Jericho is a border town and was a major centre for the collection of customs. Here we find the man Zacchaeus, who is a chief tax collector, in other words a very rich man. He wants to see Jesus but is very short in stature and, so, climbs a tree to catch Jesus' act. Jesus sees him, calls him down, and invites himself to Zacchaeus' house. That move scandalizes the crowd who berate Zacchaeus as a sinner. They are, of course, technically correct, because Zacchaeus is in a precarious employment situation, as an agent of the hated occupying Roman Power and a traitor to his fellow Jews.
Before arriving and going into his house, Zacchaeus defends himself before the crowd, stating that he gives half of his income to the poor and compensates anyone defrauded at a 400% rate. That is quite astounding. The NRSV mistranslates, having him state that in future he will do these things, but in the Greek and the Latin, he uses the present tense and that is reflected in the old bedrock translations, the King James and Douay-Rheims. Accepting the present tense for his assertion is further suggested when we see that Zacchaeus does not confess or repent, and Jesus does not commend his new faith or a change of heart. It would seem that salvation is upon his house because in his behaviour he far exceeds the requirements of the Law and therefore demonstrates true righteousness from the heart. Jesus commends him as a true "Son of Abraham." Jesus is always doingd the unexpected and siding with the outsider who often turns out, like the Good Samaritan, to be the real servant of God, the one truly justified before God.
Sunday, October 30, 2016
The Four Crowned Martyrs
Their feast day falls on the first of November and, so, is always eclipsed by All Saints Day. So let's give them a breakout. They were four Persian stonemasons: Claudius, Nicostratis, Simpronian, and Castorius. They worked for the Emperor Diocletian, a scattered unstable Caesar with a passion for building and a passion against Christians. He was the last dictator to persecute our Faith before it became officially tolerated in the Roman Empire. The four worked at the quarries and workshops of Sirmium, now Sremska, Serbia.
The Emperor ordered a statue of Aesclepius, the god of medicine, for the temple he had built for the deity at the Baths of Trajan. Being Christians, the four refused and were arrested. While their fates were being contemplated, the chief investigator of their case, Lampadius, died suddenly. Suspecting foul play had been arranged, the Emperor ordered the four drowned, and they were.
Later they were honoured with a basilica on Celian Hill in Rome, hence their official nickname, the Four Crowned Martyrs.
The Emperor ordered a statue of Aesclepius, the god of medicine, for the temple he had built for the deity at the Baths of Trajan. Being Christians, the four refused and were arrested. While their fates were being contemplated, the chief investigator of their case, Lampadius, died suddenly. Suspecting foul play had been arranged, the Emperor ordered the four drowned, and they were.
Later they were honoured with a basilica on Celian Hill in Rome, hence their official nickname, the Four Crowned Martyrs.
Monday, October 24, 2016
Pentecost XXIII: Pharisee v. Tax Agent
The great theologian Paul Tillich. reflecting on Saint Paul's comment that the gospel is for some a "stumbling block" once wrote that the danger is in stumbling over the wrong thing. Such is the essence of today's gospel reading.
The little vignette at Luke 18: 9-14 is well known to many. In it, a Pharisee and a tax collector are standing by each other in the Temple for prayer. The Pharisee rattles off a laundry list of his religious achievements and thanks God that he is not one of various kinds of sinners, especially like this tax collector! (Today's Old Testament passage from Sirach in the old lectionary says, "You can't bribe God.") The tax collector simply prays, "God be merciful to me, a sinner," and Jesus says the latter was the one justified before God.
At that time this would have been a shocking story, as if today we told it about a nun and a criminal. Although often condemned in the New Testament for instances of hypocrisy and some self-serving behaviours, the Pharisees were a religious group noted for high standards of conduct and considered righteous by the public. Jewish tax agents, on the other hand, were the instruments of a heretical occupying power, and traitors to their own people.
