Pentecost XI: Jeremiah and Jesus, Prophets [Final on this Site]

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; an age of wisdom and an age of foolishness; an epoch of belief and an epoch of incredulity; a season of Light and a season of Darkness; a Spring of hope and a Winter of despair..."

These immortal lines comprise the opening of Charles' Dickens' masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities, a novel the narrative of which takes place before and during the French Revolution, in Paris and in London.  But these words of contradiction might just as apply have been penned by the prophet Jeremiah, who lived and wrote before and during another critical time, the Jewish Exile to Babylon.  Jeremiah was born into a priestly family and ordained at an early age, during the reign of King Josiah.  During those days a copy of the Book of Law [an excerpt of the book of Deuteronomy] was soon fortuitously discovered in the Temple.  This finding prompted Josiah to launch a thorough reform of Judaism, in which king, priests, and people cooperated,  effecting a revitalization of the Faith.  There was a Covenant Renewal ceremony and all the places of worship situated on the bemot, high places used for religious purposes in Canaan for ages, were destroyed, making the Temple in Jerusalem the place of worship for Jews.

After the golden years of Josiah, subsequent leaders were not so faithful and, in time, the Kingdom of Judah collapsed, many Jews were taken into exile, and Jeremiah himself was exiled, though not to Babylonia but to Egypt.

Jeremiah was a quite, peaceable mystic who had no interest in the dangerous business of prophecy.  In the first chapter of his book, he recalls a vision in which God assigns him to be a prophet.  Like any sane person, he makes excuse, specifically about being too young, and God responds that God will provide the Message and everything else that Jeremiah needs.  The passages echo with words of the legitimacy of Jeremiah's call and the lameness of his excuse.  And, so, he becomes a reluctant prophet.
The kind of results are not unpredictable.  The High Priest has him scourged an put into the stocks.  When he points out corruption in the Temple, he is tried and almost executed.  He was thrown into prison.  He was dropped down a cistern to die.  And, at the last, he was murdered by fellow-exiles in Egypt.

I believe there are strong parallels between Jeremiah and Jesus.  Both were prophets, and stayed on message.  Both preached in parables.   Both predicted the demolition of the Temple and destruction of Jerusalem.  And each of them was reviled, scourged, tried and imprisoned, then executed for giving a dangerous message.    I believe their stories offer us much to consider as Christians.  First, let us never forget that our vocation includes the prophetic element; as followers of Jesus we must be involved in affairs of our world, and speak truth to power.  Second we need to be discerning and prayerful,  open to discovery of what God's call is upon us at present.  Third, we need review then lose any excuses that we may be tempted to employ in order to avoid response to that call.  And as we do so, let's remember God's promise to provide whatever we are missing, so that we can be effective in our Christian walk.

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Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Let's go back to the first century to find our orientation.  Two important developments occurred in the communities of the Jesus Movement.  First, we separated from our mother religion, Judaism.  Jews usually had a rapprochement with the Roman Government allowing them the practice of their religion and, in turn, to function as responsible citizens.  Once Christians were distinct, we no longer had the protection of being Jewish and we were heretics to those holding to the Roman religious tradition.  We stood out like a sore thumb, and persecutions followed.  Second, Jesus didn't return as expected, in the form of the historical rabbi (though he was back in the poor, suffering, and oppressed), and that meant that the oral stories about him and other persons began to be written down and circulated.  As the time passed, many, many Christians books circulated around the churches, with various texts being used in congregations.  These were not the Bible; there would be no Bible until 397 A.D. when our bishops, under pressure to produce a Christian holy book to complement the Old Testament, decided on the contents for a New Testament.  It was a tough process.  The book of Revelation was approved by one vote, when Augustine broke a tie. There was no sense that they were producing a book to replace the Tradition, but rather the Bishops based their choices on the texts' faithfulness to the Catholic Faith coming down from the Apostles.  The Bible came from the Church, not the Church from the Bible.

Some early traditions, like the Assumption of Mary, do not appear inside the collection of books selected by the bishops.  And, the Assumption simply reflects the Church's belief that, from the last moment of her life, Mary was reunited with her son in heaven.  Nevertheless, in the Episcopal Church we say that Scripture contains "all things necessary for salvation;" and there is no problem with that.  But, if this teaching is not essential to salvation, then why do we have a celebration named the Feast of Saint Mary the Virgin, commonly called the Assumption?  Let me suggest two important reasons.

The first reason is the ancient belief that Mary is a heavenly prayer partner for those who call on her.  Saint Paul reminds us that, because of what Jesus has done, death no longer has any dominion over us.  We can pray for and with the Saints in heaven, and vice-versa.  I am delighted to say that that truth is being recognized at long last by Protestants.  I belong to an international prayer fellowship called the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  We have members who are Protestant, Roman, and Anglican.  And we all say the real rosary, not one of the knock-offs.   And the Evangelical Christian scholar Tim Perry now clearly states that it is o.k. to have Mary as a prayer partner.  Moreover, the rather prominent conservative evangelist Scott McKnight proudly celebrates an "Honor Mary Day" every year, not so unlike what we are doing.

Why he does that is the second reason for our Marian celebration, namely, that Mary is the model disciple.  Just look at her life.  Her "yes" to being the Theotokos, (God-bearer, Mother of God) made our salvation possible and reflects  her profound trust and surrender to God's will in trying, confusing circumstances.  Her Magnificat, sung during the visit to Elizabeth [Luke 1: 46-56], is a radical call for building the Kingdom of God, and reflects every single disciple's obligation to promote social justice.  In considering predictions about her son, she is a model of prayer and meditation.  As religion teacher and mentor for her Son, Mary is a model of openness to learning and sharing of faith. When Mary said at Cana, "Do what he tells you," she pointed us to stay focused on Christ.   As a minister, along with other women, in Jesus' ministry, Mary shows us disciple-grade devotion.  In her moments at the Cross, she demonstrates deep faith and perseverance, when our Lord places her under St. John's care.  And when she goes with him to Ephesus to serve fellow-Christians there, Mary is a model of service to the Church.  And in her assumption, she is our model of hope in eternal life.   So,  what is missing here?  Nothing.  We have much to learn and celebrate from this Feast.

St. Dominic [Clericus Meeting]

Dominic was born in Spain in 1170 to a Christian family.  In 1191, he had a life-altering experience, seeing the devastation of a great famine in his country.  He was so moved by what he saw that, like his contemporary St. Francis of Assisi, Dominic gave away all his possessions to the poor.  When he did that he derived new clarity and became interested in studying, which he undertook with passion.  He was especially concerned with the Albigensian heresy [gnostic] but held that they should be converted through preaching/teaching and not threatened and persecuted.  Five intense years later, Dominic was ordained a priest and, after a stint as an austere cathedral canon, and then subdeacon, he went our on preaching tours in Languedoc and Toulouse, attracting many followers.

As a result, he organized he Dominican Order -- the Blackfriars.  Like their founder, hey were deeply devoted to study and good preaching.  They produced the great intellectual, Saint Thomas Aquinas!

The lesson for me is that disengagement from wealth, reducing our attachment to things (knowing the risk that they can easily own us) allows us to gain clarity and spurs us to greater study.  We, then, can become truly effective in preaching and in inspiring ourselves and others to build the Kingdom of God, a world in which God's will is done on the earth as in heaven, the world we are aching for.

Saint Stephen I and the Letter

Imagine that you are an active Christian, participating in an illegal religion, in the mid third century of the common era.  You have been arrested for being a Christian.  You are brought before the magistrate for a crime that is understood to be not only an offence against true religion but also against the state which officially promotes it.  You are a traitor to the gods and to your empire, so not a good position.  Three options are presented to you.  You may either surrender some distinctly Christian document (this is long before the New Testament is compiled, so you have a wide variety of writings from which to choose) or you may go to the little altar in the magistrate's court and sacrifice to the god of the day or Caesar as god.  Then you will be asked to formally denounce your faith and, when you do, you are issued the Brevis, a letter to carry with you that says don't molest this person who has renounced the Christian religion.  Your third alternative: death.

What do you do?  You may choose to be martytred.  You could also renounce, with your fingers crossed, and sacrifice, knowing that the god to whom you offer doesn't exist or is a mere human.  Choosing the latter, you may live to carry on your Christian ministry.  Choose the former and you prematurely depart this life.  Many persons in your position will choose to sacrifice, get the letter, and persevere in Christian practice.  Those who have not, and are alive, will call you traditor, traitor.

The question quickly arose as to whether a traditor's personal ministry was affected by his or her acquisition of the letter.  A group, who came to be called Donatists, held that the action nullified previously received sacraments, so, for example, a lay traditor had to be re-baptised, re-confirmed. Ordained traditores were to be re-ordained and, until they were, sacraments administered by them considered invalid.  A traditor's Mass was no good.

Stephen I (not to be confused with the first-century Protomartyr) in 254 became the 22nd bishop of Rome in succession from Peter and Paul  and defended our Catholic Faith from the Donatists.  He rightly maintained that received teaching clearly tells us that the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and ordination are permanent and unrepeatable.  One can rely on the ministrations of the faithful, as sacraments are objectively effective.  "Let that be observed which the Tradition has handed down," Stephen said.  But the controversy continued and Stephen was martyred -- murdered at the altar --  whilst saying Mass during the later Emperor Valerian's persecution.

The rest of the story:  Miltraides, a subsequent bishop of Rome, investigated and ruled against the Donatists in 313.  But the heresy persisted in North Africa [by the "Numidian Bishops"] until the Christians there were wiped out by Muslims in the eighth century!

