Lent II: Messiah 201

Mark Twain once wrote, "It's not the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me; it's the parts that I do understand."  Today [Mk 8: 31-38],  Jesus speaks plainly, and his words are hard and inescapable.  Jesus has asked the apostles who he is.  Reasonable question.  Spokesman Peter, quick when replying, answers, "You are Messiah."  Among Jews there were uneven expectations of the Messiah, so even the Twelve may not have agreed exactly on what that meant. Jesus uses this occasion to tell them by sharing his radically rewritten job description for Messiah, namely one who will soon experience rejection, suffering, and death.  In reaction, Peter rebukes Jesus, and the Lord tells him to shut up (Gk., epitiman), for he is playing the role of Satan -- stumbling block -- he is thinking humanly.

What is going on here?  Well, Peter is seeing from inside the Jewish "box," and Jesus, as usual, is seeing outside the box.  In the traditional Jewish view, Messiah will come to rescue the Chosen People; but in the proleptic Christian view, Messiah will do far more than that.  Despite various opinions, all Jews in the first century agreed on four things that would be true for the Messiah.  What did they imagine redemption would look like?

First, the Messiah would lead a violent military insurrection resulting in defeat of Roman power and in the restoration of Jewish Nationhood.   Messiah Jesus, by contrast is a pacifist, bringing a spiritual revolution centred on non-violent resistance.  If you need examples, look at Gandhi and Martin Luther King.  And Jesus' revolution is aimed to liberate all humankind, not just one race or religious group.

Second, Messiah's glorious military victory in Israel would cause all the other nations of the world to worship YHVH and forsake their various deities.  Jesus' victory will see the nations converted one human heart at a time.

Third, Messiah's bloody victory would trigger a magical, sudden realization of the Kingdom of God, fully manifest.  In other words, a world in which there is no pain, suffering, death, or any more war.    A perfect world in which all evil has been banished.  God would heal and restore the whole world by working around us, not through us.  The coming of Jesus means the in-breaking of God's Kingdom.  Its seed is within us.  The Kingdom is at hand, already taking hold  but its growth, its realization lie with us.   We are partners with Jesus in changing a world that is dominated by hate, bigotry, greed, imperialism, militarism -- all that Jesus hated.  So while we Christians should continue to pray, it is far more important that we kick up the action.  We need to be on the front lines of peace and justice, where Jesus lived.  Christians cannot be genuine or truly effective while co-opted by our rotten culture and those who dare to defend it in the name of religion. That is the ultimate blasphemy.

Last, Messiah's instant perfect world would trigger resurrection of all the departed faithful, so they could join the party.  Well, that will have to wait for the End.  In the meantime, Jesus is much more concerned about our bringing the spiritually dead back to life, to abundant life to those whom he calls.  When we bring people to love as Jesus loved, to live as Jesus lived, to serve as Jesus served, we are about the business of Kingdom-building.  We are part of the solution, not the problem.

Lent is a time for all of us to work on our sacred vocation to be revolutionary agents of Messiah Jesus/  We need to get right with God and to rededicate ourselves, so we can be the People we are called to be and about the work God has for us.  Lent gives us tools for the job.

Lent I: What Time is It?

One of our youngest granddaughter's most beloved tv programs is Bubble Guppies.  In each episode, Mister Grouper asks "What time is it?" and the response is "It's time for lunch."  The show plays at different times of day and I never have a problem with his conclusion!  Within the text of the Bible, there are two words for time, kairos and chronos.  The latter is what we mean when we say it is eleven a.m., Central Time.  On the other hand, kairotic time is what time it is on "God's watch."  In fullness of God's time, things happen.  At the right times, Jesus is commissioned by the Baptiser, enters wilderness to wrestle with his demons (ways of capitalizing on his charisma to become the first-century equivalent of a rich tv evangelist), and then picks up the torch to carry forward John's message that the Kingdom of God is near.

Jesus counsels us to "repent and believe in the Good News."  That is good advice at any time, though left to our own devices, to our moral clocks, we'd likely never get around to the hard work of coming right with God and others.  Fortunately, we are  blessed because Holy Mother Church in her wisdom provides in the course of the Christian Year, the season of Lent, with disciplines intended to help us in this spiritual walk.  You get out of Lent pretty much what you are willing to invest in it.   Fasting and abstinence and sacrifice have no intrinsic value apart from instilling self-discipline and helping to frame our minds and hearts as we make the journey towards Good Friday and Easter.

