Assumption

A parish in Venice contains Titian's famous painting of the Assumption of Mary.  She is depicted mid-air, surrounded by angels, being taken up into glory.   This magnificent artwork would seem ideally representative of an ancient belief of the Church, that Mary, from the very last moment of earthly life, was reunited with her Son in heaven.  This was an early conviction and, indeed, it was believed long before there was a Christian Bible (AD 397) or even agreement on what books were sacred enough to be included.  Those that were included made it in precisely because they were in agreement with the Catholic Faith coming down from the apostles, not the other way around.  The insistence, so popular in the Low Church, that a bible verse be found about each ancient teaching represents the tail wagging the dog.  In any event, the Assumption is mainstream Christian belief coming down the centuries.

Still, let us ask: is it somehow "unbiblical"?  Answer:  No.  The Scriptures speak of assumption ("translation") of Moses, Elijah, and Enoch -- three who were so on God's agenda as to be taken straightaway to that next dimension.  Should Our Lady, the model disciple, whose entire life was totally dedicated to God's will, who was in the poet's expression "our tainted nature's solitary boast," not be even more "qualified" than these other biblical characters?  No, the inference works.

What are the takeaway's of this feast?  First, Mary is indeed model disciple.  She endured that inconvenient pregnancy; then raised an extraordinary, sometime difficult child,; went on with an entourage of women ministering to Jesus & Company; stood at the foot of the cross with Saint John (through whom Christ addresses all of us: "Behold your Mother!"); was in the upper room with the apostles for the coming of the Holy Spirit and birth of the Church; then went on to Ephesus to minister there with John for the rest of her life.  In all of that she unfailingly modelled trust in God, patience, prayer, perseverance, confidence and hope.  

But the story, and the message for us doesn't end there.  As Bishop Ken said, "Because she is enthroned beside her Son, we know we will join him there."   So Mary is sign of our assurance of eternal life with God.  And, beyond that, knowing that in Christ, "death no more has dominion over us," the Church believes in Mary as first among the Saints and our heavenly prayer partner.  When times get tough, check in with Mom!

I wish all a happy Assumption Day!

Transfiguration 201

When Muslim raiders were repelled from Europe at the Battle of Belgrade, Pope Callistus III celebrated by declaring that 6 August would forever be Feast of the Transfiguration, a day which takes precedence of a Sunday.   In an apparently unrelated development, the Episcopal Church always celebrates the feast on the last Sunday of the Epiphany.  So, today will have to be Transfiguration 201, but I promise no repetition from earlier in the year.

Assuming John's gospel is wrong about the one-year duration of Jesus' ministry and the Synoptics are correct about three years, imagine what it might be like to be a participating disciple that third year. You have followed this radical rebel rabbi for three years.  During that time, he has managed to alienate just about everybody.   The military establishment has to be fed up with his absolute pacifism which does not even allow violence in situations of self-defence, let alone warfare.  [The early Church would not baptise a soldier unless he renounced his commission and excommunicated any member who enlisted.]   The politico-economic establishment must have been alienated by Jesus' rejection of wealth and power and his support for social justice to the poor, oppressed and the marginalized.  The religious establishment would certainly have hated his catching them out on their hypocrisy, the manipulation of widows and orphans, and their games of inventing loopholes for the Law to allow the letter to be observed and the spirit denied.

Now he wants to go to Jerusalem, a political powder-keg.    Is he nuts? Well, that question becomes answered when Jesus leads his executive committee on a mountaintop retreat.  Matthew tells us that what happened there was ahistorical.  It was a vision in which Peter, James, and John came to realize the divinity of the Christ.  They came to know Jesus as, to borrow Ben Herbster's phrase, all of God that can be packed into a man.  That epiphany gave them to strength to make that journey on to Jerusalem from where they would scatter to the four corners and all but John would be martyred.

The point I want to drive home is that. even as the Transfiguration reminds us of Christ's divinity, the feast can also feed a disorder in Christian culture, namely to miss the humanity of Jesus.  How many really believe Jesus sweated, feared, got angry, felt sexual tension?   If Jesus is a godlet, whose miracle stories are strictly historical, how can we relate?  If Jesus is simply God in disguise, how do I follow?  I certainly can't change water to wine, and even my mother didn't think I could walk on water.  We need the real, human Jesus.  And we need to follow his real teachings in our lives.  Jesus himself told us that the 'Lord, Lord' prayer-and-praise bit doesn't cut it, that we must do the will of the Father if we are to be Kingdom people.