Pentecost VIII: Greed v. Sacrifice

In today's gospel pericope [Lk. 12: 13-21] a man asks Jesus to arbitrate division of an estate between his brother and himself,  Jesus initially asks how he's qualified to do that and then tells a story.  The comment about qualification actually seems to be a significant statement for the separation of church and state.  Rabbis routinely made such adjudications and the government accepted them.  Jesus, in effect, is saying I'm not an attorney, I'm clergy.  Leave religious matters to me, civil matters to judges.
Good lessons.

But of core significance is Jesus' next comment, for he has intuited that the man's motivation is not a desire for justice, but greed.  No doubt, if Jesus had to put on his judge's hat and proceeded, the man would have had a nice backhander for him in appreciation.  Jesus elsewhere tells us that the love of wealth is the greatest impediment to relationship with God. 

In the story, a wealthy man faces the quandary of more stuff that he can store.  He decides to have current structures demolished and build larger ones to hold his inventory.  Then, he reasons, he will have it made and be able to eat, drink and be merry for the rest of his life.   Jesus has God saying in effect:  Guess what?  You are going to die tonight!  Jesus says that is what it is like for those who are generous to themselves and not generous towards God.  But, theologically speaking, why does the attachment to wealth mean spiritual death?  First, it leads us to forget that everything is from God; we don't create anything, we hold it as stewards for God.  Second, attachment causes us to rely on our wealth, and the power it buys, rather than trusting in God.  Third,attachment destroys our sense of priorities, de-emphasizing loving service of others and promoting self-service in the interest of wealth, power, privilege, pleasure, and security.

What then is the antithesis of attachment?  In practice, it is sacrificial giving, putting good works via God's Church and other institutions (and volunteering time and talent) as our very first priority, then trusting God with everything else.  Second, sacrificial giving promotes trust in God, which bring us "the peace surpassing understanding."  We sleep well, knowing that we have done right in a very generous way.   And that keeps us in tune with trust and gratitude for all that we have, drawing us closer to the Divine.

The Our Father

The Our Father, or Lord's Prayer as some call it (actually Jesus said a lot of different prayers) is one that many of us have known since childhood.  I grew up with the incorrect notion that the material was original with Jesus.  Certainly not.  Remember that Jesus said he came, not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.  He wanted to make the religion more genuine and end the games and loopholes which had developed around the Law, allowing superficial compliance while skirting the spirit. He called for  the Torah to be torqued-up (read the Sermon on the Mount), loopholes closed, games discontinued.  He also tended to simplify many elaborations of his religion.

  Every observant male Jew in Jesus' time recited the Amidah each morning.  The Our Father is a thoughtful abbreviated version of that ancient prayer.  His followers in the Jesus Movement recited the Our Father in place of the Amidah.  Let's look at key elements.

Our Father --  Jesus uses the intimate word abba, Daddy.  That was never before done in Jewish worship and never used in Jewish scriptures.  Jesus asserts a new and personal relationship with God.  How might your prayer life change if you were in a conversation with your heavenly Daddy?

Hallowed  --  It's a passive verb.  We do not hallow God's name, God alone sanctifies God's name, by blessing his people.  Instead we are called to honour that Name.  But many times we don't.

Kingdom  --  The term first appears in the Jewish Kaddish learnt in childhood.  It's about striving for a victory for God.  May we have more small victories of justice, love, and peace day by day.

Daily bread  --  Here we pray for our needs.  That's countercultural, as we are trained to pursue all the stuff that marketers makes us think we can't live without, by created needs that don't exist, in order to consumerize us.   The rendering in most translations calls for bread for today, reminding us to live for the moment and to trust God in everything.  However, the Bible manuscripts in Aramaic (the language that Jesus spoke), read "bread for tomorrow."  It's ok, I think, to look ahead just a little.

Forgive our sins --  This is a fundamental principle in Jewish theology:  you release the people who have offended you, then God will release you.  And not until.  Many people seem to dislike the modern version, preferring "trespasses," which sounds rather like walking on someone's lawn, to "sins," which is very direct and uncomfortable.  We need to be uncomfortable.
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The time of trial  --  Unlike the old translation "lead us not into temptation," this more accurate rendering does not imply that God somehow sets us up for failure.   To be saved from the time of trial, or hard testing, is important because we do need grace to persevere.  Jesus says that it is only the one who hangs in there until the end who will find salvation. 

Saint C. S. Lewis, the great Anglican theologian, said that the purpose of prayer is not to change God's mind but to shape our own.  I hope these reflections on Jesus' most famous prayer will help us do that.
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Pentecost VI: God and Social Injustice

The early Jewish population seem to be have been the poor cousins in the family of Canaanite peoples.  That early nomadic population developed a Law which was, although barbaric, light-years ahead of its predecessors.  Hebrews were on the margins of society and had a radically progressive view of social justice  They blazed a trail by giving all slaves a day off every week, treating refugees just like other people, and allowing the poor to glean from harvests of those better-off.  Soon, like any developing people, Jews advanced in organization.  Soon, they had a king, a capital city, a fixed temple, plus a  cosy little merger of church and state.  They had become the Establishment they once reacted against, and they managed to find all kinds of creative ways to circumvent, or otherwise play games with, the Law.

The result of this shift was the rise of prophecy, for prophets would call out social injustice and evil wherever they found it, and call people back to genuine worship.  The first prophet whose writings appear in the Bible was Amos, whom we talked about last week.  He's back with another vision of YHVH as a human, playing twenty questions.   God shows Amos a bowl of late-summer fruits in wonderful condition and then tells Amos that he has blessed his people for the last time, he's gone.

This was during the reigns of Uzziah ([Judah] and Jeroboam II[  [Israel] and Amos's words will be remembered, for soon both kingdoms fall and exile ensues.  Amos now tells us that the wealthy have committed three grave offences, which caused God to pull the plug.  First, they exploited the poor, needy, and working class.  Second, succeeding at that, the rich objectified those of whom they were taking advantage; making them economic commodities to be used, bought and sold without regard to fair compensation or human development.  Third, the next logical step was to begin to perpetuate an overclass of rich people, and so they did.  The wealth gap widened.  God bailed out.

We learn, then, that God will not sustain a society based on domination, rather than love of one's neighbour.  The worshipping community cannot be complicit or neutral in the face of systemic injustice.  Worship must lead us to work for a just society and world,  Our New Testament story, recounting the ministries of Martha and Mary, reminds us that we need worship and also need to participate in activism  --that both are important and complementary.  They must work in tandem.

Fulfilling the Law

The New Testament speaks of Jesus' teachings and way of life constituting a fulfillment of the Jewish Law.  Hear Saint Paul:  "Whoever loves another person fulfills the Law. for you must love your neighbour as yourself.  Love does nothing wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love fulfills the Law." [Rom. 13:8]

It should be said that the Law was a manifest improvement on prior Canaanite religion, but was still barbaric.  As a product of its time, it must be read in context.  The Law, which blazed a trail by giving slaves and everyone else a day off each week; and provided generously for the poor and needy, also endorsed child abuse, spousal abuse, homophobia, sexual abuse and, of course, legalism.  Judaism introduced authoritative commentation to keep practice up-to-date and to make it more humane.  No Jewish congregation today would support painful execution of one's child for mere disobedience or men having all the wives, concubines, and also-rans they want and can afford, as well as the use of prostitutes.  Interpretation made all the difference going forward.

Christianity had a similar process.  Christian Scripture, although not law, is considered to be authoritative.  Still, those writings, although "inspired," reflect factual errors, scientific ignorance, and sometimes abhorrent agendae in the issuing communities.  They also contain substantial contradictions, including many theological ones.  So, across the ages Church scholars have been able to mould and direct the interpretation of Scripture, and that involves evolution in thought and insight;  those in the Roman Communion -- though they deny it -- have changed theological and practical positions to keep up, somewhat.

In the Episcopal Tradition, we uphold Scripture, rightly interpreted, traditional Catholic faith and practice, and conciliar insights.  But we also rely on "reason," a concept which comprises use of advances in knowledge in disciplines across the board to keep what we say and do fresh and ever faithful to the overarching values reflected in Jesus' words and example.   Unlike the protestants, we Episcopalians don't have to find a bible verse to justify test-tube conception, or to relate to ordaining women alongside men, or embracing those born with a gay or lesbian sexual signature.   In so doing, we remain faithful to Jesus' counsel not to judge, but love and serve, and also use our God-given intellect in his service.   Thus, we can move into God's future with humility, trust, and confidence.

Pentecost V: Who is My Neighbour?

Our readings work beautifully together to reflect the nature of our call as God's People.  In the psalm {Ps. 82]  God demotes and sentences to death all the other deities, for siding with the wicked against the weak, the orphan, the humble and needy, the weak and the poor.   Here we learn all about God's "preferential option" for  poor and marginalized people and his disdain for the wicked who prosper through taking advantage of them.

Then we have the herdsman and tree-dresser whom God calls to prophetic ministry [Amos 7: 7-17].   Amos has a vision and, in this dream, God appears in human form, holding a plumb-line in his hand.  He has measured King Jeroboam and Father Amaziah, and has concluded that church and state are both corrupt and headed for oblivion.   When Amos reveals this dream, the news is not at all well- received.  Amaziah pulls Amos's credentials to minister in the shrine at Beth-el, one of the oldest and most important religious sites, and indeed the King's sanctuary.  (It's like clergy being disinvited to a Presidential Prayer Breakfast!)  Amos has spoken truth to Power and Power does not want to hear it.  The plumb-line calls for a complete consistency between God's will (as revealed in our psalm today) and our own will.   The two main vehicles for taking care of those in need -- church and state -- are both failing to meet the challenge.  Is that not still the case in our country today?

