In our Hebrew bible reading today [Deut. 18: 15-20] the text has Moses promising to send "a prophet like me" and warns against listening to prophets who represent foreign deities or who speak a message not authorized by the God of Israel. Finding a prophet like Moses is a tall order. After all, Moses has brought us the Mosaic Law, a new and improved version of Hammurabi's Code and it is noted for reflecting compassion, social consciousness, and humane values unusual in those days. Yes, the Law of Moses contains barbaric rubbish but it also contains wonderful provisions for slaves, and widows and orphans. It is a watershed document.
Later when Israel becomes established with a fixed capital, temple, and monarchy, it turns into the Establishment it previously panned and begins to cave in to false values like greed and exploitation. Prophets were raised up to send the people a message that you have nice liturgies but God is paying no attention because you aren't practising what you preach. You have betrayed your raison-d'etre as God's "drafted people."
In time the one we hail as the Prophet-like-Moses one who appeared with a kind of two-fold mission. First, Jesus torqued up Torah. He condemned the loopholes players had drilled in order to build their power and wealth at the expense of the poor and needy.. He challenged his Jewish hearers to a more acute hearing of the Word: you have been told not to kill, I say don't hate; you have been told not to commit adultery, I say don't lust.
Second, in Christian articulation, he did serious fulfillment of the Law. For example, YHVH was one of a pantheon of Canaanite deities, portrayed as a capricious, unstable, bloodthirsty old man with white hair seated on a golden throne. As Jews moved from monolatry to monotheism, God was pure spirit, not capable of being represented by any kind of image. However, we humans process largely through five natural senses. In Jesus as Word made Flesh, we see the human face of God. Christians can see God loving, caring, serving, suffering -- in the person of Jesus. Under the Law, forgiveness was oblique, relief depending on one's confidence that prescribed animal and material sacrifices would lead God to forgive. Jesus gives his Church authority to continue his ministry of forgiving sins, assuaging guilt and making the penitent whole. Under the Law, one was strictly forbidden to ingest blood, because life resides in blood. Jesus gives to his Church authority to celebrate the Eucharist, to make his Sacrifice present again and to feed us for ministry.
Thus in word and sacrament the Church carries on the work of the Christ right through time, guided, as Jesus assured us, into all truth by the Holy Spirit. We do not put a period where God puts a comma. We remain open to new revelation through the equal sources of the "three-legged stool," Scripture, Catholic Tradition, and Reason/Experience. We carry on in the name of the Prophet who was came and changed everything forever.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Sunday, January 21, 2018
Epiphany III: Jonah, Revisited
One thing that stands out about the Episcopal Church and a few other affiliations in Christianity is our rejection of biblical literalism and the book-worship that accompanies it. Literalizing leads to misunderstanding sacred writings, and keeps us with a superficial view that misses deeper truths.
Jonah, the subject of our Hebrew Bible reading today [3: 1-5, 10], is an excellent example. In the fundamentalist sect of my childhood, we were taught that this tale is an historical event: a huge fish swallows an obstreperous prophet and then spits him out in a location where YHVH wants him to exercise his prophetic ministry. The heart of the tale supposedly was to be found in the miracle of being swallowed by and surviving life inside a fish.
Now let's look at the real story. To understand it, we have to go back to the Babylonian Exile in 597 and in 586 BCE. Most of those who were abducted were from the southern kingdom of Judah and possessed skills desired by the abductors. Generally, the northern kingdom of Israel was untouched. Those exiles performed well in their new home, producing the biblical commentary known as the Babylonian Talmud, excelling in the professions and business, and generally being good denizens of what is modern-day Iraq. When exiles were allowed to return to the Holy Land, only about twenty percent came back.
After the return, a natural question that had to be addressed was why the God in covenant with the Jews had not protected them from captivity. The Southerners returning from exile concluded that YHVH had punished them for their sinfulness and had now forgiven them and restored them to the land. Northerners, on the other hand, said that they were obviously God's true people as God had spared them exile. Those who returned became very strict in adherence to the Law and to keeping ritual purity by staying away from non-Jews. Northerners continued to assimilate people who were ethnically diverse; and they also built their own Temple at Gerizim and refused to accept as holy scripture books added to the Torah by their religious competitor to the South.