A balanced view of the Saviour is very important.  I know other traditions have a range of beliefs, but we, as Catholic Christians, accept the definition of the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) and thereby are called to embrace his full humanity as well as divinity.  To do otherwise is to worship a phantom.

Lammas

As everyone knows there are four quarters day each year, two solstices and two equinoces, marking the beginning of the four seasons.  Less well-known are the cross-quarter days which fall exactly in between.  They include:  Candlemas (feast of the presentation of Jesus in the Temple and the ritual purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary) on the second of February; May Day(when children dance round a maypole and sing praises to Our Lady) on the first of May; Halloween (the eve of All Saint's Day) on the last day of October; and the feast called Lammas observed on 1 August.

Like other cross-quarter days, Lammas has been observed by many names in different cultures.  For example, for pre-Christian nordic types, it was the feast of the goddess Freya, for whom Friday is named.   But for Anglo-Saxons it was hlaf maesse or "loaf mass," because on this day the first wheat brought in at harvest was baked into a loaf of unleavened bread and brought to the priest, who then consecrated it for Communion at the Mass of the day.  The very first loaf became the Bread of Life.

The day also opened hunting season, harvest of fruits of the sea like oysters, presentation of animals for slaughter, even assessment of taxes!  So Lammas was quite a turning point and provided a lot of fresh possibilities in preaching.  Here are four for us to reflect on at this time of year.

First, regrets.  The point:  let them go, they accomplish nothing and impoverish the future.

Second, farewells.  What is passing from your life?  To what do you need to say goodbye?

Third, harvest.   What have you accomplished by this time?  What do you want to do next?

Four, preserves.   What gifts of God's bounty, material and spiritual, do you really need to hold on to?  What beautiful moments will you keep dear, what sweet memories will you treasure?

Pentecost VIII: More Mashal

Continuing in Matthew 13, at the thirty-first verse, Jesus is like the sower in the last post.  He is casting a lot of teaching.  His Message, as expected, is heard by all, heeded by some, lived out by few.  That was elsewhere Jesus' prediction as to people's reception of the message of the Kingdom.
Today he continues the mashal, or parable, method, giving us six parables teaching various things about the called-for Reign of God.

In the first two parables of the pericope, Jesus speaks of the mustard seed, a tiny seed which yields a tremendous plant at maturity, and he speaks of yeast, a small amount of which yields a great loaf.  By these two parables, he teaches that small efforts can have huge, unexpected, unimaginable yields.  Where the divine project is undertaken in seriousness, the possibilities are endless!

In the next two parables, Jesus speaks of an incredible treasure which, when discovered in a field, leads the finder to sell everything he has to buy the field.  He then speaks of a merchant who finds one incomparable pearl and sells his existing inventory to acquire it.  By these teachings, Jesus reminds us that the Kingdom is worth everything we have or will ever have.  But it cannot be bought with any amount of money or goods; it can be purchased only with our lives.  The price is high, it is worth it, but few will pay it.  It means placing God's work ahead of every other value in life -- wealth, power, politics, prestige, success, and yes, even life itself.  Any lesser surrender and we have not entered the Kingdom.  Nevertheless, among our  contemporary Christianities, there are more than a few opportunities to acquire bargain-basement religion in which one can pursue those false gods and still claim to be all for Jesus.  But that kind of commitment cannot satisfy.  Actually putting God's agenda in first place is a struggle, but brings us delight even in the midst of poverty and deprivation, serenity in the middle of strife and discord.  It give us what Saint Paul calls "the peace which passes all understanding."   And that is priceless.

In the fifth parable, which is thematically similar to the wheat-and-darnel story, the Master analogizes our faith life to a dragnet which catches every sort of sea creature, and then at the end of the age, angels cull out the unworthy ones and discard them.  By this tale, Jesus sends us a clear message that how we live our lives matters, that there will be an accounting at the end, but in the meantime the faith community must be open to all sorts, and it is not our place to judge others.  It would seem that my judicial licence and yours expired on the cross.  We must be open and affirming, loving and forgiving, inclusive as our Saviour was.