It is noteworthy that we have no reason to doubt that everything the Pharisee said was true as to his religious track record, including fasting and tithing. He was, by every account, righteous as that term was understood by Jesus, James and all Jews. That is, he lived his faith and that was what counted. Where the problem comes in is self-righteousness and judgmentalism. We learn that religious status doesn't matter to a God who differentiates between haughty religious folk and humble sinners -- and prefers the latter!
The story carries a strong message for us: to avoid self-righteous attitudes, especially trying to play games with God; and to realize our judge's licence expired on the cross,so we had better be judging ourselves, and not other people.
The little vignette at Luke 18: 9-14 is well known to many. In it, a Pharisee and a tax collector are standing by each other in the Temple for prayer. The Pharisee rattles off a laundry list of his religious achievements and thanks God that he is not one of various kinds of sinners, especially like this tax collector! (Today's Old Testament passage from Sirach in the old lectionary says, "You can't bribe God.") The tax collector simply prays, "God be merciful to me, a sinner," and Jesus says the latter was the one justified before God.
At that time this would have been a shocking story, as if today we told it about a nun and a criminal. Although often condemned in the New Testament for instances of hypocrisy and some self-serving behaviours, the Pharisees were a religious group noted for high standards of conduct and considered righteous by the public. Jewish tax agents, on the other hand, were the instruments of a heretical occupying power, and traitors to their own people.
It is noteworthy that we have no reason to doubt that everything the Pharisee said was true as to his religious track record, including fasting and tithing. He was, by every account, righteous as that term was understood by Jesus, James and all Jews. That is, he lived his faith and that was what counted. Where the problem comes in is self-righteousness and judgmentalism. We learn that religious status doesn't matter to a God who differentiates between haughty religious folk and humble sinners -- and prefers the latter!
The story carries a strong message for us: to avoid self-righteous attitudes, especially trying to play games with God; and to realize our judge's licence expired on the cross,so we had better be judging ourselves, and not other people.
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Pentecost XXII: Using and Misusing Scripture
Let's talk Bible today. What is this book that we use more extensively in our worship than does any other Christian tradition? Briefly, a collection of 46 books in the Jewish tradition, 27 Christian, for a total of 73 documents. They comprise a wide range of literature, from historiography to poetry, from collections of aphorisms to censuses, from Babylonian mythology to prophecy, and even apocalyptic, which George Bernard Shaw described as "impossible opium dreams." The collection was actually determined and declared Scripture for the first time by our bishops in 397 CE.
All of the books were, in some sense, inspired by God, but all were written by fallible humans with limited knowledge and understanding in a pre-scientific world. They contain errors, discrepancies, and contradicitons. All require serious discernment, using all the available methods to discern the historical and cultural contexts, resolve manuscript discrepancies, and to tackle issues of translation. Episcopal clergy are well-educated and trained in such disciplines, and so can be helpful to their congregants in conversation with the Bible.
With proper engagement, we gain alternative and new insights into Scripture. Let's take a lot at the matter of translation as applicable to today's New Testament pericope, II Timothy 3:14- 4:5. Here, in the NRSV translation we find the author declaring that "all Scripture is inspired by God and is useful..." so that "everyone who belongs to God may be proficient..." The Greek would equally allow the translation "all writing inspired by God is useful...," so that "the man of God may be proficient..." In fact, the alternative renderings seem a bit more logical, as the Jewish Canon was not closed in the lifetime of Paul (the putative author!) and the letter asserts itself as having been written from one bishop to Timothy, another bishop, hence the literal Greek "man of God" -- we might say clergy -- seems to fit the rest of the passage better. You decide.
In some cases failure to consider context results in a bad reading. For example, consider the story of the widow's mite. Most of us were raised to believe that the point was that the widow gave away everything she had to live on, and thus would rely on God's miraculous providence for her needs. In fact, Jesus has just been hammering the Pharisees and their homies for ripping off the poor and the vulnerable, widows especially. The point to the story is that the woman has been conned out of her living, in direct violation of a Commandment, and has now become dependent on others. In modern televangelical terms she has been convinced to make a "seed gift" she can't afford in order to qualify for miraculous blessings. This is exactly 180 degrees from what Jesus was trying to teach there.