In our Gospel pericope [Luke 10:25-37]  a lawyer asks Jesus what is need for eternal life and Jesus returns the question.  The man answers reciting the Sh'ma, which states that you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind, and your neighbour as yourself.  This recitation is doing first-thing by observant Jews, even to this day.  Jesus tells him he is right, but the lawyer intends to dig further, so he asks who is his neighbour.  Now that term as used in that culture meant one thing:  your fellow Israelite.  The lawyer is really asking whom he is not required to love.
Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan.  A man is beaten, robbed, and left for dead.  Religious professionals -- a priest and a Levite -- see him and ignore him.  (No doubt because they headed to religious activities and touching a living Samaritan, or a dead body, or even blood or other bodilly fluids, was believed to render them impure, and they couldn't function in their religious capacities.  While they ignore the problem, a Samaritan sees the man, administers first-aid, takes him to an inn, standing good for all expenses.  This story would have been considered offensive to some Jews, to many absolutely unacceptable.  Samaritans were despised as half-breeds, low-lifes and heretics, for Samaritans used a different Bible, had different theories of inspiration, and worshipped in a different temple. 

Jesus then asks the lawyer who was neighbour to the man who was almost murdered, and of course, the grudging answer (he can't even come to make himself say 'Samaritan') is the one who showed kindness.  Jesus says, go do the same!   And so we are reminded that God loves all his children and calls us to love, embrace, and serve all.  Not just those who look, talk, smell, act,and worship as we do. So, is the refugee in a cage my neighbour?  Yes!  Are the Muslims in my community my nieghbours?  Yes!   Are the dirt-poor hidden away at the end of town considered my neighbours?  Yes!  Are the gay couple down the street my neighours?  Yes.  There simply are no non- neighbours.  Jesus knew how well people could play with the Law, but you can't make an end-run around grace.  His radical call for discipleship means serving all those in need. No exceptions!

Psalm 82

The psalm reading for this week is phenomenal.  It ties us back vividly to Judaism's heritage from the old Canaanite culture.  We are presented with a vivid picture of a heavenly assembly of the Canaanite Pantheon.  The chief god, our God, YHVH [El, Elkiniza, Amuru] declares that no other divine being controls human destiny.  In the near-eastern culture, it was taken for granted that there were many gods in charge of many different facets of life in our universe.  Now God calls an assembly of these lesser gods. So far ,anthropologists have identified 234 Canaanite deities, so this is a big meeting!  Some of the more prominent attendees would have been Baal (war), Dagon (weather), Moloch (fire), Yam (the sea), and Mot (death).  There would also have been a number of lady gods:  Atherit (YHVH's wife), Baalah (Baal's wife), and the war goddesses Anat and Astarte.

Interestingly, in Canaanite lore, YHVH and his wife Atherit [Asherah] reigned together.  She was represented in the holy bamot, shrines in high places, by poles.  However, Judaism, with its growing patriarchal tone, demoted Atherit.  We find in the Jewish Scriptures of cases concerning women who were found with images of the goddess, likely miniature sacred poles.  That was apparently a most difficult allegiance to break even in the man's world being forged by ancient Jews..

YHVH has called this convocation in order to charge all the lesser gods with injustice, with refusing to uphold the weak and disadvantaged and instead siding with the wicked.  His judgement is accompanied by earthquake (a popular theophany) and then he shows his power by stripping the other gods of their immortality.!  Now they will die like mortals, leaving YHVH alone as sovereign of the universe.  No doubt, the story is also aetiological, explaining how monolatry (Jewish worship of YHVH alone) was replaced by monotheism (Jewish assertion of the existence of only one deity, the YHVH, whom they worship.. 

The important take-away from this psalm is God's unwavering love and commitment for all of his children, especially the marginalized and poor, and his hostility towards evil people who propser by taking advantage of them.

Pentecost IV: Naaman

The Bible is hard to read and understand without guidance.  That may be especially true of the Hebrew Scriptures which are often confusing, sometimes offensive.  But today's pericope is quite clear and may consist of a mix of historical and mythic elements, as is often the case.  Our protagonist today is said to be an Aramean like Abraham.  Naaman is also a professional military leader, an army commander who serves the King of Aram.  Our scripture [II Kings 5: 1-14] also tells us that God has given victory to Naaman; that is unusual, as God is normally depicted as only supporting Israel, not any other nation.  Most significantly, Naaman has leprosy.  That means that, if were in Israel, he would have been judged accursed by God and excluded from religious and civil life.  He certainly wouldn't be at the top of the military.  But he is from Aram.  The Jewish restrictions on leper seem to derive from the very strange Jewish obsession with not mixing unlike elements.  A few examples:  One cannot plough, using two unlike beasts. One cannot grow two different grains in the same field.  One cannot make fabric from two different fibres.  One cannot cross-breed two different kinds of cattle.  And in the instant matter, two different shades of skin on the same person is unclean.

Now what we call leprosy today is Hansen's disease, which is incurable.  That is not what our friend Naaman has.  In the days of old, the term "leprosy" meant any one of several virulent skin diseases, which were curable.  (Jewish priests served to certify when people had been healed of their disorder.)  Naaman needs a cure,  A slave girl, whom he owns owing to a prior military conquest, serves as his wife's servant.  The girl, presumably being from Israel and caring for her master, recommends a holy man in Samaria (then Jewish territory), Elisha.   Naaman is pumped and asks his king for a letter of reference to give to the King of Israel.  Armed with the letter and a lot of money and assets for gifts, Naaman heads to Israel.  When the King of Israel reads the letter, he thinks he is personally charged with responsiblity for a cure and he has a panic attack, tearing his clothes.  Prophet Elisha soon hears about his king's meltdown and summons Naaman.

When our hero arrives, he apparently expects to be greeted warmly by the prophet and to be cured utilizing some fancy rituals.  Instead, before he gets to Elisha's house, a messenger comes from the prophet, directing Naaman to go and dip into the Jordan River seven times.  Naaman is not amused.  Complaining of the lack of personal greeting and the unattractive, unpleasant condition of the Jordan, his servants react by saying:  "Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?..." So Naaman goes, follows the instructions, and gets his miracle cure.

I submit that you and I are likely to see ourselves in one of these characters and learn a real spiritual lesson.  Perhaps, like Naaman, you want to be healed, to be made whole, but only on your terms.  Maybe you are like the King of Israel who thinks everything is his responsibility and can't delegate.  Could it be that, like Elisha, you have a gift to heal those who are hurting?  Or, like other characters, you may have a gift of discernment, or "connections" to bring people together.  Read this tale again later.  See if there may be a word there for you, to help you be more effective in your own ministry.

Saints Processus and Martinian

In our minds' eyes, let's go back to first century Rome.  For the locals, it is the year 817, ab urbe condita -- from the founding of the City.   In our much-later mediaeval reckoning, it is 64 A.D.  or C.E. The Emperor in office is Claudius Nero, who is most certainly a curious and unstable leader.  He has already murdered his own mother and had his wife executed, so he could marry his mistress.   He would not allow the usual titles of divinity to be ascribed to him.  He wasknown to show up at public celebrations and start bursting into song or reciting poetry, behaviour that was considered undignified for a Caesar by the populace.  As he died by his own hand, he exclaimed "Qualis artifex pereo," meaning what an artist is dying in me!

This year 64 will be absolutely critical in his reign.  A horrendous fire breaks out and, besides the destruction in the city, many perish in the flames.  Nero dawdles, as if indifferent to the crisis.  The rumour that he played the "fiddle" during the conflagration is quite plausible, as he was a decent violinist, as well as being mad and unpredictable.  What does one do under such criticism?  Well, a scapegoat is always handy, and religious cults can be easy targets.  Nero's wife is a fan of Judaism, whereas Nero himself follows certain oriental faiths.  He chooses to blame the fire on Christians, so begins one of the worst persecutions of the Church.  Crucified bodies line the roadways.

As it so happens, at this time, the two key figures in the Jesus Movement, Peter and Paul are both in Rome.  One might imagine that Saint Paul has tired of all that travelling and writing letters and has retired alongside Saint Paul, chairman of the apostles, in the Church Peter founded at Rome.   What odd-couple!  Here is the illiterate Peter; the well-educated Paul.  Peter who, like James and Jesus, emphasizes the role of "works" (action) in salvation; and Paul who teaches salvation by faith only.  Peter who supported church government as we have it still today (bishop, priests, deacons); Paul who had favoured synagogue-style governance in his chain of communities. Opposites attract!  Perhaps Peter and Paul provided just the perfect balance needed in the important, diverse Roman community.

Their separate executions will take place that year -- Paul by beheading, Peter by crucifixion upside-down.  You might ask how we know about this, since it doesn't happen to be recorded in Scripture.  Well, witnesses.  Saint Clement of Rome, who was third bishop of Rome after the Peter & Paul team were executed, speaks of it.  So does Saint Ignatius, also of the first century, who was second bishop of Antioch, after founder Peter.  The noted writer Irenaeus also attests.

When Peter and Paul were arrested and incarcerated at the Mamertine Prison, their warders were Processus and Martinian   The apostles converted them, and they were baptised  there by Peter, and later martyred for their faith.  They were buried in the cemetery at Damasus.  Much later a church was constructed around their tomb, and Gregory the Great said Mass there.  In the ninth century, their remains were translated (transferred) to Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome and interred beneath the high altar.  Many years ago, my wife and I visited the crypt where their tomb is, also where Saint Peter and numerous other early Saints are buried.  Sadly, due to security concerns, that area in the south transept is now off-limits.