The final parable is the story of a householder who shows that he is a Kingdom person by not only employing what is old but also what is new.   This analogizes well our understanding that, even as faith is rooted in our ancient Tradition, it is also refreshed by our openness to new truth and new insights, as human knowledge increases now at an explosive rate.  There is nothing in science or factual evidence that should ever be a threat to the faith.  We continue to be faithful to the essence of what we have received from God's Word (Jesus), what we have from the Church's patrimony of two millenia -- including Scripture, the insights of the seven true Ecumenical Councils and the Fathers and Mothers.  We are also open to the promptings of the Spirit as revealed in reason and lived experience of the Faithful.   Our storehouse truly honours the old and the new, in the tension of holy discernment.

Pentecost VI: Sowing

In 1919 the United States passed the Volstead Act, outlawing all liquor nationwide, and Prohibition began in January, 1920.  Thereafter, the Crown Prince (future King Edward VIII) paid a royal visit to Canada, whose head of state is the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom.  Whilst in Canada, the Prince chose to visit a pub near the southern border and there was taught a little ditty by the local patrons.  Back in England, he sang it for his father the King who was delighted.   The song is to the tune of the nursery rime Four and Twenty Blackbirds and went:  "Four and twenty Yankees, feeling very dry, went across the border to get a drink of rye, and when the rye was opened, the Yanks began to sing, 'God bless America, but God save the King'."

You never know how something may be received,  There were strong emotions on both sides of the Prohibition movement but in practice the prohibition was a disaster which resulted in thousands of  illegal taverns (speakeasys), strengthened organized crime in our country, and wasted our resources.  It was summarily repealed in 1933.  Jesus, in his day, generated a variety of reactions.  This radical rebellious rabbi was a great teacher, used the standard rabbinic techniques (gross exaggeration, pun, answering question with another question) and relied on mashal or parables.  In John's late and a- historical gospel Jesus eschews parables but they are his stock-in-trade in the earlier, more factual gospel accounts.

Today he tells the parable of the sower who sows seed on various kinds of ground and which, of course, takes root in good soil.  Uncharacteristically, Jesus "unpacks" this one for the disciples who are portrayed as rather dense in the earlier gospels, but get smarter with each succeeding gospel.  For us it is obvious that  the ultimate point is that Jesus' message, falling into receptive hearts, takes root.
He closes by saying "the one who has ears had better listen" (my translation).  He is talking about hearing with compassion, hearing that leads to heeding and then to action.  And Jesus says that thirty-, sixty-, and hundred-fold harvests are possible.  Well, folks, there are no fertilizers or farming techniques that can do that!   He is talking supernatural results for a church on fire for justice and the building of God's kingdom.  Expect no less.

Pentecost V: Legacy

The story is told of a retired gentleman hired as a Walmart greeter. He went the extra mile to meet and get to know customers and was very popular.  His manager was extremely pleased, except  for the gentleman's tardiness.  Finally he called in him, complimented his work but said, "Martin, I understand that you were in the military.  I must ask, what did they say if you reported in minutes late?  "Usually," the employee replied, "they said, Good morning, Admiral.  Can I get your coffee?"

In today's reading [Mt. 11:16 et seq.], Jesus is drawing fire from the Establishment.  When John the Baptiser ministers under the Nazirite Vow, avoiding alcoholic beverages and fasting a lot, the powers that be called him a nut.  When Jesus comes, drinking alcohol and partying with outcasts and sinners, he is accused of being a drunkard with bad associates.  He can't catch a break!

His comeback, though, is perfect.  Look at the results, he says, the same thing he told the Baptiser when he inquired about the nature of Jesus' ministry:  Look around, lives are being changed!  And they were the lives, not of the rich and famous, but of ordinary people like you and me.  Jesus tells religious establishment types that hookers and tax agents are coming into God's Kingdom first!

An overview of the bible will confirm that God specializes in nobodies.  Think of Moses and of David, ordinary people who are reborn to extraordinary work.

Jesus gives us a kind of formula of what they looks like.  Come to me, he says, which means you must give up control, stop being the centre of your universe, and have me as your Saviour, not as your mascot.  Take my yoke,  commit to do Christ's work, build a new world in which God's will is done on earth as in heaven.  I am reminded of a speaker who said when we Americans stand before the Throne of Judgement, we will not be asked, "How low were your taxes?" but "What did you do for the least?"  Who's yoke are you bearing?

