Fleeing by Night

A time-honored way to meditate on Scripture is lectio divina, a phrase often left untranslated because it is more than just divine or spiritual reading. It’s a way of savoring the language, reading slowly, allowing the words to sink in and roll around and resonate, to pause when something strikes you and then resume reading when the echoes die out. It’s hard work, especially for those of us who have trained ourselves to read quickly so that we can read much. Even under the best conditions I find myself whipping through verses so I can get on to the next project.

That’s why I like reading Scripture in another language. I’m forced to slow down. It does help at least to know what the words mean; lectio is not so effective with a Bible in one hand and a dictionary in the other. I’ve discovered that after I’ve worked my way through a bit of the Greek NT, I retain enough vocabulary to read the Gospel slowly and chew it.

What stopped me this week were two words: pheuge and nuctos: flee by night. “Arise” says the angel to Joseph in a dream. “Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt.” And arising, he took the child and his mother by night and went to Egypt. Unlike Luke’s angel, who calmed everyone after his frightening appearance, the angel in Matthew’s story creates fear, so much so that Joseph runs away at night with mother and child in tow. No bucolic stable scene with sleepy lambs and adoring shepherds here. Just wild-eyed fear. Herod’s about to kill all the infants in a vain attempt to eliminate the competition. (We won’t actually hear those gruesome verses on Sunday.)

So fear shows up right at the birth of the Savior of the world. Perhaps that’s appropriate; fear dominates much of our lives, also. Every time a person botches an attempt to blow himself up there’s havoc for millions of air travelers. Hand sanitizers are routinely used in households with babies and there are now anti-MRSA sprays for pets. Never mind that immune systems need challenges to develop fully, and that indiscriminate use of anti-microbials promotes bacterial resistance. We’re afraid. Fear sells newspapers, boosts ratings, wins elections.

Joseph’s fear was real, and as Herod’s subsequent actions proved, it was justified as well. Joseph was so afraid that even after Herod died he zipped right through Judea to Galilee in order to avoid Herod’s son. One gets the impression that Joseph was happy to reach an obscure hamlet where no one would find them. Of course, all that would change once the baby grew up, but by that time Joseph seems to have disappeared from the scene.

Fear is not and never is the last word because of that baby, even if fear surrounded his first weeks. And it should not be the last word for us, either. God calls us to hope, not fear. The letter to the Ephesians prays that God may give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that we may know the hope to which God calls us, “what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.” Joseph didn’t live to see that. But we have. Shouldn’t we be living in that hope rather than fleeing by night? Shouldn’t we be listening to the angel who said, “Do not be afraid”?

Christmas 2: Jeremiah 31:7-14; Psalm 84; Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a; Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23.

Magnificat

Languages fascinate me because they reveal how people think, and what is important to them. The Inuit, for instance, have many words for snow because it is a major part of their lives, and subtle differences in frozen water tell them a lot about current conditions. Learning both Greek and Hebrew was a real eye-opener for me. Not only did I have more direct access to the Bible, but I finally began to understand the differences between the two cultures. Biblical Hebrew is structurally simple with a limited vocabulary that is very earthy and concrete, the language of herders and farmers. Greek is far more complex and subtle, befitting a people who lived and breathed philosophy. Latin is complex, too, but more legalistic and less philosophical.

In my second year of Hebrew studies, the instructor had us translate a chapter of Genesis a week. So when I first looked through the Septuagint, the second-century B.C. Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, it was all wrong. How could Genesis ever be authentic in Greek? Sadly, I put the book back on the shelf. The Septuagint is a valuable source for understanding subtleties of interpretation that can’t be revealed in Hebrew, but I’m just not interested in being that scholarly. If I’m going to pull my hair out translating, I’d rather lose it for the original language.

This past week I translated Luke 1:39-55 from Greek, a passage that includes the song of Mary called the Magnificat. And it was all wrong. It needs to be in Latin, at least, if not Elizabethan English. Mary probably spoke Aramaic, but that would be worse. Here we have a problem that has nothing to do with the original language, but rather familiarity. I should have figured that “My soul doth magnify” would only work with Magnificat anima mea, something I have sung numerous times. The Greek translates to “My self/inmost life enlarges/praises.” Try to set that to music, J.S. Bach!

So language not only reveals how we think; it limits it as well. The Roman church never could figure out why the Greeks were all worked up over whether the Son was homoousios or homoiousios to the Father. Isn’t “of one being” (consubstantialem) good enough? Does it matter that I hear the Magnificat in Latin? No, as long as I don’t get so wrapped up in languages that I miss the heart of it, the world turned upside down. When Mary sings, the arrogant are scattered, rulers are thrown down, the rich are sent packing empty-handed – and the humble are lifted up and the hungry are filled. God’s name is holy, and God’s mercy goes on forever. Fortunately for us humans, that’s the same no matter what language we speak.

Advent 4, Year C: Micah 5:2-5a; Canticle 15 (the Magnificat); Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-55.

Unquenchable Joy

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:4-7).

Always one of my favorite passages, this one took on even more meaning for me five years ago when my oldest brother chose it for his funeral – and asked me to preach. That someone would want it at his funeral says a lot about the strength and joy and perseverance of faith of that person. The same can be said about St. Paul, who wrote it while he was in prison. His letter to the Philippians not only reveals his abiding love for them, but also how much Jesus Christ had transformed him from a man breathing threats and murder to someone who lived and breathed the love of Christ.

How different John the Baptist seems! “”You brood of vipers!” was his greeting to those who came out to see him. “Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” Trembling, people came up and asked what they should do to avoid the terror he predicts. His responses are all economic: share what you have, don’t cheat, don’t blackmail, don’t shake people down. Be content with your wages. And if you think my message is hard, there’s one coming with an even harder message. He’ll baptize you with fire, not water, and if you end up being chaff, the fire will be unquenchable (“asbestos” in Greek). This is called “proclaiming good news to the people.” Hah! If that’s good news, who wants any part of it? For the cold and hungry and cheated it’s great news, but what about everyone else? Are they chaff?

Recently a new clergy study group formed to look at the weekly lectionary readings. It’s a good mix of Lutherans and Methodists with a couple of others (UCC and me). I think denominations exist because of the many ways in which humans experience God. Some people live more in their heads, favoring intellectual analysis. Some are practical, wanting applications to everyday life. Some are experiential. Anglicanism, having a big tent (or at least trying to), can encompass all of these. I did notice that when I went on a bit about the incredible and overflowing joy that flows out of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, no one said “Yes, yes!” but merely observed that it was a good text to create joy in a community.

So there you have three approaches: the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, a brood of vipers, or a useful text. Which do you choose? Only one speaks to my heart, and that is the first. I will take John’s “asbestos,” but attach it to another word: unquenchable joy. That is what faith in Jesus Christ brings, a faith well known to St. Paul and to my brother, Dick. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.

Advent 2: Zephaniah 3:14-20; Third Song of Isaiah (Canticle 9 in the BCP); Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18.

Earth Movers

When was the last time you read the apocryphal book of Baruch? Have you ever? Do you know who Baruch was? One of my many Jewish friends in high school was named Baruch. At the time I didn’t know that he was named for the prophet Jeremiah’s secretary, who had to write Jeremiah’s words down more than once because an angry king burned the scrolls.