What a wonderful two thousand years of witness is ours as Catholic Christians.  Thanks be to God!

Pentecost III: Freedom From and For

This week the Gilcrease Museum is displaying a rare certified, handwritten copy of the Delcaration of Independence.  The copy was made by Silas Deane, our country's first emissary to France.  Curiously Deane was tasked with a special mission -- to secretly arrange French financing of arms, uniforms and equipment for 20,000 men in the revolutionary cause.  Benjamin Franklin joined Deane in Paris in the next year, 1777, and took the declaration copy with him on a mission to Prussia.  In 1949, our Thomas Gilcrease purchased if for $34,000.  It is kept in a secret, high-tech area called the "Holy of Holies" at Gilcrease Museum.

Such founding documents are much on our minds as we approach the celebration of our National Day later this week.  Some seem to regard them as if written by God, but as Thomas Jefferson was swift to remind us, the revolution was a "grand experiment" in self-government that would require some later corrections.  Actually our Constitution has been corrected 27 times by amendments, to keep it a vital, living document.   I think many Americans would be surprised to learn that the word "God" doesn't appear in the Constitution, and the word "freedom" doesn't appear in the Declaration.  I suspect that the founders  understood freedom to encompass unrestricted behaviour, whereas their own preferred word "liberty" seems to incorporate the notion of balancing people's freedoms and in accepting reasonable limitations.

Saint Paul today [Gal. 5] presents new concepts of "freedom."  First, there is freedom from legalism.  Apparently Paul's take on the Law evolved over time.  In Acts 16, we find Paul making Titus get circumcised to boost his own credibility with Jewish audiences.  Now later, he is dead-set against it!   Legalism is problematic because as soon as there is religious law people find the loopholes allowing them to have superficial observance of the letter, while violating the spirit, of the law.  The gist of the sermon on the mount is Jesus calling people to stop playing games with the Law and defeating its purposes., which can be reduced to love of God and love of the other.  Too much of the Church is involved in legalism, often connected to bible-worship. The antidote is getting in touch with grace.

Second, there is freedom from false values.  Paul speaks of the works of the "flesh" which he tells us include things like idolatry, jealousy, anger, and other negative qualities. We might add today godless self-reliance, self-serving lifestyles, and self-promotion, participation in all social evil, looking out for number-one and turning a blind eye to injustice and oppression.  Turning away from false values can allow us to turn in the right direction for our lives, to be those God calls us to be.

So there is freedom to love and serve.  To tag the Greek, we render slave-service to others,  which is faith working through love (Gr. agape), and is a gift of the Spirit.  This is not about a single act but a way of life.  In living, our model is the Saviour who died and was raised, giving us assurance that he was perfectly obedient, totally tuned towards God.  So we follow his lead and live his life  That must include love of those who hate and mistreat us, and that means that we have freedom from spiritual burdens, like resentment, hatred, and grudges.  That's true freedom and, as Saint Paul, says we can know that the Spirit is at work when we see the gifts:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Do these describe our daily lives, or is there work to do?

Finally, let me add to our list freedom for liberation of others.  Each of us receives God's blessings for the purpose of passing them on, being a blessing to other people.  In the Eastern tradition, Tuesday is the feast of Saint John Maximovitch.  He was a Russian Orthodox bishop serving outside Russia and he repeatedly led people away from persecution by atheistic regimes so that they could live and serve  free.  Sometimes liberation has a concrete political dimension, as well as a spiritual dimension.  Most people will never have the opportunity to do what this saint did but we can lead people who are in danger, spiritually-enslaved, to freedom in Christ, to redemption.  Can there be any greater ministry?

Tribute to My Friend, Doyal Davis

When we moved to Shawnee, Oklahoma, to take the helm of the Emmanuel Church there, the first person from the church to make contact was an outstanding layman, Doyal Davis.  We quickly discovered that we had much in common.  We both had parents named Otis (Odis) and Grace!   We both had served in the military at the same time during the Vietnam era.  We shared very similar views regarding theology and political science.  We became fast friends and soon I enrolled Doyal in the diocesan program which led to his ordination as a deacon, serving at Emmanuel and making a real difference in lives,  Doyal made positive contributions to the liturgy, with poignant sermons and even gifting to the church a Hawaiian ceremonial umbrella which, in the style of the islands, which was held over the sacred book during reading of the gospel in today's requiem for him.  Doyal was also a truly superlative teacher, taking charge of Sunday School and other educational programs which he pursued in the spirit of progressive Christianity

Doyal declined to design his own funeral service, leaving that to us.  As the preacher, I selected the gospel option of Saint John 14 as most relevant to the Doyal I knew.  In this passage, Jesus is made to calm his disciples as he faces imminent death in Jerusalem.  He tells them not to let their hearts be troubled.  Rather, believing in God, they should also believe in him.  Belief in the Greek carries the combined sense of spaciousness and room for all in"my Father's House."  This is, of course, clear reference to the heavenly realms -- the incomprehensible dimension past our own  -- but I beg to suggest that, in an Episcopal Church, we are in the Father's House in this life, here and now, and that we will therefore reflect God's all-encompassing non-judgmental love for all his children.   Love indeed is "graduated."  The renowned Walt Disney used to say that we graduate from the love of parents to the higher love of a life's partner -- for Doyal that was the love of his life, Jack B. Mathies.  After Jack's untimely death, Doyal received companionship from his trusty sidekick, Dudey the dog!   Then, in the graduation to eternal life, we shall find the highest love of all in the pure presence of the Divine, and it is to that reality we commend Doyal.

Finally, Jesus states that he is "the way, the truth, and the life," leading to God.  This utterance is often employed by our co-religionists as a weapon, as a threat against those who are non-Christians.  But is that rational?  A way is a path, a journey to follow.    Jesus' way is clearly the way of death to the old self, and rebirth to a new kind of life -- turning from a selfish self-centred lifestyle to a loving and self- sacrificial life for others.  That, of course, is what constitutes loving God and the neighbour, which is a cornerstone principle of all the world's great religions.  It is no surprise that the very earliest name for the Jesus Movement was "The Way." Incarnation is the term we use to describe how the "logos" of God inhabited the person of Jesus, so that, as Ben Herbster said, Jesus is all of God that can be packed into a man.  So, if you want to see what God's way looks like in a human life, look to Jesus.  If you want to see what the truth walking looks like, look at Jesus.  If you want to see what God life, real life, looks like in the human context, look at Jesus.

Jesus cared nothing for doctrine or dogma, except to the extent that he torqued-up Torah to stop people from playing games with it, finding ways around the spirit while keeping the letter of the Law.  Jesus called us to build the Kingdom of God,  The Kingdom of God is not the Church.   This Kingdom of God is not some pie-in-the-sky by-and-by expectation.  It is this world transformed so that God's will is done on earth as in heaven.  That has an inescapably political dimension.   We cannot claim that we love Jesus and then ignore the cruel realities everywhere.  Doyal knew that principle, and clearly it pervaded his preaching, his teaching, his very life.  So, our best tribute to our dear friend as we go forward is to rededicate ourselves to following the teachings of Jesus and living his life, which is the only life worth living anyway.     And with that, I say -- as Doyal often did -- "yee=hah!"

Trinity Sunday: Progressive Revelation

In today's gospel pericope [Jno. 16: 12-15] Jesus leads off with a remarkable statement, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth."   We understand the part about the Spirit leading the Church into all truth.  However, what does that first part mean?  Are the disciples so stupid they can't absorb any more information?   Or maybe they are already grieving for Jesus and cannot concentrate!   Either of the premises is possible, but I don't think so.  I believe he is saying that, for their own time and place, disciples have heard as much as was by then to be revealed.  I believe that later revelation, what we denominate progressive revelation, will deal with concepts then undiscovered in human reality,  And additionally the Spirit will lead in the gradual realization of Jesus' call for non-judgmental love and inclusion of all God's children in his new community.

Let's imagine the conversation takes a different turn.  Jesus says o.k., let me tell you that people will eventually learn from science that life forms have gradually evolved over many aeons, and that little demons do not cause epilepsy, mental illness, nor any physical disabilities; rather, tiny organisms called germs and other later-understood biological factors produce them.  Could the disciples have processed that?  No, it would be "mind blown. "  Or suppose that Jesus had said that the bishops succeeding the apostles down through the ages would one day include many women, as would all orders of ministry.  They could never have caught onto that  Maybe Jesus would have said that the Church, at first open only to Jews on Pentecost, soon would be open to Gentiles and that one day, far in future, we would learn that gay and lesbians people are alright, and to be loved, accepted,  and respected in the Church.  They would not have begun to understand!  Jesus had revealed what could be revealed in that time, place, and culture.

The Spirit reveals over time new truths and calls us to sharper views of spiritual reality.  That, really, sums the Holy Trinity in action:  The will of the Father (who wants all his children and his creation  loved and cared for)  reflected perfectly in the life and teachings of the Son, and the Spirit calling us to replicate Christ, however imperfectly, so we may become change agents for the fulfillment of God's new vision.  We can only imagine the perfect love flowing amongst the Persons, calling us to love as God does, for God is love.

Pentecost: Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to Christ's One, Holy, Catholic Church.  That Church has three great Communions -- Roman, Orthodox, and we Anglicans.  We are eighty-five million strong around the world and we carry on about 1989 years of tradition through apostolic succession of bishops coming down from the Apostles.  So, Happy Birthday to us!

