Tag Archives: RCL

Not Good to be Alone

  • Job 1:1, 2:1-10

  • Psalm 26

  • Genesis 2:18-24

  • Psalm 8

  • Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12

  • Mark 10:2-16

Year B Proper 22 (27) Revised Common Lectionary

It is not good that the man should be alone

When I left ECUSA for Eastern Orthodoxy, I was continuing a journey I’ve always been on. I was looking for the One Right Answer, good for All Time™. The modern sellers of Orthodoxy in America (equally ™) seem to push this. I’m not sure if this is the right way to use the term, but some friends of mine have been known to use the term “Byzantine Rite Baptists” – and I think it aptly describes these sellers. My experience was that they are as Literalist as the late Jerry Falwell. Their Orthodoxy is as coloured by their cultural assumptions and prejudices as my liberalism is. Their Christianity is as removed from that practiced in “The Mother Country” as mine is from 2nd Century Palestine.

But I tried, really… to live in the world they offered me: a God who never changes and who wrote the little spiral bound song book we used at every liturgy. It only works, really, if you don’t notice that “Those Orthodox over there” do it differently than we do. (Of course they do! We’re humans…) The Byzantine Baptists go rushing out to fix those folks over there. I’ve even heard one guy wanting to send American Orthodox evangelists to the Middle East to make our Elder Brothers and Sisters “do it right”! But my reaction was to see if there was a place where this might make sense.

It’s not good to be alone, though… so I do this with others – with you, today.

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man…but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.

Does this passage startle you? Does it trip you up at all?

Pretend for a moment you are a biblical Literalist (buy into the whole Six-Day Creation and Young-Earth movement for a while). This passage – like everything in the Bible – is God’s story about himself to us. He is using Moses to write specific words on the paper. These are God’s words, through Moses, to us. Read these verses and what do you see?

Pretend you are a “Higher Criticism” sort, or a cultural critic of the text. Hold the text at arms length as far as revelation about/by deity is concerned. But the Bible tells us a lot about the people and cultures in which it was written. (Or, at least, a lot about what they wanted to say about themselves.) What do these verses seem to say about what these people thought about the God they followed?

God wants to make man a partner…
So God tries all the animals out…
They don’t work…

Hold these verses in your imaginary Literalist mindset. Did God make a mistake? Get suddenly distracted?

Hold these verses in your imaginary Higher Criticism mindset. Did the ancient writers imagine that God made a mistake? Did they imagine that God got distracted? Where they just weaving a story and used the pretty animals as a plot device?

Look in the Gospel…

[The Pharisees] said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you.”

Jesus is engaged in a debate here within the Jewish community regarding the content and application of the Mosiac law. Of two great schools (or houses) of thought present in the Jewish Community, the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel, Jesus seems to be siding with Shammai here and in other places on Divorce: either no divorce at all, or else only for extreme issues. Paul seems to take this line as well. But notice what Jesus says… “Because of your hardness of heart [Moses] wrote this commandment for you.” Not because God commanded it thus but rather as a concession.

Use your Literalist mindset and tell me what that means? That God’s law was, from the very beginning, not a “Perfect Law for all time” but rather a process? If Jesus is, himself, God, what does that say about Moses making up laws that are concessions rather than God’s real commandment?

Use your Higher Critical mind and tell me what this might mean about the people or cultures that wrote the law? Rather than divine inspiration does it seem the law is a process? Is it possible that Jesus feels this way?

I’m not asking new questions really. The rabbinic sages taught that the New Creature of Earth (the Hebrew adama meaning, literally, “Earthling” rather than a name) was at first androgynous. The failure to find a friend from the Earthling among the other creatures led to God’s division of the Earthling into two beings, Man and Woman. But first God tried the Animals…

Is God testing things? Trying things out? Did God fail to understand that the Earthling, with reason, understanding and skill, might not be interested at all in the creatures who don’t have that? I mean a dog is incredible comfort… “Man’s best friend”, even… but not much comfort when mourning or when feeling randy, or even when looking for a night out on the town.

Really? Try all the animals first?

And while Jesus seems to take God’s omnipotence and omniscience as a given, even whilst siding with Shammai, Jesus seems to deny the text of the Scriptures. He indicates here (and elsewhere) that the law is a process, a dialectic, a give and take in to which we (humans) are constantly maturing. Paul seems to take this line as well. It’s not a once-for-all-time standard, a thing that leaves us stuck in the past. It is a law that evolves and moves with us through time and culture.

And the God who is described as a Jealous God is later called “Love”.