I’ve always been a bit leery of the Apocrypha – if the Jews didn’t want that stuff in their Bible, why should we? So I was surprised to find echoes of Isaiah in Baruch, making hills low and filling up valleys so that the people of Israel could walk on level ground. And what beautiful imagery! “The woods and every fragrant tree have shaded Israel at God’s command…For God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory.” It’s not nearly as familiar as Isaiah 40, which shows up in Year B’s Advent (and Handel’s Messiah), but still nice.

And it’s a good parallel to Luke’s description of earth moving in the Gospel for Advent 2. I finally had time to translate the Sunday Gospel from Greek, frustrating but well worth it (although it does make the parish administrator wonder about the exasperated muttering coming from my office). Luke is so careful to set his story in real time. No “once upon a time” for him! He also introduces us gradually to John the Baptist, who simply bursts on the scene in Mark.

The big word for John (or JBap, as we call him at home) is metanoia, usually translated as repentance. Curiously, it’s a word that hardly ever shows up in the Old Testament, and for the Greeks it had the rather mild connotation of changing one’s mind. For John, however, and for Jesus after him, it’s a life-changing conversion, a total turning toward God and away from sin, something that affects all of life and conduct. As we will see next week, with JBap that inner change must find outward expression in acts of love.

Metanoia with John is pretty stern stuff. It doesn’t seem to be tempered with mercy. Jesus, being fully divine as well as fully human, knew how to being God’s mercy into the picture. Even though they both had the same message of repentance, John’s is based on Law and Jesus’ is on the Gospel. And that makes all the difference. Ultimately, the message of Jesus is one of joy.

Recently I preached at an ecumenical Thanksgiving service at an Assembly of God church. Before I spoke, a young man witnessed to everyone how he had turned to Jesus from a life of alcohol and drugs. My message was not nearly as powerful as that. He had leveled mountains and filled valleys. I had moved a bit of dirt. Yet God was at work in both of us. Both of us had experienced an inward change; both were finding outward expressions of God’s grace. God was leading us both with joy, in the light of his glory. I think I’ll take repentance from Jesus any day.

Advent 2: Baruch 5:1-9; Song of Zechariah (BCP Canticle 16); Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6. Most of what I learned about metanoia came from Geoffrey Bromiley’s one-volume abridgement of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.

Advent Reading

A dear priest friend once told me that he reads Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison every Advent. Having done so a couple of times, I know why – Bonhoeffer is wonderfully reflective and focused on the meaning of his Christian faith. Advent is a time of waiting, preparing us for encountering God through the birth of Jesus but also anticipating the end times. Bonhoeffer was also waiting for his end, which came shortly before his prison was liberated from the Nazis.

Bonhoeffer’s Life Together is also a good Advent read, a shorter book that I would recommend to anyone who lives in community (Christian, academic, or otherwise). A reviewer says that “it reads like one of Paul’s letters.” One of my favorite quotations from it is “A day at a time is long enough to sustain one’s faith; the next day will have its own cares.” I’d also recommend Margaret Guenther’s The Practice of Prayer, volume four in The New Church’s Teaching Series.

And there’s always the Daily Office as a daily discipline to start the new church year. On Advent 1 Year Two begins (BCP, p. 937). The Gospel reading in Matthew picks up where Year One ended, in chapter 21 with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but ends before Jesus is arrested. I can think of no better way to prepare for Christmas than to spend some time each day with Scripture, even if you choose not to do the rest of the office. As Bonhoeffer says, focus on the day at hand; let tomorrow worry about itself (Matthew 6:34).

Green World

If I write a lot about the natural world, it’s because it always has been part of my life, even when I was growing up surrounded by millions of people. The churchyard next to our house had just enough space for some grass and trees and a fish pond (which I fell into as a child, somehow not getting bitten by its resident snapping turtle). My parents liked Saturday walks and Sunday drives in the country, so I was immersed in the smells and sounds and sights of each season as it progressed.

I was fortunate enough to enter a profession that paid me to take walks in the woods. Yet I quickly discovered that many of my students didn’t have a lot of outdoor experience unless they grew up on a farm or were avid hunters. They could not read the sky or see differences in plants or find tracks until I taught them how. And then a new world opened up, and they started telling the same stories about me that I had told about my botany teacher: “He can pick up a dead stick in winter and tell you what it came from!”

This loss of natural knowledge is a great loss, one that some find alarming. For people of faith, it can make the Bible that much more obscure. Some references are universal: surely everyone knows that when “the fig tree and all the trees…sprout leaves…summer is near.” But what about all of those wonderful references to the living world in Psalm 104? Or Jesus’ references to signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars? If we do not know what the sun, moon, and stars usually do, how can we read them?

This Sunday we begin another church year, another year of telling the story of God’s love for us. For me, at least, the experience of that love has come through living things as much as it has come through people. My Green Bible highlights Jesus’ comments about signs in the sky, but not the trees sprouting leaves. Why not? Apparently these trees did not illustrate the Green Project’s “core mission.” Fortunately for us, trees do appear to have been part of God’s “core mission” of creation, God’s ongoing and intimate relationship with the world that Jesus came to redeem. “Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love,” the psalmist writes, “for they are from everlasting…All the paths of the Lord are love and faithfulness to those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.”

Someone asked me in church if I’m going to put suggestions for Advent spiritual disciplines on this blog. I’m still chewing on that. For now, at least, I commend to you Jesus’ admonition to “be alert at all times.” Be alert to the natural world around you, but also be alert to what weighs you down, “the worries of this life,”, so that you may know that joy and peace of God that passes all understanding. Search for the place deep within where God comes to you in peace. Watch the sky. Listen to the crows. Prepare yourself once again for Jesus to be born in your heart.

Advent 1: Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36.

The Sun Rising on a Cloudless Morning

Nearly every morning since we moved into our new house last July, I have arisen a great while before day so that I could finish prayers in time to see the sun rise. I walk up our street, turn the corner, and enter a bike path that goes due east over a highway and into the fields beyond. On the very clearest mornings I see something I first experienced at sunrise on Lake Michigan: the horizon where the sun will first appear gets intensely clear. In Chicago I could see individual waves miles from shore; in Iowa each distant tassel of corn becomes clear and sharp. Then suddenly there is a sharp flash of light, and a new day has begun.

Some of the clearest mornings come after a storm has passed through, when the clouds have been swept away and all that is left is the wet land. The sun is more welcome on such days, brighter, more intense. Those are the days I think of when I read in the First Book of Samuel, “One who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on a grassy land.” A just ruler brings brightness and clarity to the people, the brightness of God.

Few, if any, rulers fulfill that promise. Those in whom we may put our faith at one time (such as Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan), we later come to doubt. Many of our Presidents have undoubtedly ruled in the fear of God, but even those who say that they are led by God find that what they have done creates more murkiness than clarity. It just isn’t that easy. The “last words of David” found in Samuel’s book are more hope than reality.

That is why we put our hope in Jesus Christ. Only in Jesus do we find that sharply revealing light, the sword that divides soul from spirit, joint from marrow (to mix metaphors). That is why the writers of the New Testament saw Jesus as the ideal and final king, and why many Christian churches celebrate Christ the King Sunday on the last Sunday of the Pentecost season.