The roots of the festival are found in ancient Judaic practice.  Harvest was conducted fifty days after the first budding of the plants, and so that fiftieth day was celebrated as the harvest of fruits, a festival called Shavout .  Soon, the teachers added a new dimension onto that:  they reckoned that the Law had been given fifty days after Moses and company arrived at Sinai, hence the festival also became a celebration of the giving of the Law.  Now, at Luke's pen, it becomes the festival of the harvest of souls and giving of the Spirit, a project of fulfillment.

Pentecost is similarly marked at fifty days, from Easter.  The apostles and Our Lady are in an upper room in Jerusalem when they experience theophany.  These manifestations -- fire, wind, earthquake, ethereal voices and the like -- symbolize that God is doing something new.  The new thing is the Church and by the gift of the Spirit the frightened little band will morph into bold evangelists to give Jesus' message to the world.  Chairman Peter addresses the huge assembly of Jews from all over.  The critics immediately start accusing the apostles of being drunk on wine (communion wine?)  Peter rebuffs the taunts and forges ahead with a powerful messages which all assembled can understand!

The 'tongue' actions this day represent a reversal of Babel, an aetiological myth in which God creates all the languages of the world to get people to be, literally, more down-to-earth and to spread out and create the nations all around the globe.  Now unity and mutual understanding will reign.  The Faith will be open to all.  There will be no nationality, race, gender, sexuality or anything else to divide the People of God.  They will have unity in One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.

The wonderful gift of the Spirit to the Catholic Church means that we stand empowered to go out and be Christ in the world.  The Spirit still lives, the Spirit still guides the Church into all truth, the Spirit still empowers us through Word and Sacrament.  What a wonderful, incredible gift.  Let us always try to be worthy of it in His service.

Saint Eadfrith

To set our context, I want to introduce a man whose life was very much affected by our Saint of the day.  Nechtan was aarguably the greatest overking of the Pictish people, in the north of what we know today as northern Britain.  Enthroned in 706, he was not only the military and political leader of a powerful, warlike people, but he was also a man of great learning.  His great goal was to expand and consolidate Pictavia.   He did that generally by military means, as when we took Orkney, a place we recently visited.  The one exception was Northumberland, the northernmost English province which stood immediately south of his jurisdiction.  Military aggression did not work, so he resorted to the logical alternative, diplomacy.

Now in those days a diplomatic settlement had to include not only political agreement but also the agreement of ecclesiastical leaders.  While the English territories were in the western, Roman Catholic orbit, resulting from the synod of Whitby, the Christians in the north, including the Picts, Scots, and others still followed the old practices of the Celtic Church and found their leadership at Iona, the religious centre on the northwest coast.  Two particularly distressing practices were the Celtic use of archaic methods to calculate the date of Easter, keeping them out of synch with the rest of the world, plus a method of tonsure of monks that was different, probably inherited from Druidic practice.  As important part of the peace negotiations,  Nechtan agreed to bring the north into western Catholic practice and ordered his clergy to comply.  Those who did not he expelled from the kingdom in 717.  Finally, he abdicated in 724 and lived the rest of his life as a monk.  The Picts eventually were to be absorbed into the Scottish tribes, and their culture and language disappeared in the mists of history.

Eadrith from 698 was the Bishop of Landisfarne, the Holy Island in Northumberland on the east coast.  He was negotiator with Nechtan for peace and religious unity.  Desiring to leave a permanent legacy, Eadfrith alone produced the Lindisfarne Gospels, now in the British Museum.  This most magnificent examploe of illuminated manuscripts, he toiled over for two solid years.  A legacy indeed!  And, in the spirit of his agreement with Nechtan, Eadfrith chose for his masterpiece Latin texts preferred by the Roman clergy, over against the texts used by Iona, and moreover he incorporated for the first time Celtic and Roman elements.   His story should inspire us to discern deeply what talents we have to bring to God's work and what kind of legacy we would like to leave behind.

Easter VII: Philippi

The remarkable Macedonian city of Philippi  (pronounced phil-LEE-pee, but usually anglicized to FILL-a-pie) was a beautiful seacoast community.  In 42 BCE, it was the location of the final battle between the Roman team of Marc Antony and Octavius versus Cassius and Brutus (of 'et tu, Brute?' fame). The latter combatants were fighting to keep the Roman world democratic (or at least oligarchic) but they lost the battle to their opponents who favoured dictatorship, and so republican government died.   A reminder that democracy can slip away.

Later in history, Philippi became a wealthy, well-educated, sophisticated, and prosperous community.  There were four basilicas and a Roman theatre there.  The one-percenters made their money in gold mining or the marine business, but there were also wannabees in the city, as we shall see in a minute. 
Philippi was the site of Saint Paul's first visit to Europe where he made his first European convert, a wealthy woman named Lydia,  Now Paul and Silas are out preaching, and they gain a groupie.  An enslaved woman begins to follow them around.  Now she had a "spirit of divination," no one knows exactly what that meant.  I think it indicates that she ran a good con doing fortune telling, and she had made her masters wealthy.  But now, in the presence of the apostolic duo, she knows the real thing when she sees it, and she begins loudly to proclaim that Paul and Silas are speaking.  Perhaps Paul didn't like her stealing his thunder; but, in any event, he cures her "gift," so that she no longer will perform.

This woman has been doubly oppressed as a slave and a sideshow act, and when oppressed folks refuse to be silent, they annoy power people.  Paul wasn't the only one annoyed,  Her owners, deprived of her moneymaking talent, are furious  They call the law and have Paul and Silas harangued, arrested, beaten, thrown into prison with their feet in stocks, sequestered in the innermost space of the prison.  There are always consequences when a person is liberated.  There are racial and economic injustices in our society and round the world.  We don't want to hear the proclamation that God can liberate them, change things through us.  So we block the signal with busyness and materialism.   We may not lose our freedom and be beaten as the apostles were, but there will be consequences for being God's change agents, we can be sure of that.  But we must move out of our comfort zones and get into the fray.

As our tale unfolds further, the other prisoners are liberated, and even the jailor himself accepts the message of Jesus and becomes a convert.  He and everyone in his family are baptised, and then they rejoice because the jailer has become a believer in God.  The God-life is available to all, the call to liberation applies to all.  The task is ours.

Easter VI / Anglican Communion Sunday: Live Positive and Trust

We are in the midst of weather crises here in Oklahoma:  damaging windstorms, widespread flooding and crumbling neglected infrastructure.  With so many people displaced, evacuated, injured,or even dead, it is easy to focus on the negative.  That's why we have today's collect reminding us that God wants to give us good things that surpass our understanding and exceed what we can desire. What could that mean?

Let's take a look at a couple of post-resurrection tales.   In one, the dejected and defeated disciples return to fishing, only to have Jesus show up for breakfast!  The men on the road to Emmaus are hurting because their hopes were dashed by Jesus' execution, but then Jesus shows up!  These stories remind us that our human lives vacillate between happiness and sorrow, joy and disappointment.  Part and parcel of our existence.  What we must avoid is the tendency to focus on the negative, not to see the big picture, not to trust that God wants to help us through the crisis and on to a better day.  The earliest Christians found Resurrection Life in the faith community despite persecution, torture, even death.  And so God will get us through all that we have to face in this life.

In our Acts reading, as Saint Paul begins his european tour, things have not gone well.  He even runs into a not-so-friendly ghost and gets thrown into jail.  But then he takes a break, goes down to the waterfront, and strikes paydirt.  He meets Lydia and her family, converts her, and baptises the whole lot.   Now Lydia is apparently one of those God-worshipping gentiles who attends synagogue; and furthermore she is a seller of purple, for royalty who attire themselves in that colour.  So she is a merchant to one-percenters, wealthy and well-connected, a great leader for the nascent Jesus group. Paul gets past his crisis and finds the blessing.

We have the Holy Spirit to guide us through dark times.  Jesus promised his Catholic Church that God's Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth.  That's a gift for all time.   But what does "Catholic" mean to us?  We speak of the faith coming down from the apostles, reflected in the Scriptures, summed up in the Creeds, and clarified by the seven true ecumenical councils.  That solid faith persists, however imperfectly, within the Roman, Orthodox, and our Anglican Communion.  Our Communion is a confederation of thirty-nine churches round the world, 85 million people, the largest religious affiliation in the English- speaking world.  In apostolic succession, we are firmly planted in sacred history, with hearts and minds open to the Spirit, as we move confidently through dark times and on to the fullness of God's promise.

Easter 5: Inclusivity -- Then and Now

In chapter 10 of Acts, we read about a family of "God-fearers", or God-worshippers".  Thus may we translate the Greek term theophoboumenoi. The expression refers to non-Jews who became affiliated with synagogues and were active, contributing members of the community, though without actually going through conversion and being bound to requirements like circumcision and the dietary laws.  It was inevitable that the Jesus movement within Judaism would be in contact with these God-fearers, who could become full members of a Christian synagogue without strict adherence to Jewish law.

This family were headed by Cornelius, who was a Roman centurion, a soldier in charge of a hundred troops.  In what is depicted as a double vision scenario, Cornelius is moved to send for Saint Peter.  Peter, in turn has a vision, which he interprets as meaning that to God no person or thing is ritually unclean, and he is sent to find Cornelius.  He explains his unusual experience to these gentiles and then preaches to them.  Afterwards they catch on ("receive the Holy Spirit") and their whole lot are baptised by Peter.

That brings us up to today's reading.  Peter soon takes a trip to headquarters in Jerusalem, where he is accosted for his new insight about inclusion.  It would seem that the rancour develops, not because Paul has preached, or even baptised, but because he has maintained table fellowship.  To be at table implies a certain equality, mutual-respect, and relationship.  This does not sit well with mainstream Jews, who are afraid of assimilation into the greater culture and, thus, must maintain separation.  Peter cannot resort to Scripture or to Jewish teaching but must make his defence grounded in direct revelation from the Spirit.