So for me, standing here in time and space, 2000 years and several cultures away from these texts, I’m left to wonder what God is saying to us or what God as learned in that time about humans. What does it mean to hold in tension these ideas about a God who changes and evolves (or, about an evolving and changing understanding of that God) with the ideas we like: permanence, unchanging, foreverness?

One of the things that amuses me constantly about modern atheists of the strident sort is that they want us religionists to all be of a stripe. They often create – and try to force all of us believers into – a straw man and then set it on fire. When we try to point out subtle differences in meaning and readings and understandings… they (the Strident Atheists) often turn into more literalist fundamentalists than Jerry Falwell ever wanted to be. And they presume to tell us, the believers, that we’re doing it wrong.

But we’ve not changed, I think.

It seems within our tradition that there has been, for some time, since the beginning of our tradition, really, some 3,000 years ago – and really, since Abraham (some 4,000 years ago) – a dialogue with this God we follow. It started with Abraham bargaining for Sodom: we are getting to know him and he is getting to know us. Judaism and Christianity seem to agree thus. The latter even going so far to say that God became one of us to experience this world, to do it, and live it.

The point of this meditation here, on St Francis Day, is not to cast doubts on the text or on the Literalist or Higher Critical readings of the text. Rather I want to open our eyes to the spectrum, to the depth and width of this religion we try to follow. It’s not textual: it’s contextual. We’re not in a place to pull out a text and say “this says X”. Rather we can pull out a text and say “This seems to mean this…” and then we must decide how to live that meaning.

Judaism has, within it, a community known as the Jewish Reconstructionist Movement.

Reconstructionist Judaism is a modern American-based Jewish movement based on the ideas of Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983). The movement views Judaism as a progressively evolving civilization.It originated as the radical left branch of Conservative Judaism before it splintered. The movement developed from the late 1920s to 1940s, and it established a rabbinical college in 1968.

There is substantial theological diversity within the movement. Halakha (Jewish law) is not considered binding, but is treated as a valuable cultural remnant that should be upheld unless there is reason for the contrary. The movement emphasizes positive views towards modernism, and has an approach to Jewish custom which aims toward communal decision making through a process of education and distillation of values from traditional Jewish sources.

Although the word “reconstruction” can mean something rather different in conservative Christian thought (which meaning I reject), I think of this community as – roughly – Eastern Christian Reconstructionim. What we say about the God we worship says a lot more about us than about Him. And we wrestle with that. As we seek to know and be known by that God, things with evolve and change – as they always have! But we do it together.

It is not good for the Earthling to be alone.

Salted with fire

  • Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
  • Psalm 124
  • Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29
  • Psalm 19:7-14
  • James 5:13-20
  • Mark 9:38-50

Year B Proper 21 (26) Revised Common Lectionary

Indeed everyone is going to be salted with fire.
Mark 9:49

I like this passage, which in some translations talks rather overmuch about the “worm that shall not die and the flame that shall not be quenched.” Jesus is calling to mind the closing words of Isaiah, which do, in fact, talk about punishments for those who rebel against God, but it is verse 49 that attracts my attention just now. This passage – my understanding of it – is one of the central points of the Gospel. Everyone will be salted with fire.

Please note that Jesus promises everyone fire – not just the evil ones – but everyone will be “salted” with fire. Obviously, I think, there must be some meaning here that I’m missing. Who wants to be salted in Hell?

Jewish tradition has no concept of “original sin” as western (mostly Protestant) Christians tend to understand it. The Jews speake rather of a good inclination and a bad inclination that are given to everyone. The two inclinations (“Yetzer” or plural “Yetzerim”) are in everyone. In the most basic understanding we have:

Yetzer HaRa
(m.); “evil” inclination, the desire to commit sin; as in “Yoseph HaTzaddik cavash et ha-yetzer ha-ra shelo,” (“‘Joseph the Righteous’ conquered his ‘evil’ inclination.”)
Yetzer HaTov
(m.); “good” inclination, the desire not to commit sin; as in “Lekol echad yesh Yetzer HaTov,” (“Everyone has a ‘good’ inclination.”)

Source

But there is more: they are not only good and evil, like a devil and an angel sitting on my shoulders: Yetzer HaRa is the selfish nature that urges one to procreate – to have children, who are, in part, “little copies of me” – the drive to seek pleasure, to succeed and excel. But when it gets out of balance, it becomes hoarding wealth, having sex in ways that harm others, and drinking too much. Yetzer HaTov is the nature that urges one to give – the drive to share with others and to love. When it gets out of balance, it becomes having no healthy boundaries and not respecting the boundaries of others.

