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!