In the Anglican Tradition we speak of the "three-legged stool," meaning that revelation comes to us through Scripture, Tradition, and Reason.  The last means that we believe that God's revelation is ongoing, unbound by time -- that from age to age the Spirit tells us that God is doing a new thing and spurs us in a different, perhaps uncomfortable, direction.  We have had to answer the calls to accept modern science, to abolish slavery, to fight for racial equality and justice, to ordain women, and to embrace gay people.  Like Peter, in none of those cases could we resort to biblical proof-texts or  any established religious doctrines or laws.  We too had to appeal to direct revelation.  One might ask if there is some litmus test of legitimacy for such discernment.   I would answer that wherever fear and ignorance, hatred and bigotry, are being vanquished, God is at work.  Wherever barriers to human development are torn down and loving relationships established, the Spirit is on the move.

There is a Jewish story about a rabbi who asked his disciples how one can tell when night is past and daytime has arrived.  One said, when you can distinguish a sycamore tree from a fig tree.  Another opined, when you can tell a goat from a sheep,  Still another proffered, when you can determine that someone is male or female at a distance, by their motion.  No, said the rabbi, until you can gaze upon any human being and there see the face of your brother or sister, then no matter what time it is, it's still night.  Thank God that we have been called to be people of the light.

Saint Pachomius

In the gospel proper for today, Tuesday in the fourth week of Easter, Jesus counsels us to be spiritually  prepared for the end of our lives.  Wise words, for as those of who have lived long know, life hangs by a thread.  How do you stay prepared to go out good?  Perhaps Bible reading or Christian studies, and certainly prayer and reflection.

In the early Church many prepared by giving up marriage and living singly while performing tasks to make a living.  Pachomius was once such person.  He was drafted into the Roman Army from his home in northern Egypt, was discharged in 313 and became a Christian.  (Remember that the Empire had modified the law to make all religions freely legal while not promoting any particular religion, just as our Constitution does today.)  Pachomius could be openly, freely Christian and he chose to do it by a call to be a hermit.

Soon he began to ponder whether a group of me like-minded with him could form a community in which they would collectively devote time to religious activity, still performing the tasks needed to bring about a livelihood.  With that insight, communal monasticism was born.  Pachomius founded several monasteries, wrote a rule to govern the common life, installed an abbot over each community, and a dean over each "house."  A house reflected a particular vocation:  there would be a house of farmers. a house of tailors, a house of teachers, and so forth.

We owe much to Pachomius for envisioning and reifying communal monasticism in the Church.  Monks and nuns continue to provide valuable sministry amongst us Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, even some Lutherans in Europe.  Thank you, Saint Pachomius!

Easter IV: Kilchurn Castle

We had a wonderful holiday in northern Scotland and the Orkney Islands. We visited Saint Magnus Church where I said a prayer for Saint Matthew's and lit a candle.  We saw Skara Brae, the oldest human habitation found on our planet at 5000 years old, and Maeshowe, a prehistoric rock funerary monument and religious site.  Also we saw henges and eight castles.

One of the castles was Kilchurn on the shore of Loch Awe, a beautiful place.  As we approached, I held back to take some photographs.  When I went on to the castle, I was met by a large sheep who bounded round the corner.  We seemed instant friends, as he nuzzled me and enjoyed being petted.  I had a conversation with him, then went on to the castle entrance, where he and two of his buds tried unsuccessfully so sneak through the gate behind me.  I have seen sheep at state fairs, and at a distance all over Scotland, but never until that day had I been up close and personal with one of these lovely, gentle creatures. It was a great experience and gave me a new appreciation for comments attributed to Jesus about shepherds and sheepfolds.

In today's gospel [John 10: 22-30] Jesus is described as ho poeimen ho kalos.  Traditionally that is rendered the Good Shepherd, sometimes the Ideal Shepherd, but I recently read a suggestion by a Greek scholar that a better translation yet is Beautiful Shepherd.  In the sense that we speak of a person's being beautiful not only outwardly but inwardly.  That kind of beauty evokes love and an unconditional trust.  We are safe knowing the Beautiful Shepherd is on watch.

Jesus warns against the wolf, who will fool and scatter the sheep in order to find a victim to kill and eat.  There are many wolves today who like to prey on the Episcopal flock, trying to tell us that we can't be for women or for refugees, that we must not embrace racial and sexual minorities.  These wolves counsel judgement where Jesus counsels love and acceptance.   Yet we do not need to fear wolves, because the Beautiful Shepherd is on watch, protecting those who are faithful to his vision.

He also brings eternal life.  That is not about getting your ticket punched for pie-in-the-sky when you die.  It is a present gift of an abundant new life and love.  Jesus contravened Jewish expectations of messiahship and Roman political and religious values.  Today, in his name, we contravene much of what passes for religion-as-usual in America and the imperial values of our own day.  We do so in faithful response to the Beautiful Shepherd who calls us to be a beautiful people, inside and out.

Who have been the most important shepherds in your life?  I bet  one of them would be your mom. Today we call forward the mothers in our congregation for the Mother's Day Blessing.

Easter Sunday: Why Search for Life in the Realm of Death? [Lk 24: 1-12]

Those women knew tombs.  The most solemn of "woman's work" was the washing and anointing of the body of a deceased person in that place to which people would come for many years to pay their homage in minds and hearts, to remember.

The women who followed our Lord from the Galilee all the way to Jerusalem watched him die and be taken down from the cross.  They would no doubt have seen Joseph of Aramathaea wrapping the body, placing it in a rock-hewn new tomb.  Then they would have gone home for the sacred task of preparing spices to be applied to the corpse.  It was always
wwa final act of love, and a notable exception to the legal proscription of work on the sabbath.

As they approach, the see that the stone cover has been rolled away and here, in the darkest and most fearful place -- the place of death, they find absolutely nothing.  No corpse, no shroud, no wrappings.  Absolutely nothing.  They are perplexed:  no doubt a combination of shock and confusion along with some sense of anger that someone has apparently stolen the body, an ultimate desecration of one who had already been through hell.

Then two spirit-beings remind them that Jesus predicted a comeback!  Now they remember.  This is world-shaking news, a complete reorientation of reality as commonly known.  Now they don't have to live in the past, mourning loss of their Master; now they can see that resurrection life lies ahead.  They are changed from people of fear and confusion to people of faith and confidence. They go forth to be sentinels of the word that love is stronger than hate, life stronger than death, peace stronger than all violence. They morph from tomb-crew to evangelists and when they approach the eleven disciples, these followers of Jesus don't get it.  The women get it.  Women always get it.

The greater good news is that the power of the resurrection can transform our lives here and now.  We can stop "searching for the living among the dead."  But it isn't easy, is it? We like living in the past.  It is comfortable, predictable, what we are used to.  It is easier for us to stay with the same life-denying relationships, those same self-defeating patterns of behaviour, the same compulsions, anger, anxieties, and fear.  We want to stay in the tomb, but that is not God's plan!

We can have a new lease on life, a second chance at living abundantly.   That new life begins at the baptismal font and leads to commissioning by apostolic hands in the sacrament of confirmation.  And this all happens in a new kind of living, loving, supporting community -- a second family we call our church.   So why are people searching for life in the realm of death?   Christ is Risen.  Alleluia!

Good Friday: Wrestling with John and Atonement

In John's one-off gospel, everything has a deeper meaning.  Everything is fraught with symbolism.  And that is sometimes good, sometimes bad.  As in our reading of the Passion tonight, it is bad when John's community tries to make a saint out of Pilate the monster and to make villains out of Jews by fictitious claims. The anti-semitism is palpable and pathetic, reflecting the disappointment and anger of that community at the failure of the Jesus Movement to catch the Jewish imagination.  By the time John's gospel came out, Christianity and Judaism had separated, the Church, in her own personal iest bnterest, was seeking a true rapprochement with the Empire, and, so, needed to fictitiously transfer responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus from the Romans, who executed him for treason, over to the Jewish leaders, and indeed the whole Jewish nation!

The symbolism is good when John's community shows Jesus' encounter with the cross as being the result of human sin, and the place where he defeats the powers and dominions of empire, greed, and hatred; and then rises again..  We see Jesus who is loving and forgiving to the very end -- wonderful message.

What happens when we attempt to explain the Cross?  Over nearly two millenia, Christian thinkers, inside and after the Bible, have concocted more than a dozen theories of the atonement.  All represent fallible human opinion, as faithful people try to create an "explanation" comprehensible in light of the extant culture and self-understanding.  All efforts to define a divine Mystery will necessarily fall short. 


In one early model, we find God and Satan arguing.  Satan agrees to release humanity (which is under his domination) if only God will arrange for the torture and death of his Son, Jesus.  God agrees and the deal appears done on Good Friday, but then God raises Jesus and thus gets one over on the Devil.
In another model, we see God's absolute love in Christ on the Cross.  We are impelled to begin living the life of Christ and, so, when God sees us he sees Christ and saves us.  In the nineteenth century, we find yet another theory -- penal substitutionary atonement -- the darling of evangelicals.  In that theory God (seemingly as viewed in ancient Israel) is angry and wants to punish us for failures, but instead  decides to arrange an ultimate propitiary sacrifice -- the torture and death of his Son  -- and thereby he is appeased, and can accept us.  Ask yourself what that theory says about who God is, who Jesus is, and who we are.  It isn't a pretty picture.