Traditional Jewish prayer asks God to make Yetzer HaRa subservient to His will and asks that the one praying not become subservient to her own Yetzter HaRa – the seeker requests to use Yetzer HaRa in the service of Yetzer HaTov, and to use both in the service of God. Jewish prayer asks for all of the person to be used in the service of God – the Yetzer HaTov and the Yetzer HaRa both come from God and can be used by God to further God’s plan.

These notions match up well with the Eastern Orthodox idea of “passions”. Of course, Eastern Orthodoxy is only Judaism under different rabbis. The Orthodox would ask for the passions themselves to be taken away then purified, returned to ther natural state. For the passions to be returned to ballance and subservience to God’s will. And the Holy Apostle Hermas says, that we are “to know that with every man, there is a good and an evil spirit.” Hermas, too, was trained in Jewish thinking!

The Hebrew word for life, Chai’im, has in it two of the letter yod (Chet, Yod, Yod, Mem). Yod is also the first letter of Yetzer. The Rabbis teach that those two yods symbolize the two yetzerim. When the Creation story says that God blew into Adam the Breath of Life (Genesis 2:7) – it comes with both of the Yods, with both of these inclinations. All life (Kol Chai’im) has both sides.

i bake bread a lot. Sometimes for my housemates, and often for communion.

Bread is the most amazing thing: flour – most often wheat – and water, really, along with yeast. That’s all it is. Through the process of stirring and kneading, flour and water together have an unusual property: the flour’s natural gluten protein separates from the starch and develops a structure – threads. But it’s flat and lifeless. Then yeast is introduced. Yeast survives by reproducing maddeningly fast, but it requires three things: warmth, food and water. The yeast that makes my bread rise today eats the flour and drinks the water and makes babies. The babies eat the flour and drink the water. Then there are babies having babies. Then babies having babies having babies having babies. And while this is all happening, everyone burps. The belching releases gases, and the gases make the bread rise: the selfish desires, the Yetzer HaRa, of the yeast raise my bread.

The Church Fathers and Mothers speak of each of us having evil and good within us. They preach about the Parable of the Wheat and Tares as referring to the good and bad within each of us and say that at our deaths, the demons will come and claim the tares and chaff from our souls. This also sounds like the words John the Baptist spoke – (Luke 3:16-17) “He will immerse you in the Ruach HaKodesh [the Holy Spirit] and in fire, He has with him his winnowing fork to clear out his threshing floor and father his wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the straw with unquenchable fire!” Remember that no kernel of grain is without its chaff – we each have parts of us that will be burned away in God the Consuming Fire.

My bread rises the most when I first put it my oven. The warmth of the fire speeds up the yeast’s reproduction. Babies having babies having babies having babies having babies-until the heat is too much and everything dies. The bread is not bread until the fire comes.

We will all be salted with fire – the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will burn to purity all whom it fills, all who are immersed in it. It all makes an odd bit of sense if we consider the wheat=us equation. Leviticus 2:13 says, “You are to season every grain offering of yours with salt – do not omit from your grain offering the salt of the covenant with your God, but offer salt with all your offerings.”

My bread of flour and water and dead yeast, also contains a surprise ingredient: me. No matter how I wash and scrub my hands, parts of me enter the bread. My skin cells come off, moisture from my breath stirs the air. Small drops of perspiration add water. My bread is me; I flavor the bread.

It is hard for me to share my bread alone. My room holds six or eight guests maybe, so even if I bake all day, I’m limited in the scope, the reach of my giving. When I put my bread on the altar, it is so small, alone. But it is no longer me – but becomes Christ – as I am no longer me. As the bread is made Christ so am I. The bread on the altar is an icon of our salvation. The bread sacrificed to God, salted with the Spirit, feeds the multitudes. So are we, Little Christs salted with Fire, are sent as Bread and Life to the world.

The Bread and I are salted with the fire that descends in prayer, the answer to the upraised hands of the Church and the downward-bending hands of God.

(This meditation is based on an essay I wrote nearly 10 years ago…)

Wisdom, arise!

  • Proverbs 1:20-33

  • Wisdom of Solomon 7:26 – 8:1

  • Isaiah 50:4-9a

  • Psalm 116:1-9

  • James 3:1-12

  • Mark 8:27-38

Year B, Proper 19 (24), Revised Common Lectionary

God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with wisdom.