In today's Gospel, Luke 18: 1-8, we see how theological reflection also affects reading Scripture. Here a helpless widow badgers an indifferent judge until she finally receives justice. In traditional interpretation, the unjust judge is God (being thus depicted as the capricious, ill-tempered deity of early Jewish imagination) and the women represents us who are called to badger our God until he gets tired of it and gives us what we want. Let's take another tack -- seeing the elderly woman as representing God and us his representatives who are being called on to attack the powers of unjust oppression, domination and imperialism for as long as necessary until justice is done. We call that building the Kingdom of God on earth, which was Jesus' agenda. This healthy approach treats God and us with condign dignity and makes the story resonate with the overall pattern of Jesus' teaching.
Thank God that we may and do engage in mature discernment of Scripture,
All of the books were, in some sense, inspired by God, but all were written by fallible humans with limited knowledge and understanding in a pre-scientific world. They contain errors, discrepancies, and contradicitons. All require serious discernment, using all the available methods to discern the historical and cultural contexts, resolve manuscript discrepancies, and to tackle issues of translation. Episcopal clergy are well-educated and trained in such disciplines, and so can be helpful to their congregants in conversation with the Bible.
With proper engagement, we gain alternative and new insights into Scripture. Let's take a lot at the matter of translation as applicable to today's New Testament pericope, II Timothy 3:14- 4:5. Here, in the NRSV translation we find the author declaring that "all Scripture is inspired by God and is useful..." so that "everyone who belongs to God may be proficient..." The Greek would equally allow the translation "all writing inspired by God is useful...," so that "the man of God may be proficient..." In fact, the alternative renderings seem a bit more logical, as the Jewish Canon was not closed in the lifetime of Paul (the putative author!) and the letter asserts itself as having been written from one bishop to Timothy, another bishop, hence the literal Greek "man of God" -- we might say clergy -- seems to fit the rest of the passage better. You decide.
In some cases failure to consider context results in a bad reading. For example, consider the story of the widow's mite. Most of us were raised to believe that the point was that the widow gave away everything she had to live on, and thus would rely on God's miraculous providence for her needs. In fact, Jesus has just been hammering the Pharisees and their homies for ripping off the poor and the vulnerable, widows especially. The point to the story is that the woman has been conned out of her living, in direct violation of a Commandment, and has now become dependent on others. In modern televangelical terms she has been convinced to make a "seed gift" she can't afford in order to qualify for miraculous blessings. This is exactly 180 degrees from what Jesus was trying to teach there.
In today's Gospel, Luke 18: 1-8, we see how theological reflection also affects reading Scripture. Here a helpless widow badgers an indifferent judge until she finally receives justice. In traditional interpretation, the unjust judge is God (being thus depicted as the capricious, ill-tempered deity of early Jewish imagination) and the women represents us who are called to badger our God until he gets tired of it and gives us what we want. Let's take another tack -- seeing the elderly woman as representing God and us his representatives who are being called on to attack the powers of unjust oppression, domination and imperialism for as long as necessary until justice is done. We call that building the Kingdom of God on earth, which was Jesus' agenda. This healthy approach treats God and us with condign dignity and makes the story resonate with the overall pattern of Jesus' teaching.
Thank God that we may and do engage in mature discernment of Scripture,
Monday, October 3, 2016
Pentecost XX: Lamentations
Lamentations is a fifty-cent word for 'grieving.' Hearing the words of the prophet Jeremiah this morning, we can imagine him looking out over the city of Jerusalem as smoke rises over the ruint settlement, weeping women search for the bodies of the dead and wail over those found, and enemy soldiers round up survivors to send into exile in Babylonia.