If I were asked to give an "explanation", I would say that Jesus lived a life totally in harmony with the will of God, completely opposed to the powers of evil and oppression, and without compromise with  every false value and every influence that prevents us from being the people we are called to be.  The necessary result was his death.  However, God refused to let the Dark Side win, raised Jesus, and us with him.

What we can now say is that we believe that in the Cross of Christ God was reconciling the world and showing God's deep love for us,   In a real sense, the drama unfolding before us can only be played in the human heart.  And it is only there that it can be understood.

Maundy Thursday: "You are What You Eat"

That is an ancient saying going back to primitive times when people believed that the character of a lion could be conveyed to a human by eating lion, that wisdom could come to one who ingested the meat of an owl.  And certainly, in some sense, we are what we intake.  Ingesting unhealthy food, drinking too much liquor, taking drugs -- these things can end up defining us, with the substance replacing who we really are.

In our reading from I Corinthians tonight, Saint Paul assures us that the very essence of Christ is con- veyed in the Eucharist, so that we can in time, by God's grace, be transformed into His likeness.  Paul also warns us that we commit sacrilege when we receive the Eucharist without acknowledging that the elements are the Body and Blood of the Risen Christ, under the appearances of bread and wine.  es He actually goes so far as to say that such sacrilege towards the Sacrament has led to illness and death!

We call it a Mystery -- a reality beyond our scientific understanding, beyond our sensory abilities to defect, yet received by faith and validated by its results in the lives of the faithful.  Unlike some others, the Romans and Lutherans, we do not seek to scientifically define exactly when and how the Christ a becomes truly present in the Sacrament.   We rather accept and believe it, and live into its reality as the core of our common life.

Palm Sunday: What are We Doing?

Hosanna was a nationalist, revolutionary cry o the lips of an oppressed people,  Hosanna was political, inflammatory.  Jesus, deciding to enter Jerusalem on that donkey,in emulation of a prophetic image from Micah about the coming messianic king, signed his own death warrant.  I want to be clear with you that, in the late gospels of Luke an John, the authority and role of Jewish authorities in the execution of Jesus are grossly exaggerated and the authority and role of Roman authorities are grossly understated.  That reflects the Church's attempt to establish peaceful relations with the Empire an the failure of the mainstream Jews to convert to the Jesus Movement.

George Gallup, the great pollster, once quipped that early Christians went to Jerusalem, as Muslims go to Mecca and Baptists to Tulsa.  The early faithful went to Jerusalem to walk the path of Jesus and to see the places he had been.  From the fourth century those who could not make the pilgrimage to the Holy City had a procession with palms in their local church.  We continue that practice some sixteen centuries later.  As we sang hosanna and entered our worship space, we were joined to the stream of countless faithful before us.  We acknowledged salvation.

But how are the events of this week salvific?  How do Good Friday and Easter reconcile us Suday to God.  That free gift is itself a mystery.  Over two millenia humans have tried to unpack that mystery.  More than a doesn't theories of the atonement, attempts to "explain" salvation, have been uttered  None is infallible, none is comprehensive.  We are called to live into that mystery with grateful hearts.  This week we relive the last days of Jesus.  We walked the triumphal entry this morning, we will visit the last fourteen events of his life in the Stations on Tuesday.  We will be there for Jesus' celebration of the Last Supper/First Mass on Thursday night.  We will watch with him one hour through the night  Then on Friday we will go with Mary and with John to the Cross.  Finally, on Sunday we will experience and celebrate once more God's victory over the Dark Side

Tuesday in Lent IV: Unpacking a Wonderful Psalm

The Psalms are a collection of hymns written and chose n for worship in the Second Temple.  They contain "notations" on how to chant them, but that information is lost to us.   They actually comprise five songbooks, in emulation of the five books of the Torah.  Generally, they transition from laments into praise.

We know that the Babylonians had a new year's festival in autumn, when they symbolically renewed the enthronement of their deity, proclaimed his dominion anew, and renewed their covenant with him.  This is the context of Psalm 46, which incorporated the same new year's time-frame and the elements celebrating God.  Psalm 46 is the quintessential such enthronement psalm, in which we see that God resides in the Temple and safeguards his holy city, and that waters flow to purify and nourish it into a  Second Eden.

In the beginning, God subdued all the disorderly primal forces of the universe that were making our human life impossible.  Thus, there was creation victory, and Zion is where it was remembered and proclaimed.  Unruly forces raged outside the Temple but those holy buildings made a visible statement to God's Chosen People that God is orderly and powerful over all that is chaotic and anti-human.

Indeed, God remains our "refuge and strength" and in Lent we have all that we need to renew our commitment to service and to take better care of ourselves to be strong witnesses for Christ.

[Our Saint-du-jour is James Loyd Breck who went ffar rom the East Coast to Wisconsin as a brave missionary and converted the Chippewa Nation, and also served in the founding of two Episcopal seminaries:  Nashotah House and Seabury.  Later, he founded a number of parishes out in California.  His focus was always the right one for a priest, to be an instrument of empowering of others for their ministries]

Lent V: What about Poverty?

As we have discovered the development in gospel texts from early Mark (about 71 CE) to late John (final, about 105 CE), sometimes we seem to be experiencing the telephone game as well as strong emphasis on each particular community's agenda.  Today's selection [John 12: 1-8] is a remarkable study: the anointing of Jesus.  As we follow the stream of time from Mark to John, the story begins in the house of Simon the Pharisee and ends up in Lazarus' house, putting him on the scene.  The woman morphs from just a nameless women whom Jesus lifts us as an example of faith, to a public sinner whom Jesus forgives in contrast to Pharisaic judgmentalism, and finally to Mary (of Mary & Martha fame).  The unction begins as an anointing of Jesus' head (symbolic of his kingly and priestly office), and moves to his feet, to emphasize the element of servant ministry important to John's community.

In the early gospels, it is the attendees whose criticize the use of expensive perfume for this anointing.  Then, the disciples become the critics.  And, finally in John, it is the super-villain Judas (a name that means The Jew) who complains about the cost.  Then we are amazed to learn that this very-likely mythical personage was actually the apostolic treasurer who used to steal money and would have converted monies used for the perfume!  Clearly we see John's disgusting anti-Semitic streak once again.  We are not fooled.

Jesus' reply here to the exceptional cost of the nard is to say that "the poor you have with you always" whereas he will not be around long.  That phrase has been used to suggest that the problems of the poor are so intractible as not to be worth any effort.  Better to get the fuzzies about the Lord and forgot those economically marginal folks. 

In our country we have 46.5 million people living in poverty, up more than 9 million in the last ten years,  48% of the population are now either poor or low income.  At the same time, our budding new aristocracy --the one-percenters --, own 43% of the nation's wealth and recently received tax cuts totalling $1.5 billion.   The bottom 80% of Americans collectively own seven percent of the assets.  Nevertheless, "the poor you have with you always."  Really?

Three quick thoughts on that.  First, we cannot separate Jesus from the poor, for he challenged all oppressive economic, political, and social systems.  He responded to people tangible needs, not just "thoughts and prayers."  Jesus resisted the Establishment so well he was executed by the Empire as a rival of Caesar, an enemy of the state.  Second, the Greek in the text may be rendered in present indicative, as usual, or present imperative.  If the latter, then Jesus is telling people to "keep the poor close to you."  Doesn't that sound more like the real Jesus?

Finally, Jesus supported the provision in Jewish Law for Jubilee, when in the fiftieth year people were supposed to remit all debts, release all land for re-distribution, and release all slaves.  That radical provision simply didn't survive the Chamber of Commerce lobbying in Jerusalem.  But Jesus wanted it enforced.  Jesus took it seriously.

We may not agree as how we should tackle the problem of poverty and take care of the poor.  But, in light of the huge and growing wealth gap in America, I do not believe we can argue that this is just the way things are, and Jesus would be ok with it.  No!  What to do is subject to debate.  Whether to do is simply unconscionable for us who claim to follow the Christ.  And we can do better as people people.

Laetare Sunday: The Crazy Father

Today's gospel reading [Lk 15: 1-3, 11b-32] is commonly known as the Prodigal Son Story.  Let's dig into it.  In Jesus' time, an estimated 4 million Jews lived outside the Jewish homeland.  The disaspora area extended as far east as Persia.   The incredible Roman transportation system expedited the movement of people all over the Empire, and it was common for younger Jewish sons to migrate.  Likewise it was not unusual for a son to take custody of his putative inheritance.  However, while he was allowed to take that money, invest it, and build a new life with the proceeds, under absolutely no circumstances could he jeopardize the principal.  That was his father's retirement account in times to come.   In violating this rule and spending the corpus on riotous living, the prodigal has stolen his own parent's future and acted as if they were dead.   His action is a grievous violation of law and morality.

Worse, the prodigal has eschewed help from his own, the chosen people.  The Jewish world had an elaborate network, a highly organized and efficient system, for charitable help towards any Jewish traveller or immigrant.   It was well known that no Jew anywhere in the Empire would go hungry or find himself lacking accommodations.  Our prodigal picks the worst conceivable alternative. He turns for help to a gentile who puts him to work as a swineherd, an occupation forbidden to Jews ,as pigs were held to be ritually unclean.  In this manoeuvre our star has rejected his Jewish religious heritage with its fidelity to the Law, and his own ethnicity.  One who behaves in this fashion is expected to be treated as dead by his family and Jews in general.

What finally wakes our prodigal up is starvation.  Starvation leads him to realization of his sin, and acceptance of personal responsibility.  From there he is called to teshuvah, moving in a  new just direction or, as we would say, repentance.   He decides to go home and asked to become a hired employee of his father.  Under the Law, the father is supposed to execute his own son!   Instead, the insane father does a series of things that no oriental patriarch would ever do! 