Whenever we start to read the Wisdom passages of the Bible we cross a gender line. I use that word here in its correct, linguistic meaning. The Hebrew word for wisdom, Hochmah, and its Greek analogue, Sophia, are both feminine words. Therefore the Bible’s authors and translators put in female pronouns. This is true of every available resource I have. Sophia/Wisdom/Hochma is a female.

This is picked up in the newage movement, insisting that Sophia/Wisdom is a Goddess oppressed by patriarchy. Oddly enough many of the same people who would go looking for the Goddess Sophia based on her pronouns are quick to point out that the use of Male Pronouns for God the Father are, simply, cultural baggage. (In my own neo-pagan past, a group to which I belonged taught Sophia was the Bride of the Logos. This creates an interesting transgendered image of Jesus, I think: marrying himself!) The Canadian Anglicans even have a hymn that praises Holy Wisdom. That it is sung to the ancient “Salve Regina” tune (Hail Holy Queen enthroned above, O, Maria) makes it a very funny pun.

We get into ever deeper symbolic problems when, in the East, at least, Sophia is seen at once as a sign of the Pre-incarnate Son of God and, in some ways, as a sign of the Theotokos. But also the Holy Spirit.

The problem, of course, goes back to the issue of gendered language. I am one with the Saints who offer us inclusive images of God, Father/Mother (as in Gregory of Nyssa). In a very real way they also offer us gender-inclusive images of God the Son, as Sophia/Logos (as in Julian of Norwich).

Again, I don’t think Wisdom/Sophia is a Goddess. Neither is Wisdom/Sophia a different hypostasis of the Trinity, a fourth lef, if you will, to a three legged stool. She does all the things that Jesus is reported to have done. She is with God, the Father, a reflection of his light, the fullness of him. She is, I think, rather clearly, only female because of language and culture (just as God the Father is so only because of language and culture). Certainly Jesus was a male but I think – as with so much of our theological language – what we say about the Gender of God says more about us than about God.

God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with wisdom.
If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

What are we to make of these two passages together, since the one can not contradict the other? Mindful that “wisdom” is not “book learning” but rather God, himself, how does “denying self and taking up our cross” (note, it’s not Jesus’ cross – but each has her own cross to take) parallel with “Living with wisdom”?

What does it mean to equate “living with wisdom” with “taking up your cross?”

Thanksgiving

  • 1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14
  • Psalm 111
  • Proverbs 9:1-6
  • Psalm 34:9-14
  • Ephesians 5:15-20
  • John 6:51-58

The full texts can be found here.

[G]iving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything…

The Greek here uses the Greek word “Eucharist”. It’s the same word for our liturgy today, it’s the same word for every liturgy or communion rite. It’s what Christians are known for: Eucharist, giving thanks.

One of the tractates of the Talmud advise pious jews to expel from their company anyone who begins her prayers “We give you thanks, we give you thanks”, rather than the traditional, “Blessed are you Lord, our God”. Liturgical scholar John Koenig theorises this is (in part?) because of such Jewish Messianic prayers as are found in the Didache beginning exactly, “We give you thanks…”

It may be that the prominence of these table prayers [with 'thank you' - DHR] in the church attracted the critical attention of some early rabbinic authorities. Mishnah Berekot 5:3 reads “He who says (in prayer) ‘We give thanks, we give thanks’ is to be silenced.” In examining this passage, Alan Segal recalls for us the double use of eucharistoumen (“we give thanks”) first over the cup of wine and then over the bread, at the beginning of the eucharistic prayer in Didache 9:2-3. Segal entertains the strong possibility that the target of the rabbinic admonition in Berekot 5:3 is a church table liturgy, presumably still taking place within a Jewish context…
The Feast of the World’s Redemption by John Koenig (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2000)

Followers of Jesus were known for giving thanks.

For example, the traditional blessing said in memory of the dead in Judaism is called Kaddish. It begins “Exalted and sanctified is God’s great name” and continues on without mentioning ether the departed or death. And it never uses the word “thanks.” There are important Jewish reasons for this liturgical development but let us imagine taking Paul at his word here, what, in death, might we give thanks for rather than simply bowing in awe before God?

How does the Christian community look, giving thanks always for all things?

At our weekly meetings, the community in which I live often wrestles with some seriously heavy issues. There can be some yelling, or intense discussion. There can be tears. It’s normal for families. But it’s hard. Yet we usually leave each meeting in a totally up space. Perhaps not “happy” or “bouncy” but up. How?

I think one thing that works is we close out our meetings with “kudos”. We go around the table, not in turns, but just shouting out, “Kudos to Jennifer for pancakes this morning.” “Kudos to Robert for helping me to cook tonight!” “Kudos to Jay for the new internet router!” THe community spends 3 or 4, sometimes 5 or 10 minutes giving thanks to each other.

