her sin.
'
We Christians are not confined by the Yom Kippur protocols, although we do have the Lenten season as our model of penance. Nevertheless, there is no bad time for forgiveness and too often accidents and life events take away loved ones still out of a state of our grace. That is supremely sad. The great rabbinic sage Israel Salander tells of visiting a cobbler. After going to bed the first night, he realized there was a light streaming into his room. Investigating, he found his host repairing shoes in the middle of the night. When Salander inquired about it, the host said, "As long as the candle is burning, it is possible to mend."
We never know how long the candle of our life will burn, so mend as soon as you can.
Sunday, June 5, 2016
Pentecost III: Learning from St. Paul
In today's gospel reading (Luke 7: 11-17) Jesus raises the dead. It seems that he is constantly doing that, raising people from the death of addiction. The death of substance abuse. Death from greed, self-absorption, fear....all the things that separate us from God and kill our souls. Jesus is in the business of saving lives.
No more dramatic example can be found than Saint Paul. He is a devout Jew living in the diaspora far away from Jerusalem. He has become engaged in suppressing "The Way," the Jesus Movement arising within Judaism, acknowledging Jesus as a radically different kind of Messiah, and introducing an odd eucharistic rite into worship. At some point in time Paul has a sudden, dramatic conversion experience in which he understands himself to have been ordained an apostle directly by Jesus.. His experience is described symbolically in a revised versions of the Old Testament story about the conversion of Heliodorus. Heliodorus was a Greek persecutor of Jews who was blinded by a great light, later converted to Judaism, and became a big promoter of his new faith. The first-century Jewish reader would see in the story of Saint Paul's conversion the message that a new stage of religious progress -- from Judaism to The Way -- had nowbeen reached in human history.
After conversion, Paul becomes a kind of spiritual Johnny Appleseed, planting churches in many places. One is in Galatia, a province founded by Celtic tribes, to whom today's epistle (Gal. 1: 11-24) is addressed. Delegates from James's church in Jerusalem (where Jewish Christianity is norm) have arrived and advised members that Paul's policy of admitting gentiles into his congregations without a preliminary conversion to Judaism and ongoing expectation of compliance with Torah is erroneous and must be rejected by the Galatian church. Here Paul asserts that his new Torah-free gospel was directly authorized by Jesus in a vision and is therefore valid policy.
What can the Pauline story tell us that would be relevant to our lives today? First, never presume that God is not doing a new thing; our God is a God of surprises. Second, don't presume to judge anyone else's experience of God. Third, always be open to unfolding new revelation, ready to stand corrected when new information and truth present themselves.
No more dramatic example can be found than Saint Paul. He is a devout Jew living in the diaspora far away from Jerusalem. He has become engaged in suppressing "The Way," the Jesus Movement arising within Judaism, acknowledging Jesus as a radically different kind of Messiah, and introducing an odd eucharistic rite into worship. At some point in time Paul has a sudden, dramatic conversion experience in which he understands himself to have been ordained an apostle directly by Jesus.. His experience is described symbolically in a revised versions of the Old Testament story about the conversion of Heliodorus. Heliodorus was a Greek persecutor of Jews who was blinded by a great light, later converted to Judaism, and became a big promoter of his new faith. The first-century Jewish reader would see in the story of Saint Paul's conversion the message that a new stage of religious progress -- from Judaism to The Way -- had nowbeen reached in human history.
After conversion, Paul becomes a kind of spiritual Johnny Appleseed, planting churches in many places. One is in Galatia, a province founded by Celtic tribes, to whom today's epistle (Gal. 1: 11-24) is addressed. Delegates from James's church in Jerusalem (where Jewish Christianity is norm) have arrived and advised members that Paul's policy of admitting gentiles into his congregations without a preliminary conversion to Judaism and ongoing expectation of compliance with Torah is erroneous and must be rejected by the Galatian church. Here Paul asserts that his new Torah-free gospel was directly authorized by Jesus in a vision and is therefore valid policy.
What can the Pauline story tell us that would be relevant to our lives today? First, never presume that God is not doing a new thing; our God is a God of surprises. Second, don't presume to judge anyone else's experience of God. Third, always be open to unfolding new revelation, ready to stand corrected when new information and truth present themselves.