Having said that, I ask: What does it means to "repent and believe in the Good News?"  Let us note that repentance is not feeling bad, focussing on regret, or living in the past.  In the sacred languages, repentance is teshuvah (Hebrew) turning round to go in the right direction, metanoia  (Greek), a new mindset focussed forwards, and poenitentiam agere (Latin), to do penance, to take action in the right direction in response to the new mindset!  All of these are about making the change we need, being the change we want to see in the world.

Belief is not assent to creedal propositions, faith statements, or doctrinal pronouncements.  All of those have their place, but New Testament belief is pistis, which means radical and unconditional reliance and trust in God through Jesus Christ.  It calls us to surrender to Holy Spirit, to turn over everything we are and have to God's service --time, talent, and treasure.  It means to become a new person, walking a new kind of life.  For us Christians that means growing in faithfulness to the life and actual teachings of Jesus -- being seriously dedicated to building the Divine Kingdom.

In todays' Tulsa World there is an article about my dear friend Eva Unterman.  Eva is a Holocaust survivor, being one of a few who made it out alive from the death camps to find a new life after World War II.  I have a fond memory of one day when she shared with me the contents of a small metal box, in which she keeps souvenirs of those evil days, including a yellow Judenstern, the Star of David emblem she had to wear on her dress in public .  Eva could have become an embittered, selfish person.  That would be understandable.  Instead she has spent her life teaching and serving children who never had to live the ordeal of her childhood.  Now, well into retirement, she knits beautiful scarves to raise money for Hispanic youth in Tulsa.  That to me is a snapshot of what it means to "repent and believe" as demonstrated by a life in the right direction, constantly strengthened by a deep trust in God.

Quinquagesima: Satan?

Today is Transfiguration Sunday in our tradition when we reflect on what Matthew clearly tells us is a vision experienced collectively by Jesus' executive committee, Peter, James, and John.  Here the future leaders of Rome, Jerusalem, and Ephesus experience what Saint Paul in today's epistle reading calls "the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ." [!! Cor. 4: 3-6]

Paul goes on to say that people have been blinded by "the god of the present age."  What that meant was Satan blocking the minds of mainstream Jews who were not converting to the Jesus Movement.  The name "Satan" has a variety of meanings:  accuser, resister, impediment, adversary.  But the one we call Satan has evolved amazingly over time.  In earliest references, he is one of the lesser gods in the court of the supreme God YHVH.  In fact he is staff attorney, charged with prosecuting Judah in failing to be faithful to their covenant partner, the supreme God.  Later, Jewish religion was under influence from the Zoroastrian tradition where Satan [Angra Mainyu] has become a malevolent and destructive opponent of YHVH.  God gives him a cadre of spirit accomplices and allows him to be charged with tempting humans to sin and then punishing them.  (When I was in law school, that was called entrapment!)

Anyway Jews adapted to the newer view of the Evil One.  And Islam, when it developed, served to continue that imaging, adding that Satan was made of fire.  When the imagination of the Church came into play, we soon had the red-coloured figure with horns, hairy laws, pointed tall, and red pitchfork.  The transition was complete.  I want to talk, not about this mythical personage, but about the impediments, the stumbling blocks, the "Satans," that actually interfere with our seeing the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ.  Let me briefly mention three. 

First, there is science without a heart.  We know that science is wonderful and beneficial to us and ought not be compromised.  On the other hand, science cannot tell us why the Big Bang happened, or what existed before it, or why the millions of turns of development occurred over time resulting in our amazing existence.  Those are beyond science and we must not fall into the trap of believing that every human issue has a scientific resolution.  We know better in our hearts.

Second, there is Original Sin.  We want to be the centre of the universe; we want to be in charge instead of letting God be in charge.  We want to set our lives on a course dominated only by self- interest.