And suddenly things are ok.

Imagine this in a theological, liturgical way. The Didache says “Before all things we thank you that you are mighty,” where do we go from there? How would you begin each day’s prayers making Eucharist, literally, giving thanks for all things?

Alexander Schmemann, one of the American Saints we commemorate in this parish, says that the human being is the priest of all creation, standing in the middle of the Temple of this world making Eucharist out of all things. It is our job – really – to stand up and say thanks over every thing available to us.

That’s not all of course, you know that in Catholic and Sacramental thought there is something special about the bread and the wine after the thanksgiving is said over them…

So also, I will venture to say, there is something special about the tree you see or the friend or enemy you see on the street after you make Eucharist with them in place of the bread or wine. When you take some of the most painful parts of your life and make Eucharist with them they are transformed in a way we can not see or understand into the Body of Christ.

We give you thanks.

It’s not just a credo or even a (Jewish) liturgical innovation: it’s a way of life.

How do you give thanks, and where?

The Secrets of the Heart…

When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves… God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.

S‘PRAZDZNIKOM! A Blessed Feast to you! (I wish we had a word in English that did duty for “S’prazdznikom!”) Today is the feast of All Saints of America as well as the Patronal Festival of the Mission here in Buffalo! We’re Dancing today in honour of the holy men and women of all ages and times who have followed the Holy One in glory on this continent and South America as well.

Some have openly declared their faith as Christians, others have never done so: but we say the light of Christ burns in them and draws them to the Holy One – and draws us, too, to that same Holy One through them.

Continue reading →

Abandonment Issues

Seventh Sunday after Pascha – the Sunday of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council.

Eastern Rite Readings:

  • Vespers:

    • Genesis 14:14-20
    • Deuteronomy 1:8-11
    • Deuteronomy 10:14-21
  • Matins:
    • John 21:1-14 (Matins Gospel 10)
  • Liturgy:
    • Acts 20:16-18, 28-36
    • John 17:1-13

Revised Common Lectionary

  • Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
  • Psalm 1
  • 1 John 5:9-13
  • John 17:6-19

And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.

WE ARE IN A between time, a liminal time. Christ has ascended into heaven (on Thursday) but the Holy Spirit won’t be here until next week. In the Eastern Rite liturgy we’ve stopped singing, “Christ is Risen from the dead” to begin every service. For the last 40 days this has replaced the prayer, “Come Heavenly King”. But, as of yet, we do not sing “Come Heavenly King” either. There is, in fact, no opening prayer: services just start… and this 9 days without opening always feels to me as if it were a dead time. Ironic since we are still celebrating the 50 Days of Pascha. Kneeling is still prohibited and, in the old rite, there was no fasting now. Among the Antiochians there is still no fasting in this season. But the even-older tradition of the church was for there to be a 10 day fast leading up to Pentecost… all things change. Perhaps that switch back and forth – fasting, no fasting, fasting, no fasting, is another reason these few days seem liminal and vague.

Continue reading →

This Narrative Episode.

Christ is Risen!

Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?

THE Sixth and final Sunday of Pascha is called the Sunday of the Blind man. In the Eastern Rite, we use the Reading of this story from John. I have to admit that it reads to me as a bit of comedy – with the same sort of conversation being repeated several times. “This can’t be the blind man!” “It is the blind man!” “How come he’s not blind any more?”

But it opens up with those questions… Why did this happen?

Continue reading →

Doubting God.

Christ is Risen!

Sir, I see that you are a prophet.

IT HAS To be one of the great toss-off lines in the Bible. Jesus shows up, proclaims his messiah-ship and then accuses the woman of serial monogamy. (Why else would she be coming to the well in the middle of the day if not to avoid the gossip of housewives?) and she turns and says, “I see. Yer a prophet.”

Or maybe, “I get it: yer a prophet.”

When this pericope of The Samritan Woman is read properly we should even get a laugh there.

While these stories of the lectionary may or may not be historical, they are certainly not presented in historical order. This lesson is given to us now, leading us to the baptismal time of post-pentecost: and it is a teaching lesson. The laughter we hear should be directed inwardly – for which of us ever arrived at “Jesus is Lord” without first deciding “this man is a prophet”? And as we laugh at our own short comings in perceiving Jesus, we can hear the rest of this story.

There are a couple of things going on here – one I’m quite good at, and one I’m horrible at.