Jonah's audience, like the character in this drama, want to avoid those who are different in order to please God. Jonah tells the shocking truth: God loves all nations. So God sends him to "Sin City," Nineveh, the Las Vegas of the first century, to bring them God's message. When Jonah does comply and the Ninevites convert, he is angry about it. God chastises him, "And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand people who do not know right from wrong, and also many animals?" [4:11]
The tale of Jonah reminds us once again that God is no respecter of persons, loves all his children, calls everyone into sacred relationship. Let us ask whether we, as his faithful people, do enough to reach out to those who are truly different in our own time, inviting them to encounter Christ today.
Jonah, the subject of our Hebrew Bible reading today [3: 1-5, 10], is an excellent example. In the fundamentalist sect of my childhood, we were taught that this tale is an historical event: a huge fish swallows an obstreperous prophet and then spits him out in a location where YHVH wants him to exercise his prophetic ministry. The heart of the tale supposedly was to be found in the miracle of being swallowed by and surviving life inside a fish.
Now let's look at the real story. To understand it, we have to go back to the Babylonian Exile in 597 and in 586 BCE. Most of those who were abducted were from the southern kingdom of Judah and possessed skills desired by the abductors. Generally, the northern kingdom of Israel was untouched. Those exiles performed well in their new home, producing the biblical commentary known as the Babylonian Talmud, excelling in the professions and business, and generally being good denizens of what is modern-day Iraq. When exiles were allowed to return to the Holy Land, only about twenty percent came back.
After the return, a natural question that had to be addressed was why the God in covenant with the Jews had not protected them from captivity. The Southerners returning from exile concluded that YHVH had punished them for their sinfulness and had now forgiven them and restored them to the land. Northerners, on the other hand, said that they were obviously God's true people as God had spared them exile. Those who returned became very strict in adherence to the Law and to keeping ritual purity by staying away from non-Jews. Northerners continued to assimilate people who were ethnically diverse; and they also built their own Temple at Gerizim and refused to accept as holy scripture books added to the Torah by their religious competitor to the South.
Jonah's audience, like the character in this drama, want to avoid those who are different in order to please God. Jonah tells the shocking truth: God loves all nations. So God sends him to "Sin City," Nineveh, the Las Vegas of the first century, to bring them God's message. When Jonah does comply and the Ninevites convert, he is angry about it. God chastises him, "And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand people who do not know right from wrong, and also many animals?" [4:11]
The tale of Jonah reminds us once again that God is no respecter of persons, loves all his children, calls everyone into sacred relationship. Let us ask whether we, as his faithful people, do enough to reach out to those who are truly different in our own time, inviting them to encounter Christ today.
Sunday, January 14, 2018
Epiphany II: Martin and Stan
Our Gospel reading today chronicles Jesus' call of Philip and Nathaniel, a straightforward encounter. Our reading from Hebrew scripture is quite different: the call of Samuel. The call story is prefaced by the allegation that the Word of the Lord was rare in those times, hence Samuel's confusion when he hears a "call" from God and repeatedly mistakes it for a summons by his superior prophet, Eli. My considered opinion is that there is no time when the Word is rare. God continues speaking. What is rare, I suspect, is our listening. The messages will be there if we prepare ourselves to filter out all the static that our culture of consumerism, greed, imperialism, and military-worship create. Only by filtering out the nonsense that co-opts religion and distorts Jesus' message can we hear the word.
Prophecy had become exquisitely important because the Jewish people had moved from being a nomadic clustre of tribes with a radical social agenda, taking care of the most needy, especially the refugee and foreigner. Now the outsiders are insiders; they have a capital city and have constructed Temple precincts where their God will dwell and receive prayers and sacrifices. Their radical social agenda gives way to cultic casualness, business-as-usual, and oppression of those classes who were once protected. When these things begin to happen you need prophets to call Israel back to her root values. In the same way, in our own time we need the voices of prophets to speak truth to power, to resist bigotry and oppression, to be agents of liberation. Let's look at two such prophetic figures.
Martin Luther King was born into a pastoral dynasty in Atlanta. He went to Boston University, and there received bachelor's and master's degrees, then a doctorate in systematic theology, all with distinction. Wow. He could easily have written his ticket as another flashy pulpit star, confining himself to the vacuous platitudes that inspire people and, more importantly, do not challenge or distress the power brokers. A cushy New England post would have been a huge temptation.