It some circles it is no longer fashionable to speak of Christ the King; it is too imperialist, or undemocratic, or whatever. These same circles choose not to interpret the Hebrew Bible in the same way that the first Christians did, seeing glimmers and foreshadowing of the coming of Jesus. I do have some sympathy with that; Jews have been interpreting their Scriptures longer than Christians have, and we need to honor that. But what Christian hears in Psalm 132 “A son, the fruit of your body will I set upon your throne” and does not quickly move past Solomon to think of a messianic king, he whose appearance is foretold in those same Hebrew Scriptures? Who does not think of the Messiah revealed to us as Jesus Christ?

Only Jesus can rule as God would rule, with the utter clarity of the sun rising on a cloudless morning. Only Jesus can illuminate the smallest movements within our souls, bringing them to light. Only Jesus can testify to the truth that comes from God. “To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

Last Pentecost: 2 Samuel 23:1-7; Psalm 132; Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37.

Thrown Down Stones

This week’s lectionary brings us two stories of distress, one personal and one corporate. The childless Hannah is mocked by her husband’s second and fertile wife. Jesus speaks of an approaching period of widespread destruction. Hannah’s story at least has a happy ending when Samuel is born.

I’ll pass over the Bible’s “family value” of Elkanah having two wives. What strikes me most about the Hannah story is how much attention is drawn to Hannah’s distress. I realize that her barrenness is heightened to magnify the miraculous nature of the prophet Samuel’s birth, but still – fifteen verses describe her bitterness and only two the happy outcome of her prayers. I’m glad that we’ll sing the Canticle of Hannah instead of a psalm on Sunday; such great grief deserves an equally great outpouring of joy.

Hannah’s unhappiness is clearly described. “She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord, and wept bitterly… ‘O Lord of hosts, if only you will look favorably on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant…’” R and I have not known this misery of unwanted childlessness, thank God, but it seems to me that Hannah speaks eloquently for those who have, who not only are without child but may feel forgotten by God. God answers Hannah’s prayer. What do we say to those who do not have their prayers answered?

The discourse of Jesus takes us beyond personal misery to an overthrow of religious, political, and natural order. When a slack-jawed Galilean disciple-tourist is overawed by the beauty of the Jerusalem temple, Jesus lets him have it. “Do you see these large buildings?” he says. “Not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” Prophets in the past were killed for saying things like that, and the fearful disciples want to know more in private. Instead of reassuring words, they hear even worse news. There will be wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famines. And “this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” We don’t hear about the rest of the birth pangs in subsequent verses, but believe me, they don’t get any better. This labor won’t have nearly as happy a result as Hannah’s.

It’s an apocalyptic view in some ways, but it also describes the way the world is. Wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famine are part of the daily news. Personal sorrows are there, too. Christianity is an open-eyed religion that can directly face what is awful and what is evil in the world (though less so in its happy-clappy manifestations). That’s true because it is also a religion of hope. “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering,” the letter to the Hebrews says, “for he who has promised is faithful.”

That’s the key, isn’t it? God is faithful. God has promised to be with us, to remain among us always. God sent Jesus Christ to reveal God’s own self to us, and God continues to send the Holy Spirit so that we are not comfortless. It is not easy to see or sense God in the middle of distress, yet God is there. “There is no Holy One like the Lord,” Hannah sings, “there is no Rock like our God.” Because of that faithful Rock who can throw down stones, we can live through distress, take up hope, and walk with joy.


Pentecost 24: 1 Samuel 1:4-20; 1 Samuel 2:1-10 (as canticle); Hebrews 10:11-25; Mark 13:1-8.

Off the Hook

This Sunday will be my first one off since I started at CEC. N is giving the first of two masters’ recitals this Sunday in Connecticut, and R and I are flying out there to hear him. It will be especially crazy for R. At the moment she is in NYC for a campus chaplains’ conference. She’ll fly to Des Moines on Thursday, where I’ll pick her up so she can give two presentations on General Convention at our diocesan convention (and officiate at a Jazz Evensong Friday evening). Then we’ll leave for New Haven before convention ends, return to Des Moines on Monday, and finally drive home via Iowa City. That’s why I think of Sunday as being “off” rather than a vacation. We always seem to pack a lot in!

I’m grateful that I have a well-seasoned deacon and a priest of nearly fifty years’ duration to fill in for me while I’m gone. They became a well-oiled team in the interregnum before I came on board. I’m also grateful that I had the opportunity at St. Peter’s to fill in during Lynne's three month sabbatical. Otherwise I might be unaccustomed to the constant flow of work and feel desperate for a break. Instead I am looking forward to the freshness that comes from returning to a familiar place after being away. I hadn’t thought about it until just now, but my long tenure at St. Ambrose was also preceded by a year as a sabbatical replacement. In both cases, teaching and preaching, the initial stint gave me the self-confidence to launch into a long-term position. At least I hope my current position will be long-term!

So those of you who are looking for lectionary reflections will have to wait a week. Uncharacteristically, I have nothing to say!

Saints Alive!

It’s not November 1, All Saints’ Day, that gets me, but November 2, All Souls’ Day. Anglicanism is supposed to be both Catholic and Reformed, but sometimes leans too far toward the Catholic side for this Lutheran soul. Paul uses the term “saints” to mean all Christian believers. It is accretions of tradition that have led to “saint” being restricted to those who led an exemplary life, often by martyrdom, whose worthiness has to pass muster (or pass mustard, as we say at home). That restriction necessitated All Souls’ Day in order to remember all the faithful departed, whom Paul had already included with the saints. I’d rather return to the Scriptural usage of the word, and just have one day for everyone. The rest of the year we can commemorate exceptional individuals on particular days. (There are too many of them, in my opinion, but that’s a rant for another day.)

If “saints” includes all believers, then I can ask the question, who are the saints in your life? Who led you to the Christian faith, brought you to church as a child, or witnessed the faith to you as an adult? Who are your ancestors in the Christian faith?

Mine were my parents, and their parents before them, and so on back to the apostles – a kind of apostolic succession that does not necessarily involve the laying on of hands. My father was pastor of the church we attended, but it was my mother who saw to it that we actually got there. Considering how I acted many Sundays, she truly was a saint!

We were always made mindful of the communion of saints, of that apostolic succession of faith. The icon of that faith was my dad’s maternal grandfather, Grampa Jacobs, also a Lutheran pastor, about whom we heard many stories. To solidify his faith, Grampa Jacobs translated from German to English The Book of Concord, the tome that contains the essential writings of Lutheranism. Some years ago R found a copy of it at a used book sale and bought it for me. It stands on a shelf in my office, not only a reminder of faith passed on, but an indicator that pastors had more time before blogs, emails, and Facebook! And I have photos of both my dad and Grampa Jacobs in my office to give me courage when I need it.

So let us celebrate all the faithful departed on All Saints’ Day, those whose lives have been remembered over the centuries, those who have preceded us in the faith, and those who “have no memorial, who have perished as though they had not lived,” but were faithful Christians (cf. Ecclesiasticus 44:9). The communion of saints extends from you and me to the likes of St. Paul and yes, to Mary Theotokos herself. We may not feel worthy to be in that company, but that is what being redeemed and justified by Christ is all about. “For the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.”