There have been many times in my journey when I’m convinced that Jesus is a prophet or a “Good Teacher” as the saying goes. I’m especially thinking of the times when I was a pagan and, convinced that all religions teach the same thing, I lumped Jesus in with Confucius, Plato and Moses. And anyone is welcomed to do so. Our woman here is lumping Jesus in with Moses, Isaiah and Jeremiah. “Worshipping God in Spirit and Truth”, “Loving Enemies”, “Seek God first and all things will follow”, these all make good sense.

But we have to mutilate the Gospel to get there – cutting out the passages where Jesus says annoying things like “I and the Father are one” and “I am the bread of Life” and “Before Abraham was, I Am”. And, to do so, we have to assume we know a lot more about Jesus than did the earliest Christians (and even one generation away, some of them were taught by people who knew this man in the flesh.) Or else, you have to say, this man was clearly a raving lunatic. Because if he is a prophet, he’s also making some looney-tunes claims on top of everything else.

And while even the itinerant schizophrenic man on the corner might occasionally say something very wise, he’s still not the sort of person you’d trust for showing you the way to God.

But what if itinerant schizophrenic on the corner actually is God?

One of the hymns for Matins today says

Finding the woman of Samaria by the well of Jacob, Jesus, who covers the earth with clouds, asked water of her. O the wonder! He who rides on the Cherubim converses with a woman who is a harlot. He who hung the earth upon the waters, asks for water. He who pours out springs and pools of water, seeks water, as he wishes truly to draw her who is hunted by the warlike foe, and to quench with the water of life the thirst of her who is aflame with foul desires, as he alone is compassionate and loves mankind.

God has come to earth asking for water: coming to us to ask for care and sustenance. How astounding is that? God stands before us and asks our help. What do we do to learn from him?

And that’s the important point in the first part of the story, I think. This man is not just “a prophet” but the “Savior of the world” as the other Samaritans say at the end of the story.

But there is something else going on here.

His disciples came and were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?”

Speaking with a woman – without a chaperone – is a bit of a risk for a Jewish man. But full daylight and out in public and all, it’s ok. And his disciples show a proper respect here to their teacher’s decision: John Chrysostom says,

Still in their amazement they did not ask Him the reason, so well were they taught to keep the station of disciples, so much did they fear and reverence Him. For although they did not as yet hold the right opinion concerning Him, still they gave heed unto Him as to some marvelous one, and paid Him much respect.

The Apostles know enough not to Question Jesus about what he is doing in reaching out beyond his own people to draw these others to God. And, indeed, elsewhere (for example, in the ER Apostolic reading for today) when God reaches out to strangers it is God’s faithful followers who know best to keep their mouths shut and watch God’s work in silent praise.

I, on the other hand…

I must confess that most often I want to make sure that God’s going it right, you know – that he’s drawing you along the right path and, by that I mean that he’s drawing you along the same path that he drew me. This says less about God than about me – because, minus God in that equation, I must be right, yes?

I read recently about a survey of people leaving Church for various reasons. The reasons most often cited were Judgementalism and Hypocrisy among Christians, failing to live up to the teachings of Jesus. Then this same survey gets cited by clergy, “church growth” specialists, liturgists and cultural critics as clear evidence that we need to “fix” church, make it “relevant” and “more accessible”.

Anyone see the humour in this yet?

A group of people who claim to follow God in the way of Jesus are judging their sisters and brothers for judging.

And then others come along and say, “See, we told you we needed to change things!” And start to judge those who were there first.

The level of hypocrisy goes up geometrically rather than arithmetically.

Of course, wanting to spread things around, I’m sure the first group judged the second group too.

And I’m either calling people on their BS or else judging them as well… Without naming names:

A lot of folks in the liberal and conservative camps of most denominations (including Orthodoxy and Indy Catholicism) are quite happy to judge one another.

A lot of folks on the liturgical spectrum (from traditionalist to revisionist) are quite happy to judge each other.

A lot of folks in the “Emergent Church” and the “Institutional Church” are quite happy to judge each other.

A lot of folks in various ecclesial communities are quite happy to judge each other across denominational lines.

Romans and Orthodox are quite happy to judge the rest of us (and then say, “Well, if it’s true we’re not being prideful and judgemental”). But a lot of Protestants are quite happy to judge the RCs and EOs as well.

And if you’re wondering how I’m using “judge” here: we’re daring to question Jesus about the way his followers are working out their salvation with him. We’re quite willing to cross a line the Disciples were not willing to cross in Samaria. We’re failing “to keep the station of disciples” out of our fear and reverence. We’re quite happy to KNOW how God will act in someone else’s life – and to point out God’s missteps if he should shatter our expectations.