Instead, King chose to take a parish in Montgomery, Alabama, and soon he was widely recognized as a prophetic figure, led the Bus Boycott, and founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, going on to be a crucial figure in the Civil Rights legislation of the Sixties. The courage to do that derived from a vision he experienced in his kitchen, with God saying "Stand up for righteousness, stand up for justice, and you will never be alone." With the conviction of divine support, King moved forward. As he did, he saw his home dynamited, faced constant death threats, was stabbed and almost died, and would be jailed thirty times. (Does that remind you of Saint Paul?) In lhis ater career, King fought to end worker exploitation and lift the working class. In Memphis, that cost him his life, taken by an assassin's bullet. He was canonized by the Episcopal Church and his feast day is tomorrow.
Stanley Rother grew up in Okarche, Oklahoma and, after high school, expressed a vocation to the Priesthood in the Roman Communion. He went to seminary, struggled with Latin, and after six years was told to withdraw. He then enrolled in a seminary in Maryland and was graduated and, ultimately, he was ordained. He serves parishes in Tulsa and Durant, and then answered a call to Guatemalan missions, where he built a hospital, ploughed extensive lands, and provided for spiritual and physical needs of his people through worship, catechesis, and construction of an educational radio station. He spoke truth to power and, as a result, corpses of his parishioners began to turn up in various places and he learned his name was on a hit list. Father Rother returned to our state for a time, then went back to Guatemala and soon was martyred in his bed. The Roman Church is moving to canonize him and I hope our Episcopal Church will soon do the same. I look forward to celebrating his feast.
These men are wonderful examples of faithfulness to call through many obstacles. Are we listening for what God has planned for us? Are we ready to say, "Here I am, Lord, send me."
Prophecy had become exquisitely important because the Jewish people had moved from being a nomadic clustre of tribes with a radical social agenda, taking care of the most needy, especially the refugee and foreigner. Now the outsiders are insiders; they have a capital city and have constructed Temple precincts where their God will dwell and receive prayers and sacrifices. Their radical social agenda gives way to cultic casualness, business-as-usual, and oppression of those classes who were once protected. When these things begin to happen you need prophets to call Israel back to her root values. In the same way, in our own time we need the voices of prophets to speak truth to power, to resist bigotry and oppression, to be agents of liberation. Let's look at two such prophetic figures.
Martin Luther King was born into a pastoral dynasty in Atlanta. He went to Boston University, and there received bachelor's and master's degrees, then a doctorate in systematic theology, all with distinction. Wow. He could easily have written his ticket as another flashy pulpit star, confining himself to the vacuous platitudes that inspire people and, more importantly, do not challenge or distress the power brokers. A cushy New England post would have been a huge temptation.
Instead, King chose to take a parish in Montgomery, Alabama, and soon he was widely recognized as a prophetic figure, led the Bus Boycott, and founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, going on to be a crucial figure in the Civil Rights legislation of the Sixties. The courage to do that derived from a vision he experienced in his kitchen, with God saying "Stand up for righteousness, stand up for justice, and you will never be alone." With the conviction of divine support, King moved forward. As he did, he saw his home dynamited, faced constant death threats, was stabbed and almost died, and would be jailed thirty times. (Does that remind you of Saint Paul?) In lhis ater career, King fought to end worker exploitation and lift the working class. In Memphis, that cost him his life, taken by an assassin's bullet. He was canonized by the Episcopal Church and his feast day is tomorrow.
Stanley Rother grew up in Okarche, Oklahoma and, after high school, expressed a vocation to the Priesthood in the Roman Communion. He went to seminary, struggled with Latin, and after six years was told to withdraw. He then enrolled in a seminary in Maryland and was graduated and, ultimately, he was ordained. He serves parishes in Tulsa and Durant, and then answered a call to Guatemalan missions, where he built a hospital, ploughed extensive lands, and provided for spiritual and physical needs of his people through worship, catechesis, and construction of an educational radio station. He spoke truth to power and, as a result, corpses of his parishioners began to turn up in various places and he learned his name was on a hit list. Father Rother returned to our state for a time, then went back to Guatemala and soon was martyred in his bed. The Roman Church is moving to canonize him and I hope our Episcopal Church will soon do the same. I look forward to celebrating his feast.
These men are wonderful examples of faithfulness to call through many obstacles. Are we listening for what God has planned for us? Are we ready to say, "Here I am, Lord, send me."
Sunday, January 7, 2018
Epiphany I: The Voice
Today's Psalm 29 began as a paean to the Canaanite deity Dagon and was adapted by the psalmist. This is at a time when Israel is moving from monolatry (worship of one god amongst many) to monotheism (worship of the one God.) In our text God communicates through several dramatic phenomena, which is to be expected, as the ancient Semitic deities were seen to get the word out through such pyrotechnics. There is some of this in the biblical depictions of Sinai and Pentecost.