Learn, don't go around accepting what you have been told, investigate, be open, especially to new truths and insights from God.  You will find spiritual rest, leave behind our culture's passion for self- absorption, where nothing is ever good enough.  Lose your anxiety and live in trust of a God who accepts you just as he made you.

To follow Jesus' Agenda means leaving a legacy, as an individual, a church community, and in our society.  Alfred Nobel was mistakenly reported as dead by a Paris newspaper when Alfred's brother passed on.  The paper called Alfred, who had invented dynamite to enhance infrastructure work for a better world, a "merchant of death," because his invention had revolutionized warfare and made the killing of people possible on a scale never known before.  Alfred was so taken aback, sorrowful for the misuse of his invention, that he created the Nobel Prize which has done so much good for many different disciplines, contributing to a better world.  He wanted a better legacy.

What legacy will you leave behind, if any?

Pentecost IV: Mission

Jesus has been talking to his twelve apostles about mission.  He calls them, ordains them, equips them, and sends them out.  He also warns them of the dangers of the mission, as well as promising the reward of the just -- the satisfaction of doing right because it is the right thing to do, pleasing God whom we trust with our temporal and eternal destinies.  How different from the rewards of our culture: the wealth, fame and power conferred by Empire and the economic engine driving it.

But what is mission?   I believe Saint C. S. Lewis, one of the great Anglicans of the twentieth century, nailed it when he said our mission to make "little Christs," nothing more, nothing less.

A few days ago fell the traditional Feast of Saints Peter and Paul.  Now there is an "odd couple!"  Peter taught that a convert must be circumcised, follow Torah (in its torqued-up version introduced by Jesus), and then accept Jesus as the newly-defined Messiah, in order properly to follow the life of a Christian.  Paul, insisting on a private revelation, taught that gentiles were excused from the Law and its provisions, required only to trust in God through Jesus and thereby to be full Christians.  That fundamental disagreement was painful and led to a whole lot of trouble.  Peter insisted on "Temple government" which has continued in the church for almost two millenia, in the ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons; whereas, Paul's vision of "synagogue government,"  church rule by committees of old men, did not prevail.  Yet, in 64 C.E. both Peter and Paul died in Rome, martyred for the Faith, for both had in common the conviction that God had entered human history in a unique way in Jesus Christ who brought a new radical way of living, loving, and serving others. For he challenged people to be about building the Kingdom of God on earth, so that God's will could be done here as it is in heaven.   The task of spawning little Christs requires focus on basics.

A few days from now falls Independence Day, when we celebrate the benefits, prerogatives, and freedoms enjoyed by American citizens.    Let us ask ourselves, as little Christs, whom are we to welcome?  How does my attitude affect what I do in family, in church, in community, and in the wider world?  Many churches this morning will conduct services that send the message that their worshippers are Americans who also just happen to be Christians.  We must worship as Christians who also happen to be Americans!  There can be no second-tier Christianity.  It's like being pregnant:  you are or you aren't, there is no middle state.   In a culture that is focussed on suspicion, judgementalism, and division, on exclusion and kicking people out -- how will we foster the hospitality, welcome, and inclusion that Jesus practised?

In today's Tulsa World there is a photograph of our music minister, Rod Ruthrauff, along with my friend Rabbi Marc Fitzerman, and perhaps a dozen other protesters outside the Tulsa jail.  I wish I could have been there with them on Thursday.  I am so proud of Rod's witness as a true follower of Christ!  These protesters were objecting to arbitrary deportations of people who are not criminal or detrimental to our American society in any way.    I am sure some readers this morning wondered why a handful of people bothered to gather in protest, but I wonder, here in a city whose mascot is Jesus, why there weren't ten thousand Christians down there!  In my mind there can be no morality, no merit in policies which target hardworking, taxpaying immigrants performing jobs no one else wants, who only need a green card, and deporting them for such as minor traffic violations, tearing their families apart, often sending people back to countries they don't even remember.  What would Jesus say about that?  How can such a policy be anything but immoral political pandering?  We can do much better.  The Gospel demands it.