Third, there is Western cultural appropriation.  With zillions of different denominations at hand, we can simply choose the latest "church" that supports our personal interests, that doesn't challenge or change us, and justifies our pride and prejudices.  Instead of transformational religious experience, we receive shallow entertainment.  Instead of connecting to the apostolic church throughout history we connect to the latest fad-church.  We remake Jesus into a cheerleader for our greed, imperialism, consumerism, solipsism.  We build a god in our own image instead of loving the service the Living God.  This Lent let us work at moving aside these obstacles that bar our way to real abundant life in Christ, faithful to his life and teachings, in communion with his Church.

Saint Photios

This Saint is one of the most important you've never heard of.  He was born in Constantinople in 810 to parents who went on to be Christian martyrs.  He received a superb education and distinguished himself at all levels of his education.  In 858 he was elevated to the patriarchal throne.  He was an excellent chief bishop for the Eastern Church and was noted for missionary spirit.  (It was he who sent Saints Cyril and Methodius to evangelize the Russians, who received from them kyrilitsa, the notable alphabet used by Russians and other Slavic language groups.

Photios was soon noted for clashing with Nicholas I, the Pope of Rome, on two principle subjects.  Nicholas was the first Pope in history to utter pretensions to having universal jurisdiction over the whole Church.  He also dared to alter the Nicene Creed from the ecumenical council of 325 A.D., inserting the expression filioque ("and the Son") to the statement about procession of Holy Spirit.

Photios's patriarchate was rocky, interrupted by political intrigues against him, and finally he ended up imprisoned in the Monastery of the Armenians, where he composed his masterwork, Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, and died in peace in 893.

We owe much to Photios who had the courage to stand against Papal usurpations.  A few centuries later, we Anglicans would follow suit in separating from Papal domination.  And the bishops of our Episcopal Church, USA, have stated that, during the next revision of our Book of Common Prayer, the Creed will be restored to its original language, discarding Pope Nicholas's arrogant revision and coming into common practice with the Eastern Orthodox Communion of the Church.

Sexagesima: Reconciliation

In our reading from the Hebrew Bible [Psalm 147] the author invites the reader to look up at the stars.   This is a meaningful admonition because Jews at this time are still monolatrous but not yet monotheistic.  In other words, they taught that YHVH, the God of the Covenant, was greatest of all deities but had not yet discerned that they were speaking of the only God.  The stars were believed to be supernatural beings,  The writers says the God of Israel is superior to them and orders them.  If God governs the stars of heaven, certainly he can stengthen, heal, and reconcile his people "as on eagle's wings."

We see God in that mission through Jesus' healing ministry.  In first century Palestine sick people really had few options.  They could seek folk remedies, though the effect of most were nugatory, if not dangerous.  Or they could seek out a physician but only the wealthy could afford one; and the physicians of that time, under the sway of Hippocrates' humourism, believed that health was to be maintained by keeping four fluids in balance and, hence, bled people or drained bodily fluids, making their condition worse.  A third possibility was to pay for religious healing, which availed little.  That recourse was common because all disease and disorders were believed to be caused by demons and, if you were manifestly ill, that meant you had done something wrong and God has withdrawn his protection from you and allowed the demons to work their evil.  (Such healing practices were more widespread than just in Judaism.  Jesus' principle competitor, the philosopher Appolonius, was well known for a story in which diagnosed a troubled youth as demon-possessed, goaded the demons to anger and grief, and ordered them out.  With their explusion, the youth was fine and became a disciple of Appolonius).

In today's Gospel [Mark 1: 29-39], Jesus first heals Peter's mother-in-law who had a fever, back then believing to be an illness, not as symptoms.  Jesus bypassed the usual incantations and instead touched the woman, laid hands on her, and raised her up.  We see Jesus' presence and touch in a number of texts, bringing physcial, mental, spiritual, and emotional healing.  The Great Physician!  Then Jesus attends to many sick people.  Remember that to be sick was to be in a sub-class of folks who were required to stay away from others; lepers even had to wear bells to warn of their location.

In our world, we are now the hands of Jesus, our touch is his touch.  We are commanded to be healers, bringing reconciliation and health wherever we can -- in ourselves, in our families, our nieghbourhoods, communities, and beyond.  We are reminded of that fact in the motto of our diocese which states that our mission is to reconcile others to one another and to God, in Christ.  What God wants of us is tikkun olam, nothing less than the healing of the world!

Please note, at the end of our reading, Jesus takes a break to rest and restore himself for that mission.  We do well to do the same,  Lent is coming -- the perfect time.