(H293 has one of our favorite lines to rearrange: “And one was a soldier, and one was a beast, and one was slain by a fierce wild priest…”)

Dust in the Eyes

There could not be greater contrast between the visions of God that we encounter this week. On the one hand we have Job, despising himself and repenting in dust and ashes after being beaten down by seventy verses extolling God’s power. On the other hand there is blind Bartimaeus, whose encounter with God in Jesus Christ could not have been more welcoming and healing. Two very different encounters with the living God – some would say illustrating the differences between the God of the Old and the God of the New Testaments. Yet God is one, and I won’t follow Marcion with that easy explanation of the difference.

Last week I wrote about the astonishing anthropomorphism of the thirty-eighth chapter of Job. That and the following chapter reveal that the author also knew a lot about the natural world, more than most people do today. The author wrote out of joy but also awe, an awe we have largely lost through the ability to give rational explanations for so many natural phenomena. (Perhaps that is why more astronomers than biologists believe in God: the universe is still awesome.) Awe naturally leads to respect, a respect akin to fear. So the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Job would agree. For all of his bluster, he cowers before the presence of God.

Bartimaeus, on the other hand, shows no fear. There’s no bluster, either. Instead he importunes Jesus, ignoring the crowd that tries to shut him up. “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” he shouts. It’s not clear if he’s annoying because he’s so loud and insistent, or because he’s not politically correct in his indirect reference to Jesus as the Messiah. Being a beggar, he probably looks bad and smells worse. Yet he stops Jesus in his tracks.

Then comes my favorite part of the story. Jesus says to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” What’s the matter, can’t Jesus see that he’s blind? Is he wearing sunglasses? Did his seeing-eye dog stay behind? Or did Jesus not assume that he knew what was best for the man? I love this part, because Jesus makes him articulate his own need. How many times have we assumed that we know what is best for someone else? How many times have we acted on that, and then become annoyed when it turned out that the person didn’t want that at all?

“My teacher, let me see again,” he says. And Jesus replies, “Go; your faith has made you well.” The commentaries will tell you that this healing of blindness bookmarks a similar healing in chapter eight, and in between is a lot of blindness on the part of the disciples. But today it simply strikes me that Jesus is so willing to stop, to listen, to heal. He doesn’t make Bartimaeus repent in dust and ashes. On the other hand, the blind beggar isn’t posturing the way Job was, insisting on his own self-righteousness.

Rather than two faces of God, or two Gods, these passages show us two ways of approaching God. With one we can expect to be overwhelmed and put in our place. In the other we can expect to have God stop and listen. The latter way also shows us how to live with one another: to ask questions, listen carefully to the answers, and then decide what to do. What is most remarkable is that however we approach God, healing occurs. Both Job and Bartimaeus were relieved of their misery. That’s why both stories reveal the same God. It is our healing, our wholeness, that God always desires. And God will work with us to accomplish that, no matter what our approach.

Pentecost 21: Job 42:1-6, 10-17; Psalm 34:1-8(19-22); Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 10:46-52.

How Manifold Are Your Works

My first and deepest experiences of God came from the natural world. Only there do I feel most at home, least aware of myself, the deepest peace. I still cannot believe that I am so lucky as to live in a place where I can walk out into that world every morning, to see the dawning light in an endless sky, where plants and birds gradually emerge from the darkness. It empties me for the rest of the day.

Psalm 104 is one of my favorite psalms for that reason. The psalmist intimately knew the natural world and saw the finger of God everywhere, from the beasts of the field to the birds of the air, through plants and trees and rock badgers and mountain goats. Even the labor of humans is seen as part of the cycle of God’s creation.

In the book of Job, God as Creator has an overwhelming transcendence. The writing is astonishing in its anthropomorphism, beautiful in its poetry. “Where were you?” God asks the miserable, irritated Job. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?...who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?” – a passage that never fails to bring tears to my eyes, for the sheer joy of creation.

One might think that a scientist would be sighing at all of this pre-scientific thought. Yet it precisely illumines the limits of science. A mechanistic view of the world, which science necessarily takes, does not provide for joy and beauty except as evolutionary adaptations needed for the continuation of the species (or perhaps incidental to our existence, which is even worse). Can I be faulted for preferring morning stars that sing together?

I can forget myself in the natural world, but it is in the world of people that I choose to dwell. And where there are people, there are the Jameses and Johns who want to get ahead of their fellow travelers. Jesus has a few words for them. One is know what you are asking. James and John said that they could drink the cup of Jesus and be baptized with him, and indeed James was later killed by the sword. At least John, tradition tells us, lived to a ripe old age.

Jesus also talks about servanthood: “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant…For the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” The self-emptying that is necessary in order to serve others is not so different from the loss of self-awareness I experience in the natural world. Maybe that is why a morning walk prepares me so well for a day among people. If I start the day lost among the joy of creation, I am less likely to magnify my importance among fellow travelers. O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all.


Pentecost 20 – Job 38:1-7(34-41); Psalm 104:1-9,25,37b; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45

Images of Jesus

Several pictures of Jesus stand out from my childhood. In one he is carrying a lost lamb on his shoulders, with the rest of the obedient flock in the background. (That was in the room where the Sunday School met; the implication for us wayward children was obvious.) In another he stands at a door and knocks. The third is at the garden of Gethsemane, when he kneels and fervently prays. The largest one was behind the pulpit of my father’s church, Jesus walking on a path along the Sea of Galilee. In all of them, Jesus is tall and white and handsome. The backgrounds are idyllic; the setting Victorian. Jesus could be knocking at the house where Santa Claus lives, for all we know.

In my current church there is a picture of Jesus that is clearly more modern. He is still white, but now bearded, and laughing. No longer is he the somber, you’d-better-watch-out Jesus of the nineteenth century. This is definitely a 1960s portrait. Only his head shows, but you can sure that he’s wearing sandals. He might even have beads around his neck!

How can we reconcile this friendly, mild-mannered Jesus with what we read in Scripture? “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword,” the letter to the Hebrews tells us, “piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” And in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus calls remarriage adultery, and says that it is practically impossible for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God. No wonder his disciples object! This is not the warm, fuzzy “What a friend we have in Jesus” that they’ve been looking for. This is a demanding Jesus who turns every expectation upside down.

I think that’s why I’ve always had a problem with some of the revival hymnody of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It’s just a little too chummy, too focused on the self. “And he walks with me, and he talks with me” is reassuring, no doubt, but hardly how one would describe a person who drives out moneychangers with a whip of cords.

Yet in the midst of that severity, there is always love. The rich young man got off to a rocky start by calling Jesus good teacher. But his earnestness and his devotion to right behavior impressed Jesus, who looked searchingly at him and loved him. Jesus wanted him on board. So he asked him to do one more thing – the very thing that it turned out he could not do.

That’s where the living and active word of God appears, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joint from marrow. Nothing is hidden from God. And God demands nothing else than all of us. If there is anything in our lives that is more important than God, it must go. For some, that means selling what they own and giving money to the poor. For others, it will mean leaving home and family. (I should point out that, in spite of Peter’s statement that the disciples had left everything, it appears that he still had a house in which his mother-in-law lived, and a boat from which to fish.) The critical element is to jettison whatever separates us from God, and then obey Jesus’ words: “Come, follow me.”