This is a truly devastating time. Jeremiah has lost his nation (Judaea), his city, and his people. If God has not stood up for his elect, who will be left to stand up for the true God? Lamentations engages the serious issues round what it means when tragedy strikes. And, of course, all of us, if we have lived long enough, have experienced the crises of death, disappointment, betrayal, and heartache. These are fibres woven into the very fabric of life, part and parcel of a free universe. In studying Lamentations, we learn three crucial stages of engaging these kinds of personal crisis.
First, there is grieving. It is not an option. We must engage the pain and work through it. In one book on Christian dying, the author mentions a young man who passes away while his cat sits on his chest. When he dies, the beloved pet lets out a blood-curdling howl. I wish, the author declares, that humans could learn to howl like that.
As with any good parental relationship, it is more than ok to be angry with God. The late Jewish author Elie Wiesel describes the conduct of a Bet Din (religious court) inside the Auschwitz death camp during World War II. The court put God on trial and found God guilty for abandoning the chosen people.
Second, there is admitting that we do not understand the injustice. Further complicating the process will be bone-headed but well-intentioned aphorisms. We will told that God won't let you face more than you can handle. (Really?) Or that everything happens for a reason. (Really?) Or that it was God's will that an awful tragedy struck your life. (Really?) Or maybe we are simply told to get over it, don't feel like that. People seem determined to explain, rationalize, or deny what we cannot, in our finite condition, understand.
Finally, the third stage is to decide (as the Bet Din did) to trust in God anyway. We were never promised a rose garden, we were promised God would be with us through all the dark times. The essence of New Testament faith (Gk. pistis) is trust, and confidence in God, and unshakeable commitment to the Holy One. Faith does not consist of cognitive certainties, of correct theological opinions, or assertion of a laundry list of dogmas and doctrines. It cannot be demonstrated in some scientific, objective way. It can only be experienced in the human heart, in relationship, in real gratitude for the good things of life, and confidence in moving forward in every trial and in every new circumstance.
This is a truly devastating time. Jeremiah has lost his nation (Judaea), his city, and his people. If God has not stood up for his elect, who will be left to stand up for the true God? Lamentations engages the serious issues round what it means when tragedy strikes. And, of course, all of us, if we have lived long enough, have experienced the crises of death, disappointment, betrayal, and heartache. These are fibres woven into the very fabric of life, part and parcel of a free universe. In studying Lamentations, we learn three crucial stages of engaging these kinds of personal crisis.
First, there is grieving. It is not an option. We must engage the pain and work through it. In one book on Christian dying, the author mentions a young man who passes away while his cat sits on his chest. When he dies, the beloved pet lets out a blood-curdling howl. I wish, the author declares, that humans could learn to howl like that.
As with any good parental relationship, it is more than ok to be angry with God. The late Jewish author Elie Wiesel describes the conduct of a Bet Din (religious court) inside the Auschwitz death camp during World War II. The court put God on trial and found God guilty for abandoning the chosen people.
Second, there is admitting that we do not understand the injustice. Further complicating the process will be bone-headed but well-intentioned aphorisms. We will told that God won't let you face more than you can handle. (Really?) Or that everything happens for a reason. (Really?) Or that it was God's will that an awful tragedy struck your life. (Really?) Or maybe we are simply told to get over it, don't feel like that. People seem determined to explain, rationalize, or deny what we cannot, in our finite condition, understand.
Finally, the third stage is to decide (as the Bet Din did) to trust in God anyway. We were never promised a rose garden, we were promised God would be with us through all the dark times. The essence of New Testament faith (Gk. pistis) is trust, and confidence in God, and unshakeable commitment to the Holy One. Faith does not consist of cognitive certainties, of correct theological opinions, or assertion of a laundry list of dogmas and doctrines. It cannot be demonstrated in some scientific, objective way. It can only be experienced in the human heart, in relationship, in real gratitude for the good things of life, and confidence in moving forward in every trial and in every new circumstance.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)