However, central to our tradition is the notion that God communicates by speaking. Our Hebrew scriptural reading today [Gen. 1: 1-5] reports God saying "Let there be light" and it was so. Of an especial importance is that this utterance occurs three days before creation of sun, moon, and stars. There is a divine light more fundamental than photon waves and particles!
Throughout Scripture, we find YHVH continuing to communicate through speech. That is often reported as a miraculous phenomenon, as in today's Gospel [Mk. 4: 1-11] where Jesus receives baptism from John the Baptizer and then a heavenly voice is heard confirming Jesus' divine sonship. But equally significant are those many times that God speaks through the voice of his agents. For example, the prophets of old heard God's message and called Israel back to her roots. When the prophet Ezekiel seeks out God in wind, fire and earthquake, he detects God in a small whisper!
Priestly blessings and sacramental acts are a primary way God also speaks. The ancient Aaronic Blessing ("The Lord bless you and keep you..") is recorded in the Scripture alongside assurances that those who receive priestly blessing are thereby receiving God's own blessing. In today's epistular reading [Acts 19: 1-7] Saint Paul encounters disciples of the Baptizer and he proceeds to administer sacramental baptism, bringing them into the Church. Then he confirms them and they receive the Holy Spirit. These same actions of baptism and confirmation are performed today by priests and bishops, using the prescribed words --- the Divine thus speaking through human agency.
Likewise Christ speaks by proxy in the other Sacraments as well: calling God's blessing down on couples committing to each other in marriage, assuring the penitent through words of God's own forgiveness, and at the altar even today I speak divine words,"This is my Body, this is my Blood," that we may all receive the One who is our heavenly food.
Lastly, but quite importantly, God speaks through the discernment of individuals, communities and God's Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and, in so doing, allows us to stay in tune with unfolding revelation --- to discern truth in the Scriptures, which themselves are human writings full of factual and scientific errors and contradictions. Yet human writers were the chosen medium, and we beneficiaries hear the legitimate voice of God in the Bible even in the midst of a lot of static and interference and the sadly human temptation to literalize, historicize, and even worship a holy book.
Thank God that we hear and continue to listen for God's voice in our lives and world, and to respond in humility, faithfulness, and love.
However, central to our tradition is the notion that God communicates by speaking. Our Hebrew scriptural reading today [Gen. 1: 1-5] reports God saying "Let there be light" and it was so. Of an especial importance is that this utterance occurs three days before creation of sun, moon, and stars. There is a divine light more fundamental than photon waves and particles!
Throughout Scripture, we find YHVH continuing to communicate through speech. That is often reported as a miraculous phenomenon, as in today's Gospel [Mk. 4: 1-11] where Jesus receives baptism from John the Baptizer and then a heavenly voice is heard confirming Jesus' divine sonship. But equally significant are those many times that God speaks through the voice of his agents. For example, the prophets of old heard God's message and called Israel back to her roots. When the prophet Ezekiel seeks out God in wind, fire and earthquake, he detects God in a small whisper!
Priestly blessings and sacramental acts are a primary way God also speaks. The ancient Aaronic Blessing ("The Lord bless you and keep you..") is recorded in the Scripture alongside assurances that those who receive priestly blessing are thereby receiving God's own blessing. In today's epistular reading [Acts 19: 1-7] Saint Paul encounters disciples of the Baptizer and he proceeds to administer sacramental baptism, bringing them into the Church. Then he confirms them and they receive the Holy Spirit. These same actions of baptism and confirmation are performed today by priests and bishops, using the prescribed words --- the Divine thus speaking through human agency.
Likewise Christ speaks by proxy in the other Sacraments as well: calling God's blessing down on couples committing to each other in marriage, assuring the penitent through words of God's own forgiveness, and at the altar even today I speak divine words,"This is my Body, this is my Blood," that we may all receive the One who is our heavenly food.
Lastly, but quite importantly, God speaks through the discernment of individuals, communities and God's Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and, in so doing, allows us to stay in tune with unfolding revelation --- to discern truth in the Scriptures, which themselves are human writings full of factual and scientific errors and contradictions. Yet human writers were the chosen medium, and we beneficiaries hear the legitimate voice of God in the Bible even in the midst of a lot of static and interference and the sadly human temptation to literalize, historicize, and even worship a holy book.
Thank God that we hear and continue to listen for God's voice in our lives and world, and to respond in humility, faithfulness, and love.