Can that be captured in a picture? Probably not. Besides, no one wants to meditate on a painting of someone walking away from Jesus, grieving and shocked – especially not a rich man. We’d rather have our prosperity gospel. We’d rather believe that being rich is a sign of being blessed by God. But that’s a blog entry for another day!

Pentecost 19 – Job 23:1-19, 16-17; Psalm 22:1-15; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-21

Walking the Lectionary Tightrope

Sometimes I’m just a little envious of my fellow clergy in churches where a lectionary is not used. They can preach on whatever they choose. It may be the news of the week, or favorite Bible passages, or topics of interest to the clergy (which was actually the description of Sunday morning discussions at an Episcopal church). They can plan a whole series of sermons on whatever strikes their fancy.

But I have to follow the lectionary, whatever it brings. This week it brings trouble. We’ll start the first of four weeks of Job, so I get a chance to explain why a loving God allows suffering, in ten minutes or less. Or I could try to lead everyone through the theological and philosophical arguments of the “letter” to the Hebrews and watch the eyelids droop. Or I could tackle Jesus’ statement that remarriage after divorce is adultery, in a parish with numerous people in second and third marriages. Having been married for thirty-four years to “the wife of my youth,” as the psalmist says, there’s no way I could understand divorce well enough (thank God) to avoid offending a large part of my congregation.

Satan might be fun to talk about, especially in the context of Job, where he is ha-SaTAN, the Accuser, the one who stands before God and accuses people of sinning – falsely, as it turns out. However, that doesn’t get around the problem that God allows Satan to afflict Job with loathsome sores, having already convinced God to let him kill all his cattle and children. (The lectionary mercifully skips those verses.) Besides, I remember what C.S. Lewis said about writing The Screwtape Letters – it “was all dust, grit, thirst, and itch.” Thinking about evil is not how I want to spend my time.

“But we do see Jesus,” the writer of Hebrews says. And that, really, is the saving grace of the readings in a nutshell. We do see Jesus. It can be very hard to see Jesus in the depths of suffering or the pain of divorce. But Jesus is there, nonetheless. I had a seminary professor who bristled every time a student used “mystery” to explain a difficult theological concept. She wanted us to use our God-given reason to grapple with the complexities of a problem. Yet ultimately God is mystery, a mysterium tremendum as a theologian once said, and the love of God given to us through Jesus Christ is something far beyond our comprehension.

Maybe that’s why I like it when Jesus says, “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” The Greek is as ambiguous about “as a child” as the English – does it mean as a child would, or as one receives a child? – yet it seems to me that Jesus means the former. He’s talking about all of the layers of emotional and intellectual baggage in adults that obscure the vision of something full of wonder and mystery. The Pharisees tried to trip up Jesus with a question about divorce, and the disciples did their best to keep children away from him. He said, no, let these children come to me, for they see things more clearly than you do. They know love when they see it. They don’t ask me tricky questions. They don’t try to keep people away from me. They just love me for who I am. So he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

Pentecost 18 – Job 1:1,2:1-10; Psalm 26; Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12; Mark 10:2-16

Salty Disciples

There are times when I wish Jesus had talked in plain English (or Greek or Aramaic or whatever) rather than parable and metaphor and hyperbole. Of course, he got in enough trouble as it was using the words he did! But what are we to do with cups of cold water and stumbling blocks and cutting off limbs and salty disciples?

I do know that the people who say that they read the Bible literally (as if that is not in itself a type of interpretation) like to focus on the unquenchable fire and undying worm of hell, to which they will gladly condemn other people. Other verses they conveniently overlook. The last time I noticed, no one had hands or feet cut off or eyes plucked out because they caused one to stumble. We are careful about what we take literally and what we call hyperbole.

But that doesn’t mean that what Jesus says can be ignored. He wants us to know that being a disciple is serious business. It is literally a matter of life and death. We can hem and haw in our post-Enlightenment, more enlightened way of thinking. We can say that it reflects Mark’s community, and a time of persecution, but life is different now and things aren’t that bad. Tell that to the Christians in Sudan, or anywhere else where being a believer can court death. I thank God that we do not live in a country where there is such persecution. Yet I believe that our faith is the weaker when it is not challenged. I’ve always thought that one of the reasons that Mormonism continues to grow is that every young male is expected to go door-to-door and witness to the faith. Persevering in spite of having doors slammed in your face must make one a stronger believer.

What about those salty disciples? These verses sent me to a commentary, for I’ve never been able to make head or tail out of the salt references. I’m still not sure I can, but here’s what I found. Salt was associated with the Jewish temple sacrifices, which were of course burned (thus being salted with fire). Jesus appears to be warning his followers that they will be sacrificed, a not unreasonable expectation at that time. And the salt of the day wasn’t pure salt, iodized and always pouring out of a round blue box. It was evaporated deposits from the Dead Sea and full of impurities like gypsum, so the saltiness of sodium chloride could be accidentally washed away. Now aren’t you a better person for knowing all that?

One of these weeks there’s going to be a Gospel passage for which I can say, aha, I know just what that means! And I’ll tell everyone reading this blog what it means, and then I’ll get a bunch of comments that begin, “Have you thought of this…I always thought it meant this…Where did you go to seminary, anyway?” Humbled, the week after that I’ll start with “There are times when I wish that Jesus had talked in plain English…”

Pentecost 17: Mark 9:38-50. The commentary I used was The Gospel of Mark by N.T. France (2002, Eerdmans), pp. 384-385. Once an academic, always an academic.

A Capable Wife

What’s a poor preacher-man to do, when his preacher-wife is coming to church, and the first words out of the lector’s mouth will be “A capable wife who can find?” No doubt it will be a cause for great mirth among the congregation. Several years ago we went to a service where the scheming scheduler had arranged for the priest’s husband to read “Women should be silent in church,” much to the amusement of everyone.

What really struck me about Sunday’s reading from Proverbs, however, is how little it supports the traditional cultural model of the stay-at-home wife whose entire life revolves around her husband. Yes, “she rises while it is still night and provides food for her household.” (Not even the promise of Peet’s is enough to convince R to get up in the dark.) But she also buys a vineyard and plants it. She sells merchandise and plans for the future. She is not dependent on her husband for her identity; instead, Proverbs implies that it is because of her reputation that “her husband is known in the city gates, taking his seat among the elders in the land.”

It is the woman’s wisdom that is especially praised, however, and her kindness to the poor and needy. Those biblical qualities are much more important that superficial appearances. “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” Talk about counter-cultural!

James picks up on the concept of wisdom, contrasting holy wisdom with “earthly, unspiritual, devilish” actions born of “envy and selfish ambition.” James often gets hammered because he is so focused on what one does – Martin Luther hated what he called James’ “works-righteousness” – yet if one reads closely, James is saying nothing more than one’s inner life is revealed in one’s outward actions. Even Jesus said that!

The Gospel has an excellent illustration of what James is talking about. Jesus has once more predicted his betrayal and death, and how do his disciples respond? They get into an argument about which one of them is the greatest. They are driven by envy and selfish ambition. When Jesus calls them on it, they hang their heads and can’t say a word. So he goes into teacher mode and gives them a lesson, complete with an illustration. If you want to be great, he says, you’d better act with humility, as though you were a servant of everyone else. Look at this child, he says. If you welcome this child in my name, you welcome me and the One who sent me.