Maybe God is really working in the lives of Fred Phelps and Peter Akinola, Robert Duncan and Ted Haggard. Maybe God is really working in the lives of Jack Spong and John Dominic Crossan, Jay Bakker and Kevin Thew Forrester. Maybe God is really working in the lives of “them”. And we have to explore the slightest possibility that “we” are wrong.

Maybe.

In the RCL Lections for today, Philip is sent to teach the Gospel to a Eunuch.

Philip is both Jewish and a Hellenised citizen of the Roman world. While Eunuchs are a common part of his Roman life, Judaism, at least, teaches that to be a fully active participant in the Jewish community one had to get married and produce offspring. Eunuchs, of course, could not do that. Although my available references conflict as to the status of Eunuchs in the Jewish tradition, this much is true: they could not have children. Philip is breaking a cultural barrier in reaching out to a non-Jew and a Eunuch, no less. And doing so firm in the knowledge that, following his departure, God will continue to work out the salvation of the Eunuch in his own time and way.

How many of us trust God to do that without judging God for doing it?

Can’t get in the pool.

Christ is Risen!

The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up…

THE SUNDAY Of the Paralytic is the Fourth Sunday of Pascha in the Eastern Rite. We replace the RCL Gospel this Sunday with the story of the man at the pool of the Five Porticoes. You know: every once in a while the Angle of God would stir the waters and the first person into the pool would be healed.

To this text we have also a healing in the Book of Acts and a reminder that as Jesus laid down his life for us, we should lay down our lives for each other.

On Wednesday this week we celebrate the feast of Mid-Pentecost, and all things turn to images of water and teaching. This was a time of preparing folks for Baptism (as it is, even today). And the liturgical cycle brings that home to us. And so, if Wednesday we turn to water and baptism, what does it mean that today we have an image of a man unable to get into the water – but Jesus heals him anyway?

John Wesley offers us an image of God drawing people to his table in all cases – through Baptism, of course, but also through the most common Holy Mystery, the weekly table fellowship of the Christian community. Wesley realises that someone may be most directly drawn to Jesus here at communion – and who are we to deny them?

And while I was thinking about this, I found myself wondering, suddenly, does the Johannine community Baptised at all? I realised the Gospel of John has no Baptism story! In fact, Jesus rather pointedly walks past John the Baptist and says nothing to him. John sees Jesus and says, “look there is the lamb of God” and even testifies, “I saw the Holy Spirit descend on him”. But John never (in this Gospel) baptises him. And later, (in John 4) we are told Jesus didn’t baptise any other folks.

So I’m wondering if the Johannine Community had a baptism at all (although it’s clear they had foot-washing).

Our community welcomes people to communion when God calls them – which he may do at anytime, when they walk through the door. Even prior to their baptism.

But, we don’t do it because we believe the Bread and the Wine at the altar are only symbols that are powerless as such. “I believe and I confess” says the liturgy, “that you are the Christ… and this truly is your own most pure Body and this truly is your own precious blood.” I am terrified to draw near to the presence of my God. But I do so out of Faith and Love for him, present here, among us and in us, and with us. If he is calling you, then come – you may have had no one to dip you in the pool, but Jesus will hear your prayers and make you whole anyway.

This isn’t cheap grace, however: it’s free, but not cheap. God’s love is offered to you, but as with all true lovers, he will call a response out of you, a return gift: not required, but real, none the less.

Look at the Epistle: Jesus expects us to lay our lives down for each other – as he lays his life down for us! And it won’t be easy – for just as in the Book of Acts, the Religious and Political leaders found the followers of Jesus suspect, so will they find you suspect. If God is calling you to this table, it is a life of subversion of the dominant social order, it is a life of open revolution against the authority of the state and “respected” authorities that you are being called to. God won’t let you sleep any more if there is anyone hungry and you still have a crumb left on your plate. God will not let you go if there are naked people and you have extra shirts in your closet. And if your bread gets mouldy in the cupboard, God will ask you why you wasted the food of the poor.

But that calling, that love is Free.

And if you can’t get into the pool, Jesus will still give you himself and heal you.

But you’ve got work to do afterward.

Amen.

Doubting the Resurrection (Part II)

And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

THIS IS THE Third Sunday of Pacha, and, in the Eastern Rite, it is the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women. At least for the Gospel, we depart from the RCL readings for today and use a collection of readings from Mark (Mark 15:43-47; 16:1-8). We’ve lectionary evidence for this paschal cycle being used (in some places) least as early as the 7th century.