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
JB and Seraphim
No, that's not the name of a rock group. Rather, these are the biblical feature plus the saint-du-jour, for Tuesday in the week of Christmas I. Who were they?
John's mother was in the line of Aaron, the prototypical high priest of Judaism. Her husband Zechariah was a high priest in the Temple. What that means is that their son John would have lived quite well, with access to the best of everything. He would have received the best education the Levites could provide. He would be automatically in line to be a high priest like his dad. So, with major advantages in life, and well-versed in Scripture and Tradition, ready to step into the religious spotlight, what does John do? He ends up in the desert, identifying with the great Isaiah, wearing animal skins, eating bugs, and issuing flaming condemnations of the Establishment.
What was he thinking? Obviously there was a call upon him for prophetic activity freed from the strictures of the religious establishment. He had the courage and devotion to follow through on a religious call that will cost him his life, just as it did Jesus. He will be known as the Baptiser, was apparently head of the Morning Dipper cult, and called everyone to repentance in light of the near inbreaking of the Kingdom.
Seraphim of Sarov also left his old life behind to pursue a religious vocation. In his case, he chose religious life in the most stringent Order of monks available at that time. Those brothers completely fasted every Wednesday and Friday, and had a restricted diet on the other days. Maybe because of that, Seraphim became ill, and maybe because of that saw visions. In the event, his visions were quite real to him and led him, first to be priested, second to become a hermit. In our tradition, he would be called a solitary. [Perhaps you know Sister Ellen Finlay, one of our nuns, who runs the Saint John's Centre in Tulsa; she is a solitary.] That means living alone, not in community as is customary for religious. It doesn't means, however, no contact with others.
Seraphim lived in a cabin, woodworked for a living, grew his own food and cooked it, and took serious care of the critters outdoors. He did not eat them, so was a vegetarian, I should think. One day he was attacked by a crazy person with an axe. That attack left him crippled, bent over; and thereafter he had a series of strokes. With those developments, Seraphim turned to entertaining visitors and teaching them for a living. His lessons always centred on one of three subjects: the following the promptings of the Holy Spirit, self-denial, or service. He was a model of all those. Unlike John the Baptiser, he was not martyred, but died a peaceful death.
Both of these servants of God model well the willingness to turn from comfort and certainty to a scary, unpredictable future, under the conviction of a call. We must also so stand ready to serve.
John's mother was in the line of Aaron, the prototypical high priest of Judaism. Her husband Zechariah was a high priest in the Temple. What that means is that their son John would have lived quite well, with access to the best of everything. He would have received the best education the Levites could provide. He would be automatically in line to be a high priest like his dad. So, with major advantages in life, and well-versed in Scripture and Tradition, ready to step into the religious spotlight, what does John do? He ends up in the desert, identifying with the great Isaiah, wearing animal skins, eating bugs, and issuing flaming condemnations of the Establishment.
What was he thinking? Obviously there was a call upon him for prophetic activity freed from the strictures of the religious establishment. He had the courage and devotion to follow through on a religious call that will cost him his life, just as it did Jesus. He will be known as the Baptiser, was apparently head of the Morning Dipper cult, and called everyone to repentance in light of the near inbreaking of the Kingdom.
Seraphim of Sarov also left his old life behind to pursue a religious vocation. In his case, he chose religious life in the most stringent Order of monks available at that time. Those brothers completely fasted every Wednesday and Friday, and had a restricted diet on the other days. Maybe because of that, Seraphim became ill, and maybe because of that saw visions. In the event, his visions were quite real to him and led him, first to be priested, second to become a hermit. In our tradition, he would be called a solitary. [Perhaps you know Sister Ellen Finlay, one of our nuns, who runs the Saint John's Centre in Tulsa; she is a solitary.] That means living alone, not in community as is customary for religious. It doesn't means, however, no contact with others.
Seraphim lived in a cabin, woodworked for a living, grew his own food and cooked it, and took serious care of the critters outdoors. He did not eat them, so was a vegetarian, I should think. One day he was attacked by a crazy person with an axe. That attack left him crippled, bent over; and thereafter he had a series of strokes. With those developments, Seraphim turned to entertaining visitors and teaching them for a living. His lessons always centred on one of three subjects: the following the promptings of the Holy Spirit, self-denial, or service. He was a model of all those. Unlike John the Baptiser, he was not martyred, but died a peaceful death.
Both of these servants of God model well the willingness to turn from comfort and certainty to a scary, unpredictable future, under the conviction of a call. We must also so stand ready to serve.
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