So, do we conflate the readings and say “A capable wife must be last of all and servant of all”? Hardly. I wouldn’t say that even if R weren’t listening! It’s simply not true to the biblical witness. All of us, male and female, are to respect God, care for the poor and needy, and examine our actions for what they reveal about our inner thoughts. For cultural reasons, it is probably the case that males need to focus more on being servants of all (to counter pride) and females on how capable the woman of Proverbs is (to counter self-doubt). Yet as Paul writes, in Jesus Christ there is neither male nor female. All have fallen short of who God created us to be, and all of us are in need of amendment of life.

Now if I can just figure out how to wake up to the smell of pumpkin chocolate-chip muffins.


Pentecost 16: Proverbs 31:10-31; Psalm 1; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37

Fiery Tongues

I was lucky enough to start my seminary days at a place that required knowledge of the biblical languages. So when I took a course on the Gospel of Mark, we started each class translating the Greek passage for the day. And when it came time to write an exegesis paper, we were expected to do some Greek word study as well. My paper was on this Sunday’s reading. I could have a lot to say when I preach. Yet somehow I have a feeling that most of my parishioners don’t come to church to learn the intricacies of the Greek language.

Sunday we will be commissioning church school teachers. Perhaps I could dwell on this statement of James: “Not many of you should become teachers.” But why discourage the dedicated souls who have been recruited to fill those slots? Why try to convince them that they will be judged with greater strictness, when we are delighted that they have stepped up to guide our youth?

“For all of us make many mistakes,” James adds. Now there’s something that’s universal. In our corporate confession we admit to things we have done and things we have left undone – the classic sins of commission and omission. It’s not just what we do, but what we fail to do, that separates us from God and one another. “Who can tell how often he offends?” asks the psalmist.

James particularly focuses on the sins of the tongue. “The tongue is a fire,” he states, “a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” Just two weeks ago Jesus gave us a nasty list of what can come out of the human heart through the tongue, including deceit, envy, slander, pride, and folly.

Folly is the special concern of Proverbs. It is the antithesis of wisdom. Personified Wisdom scoffs at the foolish, laughing when their foolishness results in calamity. That sounds harsh, but are we so different? Are we not fascinated by human and natural disasters? Why are some so ready to attach blame to people who suffer? Why is there smug satisfaction when a person who stumbles “gets theirs?”

The reason, I think, is a human tendency to minimize our own sins by enlarging the sins of others, using that fiery tongue. That’s the reason the early monks of Egypt valued silence. They knew that it was hard not to sin if they opened their mouths. One garrulous man even carried stones in his mouth for three years until he learned to be quiet.

We don’t need to carry stones in our mouths, but we do need to learn to watch our speech. As James reminded us a couple of weeks ago, we need to be slow to speak and quick to listen. Only then will we be less likely to sin against God and one another. And you can do that without even knowing any Greek.

Pentecost 15: Proverbs 1:20-33; Psalm 19; James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38

Throwing Food to the Dogs

Now that the Episcopal Church has officially accepted the Revised Common Lectionary, occasional surprises pop up in formerly familiar readings. This week, for instance, we no longer have just the happy tale of a deaf man who is healed, but the story before it: the foreign woman who swallows Jesus’ calling her a dog in order to get her daughter healed. Well, it’s not quite that blatant. When she begs Jesus to heal her daughter, he says to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Rather than leave in a huff, she replies with a twist of her own: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” At that, Jesus heals her daughter.

What are we to make of this? One of my seminary professors insisted that Jesus was just testing her, that he intended all along to heal her daughter. Perhaps. But does that make it any better? Does testing by insult sound like something Jesus would do? Those who are more focused on Jesus’ humanity (and doubtful of his divinity) cite this passage as one that shows Jesus learning and growing in his vocation. The encounter with this Syrophoenician woman, they say, showed Jesus that his message wasn’t just limited to the Jews. She taught him that he was supposed to speak to the Gentiles as well.

Support for that view comes from the next story, in which Jesus takes a very roundabout route home and ends up healing a deaf man in Gentile territory. But this isn’t the first time Jesus was in the region of the Decapolis. He had made a memorable visit there earlier, sending a pile of demons from a crazed man into a herd of pigs that promptly rushed into the sea and drowned. It’s a wonder they let him back in town.

I have an old leather-bound Oxford Annotated Bible I bought when I was fifteen that still helps me out when I end up in a theological corner. Under the parallel passage in Matthew’s Gospel, I find this note: “Jesus consistently said that his primary mission was to call Jews back to God. The Gentile woman’s claim must be based on her own personal acceptance of his message. The distinction is between his mission and his willingness to respond to faith wherever found.” In other words, if she’s second string, she better really want to play if she’s going to get any time in the field. Well, I can buy that, but it still doesn’t explain how Jesus treated her. Yes, I know he was a Jewish male and she was a Gentile woman, lower than low, but this is Jesus Christ we’re talking about here.

So do I long for the good-ol’-days of the prayer book lectionary? No. At least not for that reason. I appreciate Bible passages that continually challenge me. When I think I know who Jesus or God is, or who I am for that matter, a Syrophoenician woman pops up and turns my certainty upside down. Maybe that’s what happened to Jesus. Maybe not. But I’ll bet he did know all along that he was going to heal her daughter.

Slow to Anger

I don’t often weigh in on political controversies with Bible verses. Part of it is my own disinclination to controversy, but I also think that there has been too much bashing with the Bible in our history. In a way that’s too bad. Jesus certainly had no qualms about quoting Scripture to critique the social and political situation of his time.

This week, however, the letter from James fits right in with what has been happening in many town hall meetings on health care reform, and generally with how anger has become so prevalent in the U.S. (as in this Hawk Eye story. “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger,” James writes, “for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness...If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.” (Jas 1:19,26) Strong stuff!

But what about righteous anger? Didn’t Jesus have that when he tossed the moneychangers out of the temple? Yes, he did, but then he was Jesus Christ. As I reflect on the times I have called my anger righteous, I see that mostly I was deceiving my heart. I was more eager to speak than listen, more anxious to be right than to admit I might be wrong. It was really self-righteous anger. In many cases this is the kind of anger I see expressed in the health care debates. If it is indeed orchestrated anger coming from those who wish to see reform or even the President fail, then it is even farther from God’s righteousness.

It is not surprising that the old desert monks of Egypt regarded anger as something to be overcome. They knew how hard it is to discern the source of one’s anger, and so viewed it as a sign of turning away from God. We should be more attentive to that lesson. Health care in this country is complex. Some aspects relate to James’s “pure and undefiled religion” providing for those who are in distress. Others simply derive from greed. We will not know which is which unless we are slower to anger, slower to speak, and quicker to listen.

Back in the Saddle Again

There have been a lot of changes in my life since my last post (which, I see, was on my mother's birthday -- it would have been her 98th!). Yesterday was the fourth Sunday in my new position as rector, and a few days ago R and I finally moved to our new house in a nearby college town of 8,000. Now I'm hoping I can finally get into a routine once again and feel that there's something besides shifting sand under my feet. I'm already enjoying walking out the back door of our new house and onto a bike path that leads to fields of wildflowers and an expansive town park in the distance. That will help make up for having an office without a window.