The second passage in today’s reading is also used as the third of eleven Matins Gospels in the Eastern Rite. Each Sunday is seen as a celebration of the Resurrection and so each Sunday Matins, on an Eleven Week Cycle, celebrates this event with certain hymns and readings.

When I was first Chrismated, attending an OCA parish in San Francisco, these Matins Gospels were read – following the Slavic tradition – at a vigil service the night before. In a darkened church, the Holy Doors would open and the light would blaze forth from the altar with Fr Victor’s strong voice singing the resurrection. Then we’d come forward and venerate the Gospel. Later, when I was in Asheville, the Antiochian Parish there followed the Byzantine tradition which serves matins in the morning prior to liturgy. These readings were done in the full glory of a North Carolina sunrise.

And, for some reason, they seemed less true to me.

How do you get from “they were so afraid they didn’t even do what the Angel told ‘em to do” (ie “they said nothing to anyone”) to yelling “Khristos Aneste” all the time? And why is it that there, in the dark of a church at midnight, a candle can seem so powerful. But in the full glory of a weekly Easter Sunrise, it seems doubtful?

How do you deal with doubt?

As I noted last week, the Gospel of John seems to allow for doubt. Mark does too – but it gets covered up. The textual evidence indicates that the Gospel of Mark used to end right here, with the women saying “nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” and running off into the Morning light. They couldn’t handle it – didn’t know what to do. And so in their fear (which is another form of doubt) they just ran away. Later the text gets doctored up with the remainder of the chapter (11 verses written in a totally different style and telling a different story) that make this Gospel look more like other Gospels. But that first ending leaves us wondering “What the hell happened here?”

And today we celebrate those women.

How do you handle Doubt?

Imagine an Easter story that stops here – with the Angles saying “go and tell the other apostles…” and the women apostles being so scared (of Jewish leaders and Roman soldiers and the Supernatural and the men-folks’ scorn) that they just run away and hide.

Of course that’s not the end. And the answer to doubt is experience.

So I would stand there, listening to the stories from the Matins Gospels, I’d sometimes catch myself smiling: there are gaps in the stories so wide as to drive a truck through. The gaps in these stories we tell ourselves are filled in and covered over with a spackling paste of traditional understandings, projections and mythologies. As I blogged recently: tmatt asks, in his famous “tmatt trio“:

Are the biblical accounts of the resurrection of Jesus accurate? Did this event really happen?

This is, of course, a trick question: there are no biblical accounts of the resurrection. None at all. There are only written tales of various events – visions, angelic visitations, appearances, suppers, breakfasts, second and third hand accounts, etc – of events that happened after the death of Jesus and the discovery of his empty tomb.

What happened sometime after midnight that Saturday evening or Sunday Morning? The Gospels do not tell us. The hymns of the church tell us that, according to the Church’s understanding, there were no witnesses. Even the Roman guards were prevented from witnessing the mystery – so that it might be revealed only to those who believe.

Last week, in response to the story of Doubting Thomas, a preacher friend of mine suggested that, in fact, we should doubt things we can’t see with our own eyes: he said that doubt is not the opposite of faith, fear is. This week we have clear evidence fear and I’m reminded of the Apostolic counsel that “perfect love drives out all fear”. There, I think, lies the answer to doubt: experience of Love.

This entire first generation of Christians went to their death rather than deny the resurrection. I don’t have any reason to doubt that, at least. One looney I could write off – in fact, the last 2000 years of religious lunatics and fanatics says nothing to me about the validity of the resurrection. But every one of these folks that were terrified, confused, boggled and hiding, everyone – except the Beloved – went to death rather than say this wasn’t the way things happened. We’ve no record of any of them recanting – and the Romans and the Jews would have made much of it if there was even just one. They were all looneys together, clear. But as Peter says in the Epistle today, “To this we are witnesses.”

But what about us (blessed are those who have not seen…) and our doubt? What about us and our fear of the modern-day counterparts to soldiers, leaders and scoffers? How do you get from the second generation of Christians to us? And how do we pass it on to the next generation?

The sermons in this series on doubt will fill it out: next Sunday, the Sunday of the Paralytic, we leave aside “Resurrection Appearances” and make the journey of verification. We will follow it up with the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman and the Sunday of the Man Born Blind. I think we’ll see then. It’s clear: Doubt is a part of our experience. Faith, per se, is not the answer to Doubt… this journey through Pascha will bring us to Pentecost and – doubts and all – we’ll be ready to spread the Good News of Resurrection.