First, he runs to see the prodigal.  This would astonish early readers, knowing that no male family leader would ever do that.  Second, he bestows gifts.  He presents a signet ring -- sign of authority, embraces him in full forgiveness  -- the greatest gift of all -- and orders his prized cattle for a quick slaughter in order to throw a welcome-home party for the prodigal!  Third, the father begs his other aggrieved son to stop pouting and join the party.  No son in that culture would dare disobey in this fashion,play nor would any father play into it an seek to cajole the child.  Here too, deadly execution remains within his rights.

It should be terribly obvious that the crazy dad in our story represents God.  God treats our pasts as forever dismissed, and encourages us also to live in the present and not be controlled by what was or might have been.  Moreover, God reconciles everyone in the family, encouraging all not to be judges over each other but to love, forgive, and live into the future God has in mind for us individually and collectively.  If God loves with such absolute lavish, unconditional love, how can we do less?  In our New Testament reading today [II Cor.5: 16-21], Saint Paul says that we are all called to the ministry of reconciliation.  "In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.  So we are ambassadors for Christ."  Let us ask ourselves: whom do we need to forgive or ask forgiveness of?  What relationships need  rebuilding?   What better time is there than Lent to exeercise our ministry of reconciliation? 

Lent III: Bad Things Happen to Good People

The Hillcrest Medical System over the years offered an annual clergy appreciate day, on which credentialed clergy would be invited to hear a guest speaker and enjoy a delicious lunch.  One year the speaker was noted rabbi and author Harold Kushner.  I arrived early and entered the auditorium,  To my surprise and delight, Rabbi Kushner walked up to my table, introduced himself, and we had a great conversation prior to the day's program.   Mostly we talked about his latest book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, which was the product of Kushner's soul-searching about the meaning of the untimely death of his son from a rare disease.  Could this mean, as ancient Jewish scholars surmised, that the boy or his parents or grandparents had sinned and this was God's payback?  No way.  Kushner realized that God made a free universe in which bad things will occur; that the question was not to sort out how to assign blame, but to ask where God is in such a crisis.  God is right there with us to share in our pain and to help us deal and heal.

Jesus addresses the same fundamental question of whether God is an amoral micromanager in today's reading [Lk 13: 1-9].   He speaks of two events,  Oddly, neither is attested anywhere in the records of secular scholars.  The first is a slaughter of Galileans during their worship, a massacre attributed to Pontius Pilate.  Contrary to some conciliatory material in the New Testament, the fact is that Pilate was a monster, pure and simple.  The story is perfectly consistent with what we know of him.  The second event was the suddeb collapse of a tower at Siloam resulting in the death of several bystanders.   Jesus asks whether the victims of these tragedies were worse people than anyone else; his answer: no.   Bad things happen to good people.

This is a point that self-serving religious leaders try to ignore to their advantage.  Back during high school we had to read The Bridge over San Luis Rey.   Therein a priest tries to attribute deaths from failure of the bridge to the moral inadequacies of the victims.  That didn't play, and it still doesn't.  I remember being horrifed when televangelists tried to blame the Twin Towers collapse on sinfulness among those working there and to blame Katrina deaths on New Orleans' tolerance for gay people.  What a bunch of hogwash!  God loves all his children, but bad things happen to good people.

The end point of Jesus' engagement was to say that none of us has a clue how much time remains.  Life hangs by a thread.   Like the fig tree Jesus references, we need to produce while we can, while our clock is still running.  If we find that we have not been productive while planted in the bad soil of materialism, consumerism, and greed, we may be allowed extra time to be transplanted into the rich soil of the Gospel.  What is important is that we bear fruit.

Consider Moses in our Hebrew bible reading today [Exodus 3: 1-15].  He became a murderer on the run and now he starts a new life in Midian in a soil of comfort and security.  After God comes after Moses in the burning bush experience, Moses comes up with no less than five different excuses as to why he cannot answer the call.  But God isn't buying Moses's excuses,  And he doesn't buy ours.  We must discern and respond, realizing that we never know how much  time we have left.

Lent II: Cutting a Deal

Have you ever used the expression "cut a deal"?  Ever wondered what that meant?  This morning's reading from the Hebrew Bible [Gen. 15: 1-12, 17-18] answers the question. In early Jewish times contracts were concluded by cutting an animal in two, after which the parties walked between the halves to conclude the transaction and then feasted on the animal to celebrate.  They 'cut' the deal.  However, in matters rising to the level of a covenant, the parties walking between the halves would be accompanied by a flaming torch or smoking thurible in vivid representation of the presence of God in the transaction.

To make the proper distinction, a contract is made between two parties for some consideration, and running for a time certain.  If one of the parties breaches the contract -- fails to perform contractual obligations -- the other party is excused or can seek legal remedies.  In a covenant, God is party to matters of supreme importance.  A covenant is not time-sensitive; it is eternal.  And if one party to covenant breaches, it does not excuse the other party.  The one who has been unfaithful can always return.

God likes to make covenants and each is eternal, for God does not lie or go back on any promises.  Let's take a look.  The first was the Noahic Covenant.  After conclusion of the flood story, based largely on the Gilgamesh Epic that preceded it, God sets his rainbow in the sky as a sign of God's fidelity and creates a covenant with all humanity.  It has seven commandments, of which one is kindness towards animals, and another is establishing honorable government.  It may be that we fulfill that covenant without knowing it.

Next comes today's tale of Abraham.  Remember that he follows the old migration route from Ur (in what is now Iraq) to Palestine.  There the one then called Abram receives a vision of God in which he is called into covenant to found a nation through his own biological descent.  He trusts God.  Then he goes to Egypt and back, goes on in life to be wealthy, and then later is separated from Lot who is returned.  By then Sarah's biological clock is really ticking; in fact, it's wound down; and Abram is not getting any younger.  Finally he complains, and God reiterates and enhances the promises.  Soon his wife Sarah becomes miraculously pregnant, and what God has promised --that Abram will be father of many nations --   becomes reality for this patriarch who trusted the Lord.

Now we look at the Mosaic Covenant.  Under the leadership of Moses, the Jewish People are born out of the slavery experience deep in Egypt.  They are reborn through the waters of the Red Sea, which parts for them, and God leads Hebrews in two manifestations, a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire.  Just like the parting of that sacrificial animal and the priest carrying fire or smoke to symbolize God's presence. At Mount Sinai the covenant is sealed and an important new chapter of history begins. This lovely covenant with God, like any other, is eternal.  Despite misstatements in the late pseudo-Pauline epistles, the Jewish covenant has not been annulled or replaced.  God does not lie or go back on any promises.

Now we come to our covenantal relationship.  We have passed through the new Red Sea waters of holy baptism. There we receive our freedom.  For we are prone to be slaves to selfishness, pleasure, wealth, and many addictions and many compulsions which keep us from abundant life.  Christ came to set us free!  The death of the Son of God exposed the bankruptcy of the world's powers and dominion systems, of all empires and their false values.  Jesus once for all led them captive to his cross, and it is there we find salvation and eternal life.  At  every Mass we celebrate and renew our unique covenant with God, even as we receive the Body and Blood of the Risen Christ in Holy Communion.

Lent is a great time to be strengthened as covenant people, in order to serve the world in Christ's

name.  An important part of that process is to take better care of ourselves so we can be strong witnesses in word and deed to God's promises.  For we are standing on the promises.

Lent I: The Devil, Dan'l Webster, and Jesus

From the "border country" of northern Massachusetts comes the old legend about Daniel Webster, namely that if you go to his grave in Marshfield during a thunder storm and call out "Dan'l Webster, Dan'l Webster!," the ground will tremble and he will reply, "How stands the Union, neighbour?"

Webster was a remarkable figure who served in Congress and as Secretary of State, but was best known as one of the greatest orators in American history.  He was also a Whig Party leader who sought to have the problem of slavery resolved by diplomatic means to avoid the kind of bloodbath that, in fact, followed secession when the successor to the Whigs -- the Republican Party -- led the nation in civil war.  In "The Devil and Daniel Webster,"  Stephen Vincent Benet tells a tale of a poor farmer named Stone who sold his soul to the devil and, then when Satan called the bet, engaged Webster as his attorney and won the heavenly case!

In today's gospel reading [Luke 4: 1-13], Jesus is given  opportunities to sell out to the devil, but he prevails.  Each of the temptations involves a particular sin to which we modern people are prone, so we can learn much from this story.  First the devil challenges Jesus to convert stones into loaves of bread.  This is an appeal to anxiety coupled with a lack of trust in God, and Jesus will not give in.  Second, the devil shows Jesus all that nations of the world and offers him glory and authority over kingdoms, if he will but sell his soul.  Jesus knows that this is an appeal to greed, vanity, and the quest for power and again rejects the temptation.  Finally, the devil beams Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem, challenging him to jump down, in expectation of divine rescue. This is a clear call to presumption and self-glorification.   Jesus wins this final round as well.

Surely in modern times we experience anxiety that finds its root in a lack of full reliance and trust in God, placing confidence in our own resources instead.  Surely in our own day we can find ourselves desiring wealth, power, and influence, instead of the sacrificial giving and servanthood to which the Lord calls us.  Surely in our daily walk we presume on God.  Do we, as Soren Kierkegaard pointed out, treat God as "cosmic bellhop," instead of seeking to know what is his will?  These are all kinds of spiritual shortcomings -- openings for the Evil One -- that we can be strengthened against by our Lenten prayer, reflection, and disciplines.  Don't sell your soul to the devil!