Corpus Christi / Anglican Communion Sunday
In two of today's readings (I Cor. 11: 23-29 and John 6: 47-58), we encounter Saint Paul warning of the serious importance of discerning the Presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the Eucharist, and Jesus offering an extended sermon on his Real Presence under the appearances of bread and wine.
Such belief has never been questioned in the Oriental Church, and was not called into question in the Western Church until the twelfth century. In response to inchoate heresy, Saints, scholars and ordinary faithful rose up to defend eucharistic faith. Coming out of that disturbance in the force, a mystical nun named Julianna in the following century had a vision in which she saw a bright moon and a black dot on its face. She discerned that the moon was the panoply of beautiful feasts in the Church's annual cycle and the black dot was the failure to dedicate a special feast to Christ's sacred Presence in the Eucharist. As a result of her efforts, the Church began to celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi (Body of Christ) on the Thursday or Sunday following Trinity Sunday.
The central ritual of the Church whereby we celebrate who we are and receive empowerment goes back to the "Lord's Supper." There Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, declared it his Body, and gave it out. Then he took wine, blessed it, declared it his Blood, and gave it out. Then he ordained his successors to repeat the ritual forever: "Do this as a memorial of me."
Belief in Christ's abiding real presence at Mass is a core Catholic belief. It is held in the three great branches of the historic Church: Roman, Anglican (Episcopal), and Orthodox. That Church is served by bishops, priests and deacons in apostolic succession. It holds to Catholic Faith which may be defined as the faith coming down from the apostles, reflected in Scripture, clarified by seven true Ecumenical Councils, and summed up in the Creeds.
Moreover, the Anglican expression grew out of a constitutional reformation in England focused on ending papal tyranny in the Kingdom. but not interested in joining the continental reformation in discarding the faith, doctrine, discipline, and worship of the ancient Church. Thus the English retained Catholic Faith, reformed things that really needed reform (like clerical celibacy and the denial of the Chalice to lay people). The result was a Communion which was Catholic, reformed, and inclusive, cutting across lines of theological and liturgical preference, and discerning God's revelation through Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. In time we developed into a worldwide association of thirty-eight national churches and affiliated bodies, comprising eighty-five million Christians.
Such belief has never been questioned in the Oriental Church, and was not called into question in the Western Church until the twelfth century. In response to inchoate heresy, Saints, scholars and ordinary faithful rose up to defend eucharistic faith. Coming out of that disturbance in the force, a mystical nun named Julianna in the following century had a vision in which she saw a bright moon and a black dot on its face. She discerned that the moon was the panoply of beautiful feasts in the Church's annual cycle and the black dot was the failure to dedicate a special feast to Christ's sacred Presence in the Eucharist. As a result of her efforts, the Church began to celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi (Body of Christ) on the Thursday or Sunday following Trinity Sunday.
The central ritual of the Church whereby we celebrate who we are and receive empowerment goes back to the "Lord's Supper." There Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, declared it his Body, and gave it out. Then he took wine, blessed it, declared it his Blood, and gave it out. Then he ordained his successors to repeat the ritual forever: "Do this as a memorial of me."
Belief in Christ's abiding real presence at Mass is a core Catholic belief. It is held in the three great branches of the historic Church: Roman, Anglican (Episcopal), and Orthodox. That Church is served by bishops, priests and deacons in apostolic succession. It holds to Catholic Faith which may be defined as the faith coming down from the apostles, reflected in Scripture, clarified by seven true Ecumenical Councils, and summed up in the Creeds.
Moreover, the Anglican expression grew out of a constitutional reformation in England focused on ending papal tyranny in the Kingdom. but not interested in joining the continental reformation in discarding the faith, doctrine, discipline, and worship of the ancient Church. Thus the English retained Catholic Faith, reformed things that really needed reform (like clerical celibacy and the denial of the Chalice to lay people). The result was a Communion which was Catholic, reformed, and inclusive, cutting across lines of theological and liturgical preference, and discerning God's revelation through Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. In time we developed into a worldwide association of thirty-eight national churches and affiliated bodies, comprising eighty-five million Christians.
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