That office was most recently occupied by a retired priest who was full-time supply during the interim. When I talked to him today, he referred to the space as his horse-stall. It fits his farming background. I suppose that means that I'm back in the saddle again, leading people to a different destination than the first fifty years of my life. Not bad for a city boy!

Pulling Carpet

We’re getting our house ready to sell. Our realtor told us to pull the carpet in a bedroom because it covers a beautiful hardwood floor. So I did that yesterday. Obviously I have never pulled carpet before, because I thought it would take a couple of hours. Wrong! It took six.

Once I got over the shock of seeing that it wouldn’t be quick, I started to realize how monastic the work was. The padding was stapled to the floor, and each staple had to be individually coaxed up with a screwdriver, then pulled out with pliers. Often the staple broke, which meant that the remaining piece had to be pulled as well. Then on to the next staple. The carpet tacking was taken up in a similar way, nail by nail.

It reminded me of one of the times I was at New Melleray Abbey, when I was assigned to clean the shower stalls of the professed monks, which had not been cleaned in forty years. I was given a piece of steel wool to scrub the tiles, one by one. At the end of about two hours I had cleaned one or two walls and was told to go off to prayers. As I left, the monk picked up the steel wool and started going over the area I had just finished. Apparently it wasn’t good enough.

The realtor came by again today and didn’t tell me to re-pull the carpet. At the threshold I still have to install a carpet gripper (sujetador de alfombra – we didn’t learn that in Spanish class). But that was it. So I guess I did a good enough job. Good enough, I hope, that the house will sell.

Last Sunday

Today was my last Sunday at St. Peter’s. It is bittersweet for R and me to leave the place that discerned our calls to the priesthood, supported us through the process, and then gathered in joy as we were ordained side by side two years ago this week.

One of the fun parts for me came today at the point where I invited forward those who will have birthdays in the coming week so that we can all pray over them. One was a retired Iowa Supreme Court Justice, who epitomizes the positive, accepting community of St. Peter’s with its strong lay leadership. The other was born when I was doing CPE after my first year of seminary; I met her when she was just a few hours old. It seemed fitting that we would pray over these two faithful servants on my last day.

Now it is on to the next stages in our lives. R is already well ensconced in her church; I will begin moving books and belongings to mine this week. We still don’t have a new home, but that will come. In the meantime we give thanks for what has been, rejoice in the present, and wait with eager longing for what God will bring to us in the future.

May the Lord Rejoice in All His Works

In an earlier post I indicated that the quotation at the right of this blog was the epigraph for my doctoral dissertation in botany. A portion of Psalm 104 appointed for this Sunday had the same function for the only book I've written. Given that the book was about the natural history of eastern Iowa and western Illinois, it seemed appropriate to use: "You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; and so you renew the face of the earth./May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in all his works."

This Pentecost I am struck by the natural imagery of the readings: a sound like the rush of a violent wind; divided tongues, as of fire; and Paul's statement that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now. All of these are attempts to put into words things that are essentially nonverbal, or better, preverbal. We can give Latin names to plants and animals and Greek-derived names to their parts and imagine that we know something fundamental about them, when, in fact, we do not. Luke calls up as many far-flung languages as he can to describe what happened to those disciples at nine-o'clock Pentecost morning, when in fact all he knows is that suddenly people who had been hiding for fear of being arrested are now boldly proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.

Something happened that Pentecost morning. What it was we shall never know with certainty. We do know that it had something to do with the falling of the Holy Spirit upon people who previously had other things to do. It was different from the natural order yet somehow intimately a part of it. It had the promise of renewing the whole of creation that was groaning in travail. And it most certainly revealed the glory of the Lord that endures forever. May the Lord continue to rejoice in all his works, as he did on that Pentecost.

Cleaning Out

R and I have been spending the week cleaning out stuff, mostly in the basement. We've lived in our house for 21 years, and anticipate moving soon to be closer to a new position I'm starting at the end of July. I got the call at a reception honoring biology graduates at the institution from which I just retired, and accepted the call on the day of my last commencement. If I have any doubt about God being behind this, I think about that timing! This past Monday I put twenty-seven years of teaching into eight boxes, moved out of my office, and turned in my keys. As the old gospel song says, "no turnin' back!" I'm excited about what lies ahead, and committed to making this blog a greater part of that journey. May you few faithful readers be joined by more!

Last Class

After twenty-eight years, I taught my last class today. There's still a week left officially, but I'll be giving a test, returning it, and then heading off to the semi-annual diocesan clergy conference. So today was it. I ended the way I started, teaching ecology from an outline of the text, weaving in stories as illustration, imitating bird calls, using what students call the "voices" -- accents I've heard where I've lived over the years, definitely not Midwestern. (Someone suggested I use the voices in preaching, but I doubt I'll do that.) R suggested that I wear the Dr. Seuss tie she gave me, so I did. It helped set the tone: playful, not somber. No "last lecture" today. Yet it still feels a bit odd to be done.

Later this afternoon there will be the last of three retirement parties, this one in the building where I've taught most of the time, with current and former students stopping by. I'm planning to give away some of the plants in my office, as a way of extending the joy I've had being a botanist all of these years.

It has truly been a blessing to have wandered in the woods, to have taught about the woods, and to get paid for it! I give thanks to God for that blessing, and for all of the students who have taken my classes. May they in turn be a blessing for all whom they encounter throughout their lives.

Good Friday

Preaching after a reading of the Passion of Christ, whether on Palm Sunday or Good Friday, is always difficult. What more can be said? How can anything match what has just been heard? One can talk about that particular Gospel – pointing out that when John castigates “Jews,” for instance, he reflects the bitter conflict between Jewish Christians and the synagogue hierarchy, not an excuse for a pogrom. This is important, yet it is also analytical, moving us away from the anguish of our hearts into the comfort of our heads. It does not address the Passion as an emotional, gut-wrenching event.

Entering into the emotions of the Passion, imagining oneself there and experiencing all of its horror, is a practice dating from medieval times. The best example is in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola; the most recent is Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of The Christ.” I have never been able to do this. I always end up in despair. Perhaps it was a comforting discipline when a third of the population of Europe was dying from the plague in the fourteenth century, to know that as great as that suffering might have been, God in Jesus Christ had suffered more. But it doesn’t work for me. Even though I know the end of the story, the anguish is too much. And I wonder about someone like Mel Gibson, who dwells so much on torture and death that there is little room for resurrection.

Yet I cannot rush to Easter, much as I would like. The fact remains that Jesus died an excruciating death, whether for our sins or for political reasons (as Crossan and Borg would say). And for the first disciples, his death was the end of hope. We cannot know the power of the resurrection unless we first cross that valley of death, because there is no new life unless the old has passed away. “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” That ministry of reconciliation is the promise that even in the midst of despair there is hope. And hearing that promise, we can kneel at the cross once again, knowing that hope will return in a few short days.

Moses and the Serpent

I have not been a faithful blogger by any stretch of the imagination, and I suspect that even those few people who used to read this blog have given up hope of seeing a new post. Adding something like blogging to a full life only comes about by subtracting something else. The subtractions have their own merit, however, and eventually return to crowd out the new. The trick is to keep everyone happy, the old and the new. Sounds like church, doesn’t it?

This week’s OT lesson about Moses and the bronze serpent is one that makes the scientist in me just cringe. It’s sympathetic magic, plain and simple, and no commentary can convince me otherwise. I imagine the average person walking into a church and hearing that and thinking, well, that’s a bunch of malarkey! Why should I think this Jesus stuff is any less a pre-scientific tale than Moses’ serpent? Why, indeed.

It’s clear that the passage from Numbers was chosen because of the reference made to it by Jesus in John’s Gospel. Yet that hardly helps. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness” sounds like “what I’m about to say next has as much validity as that story about Moses.” I know that Jesus transforms the story; it becomes a story about salvation rather than a story about magic. But why isn’t the salvation story magic as well?

Then there’s the claim to exclusivity that runs throughout the Gospel of John. “Those who do not believe [in the Son] are condemned already,” John writes, “because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” This really is counter to contemporary culture. At least I know where to find some help with this one: Lesslie Newbigin’s The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. I suspect that dealing with that issue will help me with the other.

The trick will be figuring out how to explain all of this so a junior high student can understand it. It’s not likely that someone will walk into church off the street on Sunday. But it is likely that there will be youth there who have their own questions about how such antiquated stories can be read in church, and wonder what they can possibly mean to their lives today. That’s the real challenge of preaching.

Unclean Spirits

A seminary I attended had an ad hoc course on angelology and demonology, taught by a retired icon of evangelicalism. I didn’t take it for a variety of reasons, but sometimes I wish I had. I believe that the biblical notion of demons is still useful, because it allows us to name and objectify those tendencies within us that try to turn us away from God. By naming a demon and bringing it to light we have some power over it. Recognizing the demon of gluttony, for instance, reminds me that sometimes I want to eat a lot more than I need to, for reasons that do not promote my spiritual health. One danger in using such demon-talk is the temptation to abdicate responsibility for our actions (“the devil made me do it”). It is also necessary to be able to discern which spirits are from God and which are not.

The reading from Deuteronomy for this Sunday makes it clear that some prophetic voices originate in God while others do not – and the latter lead to certain death. It is also clear that even demonic voices are subject to God. This is underscored by the interaction of Jesus with the “unclean spirit” in Mark. The people are astonished that Jesus has power over the spirit, although they miss the connection with divinity that implies. (I do realize that illnesses such as epilepsy were attributed to “demons” in biblical times, and that such attribution continues to cast a stigma on any disease that affects normal brain functioning and behavior. I am not talking about that, but rather temptations common to all humanity.)

Walter Wink’s books on the “powers” showed me how institutions can have spirits (angelic or demonic) as well as individuals. Using the addresses to the “angels of the seven churches” in Revelation, Wink shows how churches, industries, nations, and cultures can each have its own angel. But how does one discern whether they are divine or demonic? The criterion of whether they lead us toward or away from God and God’s kingdom still holds, yet with institutions, especially ones in which we live, it is much harder to find a place apart where we can examine them dispassionately. We simply have too much invested in them. That investment can also tempt us to define God’s kingdom in ways that minimize the need to change.

I don’t have a solution for all of this. I simply want to present the value of taking demons more seriously than we do. They aren’t little figures with pointy tails and pitchforks. They are very real tendencies within us that turn us away from God and toward our own destruction. We ignore them at our peril.

Sermons Online

Learning new technology is nothing new to me, but I'm not used to doing it in such a public way. Now that I'm blogging and on Facebook, however, what's left to hide? I recently purchased a digital recorder so I could create an mp3 file of a sermon to send to a parish, and having done that successfully, I'm trying to get it to this blog. The easiest way would be to house the mp3 file on my church's website. However, hoping to learn more, I've chosen to use box.net instead. Click on the link below, and then on "HornEpiphany2.mp3." Let me know if it works, and what you think.

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Epiphany

Friends and Friendship

Much to the surprise of everyone who knows me well, I finally joined Facebook. I will never have as many “friends” as my much more sociable wife and son. Yet I am amazed and delighted by the invitations I have received so far, from people known and unknown. For the latter, I wish there were a category called “acquaintances,” but can you imagine the social consternation that could be caused by putting someone in that category?

Last Monday was the feast day of Aelred of Rievaulx, a twelfth-century Cistercian monk and the author of “Spiritual Friendship,” among other things. It’s a wonderful short work, an easy and appropriate read for someone who just joined Facebook. Aelred models it on Cicero’s essay on the same subject, something I never got to in high school Latin. Yet Aelred goes beyond Cicero, for he believes that Christ is always the foundation of true friendship – it ought to “begin in Christ, continue in Christ, and be perfected in Christ.”

True friendship certainly is God-given, “a stage toward the love and knowledge of God.” Aelred’s four qualities of a friend ring true: loyalty, right intention, discretion, and patience. Blessed are we when we have friends like that. These are not the “friends” of Facebook; a computer-mediated means of communication cannot long fill the need for human-to-human interactions that are programmed into us. Yet Facebook provides one more way of continuing the connection when we are distant from one another. For that I am grateful, even if my private self is still not sure about all this exposure!

Monks and Moderns

R and I spent the weekend in our "home-away-from-home," as I was supplying at a church nearer there than our house. That gave me the chance to finish a couple of books that had been hanging about for a while. One was a book on Mount Athos by Christopher Merrill, and the other a popular choice of Advent book groups, the latest Borg and Crossan book on the first Christmas (as they envision it).

Given that Borg and Crossan do not believe that any of the events described by Matthew and Luke actually happened, except that a baby named Jesus was born, it is remarkable how much attention they give to the biblical narrative. They take great pains to show parallels with other first-century birth narratives, especially those of Caesar Augustus. Their thesis is that the early Christian community made Jesus appear divine ("christened as Son of God by the community that grew up around him") in order to counteract the supposed divinity of Augustus and oppose the imperial power.

It's all very nice and rational and 21st century, but who would die for a faith like that? The Daily Office readings from Hebrews 11 present a very different view of faith as "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen," in its long list of biblical heroes of faith. "Time would fail me to tell" of all of them, the author says. Yet he tries mightily, and then comes to that wonderful climax: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses...let us run with perseverence the race that is set before us." That's a powerful call to action, and Borg and Crossan seem tepid in comparison.

Merrill's book on the spiritual center of Eastern Orthodoxy is anything but tepid. Before it was loaned to me by R's rector, I had not realized that non-Orthodox were even allowed on the Holy Mountain. Merrill, an Episcopalian, is clearly regarded as a heretic by some of the monks he encounters. Yet he also finds the type of monastics I know from New Melleray Abbey: deeply rooted in prayer, they are so aware of their own failings that they can be gentle with others. Like Merrill, I feel a pull toward the monastic life, and there were times in the past when R wondered if I would return from retreats at the abbey. But I have already taken vows before God, including the vow of matrimony. Since Vatican II the Roman Church has acknowledged that the monastic charism can be found in people who live in the world, and now actively supports contact between monks and "seculars." The Orthodox knew that all along. Perhaps that is why I find them so appealing.